Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/13/23: US Warns Israel Seeks Regional War, Krystal and Saagar Debate Israel Hospital Tactics, Israeli Minister Plans Nakba 2023, Elon Warns Of Terror Blowback, Ukraine Admits Blowing Up Nordstream, NYC Mayor FBI Raid, Real Estate Industry Free Fall, Elites Caught In High End Brothel

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss US warning that Israel is pushing toward a regional war in the Middle East, we discuss the tactics of the Israeli military attacks on Al Shifa Hospital, Elon warns of terror blowback, Ukraine admits to blowing up the Nordstream pipeline, NYC Mayor Eric Adams is raided by the FBI in a Turkish corruption scheme, the Real Estate industry in free fall after 1.8 billion fine, and a 'high end' brothel raid reveals politicians and military members gave their personal information to join.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct.

And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars.

Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking

of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. It is Monday. We have a great show for everyone today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. There is a lot happening that we are tracking right now. The two big stories are increasing strikes in Lebanon and Syria, both from the U.S. and from Israel. Break that down, obviously, concerns about a wider war developing. And actually, concerns from U.S. officials that Israel wants a wider war and is pushing for that.

We'll break all of that down for you. Also, all eyes on al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. They have run out of food, fuel, everything. Patients are dying as Israel is claiming that Hamas operates underneath of this hotel. We have some really dramatic and very disturbing eyewitness testimony from inside of that hospital. So we will tell you everything that's going on there as well. Also, bombshell new report about what really happened with regards to Nord Stream Pipeline. Surprise, surprise, Ukraine behind it. Jeez, did the U.S. know anything despite our insistent denials at the time? We will tell you all about that.

That's coming from The Washington Post, by the way. So very interesting developments there. We also, we have not covered this yet, but this is a huge story unfolding in New York City. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, had his phone seized by the FBI. One of his top fundraisers had her house raided also by the FBI. We have new details this morning about what exactly it is that they are looking for and investigating. So that is quite astonishing. We'll dig into that one. Also, record-breaking fine levied against the National Association of Realtors that could completely upend the real estate industry. So we'll tell you about that. And a story that, politicians, pharma executives, politicians.

They aren't naming names yet, but we are keeping our eyes on that one as well. These geniuses, just to tease it, were so smart. They sent in their full names, their occupations, and full ID. And the feds are sitting on that. So I personally, I'd like to see it. But we'll save that. It's going to be our fun story at the end. Why don't we go to Israel and find out what's going on there? Indeed. So one of the big developments this morning, and obviously something we've been watching very, very closely, is the risk of a wider war. And we had the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Galant, warning Lebanon specifically and actually threatening the civilians of Lebanon. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

Citizens of Lebanon, I can see the citizens of Gaza waving white flags as they move south. Hezbollah is pushing Lebanon into a possible war. It is making mistakes. It is the citizens of Lebanon that will pay the price of these kinds of mistakes. What we are doing in Gaza, we can do in Beirut. I hope that Hezbollah will behave and that Nasrallah will stop provoking us because this aggression is unacceptable. So a real threat being leveled here. He says what we are doing in Gaza, which we've all seen what they're doing in Gaza and how horrifying it is, we can do in Beirut. He goes on to say the citizens of Lebanon are the ones who will pay the price.

And as I said before, we can put this up on the screen. This comes as there are increasing strikes from the Israeli military firing on what they say are Hezbollah militant positions. Fighters fired rockets into Israel, injuring civilians and again raising fears of an escalating conflict. This comes as well as the Israeli military has been dropping flyers to residents of Lebanon. Let's put this up on the screen. This is southern Lebanon. They've been dropping these flyers, encouraging residents to evacuate their homes and relocate further north. So again, the commentary from this individual is breaking impending Israeli planned attack on Lebanon because of these Israeli army flyers.

And Sagar, we are not the only ones, apparently, who are concerned about what these escalating attacks could mean. Put this up on the screen from Axios. This is really a pretty bombshell report from this news outlet, Scoop. This is from Barack Ravid, who's been doing some good reporting. Austin warned Gallant about Israeli military actions in Lebanon. They say that administration officials are concerned Israel is trying to provoke Hezbollah and create a pretext for a wider war in Lebanon that could draw the U.S. and other countries further into the conflict. That is according to sources briefed on the issue. Israeli officials flatly deny it, whatever. In one incident that they were particularly concerned about, U.S. officials, an Israeli airstrike hit a car in southern Lebanon. They killed an elderly woman and three of her grandchildren. It took days for the Israeli military to even acknowledge it.

The second incident that really concerned U.S. officials happened on Saturday before the call between Austin and his counterpart, Galant, when the Israeli military conducted a drone strike about 25 miles north of the border, was the longest range strike in Lebanon since the war started. And finally, Biden administration officials are concerned by some of the video that we just played you, public threats from Galant against Hezbollah. And they think these threats only increase tensions according to an Israeli source. What's really concerning, Crystal, is that as of this morning, 125,000 Israelis have been evacuated from the northern border. It's the largest internal resettlement in the history of the state of Israel, away specifically from the northern border where the Hezbollah front could open up. And that's why we should be the most concerned.

We've also laid this out. From a strategic perspective, the Gaza war, it's not going to bleed out. Only because Hamas, for all their capabilities, we're talking about, again, piddly rockets. Yes, they have tunnels. Yes, they have lots of fighters. But it's effectively impossible for it to really penetrate Israeli air defense systems and to spiral out of control and to embroil the US. Hezbollah is an entirely different story. I was just reading this morning, the attack yesterday penetrated Israeli defense systems, actually injured several Israeli citizens. And these are anti-tank missiles, as well as rockets and missiles and others that the Israelis internally acknowledge will absolutely penetrate their air defense systems. And it is why we have so much US muscle that is in the region right now.

In fact, I was just reading Patriot missile defense systems, probably the single most prized asset in the US capabilities, at least right now, when we're talking about groups like Hezbollah, Iran, and we had them in Ukraine. We sent them over there. They're very valuable toward the Taiwanese, the Japanese, the South Koreans, and more. On top of the THAAD missile defense system, which we've already sent, we are scrambling the most Patriot defense missile systems that we've ever had to, to the Middle East. Basically drawing away assets that the Asian people, our allies in Asia, and even the Ukrainians are scrambling for. Also, again, highlighting there are always trade-offs in conflict, especially when you're talking about zero-sum things like highly valuable missile systems. The point is, is that with the immense amount of US military

assets now in the region, as well as the missiles and more, the evacuations, we also see on top of these new flyers that have been dropped, urging civilians to urge, all the set pieces are in place for one or two or three things to go wrong. And we are in a totally, completely different situation. The war right now is only a month and a week old, five weeks or something old. That's almost nothing in terms of conflict. And you ask the Israelis, and what do they say? We're preparing for a years-long, low-intensity conflict.

You ask the Hezbollah and all them, like, what's the situation? What can change? For now, Nasrallah has not escalated. But these crossfire border things, it only takes one or two, one anti-tank missile fired from Hezbollah. Let's say it kills 50 guys. It's one wrong target, 50, 60 people. The Israelis then have no choice to respond, and we're in it. The Trey Yankst over at Fox News put it pretty succinctly.

He was like, Hezbollah's climbing the escalation ladder. And, you know, based upon his reporting, it's very clear he's hearing from the Israelis. They may not stay silent for much longer. This could enter a new phase of, quote, unquote, defense. Well, and that report from Axios to me is chilling, that even administration officials here are worried that Israel actually wants to provoke that broader war. Because, you know, this is something we talked about with regard to Ukraine that I'm sure you guys heard us discussing at some point in this show. The fact that, yeah, Zelensky has no problem, you know, really being incredibly provocative, striking targets in Moscow, including in Russia, including in Moscow. And, you know, we're going to talk about the Nord Stream pipeline. Looks like they were behind it

after all. Surprise, surprise. He's not afraid of doing those things because he actually wants the bigger war. He wants us to be drawn in on his side because, frankly, that at this point especially is the only way they really have a shot to actually win. There's some similar dynamics here with Israel. I mean, Netanyahu and the Israeli government overall has long despised Iran, you know, been incredibly aggressive. They hated the Iranian nuclear deal and the reduction in the intentions that that represented. That's, you'll recall, during the Obama administration, Netanyahu travels here, gives the speech before speech before Congress incredibly partisan that's when you start to see this partisan split with regard to Israel so when you even have Biden administration officials who were very encouraged

by the fact that in that big speech that Nasrallah the head of Hezbollah gave that he you know is the normal sort of like threatening rhetoric but no actual concrete commitment to any specific actions. They were encouraged by that. They felt like that was partly the result of them working their contacts in Lebanon and trying to diffuse things on that side. They're actually really fearful that Israel is going to force Hezbollah's hand. Hezbollah is kind of caught between two places. I mean, again, listen, remember, analysis is not justification. It's just important to understand how, you know, how people are thinking about things. So

they have Lebanon, their domestic economy is a mess. It's sort of in political freefall as well. So the general population there doesn't necessarily want to be involved in a war because they've got enough going on and they've got enough suffering on their hands as it is, which is why part of why you've got Yoav Galan directly speaking to the civilians of Lebanon and threatening them directly. On the other hand, Hezbollah also has to keep their sort of like street cred as, you know, Islamic resistance fighters. And there's only so much crap that they can take from Israel without getting more involved and escalating again up the chain. So that's part of why this is such an incredibly, incredibly volatile situation.

Yeah, that's really well said. Let's go and put the next one up there on the screen. I just wanted to again highlight this. Seven Israeli troops were wounded, 10 others along the border. IDF has not released full casualty numbers, but we know the number is more than at least five of IDF soldiers been killed by Hezbollah. I mean, just imagine that a lot of this is not being escalated yet in terms of the rhetoric and all of that. But the pieces are in place, as we showed you from the Israeli defense minister and others, and things could pop off really at any moment. Let's go and put this one up there as well. There's also a tit-for-tat game going on right now. U.S. Air Force actually carried out two new strikes just yesterday against Iranian proxy targets in eastern Syria.

They bombed a weapons and ammo depot by Iranian-backed militias, which largely have been responsible for the continued attacks on U.S. forces. I don't think we can underscore how these low-grade attacks and all this is a nightmare and a disaster just waiting to happen. I mean, you know, it's one rocket, one missile after another. We have multiple troops with TBIs. These guys, some of them even had to go back to Germany for health care. Most have been returned, I believe all have been returned at least to active duty. So that's great. Nobody's been killed or injured yet, or seriously injured or wounded yet. But it's only a matter of time when you have people sitting out there, basically in the middle of the Syrian desert. It's not like we have a large force or any of them around them. They've been vulnerable from the beginning.

And the crazy part to me, Crystal, is all these guys are there ostensibly on an anti-ISIS mission. I think we won against ISIS last time I checked. And, you know, it's just built under this ridiculous fallacy that just because we're just, we have to sit there for basically all of eternity just to make sure ISIS doesn't come back. Don't forget this. Syria is ruled by Bashar al-Assad, okay? And he doesn't want us there. So did anyone in Congress ever, you know, authorize this? It's one of those that it happened, and we just happened to stay there, and now these guys are incredibly, incredibly vulnerable. So the Biden administration not pulling them back.

We also have all these troops all across Iraq, and it's just a disaster waiting to happen. I guess I keep using that phrase, but it's just because you can see the extraordinary vulnerability. And then once a U.S. soldier or U.S. service members killed, it's game on. I mean, it's just one of those where, and why would we want that situation? We should avoid that at all costs when we're not doing anything to do it. Because at this point, the Republicans and neocons and others, or probably a lot of Democrats too, would be like,

oh, it's surrender to pull our troops out of Syria. I'm like, well, it's not surrender. It's like, it's just common sense. At least pull them back to Iraq where we've got more military capabilities as opposed to sitting ducks in the middle of the desert. Yeah, that's right. And at the same time, probably both because of this risk of a broader conflagration and also because of the civilian, just humanitarian crisis that is unfolding on the ground in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military. This was the first Western leader. Emmanuel Macron, president of France, has come out and officially called for a ceasefire and a direct cessation of hostilities in an interview with the BBC. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Day one, we say that this reaction and the fight against terrorism, because it is led by a democracy, should be

compliant with international rules, rule of war and humanitarian international law. And day after day, what we saw is a permanent bombing of civilians in Gaza. And I think it's very important to say the whole story, but I think this is the only solution we have. This is fire. Because it's impossible to explain we want to fight against terrorism by killing innocent people. I'm not a judge. I'm a head of state. I just remind everybody international law. I call for a ceasefire. That last response there where he says,

I'm not a judge, I'm a head of state, and I'm calling for a ceasefire was in response to a question where she asked him, is Israel committing war crimes? And Sagar, I mean, the reality of what Israel is doing on the ground is undeniable. You know, the number of international groups who have said war crimes are being committed. These are blatant violations of international law. You cannot target civilians. I mean, the civilian death toll is somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the casualties in Gaza. So for these heads of state who have talked about, you know, international rule-based order and their commitment to humanitarian causes, it becomes increasingly

difficult to stand by and watch what Israel is doing and not come out with this position. So the fact that you have, you know, the head of France, the first country in the West really coming out and calling for a ceasefire is extraordinary. Bibi reacted to it very negatively and was pushing back, et cetera, et cetera. But I think it's an incredibly noteworthy development. Of course it's noteworthy. And people should remember this too. Despite what some of the rhetoric is, the European populations have never been nearly as pro-Israel as the U.S. In fact, in 2014 was a pretty big turning point against Israel in terms of the people taking to the streets.

BDS has actually been far more widely accepted amongst a lot of their population. I'm not just talking about Arabs and refugees who have been let into Europe over the last 25 years. The median European thinks about Israel far, far differently than an American citizen. The, quote, bond and all of that there politically is not the same. So their actual small d democratic incentives are a lot different than our politicians in terms of the organized like political efforts to make sure that this stuff doesn't happen, but really in terms of how their own populations are going to respond. And of course, it's highly noteworthy because I think the Europeans in particular are caught in the biggest bind.

They have spent the last two years screeching about Ukraine to try and get us to pay all their bills using all the rhetoric of, oh, Russia is destroying Ukraine and all of this. Look, it is true, certainly. But I'm saying they've been using moralistic arguments in order to justify their extraordinary expense and then also pressuring us. So they're actually caught in the hardest place because Ukraine matters way more to them than it does for us. We can turn our back on, it's going to have no impact. But the fate of Ukraine is far more important to France, Germany, the UK, and others. So they especially feel in a very difficult position as to how they navigate this conflict, especially whenever everything is relied upon the international rule of law, about the laws of war, about the Geneva Convention and all of that. And

so, you know, Macron is going in the more logical direction, I think, for a European head of state, because I think he sees some of the incongruity for that right now. Yeah. Now, I don't want to give them too much credit because they're also the ones that outright banned pro-Palestinian protests. So don't want to go too far. But yes, the fact that he called for a ceasefire is noteworthy. And, you know, I think it also, Sagar, to your point, like the hypocrisy between how they talked about Russia and Ukraine versus what we're seeing unfolding and what Israel is doing in Gaza

is just, it's so naked. What Russia has done in Ukraine is horrific. And none of these leaders had any trouble saying, you know, war crimes and let's file charges against Putin and, you know, bring them up on charges at the hay. They didn't have any trouble with that. But now what Israel is doing in Gaza, I mean, it makes what Russia did in Ukraine pale in comparison just by the numbers, the number of kids killed, the number of journalists killed, the number of UN workers killed, the short period of time, the amount of destruction on the ground. I mean, there's no comparison here. The attacks on

infrastructure. I mean, how much do we hear about like, oh, it's, you know, it's such a crime to attack civilian infrastructure and electricity and mess with this in Ukraine. They've had complete siege on all of Gaza for the entirety of this war. So at some point, if you have even a modicum of self-respect, you've got to acknowledge some of what is going on. 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

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Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree.

It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at TaylorPaperSealing.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley.

We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a good place to transition to what is happening right now on the ground in Gaza City. So Israel has made a big show of trying to claim, we'll get to those claims a little bit more in a moment, that Hamas is operating underneath of this hospital, al-Shifa Hospital. This is the main hospital remaining operating in Gaza City. They have hundreds of patients there.

At one point, now many people have fled at this point, but at one point they were sheltering tens of thousands of Palestinians who had to flee their homes, who thought this would be a safe place because it is a hospital and hospitals are threatening it with destruction. Already, they have no fuel for the generator. So you have horrific situations unfolding. Patients already dying from a lack of care and lack of electricity. Let's go ahead and hear what one doctor there in the hospital said is unfolding right now. And also, there's a sniper who attacked four patients from inside the hospital. One of them has a gunshot directly in his neck and he has quadriplegia and the other one he has a gunshot in the abdomen. Some of the people which actually go outside the hospital they want to go themselves they

bomb them also they bomb the family. There is no water there is no food So our team is exhausted. We have two new patients die actually because the incubator, it's not working because there is no electricity. Also, we have other patients in the ICU can die because the ventilator is shut down because there is no electricity. We can see actually the smoking, the smoke around the hospital. They hit everything around the hospital and they hit the hospital many times. But we want someone to give us the guarantee that they can evacuate the patient because we have about 600 inpatient persons who need medical care and who need

evacuation. The problem is to be sure that we can evacuate the new inmate patient because we have about 57 to 40 cases of the new inmate, the premature baby. We have about 17 other patients in the ICU and we have about 600 admitted patients previously operated which need medical care. Some of the images that are coming out of this hospital are just like, I don't even know what to say. One in particular put this up on the screen. So they have a high number, 37 babies who were born premature. Some of them because their mothers actually were killed in Israeli airstrikes and they had to be cut out of their dead mother's bellies. Some of them, you know, the stress of what's going on also can trigger premature birth. So that's part of why they have such a large number of premature babies in this hospital.

37 of them without electricity had to be removed from their incubators. This is a picture of them wrapped in blankets. I also read that doctors were trying to put hot bottles of water around them to try to keep them warm because they can't regulate their own temperatures when they're born at this early age. And at the time of this, this was as of yesterday, at least three babies had already died because of the lack of electricity. I mean, I saw doctors operating using iPhone flashlights because there are no lights on. They don't have clean water in terms of basic sanitation. Also, just in terms of being able to drink the amount of, you know, diseases and bugs and horror. There are dead bodies piled up at the entrances because they can't do anything

with them. It's just you cannot imagine the scenes of horror that are unfolding at this hospital. And, you know, truly, like, we talk about heroic human beings doing things that are unimaginable. Like, these doctors know that their lives are at risk, and they have been working round the clock for weeks and weeks now in absolutely impossible conditions, and yet many of them are still there doing whatever they possibly can to try to keep these patients alive. Yeah, so the Israelis are claiming that, and we've showed this graphic before, that the hospital itself covers some of the biggest command and control facilities for Hamas, which is built like an underground network beneath that. There's no way to know whether it's true. Hamas says it's not true. The director of the hospital said that it's not true, although

I find it difficult to believe a director of the hospital would be allowed to remain in place if he wasn't also that. So I have no idea. We also have lots of doctors, you know, if people mistrust Palestinians because they might be Hamas, a lot of the doctors here are with Doctors Without Borders. They're international. I mean, we've seen, you know, British doctors and other foreign nationals who were talking about this, were saying, you know, I wouldn't be here if this was some Hamas headquarters. So those Israeli claims, I also just would put out there, Israel at this point has claimed that like everything is Hamas. You know, all of these houses that they destroyed, all of the hospitals they already attacked, all of the schools they already attacked. They came out recently and said the UN workers are actually Hamas. So, you know, anything that they want to destroy, they just say, oh, it's Hamas. And, you know,

we can't really show you the proof, but just trust us. The only reason I'm inclined to believe it is because the PR value of destroying a hospital is so bad that there's basically no other reason to go in and have a firefight. Well, they've already destroyed so many other hospitals. Sure, but I mean, destroying a house in collateral damage because it's on top of a tunnel is different than surrounding a hospital and trying to take it. So look, I don't know if it's true. According to them, they claim that it's actually completely underneath the hospital complex. Again, you know, they have been proven in the past, Hamas, to use the human shields. I'm not justifying necessarily like the mass death or any of that. I think the US, for example, if the United States were to find a terrorist complex that was underneath the hospital,

I've gone back, I've been reading a lot about the counter ISIS campaigns. It's actually very different. So one of the rules that the United States always had for, or at least tried to have with drone warfare, and particularly with killing ISIS leaders going after command subjects is that they would wait, in some cases for almost a year, they would put a subject under surveillance and they would wait for them to slip up for the one moment that they were away from their family so that they could kill them to deny ISIS the opportunity to claim that they were killing civilians. Obviously, a lot of civilians were killed in the Drom campaign, but the counter ISIS campaign was reasonably well conducted in terms of reducing civilian casualties, especially when you compare it to the Israeli operation. So if it is a command and control subject, I think some of the tactics should really come down,

or some of the questions should come down to the tactics and the way this is being subjected. As you said, the doctor is claiming that there were straight-up firefights that were going on inside of the hospital, that snipers were targeting them. The Israelis say that that's not true, that they haven't had any firefight. I mean, clearly carnage and all of that is happening. They've also claimed that they've delivered fuel to the hospital, that the hospital itself or Hamas denied fuel for it. So they're putting blame on Hamas for doing it. It's one of those where we have unreliable narrators in these two situations. But it would make sense if you are Hamas to embed yourself deeply in the civilian population and use the hospital, which is the most emotive place that you can, knowing that

you're going to have tons of collateral damage if somebody tries to take you. I think the issue for the Israelis is that they are basically not caring that much about collateral damage and they're going through and practicing. So I think it's a Gordian knot situation. I genuinely don't know how, I don't, I genuinely don't know what alternative is if you are committed also to destroying Hamas leadership, which the Israeli military is. I think they definitely should have done it differently. They're committed to punishing the civilian population. That's what they're committed to. And that's why, you know, listen, I don't know. I can't confirm the intelligence. I can just tell you that Israel is literally everyone is Hamas that they have killed. And thousands of the people they have killed are actually women, children. I think 70%

of the latest death toll, which by the way, the U.S. government is now saying is actually undercounted from the health ministry. I think 70% are women, children and the elderly. They again said U.N. workers are Hamas. So they just throw this out there with no proof. And they put out these also like totally ridiculous audio recordings, like the one that they put out from the hospital previously, which brings me to another point. Remember how just a few weeks ago, when there was that strike in the hospital parking lot and all this debate about who was behind it, we still don't have definitive proof on either side. All of the language, oh, we would never target a hospital. We never target a

hospital. Of course we wouldn't. And now they spent weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks trying to develop the case to target this hospital where already patients have died because of their actions and because of the cruelty that they are exhibiting towards all of the people of Gaza. So, no, they don't care about PR. On the contrary, they actually want it to be as brutal as possible. That is the whole objective of what they're doing militarily, because otherwise the entirety of their campaign makes no sense. And so, you know, in addition, like you were pointing to, Sagar, you have multiple doctors in the hospital.

Snipers are picking off patients inside of the hospital. A quadriplegic was shot in the neck through a window by an Israeli sniper, according to the doctors who are there. So, yeah, I don't take, I don't believe a word that Israel says with regards to this particular hospital or any of the many other hospitals, refugee camps, et cetera, that they have targeted. I don't believe a word Hamas says either. And Amnesty International in 2015 said that the hospital was used,

at least in some cases, by Hamas in order to torture people, in order to house people. So it is a known facility that was used by the terrorists. Let me say, even if there are underground Hamas layers under this hospital, which again, the doctors here say they have seen no sign of. Even if that is the case, you can't bomb and target these patients, innocent civilians, babies, 37 premature babies that are at this hospital. And your words don't mean a lot when, again, you've already destroyed and evacuated all the other hospitals. What, is every hospital in all of Gaza, are they all Hamas? Like, at a certain point, it becomes preposterous. I wouldn't put it past Hamas. Well, listen, I think we can come at this from

different angles. Do the Israelis done themselves any favors by claiming everybody, basically declaring it a free-fire zone? No, which makes it very difficult for anybody who doesn't trust them to believe a word that they say. Have Hamas made it also so that we have proof that they've used hospitals? Yes. So then it becomes a question of military tactics. And I think that's where it's a difficult situation, as I said, in that I agree. I think the U.S. military, I think any other world, Western-style military, would not have conducted themselves this way. They would have conducted a totally different operation. And to be honest, really what the Israelis have done, from what I can tell, is try to minimize

their casualties to absolute zero, such that they are willing to take as many civilian casualties that there are. Now, that might sound smart and intuitive, but actually the U.S. military, specifically in the counterinsurgency campaign and onward, made the explicit decision, if we're going to operate in this type of environment, we're going to take military casualties at the expense of trying to save civilians. So we would have conducted this, I think, completely differently in terms of surrounding, in terms of going in, in terms of in some cases, like actually just sending bodies in without the bombs and trying to clear it out manually, which again, you would take a lot of casualties in that scenario, but they would do it

just for the purpose of trying to maintain as much civilian purpose, as much of the civilian, reducing civilian casualties as much as possible. So I think we can criticize the tactics, but we do have to accept like there is a, at the core of this, there's a small part where there is a legitimate military objective, which is destroying Hamas. The Israelis have decided to do it in such a way that they just don't care at all about civilian casualties or they can play a voice to it. I disagree with that. I think that's wrong. But I do think the military objective itself is true. And, you know, I mean, we can't say that every place that has a Hamas command and control place is off limits. But that's not a possibility.

They've destroyed, like like all of Gaza City. I mean, if this hospital, they are arguing, they are arguing this particular hospital is like the granddaddy command central of Hamas. If that's the case, then why wasn't the focus on this hospital to start with? Okay, then you can have time to evacuate patients to the other hospitals. Those hospitals aren't operating at this point. There is nowhere for these patients to go. And by the way, they're being, you know, killed by sniper fire while they're in the building. And also there are reports that the supposed, you know, safe passage to the South that they've been bombed and fired on there as well. So, you know, that's why, listen, I just cannot take what the Israelis are saying at face value. The animation thing that they released that they said was their proof was preposterous and silly. We both mocked it at the time as being

ridiculous. They have offered no public evidence outside of these laughable audio recordings. But to your point, even if it is true, and this is Hamas Grand Central underneath of this thing, you cannot just go in and starve and deny them fuel and bomb them and target these civilians who have done nothing wrong. And these doctors who are genuine heroes, who are doing their absolute best to take care of patients in absolutely impossible circumstances. Even the Biden administration is uncomfortable with this hospital being targeted in this way. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was asked about what was going on here at al-Shifa. Let's listen to his response. Well, Dana, I think your question just points up the difficulty and complexity of

this conflict. You've got a terrorist group using civilians as human shields, even using sick and injured civilians as human shields. And you've got, at the same time, an Israeli defense force that is seeking to try to root out this terrorist group and to make sure that it can no longer represent a threat to Israel. And the hospital puts this question into stark relief. But the bottom line for the United States is that we do not want to see firefights in a hospital. We do not want to see innocent patients who are sick or wounded be injured or killed in the crossfire. Now, do I think that the Netanyahu government and the IDF cares that Jake Sullivan is weakly out there like, well, we don't want it to be a subject of a firefight? No. But you can see even they are very uncomfortable with what is unfolding. And part of

what I think has happened is Israel has kind of tested the waters of what they could get away with. You know, and that's why the conversation around that the first hospital, you know, disputed hospital parking lot bombing was so different than now over weeks and weeks as they've gotten away with, OK, we got away with the complete siege. We got away with the bombing of all these civilian targets. We got away with the bombing of the refugee camp and the IDF dude going on CNN and being like, yeah, we knew there were civilians there. What are you going to do? That's, you know, it's war. It's just what it is. That's how you build the, you know, build that ladder to where they are now. And they know they can do whatever

they want with impunity and get away with it, no matter how brutal, no matter the civilian toll. And, you know, I think that's where we are. Well, it's part, I mean, I think about it this way, where with the hospital and with all of that, at each one of these, they are chipping away at the ability for the Biden administration to withstand it. I actually don't think that this is indefinite. And really what it is, is that there was an interesting excerpt from 2021, where we had that Gaza operation in Franklin Ford's book. And what he describes is how at a certain point, Biden called Bibi and he was like, all right, man, it's enough. And the operation actually ended the next day. And so what it was is that the US could take it, they could take it, they could take it. But Biden got to a point where he's like, I can't take the domestic pressure at this point anymore.

You've got to cut it off. And so I think that the Israelis also are playing with fire a bit because at the same time, the U.S. administration can only hold really, I think, for so long in terms of what the center is when you have the massive protests since 2003. This is dominating the conversation. But more importantly, I actually think from a big picture perspective is that this is drawing so many military assets that we are in such a point of vulnerability where just like Israel drew from Ukraine, we are one another Ukraine away from drawing away from Israel. At the end of the day, none of this actually matters to the U.S. taxpayer. Yes, it may be emotional and all that, but Israel and what's going on there has zero impact on the US economy, just like Ukraine did.

And so to have all of the concentration of these assets and all this others, I think that's probably the most realistic scenario. And more importantly, what I mean by that is that by chipping away, it's going to make it easier to walk away from should the time ever come, if it does come, in terms of political support. That said, I don't know. We did watch, though, Prime Minister Netanyahu discuss some of this. Let's take a listen. We offered, actually, last night to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators, and so on, because we have obviously no battle with patients or civilians at all. And I think every civilian death, every dead baby is a tragedy. But that tragedy should be placed squarely at the responsibility of Hamas that is keeping its military installations inside hospitals,

its command posts inside hospitals, inside schools, inside UN facilities and so on. So we obviously don't want to give them immunity, but at the same time, we're sensitive to this issue. So we offer this help. They refuse it, but they want to get fuel that they'll take from the hospitals to their tunnels, to their war machine, the electricity they need to fire the rockets. They fire 10,000 rockets as we speak in Israel against Israel cities, And they continue to fight from those underground bunkers. So what we have to do is separate the two. We'll try to help those who need it in the

hospitals, but not help the Hamas war machine. So a bit of a contradiction in what he's saying there on the one hand, he's like, yeah, we totally offered them fuel. On the other hand, he's like, well, we can't really give them fuel because it's just Hamas wants to take it and use it in their tunnels. There's a lot of questions about this offer of fuel, whether it even happened or not, the amount of fuel that was offered. There was one person who said it was the hospital, you know, that directly rejected it. Another one said, no, Hamas wouldn't let them take it. So anyway, this is their, this is his PR is we offered them fuel and, you know, Hamas

said they can't have it, whether it's true or not, hard to say. It is difficult to say. And I think it also raises why the U.S. is so skeptical in some of these conversations and more importantly, behind the scenes, is trying to pressure them. I do think the analysis on your part is correct in that nothing is going to change. They've chosen the way they want to conduct war. It is what it is, either swallow it or don't. And it's actually interesting, if you support, if you talk to people who support Israel and you're like, hey, you support what's going on there? And they're like, yeah, I do. They got to do what they got to do. They're not trying to talk about it in terms of like laws of war or any of that. They're like, yeah, I just,

look, it's us or them and I support it and you got to kill a lot of them. And I think actually, here's the thing, that's honest, at least as honest in terms of what they are saying. I also hear it in terms of vice versa. Some people are like, well, it would help Hamas. And they're like, yeah, well, I care more about Palestinian life than I do about degrading this terror organization. And it's one of those balances that we just have to have. Again, I think that's a completely honest

and legitimate take. It's just those we're all trying to talk in fake language, which personally always has driven me not so much. But here's the other thing. We're going to talk a little bit more about this. If your goal is long-term security for the Israeli people,

this is foolish. Think of the radical, I mean, this is like a super radicalization event that is unfolding. This is, not only am I not going to learn the lessons of 9-11, the war in Iraq, and the war on terror, et cetera, but I'm actually going to quadruple down on the mistakes that were made that led to the development of ISIS and the blowback that we saw and the complete destabilization of this whole region. I mean, that's what's unfolding here. So even if you are like, well, I don't really care about the Palestinian civilians, it's too bad, whatever, but I got to look out for mine first. This is a foolish course of action.

And it's clear that, you know, this goal of, oh, we're going to eliminate Hamas, number one, is probably not possible. And number two, they are not actually executing a military strategy that is targeted at that goal. And they have burned any credibility, like all of the justified global sympathy outpouring of support for Israel in the wake of the horrors of October 7th. I mean, they have burned through that like there's no tomorrow, to the point that even the Biden administration, which, you know, Biden showed up and gave Netanyahu the bear hug and Blinken came and said, hey, I'm here as a Jewish person first. That's my primary goal. Like we have no red lines for them,

et cetera. Even the U.S. is starting to get a little nervous and a little uncomfortable. Now, again, I think that the situation, Sagar, I wonder if you agree with this, is different than the last time when Biden now apparently famously calls Netanyahu like, all right, we got to wrap it up. First of all, do we know if that's really true? Who knows? But anyway, let's assume that it is, okay? I think the situation is very different now, too, because the emotions in Israel are so high and because Bibi is on such political shaky ground that I think it would take a lot more than Biden just calling and saying,

all right, buddy, wrap it up. I think it would take actual like, no, you're not going to get these weapons. We are going to withhold aid. We are going to let some of these UN votes go through. Like we're going to publicly distance ourselves, condemn what you're doing and deny you the, you know, weapons that you need to continue these attacks. I think it would actually take something like that for them to change course at this point, in part, again, because of the, you know, incredibly shaky ground that Netanyahu is on politically. It's possible because we also have to break up the military operation into phases. So like right now we're in like the destruction and the fighting phase, but next comes the security phase. And what does that phase look like? We could move to more low intensity

combat. The analogy would be that phase two of Iraq was after President Bush did mission accomplished. We defeated the Iraqi army. We made it all the way to Baghdad. We pulled down the thing. It's like, oh, turns out now is when the real war began. So I think that that phase could very much show things differently. The Israelis also, I mean, they could wrap up conventional military operations pretty quickly, but then they'd have to move to the security operations. They could say, we cleared out northern Gaza, cleansed the tunnels, we've basically occupied it, and that leads to the now what question. That's really why I always bring up Iraq. So I actually think we probably have even more leverage during that phase because then

they're the ones who are now responsible for security, and now there's a lot of diplomacy involved because who's going to govern and not, which we're going to get to. So in the current phase, I don't think anything's going to change. I also do think, though, that it's possible the Israelis aren't. Look, they're not stupid. They also know that a lot of international capital and political capital is being burned, and they probably want to clear this up in the next month or so. They've been pretty militarily successful. I'm talking about the bombing campaign, hospitals, and all that. They have their zone that they've declared, and they're just going to occupy, cut off, and level as much as they can. And they could try and have their mission accomplished moment. I actually think what really awaits them for the danger that awaits them is nothing that's happening right now, especially with the way they've chosen to conduct war.

It's day two after their mission accomplished. Now what? Security operations. Who's going to govern this? The PA. Those are the big meta questions. And that's what leads exactly what you've flagged and pointed out. Counterinsurgency, a massive terror campaign in terms of the big diplomatic questions between Iran, Saudi Arabia, what's politically acceptable to the Arab world, who's going to fund this new organization, who's going to elect it. The UN is one of those where those questions actually become stickier, in my opinion, would lead to much more prolonged and dangerous conflict in the future.

Let's talk about that in one minute. There's one more piece of al-Shifa that I just want to get to before we move on to what the Israelis are saying at this point about the future of Gaza, which is, again, another like rebuke and humiliation of the Biden administration. But just to keep the focus on the human beings who are involved here, there was a doctor who, Dr. Hammam Alo, who was a physician in nephrology at the hospital. He was one of the people who was doing, you know, his English language speaker was doing a lot of press interviews to talk about the dire situation on the ground. He was unfortunately just killed by an airstrike. I believe this was yesterday morning with his father in their house, which is right next to El Shifa Hospital. This is Ryan Grimm actually tweeted this out. I'll read a little bit of this.

His mother is also a doctor. She is trapped with other relatives, including children in the vicinity of the house. This was again, as of yesterday, they were unable to move. Any attempt to move comes under heavy Israeli fire. People polled one of his last I think this may have been his last interview that he gave with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! Talking about why he decided to stay at the hospital, knowing very well that it could be a death sentence. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Why don't you go with your family south? Do you think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years, so I think only about my life and not my patients? I'm asking you, ma'am.

Do you think this is the reason why I went to med school? To think only about my life? This is not the reason why I became a doctor. Incredibly sad that he has now been killed in an Israeli airstrike. And, you know, just speaks to some of the real heroism that is going on in the ground. And, Sagar, I feel like you're seeing, like, the best and the worst of human nature right now brought out in this conflict. I guess that's the way that war always is. That's the way war always is.

That's right. And, yeah, I mean, you can't forget any of the innocents that were caught up in all this. In fact, you know, Biden revealed yesterday there's a three-year-old American baby citizen whose parents were killed on October 7th, who's currently being held by Hamas, which is, I, that poor child. And there's, I mean, she's one of, I think, we don't know the gender of the child, but there are multiple other children also who are being held without their parents. You can only hope they're being cared for too. It's just a terrible situation. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,

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All right, you bombed the hell out of Gaza. You killed all these civilians. You, you know, declared mission accomplished. What happens now? Now, the Biden administration has increasingly said two things. Number one, it would be a big mistake for Israel to reoccupy Gaza. been pushing this more aggressively, we think the Palestinian Authority should be the ones who are tasked with some, at least, of the governance of the Gaza Strip. In a new interview, Bibi goes ahead and rejects both of those things. Let's take a listen to what he has to say. Gaza has to make sure that it's not a threat to Israel. We said destroy Hamas. And for that, if we want to have peace, we have to destroy Hamas. This is what Israel must do. And this is what Israel will do. Would you accept an international force, Mr. Prime Minister? Would you accept an international force?

I think that the only force right now that can guarantee that Hamas, that terrorism is not, does not reappear and take over Gaza again is the Israeli military. So overall military responsibility will have to be in Israel. As far as the civilian management of Gaza, we need to see the following two things. Gaza has to be demilitarized and Gaza has to be de-radicalized. And I think so far we haven't seen any Palestinian force, including the Palestinian Authority, that is able to do it. They teach their children to hate Israel. They're not fighting terrorists. They're paying for slay. That is, the more Palestinian terrorists murder Jews, the more they get paid. And to this date, 36 days after the worst savagery perpetrated on the Jewish

people since the Holocaust, the Palestinian Authority president has yet refuses to condemn this savagery. So, you know, we need a different authority. We need a different administration. Who would that be? Who would that be, Mr. Prime Minister? Who would that be? I think it's too early to say.

Kirsten, I think it's too early to say, but I can say one thing. The first task we have to achieve is defeat Hamas. The first task the Allies had to achieve before they could reconstruct Germany was to defeat the Nazis. So yet another World War II analogy there. I mean, listen, there are a lot of practical reasons why the Palestinian Authority is likely unable, like it is very farcical to imagine that they could actually govern the Gaza Strip because they have no legitimacy in the West Bank, let alone in Gaza. So, you know, they are rightly seen as like collaborators with the Israeli security

state and the IDF directly. So again, they have, they're very weak. They have no legitimacy really in the West Bank. So imagining them in control of Gaza is pretty preposterous. But this is what the U.S. has been pushing. Of course, we know the real reason why Netanyahu is totally opposed to it is the same reason he's always been totally opposed to it. Because he does not want some sort of union between the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Palestinians in Gaza or any sort of a partner that you could reasonably negotiate with because that would lead to a question. All right, well, let's move forward with maybe a two-state solution. Let's move forward with some sort of a peace process. And he does not want that and has been very overt about it. So that's why he has always worked to keep the Palestinians in the West Bank

and Gaza separate and to prop up Hamas so that he can have this talking point of like, ah, they're terrorists. Like, you can't work with them. You can't negotiate. Of course we want peace, but we can't negotiate with these people. Yeah. I think the biggest danger actually to the Israelis from the future perspective all lies within this. As I laid out, one of the big problems is going to be who is governing this. And if they don't accept the PA or any other actor that could legitimately lead in the eyes of the West to a Palestinian state, which they'd want to avoid, then they're going to find themselves almost perpetually in charge of the Gaza Strip. You found this quote, which I honestly find insane. Let's go and put this up there

on the screen. Quote, we are rolling out Nakba 2023, an Israeli minister says, on the northern Gaza Strip evacuation. This is Likud Minister Avi Dichter. He says that war is impossible to wage and there are masses between the tanks and the soldiers. Netanyahu does not support resettling the Gaza Strip. He says he will not give up security control over it under any circumstances. And he is not only a member of the Israeli Security Cabinet, but also the agricultural minister, a member of the Likud party. You should probably know better than to use terms like Gaza Nakba 2023, saying that that's

how it's going to end. He's also a former director of the Shin Bet, which is, I guess, more analogous to our FBI here in the US. They are setting themselves up really, I think, for a disastrous future. If they're going to commit to any sort of occupation or any sort of resettlement, they will find even their most exuberant supporters here in the West on the Democratic side are gone. And when you lose that and the support of the population, but even more importantly, I think, once again, they have still a tremendous amount of goodwill from what happened on October 7th. But this becomes some sort of imperial and colonial

project, then you really are going to completely lose any of that legitimacy in the eyes of even some of them, except your most ardent supporters. And I think the problem strategically for them is increasingly their current government has no ability to rein in these forces. I think they would be so much better off with a better coalition type government, which is entirely focused on the military strategic question of destruction of Hamas and not pairing it almost overwhelmingly with these colonial ambition, with the refusal to condemn settler violence in the West Bank, with the refusal to silence people like this. I mean, it's just one of those where we were very

careful. Netanyahu likes to talk about World War II. We were extraordinarily careful to demand unconditional surrender, but also not to telegraph any sort of inflammatory occupant. No, I'm saying the West, not the Russians. They talked about things a little bit differently. But at least on our end, we wanted to minimize like civilian German resistance at the same time of making clear that we demand the unconditional surrender of the Nazi regime. And by separating those two questions, actually, I think a smarter play than the way that they are currently going about it. I also don't think it's a particularly useful one because it's like, well, you know, how did that end up in terms of Germany? We ended up occupying, so we still have one of the largest

bases in the world in Germany and in Japan. It's like, so is that what you're committing to, a 75-year presence in the region? Because that's insane. Any of these needs to end with some sort of political resolution. But again, they don't really want to talk about the legitimacy of that. And I think the single biggest threat to the Israel nation state right now is this faction of the party and the Netanyahu government, which finds itself in a position where the longer the war goes on, the better off it is for him. Every interview he gives, including this one, they're like, hey, what about you? Did you fail? And he's like, we'll talk about that later. It's also historically ridiculous. I went back and was looking at this in 2006. Netanyahu demanded that the prime minister of Israel at that time take immediate responsibility for what happened in the 2006 Lebanon, which was a disaster.

So yeah, so a little bit of history checking what he's doing. Yeah. I mean, so Netanyahu's party is Likud. This dude who said, yeah, Nakba 2023, Gaza Nakba 2023, that's how it'll end, is a Likud ministry, the agriculture ministry is also a member, as Sagar said, of the security cabinet. So it's not like this is a fringe view. This is the view of Netanyahu's party, of certainly they are very upfront about it, that some of the extremist coalition partners who he insisted remain in the, you know, unity security government during the war cabinet. So, you know, this is the mainstream view of the people who are running the government. And let's be honest, it's the mainstream view of a lot of Israeli citizens as well. It's not like there's huge internal backlash to, you know, this dude coming out and being like, yeah, Gaza Nakba, which the other thing just historically that is worth noting here, too, is that Israelis long denied that there even was an Akba. You know, their story for decades, which has become sort of impossible to maintain given the revelations of historical documents, but which nonetheless they've been sort of committed to, was like, no, no, no. We didn't push people out.

They left. You know, their leaders told them to leave and they just left. There was no violence. There was no, you know, displacement. They just willingly went. And so they've always denied the idea that there even was an original Nakba. So I guess we're now like openly admitting that as well. But again, this is very consistent with that Israeli ministry report that came out and said, our ideal solution is ethnic cleansing, pushing all of these people out of Gaza and forcing Egypt, compelling Egypt, to take them in and resettle them. And so, you know, when you've got a member of the security cabinet and former

Shin Bet director saying these things openly, you should take note. You had another, the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gavir, who is, again, one of the most extreme elements of the Netanyahu government, saying, quote, to be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy, they are all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed. So again, laying out that, you know, even people who weren't involved in October 7th, who just 7th who just maybe expressed some sort of support for Hamas or just exist in Gaza and are Palestinian, that they are also terrorists and they should be destroyed, which is part of why there needs to be a lot of hard questions asked about when you say Hamas should be destroyed, what exactly do you mean by that? Because that is actually in reality a very, very squishy and very potentially large-scale concept. Who is Hamas?

And when you see the Israeli government going and being like, actually, UN workers are also Hamas, you can see how broad their definition of who qualifies as Hamas actually is. Yeah, that's right. Let's go to the next part here. Sorry, my bad. I meant the next element. Come upon me. Three, two, one. Let's go and put this up on the screen. It was Making the Rounds. It was actually a pretty interesting interview. It was very interesting. From The New Yorker by Isaac Choytner.

He's kind of famous for doing these barbed interviews with unsuspecting victims. And in this one, it was the quote, the extreme ambitions of West Bank settlers. And he interviews a woman who is a West Bank settler and activist and asked her about her vision for a Jewish state. This is Daniela Wise. She's one of the biggest leaders in the settlement community, has been involved in settlement politics ever since the 1967 war, and has been living in the region since after that war. So it's been a long time, suffice it to say. What exactly did she say, which everyone found very noteworthy? Well, there's one particular quote, which I think really put everything into perspective, which was, quote, in Israel,

there's a lot of support for settlements. This is why there's been right-wing governments for so many years. The world, especially the United States, thinks there's an option for a Palestinian state. If we continue to build communities, then we will block the option for a Palestinian state. We want to close the option for a Palestinian state, and the world wants to leave that option open. It is a very simple thing to understand. It is indeed, isn't it? Yes. She says, quote, settlement is the way to return to Rezaion.

She says, yes, it is the dispersion, the beginning of the revival of a Jewish nation. What are the borders of the Jewish nation? The borders of the homeland of the Jews are the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest. Palestinians sometimes use that slogan. They're talking about river to the sea. What you're saying is also about this in relation to a Jewish homeland. She says, quote,

of course, if someone wants to invent a new religion today, who will decide the rules? The first nation that got the word from God, the promise of God, that follow that others, Christianity and Islam, with their demands and their perceptions, so they are just imitating what existed already. So why in Israel they would be anywhere in the world that came after us in a double sense of the word. So anyway, I think she lays out pretty plainly what some of the, what a pretty sizable coalition

of people in Israel do believe in and support. And as I said, I think it is probably the single biggest threat to Israel in the future just given the sensitive nature of that. And also really just where our interests in terms of diplomatic resolution and theirs diverge on an almost completely different plane and have been for a long time, if we're also being honest. Well, and also how we have long, the politicians in this country have long maintained this fiction of like, oh, working on the two-state solution. You know, I actually appreciate, and I'm horrified by, but appreciate the candor here of like, yeah, that is the settlement project. That's why it's popular in Israel. That's why it's been going on while all of these, you know, potential peace deal negotiations, et cetera, et cetera, were going on. The settlement building never stopped, even though it's clear violation of international law.

That's why, you know, you've had this while this war is ongoing, you've had this incredible escalation in violence and pushing Palestinians off of their land in the West Bank. And it's not just that the government is silent about it. It's that the IDF is actually directly involved in more than half of these incidents of Jewish settler violence against Palestinians and efforts to push them off of their land. So this is an overt government project. It's really not a secret in Israel. Again, you can talk to people like Daniela Weiss and she'll tell you flat out what's

going on here. But, you know, you also, when this is something we flagged from the beginning, like you see the rhetoric when Bibi goes on with Kristen Welker, very different than when he's speaking in Hebrew to Israelis, where these sorts of things are much clearer and much more naked and, you know, very widely supported by the public. Israel, interestingly, is one of the only countries, I think, developed countries in the world where the younger population is actually more right wing and more radical than the older population that still has some connection to that previous like labor Zionism and social democratic state. And so this is, this has been the trend in Israeli politics for a long time. And there are a lot of people who are looking at this moment and a lot

of people with power in the government up to, and likely including Netanyahu, who say this might be our chance to once and for all be able to quote unquote solve the Palestinian problem, especially in Gaza. And, you know, they're coming out and saying it. So when you see American leaders being very precious about, you know, their plans and ethnic cleansing and these sorts of things, like they just come out and say it. And then we're supposed to pretend like this isn't going on and this isn't what the goal ultimately is. It's a big problem. 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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a

new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter.

Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree.

It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. So one of the things we've been talking about here is whether this military operation, this war on Gaza, actually even is going to increase Israeli security. Elon Musk, in an interview with Lex Friedman, sounding some concerns of his own. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. If you're not going to just outright commit genocide, like against an entire people which obviously would not be acceptable to to really shouldn't be acceptable to anyone um then you're going to leave basically a lot of people alive who subsequently you know hate israel so really the question is like

how for every hamas member that you kill how many did you create and if you create more than you kill, you've not succeeded. That's the real situation there. And it's safe to say that if you kill somebody's child in Gaza, you've made at least a few Hamas members. And I would add to that, Sagar, they're not just going to hate Israel. They're also going to hate us. They're also going to hate us because they know that the way that we have unequivocally supported Netanyahu, they know where those bombs are being made. So it's not only increasing the risk to Israel, but also the risk to the

United States. Yeah. And the top U.S. general actually speaking on this, let's put this up there on the screen. This is the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and actually says that the Israel's military stated aim in Gaza with the destruction of Hamas was, quote, a pretty large order. He also said Israel is focusing on the targeting of senior leadership. But I think that the longer this goes, the harder it can become. This is what he told reporters, quote, That's why when we talk about time, the faster you can get to the point where you stop the hostilities, you have less strife for the civilian population that turns into someone who now wants to be the next member of Hamas. So one of the reasons why I think that this is important is that these people, all of our senior brass, came up in a time of counterinsurgency in Iraq and have a deep and

personal experience in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting exactly these types of conflicts, seeing their men die, being charged with similar missions, watching strategically the goals shift, move out of, you know, where they originally were, and their own soldiers and the civilian populations where they were also paying the price. That's why I would, these are the first people I would listen to. Yeah. The people who are the most experienced fighting this type of war. You can bet this guy will probably never say anything this honest again. He's new, so they'll probably get him on the talking points here pretty quickly. But just take in what he's saying, okay?

The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Arnesh's top general, saying that basically this idea you're going to destroy Hamas is pretty preposterous. In his words, a pretty large order, okay? So he's, you know, diplomatically saying, really? I don't really think you're going to be able to pull that off. And then also saying you are radicalizing so many people right now. So he's diplomatically saying, really, I don't really think you're going to be able to pull that off. And then also saying, you are radicalizing so many people right now that you have less strife for the civilian population. The faster you're able to wrap this up, that turns into someone who now wants to be the next member of Hamas, just coming out and outright saying it. And so, you know, you had Biden who kind of weakly suggested when he was in Israel, like, let's remember after 9-11, our response wasn't so great. Let's keep that in mind, but not actually doing anything to make sure that those mistakes are prevented. And clearly,

at least some people, you know, in terms of our top brass know what a risk this is and what folly it is in terms of the long-term security situation. But our government not willing to use any of our considerable leverage to try to prevent this outcome. So, you know, that's where we are. It's horrific toll for civilians on the ground, risk of a broader war, I would say escalating by the day. And then the long-term possibility of blowback and increased radicalization and terrorism, very much an ongoing, I wouldn't just say concern. I mean, at this point, I can't imagine that there will be any other outcome coming out of the horrors that have been inflicted on the civilian population. Very possible. And at the same time, you know,

what he's probably the most worried about is that we've got all of these thousands, tens of thousands now, service members in the region. And tragically, yesterday, let's go and put this up there on the screen. Five U.S. special operators were killed in a weekend crash after a training mishap. It appears the circumstances of this were a midair refueling that was gone wrong. And it was five members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers. So these are some of the most elite flyers and crew in the entire United States military, often tasked with the most hairy missions getting in and out. We're

all familiar with them over the years. And to lose five of them is absolutely devastating to the special operations community. It also raises a lot of questions about what they were training for. It appears, Crystal, they were training in nighttime night operations specifically for some sort of evacuation or hostage rescue situation whenever it comes to Lebanon and to Gaza. So this is a direct result of the forward deployed, you know, of our troops who are involved now in this. And obviously, you know, training mistakes do happen, but it's really, it's awful, you know, just to lose five service members in a situation like this. And it just highlights the fact, like when you mobilize a lot of guys and you just send them and you start training and doing all this stuff, people are going to die. People are going to, you know, there's going to be follow on 20th and 30th order effects to all of that. And I think

that that's something that we often don't think about. A statistic I learned recently, which blew my mind, is that we killed, I believe, either more or nearly the same amount of pilots training for World War II than we did actually in World War II. Wow. Yeah. Some 20,000 were killed in training. And the reason why is that we're like, we need the pilots so bad that we got to subject them to so many real world conditions that we're willing to just sacrifice, I mean, literally thousands of lives in order to make sure that you have battle-hardened, well-tested guys when they're sent out there. And then even then it was one of the most dangerous jobs in the entire US military. So anyway, history lesson for today.

That's wild. Yeah. And last thing I'll say on that is, you know, obviously the risk, I think it just underscores the volatility and the danger of having so many of our men and women in this region who then become targets for hostilities and potentially trigger that escalatory effect we've been warning about. Yes. All right. Let's go to the next part. Nord Stream, a story which has only gotten more interesting by the day. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. In a snooze that will shock absolutely nobody, a Ukrainian military officer, quote, coordinated the Nord Stream pipeline attack. Roman Chernevsky, who was a colonel in the Ukraine Special Operations Forces, was, quote, integral to the brazen sabotage operation, say people familiar with the planning. Now,

all of this is one of the most arcane, bizarre ways that we've finally learned the truth because Chervinsky is now actually being prosecuted by the Zelensky government. And he is speaking out in this, I guess, a face-saving operation to try and to save his own hide by finally telling us the truth. The details though themselves, according to both him and many of the other intel officials and others who are familiar with the plan, is that this went, Crystal, all the way up to the very top of the Ukrainian military. It was overseen directly by the head of the Ukrainian armed forces. According to them, and as always, they're like, well, Zelensky had no idea about the operation. But the reason why we should really pay attention here is that the details on this

show a highly coordinated special operations mission led by the Ukrainians to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, where when you start to pair that with the past reporting that we've done here on the show, I believe Ryan was in for you at the time, was the level of entanglement between the CIA and the Ukrainians. That story, I now believe, was probably a precursor to releasing the details on this. And it basically described how CIA operations in Ukraine, specifically with their special forces, are unprecedented in the way that we have trained them, stood them up, basically running half of their operations for them, paying all of their salaries. We've never even did anything like this like we did in Afghanistan or in Iraq, that level of support. Well, if you put that then together

with this about these Ukrainian special operations forces, it's effectively impossible that the United States did not know. Now, the cope from the media and from the people leaking this is the US intelligence community, quote, learned about it earlier and warned them not to do it. Well, that's one possibility. The other possibility is that that's all smokescreen for. We were actually the ones who directed the operation. But nonetheless, it raises several crazy things. At the time, you had a lot of speculation that this was actually Russia. Obviously, there were tons of questions. Who can just unequivocally come out with any evidence? The Biden quote was going around about, oh, Joe Biden says we're going to make sure that we get

rid of the Nord Stream pipeline. It's not going to be a problem. I forget the exact quote of what he said. But there was a plausible, I guess, scenario where this had been some sort of Russian operation. But as more and more details have come out, and as the longer the investigations have come, and basically been abandoned now by the West, and now Intel been leaked, we have to grapple with this. Ukraine, at the very least with U.S. support and possibly a U.S. direction, is responsible for one of the greatest acts of industrial sabotage ever, a bombing of a multibillion-dollar pipeline system that also was used directly at the time to try to draw the United States into war. And these people are our alleged allies. More so, they put our diplomats, or maybe our diplomats were put in this position, again, we don't know who, where they blatantly lied to the American public and to the world about who was responsible for this. Here's a flashback. Let's take a listen. The United States was not involved in any way, period.

The United States categorically refutes Russia's unfounded allegations leveled against us. The charges that have been made by Russians are just flat out wrong, plain and simple. That is the, Robert Wood, he was the alternate US ambassador to the United Nations there at the time, responding there.

How about our alleged involvement in the pipeline? President Biden also denied this from the White House podium at the highest levels of the Ukrainian government. So I don't know. I mean, to grapple with so many terrifying possibilities, A, that the Ukrainians clearly, I mean, we've always known this, we directly want to draw us into this war. But this was September 2002. I mean, September of 2022. The political conditions at that time were very different.

This was an extraordinary event that happened. And it was clearly they really wanted us to get involved. And again, the only reason we're learning the truth is because the guy planning the operation is now being persecuted by the Zelensky government. You can almost not make that up. Yeah. And it's also important to keep in mind the context of like why they would want to do this. And it's not only to draw us into that wider war, but it was also to put a lot of pressure on the European population, basically cut off the possibility that they could benefit from

this pipeline. And so, I mean, it really was. Remember all the talk that we heard so much about like attacks on civilian infrastructure and how horrific that was and how brutal it was and what a war crime, etc. Here's a Ukrainian attack on a large piece and critical piece of civilian infrastructure. And we're just now learning, you know, more than a year later what really sort of we're learning, what really happened here. And remember also the way that this all unfolded. First, they were very strongly suggesting, and the media basically ran with the assumption that, oh, it was Russia. Russia does terrible things. They did this thing. They blew up their own pipeline for reasons we don't really understand why, but they did it. It's definitely them. But we're not going to offer any evidence. And then it was like, and we don't really want to

do an investigation either. This became increasingly untenable. And so then you had these suggestions of like, well, it might have been some Ukrainian partisans, but they definitely didn't have any connection. Zelensky had no idea. It was the Ukrainian Rotary Club, remember, we were joking about out there. They were freelancing and he had no knowledge whatsoever. Now we get to, and the way that this was framed also in this article, I thought was very interesting because the headline is about this Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack. But really the headline here is that it was the top dude,

the highest ranking military officer in Ukraine, who they're saying was in charge of the operation. So it went all the way up the chain as far as it could, but they go on to, oh, but Zelensky still had no idea. Which, as you pointed out, Sagar, either way is a terrifying possibility. Yes, yes. So if you really have these people who are completely separate from Zelensky,

freelancing, carrying out one of the most dramatic, you know, one of the most dramatic episodes of industrial sabotage in world history. They're just over there freelancing and he has no control over them. That's terrifying. And the possibility that he was directly involved and behind it and that, by the way, we were as well is also quite something. So it is, I mean, this is a bombshell, astonishing report. And I don't think it, I also don't think it's an accident that comes so long after the fact when people have moved on. And obviously attention is very much distracted right now by what's going on in Israel. Yes, exactly.

And I mean, look, it's convenient for them to forget. But it's one of those where we cannot forget, especially because we're watching in real time as everybody just like forgets that Ukraine ever happened. About all these most brain dead takes that I'd ever seen at the time. Like, oh, the fate of democracy is at stake in Ukraine. Now they're like, well, maybe we'll have a peace deal. And it's like, oh, so is it real politic or is it not? Because which one? Those are totally incongruent. There's no actual, there's no overlap between those. So overwhelmingly, we're also watching the Ukrainian state a month now starved of its blank check from America, basically disintegrating. You have the top military

commander who apparently was behind Nord Stream, who's like, it's a stalemate. It's a technological problem. As things are right now, nobody's going to win. Then you have Zelensky coming out literally begging for money, being like, listen, if you can't give us a check, like, just we'll pay you back. We'll take a loan. We're good for it. Yeah, pay us back with what, you know? What exactly do you make again? Nothing.

Oh, that's right. And especially now you lose 20% of your country. How exactly is that going to work? You can't even pay your own government salaries. So it's one of those where he's in desperate straits. He refuses to abandon it. People in his team are admitting straight-up corruption. Now his own political opponents are running against him.

He's canceling elections. You have all of this consternation with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and all that that's now being scrutinized by America. I mean, it's a chaotic situation, which, let's be clear, it's actually been like that from the beginning. It's like now that you're allowed to talk about it. And in that, we are, again, grappling with the fact that our supposed closest ally and all of that committed an insane act of industrial sabotage, dare I say even international terrorism, that would have had the biggest, like they wanted to draw America into this war. They wanted to back the West up, you know, into a corner to make sure they had no possibility of relying on, you know, Russian energy and any of that in the future.

And in my opinion, really what they did is that they just showed Western leaders and the population too that if for, you know, in the clearest way, our interests are not the same. Like at all. Our interest is peace. Their interest is to draw us into this war. And let's just keep learning that lesson over and over again. The last thing I want to say about this is, I mean, we really are watching the utter destruction of even a semblance of commitment to the quote unquote international rules based order. Like this is collapsed completely in real time. And think about just do a little intellectual exercise. If it was Russia that they could prove bomb the Nord Stream pipeline, think about how different they talk about it. If it was Hamas who managed to pull off such an act of international terror

and industrial sabotage. Think about the different way that they would talk about it. And so when you have the Russia war on Ukraine unfolding at the same time as the Israel war on Gaza, and you see so clearly that these rules are not rules. They're just applied selectively, weaponized against the countries that we don't happen to like. And it's so brazen and it's so out in the open. I mean, this is the end of even being able to pretend that this country actually cares about such things. I just don't know how you even say it with a straight face going forward. And I really do think, I mean, you know, there's been lots of things you could point to.

But in the modern era, it really starts to come unglued with the Iraq War and the bullshit pretext we used to go in. And, you know, it's no accident that Putin pointed to the Iraq War and what we did there as his excuse for why it's okay for him to do what he does. Netanyahu uses the Iraq war and the toll that took on civilians as his excuse to do what he's doing in Gaza. And, Sagar, I think you're absolutely right that while there – look, I'm not going to deny there were horrors that we committed during the Iraq war. The number of civilians killed and the torture and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Like it really does pale in comparison to what is unfolding in Gaza right now. But we started this unraveling in the modern era with the Iraq war. And now we've just seen a complete dissolution of, like I said, even the ability to have a pretext of commitment to these supposed higher values. And, you know, it's an extraordinary and horrifying thing to watch in real time.

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 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. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop

thinking about. I am high-key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes, rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves.

Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. At the same time, turning our sights here, Eric Adams, one of the luckiest people in the world that everybody's attention is diverted because the details of what's happening to him right now are insane. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Eric Adams is currently being investigated by the FBI as to whether he cleared red tape for the Turkish government. So the details here are that after winning the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, Eric Adams successfully pressed city officials to allow the opening of a Manhattan high-rise

housing the Turkish consulate general. This alleges that Eric Adams, weeks before his election, pressured the New York Fire Department to sign off on the Turkish government's new high-rise consulate in Manhattan, quote, despite safety concerns with the building. After winning the primary in July, Adams contacted then the fire commissioner in late summer of 2021 and urged him to allow them to occupy the building at least on a temporary basis. Quote,

the unusual intervention by Mr. Adams is being examined as part of a broader public corruption investigation by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Manhattan that led to the seizure of the mayor's electronic devices by federal agents earlier this week. And Mr. Adams's intervention paved the way for Erdogan, quote, whose fondness for massive building projects is well-known in Turkey, to then preside over the grand opening of a $300 million, 35-story tower on his September 2021 visit to New York for the UN General Assembly. So let's again just lay it all out. Eric Adams, after he wins the primary, calls the New York Fire Department. He tries to issue a temporary building permit to the Turks so the Turks can

open up this building so that when Erdogan comes to New York, he can stand in front of said building and be like, cool, look at this awesome new building that we have in New York City. I think those are the overall details. Now, to be clear, what they are investigating is, did any money change hands? I personally just don't believe that Eric Adams is such a great friend of the Turkish people that he was doing this for free. But that's just me. What do you think, Crystal? So apparently the warrant, so there were two rates. There was a search of his 25-year-old fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, and then there was the seizing of his phones. And apparently the warrant to search the home of the fundraiser focused on this fundraising event that they had

on May 7th. On that day, 48 donors, including the owners of this KSK construction company, employees and their families, along with others in the industry, donated $43,600. And this fundraiser was organized by Turkish immigrants. I believe this KSK construction company is owned by Turkish immigrants. So this fundraising event, everybody throws in a lot of money, 48 different donors. And then when you get that money in New York, you get public matching funds. So it actually doubles the amount of money into Eric Adams' campaign. So yeah, basically the idea is that either the campaign contributions led to this treatment, special treatment for this Turkish building, enabling Erdogan to come and do the

grand opening, et cetera, et cetera. It's also worth noting, like this is actually sadly consistent with Erdogan's record in Turkey as well, where you recall they had that horrific earthquake. And part of why they had such a high death toll was because he had aggressively pushed a lot of shoddy construction that wasn't up to code and that crumbled in the earthquake. So it is a little too on the nose for him as well. But apparently, Adams—this is all just so classic New York. Apparently Adams' relationship with the Turkish immigrant community goes way back. As Brooklyn borough president, he actively wooed wealthy members of the Turkish community in South Brooklyn. So apparently they were trying to return the favor and he was trying to return the favor.

Of course, he denies that there was any funny business here, et cetera, et cetera. But this is one of those stories that if it was another time, I mean, think of the headlines, wall-to-wall covers. The mayor of New York, who was so celebrated by the media at the time when he was elected, having his phone seized by the feds and his top fundraiser having her house raided by the feds. Pretty wild what's going on here. Yeah, apparently the consular building is the most expensive foreign mission in the history of Turkey. It's curving facade inspired by the crescent on the Turkish flag with its tulip-shaped top, a nod to the country's national flower. The building includes not only consular offices, but apartments, a prayer room, an exhibition space, an auditorium, according to its architects. And the reason, again, why he had to intervene is because it was July and Erdogan was coming in September. And I think if you trace it back to his ties to the wealthy Turks in New York City that are there already, and apparently some previous trips that he's taken

there over the time, he again is not just doing this out of the goodness of his heart. It was clearly, at the very least, I think something was going on. It also calls into question, as you alluded to, the investigation to one of Eric Adams' actual fundraisers. Let's put this up there on the screen because this is a really crazy story. The top fundraiser for Mayor Adams as Breonna Suggs was actually raided by the FBI days before all of this happened, where again, there were, quote, addressing a matter and that they were seizing some materials in an investigation about the donation of this construction company. But what's really nuts is about Eric Adams' possible intervention and knowledge of this, because let's put this up there, please. The NYPD was actually sent to this woman's home hours ahead of the FBI raid in a probe of this

campaign cash for Turkey investigation for, quote, a wellness check, a move that people say is very unusual. Obviously, you don't have a wellness check unless it's somebody who is usually elderly. The NYPD then showing up, giving a wellness check, possibly a tip-off, possibly taking some stuff out of there maybe, or making it easier in order to get rid of evidence. There's a lot of different possibilities that open up as to why the city-controlled NYPD would even be doing something like that hours before the FBI rolls into the House to try and seize campaign-related documents and electronic records that are directly related then to this broader investigation, which is tied to

Eric Adams now, the freaking mayor of New York. Right. So this is wild. And they have a quote from a former federal law enforcement official in that news piece that says, a wellness check request at an address with unidentified occupants is highly unusual and that it suggests a leak about the investigation. So not only do you have the actual allegations here as reported by the New York Times about, you know, this, whatever was going on with the Turkish government and this building and these fundraisers and looking into that again, no charges have been filed yet. They're just asking questions and season phones and doing raids, you know, no biggie. Um, but then you also have the, uh, whiff of a potential attempted cover-up here

in terms of this quote-unquote wellness check. So that's kind of the state of affairs for Mr. Adams. Certainly not looking good right now, I think, for Mr. Adams. Remember when he was going to be the future of the Democratic Party? Well, I think he screwed himself on that one on several fronts. This one is only the nail in the coffin. Indeed. Okay, let's move on to the next one.

This was a story. We have all these things that are bubbling underneath the surface. It's not just Israel, Palestine. We want to give people an update. And this one, obviously, we know you guys care a lot about housing. And this is probably one of the most significant housing stories in decades. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The real estate industry right now is in a state of complete turmoil after a federal investigation, or sorry, after a lawsuit in federal court found that there was a scheme by the National Realtors Association to inflate commissions. Now, the changes that could come to the business as a result of this lawsuit and of the successful

verdict after a Kansas City jury found that these National Association of Realtors and major brokers quote, conspired to keep commissions artificially high could lead to a complete change in the way that the realtor business itself works, could lower housing prices, but also could shake up a huge section of the US economy. So what this piece really gets into is that a settlement between the National Association of Realtors and these people who sued basically to say that their prices were artificially high means opens up old case law and future lawsuits and changes to the real estate, which means that they would have to change the way that the current commissions are split.

What it comes down to is the split of commission basically agrees that the buyer and the seller agent will have some sort of fee. Usually, I think it's like 3% to 6% that they will then split upon the sale of the house. This pre-negotiated fee between these two real estate realtors, in addition to the MLS system, which is used in order to list a lot of these houses, which are then, you know, I think data mined and placed on places like Redfin and on Zillow is a huge source of revenue. That's why actually the lawsuit itself and the verdict actually plunges Zillow shares by 7% because that's where a huge portion of their

realtor advertising dollars actually come from. So this is shaking things up on multiple levels. Number one is it could make being a realtor way less profitable, especially at the higher end of the business. Two is that while it could lower prices for housing, it could change the way that all Americans, or at least most Americans, actually find real estate deals, which is in these websites. So the fee structure and the commissions and all that are likely to move to what they believe is going to be an a la carte model, where maybe you pay 1% fee for this level of service. You'll pay the pre-existing 3% fee for more of a boutique concierge service.

But this still threatens, obviously, a massive monopoly of the MLS system, the National Association of Realtors, and just the general fee cost structure that's been baked into real estate now for almost three decades from what I read. So for those who work in the industry, I apologize. I'm doing my best to try and summarize what has always been the mystery of, quoteunquote closing costs. Right. Which no one is ever quite sure what it all means. Yeah. So the government has apparently long been kind of curious about whether this constituted anti-competitive behavior. And this federal court, which levied this massive fine and found in favor of home sellers that these prices were artificially inflated

and that this was basically like cartel like behavior. That's what has sent the whole industry into turmoil because the way that it works right now is technically it's the home sellers that pay all of these fees and you really can't sell your house unless it's on MLS. Right. So it's like, OK, well, if you're going to be on MLS, you're going to agree to this particular fee structure. That's why it's the home sellers who sued because they technically are the ones who are on the hook. And then that fee gets split between both the buyer and the seller's real estate agents. But it's not like the buyers get off scot-free either because normally what happens is that cost is just added into the house of the price,

the price of the house. So you are hit, you know, with a higher mortgage cost and those costs are included ultimately for you as well, even though you're not the one who's paying it up front. And so, I mean, it makes some logical sense that basically like, look, we have this one system, you're sort of forced into this free structure, fee structure. There is no competition here. And other countries don't have this same system. So it's very easy as an American to just assume this is the way that things operate. But in other countries, they do things differently. And it could be that the buyer and the seller both pay those commissions up front.

And there is some sort of a competitive system. And you may have that a la carte model where if you're paying 1%, you're going to get a lower level of service than if you're paying 3% or if you're paying 5%, etc. But it could completely upend the way that all of this works and really is a massive story within the industry. Huge follow-on effects for places like Zillow and Redfin, which, like you said, Sagar, I never actually knew exactly how Zillow made money. I always wonder the same thing. Apparently it's because you, and this makes sense now having spent some time on Zillow, they make their money from real estate agents who are advertising on Zillow. So if the real estate agents are getting hit,

then Zillow gets hit and presumably probably Redfin and these other services. Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I do wonder though, this is a great disruption opportunity. I mean, something has got to change. So anybody out there who wants to change the real estate business, I didn't know this. $100 billion were paid by US consumers last year, just in real estate commissions. $100 billion, which actually makes the settlement that we're about to get into, which kind of sparked all of this. Look, Paltry. Let's put that up there on the screen. All of this is after the home sellers won the $1.8 billion in damages for the quote unquote real estate conspiracy. That's $1.8 billion for just a quarter of a million homes in the Midwest that said that the brokers forced them

to pay oversized commissions. And under US antitrust law, that amount actually could be tripled to more than $5.3 billion. This is just Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois. Last I checked, none of those are the most prosperous states in the nation with crazy housing markets, except maybe Illinois and Chicago. Imagine what that's going to look like for Manhattan, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, any of these booming real estate markets where these real estate people have been cleaning up on some of their commissions. I mean, these commissions that they're talking about were particularly egregious. It was 5.5% to list their homes, which I think is nuts.

But the overall fee structure itself is being revealed to at least be anti-competitive possibly in nature, especially when you consider the MLS system and the way the entire national market works. And the move to then more of an a la carte would just dramatically reduce the amount of fees. It also does make sense why, you know, you always hear – it's like almost a joke. It's like, oh, someone's got their real estate license and they're making like a quarter million dollars next year. I did always wonder, how does that work? Like, what is that? Well, this is apparently how it works. So I don't think it's going to be as lucrative then in the future. And then, of course, think about the lobbying and the interest groups that are going to be behind this. I mean, $100 billion in revenue a year is a crazy amount. So, you know, and also- Those are powerful entities here in Washington.

Oh my God, yeah. Realtors and, I mean, think about this too. It's like a very local thing. Every town has a lot of people who are realtors. Realtors are smart. They ingratiate themselves with leaders in the community. And very often, I mean, by definition, they just have to meet a ton of people and they have a lot of connections. And if you're going to threaten 30 something percent of their revenue, well, they're probably going to fight back. So, and I'm intrigued to see whether this could lead to, at the very least, a reduction in home price. That would be the best thing. From what we can tell, all of this has basically been tacked onto higher prices. I mean, you're talking six to 8%, at least in some cases. That's a lot of money when we're talking about a million-dollar house. And that's exactly why they get paid so much.

So it very much could change everything on the real estate system. For sure. 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 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. High Key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley.

We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter.

Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes

that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Last thing here. A very interesting story. One that I've personally been consumed by.

Distracting myself from Israel-Palestine, that's what I tell myself. The Department of Justice has announced the bust of a, quote, high-end brothel network. This high-end brothel network was operating in Boston and in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. Normally, we would not care about such a thing. But it turns out that this, quote, high-end brothel network included a website where prospective clients were required to enter their name, their occupation, exactly where they worked, provide proof of ID, and then became repeat customers after they were, quote, cleared by whoever was running this brothel, who have now been arrested. Well, as part of the investigation, it appears federal investigators

have gotten their hands on the client list. And who they describe, at least in terms of the types of positions that they held, are very interesting. Let's take a listen. They are doctors. They are lawyers. They're accountants. They're elected officials. They are executives at high-tech companies and pharmaceutical companies. They're military officers, government contractors, professors, scientists. Pick a profession. They're probably represented in this case. Yeah, what he failed to mention there was elected officials as well. And the elected officials, a lot of it traces back to this. It's in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, which is outside of 30 minutes or so of Washington, D.C. One of the things they also put in their press release, which is very important, we can put that please up there on

the screen, is that many of the people who have been implicated in this apparently also had some of the highest levels of security clearance in the U.S. government. And, you know, that's part of the thing is people are like, why do you care so much? I'm like, listen, it's not about what these people are choosing to do in their personal life. For me, it's like you are putting yourself in the most blackmailable position possible. We have multiple actually foreign individuals here who apparently were running this entire high-end brothel network, either of Korean or Asian origin of some kind. And then these are scientists, high-level pharmaceutical executives, technology executives, elected officials, and others that are all now embroiled in probably what? The greatest

blackmail scheme of all time. So then it comes to the question of like, what kind of judgment do you have to have extremely high-level security clearance to be a military officer, you know, possibly working at the Pentagon on who knows, God knows what, and then also be implicated in a crazy blackmail scheme that could be happening here possibly? And at the very least, we see that you don't have all the best judgment, I guess we could say. That's the thing to me. Like, how do you not go, you know, I probably shouldn't probably shouldn't be entering my driver's license into this is sometimes the wealthiest zip code in the entire country. Because you have this is where lots of lobbyists live. This is where lots of defense contractors live. This is where a lot of the wealthiest elite of the Washington, D.C. area. This is where they choose to make their homes.

And so, you know, when you're talking about this network right outside of McLean, right outside of D.C., and you have the government actively saying, you'll never believe who's on the clients list. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people's ears perked up. I'm sure there are a lot of people who are very panicked right now within this Beltway radius at the moment. Here's the thing. We got to see the list. There's just, we have to see it. If you're an elected official, like it is got to come out. And it's also, like we said on the security clearance thing, there's got to be a legitimate investigation actually into this. And if you were one of those people, like, honestly, you got to lose your clearance. You should be fired because clearly you have awful judgment

and you're viable to blackmail. So it's one of those where the actual investigation into this could just tell us about the intelligence, I think, of some of the highest level people in the U.S. government. And it's one of those where we've already learned over the years that many of these people lack horrible judgment. and then having an affair and trying to do some, what was it, some scheme where they would log into a communal Gmail account and then write drafts of emails and save them in the drafts folders to each other. And this was actually something he picked up from watching terrorists operate, which I always thought was very interesting. But it goes very deep to the, I think it goes very deep to the questions about like who are these people who are supposedly so much better and running all of this? It's like, oh, they're human beings. And the reminder of that is a potent thing that with this also we should just see what the lengths that they go to, Crystal, to try and cover this up. Because I actually think that – I mean, there's always a

joke, you know, with the Epstein client list. The FBI has it. Nobody even knows where it is. It's probably been long destroyed now at this point. But that's really, I mean, that's the most extreme situation. How many of these happen that we have no idea about? Like, it's possible even that the DOJ got over its skis on this one, because this came out of the district of Massachusetts. It didn't come out of Washington, D.C. So it's like, now what? What pressure will be put from the top if the wrong people were implicated from the government's perspective? Yet another reason why I think sex work should be decriminalized. I think it should come out from the shadows so you don't have this blackmail risk and also so that the women who are involved can be protected. Even if decriminalized, though, do you really want high-level security clearance guys who are putting themselves in that situation?

I think that is a different conversation. Different conversation for another day. But anyway, we'll continue to track the story. I'm very interested in who the client list is. Thank you very much to all the premium subscribers who have been helping us out. We've been working overtime here on Israel-Palestine. We appreciate you very much deeply, and we will see you all tomorrow. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,

I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone

Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. High Key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly.

We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.