Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/17/25: Fuentes Says MAGA Is Dead, CNN Stunned By Epstein Israel Connection, Israel Demands 20 Year US Deal, Schumer Career Over

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Fuentes says MAGA is dead, CNN stunned by Epstein Israel connection, Israel demands 20 year US deal, Schumer career over after shutdown cave.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Epstein, obviously, dovetails to much broader sort of breakdown going on within MAGA, centered around Nick Fuentes, who is an over-racist and neo-Nazi, and he is another element and factor here that is, splitting the Republicans apart at this moment. And he had some pretty interesting comments recently about how he believes that MAGA is dead

and also pointing out some of the hypocrisy of the right and of other MAGA influencers where they want to draw the line at him, but they are perfectly okay with hateful racist rhetoric when it comes to other groups, ethnicities, religions, et cetera. Let's take a listen to C2. after this year, 2025 is the year that MAGA died. This is the year that this hat is no longer controversial. The hat is not edgy. The hat is not provocative. It doesn't even mean anything. This hat is dead. This hat is dead. Now, metaphorically speaking, and this is the future. And let's look at the ledger. On the side of MAGA, you have Lindsey Graham, Ben Shapiro, Marco Rubin.

Randy Fine, Mark Levin. Apparently all of that is MAGA. Together they support war with Iran. Chinese students, H-1B visas, 300,000 deportations all year. And then on the other side, apparently what is not MAGA, what is kicked out of MAGA, wacky, crazy haters, Republican haters, Democrats, third worldists. You got Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Green, Thomas Massey, Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, Alex Jones. You got all these people on the other side in favor of America First, mass deportations, no foreign students, no foreign workers, no war with Iran, no war with Russia in Ukraine. What has become of the movement? It's been. It's been. It's inverted and it is now dead this coming Monday. And I said, fuck Islam. I said, these Muslims need to go

home. Fuck them. They're barbarians. Their third world as they like to live in open sewage and bomb crap. You think any conservative would disavow me, any of them, any Republican. You think if I was known for saying that, do you think I would have any trouble getting into CPAC or the New York Young Republican Club gala or the GOP? Of course not. Because Laura, Lumer has access to the White House and she says stuff like that. Ben Shapiro has access to Trump and he says stuff like that. I mean, he's got a point. Doesn't he soccer? Listen, and listen, I want people to be totally clear because Nick Fuentes is trying to whitewash his image right now and is being sanitized with the help of any number of podcast hosts, but Tucker Carlson being one of

them. This is a man who says he thinks Hitler is cool and denies a Holocaust and is an avowed racist, Jews, but all sorts of other ethnic groups as well. But he's completely correct there at the end when he says, you know what, if I said all the things that I say, if I said the things that Randy Fine says and Lori Lumer says about how Muslims are disgusting and they're savages and they all need to be deported and it's a horror show, it would be no problem. So you are not going to be able to draw the line. Like if all that hateful shit is fine for all these other groups, you're not going to be able to draw the line when it comes to Jewish people. And he's 100% correct about that.

You know, I also think, like, I'm curious, too, your view, though, on his assertion that effectively MAGA is dead, I think that in a sense he's correct about that. And the fact that they have completely compromised any sort of moral credibility that could possibly have in order to gatekeep a character who's an overt, like, neo-Dazi, like Nick Fuentes. I mean, these people support a genocide. They're, you know, they are implementing a, refugee policy that is whites only. They're doing mass racial profiling of Latinos, including

Latino American citizens across the country. They're sending people to Seacot. And you think you're going to have any sort of moral standing to then be like, no, here's where we draw the line. It's ridiculous. I think that on the Israel issue is where it's the cleanest headshot. And this is also why this entire conversation about trying, it's like, oh, they must disavow. It's like, guys, nobody more embodies, no enemies to the right, more than the Zionist right. You can say literally anything about dual loyalty for Muslims, about wanting Palestinian children to starve in Gaza, about wanting and having joy, which here's the thing, they say all this shit.

They're like, I get joy when I see Palestinian children, you know, being killed in God. One of the people who has been openly going after the Heritage Foundation has been increasingly making fun of Palestinian women and children who are intense in Gaza, who are being flooded by, you know, by more recent rains, which obviously is a mass spreader of disease. So you want the moral authority to tone police what is or isn't. I mean, it's like, again, you know, I can't possibly be lectured by the likes of, of, of, of, you know, I can't possibly be lectured by the likes of, Randy Fine, who said he wants to nuke Gaza. It's like, dude, you are literally openly celebratory of deaths of women and children. And the same standard that you want applied to rhetoric against Jews is ones that you directly use against Muslims, not even really just Muslims. Because it's really just anybody who you disagree with, period.

They most openly, you know, go after Muslims. So in what, and by the way, then also, you know, they talk about damage and about how hurtful and hateful rhetoric and all that is. who has the most power? Who has the most power? The people who have openly cheered on the deaths of women and of children, of funding, you know, much of what is going on there, of directing U.S. policy. So it's very obvious that, you know, if you look at actually has been the most harmed by hurtful rhetoric, it's you. Like, you're the biggest people for mass murder. And yeah, I mean, look, on the MAGA being dead point, we have counted out Trump before. And that's why I don't. I mean, look, back in, after January 6th, you could

made a good case that people were going to move on, didn't work, right? He won, and not only just won the nomination, he won the election by popular vote, right? So I'm not ready to just sit here and discount their own political talent because they've pulled many, many rabbits out of a hat before. Now, whenever it does come to the Israel issue, and specifically with the current fight that is happening right now, this is something where you cannot both sides it. And I think that perhaps is where he is most correct in terms of it is Rubio. It is Laura Lumer, Mark Levin, the pro-Israel crowd, which have most directly hitched their wagon to Donald Trump. And more directly, they're making it the direct litmus test for 2028. Now, the anti-Israel right, or I guess the

pro-America right, is also doing the same thing. Part of the reason that that Tucker Fuentes interview happened, I believe, I have no inside information, is genuinely to force, you know, a choice for a lot of people who are in the American right wing to be like, okay, well, what do we find most offensive about what's happening here? And, you know, like you said, look, I mean, God, you know, Nick, he's a very, very smart guy in terms of calibrating a lot of his language now currently to be the most appealing to mass audience in the hopes that a lot of people may forget. However, for all the people who complain about him, as I have said here before, he literally was working on the Kanye West campaign. He was dead, irrelevant, and a joke back

in 2023. October 7th resurrected his entire image because he had something to criticize, to expose, and to fight against. And that's part of the reason that he is in the prominent position of where he is right now. And that's entirely a creation, I believe, of the Zionist right, and of the way that they've handled themselves over the last two years. It's one where if they correctly see them as a threat, but they are the mere image in a lot of ways rhetorically. And into the effect, also of destroying MAGA, Israel is destroying MAGA.

Israel is destroying the Republican Party. It already destroyed the Democratic Party. It's destroying much of the Republican Party because it's about generational lines. And it's not just about the actions in Gaza. It's fundamentally a question of who do you work for and who do you care about the most. If you care about this foreign nation at the expense of ours,

which you can directly say about Islam, but you're not capable of saying it about this, well, you're a hypocrite and you're the people with all the power. You're directly, it appears, you know, this is the one issue in which you're willing to compromise all of your principles. That's what makes people go crazy.

You know, I read that quote from, you may not have seen it. There's a long piece in New York Times about Tucker Carlson. What he says there is he was like, I was truly shocked to find out that many of the Republicans, who I have been friends with and others, do not care nearly as much about free speech as they allegedly, you know, pretended to over the last 10 years. I feel that way, too. I mean, I actually do feel more galled by a Ben Shapiro or by, I mean, a myriad of other right-wing figures, the Trump administration, to not only run on a position of free speech, to, you know, be against the woke left and to say that this is bad and anti-American, and then to come into office and directly use, you know, anti-free speech measures to shut down dissent.

over an issue, you know, of a foreign country. Like, that's why the Israel issue resonates is because it's the one where people are willing to compromise everything that they've ever said before in order to act seemingly on behalf of this foreign power. And it's what gives the cleanest hit to a Nick Fuentes to anybody else. And so, in my opinion, you know, they have nobody but themselves to blame. Why should we listen to you about tone policing? We can't. I can't deal with it. I mean, as, I think it would be ideal if you had two political parties that both were able to gatekeep actual neo-Nazis. But when you have, you know, I mean, listen, on the on the democratic side, why was Israel such a problem for democratic leadership? It's because it exposed the hypocrisy

of their, of the distance between their rhetoric about human rights, right? And these like liberal international humanitarian values and claiming to care about democracy and international law and all these things. And then an active genocide. And it just, you know, the base looked at that. And it's like, this is disgusting. Like, we actually do believe in these international human rights values. Like, we actually believe people should have equal rights and we shouldn't support ethno-states and apartheid and genocide. And we cannot understand why you would be such incredible, disgusting, murderous hypocrites when it comes to this. You know, on the right to go a level deeper even than Israel, MAGA is increasingly centered around Christian nationalism.

So it's okay for you to then say, okay, well, the Muslims have to go and the Hindus are disgusting and they have to go. But no, no, no, we're going to draw the line and we're going to protect. You can't say anything hateful about Jewish people. Nick Fuentes is the logical conclusion of the philosophy that they have centered within the MAGA movement, increasingly centered within the MAGA movement. So when he says MAGA is dead, I think he's absolutely right. because he he is part of he is like the logical end state of maga and the fact that he is critical of them from the right and you have trump who is incredibly weak at this point who just took this electoral shalacking who is a lame duck who is an old man increasingly looking like an old man falling asleep in meetings falling asleep while he's standing up at white house events who's lost control of his own political party can't even get them to vote his way on the Epstein files, has to completely 180. Everyone is jockeying for what is going to come after Trump.

And so through the fact of his political weakness and the exposing of the ideological fissures, flaws, hypocrisies, and lies of this sort of core MAGA ideology, I think Fuentes is absolutely right. And, you know, you can already see, and this is part of what's happening with Marjorie Taylor Green, part of what's happening. with Thomas Massey part of what's happening with Ted Cruz you can see everyone starting to jockey and jaddy vans obviously starting to jockey for what is going to be next this administration is already a failure you know there's nothing trump could do at this point to like pull a rabbit out of the hat and

totally remake the economy the economy is going in the is headed south and probably only going to get worse none of his 50 year mortgage ideas are going to pull it out of the tailspin they're betting massively on AI technology that's going to replace, you know, millions of workers in their ideal. Like, the whole thing is completely bankrupt and is increasingly exposed as so. So, you know, I, listen, I've been wrong about Trump before. I thought he would lose to Kamala, you know, so people should take my words with a grain of salt. I've been wrong in the past. There's no doubt about it.

But I have never seen this level of weakness in the coalition, this level of genuine sort of like foundational fissures. And I've never seen someone from within the movement be able to go up against Trump and get the better of him. And now we have effectively like multiple people who are able to do that and pull it off. Yeah. I mean, look, let's talk about Mago, right, again, about what you were saying. Now, I mean, I think that's a convenient left explanation because one of the things that they dream about is that anybody who is opposed to immigration is racist, right? I mean, that's literally kind of been the talking point now. For over a decade about Trump. I personally did not believe that. And I don't think that a lot of people

believe that either who supported Trump in the 2024 election. People wanted less chaos. There are legitimate, you know, non-racial arguments to make about immigration restriction. There are a lot also to make, let's say even about Israel, anti-Semitism, about nationalism itself. We talk about the intellectual heirs of American nationalism back to the early days, let's say with the Progressive Party under Theodore Roosevelt. There was an explicit element. specifically to fight against no-nothings and the other strain of racialism and anti-Catholicism that was in the right and instead to make it about the nation centered in and of itself to include the Irishmen, the Scotsman, as long as people were able to forego, you know, their attachments to

foreign nations and to buy into a national civic project. Like, you know, you're saying that's what Mago's all the way about. I don't believe that. I actually don't believe that that's really what a lot of the people who voted for Trump and believed, you know, America first itself as an ideology itself. Now, I think Fuentes likes MAGA to be this because that's what he wants, right? And part of what Trump has always done is he's been kind of a Roershack test where you could see civic nationalism if you want. You could also see overt racialism if you want, too. Some of the actions of the administration, you know, don't necessarily make the case, you know, that I'm making here. And that's where that becomes the logical endpoint, where when you start to use free

speech, you know, to go after people who are criticizing Israel when you are overtly just really allowing, you know, ethnocentrism itself to be a primary argument for immigration instead of anything economic or to be to your own benefit. That is where it validates some of the MAGA, like, of that you're talking about, one that I've personally been trying to, you know, go fight against now for 10 years. But I'm not going to sit here and say that I have been successful. I think that that movement itself about competence, about civic nationalism, which, again, I still believe validated in 2024 election. A lot of people were actually on board with that vision, and they did win the popular vote. First time a Republican has done it since 2004,

that is an extraordinary achievement. All of this is to be said here is that if they want to go down the rabbit hole of people who vote for Mamdani or socialist Muslims, and that Mamdani itself, socialist, Muslim needs to be denaturalized, be deported, then don't be surprised when the other side of that coin is going to be exposed

when we got to start talking about dual loyalty and about foreign, you know, about being beholden to foreign ideologies or any of that. You cannot gatekeep in that. You know, the better option is to basically embrace everybody

on the terms as Americans and to debate, but that's not what they've chosen to do. And that's also, why, you know, that's why, if you accept that framing, which many current modern Republicans do, which is to make it about foreign entanglements when it comes to a Zoran Mamdani, and not instead about the campaign issue and the campaign-related stuff itself for why a lot of people voted for it, let's say on affordability, then you do go down the ethnic rabbit hole, which is to his

direct benefit. That's what he wants more than anything. I mean, you know, it's ironic because he's talking there about if I said this about most, it's like, dude, I'm pretty sure you I've said all that about Muslims, number one. But number two, you like this. It's not like he's some lover of Arabs or Muslims. And you know what? Let me also say. I'm no great, you know, fan.

I mean, I've made plenty of comments here, and I think it's totally legitimate to talk about Islamic migration or anything. I will talk that all day long, as long as, as long as what we're trying to strive for is American values and a non-racialized view of the world, okay? That's very different. But what they celebrate openly is this discussion of, you know, about what they celebrate openly is this framework explicitly around America must be a, you know, Christian white nation, which a lot of the Islamic stuff kind of basically, you know, tacitly embraces. They just have a Jewish carve out for it. And he's like, well, no, I don't want that Jewish carve out too.

So then you can't be surprised when this happens, right? So in a lot of ways, you know, you have only yourselves to blame. And this is really where Richard Hennania, you know, have to give credit, where do? His abeliofile defense notwithstanding is, which he docs as recently taken up as a cause. What he says is about the groiperization of a lot of Republican politics, is if you openly embrace denaturalized deport type rhetoric about anybody who opposes you, then it's not an accident that some Fuentes anti-literally anti-Jewish is going to be openly embraced within that framework because that is the end point. And if that's the choice, well, I think

it's pretty bad and I'm out of it. Yeah, I mean, it reminds, and I'm, I don't remember who said this. It might have been actually, it might have been Hennady. I'm not sure. But it reminds in a sense of the rise of Trump where, you know, people, Fox News or the George W. Bush and party would would flirt with rhetoric but he would come out and say it more directly and so increasingly especially in trump 2.0 with stephen miller being such a central figure who is a blood and soil white nationalist like once the ethno state is is you know quite upfront about that and that is his ideological project and it drives him day and night when you have him in charge and you have the dhs posting the way they are and the videos and the social media content that they put

out and the way that they conduct themselves and the things that they say. And yes, Laura Lumer being a close advisor and describing yourself as a proud Islamophob who is just openly racist. You have embraced a racialist view of the world. That is your view. That is the policy you're implementing. That is a lot of the communications that are coming out. But you aren't going that next step of being quite as overt or frankly quite as consistent. as Nick Fuentes is. Nick Fuentes says, yes, I am an overt racialist. Yes, I want this country to be for white Christians.

That's what we should have. And guess what? Jews are not white Christians. So they're out. So he is taking the more overt, consistent view of the ideological project that they set in motion. Now, I'm not, I think that my own view is that you're right, Socker. I don't think that some, many of the people who voted for Trump, I don't think that they want an overtly like neo-Nazi outright racist party.

I think that there are many people who voted for Trump who are going to be repelled by that. But that is sort of the, that is what they have set in motion. That is the logical endpoint of the ideology that especially in Trump 2.0, they have put in place and heavily, heavily flirted with. So that's why I think, you know, when I say I think he's right that Maggot is dead because Nick Fuentes and others, but Nick Fuentes is sort of forcing a choosing. He's forcing a divide. He's forcing a choosing. Are you going to be this overtly racialist, white nationalist, ethno state, blood and soil project? Are you going to do that and are you going to be consistent about it even when it comes to the Jews and there aren't going to be any sacred ethnicities or religions or, you know, or sacred cow? everybody's on the table or are you going to be, you know, some sort of a, some sort of a squish and believe everybody should have equal rights and that we should live together in this sort of like pluralistic democratic project that, you know, has been imperfectly practiced in the

U.S. for many years. He is forcing a choosing. And that's why I think when that plus Trump's political weakness and like being a lame dunk and all of that sort of stuff is why I think he fundamentally is correct about maga being broken apart and being dead and not meaning anything and now people are going to have to pick sides of where they are and you know picking the the ben Shapiro side of it's fine to hate everybody except the jews i don't think that that's going to be a sustainable place to continue to stand no it's not a sustainable place and that is ultimately what is fracturing all of this you can't support a literal jewish ethno state and overtly to the point where you're willing to sacrifice all of your American principles

and then say, no, we shouldn't have an ethno state here. You're like, come on, okay? I mean, it's just so ridiculous, and this is part of what is broken down a lot. I mean, look, I find it really tragic. I think it's bad, you know, and I think that I think it's really grim because what they don't understand

is that their embrace of Israel has led to this embrace now of overt racialism. they also don't understand that for a lot of people, let's say if you're younger, you're 22, you know, and you're just getting into politics. You haven't, you know, Crystal, you and I have been aware of Fuentes and like the Groyper phenomenon or whatever for eight years, right?

So we remember a lot of the past, but they don't. They actually have no idea. They don't, you know, they currently see, oh, this is very reasonable, of course. Oh, calling out Trump. Well, yeah, if that's the attack that we believe then we should fully take it, you know, in this direction. And so I fully understand how disgruntled and especially people who love degenerate activity

and are seething, coping with a variety of vices, of which everybody knows, that I hate, and you embrace hateful politics, especially also in the age of large unemployment and inability to meet a spouse. You're fully addicted to pornography, phone. you're really in a place where it does not seem society wants to help you. I can always intellectually understand, as I have read many books of previous countries where this has happened, how this can go down that direction. I don't think that that is an embrace of that. I think we can just all simply understand that radical politics are a logical consequence

of the current conditions that we live in. Part of the reason why I attack those conditions vehemently. Part of the reason when we talk about AI and many of these other phenomena, but the problem, too, for the Republicans is they're not really trying to address many of those issues I just described as well, if anything, they're probably making it worse with a lot of the rise of AI. So in a multi-kind of factorial way, I always look at who's in power, who is to blame. I think they're the ones to blame. Now, you know, people have agency. If you're going to say overtly racist shit, be openly anti-Semitic. Yeah, screw you. Okay. You know, nobody is absolving. people who hold those views. But it's also not difficult to see how that it could be a logical endpoint for how you end up in this right now. And, you know, Charlie Kirk saw that coming with a lot of the Israel stuff that they were dealing with over at TPUSA. It's a problem now for the entire, not just Republican part, that's just a problem for the nation broadly. Because, you know, like you were saying about norms and gatekeeping, if you're willing to blow gatekeeping institutions,

rhetoric and all of that, on behalf of a foreign government for Israel, then you, in my opinion, again, are the person then who opened up the so-called gates to every, you know, crazy person in America. Because you have no moral authority anymore. You have to restore some sort of moral authority and civic understanding between people so that we can all re-agree kind of on what guardrails and all that were. That's part of the reason I hate the mainstream media, right, is because I'm like, listen, I know, yeah, independent media isn't some great bastion, But I thought that some of the norms and the things that they find offensive, whatever, are horrible and are bad. But what we're living through is kind of a reformation of that.

And we're living with the logical consequence of what I think, again, a lot of these establishment people propped up. And they normalized, you know, ethno-state worship and sacrificing principles on behalf of foreign government. Well, where did you think it was going to go? And many people were warned about this, too. Zedgelani in particular has been at the forefront always about how openly embracing, you know, supporting a current Israeli government, Israeli policy, the destruction, a lot of the domestic policy, which is overtly on behalf of Israel, not only increasing anti-Semitism, undermining American values, and how ultimately the idea that we should all just be treated equally is kind of

directly undermined by a lot of the pro-Israel project. And that's, so when people take that seriously, that type of rhetoric, they will embrace the American kind of end of that. And that's scary for everyone, Jews included, but not just them. Yeah, indeed. And, um, I mean, I want to be clear. I don't think that Fuentes-style neo-Nazism is going to succeed as a political project. I don't think it's a majority coalition. But I do think it is succeeding at destroying MAGA. And I think that it, you know, so, and look, put it on full display, let people see, you know, what the views are, the hate and the ugliness that is embraced by, you know, people within a validly, like, central.

racialist world view. And, you know, I think most Americans, I have enough faith in this country that I think most Americans will be repelled and disgusted by, you know, a group of people who, you know, follows a guy who says that he thinks Hitler's great and the Holocaust was, was faked or exaggerated and that he's worried about, quote unquote, organized jury and, you know, all the horrific things that he says about every minority group. I think that will be rejected by Americans. But he certainly has caused, like I said, he's caused a choosing within the Republican party. And it's probably a good segue here to our conversation about Israel and what's going on there. I'm Robert Smith. This is Jacob Goldstein. And we used to host a show called Planet Money.

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or wherever you get your podcast. Turning now to the question of Israel in the American right and also, as I mentioned previously about not just the right, but also the mainstream media, there was an incredible, incredible exchange between Marjorie Taylor Green and Dana Bash over at CNN. Dana Bash has been pretty vehemently pro-Israel from the beginning of the October 7th attack and has consistently defended the government and made accusations around anti-Semitism on CNN. But here in particular, Marjorie Taylor Green raises drop-site newses and Ryan Grimm's reporting around Epstein and Israel connection.

and Dana Bash seems aghast, unaware. And this is one of the most exposing clips I've ever seen yet on the issue. Let's take a listen. You questioned who in what country is putting so much pressure on Trump to keep the Epstein files hidden. And you included a picture

about donations from pro-Israel lobbying group at APEC. What are you trying to say there? Well, I think it's the question that many Americans are asking, especially when we saw information recently come out in these emails that the Oversight Committee that I serve on has released. And we saw Jeffrey Epstein with ties to Ahud Barak. We saw him making business deals with them.

Also business deals that involved the Israeli government and seems to have led into their intel agencies. And I think the right question is to ask is, was Jeffrey Epstein working for Israel? And I'm proud to say I don't take money from APEC. I don't take money from any special group of people. I'm just representing my district and the American people. And so that's what I was referring to. I just want to be clear.

Are you saying Israel is pushing the president of the United States to cover up the Epstein files? And what evidence do you have that that is the case? No, I simply, no, I simply asked, no, I simply just asked out loud, is there a foreign government. It could be any foreign government, but is a foreign government pushing to keep this covered up? Because people just don't understand the big fight against... Well, you had APAC up there. It was pretty clear which government you were talking about. I'm questioning that government in particular and questioning any other foreign government. Oh, it's pretty clear which government... Yeah, what's wrong with talking about that government?

The evidence is straight up. It's right there. I mean, what's the problem with that? It's just so ridiculous, and it's just crazy. It's, you know, I really believe that the Israel-Epstein connection is one of the reasons why, not just Trump, but a lot of the conservative media was so reluctant to actually go full-on in the release of the Epstein files. I've actually always found it a little bit ironic. I've been at the story, you know, the Mossad theory and all that with Epstein.

It was a theory. Now it's basically confirmed in terms of his acting as an agent, often on behalf of Israel, not just for Israel, many other foreign governments, but there was, you know, originally like this belief, oh, it'll just be the Democrats that are going to be implicated. Well, one of the reasons why it appears he got the sweetheart deal and more, at least, again, you know, my personal theory is because of his power-broken connections all across the world, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, all of these different governments, Mongolia, the Kotowar. That's what Ryan and the full picture have revealed of the backstory behind Epstein, money laundering, pedophilia,

and all of that was the pedophilia was like a thing that he did with, you know, at times with the global elite. But the money laundering and his connections, his ability to be a power broker, perhaps at times intertwining the two, although it's not a ton of evidence, you know, to support that, at the very least was why he was protected at some level by some of the most richest and powerful people. So the very fact that CNN had Dana Bash are acting like this is new information that they'd never even heard about before. It just shows you still the information bubble that a lot of the mainstream media and all of them are swimming in. And it's just such a disgrace that Ryan is the, Ryan and

Drops are the only people who are willing to report those emails that shows like ours. Are the only people even willing to talk about it? And, you know, a lot of the public is just living in, they have no idea if they're not reading or paying attention. The New York Times will talk all day long about Epstein and Trump, which is fine. I don't care. Publish it. Sure, it's definitely a story. Epstein Israel is also a big story. Where are you guys? Nothing.

Yeah. Ryan Graham and Martaza Hussein on every single byline with regard to the connections between Epstein and various Israeli figures, spies, former prime minister, dealings with foreign governments

on behalf of Israel. Like, they are literally the only ones who are doing this reporting. And then not only are the only ones to do the reporting, then the mainstream press just pretends that this reporting doesn't even exist.

I mean, I actually believe that Dana Bash doesn't even know that it exists. And so she's conducting this interview, like these questions to Marjorie Taylor Green are some kind of a gotcha. Like, are you insinuating that there's some Israel connection here? And she's like, yes, I am because that's been reported out. So if you aren't aware of that piece, then, you know, Epstein is just effectively about morality, which is important. I think the, you know, people want to know about the sleazy behavior of politicians and global elites and the way they're all interconnected and cover for themselves.

And that has a lot to do with power. And so I don't think that that you can just dismiss that on its own. But if you're not tying that in with Israel specifically, but more broadly, any other foreign governments as Marjorie Taylor Green represents there as well, if you're not tying those pieces together, then you're not really connecting it to the present day and the risk and the danger. from this president right now and why this should be a central story and why it is really important and has immediate bearing on the conduct of our own foreign policy.

So it's just wild to see her living in this completely different universe where any sort of Israel-Ebstein connection is purely like fever swamp, conspiracy, anti-Semitic garbage. That's how she sees it. And that's, I think, how most of the mainstream

press sees it as well. either that or they're just like, you know, themselves covering up for Israel, which is certainly possible in many cases. But a lot of it is just they sort of see that as icky conspiracy that they're not going to dirty their hands with. And so she sees it as some like gotcha question to Marjorie Taylor Green rather than a legitimate line of inquiry and probably maybe the most legitimate line of inquiry and concern with regard to releasing the Epstein files today.

I think this is a problem. I also, I want to normalize, like, because a lot of Democrats are very new to Epstein, right? They never paid attention. Now that Trump is involved, they're frothing, and they're like, this is great. And I've noticed this with, like, Ezra Klein and all of them. They see the political utility, but to them it's still icky because Republicans have been talking about it, let's say, for five years. And they kind of think, like you said, it's a conspiracy dream.

Guys, the Israel thing, it's real, okay? Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. It's not just, you know, they're like, they don't, they're so new to the story that they think anybody who's talked about that. In the past, conspiracy brain, they don't know what the talk. No, no, no, no, no. We have the evidence now. Look at what Ryan and Mertaza have reported. If I had that six months ago on Targa Carlson and all that, I would have blown it out. And, you know, I was trying to be careful at the time about, well, you know,

in terms of theories and speculation, it's over. Security agreements with the presidents of Mongolia, it's done. Military technology, Aude Barak, you combine that with everything that we already had in terms of a lot of the evidence. There's not even a discussion at this point in terms of acting on behalf of Israel. We need to get this into the bloodstream of the, you know, the Midas touch folks and others. Because right now everything is just focused on Trump. The point, as you just said, is the connective tissue

from, yes, just Trump also being mentioned, but the Israel part and its potential relation to foreign policy and also of the double standard that we use in terms of counterintelligence and more on the issue and potentially why Epstein was able to get away in the sweetheart deal with his non-prosecution agreement. That's how you connect. the two sides of the coin.

And unfortunately, CNNs of the world and others still want to brand that as anti-Semitic. No, it's just a fact. It's literally just a simple fact. I also did, if I would be remiss, if I didn't show the more recent developments in conservative media. Let's put this up here on the screen.

The American Conservative published this. I love it. From Daniel Boghslaw, who's great. New Farah filings, which are the Foreign Agent Registration Act filings, show plans to promote pro-Israel messaging at the conservative Salem Media Network. So, you know, people at Salem Media include,

they say 82 radio stations across the U.S., major websites, manages high-profile websites, town hall, red state, influential platforms, and conserving discourse. Some of the programs that are featured include the Charlie Kirk Show, the Natasha Jesuit show, the Josh Hammer Show, the Right View with Lara Trump. Well, now, according to the company data, the network generates some 80 million monthly page views,

37 monthly. So, you know, it's obviously it's influential. And so these new FARA documents show that Salem Media may have already begun integrating paid for Israeli government narratives across its extensive network of platforms. This is according to this report from the American conservative. Salem did not respond, by the way, to the American Conservatives' request for comment. The Israeli government retained Salem Media's chief strategy officer, Brad Parscale, who is the former campaign manager for Donald Trump, to advocate for Israel interest through a $6 million financial arrangement. So this is all directly acknowledged in FARA, but it also, by the way, Dinesh D'Souza

very recently has been attacking Tucker Carlson. Perhaps it's legitimate, but it does genuinely raise a question when you see vast amounts of money like this being thrown around to Brad Parscale, who's working for Salem, and its potential influence on the conservative landscape and discourse. So, you know, that's part of the reason why all of this is so important. Isn't Parscale also doing some, like, trying to train, like, AI chatbots to be more pro-Israel? I did see a story behind that. I think he's involved with that as well. I did see a story behind that. I would definitely would like to explore it more.

I hadn't seen it, like, fully confirmed. But this one, I was like, ooh, they have them dead to rights. So, yeah. If you see people from there, I mean, look, it's a legitimate question. That's part of the reason our business is set up the way that it is. Primary funded. Nobody can be coming around here saying, oh, you're getting paid by. X amount interest or whatever, and if your views just happen to align with the advertisers, maybe that's just the way it is. Like, I don't think Josh Hammer is pro-Israel because he's being paid by pro-Israel. You know, you can say a lot about the guy, but I don't think that's what. I think it genuinely believes it. With Dinesh, though, I really don't know personally and with a lot of the others there. But at the very least, it just goes to show you buying influence because they

recognize or trying to buy influence with Brad Parscale and potentially with ads and all this other stuff, specifically because they think that they're losing the information war. And it's because they have a reality problem. I'm Robert Smith. This is Jacob Goldstein. And we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history.

And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey

to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad.

And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.

Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I Have Scurvy at 3 a.m? On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health. But also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic.

How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that you, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like, you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride, so tune in.

Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On this week's episode of the next chapter, I, D.D. Jakes, get to sit down with Oprah Winfrey, a media mogul philanthropist, and global trailblazer. My life, although it may look like an anomaly, it has only been possible because I was obedient to the calls. This episode dies deep into how Oprah turned pain into purpose and what it really means to evolve with everybody watching. Every decision I have ever made has come from sitting with the spirit and asking God,

what would you have me do first? Whether you're rebuilding, reimagining, or just trying to hold it together, this one We'll speak directly to you. Listen to the next chapter on the I Heart Radio at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast episodes drop weekly. Let's talk more about that reality problem because we don't want to lose sight of what is happening in Gaza right now. Put D3 up on the screen and truly horrific mass rainfall and flooding

when you have people who are largely still living. in tents with very limited supplies, very limited to no sanitation, soaking wet, freezing, any ownings and belongings that they still have, completely destroyed. You know, and this is after years of horror. So you can only imagine how broken down they are and how dispiriting it is now to also have these horrific floods that are just, I mean, it's a complete and total, complete and total nightmare as winter looms. And at the same time, let's put this up on the screen. This is pretty incredible. Israel now is seeking a new 20-year security agreement with the U.S. doubling the usual term and

adding what they describe as America First modifications to win the Trump administration's support Israeli and U.S. officials told me. Now, in the story, if you read it, the two things that they mention as America First provisions are number one, like the doubling of the length of the agreement and the fact that they want more money than they're already getting, which is insane. And number two, some sort of like, you know, military tech collaboration, which would further sort of entrench their interests and intertwine us with them, et cetera. But to me, Sagar, I mean, this is another very interesting fight on the right.

The fact that they are pushing for this 20-year understanding really indicates that they see the writing on the wall. They've already lost the Democratic base. It's gone. It's over. I think it will be a central litmus test in the 2028 primary. There's no doubt in my mind about that. But on the right, they also see these divisions and the writing on the wall with the, you know, the direction of the Republicans as well. So they're trying to lock in their position as much as they can because they don't have confidence that they'll be able to achieve anything approaching the same level of support in the future. Yeah, I think it is. I mean, the 20-year memorandum is fascinating for a variety of reasons. Now, first and foremost, the reason that they want to lock it in for 20 years is because they can see that if they don't right now, that a future administration may not do so.

But second, let's actually read a lot of the agreement because what they want is they want continued aid to Israel, but the way that they're trying to sell it is the way that the Ukrainians did. So you'll remember for the pro-Ukraine caucus, what they kept saying was, guys, we're not giving money to Ukraine. We're giving money to Ukraine so they can buy more weapons from us. So it's actually good for your economy. Now, obviously, it's basically money laundering, isn't it? It's like funneling money to a foreign government so if they can buy money from your weapons industry.

It's like, well, we could just buy our own weapons if we wanted to, and then we could decide when and where it goes and for what purpose. Seems reasonable, if you ask me. But some of the changes that they say not only would change it from 20 years and make it to the 100th anniversary of their independence, but what they want to do is use some of the money for joint U.S. Israeli research and development rather than direct military aid. And that would be defense tech, defense AI, golden dome missile, as the Israeli said. The fundamental thing, though, that we come back to is they still need the aid, is for years there's been this debate. Does Israel even need aid at this point? I mean, it's a country. with free healthcare. They have a fine economy, according to them, Mr. High Tech Silicon Valley Nation, all of that. It's like, okay, fine. So if you can afford all of that, and you can afford to literally pay a huge portion of your population to not work and to worship and to read the Torah, then why am I giving you billions and billions of dollars in order to subsidize that?

It seems kind of sick, right? Well, this 20-year agreement is still a tacit admission. They need the weapons, and they fundamentally don't have the capacity to defend themselves if they wanted to, because a huge portion of their talking point is we stand, you know, we will always stand alone if and when we need to. No, it's obvious, especially during the Iran crisis. We saw that. Look, you know, in terms of their missile defense, the Iranians were able to penetrate it. They bombed a lot of high value targets in the middle of Tel Aviv and across Israel, despite all of their great technology, which we're basically the ones running, selling. And in the April attack back in 2020, 2024, I believe it was the United States ended up

shooting down the vast majority of the missiles that were incoming to Israel. They can't actually defend themselves to the degree that they would need to if they ever got into a full-blown war. So the fact is, they need the U.S. security umbrella. And all this talk of being this strong independent nation is bunk and it's ridiculous. Part of the reason I've also always said, too, that, and this is, look, I'm a realist. Part of the reason, too, is also the benefit. fit is because it creates more moral outcomes, is what Israel have behaved in the way that it has over the last two years if it fully had to stand on its own two feet. No, they would do what normal nations have to do, is they would have to assess, you know, the variety of threat

actors or whatever in the region. They have to calibrate their response to October 7 to make sure that they could actually, you know, be sustainable to negotiate peace. The only reason they can act as belligerent as they do is because they have the backing of the full backing of the United States. That's what enables such all of, not only just the atrocity, but they're, you know, they're basically like their gangsterism in the region. That ultimately is what creates destabilization. And so their admission that they can only survive really with a 20-year agreement from the U.S. undermines their entire how sovereign they are. No, they're a colony basically of the United States. Like many other of our so-called allies across the region, too, by the way.

Yeah. No, if they didn't have our backing, they couldn't act with this level of the impugn't they'd have to maybe actually try to figure out how to get along with their neighbors rather than just constantly relentlessly bombing them and murdering people. Let's put D7 up on the screen. It's an indication of how their propaganda efforts are going here in the U.S. You've got Shai Devadai, who was the infamous Columbia professor. I'm not going to get into all the lore right now, but guys, if you aren't familiar with this character, you can go in and look him up in the way that he's conducted himself. In any case, Ms. Rachel said wanting kids to live is not anti-Semitic. I'd say that's, that's fair.

And he says, in reply, yes, but advocating only for non-Jewish kids to live is. This is such a lie. And a, I mean, it's just so incredibly dishonest to portray Ms. Rachel as only caring about non-Jewish kids, only caring about Palestinian kids. I mean, this is just not true. You can go look at the things that she said after October 7th. you can go look at what she says all the time. She loves kids, period.

She upholds the humanity of kids, period. No matter their racial or ethnic background, unlike this dude, by the way. And so it's just unbelievable to me the way that Miss Rachel has become this like central figure and just exposes the horror and the immoral nature of this, of this Jewish supremacist ideology that undergirds Zionism. Yeah, I mean, for Ms. Rachel, she's like, I am so, from the beginning, here's what did Ms. Rachel do? She was like, what happened on October 7th was so horrible and what's happening in Gaza is so horrible. And by saying that latter part, they're like, you're an anti-Semite. From that point forward, literally all she has done, and I've watched all of her videos on Gaza,

is she's like, look, I don't think that children should starve, I don't think they should be intentionally targeted. And she's been using a lot of her platform in order to try and raise money for children who have been wounded, let's say in Gaza, including videos, doing them, let's say, you know, with children who have lost limbs. What exactly is anti-Semitic or wrong about that? In fact, from the very beginning, she's made it an explicit point to make sure that she does talk also about victims on October 7th and to specifically highlight the cause of children themselves. There is nothing anti-Semitic about that whatsoever. So the fact that she gets attacked for talking about Palestinian children, if that alone is anti-Semitism, well, then, yeah. I mean,

This, to our whole Fuentes discussion, that's how you get here. If you're going to say that everything, any criticism, even elevation, in this case of Palestinian children is itself anti-Semitic and talking about their fate is explicitly undermining and not advocating for Jewish children to live, a lot of people are just going to say, screw you, I can't even listen to you anymore. And, you know, by the way, a lot of the criticism, what they forgot about Ms. Rachel is for her, this is an issue that she deeply cares about. I've listened to interviews with Ms. Rachel before. She sees her main very much in the way of Mr. Rogers. It doesn't take a genius to see that this lady's made plenty of money. Okay, so it's not like she can be attacked or bankrupted or any of that. She's probably what, the most watched show in the history of Netflix, something like that,

billions of views on YouTube. She doesn't need your endorsements or any of that in order to live now at this point. So for her, it's a cause that she just deeply cares about. All she's done is triple down on her platform to try and raise. awareness about the cause. And look, she still has, it's not only a parental, like, grassroots following. They're, you know, podcasts and all of them are, like, jumping over themselves trying to book Miss Rachel. And it's not about the Palestinian issue even then. It's about respect, I think, for her advocacy for children. And even mainstream figures look far past

that. And they think that these attacks are ridiculous. So I agree. I think it's one of the most exposing thing that's happened in the discourse. It's like, really? They're going after Miss Rachel for saying children shouldn't have their limbs blown off or starved? Is that the extent of where we are at Nataro? And yes, apparently that's the answer. Yeah. And just before anyone chimes in, like, okay, but why does she only care about Gaza and Palestinians? Why doesn't she say something about Sudan?

Not only she said something about Sudan, she literally also raised money for children in Sudan. So, you know, for all those people out there who only give shit about Sudan, by the way, when it's to say, like, why don't you care about Sudan? Guess what? She also raised money for them and cares about those children as well. I'm Robert Smith. This is Jacob Goldstein. And we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is not.

Nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.

Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I have scurvy at 3 a.m? On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic.

How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that you, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but, like, you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know.

It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all? It's your boy, Kevin Stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Month, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on?

What is their heartbreak? And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash. I don't know how you got on the show. Boo. Somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding.

But if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes. Let's be honest. We've all had those moments we'd rather forget. We bumped our head. We made a mistake. The deal fell through. We're embarrassed.

We failed. But this podcast is about that and how we made it through. So when they sat me down, And they were kind of like, we got into the small talk. And they were just like, so what do you got? What? What ideas? And I was like, oh, no.

What? Check out not my best moment with me, Kevin on stage on the Iheart radio app, Apple podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. All right. Should we get a little bit into the Democrats here before we wrap the show? We've got some interesting Gavin Newsom comments. Let's put this up on the screen. Speaking of maybe a time of choosing within parties, Newsom said this about, about Zoron he said i think mom donnie is very good for the democratic party i want a broad tent i want a big

tent i want the party of mansion to mom donnie i want to be more inclusive we have to grow the pie it's not about scarcity it's an abundance mindset and um i mean i think here's here's my view of gavin i think gavin is having a very uh a big moment with the democratic base right now i think right now you'd have to say is basically like the 2028 frontrunner and And the reason he's gotten such purchase with the Democratic base is because he has positioned himself as this like anti-Trump fighter. You know, he did the Prop 50 thing. He's on Twitter doing this whole like Trump posting type of thing.

He hasn't been afraid to pick a fight with the sitting president of the United States. But statements like this should give you pause about whether or not this guy is really going to be the guy because you are going to have within the Democratic base, there has been a level of radicalization where they find like the mansions of the world that just constantly capitulate and by the way mansion is not like a populace mansion is a corporate guy they find that disgusting and so i don't think that the gavin newsomes of the world who are trying to be all things to all people and not pick aside in whether or not you're going to continue to be a donor party or whether you're going to confront capital that position of trying to be all things to all people is

not going to be sustainable going forward. And we all know which side Gavin Newsom is actually on and which side he is ultimately going to pick. 100%. It's actually kind of fascinating to see the way that he is grappling like the mom-dani to mansion thing. I think Gavin, his calibration right now is really losing people because he did best when he was standing against Trump, right?

And he actually, let's give him, you know, political credit. He came out against a shutdown deal. He said it was caving, he said it was bad, but he is trying to retain his ability to tap a lot of the donor base and to still live in a world where you get to raise money from all of the rich people, many of whom are also pro-Israel, and then also live in the world of political success for a Zoran Mamdania for more populist-style candidates. I don't think that that circle can be squared. We talked about the whole Fuentes thing earlier. I just don't think you can live with that anymore. Unless the billionaires are literally just going to stop advocating for the stuff that they do, which you and I know they'll never do. And they'll just accept, they'll be like, oh, we hate Trump enough. They're willing to just back you up and you can say whatever you want. That is actually theoretically possible. I wouldn't entirely put that off the table, but I don't think that that's going to happen. So then, dude, you're going to have to make a choice at a certain point. And that APAC answer, that was the first time

I actually dotted him. I was like, oh my God, wow. Yeah. Like, wow. Because what I respect is his talent he's a cal he is you know calibration is bad in my opinion because you don't believe anything but if i respect talent and the ability to follow that talent but in that moment i was like man your inability to be authentic or even to give a normal answer on that was just a huge sell and this is another example of you know it's constantly calibration keep the donors happy try to keep the voters happy due to a certain point you're just going to have to choose And by the way, I mean, I'm curious for what you think. I feel like the billionaires, they'll come home.

And if Gavin's ultimately the nominee and he just says, okay, screw you right now for the primary, they would come home because a lot of them will, you know, be against Trump. And they'll ultimately have fate that he'll be better on policy than, let's say, a more populist left style of them. So it's also just bad politics, in my opinion. Yeah, no, I mean, that is a good point. If he, you know, postured like he was going to raise their taxes or do whatever other thing that they're totally terrified and disgust.

by. But the thing for him is his whole rise to power, the whole reason that he's governor of California. I mean, listen, he has political talent. You know, personally, he gives me the ick and he is like used car salesman vibes all over him, like greasy Gavin. That's my sense of him. But, you know, he is a talented figure in a lot of ways, especially he can mix it up with people he did great in that Ronda Santas debate, whatever. But, but yeah, I mean, if he postured like he was going to be different in order to win the Democratic prime Mary, I think you're right, that they would still rather have him than a more, you know, someone who had a more consistent track record of confronting capital. There's no doubt about it. But his whole rise to power has been, I'm in a corner the market on the Silicon Valley donors. I'm in a corner the market on the, you know, the Hollywood donors. I'm in a corner the market. I'm sure he has plenty of, you know, New York City, Wall Street type donors as well. That's really, truly his base. And so I don't think that he is. is really fundamentally capable of going against them.

And you saw that. That's why that A-PAC moment was very important because it wasn't something you can spin. There's just there's either a yes or a no, right? And increasingly a democratic base is, you know, they see through these attempts to, well, let me change the subject, well, let me dodge, will let me deflect.

There are some yes or no questions where you have to choose a side. And when it comes down to it, Gavin Newsom is going to choose the side of capital because that is what he has always been throughout his career, even as I think the base really appreciates the fight that he's sort of demonstrating against Trump right now. So another pretty wild moment in New Hampshire. So Democratic Senator Gene Shaheen was heckled actually by the guy who is in a primary against her daughter for an open house seat. And Gene Shaheen, of course, was the lead Democrat

in terms of negotiating the shutdown cave. This was at, like, a Democratic Party function. So it's a lot of, like, you know, of her fans and just sort of like Democratic Party, the type of people that actually go to the committee meetings and serve on the boards and those sorts of folks who are in the room. But let's take a listen to that. So let me be clear. Nobody wants to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits more than me or more than Senator Hasson.

And why didn't you vote for it? You look at our record and you tell me what you've done to protect the health care of Americans. And it's not even close to what we've done. So, So Sager, she's like very nasty and aggressive against this guy. And it's going to be interesting to see. So as I mentioned, her daughter is running for Congress. And her daughter actually came out against. the shutdown deal. So she's on the opposite side of her mom. But at this point in the state with

the Democratic base, even though in that room, Jean Shahin gets some support, the overall sense is like discussed over the shutdown cave. And so I wonder if the daughter like, you know, catches some, some damage here just from being in the same family. And then let's put this up on the screen of this, the guy who is doing the heckling, who is in this primary with Gene Chaheen's daughter. And he talks about his own medical issues and how fundamental that has been to his own politics in explaining why he decided to stand up and have this moment. So he says, Senator Shaheen, I suffered a severe spinal injury at age 15. My spinal cord had to be re-bundled. I had eight rods and four screws put in my back. Four years later, one of the rods in my back

snapped and I had to have another major surgery. I developed a rechnoiditis I'm going to go with, a chronic pain condition that I live with for the rest of my life due to surgery complications. The first photo shows my spine. The second represents yours, and it's a box of wet noodles. I will never back down when it comes to health care. So, you know, the shutdown has injected another sort of litmus test issue within the Democratic primary and within Democratic primaries. And what I've seen, Sager, too, is it's not enough to have opposed the shutdown cave.

basically everyone who's running for office as they oppose it, including Gene Sheehan's own daughter. But the next level is saying that Chuck Schumer needs to go. And that's the one that a lot of candidates, including Peggy Flanagan in the Minnesota primary that we interviewed, including I interviewed Antonio Delgado, who's a lieutenant governor in New York challenging Kathy Hokel. AOC can't come out and outright say it. That seems to be the one that is more difficult for some of these candidates to fully articulate and get on board with. Totally. And, you know, this also gets the Chuck Schumer element that you set up. Let's go to that next one and put it on the screen, E4, just about how the shutdown has left people questioning his future more than ever.

Like you have a record number of Democrats who are speaking out specifically against Schumer's leadership. In the House, you had Rokana saying that he needs to resign. You had multiple others in the Senate grumbling about his handling of it. You have a historically unpopular Democratic leader here for his handling of the shutdown. He has to run. again, if he wants to, in 28. He has to run again for re-election if he wants to.

The Democrats then would have to back him. You have candidates explicitly like Platner and others saying, I won't vote for the guy. So this demonstrates where so much of the grassroots energy is on the Democratic Party and this, tying it back to Gavin. The fact that Gavin hasn't called for Schumer's

head and still kind of maintains friendly relationship with Democratic leaders, that's just such a liability. in this anti-institutional moment. Like, you have to just be willing to come out and be like, no, he's done. He betrayed us. He's got to go.

Like, there's just only political upside to that. But because of political connections, he can't do it. With Gavin, I, you know, I don't expect anything different. With some of these candidates who are positioning themselves as the progressive insurgent in the race, I'm like, I don't get it. I agree. What is the hang up here? Like, he doesn't like you.

He's supporting your opponent. Why can't you just say, yes, we need new leadership. This guy has got to go. But that article is interesting because it says effectively, like, everyone knows this is Schumer's last term except for him. Like, he may be the last guy to not realize that his political career is over because, I mean, AOC is the most obvious potential primary challenger. I think she'd wipe the floor with him. But they mentioned any number of other Pat Ryan is one other potential possibility, Letitia James. There are a lot of other New York politicians who, I think, would handily defeat him at this point in a primary.

So, you know, I think he'll probably remain on as leader because I don't see any of the Senate Democratic caucus that are standing up to say, okay, we've got to do something different. It's perplexing to me because you'd be such a hero. Like if you're Chris Van Hollen or whoever who's sniffing around a presidential run, you'd be such a hero to take that position. But I don't see any of them doing it. So I think he'll remain as leader. But, you know, come 2028, I think he's going to be out. But, you know, yeah, on the Gavin point, you're absolutely correct. It's one more issue where if he gets asked a direct question, people are not going to like,

they're not going to like his answer. They don't want this weasley crop. They want these old failed leaders gone. They want a completely new direction. And it's really going to advantage those who are outsiders to the system. Like, you know, this guy who challenged Senator Shaheen, who has, you know, he doesn't give a shit which Chuck Schumer thinks of him or the grand platiners of the world or whatever. They're like, yeah, fuck that guy.

It's easy for me to be able to say it. So it's another thing that's really going to advantage outsiders in these upcoming Democratic primaries. Yeah, 100%. And just look to back up on the polling, we can end it here, E5 up on the screen. Just look at this. Most Democrats think congressional Republicans compromise too much, 55%, only 32% say right amount. Only 13% say not enough. So, I mean, look, it's overwhelming in terms of the majority. And then put the next one up there on the screen. Schumer apparently called the Democratic hopefuls, Andy Bashir, Josh Shapiro, and J. B. Prisker, and told them not not to criticize a deal that reopened the government.

First of all, that's a sell on all three of them if all three of them actually didn't do that. I mean, I'd have to go back and check their potential statements. But, yeah, for all this talk about how secretly he was fighting against the deal, it's like, well, then why are you doing that, man? Why are you calling all these hopefuls and telling him not to vote, or tell him not to criticize the deal? Exactly, exactly. And once again, like in the Epstein block, got to give Roecona his due. Yeah, you do. Because he was the first down to the gates to say, that's it.

Schumer's got to go. And then you had a number of other Democratic reps who followed behind him. But he seems to have, you know, much more of his finger on the pulse of where the Democratic base is than many other would be 2028 aspirants. And I include AOC in that as well because she was very, when she got asked about Schumer, she did this whole, well, they all kind of sucks or whatever, like sounding like Bernie's line on this thing as well. And, you know, he's, he's been the one who figured out Epstein was the place to push Trump and MAGA, and then has been much more in touch with the Democratic base in terms of their disgust with leadership. Yep, exactly right.

Okay, guys, thank you so much for watching. We appreciate it. We'll have a great show for everybody tomorrow. We'll see you then. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. I'm Dr. Priyankawali, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dabolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. And on our show, we're talking about health in a different way, like our episode where we look

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