Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/21/23: Hezbollah Strikes Israel, Biden Admin Erupts Over 'Genocide Joe', Israel Jails Journalists, Cardi B Unloads On Biden Wars, Argentina Elects Wild New President, Cenk Uygur On Biden Brain Glitch, And Thanksgiving Politics

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Krystal and Emily discuss Hezbollah striking an Israeli military base, Biden spokesman erupts over 'genocide Joe' nickname, conservatives cheer jailing journalists in Israel, Cardi B unloads on Biden's wars and budget cuts, Argentina elects wild new President, Cenk Uygur joins the show to react to Biden brain glitch, and the BP audience submits their takes on Thanksgiving politics.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ BP Holiday Merch LIVE NOW (Use code BLACKFRIDAY for 15% off Non-Holiday Items): https://shop.breakingpoints.com/collections/breaking-points-holiday-collectionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories

shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Breaking Points. Crystal, how are you doing today? So far, so good. Still early. It is the last Breaking Points show before the holiday, but wait, there's more. Yes, we do have a lot of good content for you guys posting over the Thanksgiving holiday, and premium subscribers are going to get early access to all of that. So Sagar and I were both busy yesterday.

I recorded a long interview with Norm Finkelstein, asking him a bunch of you guys' questions that you sent in, and some questions of my own, by the way. And Sagar was busy recording a long interview with Jocko, also about Israel and Gaza. So we will post all of those early for you guys. If you are premium subscribers, if you want to get early access to that content, make sure you sign up. Breakingpoints.com. We're going to post a couple of little teaser clips too early in the week so you guys can get a sense of what those interviews are all about. A lot to get to in the show this morning. We have updates on Israel's war on Gaza, including escalating risks of a potential wider war and the Biden White House being pressed, both on whether Israel is committing war crimes and also whether they are perpetrating a genocide.

So we'll write that down for you. We also have some new troubling developments with regards to journalists, both here and in Israel and Gaza. We have quite a rant from the one and only Cardi B, Cardi for president, in my opinion. She went off on Eric Adams, mayor of New York. She went off on his budget cuts. She went off on Biden. She went off on the two wars that we're attempting to fund and fight right now. So we've got some of those highlights, and we will get into everything you need to know

about Cardi B's thoughts on the world. We also have a really wild new president of Argentina. We're going to bring in Ryan Grimm to help us understand how he came to power, what his appeal was, and what it all means. We've got Cenk Uygur, presidential candidate in the Democratic primary, of course, back on the show to talk about how his campaign is going. And we've got a little nice, lighthearted Thanksgiving segment, some new polling showing that most people super not into talking to their friends, family, relatives, etc. at the Thanksgiving dinner table about politics. That has probably never been more true than right now when tensions and feelings about what is going

on in Israel and Gaza are so high. And we asked you guys to give us some thoughts from your Thanksgiving dinner table of whether you will be broaching political subjects or not. Let's go ahead, though, and start with some of the updates coming out of Israel. And we had a number of very disturbing developments in terms of the risks of this sparking a wider regional war. So first, let's put this up on the screen. Hezbollah just struck and apparently destroyed, this is per, you know, this video and other up on the screen. Hezbollah just struck and apparently destroyed. This is per, you know, this video and other reports on the ground. Much of this is an Israeli military site called Birnet.

It's near the Lebanese border, but it is in Israel. So this is a major cross-border attack from Hezbollah on an Israeli military location. This, of course, creates giant risks because Israel will no doubt respond. What does that response look like? Part of the escalation is not only in terms of the size and scope of the attack, but in terms of the actual weaponry that was used here. And you guys know this is not my specialty, but what they said is that Hezbollah forces carried out the attack using Burkhan short-range rockets, which can have an explosive payload of up to 500 kilograms. This comes as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had previously announced this month that Hezbollah forces had started to deploy those weapon systems for the first time. So this is, Emily, the first time that we have seen that particular weapon being used in this conflict. Yeah, and again, to your point, you never know what the sort of spark that lights something even wider is.

And we actually are learning that on a day-to-day basis, which I think is partially what's so frightening about this news. You know, you just don't know what comes next. And we have troops, what are we up to, like dozens of attacks on American bases. So we have about 10 bases that have been hit so far, about 61 times. And that's led to about 61 injuries. Some of them have been serious. Some of them have been reportedly traumatic brain injuries. And that's how fragile the ecosystem is, not actually just in the Middle East, but around the entire world right now, Crystal. It's really touch and go every single day. Yeah. So you all will recall Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, gave a much anticipated speech that had a lot of people on edge about

what they would be announcing. I believe this was like two weeks ago at this point. And it ended up being a lot of typical saber rattling, but no commitment to escalation. But as you see, the Israeli ground offensive and bombing campaign continue in Gaza. Obviously, that continues the risk of escalation on Hezbollah's part and on the Israeli part. At the same time, that is not the only group that we have to be concerned about. Put this up on the screen. Okay, so what you're watching here is Yemen's Houthis taking over a ship that has some ties to Israel. So a ship hijacking in the Red Sea.

They all apparently had cameras with them to record this takeover. They had previously warned that they would intercept any sort of ships that came through this area close to Yemen that had any sort of Israeli ties. None of these individuals who are on board, by the way, are Israeli. Not that any of that would make any of this OK anyway. But you can see once again the risk of escalation. And let's put this next piece up on the screen of how this is already impacting, you know, travel in terms of our shipping lanes. Two ships divert course away from the Red Sea area after that vessel was seized by Houthis. Two commercial ships had to divert their course

in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They were connected to the same maritime group whose vessel was seized by Yemen's Houthis, according to shipping data. Israel on Sunday said the Houthis had seized a British-owned, Japanese-operated cargo ship in the southern Red Sea, describing the incident as an Iranian act of terrorism, the Houthis having ties to Iran, with consequences for international maritime security. And so even the connection to Israel is a little far. It's not that closely connected to Israel. But apparently there was a beneficial owner of this ship that at one point was an Israeli billionaire, so I guess that's the connection.

Right, so the British company that owns the ship is partially owned by an Israeli businessman and is being right now leased out by the Japanese. So again, that's a completely different connection than I think a lot of people immediately suspected because Israel, when the news broke, I don't think it was even clear how many, what's the right term when you are the distance from, Crystal's not helping me. She's standing there. Degrees of separation. There you go.

Degrees of... I was trying to think of the Kevin Bacon, right? Like you're six degrees... It wasn't clear what it was. Yes. And that was really scary. Well, and part of what makes it scary is, you know, if this had been Israeli nationals on board the ship, and now you have an additional... Because we still don't know where the ship is. We don't know where these people are being held. I mean, the people who were on the ship are being held captive now effectively. So imagine we had Israeli nationals

or American nationals who were now being held captive by the Houthis and the potential escalatory spark that that could provide. So all of these things are extraordinarily dangerous, and they will continue to be extraordinarily dangerous so long as Israel's war on Gaza continues. You also have within the Defense Department here in the U.S., put this up on the screen from the Washington Post, a real split emerging as they say Biden struggles to deter attacks on U.S. troops. This is what Emily was just referring to. A surge in attacks on deployed U.S. forces has roiled some within the Defense Department, where officials, frustrated by what they consider an incoherent strategy for countering the Iranian proxies believed responsible, acknowledge the limited retaliatory airstrikes approved by Biden have failed to stop the violence. There is no clear definition of what we are trying to deter,

said one defense official. Are we trying to deter future Iranian attacks like this? Well, that's clearly not working. And what they point to is the fact that since October 17th, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria faced near daily assaults from rocket fire and one-way drones, recording at least 61 incidents and about as many injuries in that span. This is per Pentagon data that was obtained by the Washington Post. This is not something, by the way, that the U.S. government is really advertising. It took them being able to obtain this data to report out what the actual figures are. It shows the attacks have targeted 10 bases used by American personnel who are spread across

both countries. The Pentagon said the Houthis destroyed a $30 million U.S. Reaper drone over the Red Sea. In recent days, U.S. warships have, in the past few weeks, intercepted weapons fired from Yemen in the direction of Israel as the attack count has continued to climb. So too has the concern that it is only a matter of time before one claims a U.S. service member's life. And again, as long as this conflict is ongoing, as long as there is no

ceasefire or even any humanitarian pause, you have risks of escalation all around from the Houthis, from Hezbollah, from the West Bank. You have U.S. troops being targeted in Iraq and Syria by these groups. And again, the possibility that a U.S. service member loses their life in one of these attacks continues to be extremely high. And then what does that mean in terms of an American response? So this is something we all have to keep our eyes on. Because remember, Emily, there was that reporting that came out that even the U.S. administration is fearful that actually Israel wants that wider

war. It's kind of an analogous situation to Ukraine, where Zelensky very much wants that wider war to fully draw the U.S. in on their side. There's a similar situation unfolding here, or at least concerns that there's a similar situation unfolding here. And comments by Netanyahu recently have done nothing to allay those fears. Let's take a listen to what he said in a recent interview. We're destroying their infrastructure, their command posts, their rockets, their underground tunnels, and we're going to win because we have to win. This is a battle of the forces of civilization against the forces of barbarism. And if barbarism wins in our part of the world, Europe will be next and America will be next. Because the axis of terror, of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and their other minions

will imperil the Middle East and then spread their barbarism to the entire world. Israel is fighting our war, but it's also fighting America's war. It's fighting your war. So actively making the case that this is America's war. Sound familiar? Yes, indeed. And trying to stoke fears here that Hamas, an organization that has never had an interest in global jihad the way that, say, Al-Qaeda or ISIS did, that that would be a genuine risk to us here. I mean, I will tell you that I think the longer that this conflict continues and the more Made in America-stamped bombs are dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza, yeah, that probably does put us increasingly at risk the longer this continues. Well, and the benefactors of Hamas and

the Houthis and Hezbollah absolutely do have more global ambitions. They see the world in a different—it's not so much just about Gaza for Iran. It's about—Netanyahu might have better luck actually making a point about that. It's not just about Hamas, but people who have funded Hamas, that support Hamas. And that's where, when we see how our troops are fanned out across the Middle East, and you have operations by Hezbollah, you have operations by the Houthis, that's where I think you really see the risk. And Netanyahu, I think, saying we're fighting your war is not going to go over well with the American people. I don't think that makes anybody feel better about this conflict whatsoever. Well, one thing that polling shows really clearly is that no matter whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, there are widespread concerns about the U.S. getting drawn directly into this conflict. And I think what you

can see from these events and these potential sparks and these potential steps up the escalatory ladder is that those fears are far from unfounded. The longer that this continues, the more of a risk of a wider regional war. And when you have someone like Netanyahu, who is the head of the Israeli government, who, again, even the Biden administration fears, they actually want that wider war. Even if the U.S. government wants nothing to do with it, that doesn't mean that things don't spiral out of control and we all end up somewhere that we do not want to be. And I think that's why the your war language is especially grating here in the U.S. because that means we have lost control. That, you know, if this is our war and it's being waged by Netanyahu in this way where he's saying, you know, you're not fighting your own war.

I mean, that's the implication of what he know, you're not fighting your own war. I mean, that's the implication of what he said. You're not fighting your own war. We're fighting a war on your behalf here in the Middle East. Yes. You lose control. You lose control over some major decisions. And I know, you know, we do have, obviously, we know that we have a lot of control over how Israel is conducting, prosecuting this war. At the same time, not total control. And I think Netanyahu saying this is not entirely a war being fought by you, even though it is your war, that doesn't go over well. His language is also, again, very reminiscent of Zelensky, who says, you know, I'm fighting on behalf of civilized nations, on behalf of democracy. This

is the case that he has been laying out too for why we should send him everything that he wants and we should back him no matter what. And also part of why he has wanted to draw us in more directly to his defense. And, you know, it's a very similar, it's a very similar case. It's, hey, listen, if we don't stop Russia here in Ukraine, the next they're going to move to Europe and who knows where the eastern, you know, beyond Ukraine, further into Europe and who knows where it's all going to end. That's basically the same case that Netanyahu is making here. And we should be very disturbed and we should listen very carefully to the implications of what that all means. You know, and actually it also reminds me a lot of David Frum and George W. Bush in 2002.

This conversation about, obviously, Axis and allies is not just about Iraq and it's not just about now, but this idea that in order to prevent future wars that are even wider, you have to fight a wide war now. And it is absolutely true that these groups are connected. There's no question about that, that they also share some similar ambitions, that they share similar enemies for similar reasons. I think what we've learned over and over and over again, over recent decades, let alone the last decade, let alone the last two decades, is that's not a wise course of action. This idea that you can just have a, quote, global war on terrorism.

I mean, have we learned nothing? Clearly we have not. I think that much has become incredibly clear given our lack of ability to, or lack of desire really to rein in Israel and the fact that Israel is repeating and amplifying every single mistake that we made in the wake of 9-11.

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 mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team

that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

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

What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Yo, we just brought up Ukraine. And one of the things that the U.S. claimed that we were standing up for in Ukraine was the, quote, unquote, international rules-based order. Right? This was the case that we made to the American people of why we should be all in with Ukraine because we have to make sure that the international rules based order stands, that we consistently apply these principles. Well, now when it comes to Israel, you have we have U.S. officials being pressed on whether effectively we are enabling Israeli war crimes and whether potentially we are also enabling Israeli genocide of Gaza. Take a listen to these responses.

Are you confident Israel is following international law, John? Just yes or no there. We are confident that it is our position that it needs to when we have seen issues that are raised based on incidents on the ground. We raised them privately and directly with the government. John, let me just you're saying you're saying that Israel played judge and jury on this ground. We raised them privately and directly with the government of Israel. John, let me just, you're saying that Israel played judge and jury on this question. Yeah, let me just follow up quickly. You said Israel needs to follow international law. Are you confident they are following international law? What I can say is it is not our position, certainly my position as a policymaker to play real time judge and jury on the question of any particular incident.

When we see things that concern us, we raise them. We have done that during the course of this conflict. We will continue to do that. And again, just to restate it, it is our position that all countries, including Israel, including the United States, need to adhere to laws of armed conflict. Hamas, by the way, does not only not hold itself to that standard, it openly boasts about its willingness and its reality of violating those standards. So that is the challenge. But this war genocide is getting thrown around in a pretty inappropriate way by lots of different folks. What Hamas wants, make no mistake about it, is genocide. Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza. Yes, the numbers are too high.

Yes, too many families are grieving. And yes, we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. That's not going to stop. From the president, right on down. But Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So when we're going to start, if we're going to start using that word, fine, let's use it appropriately.

Well, the Biden administration previously had no problem using that word. They used it without hesitation to apply it to Russia. So that's number one. And when it comes to war crimes as well, you now have every single Biden administration official, when they get asked this question, or a Democratic member of Congress, this is their response. Well, I'm not judge and jury, so I can't say. But once again, when it was Russia, they didn't need to be judge and jury. They were very, very, very willing to call it what it was, call it war crimes.

Here's Joe Biden himself being asked whether Putin is committing war crimes, whether he's a war criminal. Take a listen. Mr. President, after everything we've seen, are you ready to call Putin a war criminal? No. Did you ask me whether I would call him a war criminal? Oh, I think he is a war criminal. And Emily, with regard to genocide, what he said was, I called it genocide, speaking of Russia's actions in Ukraine, because it's become clearer and clearer that Putin is trying to wipe out even the idea of being Ukrainian. The evidence is mounting. It's different than it was last week. I believe this was in the wake of the atrocities in Bucha. The more evidence that is coming out, literally the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine, and we're going to only learn more and more about the

devastation. So listen, I know these discussions of what language you use here and whether it's technically genocide or whether it's technically ethnic cleansing can get very tedious. But actually, John Kirby has a point when he says, if we're going to start using these words, we need to start using them appropriately. And I would say we need to use them consistently. Now, I don't care if you're a normal person and you feel uncomfortable using the term genocide. It's fine. That is fine. If you think, you know, genocide equals Holocaust and I don't see what's happening here in Gaza as equivalent to that, no problem with that. But if you're the president of the United States, you need to apply this term consistently if you actually care about any sort of humanitarianism, if you actually care about the, quote unquote, international rules based order. And what we have seen from the Israelis is not only the spoken genocidal intent. And we have some of those comments that honestly are not even the worst ones that have come out of this government.

And also the clear actions. And Emily, I looked up, you know, the definition of genocide per the Geneva Conventions. following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national ethnic or racial or religious group, killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, forcefully transferring children of the group to another group. And so you have to have two pieces. You have to have the intent, which again, we have numerous statements coming from the Israeli government all the way up to Netanyahu himself that certainly constitute genocidal, spoken

genocidal intent. And you have not only killing members of the group, not only causing serious bodily or mentally harm to members of the group. But this piece about deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, all 2 million plus people in Gaza right now are under a complete siege. You're denying them food, fuel, water, complete communications, blackout. I mean, if that's not denying them conditions of life, I don't know what is. So again, if you're calling it genocide when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, where frankly at this point the barbarism of Russia is nothing

compared to the civilian death toll and the conditions imposed on all of the people in Gaza, be consistent. Use the word whether it is friend or foe because John Kirby is right. We need to use these words appropriately. They need to be consistently applied, whether it's Russia, whether it's Hamas, or whether it's Israel. Yeah, there's no consistency. And the international rules-based order is a rhetorical weapon, basically, that's used by the person who has the most power in the upper hand. That's true. Even when groups don't have the most power, the upper hand can be powerfully sort of invoked at places like the UN. So I think your point about Russia is very well taken. There's a complete lack of

consistency that undermines our case about civilization versus barbarism. I'm not saying that case isn't broadly accurate, but that is not helpful if you're trying to make that case. And in fact, actually, Crystal, we have some clips that, you know, show further undermining of that case of comments that have been made by people in the Israeli government. Yes. So Yair Lapid, who is supposedly like the, you know, moderate or liberal opposition figure in Israel, just made the case that actually majority of all the people who have been killed in Gaza were terrorists. Let's take a listen to that, and then I'll tell you on the other side why this is such an issue. You have to remember, Jonathan, many of the people who were killed were terrorists.

The majority of people who were killed were Hamas terrorists. People are saying this number, 12,000 people were killed. Yes, the Hamas is an army of 40,000 people, 12,000 people were killed. Yes, this is, the Hamas is an army of 40,000 people and many of them were killed. So this is like the moderate liberal version of the case that has been made from many other Israeli officials that basically everyone in Gaza is Hamas, everybody in Gaza is fair game, but there are no innocent civilians. And I'll tell you why I say that. Take a look at this next piece. Put this up on the screen. So according to the UN, roughly 70 percent, 67 percent of all of the people killed are women, children and babies. 70 percent. So when he's saying a majority of the people who have been killed in Gaza are terrorists, Are the babies and children and women, are they terrorists? Are they Hamas?

And so again, this fits very closely with the comments that we saw from Isaac Herzog and from many other Israeli officials and from our own member of Congress, Brian Mast here, that effectively there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. Therefore, we don't really need to worry about civilian life here. And anyone is fair game, which fits in with the previous comments from John Kirby about whether or not this is a genocide. And problems with the numbers, which certainly exist as they would in any conflict, don't necessarily, by the way, mean that you can deny 70% civilian casualties, 70% women and children casualties. So you can't jump from one point being true, which is likely that there are some problems with the numbers. Although in some analyses, it's that the numbers are too low. There's some analyses that will say, well,

and you hear this a lot from Israel. We've heard this from people in the Biden administration, that the numbers are actually inflated. But then you have other people saying the numbers, if anything, are too low. So we know that there's quibbling over the numbers, and we know there's no way that these numbers would be precise. To take point A and then jump to point B, which is that imprecise numbers mean most of the people who are being killed are, of course, Hamas. This is what we talked about yesterday when we talked about Osama bin Laden's letter to America, the point Sager made about how he justifies killing civilians from that perspective, which is that you're able to say, you know, they use the line that everyone voted for Hamas, which is not true. Although there is, you know,

there is support for Hamas in Gaza. There's not denying that either, but also then that because people just exist in Gaza in a way that's supportive of Hamas. Although if you also believe Hamas is evil and dictatorial, then it's true that they intimidate their citizens out of uprising. So there's just a lot of inconsistency. That was a great word, I think, that you used a couple of minutes ago. There's a lot of inconsistency in these arguments. And sadly, the people who are being caught up in the mix are civilians. Yes, that's right. And also in an attempt to justify not only the killing of civilians, but of aid workers. We also have this clip of an Israeli government spokesperson who says now actually the World Health Organization is also Hamas. So we already

had them making the case at the UN that the UN, that UN aid workers are Hamas. You know, the hospital is Hamas, all of the schools, all of the apartment buildings, this is all Hamas. You know, according to Yair Lapid, majority of those killed, the women, children, babies, this is also Hamas. Now we have them arguing, this is an official Israeli Israeli government spokesperson that actually the World Health Organization is Hamas too. Let's take a listen. It is tragic and outrageous that the World Health Organization resisted Israel's calls for an evacuation before the start of the ground operation and is now calling on Israel to facilitate that evacuation under fire in an active war zone. We hold it complicit with Hamas's human shield strategy. We hold it complicit with any loss of life from its gross negligence. And we know that despite

completing a risk assessment about the Shifa hospital, that assessment still covers up for Hamas's abuse of the hospital, still says nothing about the hostages, and the World Health Organization is yet to condemn, astonishingly, Hamas's illegal exploitation of hospitals as human shields, jeopardizing their protected status. And finally, in what is maybe the most extraordinary recent comments, and, you know, rather than going back and playing all of them for you, we've covered many of these comments before coming out from, you know, the Likud party, from security cabinet members, et cetera. Put this up on the screen. You've got Israel's finance minister saying they completely agree with this column from the retired Major General Giora Island, former head of the National Security Council, who is an influential figure.

All right, well, what was in this op-ed that the finance minister agrees 100% with? In part, Giora Island writes, the way to win the war faster and at a lower cost for us requires a system collapse on the other side and not the mere killing of more Hamas fighters. The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may

be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers. And no, this is not about cruelty for cruelty's sake, since we don't support the suffering of the other side as an end, but as a means. So we support the suffering of the other side as a means, actively calling for severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip, which is where, of course, they told all the civilians to flee to from the northern Gaza Strip and pushing back on the idea that we should care at all about the well-being of the ordinary civilians within Gaza. And again, this is Israel's finance minister who says they completely agree with this view of the conflict. So, you know, it's really extraordinary to me, Emily, just the distance between the way

that our leaders present this conflict and present the Israeli position, the Israeli approach, the Israeli plans for after they end the war and after there is a ceasefire at some point, what happens next. And what the actual Israeli government is out saying very clearly in op-eds, in public statements on Israeli television day after day. Well, and this is like several weeks ago when there was a lot of talk of Dresden, right? There were all of the sort of representatives and talking heads that were going to the media. We're saying, you know, listen, we remember what happened at Dresden. We remember what war looks like. And it's very, I think, different from how a lot of people perceive. In fact, actually, we just heard John Kirby talking about how Israel doesn't have genocidal ambitions towards Hamas that match Hamas' genocidal ambitions towards Israel.

And I think it's actually really important. dangerous flirtation from, you know, when you're digging into stuff like this and you're looking at the rhetoric of people who are actually in positions of power in Israel. Not all perfect, not all perfect. And you wouldn't know that from a lot of Western media coverage. And yeah, I mean, I think that's really, really deeply unfortunate. And it should be a wake up call about sort of, if we go back to Netanyahu saying this is, we're fighting your war, we're fighting your war. Well, what is our war? Are we in agreement with Netanyahu on what that war actually is and how it should be prosecuted? I think not. I think the American people are certainly not in agreement with how that should

be prosecuted. So yeah, I mean, and again, this is the frustrating thing. Are they probably right? And we may disagree on this, but are they probably right that there's complicity at the World Health Organization and the UN in ways that are inappropriate? You know, in order to function in Gaza, that's a really difficult thing for NGOs. And we're actually going to talk about how it's difficult for journalists in the next block. There are some obvious obstacles. And I think they're right that there has been complicity. There have been troubling relationships and connections with the World Health Organization and UN as they've operated in Gaza over the course of years.

That does not jump. You can't just take that point and jump to point B. You can't go from A to B and say that their numbers are wrong. The World Health Organization calculating 70% civilian casualties or women and children casualties, that doesn't mean the numbers are wrong. That doesn't mean you can continue to deny the full reality. The Geneva Conventions came out of the horrors of World War II with this global idea of we can never, we can never have war look like we're going to have war. It's going to happen. It's apparently an unavoidable fact of human life. But

civilians in particular should be completely off limits. Civilian infrastructure like hospitals should be completely off limits. And there was some consensus around that. Now, has it ever been applied perfectly? Of course not. Of course not. But when you pair our stated aims in Ukraine and our claim to really adhere to the international rules-based order and really be out there in the world trying to make sure every country is consistent with the rules of war and with the international rules-based order that has been laid out post-World War II. When you lay that beside the comments from our officials, oh, who can say whether they're war crimes? I don't really know. I'm not really an expert.

Is it genocide? No, I don't really know. I'm not really an expert. Well, guess what? There are experts who are looking. If you're not an expert, I'm not an expert. There are experts that are looking at this, that are saying yes, very clearly. When you have put al-Shifa aside, if you want to take, you know, the Israeli side, OK, how many other hospitals have been bombed?

How many other schools have been bombed? How many refugee camps have been bombed at this point? How high is the civilian death toll? It's not hard to see plainly what is happening and what is unfolding here. And so I don't think the U.S., you know, this was already a problem for the U.S. after the Iraq war and that debacle. I don't think they can ever go and with a shred of credibility lecture anyone in the world about war crimes, about anything to do with humanitarianism, about the laws of war, about the international rules-based order. It's over. It's done. That's part of the problem here. And again, this goes back to when we were talking about the bin Laden letter to America. That's part of the problem here is not just the shattered

credibility, but the insistence on that credibility in other parts of the world that is grating for people who are still in Iraq or in Afghanistan. And that's why these groups continue to proliferate. That's why it's like whack-a-mole with groups in the terrorist groups in the Middle East. It's precisely because that credibility has been lost over the course of years. And then on top of it, we continue to try to throw around this credibility as though it's totally intact. And again, this is what's frustrating. It's that, you know, and I know probably a lot of people in our audience disagree with this. I do think the United States has the moral high ground here.

But thinking that doesn't mean that the United States is perfect, is morally perfect and morally immaculate. Thinking that the United States has moral high ground over another power doesn't mean that the United States is morally impeccable. And so those things are not, they don't have to go completely together. And to not be able to acknowledge where those mistakes are being made, I think is, I actually think it's amazing that we live in a country. In fact, I think this is part of where we have the moral high ground, that we can have conversations like this that are highly critical. So it just needs to trickle into the high profile conversations and not just be an independent media. Before this moment, I might have been able to agree with that and might

have been able to make the case. But when I see us day after day and Biden aggressively saying no ceasefire in spite of the fact that two thirds of Americans and 80 percent of Democrats want to cease fire, in spite of the fact that, I mean, this this horror of these babies dying, five premature babies dying, the siege of two point two million people denying them food and water and just the basics of life, you know, enabling that, funding that, providing diplomatic cover for that. No, I don't think we have the moral high ground. I don't think there's any way that we could claim that versus anyone in the world at this point. I disagree on that, especially when it, you know, juxtaposed with the case of Hamas,

juxtaposed with the case of, I mean, even in Ukraine, I still think we have the moral high ground as bitterly as I disagree with their policy there. But the perspective that I think you just shared is going to be increasingly powerful with a wide swath of the American people. There's no question about it. 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. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2

of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams,

NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's talk about what's happening for journalists both here and abroad. Yeah, you know, this is a really interesting case, actually, that kind of relates to what we were just talking about with the United Nations and with the World Health Organization. Journalists have a really hard time operating in Gaza, which means that some major media outlets are using freelancers or sort of forced to rely on the work of freelancers. Let's put this first element up on the screen. News from yesterday, an NBC journalist was arrested by the Israeli police for cheering on Hamas during a horrific terror attack. That is a headline from National Review,

so it's coming from the right. Just read a little, I'll read a little bit of the story here. Quote, an East Jerusalem-based NBC journalist was arrested last week on suspicion of inciting terrorism and identifying with a terrorist organization in connection with several social media posts she published on October 7th during the Hamas terror attacks. Marwad Al-Azza, a freelance producer who started working with the network shortly before the war began, wrote in response to the kidnapping of an elderly woman, quote, it's killing me. It's a black comedy. The old woman looks happy. A bit of action before she died. That's per reporting in Haaretz. Sirens all the time, she wrote in another

post. The Jews are hiding and the Arabs are out drinking coffee on their balconies, she wrote in another post. I feel like I'm watching a movie where the director is Palestinian and the protagonists are from Gaza. Now police, according to national reviews, hold the Jerusalem magistrate court that the posts were, quote, inciting and glorifying the horrible acts committed against civilians. As the Jerusalem Post has reported, authorities say that she is cooperating with police and she admitted to writing the post she actually, quote, arrived ready for arrest, according to the Jerusalem Post report. Now, we can go to the next element because this is not the only case that's been happening with,

you know, you could call it, in this case, there's a claim that this is cheering on Hamas. But in the case of this LA Times story, which continues to play out, this is a Seemafor headline. If you're watching, you see it up on the screen. The LA Times blocked reporters who signed an open letter criticizing Israel from covering Gaza, which is kind of an interesting, and Crystal, we can get into this conversation about media ethics that this broaches. But as Seymour puts it, the LA Times has prohibited staff from covering the Gaza war for at least three months if they signed a strongly worded open letter criticizing Israel's military operations in the region. So this is a letter,

people probably remember it actually from earlier this month. It called on newsrooms to use language including, quote, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide when referring to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Two people with knowledge of the situation told CIMA4 that staffers who signed the letter have been told by the paper's management that they will not be able to cover the conflict in any way for at least two months. So that comes from two sources to Seema for, um, you know, we have, we have one more story here as well. And this one is, uh, if, if people have been following the work of this Palestinian poet, uh, the sad news is he has been taken from his family and detained in Gaza. He's in IDF custody. Mossab Abu Toha, a poet.

This is an element from The New Yorker. The New Yorker had published this poet, Mossab Abu Toha. So had The Nation. I actually went and read some of his poetry last night, Crystal. It's really wonderful. But another artist in this case, in IDF custody, in detention, actually had written this war. This is actually, you can see on the screen again if you're watching. When the war in Gaza started, my family fled to the Jabalia refugee

camp. Then Israel started bombing the camp. So it's a first-person essay about what it was like to be in Jabalia. It's beautiful writing, actually. Whatever side you're on in this, it's beautiful writing. And the broader, I think, questions here, Crystal, are about how Western media outlets are able to cover this case study on the, or are able to cover this story with the case study in the first situation, reminding a lot of people of the New York Times rehiring that freelancer who had posted in 2018, I love Hitler, etc., etc. And there have been some other cases of that too, because you're relying on freelancers in Gaza, and there's obviously support for Hamas in Gaza. So it creates this

strange situation for Western media outlets that aren't really able to go into Gaza and have a hard time doing independent coverage, as we were talking about yesterday when they were just following the IDF through tunnels and CNN just taking the IDF's narrative and running with it like it was the gospel. That's extremely difficult. That's going to continue to be extremely difficult for Western media outlets. On the other hand, the Seymiforce story is just crazy to me because, and even as somebody who disagrees with the letter saying that Western media outlets should be using ethnic cleansing and apartheid and that kind of genocide and that kind of language in their coverage, because the LA Times pretends to be a neutral arbiter of the truth. And so as long as you're pretending to be neutral, this letter is ridiculous. But what the letter suggests is that they know that the LA Times,

that's bullshit, that the LA Times is not neutral, that they take sides. So this is their own employees saying, if you take sides, if you're going to take sides, Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, take a damn side here. What's your problem? It's calling the bluff of the paper, basically. So a few things. First of all, let me start with the National Review piece that was like, oh, this NBC report cheering on the fact that a journalist for NBC was arrested for, quote unquote, inciting terrorism. Right. She's in prison. You read the comments, the posts. They were not like, yay Hamas. You might say they were like mildly in poor taste. That's about as far as I would go with this. And this journalist was arrested? Completely agree. was arrested for a social media post. That's insane. And, you know, especially coming from a conservative outlet that, you know, conservatives have now for years been, cancel culture and the deep state, and they're coming for any sort of dissent and dissident

opinions. Like nothing has happened approaching this. And you're out there cheering that on. That is insane. That's number one. Well, also we're funding Israel. About a fifth of their military funding is from us. So it's not as though it has nothing to do with the United States. Correct. Yes, that's exactly right.

And that's such an important point when people ask, oh, why do you care so much about this? Because we're funding it. Because we're enabling it. Because we're backstopping it. And so that's also why we should care about what's happening here with regard to journalists. By the way, I just looked

at the numbers from Euromed Monitor with regards to your comments, Emily, about how difficult it is to cover what's happening in Gaza in any sort of an independent fashion. 60 journalists have been killed in Gaza. This is more than any other conflict. So even if you feel like, you know, well, the only thing we can rely on is like the Palestinians are on the ground. Of course, at this point, that's the only thing you can rely on because, you know, Western journalists are not allowed into the Gaza Strip outside of some like bullshit IDF propaganda ride along. They are massacring those journalists and their families, by the way. So it makes it even more impossible to have any understanding and any connection with the humanity that is unfolding and what is happening on the ground right now.

So there's that. With regard to the LA Times and this letter, which not only called for words to be used with the proper definition that those words actually mean. So for example, ethnic cleansing, you already have almost, I think it's 1.8 million people out of the 2.2 million in Gaza forcibly displaced. You have official government documents coming out saying our ideal solution is to push them out of Gaza altogether into the Egyptian desert. That, you may not like that that's ethnic cleansing. That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing. So the fact that you are penalizing journalists who are saying we should use these words to mean what these words mean is crazy. And the letter also said that these outlets should be speaking out against the killing of journalists. So it wasn't

even like this letter was like, quote unquote, taking a side in the conflict. You know, a lot of newsrooms have policies against protests or against signing on these letters in an activist direction. This was directly about the job of the paper. And so to penalize these reporters for saying this is the appropriate way to cover this conflict, I think it's outrageous. And by the way, LA Times, to their credit, is also the first, I think, American news outlet, like newspaper, to call for a ceasefire. So, you know, it's not that the editorial board or others there aren't aware of what's unfolding on the ground. So I find that sort of censorship outrageous. And many of the reporters, apparently, who were taken off of coverage were some of the people that had like the deepest knowledge and who, you know, had

connections to the region, et cetera. So it's a real loss in terms of their coverage. And then, you know, obviously it's horrific what's happening here with the New Yorker contributor and poet, founder of the Edward Said Library, who was detained now by the IDF. And there's so much hypocrisy here from Western media outlets who pretended to care so dearly about press freedom in the Trump era. And now, silence. Silence as all of this is unfolding. Emily, like you, I read some of Mossad Abu Toha's work after I saw that he had been detained, arrested by the IDF and is being held captive, hostage, whatever you want to say. His wife has no idea where he is at this point. And he's an extraordinary person, an extraordinary writer. At the end of that piece from The New Yorker, he wrote, recently my wife dreamed that she was collecting frozen meat.

In her dream, she was saying, this is my son's arm. This is my daughter's leg. If not for the war, I would be playing soccer with my friends twice a week. I would be watching movies with my wife. I would be reading the books on my shelves. I would be taking my kids to the playground and to the beach. I'd be riding my bike with my son Yazan on the beach road. But now there are no books and there are no shelves and no beach road. It is invaluable. It is crucial that we have voices like that helping people to understand the human being so they don't just turn into, you know, numbers and statistics that oftentimes make people's eyes glaze over. To have a voice like that silenced is a real loss for everyone.

I don't care what quote unquote side you're on. If you're on the side of human beings, it's a real loss to lose that voice and not have access to that humanity. other people around the world on his situation. Well, I'm very curious how it unfolds. I'm very curious, actually, how the IDF, which, again, the IDF is detaining him, reportedly, how they react now that this is becoming more front and center in the conversation. I'm especially curious about that, Crystal. Yeah. 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. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

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

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote

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

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's get to Cardi B here and her thoughts on the world.

So she posted— We're so excited for this segment. Well, I love Cardi B. I genuinely love Cardi B. And I even forgive her. She has, like, some cringe takes on taxes. Yes, good takes on taxes. I don't even care. I'm just going to put that to the side because I love Cardi B.

And she went on—what was this, Instagram Live or something? I think so, yeah. And she went off. This was, like Instagram Live or something? I think so, yeah. And she went off. This was like a 10-minute diatribe. I personally recommend you watch the whole thing, but we pulled some of the highlights. This has to do with Mayor Eric Adams and massive cuts that he announced

to a bunch of social spending, education, libraries, police even. This was supposed to be the fun, the police guy is cutting the police budget in New York. And also sounding off about Joe Biden and the various wars that we have involved ourselves in. All right. So we're going to play this for you. Warning kids, earmuffs out of the room, whatever. There's a the resume that they sent. I don't know. I'm not endorsing no presidents no more. Because how is that a hundred hundred million dollar budget cut in New York City for for schools, library, police safety and sanitation? Yeah.

Joe Biden is talking about like, yeah, we could fund two wars. We could fund two wars. Mother is talking about we don't got it, but we got it. We're the greatest nation. No, the fuck we're not. We're going through some shit right now. Say it. Say it. We really going through, we really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really are fucked right now. And yeah, we talking about we could fund two wars. That's like a nigga trying to front like, yeah, I got the money to support two bitches, but you really don't. Y'all talk about y'all don't make negotiation with the Oswald. Y'all need to sit the fuck down with these people and find agreement. No, we cannot

fund these fucking wars. We can't. Keep it a bean. We can't. I told myself this week, like, yo, the internet right now is too dark because celebrity drama, of course, we love it. We infuse with it. We watch it. But it's like, yo, that's little of what's really going on in the world right now. That's nothing compared to what's going on in the world right now. So she's going off about cuts to the schools. Actually, at one point, she brings up the cops and she's like, well, I don't really care about the cops. But then she goes on to talk a lot about the cops and how crime is going to be through the roof. And they cut the sanitation budget. There's a whole piece where she's talking about how rats are going to take over the city.

She's also talking about then she throws in Joe Biden, says she's never going to endorse another president again. We can't afford these wars. We've got to get out of these wars. What's your what's your view, Emily? She's channeling everyone. You know, it feels like there are basic things that we used to be able to do as a society that, like, we cannot perform the most basic functions of a city, of a country right now. And I, you know, I'm not trying to, like, overanalyze this, but I feel like that's actually really what she's talking about. Again, this is the quote. She says, how is there a hundred million dollar budget cut in New York City for effing schools, library, police safety and sanitation?

And Joe Biden is talking about like, yeah, we could fund two wars. We could fund two wars. And actually in the daily sort of political discourse, one thing I think gets lost, but you guys do a great job focusing on it, is where our scores from education are. And like the rapid drop in scores that are coming out of like students' performance over the last five to 10 years, they're shocking. They're staggering. And so, yeah, for a lot of people, they look at a $120 million budget cut in New York as she's talking about schools, public libraries, and the police department. You know, I don't give an F about the cops, but like it is what it is. I mean, like New York City, again, feels like it's unable to perform basic functions, but so does the country as a whole

when you're looking at, again, two wars. Also, another thing you guys have been good about focusing on, when you look at the numbers of money that we've sent to Ukraine and you compare it to our normal budget, our normal foreign aid and other places, the amount of money that we spend on things here in the United States, it's staggering how much money we have sent to Ukraine. It's truly a shocking number. Even when you follow these things closely, you look at the number, it's shocking. And so, yeah, when you look around you and you feel like your government, that you are, this connects to her position on taxes. She gets a huge chunk of her paycheck taken out and then looks at budget cuts and sees rats running around the city. And it's like, well, if that's how a multimillionaire feels, how do the rest of people feel when it's

like, I'm paying 30% to the federal government, I'm paying X amount to my state government, depending where I live, and we can't even teach kids math? Yeah. Well, I honestly have never been more sympathetic to that. Obviously, I think the rich should pay their fair share and the tax rate is regressive and all of that stuff still stands that I've always stood on. But I am very sympathetic at this point to that instinct because, yeah, you look around, you're like, wait, my tax dollars are going to fund two wars. My tax dollars are going to. That nobody declared war on, by the way. Right. That's right. I didn't get asked. Nobody got asked about that. My tax dollars are going to support,

you know, giving Israel more bombs to drop on babies in Gaza? No, like, no, I don't feel great about paying taxes for that when we don't have health care, right? So there's a few things here. Did you watch Cardi's comments about FDR? Yeah. Yeah. We cover that here too. I love Cardi. But yeah, she went on this whole thing. She got asked a question about like, oh, what did you think about, you know, when you got a cheese sandwich with David Letterman or something like that? And she was like, that wasn't the thing. The thing was, let me tell you about FDR and Eleanor and how much I love them. Like, she's clearly very, she's politically engaged, right?

This is someone who cares about history. She endorsed Bernie. Like, she's not just sort of, you know, a bystander not taking in what's happening around the world. So I want to put that out there. But in addition, she's pretty smart, obviously. Yeah, obviously. I mean, she's I love Cardi again. She's she's incredible. And I think it's I think that's why people really take take note of some of the things that she says politically. But there's also just a real normie sensibility here. Yeah, 100%. That just lands with like, you can't fund the freaking schools,

but there's no limit over here whatsoever. And, you know, a lot of times, sometimes I get kind of depressed about like the state of America, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, oftentimes I feel like if we had just random people running our government, it would be way better than the decision-making that comes out as it is. And she says that at one point. She's like, these leaders, like, they, you know, they're terrible, effectively. Like, these leaders aren't it. So in fairness to Mayor Eric Adams, I did some digging here about why these budget cuts are happening and what he would say and argue with some validity is that there is a huge number of migrants. There are a huge number of migrants who are coming into the city. New York has a policy that, you know, they have to provide shelter for everyone. Many of these migrants are coming from Venezuela, although it's from a range of different countries.

This is genuinely being a real challenge for New York City, just given the numbers. But I did some digging into the actual numbers here of the projected budget gaps and how much the cuts are versus how much sheltering migrants cost. This is from the Fiscal Policy Institute. They say that the city estimates the total cost for asylum seekers over 24 and 25 is about $11 billion. The city's portion of that cost is about $9 billion. About $2.5 billion of that has already been budgeted in the adopted budget. So that puts the city's new funding need at $6.5 billion over the next two years, $2.3 billion in 2024, and $4.1 billion in 2025. So the amount that it costs, if you're claiming that the whole problem is just the cost of sheltering migrants, the numbers don't add up here. They are cutting way more from the budget

from things like schools, sanitation, and the police budget, by the way, than it actually, you know, the migrant cost actually makes up. So anyway, there you go in terms of the numbers, because I did want to dig in here and give the full picture of what was going on in New York City as best I could. Yeah, that's actually very helpful. And the normie sensibility, again, I think a lot of people are increasingly going to look at policies like New York City's and San Francisco's, and in fact, they are, and say, well, the price tag of budget cuts is the price tag of being a sanctuary city. That is to say, people wouldn't be flocking here. Texas wouldn't be sending people here if it wasn't a sanctuary city. And so essentially,

this is the policy that's costing us X amount of money. And I mean, I completely, I believe that to be true. You talk to migrants, they say they specifically go to sanctuary cities. And of course it makes sense. It's perfectly logical. But that's a question Democrats like Eric Adams increasingly need to have a good answer for. And obviously we've seen him start to split with party orthodoxy, specifically mayors of some big democratic cities, including here in DC, start to split with the party orthodoxy on illegal immigration as soon as it kind of came to their streets at the level that it does to, you know, Brownsville, Texas, or some of these border towns that are rural and lack a lot of social capital, and in some ways because of this. But, Crystal, I really think that is trickling

into, like, normal people looking around their city in a way that budget cuts typically come from Republicans. Republicans are typically the ones lowering taxes and typically the ones that want less money to the education system, etc., etc. So Republicans have to answer for this all the time. And this one, on this particular part of it, that's increasingly going to be a problem for Democrats. And Carly didn't connect the dots of it, that's increasingly going to be a problem for Democrats. And Cardi didn't connect the dots totally, but she sort of started to. And you reminded me of the William F. Buckley quote when you said people are looking around like, who are these idiots running the government? He has a great quote where he said, I'd rather entrust the government of the U.S. to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard. Well, New York City is a city of immigrants, right? And their self-conception

is a city of immigrants. And so even with the strain that the number of migrants have brought to just the ability to shelter them and be able to school the kids, especially now that you have huge budget cuts coming to universal pre-K and to education overall, there still is a pride in being an accepting place for people coming to the country. And I think that applies to the whole country, too. I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that. And I think it especially applies in a city like New York, just given their self-conception. But there's no doubt that cities like New York and places around the country have been failed by D.C. and the fact that they have been unable to,

you know, come up with any sort of sensible immigration policy. And one of them, you know, with a lot of the immigrants coming to New York being from Venezuela, I mean, one thing you can really clearly point to is our sanctions on Venezuela and the way that has contributed, not the only factor, but contributed to economic chaos, which has forced people to leave. That's one thing. But the other thing that you can really point to is, you know, many of the people who are coming to New York and other places, they're asylum seekers and they deserve to have their asylum claims adjudicated in a reasonable period of time. And that's something that Americans should expect as well. And so part of why this becomes a problem is because if you're seeking asylum, it can be years before your case is ever heard.

Oh, yeah. And this shouldn't be, this should not be controversial that you have a surge in sufficient immigration judges to be able to clear this massive backlog of cases so that, you know, people are able to, by, you know, by law, have their claims heard and adjudicate and decide, is this a legitimate asylum seeker or not, and go through some sort of orderly process. So I don't dispute that New York City and the country as a whole has been failed by the fact that there is no real, like, sensible immigration process in place that is rule-based, that is, you know, expedited, that has some sort of reasonable semblance of order. I don't doubt

that at all. But with regard to Eric Adams specifically, the numbers that he's claiming of, you know, what they have to cut versus what they actually are spending on migrants don't add up. And just to bring this full circle, your point is so right. I was at a migrant respite facility in, I think this was in Brownsville, Texas, and talking to some Haitian migrants a year ago and was looking at the papers that they had been given from our government, their asylum hearing was for years. It was like, I'm looking at the paper and the asylum hearing is in like 2024. And it's just like, well, they're like, we don't even know if we have a work permit. It was unclear to them whether they'd be able to work and it was actually really unclear

in the paper. And that, to bring this full circle, is that we cannot perform basic functions as a country anymore. Because of Washington, D.C. Like, this is downstream of Washington, D.C.'s completely Byzantine and poorly managed systems and our inability to actually make decisions about, for example, what our immigration system should look like when you have policies, decades of failed policies in Central America that are pushing people north. What do we do? How do we fix our decades of failed policies in Central America that are pushing people north. What do we do? How do we fix our decades of failed policies in Central America? Then how do we fix our immigration policy to deal with that? We cannot perform these basic functions anymore. We just can't. And it's causing problems all the way down. Yeah, that is a great point.

All right, let's go ahead and bring in our great friend Ryan Grimm. We're going to talk about the incredibly wild new president of Argentina, who he is, what you should know about him, why it matters to you, and how we got there. Let's get to it. So Argentina has a new president-elect, Javier Millay. He is an anarcho-capitalist businessman,

TikTok sensation, who seemingly came out of nowhere to win the presidency. But our own Ryan Grimm is joining us now to talk about how he didn't actually exactly come out of nowhere to win the presidency. But our own Ryan Grimm is joining us now to talk about how he didn't actually exactly come out of nowhere to win. He had some powerful backing. So we'll get into that. Great to see you, Ryan. Good to see you guys. Do the accent. Yeah. Oh, he's really good.

There you go. There you go. So before we jump into this, first, we need to set up for people why people are paying attention and just how kind of wild this this gentleman is, who now has just been elected with a huge amount of support, actually, from young people in Argentina. We're going to play some of the videos that have gone viral of him. I'm going to do my best with the subtitles. Just bear with me. Also, I believe there is some language in these as well. This is a very vulgar show we have here today, Emily. Go ahead and put this up on the screen and I'll give you the sense here. So he's standing at a board.

He's pulling off the board all of these different ministries, environment, sustainable development that he says are out. Ministry of Women, Genders, and Diversity, out. Ministry of Public Works, out. Even if you resist, he says, you can't give shit left-hards an inch. Can you define shit leftists? The interviewer says, all collectivists, all kinds of collectivists. But why do you call them shit? She says, because they are shit, he replies. She goes on to challenge him. If you think differently from them, he says, kill you this is the point you can't give shit leftist an inch if you give them an inch they will use it to destroy you you can't negotiate

with leftards you don't negotiate with trash because they will end you if they the left have a guy that goes on to talk about how like if the guy is beating his wife they'll just stand with him etc etc so anyway that's a basic vibe of him. He's got some pretty wild positions. He's in favor of like selling organs and some other stuff on a more serious, I mean, that's pretty serious, but he also from an economic position, he wants to dollarize the economy, abolish the central bank. He's out there. So give people a sense of like, you know, your analysis of where he fits on the political spectrum. I was telling Emily, it's like if an even cooler Robbie Suave is elected

president of Argentina. He's a dorm room libertarian. And that's where the organ stuff comes from. I don't think he's going to actually put that in. It's like somebody will press a libertarian, well, should you be able to sell your organs? Then the libertarian's like, yes. Markets. Absolutely. But he's also anti-abortion, pro-Israel, pro-Ukraine. So he does have that kind of dorm room libertarian anarchist tendencies. At the same time, though, it tempered, not even, I shouldn't say

tempered, but they're actually like textured by this anti-cultural leftism that, Crystal, you were pointing out. Argentina has gone pretty culturally far left in some different ways to the point where you can understand why there would be a backlash. Yeah, he does the whole, he says libertarians don't have an official position on abortion. And he's like, he's on the side that you can't have freedom if you don't have, if you're never born. So therefore, I'm against abortion. Most of his supporters are men, not coincidentally with that position. But the context for all this, of course, is that Argentina has been a basket case, you know, for a very, very long time. The inflation there over decades has just kind of sapped the kind of strength out of the economy. Like people will get paid and immediately try to spend all of

their money. 150% right now. Yeah. And that's like good for them. Like only 150% inflation over the last year. But like at stores, you get banned from, you can only buy like certain amounts of things. So like entire families will go together and like take the paycheck and divide it up. And the kids will be buying, you know, a certain number of eggs and milk and whatever. And the rich then can like immediately convert all of their wealth into dollars. And the poor and the middle class are constantly trying to convert things into dollars because that's the only store of wealth. Oh, interesting.

And the political system is just entirely broken because this, you know, they call it Peronism. And he invokes that on the campaign trail, doesn't he? Yeah, and he beat a Peronist party and he beat a pathetic Peronist candidate who the voters called, his nickname was Pancake. He was the economy minister. His nickname was Pancake. Pancake. He's been with the left, he's been with the center right.

He's just like an opportunistic kind of, and also like total charisma-less politician. The center left party in Argentina is absolutely pathetic. What Peronism was, was an attempt to do leftism and labor advocacy and social justice stuff, but also co-opt the rich and business element, which is always trying to undermine the left. But obviously that then coalition becomes the big part part of parentism. And so they benefit in certain ways from inflation, some public workers, students, like a lot, so many different people benefit in some ways

from the inflation that every attempt to kind of combat it then runs up against a choke point. Like you think our like system has a lot of choke points for getting things done. Like Argentina is like on steroids and so uh in the past whenever they've tried to do anything around inflation you'd have people come out in the streets and and it would get shut down so it's gonna be really interesting to see what he can do because you're already seeing a bunch of center-left politicians who are sort of like seeing his victory and recognizing it as a an anti-referendum on the status quo and saying, well, maybe. So you're actually seeing a lot of people gravitate around him. The left thinks that

he's going to just collapse under his own weight and the weight of his own silly contradictions. He doesn't have Congress. He doesn't have Parliament. He doesn't, but there might be enough energy around him that he can actually get some things through. The problem for people will be the only things he'll end up getting through will be more kind of subsidies for the rich and like that wing of, do we have that Lee Fong piece that we have? Yes. Put this up on the screen guys from The Intercept, some great reporting here from Lee Fong about the Atlas Network. And the headline here is Fear of Influence, How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American Politics. And it's this sort of sprawling network of think tanks.

You know, we're all familiar with the Koch Network. This is sort of the equivalent from a Ford Affairs perspective. And Millet is associated with some of the groups that are affiliated with this like sort of sprawling libertarian big money network. Yeah, exactly. And so without this well-funded, and it's the Koch Foundation actually contributes to this Atlas Network, Donors Trust, which you guys know, like that's the big kind of right-wing kind of pool of money. It's a big donor to Atlas Network. And so what Atlas Network would do is go in into these South American countries and Central American countries and basically fund economic libertarian think tanks

and then, you know, boost the careers of people like Millais. I know an economist who worked with Millais back like 30 years ago. Oh, interesting. Who don't you know? I know that. It's really random. Totally, totally randomly. And she was like, yeah, he was, everybody knew him. He was just like this crazy dude in the office and just kind of like tolerated him. And he's also kind of funny. He's got like, take my hair today and like times 10. Right. Just completely wild.

And that's all he would have remained without like the Atlas Network and these billionaire libertarian networks to then kind of move him through the system. But it was about five or six years ago he started getting on Argentinian TV a whole bunch. Yeah. And he's so funny and like entertaining that it's very Trumpian phenomenon. Like CNN and MSNBC just love the ratings that Trump brought. Right. And they were the oxygen on his fire. Well, and social media. And that's why one of the unique dynamics here is that a lot of these sort of like right wing populist type candidates who've risen to power is mostly older generations. And a lot of the resistance to them comes from younger generations.

Here, that dynamic is flipped. Vox had actually an interesting piece about him. They interviewed a bunch of young people of why they support him when, you know, usually young people were backing leftist candidates up until this moment. They interviewed this one woman. She says, I only have memories of Argentina in decay. She's 19 years old in Buenos Aires. So you look around and you associate all the political parties and all the movements that were in power during that time to a decaying country. And you desperately search for other options. Another thing that came out in this piece that I thought was really interesting, because he's also like he says climate change is a hoax and he's on that that whole train, which, you know, fits with the libertarian right wing like billionaire network as well. And they're like, there were a lot of people in this article that were like, I don't agree with him on that. I don't agree with him on abortion and these other cultural issues.

But like, I got to get some food in my fridge. And I and there were also people who were like, I don't even know. It could be a total disaster with this guy. But we got to do something. What do you have to lose? Yeah, we got to do something here. And so that was like the sense that came from these young people of such desperation. It was like, oh, I mean, at least he's different. I don't know. Let's give it a shot. You're given a choice between a guy named Pancake, who was the economy minister overseeing an economy just in complete turmoil. Wow.

Or this guy. And you can understand why. You'd be like, you know what? Okay. I don't, I don't want to sell my organs. I don't, you know, I'm, I'm actually for abortion rights. I don't, I don't think we should eliminate every single government ministry, but man, I don't like pancake either. Yeah. It's like, I know it's a disaster. I know the status quo is a disaster. It's a scream of hell. Maybe a disaster. Hey, listen, if there's even a shot that it's something, I guess I'm going to go for it. Right, right, right. So it's, it's the status quo is a disaster and this other candidate represents the status quo, which is basically exactly the Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump dynamic. So it's not just that this other person is a blunt force object, is a wrecking ball. Donald Trump is seen as a wrecking ball.

They literally used the Flight 93 election metaphor in Claremont and other places on the right in the run-up to the 2016 election. So I do think that dynamic is somewhat instructive because, again, you have someone who promises, who is absolutely telling you they will be a wrecking ball to the status quo in ways that most voters see as good and bad. It's just a totally unexpected quantity. And then you have somebody who represents the status quo. A lot of people will choose the uncertain quantity wrecking ball, even if they don't like everything about them. And I think there's a significant chance we're going to see some significant violence because you're going to see if he goes after the unions, he goes after the

pensioners, he goes after public workers, like they're going to see if he goes after the unions, he goes after the pensioners, he goes after public workers. Like they're going to come out in the streets. Like that's how Argentinian politics has been waged. But he's libertarian so he can't go Bukele. He certainly can. I mean he can. Yeah. But like ideologically, if he's ideologically consistent, he's sort of the opposite of Bukele.

He also is like the president of a government which is not consistent with not believing in government. He calls it a criminal organization and now he's like the mafia boss of it. And so I would not be surprised to see him put guns out in the streets if there are protests that try to bring him down. So I think it could get pretty ugly. And you might see people, you're going to see a significant portion of the country, I think, support the violence. To say like, no, on Flight 93, when we said wrecking ball, we really meant wrecking ball. So it could get pretty dark. And there doesn't seem to be any significant left opposition able to push back.

Obviously, a lot of these dynamics are specific to Argentina, but do you see this as part of a broader trend either in, you know, South and Central America or more globally? Yeah, I mean, he definitely does. Like, when he won, he put up a post of himself next to Trump in Bolsonaro. And Trump said he was very proud of him. Trump's very proud of him. I bet he feels some affinity with Bukele in El Salvador. And this Atlas Network is all over South America and Central America as well. So he very much sees it as an international movement. These libertarians don't like borders. They don't believe in governments or nations. So the Atlas Network was very heavily involved in training the kind of organizers that led to the mass street mobilization that brought Bolsonaro to power. So, yeah, I think it is a similar thing we're seeing.

Gotcha. All right. Well, we're going to do an interview with Ryan as well on his new book, The Squad. We'll give a little pre-tease on that one. That's going to drop over the holiday weekend. When is the book actually out? It's technically out December 5th, but I think the Monday after Thanksgiving,

you can start getting it in bookstores. Gotcha. Like the event we're doing, people will be able to buy books there, for instance. Okay, so thank you for your analysis here. And guys, stay tuned for more on Ryan's book called The Squad, AOC, and the Hope of a Political Revolution,

coming to bookstores near you soon. Ryan, great to see you. Great to see you guys. 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. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother.

She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

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

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote

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

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Excited to be joined now by Cenk Uygur. He is not only founder of TYT, but also is a Democratic candidate for president in 2024. Cenk, great to see you. Great to have an update for you on the campaign. All right. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah,, great to see you. Great to have an update for you on the campaign. All right. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Yeah, of course. So you shared this recent clip of Joe Biden, which you proffered as evidence that perhaps he is not the man that Democrats should go with for their next presidential candidate. Let's take a look. Now, just to get here, Liberty and Bell had to beat some tough odds in competition. They had to work hard to show patience and be willing to travel over 1,000 miles. You could say even this is harder than getting a ticket to the Renaissance Tour or Britney's tour. She's down in, it's kind of warm in Brazil right now. I don't see the problem.

You're not inspired by this? Yeah, wow. Wow. Okay, so first of all, it's Taylor Swift, as we all know, and except we don't all know, the president doesn't know. But that's not the point, guys. The point is, what was that? I mean, that's just, so look, guys, if it's just a matter of Joe Biden's career and he's pulling a Dianne Feinstein late in his Senate career, and then I feel bad for him and his family should help him, et cetera. But this is way more important. This is for democracy. This is for a presidential election. This guy's 22 points underwater. His favorability is only 37. His unfavorables are 59. Does that guy look like he's going to pull off a comeback being 22 points

underwater? Impossible. He can't even finish a sentence. And look, I don't enjoy saying this. I feel terrible saying this. But someone has to say it. Otherwise, we're just going to walk into a loss against Donald Trump. And I'm just amazed all of Washington. I know that there's a little bit of a rebellion going on now, even within the establishment. But for so long, all of Washington was like, yeah, let's just lose. Who cares? Obviously, Biden's going to lose. I mean, he's been losing the swing states all along. He's been losing independents all along. Now he's lost Latinos. We went from a 42-point lead among Latinos down to four points. He's lost them completely.

Everybody knows he's going to lose. So my job is to be a little bit rude and snap Washington out of it. There's no way that guy who can't finish sentences and is down 22 points in his favorability is going to do a miracle comeback and beat Trump or any Republican. I don't know anyone who actually disagrees with that. And so we actually have some of these poll numbers that we were just kind of alluding to, some of these numbers, especially with young voters. I mean, look at this, Trump gains edge among younger voters. This is an NBC News poll from this week. Donald Trump is at 46 percent. Joe Biden is at 42 percent. That is a, for Democrats,

that is a just absolute disaster. There's no other way to put it. And it's trending in the wrong direction. So it's not as though it started out that way. It's something that's continuing to go down. Cenk, especially somebody who is a kind of a pioneer in online spaces that are influencing a lot of really young voters and is now actively campaigning, how do you see that issue? And then what is the sort of, I'm also curious to sort of when you're campaigning versus when you're trying to, you know, turn an online presence, a media, news media presence into a campaign. What's that process like, especially with younger voters who are much more influenced by that than I think a lot of older

people realize? Yeah, look, guys, that's that you just showed. It's over. There's near 0% chance that Joe Biden's going to win. And I'm saying that with my political analyst hat on. And in fact, that's why I entered the race, because I can read numbers. Look, this is the same thing I said during the Hillary Clinton years. Guys, she's going to lose. Look at the polling numbers. You're being blinded. But that was 10,000 times less clear than this is.

Joe Biden needs younger voters to win, period. Not even close. He won them in large numbers in 2020. And that's why the only reason that he could win that particular election, and he barely won the electoral college in that election. If he's losing younger voters, and now he is, he has a 0% chance of winning. No Democrat can win without younger voters. I mean, look, this entire thesis of my book as to why progressives were going to win, we talked about this last time I was on,

is because younger voters are so overwhelmingly progressive. Do you know how deeply incompetent you have to be as a politician, as a Democratic politician, to lose younger voters to Donald Trump? No, this guy's the worst politician in the world. The only reason he barely won last time is because the entire establishment coalesced around him, including all of media.

So look, younger voters, why are they against Joe Biden? One, they didn't grow up with television. And that goes to your point about online versus TV, right? In the old days, you'd get spoon-fed propaganda on television. They'd be like, oh, Joe Biden passed a semiconductor bill. You should be really happy. And people would be like, what? I'm not in the semiconductor business. But okay, I guess so, right? And Joe Biden reduced drug prices on one drug. And then everybody cheers. It's historic, right?

But young people can just look stuff up online. They're like, wait, is there only one drug in the world? Oh, no, there are tens of thousands. Oh, it turns out it's a trick to protect the other 9,999 drugs. And like how many tricks? Oh, you're going to do student debt relief. Oh, you put a poison pill provision in there. You knew the Supreme Court would overturn.

Oh, golly gee, did we get caught again? But now it's over because of Israel and Gaza. He's lost younger voters so badly over that issue. Remember, Joe Biden is 200 years old. So he still thinks it's the 1970s or 1990s. And he's like, I support Israel and its war crimes 200 percent, green light all the way. And young people are like, vomit, get out. Why? Why is this guy so out of touch, so brutal?

Because they're used to having TV do nonstop propaganda for any dumb idea that they had, that they would shove down the throat of the American people. And now young people are leading the way to going, no, no, no, no. You need to do things that we want. Our lives right now are way worse than our parents' lives. We're tired of this crap. And Joe Biden is never going to turn around. He's like frozen in amber. There's a 0% chance he turns around. Look, guys, it doesn't matter whether you like me or not. And yeah, okay, I buy, I am loud. I'm aggressive.

I bought the URL, BidenIsGoingToLose.com. I bought SelfishJoeBiden.com. They all redirected my site. Okay, I'm the bad guy. I'm the boogeyman, okay? Oh, no, don't say anything about the Democratic candidate. Our job is all to do propaganda and marketing for him so we can barely prop him up. No, I don't agree. We should pick a great candidate, candidate who's actually going to

fight for you and fight for these policies. Does Joe Biden look like he's going to fight for you? He can barely fight a nap. Let's put the next poll numbers up on the screen, which I think bolster some of the points that you're making here. Cenk, this is also from NBC News. So 70 percent of voters aged 18 to 34 disapprove of Biden's policy on Israel. Fifty six percent of all voters disapprove. Fifty one percent. So a majority of Democrats say that Israel has gone too far. And 49 percent of Democrats, so very close to a majority, oppose U.S. aid to Israel.

Now, to play devil's advocate here, what the White House would say is, it's just one issue. We're still a ways out from election day. Once we get down to it and it's Trump versus Biden, people are gonna come to their senses and they're gonna suck it up and vote Joe once again. What is your analysis there?

Okay, totally 100% wrong. So let me give you a number of reality checks here. So number one, sometimes politicians go ebb and flow, of course, right? And at one point, Obama dipped down to like 43%. And so that's what the Biden people were using for a long time. But Joe, you're not at 43. You're now at 37. 37 is massively lower than 43. And Obama barely dipped in there once and bounced back up. Joe Biden's been down in the 30s forever and ever and ever. Now, the counter to Obama is George W. Bush. George W. Bush sank into the 30s. And I remember Tim Russert all the way back in the day in Meet the Press doing a segment on the narrative of comeback. And I wrote a blog all the way back in the Huffington Post days,

said, what comeback? You just invented that so-called narrative. This man has no capacity for a comeback. He's going to stay in the 30s the rest of his term. And I was totally right about that. Because George W. Bush wasn't even trying to make a comeback. That was his second term. And he was just driving his numbers into the ground. By the end, his partner, for example, Dick Cheney, finished at 9% approval. So does the person have a capacity for a comeback or don't they? And how far down are they? Well, Biden is way further down than Obama was.

He's been there way longer and he has absolutely no capacity for a comeback. You just saw it with your own eyes. Who are we kidding with this politically correct crap about ageism? People see that real people, voters, not political people, not people angling for a job in Washington. Real voters look at that and go, hey, no way I'm voting for that guy. He can't finish his sentence. He doesn't know what the hell's going on. No way, let alone Israel, let alone all the other issues. Guys, because of Israel, there's one other giant problem for Democrats. We've lost Michigan. His Arab supporters dropped from the

70s down to 15%. And every Arab and Muslim, whether they're talking to me, they're talking online, or they're talking to a pollster, are all saying, look, it's one thing whether we vote for Trump or not, okay? But we're not voting for Joe Biden under any circumstance. So we'll stay at home, we'll do whatever it is. That's it. Michigan's gone. So now how are you going to win the election without the most critical swing state of Michigan? This is political malpractice.

We're purposely losing this election. I've never seen anything like this. This is total madness. There's no way Joe Biden's going to win. It's not even going to be close. And then finally, think about this. Incumbency is really important for a senator or a congressperson because that gives you name recognition and that gives you all the donor money, okay? But when you're running for re-election as

president, incumbency is now, in the modern world, is an albatross around your neck. Why? First of all, it caused Donald Trump to election because COVID hit and he couldn't adjust in time and people were angry about that. And that's why he lost the election. Now imagine in Biden's case that in October, gas prices go up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, 0%, 0, 0, 0. There's no way he wins if gas prices go up in October. Now who controls gas prices? Well, the country that has the biggest effect by far is Saudi Arabia. Who do the Saudis love? All right, they love Donald Trump. They love Trump and his family. They give them billions of dollars, all the golf tournaments. They've been in bed together this entire time. You think the Saudis aren't just going to hand the election to

Trump? You need a super strong Democrat who, number one, is not an incumbent and will not be as affected by gas prices. And number two, can withstand an assault from Trump and his allies. Biden hasn't even run. He's not even running. He's preventing everyone else from running, and he's not doing any campaigning because he loves Republicans. So when you ask him, hey, can you do a speech against Republicans? No, but my Republican friends, I've given so many tax cuts for the rich with them together. Where's my brother, Mitch McConnell? Let's freeze together. Come on, guys. Come on. Okay, I'm the bad guy. Everybody hate me. It doesn't matter. It can't be Biden. Let me ask you, though, because if you know, if you ask Democratic voters, a majority say we want Biden to step aside.

We want other options, et cetera, et cetera. But when you give them other choices and I'm not just talking about you and Dean Phillips and Marianne, but even when they ask, OK, hypothetically, if it was Biden versus Newsom or Harris or Pete Buttigieg or whoever, voters are still backing Biden. So why do you think that is? And also give us a reality check on how your campaign's going, where you are in the polls, and what your trajectory is, how you want to make the comeback. Yeah. So number one, those polls are deeply misleading. And I'll tell you why.

It's not like, oh, I don't like that particular poll. I hate when people do that. No, there's two reasons why they're deeply misleading. Number one, they put everyone in the poll. So Biden will have an advantage because he's the incumbent president. Meanwhile, Buttigieg, Newsom are the same guy. So they split the vote, right? Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, they all split the vote. And then they go, oh, see, Biden's winning. And a lot of them don't have a lot of name recognition, like Gretchen Whitmer, right? But people don't know her, so she scores lower on a poll. But if Gretchen Whitmer was a Democratic candidate, then everyone would know her. And so she wouldn't have that issue at all.

And she wouldn't have the albatross around her neck of being 89 years old or, sorry, 81, 81. She could finish sentences. She's very popular in Michigan. She would win Michigan. She would win a lot of states. So those polls are deeply misleading and are often just used to further falsely prop up Joe Biden.

Okay, in terms of me, look, you know what did Joe Lieberman say back in the day? He's got Joe-mentum. I've got jank-mentum. No, guys, I'm honest. Look, Quinnipiac puts me in the polls. God bless him. Everybody should put me in the polls.

It's maddening that they don't. Anyway, I'm at 2%. So 2%, not the highest number in the world. On the other hand, everyone in the world expected zero, right? They're like, oh, loudmouth talk show host, not born in the country, no way, right? But currently I'm beating the governor of North Dakota, the governor of Arkansas, and I'm tied with Chris Christie, okay? So what happened? I thought I wasn't supposed to register.

And I'll tell you what, guys, they're starting to panic a little bit. The Joe Biden team has started buying up websites that are similar to my website, okay? What, you worried, dog? Okay, and now they're trying to keep me off the ballot in a lot of places. Why? Because I'm the loudest, most aggressive voice making the clear, obvious call against Joe Biden. So it's bothering them to no end. Good. That's why I got in the race to knock Joe Biden out. Is it because I'm against Biden? Look, Biden's got issues, as I've been telling you, but that's not the main reason at all. No, it's because he's going to lose to Trump and we got to beat Trump. That's mission number one, mission number one. So right now, I got onto the ballot in Arkansas and nobody thought I was going to get on any ballots. So when they tell you don't try, that's because they don't want you to win.

They don't want you to succeed. And by the way, they don't want anybody to succeed that would actually fight for the American people. So it turns out if you try, you can win. Yes, we're on ballots. We're going to get on more ballots. Do you have an update on the legal side of this question of whether or not you're eligible, given that you're a naturalized citizen versus a natural born citizen? Yeah. So number one, our thesis is that the 14th Amendment has already amended that part of the Constitution. If you read the 14th Amendment, it's a little bit like the Da Vinci Code. You go, oh, wow.

Oh, yeah, it is. It's right there. How come I never saw that before? Because people don't regularly read amendments. 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized have due process and equal protection. They didn't say kind of equal, but not really equal. They didn't say, yeah, we said naturalized, but we didn't mean naturalized. No, they said naturalized, they meant naturalized. Equal protection means equal. It doesn't mean asterisks. It doesn't

mean you're a second-class citizen. In fact, the Supreme Court has already said that you can't declare someone a second-class citizen just because they're a nationalized citizen. Not about the presidential issue, but about different issues. We're going to make them apply that to the presidential issue. So we're going to sue a couple of states. And so that literally yesterday, we had a big meeting with our lawyers. I've got Bernie Sanders' presidential lawyers for 2016 and 2020 about which states to pick, which jurisdictions to focus on.

But what I would say to the voters is let the courts decide that. Don't worry about that. If I'm not eligible, then I won't be eligible and you won't have to worry about it. And it gets resolved much quicker during elections because that's the system we have in place so the voters can know before they vote. So put that out of your mind and just say, hey, is this the guy that I'd like to represent me? And if you're a younger voter, if you're any voter that's Democrat, I'm going to actually do the stuff that you want. I'm going to fight like hell to do the stuff that you want. And Biden's wrong on a bunch of issues like Israel. So unlike him, I agree with the great majority of both Americans and Democrats.

We need to cease fire immediately. I hate that the bombs being dropped on Palestinian children have made in the USA on them. Sending another $14 billion, Joe Biden says at every term, we don't have money. We don't have money for paid family leave. We don't have money for higher wages. We don't have money for this or that. And then the minute there's war, he's like, yes, right away. Take all the money.

Take American money and bomb Palestinian children with them. No, no way. And student debt relief, definitely. Legalized marijuana, instantly. It's over 70%. What is wrong with you people in Washington? Why won't you ever do what the people want? Paid family leaves at 84%.

What do you need it to be at, 85%? Why won't you do it? And the reality is, it's because they're hooked on the donor money. They only serve their donors. They're all corrupt. These donations are bribes. I'm the only one who's saying it because everyone else is part of the corrupt process. For God's sake, pick someone non-corrupt. Jakeforamerica.com. Speaking of that, Joe Biden has the most money, right now has the most support in polling. But what do you say to people who will say to you, Jank, that your candidacy just makes it more and more likely that Joe Biden loses to Donald Trump? He's a presumptive nominee, is whatever, media loves to use that phrase. What's your response to that?

Yeah, this is the same crap the establishment says every time. We've picked a loser and someone who's totally corrupt and who will do only what the donors want. Now bow your heads, otherwise you're hurting him. Well, why did you pick the guy who sucks, the guy who we don't want, who's losing in all the polling? And why do we have to bow our heads? What the hell, is this a democracy? Is this the Democratic Party or the Republican Party? No, we're not gonna bow our heads. You told us to bow our heads? What the hell? Is this a democracy? Is this the Democratic Party or the Republican Party? No, we're not going to bow our heads. You told us to bow our heads

to Hillary Clinton and she lost. She lost to Donald Trump who's a moron, a blithering idiot and she lost to that guy. And then Joe Biden almost lost to him in 2020.

He only won by 44,000 votes in three swing states. Now he's 15 points lower than when he barely beat Trump last time. And now we're supposed to bow our heads? Hell no. No, no, you bow your head. How about that? I represent the actual Democratic voters. So put me in a debate with Joe Biden, see if he can survive. See if he can survive the night. Everyone knows there's no way in the world Joe Biden can survive a debate with someone

like me. Then why the hell is he our candidate? Why don't we pick a strong candidate instead of a miserably weak candidate? I even bought woundedantelope.com. There's no chance he's going to win. So guys, it isn't about, oh, if we just prop up the terrible candidate just a little harder, then maybe we could beat Trump. No, he's already losing young voters to Trump. He has no chance. The correct path to beat Trump is get as many candidates in this race as humanly possible today, today. Get me Governor Whitmer, Governor Shapiro, Governor Newsom, it doesn't matter. And by the way, put me in a debate with them, see how they do. Okay. Because you need to

be tested by fire. Trump was tested by fire in 2016 with 17 candidates on the Republican side and he won. Joe Biden had 27 candidates back in 2020, back before whatever it is that he has now has started and he won and it made him stronger and it made him just barely strong enough to win in 2020. So let's get a strong primary in here to get a strong candidate. Saying let's prop up the weak candidate by doing propaganda on his behalf is a losing strategy and I will not participate in it. So Cenk, last question for you. I just interviewed Congressman Dean Phillips, who obviously is also running in the Democratic primary. And he recently put out a tweet apologizing to Bernie Sanders, like, oh, turns out you were right. This process is rigged. Obviously, the DNC is not hosting any debates.

They have no plans to host any debates. So wondering if you have talked to Congressman Phillips and Marianne Williamson about doing your own debate, the three of you, so at least you can see some competition of ideas and some democratic process. Yeah, I've been doing that since the day that Dean Phillips entered the race. And I've already arranged two to three debates, but Dean's got to giddy up. So I don't know what he's waiting for. Guys, the three of us need oxygen. Let's keep it real. Mainstream media isn't like, hey, guys, come on air and let's do town halls. Right. So thank God for shows like Breaking Points. And that way we can get our message out. But yes, the three of us should be doing debates, forums, town halls together.

We should be doing it every weekend if we can every day, because people need to know who Dean Phillips is, who Marianne Williamson is, who I am. And guys, you know, look, these presidential races are really funny because you think 2%, I was kidding around about it before, like there's nothing to write home about. Do you know what Donald Trump started at? And this is amazing. He started at 1%. People think, oh, he started with a big lead. No, he didn't. No, the first poll, he was at 1%. The difference between Donald Trump and someone like me or Marianne Williamson is the press just kept giving him the mic. Yeah, they loved covering him.

They would allow him on the air 24-7 all over media. Imagine if mainstream media allowed me on air 24-7 like they did with Donald Trump. I would be at 20% within the week. I could be at 40% within the month. So all we need is a little bit of oxygen to get going here. Anyone who, like normal older Democratic voters haven't seen a person like me. They're used to whispering like, okay, now we'll try to beat Donald Trump. But my Republicans are my friends. That's what they're used to. When they see somebody saying, no, goddamn it,

paid family leave is at 84%. They're purposely not doing it. When I get into office, first thing is fire the parliamentarian. And we're not going to deal with any BS filibusters, okay? We're going to pass the bills that help your lives. We're going to get you higher wages. We're going to get lower drug prices. When they see that, they're going to be, even if it's not me, they're going to be thirsty for someone, anyone who fights for them. So Dean, Marianne, let's go, let's go. We should all be appearing together nonstop. And then shame Biden into it. Of course, he's not going to come because the minute he comes, you've got a progressive lion like me. I'm sorry, but I'm keeping it real. Someone who actually wants to pass the bills. Who cares about your stupid ego?

Who cares who's the president? Did you pass bills or didn't you? He didn't even try with so many of the bills. He can't withstand a real debate. So we're going to put up a guy against Donald Trump that we all know can't beat Cenk Uygur in a debate. That's a fact. Hey, listen, you're not such a slush in a debate, Cenk.

I wouldn't sell yourself short on that regard. Listen, I'll go ahead and say we would love to host one of these debates if such a thing comes to fruition. And I'm always grateful for you taking the time to come on our show and inform our audience about what it is that you're up to. All right. Thank you so much, guys. Cenkforamerica.com. Don't let them take hope away from you, okay? We're bringing hope back. We're going to get caught trying, and we're going to win. We're going to shock the world

because Joe Biden is not the guy. I am going to knock him out of this race. Hear me now, quote me later. All right. Great to see you, Cenk. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. 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. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

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

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

All right, well, it's Thanksgiving week. So we wanted to do a little Thanksgiving segment, Crystal, but we wanted to do it maybe a little bit differently. Let's start with some poll numbers. Actually, we'll put this first element up on the screen that shows six in 10 Americans are hoping to avoid politics at Thanksgiving. This is from The Hill. A poll released Monday found that more than 60% of people say they would rather not talk about politics over the holiday this week. Just 29% of people said they're looking forward to talking about politics with friends and family. All right, I actually, I have a lot of thoughts on this. We also have some great questions and

thoughts from you guys that we'll read, but let's start with the poll, Crystal. I'm actually a pro, not in every case, but I do think that part of the problem here is that we can't talk about politics anymore with the people that we're closest with. So I think what really annoys people is forcing politics. That I think is incredibly irritating if you're the person that's like picking at everyone and trying to force everyone to have uncomfortable political discussions. Yeah. On the other hand, I think we should all be better about making it possible to have a tough conversation about politics and religion. Because if you can't find empathy for the people who are literally your family, who have different perspectives than you, you're definitely not going to find empathy for the random internet poster who has a different perspective from you. Yeah, that's true. I would say the thing that

irritates me is when someone comes in. I don't hate if someone brings up politics. In fact, sometimes I like to hear from other people how they're processing an event. I may just ask some questions rather than really offer my opinion because I spend enough of my life offering my opinion. It's all available for anyone out there who wants to know what I think about any number of issues. It's available. So I like it more to like hear from other people how they're taking in information, more normal people. So there's that. The thing that bothers me though is when someone comes in super hot with a super controversial take and presents it like there's an assumption that, yeah, like everybody obviously agrees with this. You're an idiot if you disagree. You know what I mean? And you're an idiot if you don't. And there's just like a blanket assumption that,

of course, everyone must agree with this super controversial, super fringe take. I find that strange. I find it sort of like disrespectful. So I will say I'm in the camp that intends to avoid politics going into Thanksgiving. Yeah. But I often fail because I just occupy so much of my mind. I almost like can't help myself from making some kind of comment that's at least a little bit political. It's you. You're the problem. I am. I am am the problem it's me um but we did get some interesting responses from you guys about how you think about this so we've got uh ponce gomez says when in doubt instigate that's the ryan grim approach see i feel probably the saga i meant to ask ryan when he was here because i feel like he would be the type that in his very like low-key

way would offer some super hot takes and just chill would be the type that in his very like low-key way would offer some super hot takes and just chill about it see what happens in his very chill way but anyway he says holidays are a great time to discover the secret extremist in the family love starting the holiday off right with a few hot buttons and watch how the turkey legs fly um we have another one Joseph Turner Patterson the second says in the past I've always either avoided political convos with my family or tried to redirect them to our few areas of agreement because my dissent is typically met with anger. I have no illusions I can change their minds about anything. However, my dad recently pressed me on the subject of Israel, and I decided to hold my ground. He is the typical,

unquestioningly, pro-Israel boomer, and I am very much not. And it actually remained very civil. That's hopeful. That's good. With an assist from BP on certain talking points. You're welcome. So if that specific topic comes up, I'm going to lean into it and see what happens. But anything else I would probably continue to avoid. Those hills just aren't worth dying on. So that's an interesting perspective of like, this issue is so important to me that I'm willing to have things be a little uncomfortable to actually assert my view. But that comment gets exactly what I mean by this, is that that actually the conversations with the people you care about and you have an emotional investment in, as opposed to random people on the internet or as opposed to, I don't know, some person at a bar, whatever it is, that's where you actually make more ground if you can.

That's the space in our communities, in our families, where you can be persuasive because people are invested in you, they know you, they care about you. And I feel like if we can't have these conversations in this context, which largely we can't, and for sometimes, sometimes you shouldn't be forcing these conversations because it's going to end poorly. You're going to be putting politics over family. So I get that, but we should all try to be in a situation where we can have those conversations. And I think that's what I, there's this next converse. You get a shout out in this one. Yeah, this one is, I'm going to mess up your name. Pajna Haj real BP does a great job with differences of opinion. I noticed one person

will always say, quote, you are making an important point. That's such an important point that you're making, et cetera. Even though that person has very different opinions on the matter, I might allow someone to share their opinion at the holiday table, but I don't offer mine unless they're expressing a desire to understand my perspective. That's so key. I think it would then take, I would then take the Emily approach. She states to the audience that she comes from an evangelical Christian perspective, but she's not screaming into the camera that everyone else is a baby killer. And that one reminded me of one we got from John Isaac Schumard, who named Josh Sager and says, I do not bring up politics.

When you're done with boomers, it is inevitable. When you dine with boomers, it's inevitable to come up. I pull a Sager and ask, I do not bring up politics. When you're done with boomers, it is inevitable, when you dine with boomers, it's inevitable to come up. I pull a Sager and ask, what do you think? And then follow Ice-T's advice, let them talk. Eventually they get it all in their system and the conversation moves on. Rarely they care what I actually think. And the reason these comments stood out, Crystal, is that especially over the last month, I'm sure Sager has gotten some of this too, people will say, and you probably have as well, what you do on Crystal Kylan Friends is different than what you do on Breaking Points. So people will say, you know, when Emily's on with Megyn Kelly or when Emily's on Federalist Radio Hour, you know, just it's a much more sort of crystallized

conservative perspective than when she's talking to Ryan or when she's talking to Crystal. And I'm sure that also is true when you're on Crystal Kyle and Friends. And that's, we have to learn how to have these conversations in different contexts. You don't talk the same way when you're trying to be, you know, polite and persuasive with someone you disagree with as you do when you're talking to someone who agrees with you. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It very much depends on the audience and the context, etc. Yeah, I you know, one thing that I always get a little nervous about is people will start if if you're in a Thanksgiving holiday setting where you don't necessarily know everyone, you know, there are some friends there of relatives that you haven't met yet or whatever, which is often the case for me. They'll start asking you, like, oh, what do you do? And I don't know, how do you answer that question? Because I try to keep it as vague as possible. Oh, yeah.

Not because usually if they drill down enough to like, oh, you talk about politics for a living, not because I'm worried they're going to ask me questions about it, because that oftentimes makes other people uncomfortable. If they know you're super political, then it puts them on edge. So I try to be really generic and vague when I'm answering that question. Yes, so do I. But then sometimes they'll ask, you know. The follow-ups and you're like, all right, fine. I'm a journalist. Or like, oh, I'm a podcast.

They're like, oh, who for? Right. And it's like, you can't get away with it. We got one last one here from Jessica Sager. She says, I'm happy to talk politics at Thanksgiving to help educate my relatives whose only news sources are unhinged Facebook posts and weird minions memes. We all know that person because they actually trust what I'm saying and have told me that it's helpful. Well, that's very nice. Some of them outright asked me who to vote for

because I'm considered one of the smartest people in my family. Oh, that's lovely for you, Jessica. Believe me, the bar is beneath the ground and we need a metal detector. That's kind of a lovely sentiment, though, that her relatives, even the ones who are, you know, mostly looking at the unchanged Facebook posts, respect her opinion and are looking for guidance from someone they trust. People are desperate for good information. And again, I think that is another reason. I don't know. I love talking to you and Ryan because it just is it's so helpful. It's so helpful because when you're having those conversations, you realize what you get wrong because the other person has the best version of the other argument, hopefully, or they have versions of the other argument that you've never thought of or you've never heard. And so it's just really helpful to be able to say, here, listen, we might disagree. Here's one thing maybe you haven't thought of. Or here's one thing I find interesting about your perspective and ask questions. That's just, I feel like Thanksgiving's actually, if you're not forcing it, if you're not putting politics over family, I feel like family gatherings

are actually not the worst place in the world. But that's my unpopular opinion. Well, I am thankful for you too, Emily, and thankful for all of you guys out there in the world. Hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving day, Thanksgiving weekend, however you celebrate it. And we are going to have some content that is posting some great interviews. I did one with Norm Finkelstein. Sagar did one with Jocko. Those are going to post a little bit early for premium subscribers, but they'll be available for everyone at some point. I don't really remember the schedule off the top of my head. So stay tuned for that. Love you guys. And we'll see you back here with a full normal week of shows next week. Thank you. Terima kasih telah menonton! Thank you. Ketika kita mengambil alat-alat, kita bisa mengambil alat-alat yang terbaik. Terima kasih telah menonton! Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,

I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country 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. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard.

Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives.

That's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart Podcast.