Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/30/23: Henry Kissinger Dead At 100, AIPAC Lobbies WH Against Ceasefire, Elon Tells Advertisers Go F%%% Yourself, Mark Cuban 2024?, GM Humiliates Biden, CIA UFO Retrievals, Male Wages Plummet

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the legacy of Henry Kissinger after his death, AIPAC lobbying against ceasefire, Hamas announcing hostages killed in air strike, Elon melts down at advertisers, Mark Cuban running in 2024?, GM humiliates Biden, whistleblowers claim CIA UFO retrievals, and Saagar looks into plummeting male wages.   BP Holiday Merch LIVE NOW (Use code BLACKFRIDAY for 15% off Non-Holiday Items): https://shop.breakingpoints.com/collections/breaking-points-holiday-collection  To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots to get to this morning. Breaking news. Last night, Henry Kissinger is dead at 100. So we'll talk a little bit about that to begin the show.

We also have updates for you out of Israel in terms of the current ceasefire negotiations, temporary ceasefire negotiations, and what comes next. Also, some pretty noteworthy comments from Elon Musk yesterday in a New York Times event telling advertisers, G-F-Y, go F yourself. So we've got those comments for you, what it means, all of that. Very interesting. Mark Cuban sparking rumors that maybe he's going to run for president. I think he is. You think so? I think so. Yeah. We'll talk about it. He denies it pretty strenuously. I don't know. But anyway, it's interesting. We'll tell you the signs there. We also have a massive announcement from the United Auto Workers. They are launching the largest organizing effort perhaps in history at basically every car maker with factories here in

the US. So that is a big deal. And Sager's got a big UFO report for us and also a fantastic monologue for us today. Yes, I'm back. I'm back, Crystal. We have a couple things we wanted to mention. First and foremost is we got some data. I know a lot of you are posting your personal Spotify raps, many of which showed us at number one, so we thank you. But we also got our own here for breaking points with some incredible data that we wanted to share with all of you. Let's put this up there on the screen. So 45% of the people who are listening right now actually discovered this podcast in 2023, which is astounding when you think about it, because that's nearly half. And Crystal, you and I also know from our last year's Spotify Wrapped that at that point, 55% of people had joined us in 2022. And we started this only in June of 2021. So that's over 100% growth in audience. It shows

that we had huge spikes anytime that we had major news events from the midterms, more recently in Israel. And we also learned something about the way that you guys share the show. Predominantly, people who did share it, shared it by a text message. So we have a couple of asks of you, but the main one today is for the future and ongoing, if you like an episode and you think it could help a friend of yours, send it via text to a friend. Because clearly from what we're seeing, thousands and tens of thousands of you have done that now over the last year, and it's actually dramatically helped our growth. So we appreciate you. And then of course, our premium subscribers as well, who we can also see in the data,

have been some of the super users and sharers. So if you want to sign up, breakingpoints.com. But incredible data. And we can't help but thank you all so much because that's what helps keep our business, I think, really different than a lot of other people. We don't have to rely on a single source of revenue. We have a huge podcast. We have a big YouTube show as well. And of course, we have our premium subscriptions. So you guys keep us anti-fragile. And, you know, anytime I see data like that, it's stunning. It really is crazy. Thank you for keeping us anti-fragile. I like that. Yeah. And one of the things, too, that was amazing to me looking at that data, which I mean, first of all, just thank

you guys. It's amazing. And it's exciting to have new people still joining the show and, you know, tuning in to hear our analysis of what's going on in Israel and Gaza. So thank you for that. And one of the shows that really brought people in was one of the shows with regards to, you know, focus on Israel. And of the new listeners, an overwhelming majority have actually joined just in the past couple months with regards to our Israel coverage. So as we've said many times in the past, especially with regard to coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the fact that you guys trust us to cover these big, significant, fraught, difficult news events, it really means a lot to us. We take it really seriously. And, you know, it really sort of fuels us and helps us remain committed to doing the best job we possibly can on these complex news events. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We love you guys. We appreciate you guys. Let's go and jump in with the big breaking news. Put this up on the screen from The Intercept. There were many ways of leading these obits for Henry Kissinger. The Intercept goes with top U.S. diplomat responsible for millions of deaths dies at 100. Let me read you a little bit of this. They say few people have had a hand in as much death and destruction, as much human suffering in so many places around the world as Henry Kissinger. This

was written by journalist Nick Turst, who we actually had on the show, I believe in the past year it was Emily and I were on. He had uncovered new deaths attributable to Kissinger, even, you know, in the past couple of years in Cambodia. He goes on to write, Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor, Secretary of State under two presidents and longtime eminent screese of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, died on November 29th at his home in Connecticut, 100 years old. He helped to prolong the Vietnam War, expand that conflict into neutral Cambodia, facilitated genocides in Cambodia, East Timor and Bangladesh, accelerated civil wars in Southern Africa and supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America. He had the blood of at least 3

million people on his hands, according to his biographer, Greg Grandin. Goes on to quote, there were few people who have had as much a hand in death and destruction, as much human suffering in so many places around the world as Henry Kissinger, according to veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody. So 100 years, lived a long time, advised literally every president. Of the last 12, I believe. And hopeful presidents like Hillary Clinton was a symbol of, you know, both the sort of arrogance and casual disregard for human life, using the entire world as a chessboard and human beings as pawns and playthings on that chessboard. The sort of arrogance that precipitated the war on terror and our misadventures, neocon misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he is at long last

dead. Well, I'll give my hottest take is I don't think Kissinger was uniquely bad in any respect. If anything, I think he was actually much better than many of the people who occupied top charges in American foreign policy. On Vietnam, I've never understood, and I was telling you this earlier, why people like McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara were not nearly as reviled as Kissinger. I mean, Kissinger, sure, he expanded the secret bombing in Cambodia, but him and Nixon got signed the Treaty of Paris and they got us the hell out of Vietnam. They had the Vietnamization process. Detente was one of the most successful foreign policy things that we needed at the time. The SALT I Treaty froze the insane missile spending that the LBJ and Kennedy-Johnson administration were doing. The opening of China remains one of the great masterclasses in American foreign policy. And my big meta kind of take on why I get annoyed with some of the criticism of Kissinger is the reason why the left hates Kissinger are the reasons that the neocons hated him too.

Because he refused to incorporate quote-unquote morality into his foreign policy. Now, I know that that sounds bad, but, you know, one of the reasons why I've been so against, like, moralistic campaigns around Israel, around Ukraine, is that weaponized empathy is a bad way to conduct relations between states. Kissinger disregarded that, along with Nixon, and pursued, in most cases, a pretty realist policy, and was confined by some difficult political circumstances at the time. So I think people like Rumsfeld, who, by the way, is the person who eventually defeated Kissinger in bureaucratic combat. People like McGeorge Bundy, people like McNamara, many of the, I forget the CIA director's name, for Ronald Reagan and all of them. They're far worse in terms of, you know, George, well,

okay, but he was the president. And that actually brings me back to Kissinger was not the decider. It was Nixon. It was Ford. It was Kennedy. It was— Kissinger was incredibly influential over a long period of time. Kissinger was literally picking out places on the map to bomb, indiscriminately bomb. And so you and I have a fundamental difference of opinion, a philosophical difference in terms of conduct and morality. And, you know,

I'm opposed to genocide. I'm opposed to war crimes. This man was a war criminal. There's no two ways about it. Read Christopher Hitchens' book on it if you want to know all the details. But I mean, even just with regard to Vietnam, he intentionally blew up peace talks in an attempt to try to get Nixon into the White House. Then he's rewarded with a national security advisor's job. So even if you're just talking about Vietnam, he prolongs this conflict for years and expands it into Cambodia and Laos. The U.S. dropped 540,000 bombs on those places. They slaughtered 150,000 to 500,000 Cambodian civilians. So, you know, I can't really just look past that. And the other piece I would say, even if you don't care about So, you know, I can't really just look past that. And the other piece I would say, even if you don't care about genocide, you know, the backing Pinochet in Chile,

these brutal military dictatorships, even if you're like, yeah, I don't really care if it serves American interests. The other piece of it and why it is so consistent and why he's like the grandfather of neocons is because there's such a level of arrogance, thinking that we can just move these pieces on the chessboard around, not care about any of the humanity involved and not experience any sort of fallout or blowback from those sort of adventures. So he did support the war in Iraq.

It's not like he was opposed to it because this is completely consistent with his ideology. Now, the neocons may have tried to wrap their ideology in idealism, but the reality is that they were very much consistently trying to pursue their own version of Kissinger's strategy, which is, again, why, in spite of all of his various record of criminality over many decades, he still was vetted by elites from both parties consistently. And, you know, we're talking a lot about the loss of U.S. credibility and how can they ever say anything with a straight face about care of democracy, human rights, et cetera, given the support of Netanyahu's, you know, indiscriminate bombing in Gaza right now. You know, Kissinger really is like the grandfather of that, too. It can point to the Iraq war and the loss of U.S. credibility, but it really goes back to him and the total disregard for law, constitutionality, and any

sort of care and concern for humanity. I understand. I just don't think human rights or morality or any of these things really have anything to play whenever it comes to how you should conduct yourself. Because ultimately, you find yourselves like the Biden administration and all the governments before them backing places like Saudi Arabia and then talking about other things in Ukraine. It's like it's never going to be consistent. Whenever you live in a messy world, it's going to be messy. So you might as well disregard the pretense. I remember I think he was caught on one of the Nixon tapes basically saying exactly this.

I would just say again, I don't think he's uniquely bad in that period of American history. Listen, I could buy that there, I think part of why he stands out for people as such a uniquely evil figure is because he is this sort of symbol of the banality of evil that was embraced by presidents of both parties over such a long period of time. Maybe. And so, yeah, to say like, oh, well, other American like foreign policy advisors things. It's like, obviously, that's true. Yeah, but to me, it's way worse. Like, he's, like, he, I mean, I don't know how you get worse than being responsible for, like, millions of people's deaths

and backing genocides in various places and military coups, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, but that's my point, is that by this regard, I mean, FDR, FDR heavily supported Joseph Stalin. He bailed him out in many respects, and Stalin was responsible for many, in many cases, more deaths than Hitler. It's a fight against the Nazis. That's my point,

is that you live in a messy world. It's like not, sometimes we have to make choices about who we support and who we work with, and at the end of the day, and also on 68, it's not 100% confirmed that they blew up those peace talks. Although it is controversial. I actually would still love if anybody who's alive who was president at that time were still looking for total confirmation. I was just, I think detente was a great policy. I think SALT 1 was what this country needed at the time. He bought us a long time before Afghanistan, the eventual rollback people who came under Reagan. I mean, he, within the political confines at the time, pursued Vietnamization, signed the Treaty of Paris.

He got our POWs out with the, I think it was part of the negotiation with the eventual Viet Cong under him in Ford. They did not, you know, strike back against the fall of Saigon, which was the correct and unpopular policy at the time. So there were a lot of things that they did, which I support and I think were on balance really good for America. Now, did he have a lot of mistakes and did he make a lot of dumb calls like supporting the war in Iraq? Yes. He also opposed NATO expansion, spoke out for not interfering in Ukraine. He believed very strongly, as I do, in the spheres of influence ideology. So look, I don't think he is nearly as bad as many of the people who were dominant foreign policy figures

at the time. And I think most of the reason people hate him is because of the resurgence. He became the icon of the devil during the new left, which is what most of the modern left is like a descendant of because of the expansion of the bombing of Cambodia. It's that, but then it's also the longstanding influence. I mean, slaughter in Laos, slaughter in Cambodia, slaughter in Vietnam, slaughter in East Timor, backing Suharto. That caused the death, 200,000 deaths just right there. We were their number one supplier of weapons, backing the coup of Allende and, you know, putting in place Pinochet and the, you know, brutal deaths that that resulted in. So I can't just look at that and be like, yeah, but you know, China, like, oopsie, genocide, what can you do? But that's my only point is how many civilians did LBJ McNamara and McGeorge Bundy kill in Vietnam? Like I said, I'm trying to say there was lots of other evil done by other presidents and other national security advisors.

But in any case, I'm not going to mourn this man's death after 100 long years of causing death and destruction. I will give a book recommendation. People should read it. We'll put the book jacket up there on the screen. It's his early years, which is very instructive, not about Kissinger. Great biographies are about the people, their times, and what the foreign policy conversation looked like. It's by Niall Ferguson, or maybe it's Neil. I never know how to say his name.

I recommend that people read it. Do not read the Walter Isaacson biography because it's a joke. I believe the only other credible one, if you want, from a lefty perspective is the one that you mentioned there. The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Well, that's the Hitchens book. But there's the one that the Yale historian wrote that you quoted him. I forget what it's called, that you just read in the Intercept biography. That one also, if you want to hear more of a critical perspective, you should also read that. You could also hear from Anthony Bourdain in his book, who said, and I quote, you'll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands after visiting Cambodia.

So there you go. Bourdain, as usual, had some good takes. He also was a cringe boomer leftist at his worst. So I'll leave it at that, too. How about that? Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets.

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Some great reporting from our friend Ken Klippenstein over at The Intercept. So apparently the Israeli military has launched a full court press closed door PR blitz on Capitol Hill as you have had some calls for a ceasefire growing. Let me read you a little bit from Ken's report. So high level Israeli military officers are conducting private briefings right now from members of Congress on Israel's war on Gaza. That's according to documents that The Intercept was able to get their hands on. Those briefings have ramped up as questions emerge on Capitol Hill about Israel's conduct in the war and ceasefire calls gain steam. This is from a source. They say, quote, There's an Israel PR blitz happening this week facilitated by a handful of senators.

Practically all of the briefings on this issue these last few weeks have been members only. One briefing exclusive to members of the Senate scheduled on Monday and organized by Senator Tammy Duckworth involved three senior IDF officers stationed at the Israeli embassy. So, Sagar, you have a major PR offensive here to try to make sure, because Israel has long enjoyed bipartisan backing and support. The Biden administration, of course, thus far in this war has given them everything they wanted, no strings attached. But now you're coming down to the wire where there is $14 billion in additional aid that is supposed to be part of a package that could be passed or voted on as early as next week. And you have growing calls for a ceasefire, including, you know, Biden's tone shifting a little bit. Again, the actions have continued to be, hey,

unconditional support, no red lines, et cetera. But you do have a little bit of a different tone being struck by Biden. So they are getting nervous that that aid could be conditioned. They are getting nervous that the U.S. could at some point under pressure from the domestic populace, which is overwhelmingly in favor of a ceasefire, push their congressional members to stop giving them that fulsome unconditional support that they are so used to. Yeah, the AIPAC meeting is pretty significant because it really comes at a pivotal moment here in Washington around all the debates with ceasefire about the extension, about, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, the possible conditioning of aid. But as hostages began to come out, oh, and we have a good update here that we can deliver on the show. Yarden, who is the sister of Gili Roman, who we had here, who was one of the Israeli hostages, or we had, in some

cases, nobody knew if she was alive or not. We had a great interview with her brother. It was actually released earlier today by Hamas. So we're very, very happy about that. Gili, who we had on the show, was obviously very emotional, distraught around the situation. And we hope she's okay, and there's happiness there. But that's my point also is that as you have more people inside of Israel who are watching hostages come home, there's going to be growing pressure in order to continue those deals, especially with Hamas. It seems to be on the page where they'll release something like 10 hostages or so per day.

At the same time though, Crystal, there are people inside the Netanyahu coalition who are very against continuing this and actually could bring down his entire government. Yeah. So first of all, just to show you how influential some of the American Israel lobby groups are, put this up on the screen. Netanyahu met, we've got a picture here, with AIPAC leadership in Jerusalem. And, you know, read Ryan's book if you want to know how influential AIPAC is, how much they're able to throw their weight around, how crucial they have

been in keeping uniformity of opinion with regard to Israel and, you know, not brooking any criticism of the Israeli government whatsoever. Now, because you have this rise of grassroots fundraising able to lift, you know, people like AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar into office, they have not been able to keep that absolute lock grip. But they are saying they're going to spend millions and millions to try to defeat anyone who is, you know, called for a ceasefire or dissented on the issue of Israel and Palestine here in the case of Israel's war on Palestine, so war on Gaza. So you can see there, you know, how important Netanyahu finds them in terms of keeping American public opinion on his side. We reported just days ago that Netanyahu

in making his case to stay leader of Likud party and stay the prime minister of Israel saying, hey, I know how to manage American public opinion. I know how to deal with Joe Biden. I've known him for 40 years. And by the way, I'm the guy who will make sure there will never be a Palestinian state. So makes all the sense in the world that AIPAC officials, when they go to Israel, you know, they get the royal treatment and get to meet with the big guy right away. Put this next piece up on the screen. They've taken all of these various resolutions to just prove how pro-Israel everybody is and get people on the record, et cetera. We have this new one about, quote, reaffirming the state of Israel's right to exist. We had one no vote here, and we wanted to give a shout out to Republican Thomas Massey. He's

been very consistent. I mean, this takes courage. AIPAC has already said they're coming for him, too. He says, much of the language in this, I'm voting no on, I actually agree with, and I agree with the title, but it equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is deplorable, but expanding it to include criticism of Israel is not helpful. And this has long been the goal of groups like ADL to make it so that criticism of the Israeli government, which Israelis do all the time, Netanyahu has like literally an 8% approval rating in the state of Israel right now, is completely off limits, is considered anti-Semitic. And certainly any criticism of the political ideology of Zionism is also considered anti-Semitic,

which is outrageous. You have to be able to critique any sort of political ideology, and that's what this resolution seeks to enforce. Rashida Tlaib, I mean, sort of surprisingly, since Thomas Massey was the only no vote, she voted present, so she didn't vote for it, but nor did she vote against it. Yeah, I think it's really significant in order to actually think about where we stand in a domestic political level. Because as you said, for all of the outspoken talk of the squad and all these other people, why did they vote for this resolution, Crystal? And it seems clear, I think they're obviously cowed by some of the criticism. Massey being the only one to stand up.

And let's not whitewash this either. They are running millions of dollars of ads against him in his state of Kentucky. He's actually tweeted out some of them if people are interested to go and watch, and they directly target him. But his point is, I vote this way on all foreign aid of all kinds. He's like, I've been doing this for my entire tenure in all of Congress. So this is just a matter of principles and consistency, but they want to use the conflation of anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. It's also very interesting because this is what I don't get. Nikki Haley was rightfully mocked for saying anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.

Right. Where by many Democrats, influential commentators and others, and yet when the exact same resolution comes to the floor of the House, why is it passing with only a single no vote? What does that show us? And I think it shows us the power of AIPAC and of what they can deliver. And look, Michael Tracy made this point actually this morning, which I do agree is completely absurd, is that AIPAC now for decades has been exempt from the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which applies to, quote, individuals and entities acting with the U.S. on behalf of foreign interests, despite literally dedicating its entire existence to furthering the interests of Israel, including meetings with the prime minister of that nation and including often using their power directly to lobby American foreign policy for interests that are only aligned with Israel and then shrouded in supposedly this is better for America.

So I think there's an America first case to be made against an organization like this having such incredible power here in Washington. Again, I recommend the book Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer, which at the time was also smeared as anti-Semitic. It's been a tactic of theirs, unfortunately, for quite a long time. But the outcome of that vote just shows us how influential they remain to be. I still, though, believe that we are at probably the apex of AIPAC's power and apex of AIPAC's power because they have used so much political capital, first on the Iran deal

and second on here in American politics that in the future, future Democratic lawmakers and others are going to feel, I think, more comfortable speaking out against the consensus. I could be wrong. I mean, just look at the generational divide. Yeah, exactly. You know, as millennials of Gen Z become a majority of the American voting public, there's no doubt that the just, you know, blanket, unconditional support for Israel begins to erode. And, you know, they're going down kicking, screaming right now. They're going to, it's very possible that some of the squad members who have been courageous and outspoken against Democratic leadership on this issue, that they could lose in primaries. That is absolutely on the table. It's very much on the

table that you could have less support for dissent going forward after this Congress. But, you know, the other piece of it, Sagar, is just the Israeli political sphere has moved so far and hard to the right that there's just no, I mean, I have a list, there's a website now that's tracking like all of the just overtly genocidal quotes and advocating for ethnic cleansing coming from current Israeli government officials and Likud party members and whatever. And that just becomes undeniable at a certain point where you can no longer pretend like, oh, we're in this peace process and everybody wants a two-state solution when you've got Netanyahu arguing the reason I should stay in power is because I will make damn sure there is never a two-state solution. So some of the reality over

time, especially with the images that we've seen in Gaza, becomes undeniable, not only to members of Congress, but more critically to the American public whose grassroots pressure is responsible for any of the even tone shift coming from the administration right now. There's a fantastic piece in Haaretz, let's put this up on the screen, about the dynamics and the pressures, competing pressures that are facing Netanyahu currently. Obviously, as we've said a million times, politically, he is, I mean, he's hated. Anytime, I don't know if you guys have ever looked at the replies to any of his tweets on Twitter, but if you look at the Hebrew replies from the right and the left,

they all are like, resign. We hate you. You're horrible, evil. Get out of here. And the latest poll I saw has like 8% of people who think he should still be in charge of this country. So he has some political pressures, you might say. But what I found really remarkable and different than the way that the U.S. press presents the American side of things is they make it so clear how influential we are and how we really hold all the cards. It's only a question of whether we feel like using them or not. So they say here, Israel cannot determine its course alone. It depends on multi-layered American support. First, in renewal of the munition stores to replace the many bombs,

missiles, and artillery shells fired at and dropped on the Strip. Second, in warning of distant launches through the radar and warning network shared by Israel and the U.S. military, CENTCOM. Third, in securing Israeli freedom of shipping to and from Eilat Port in the face of the naval blockade imposed by the Houthis who control the Straits and the Red Sea. Fourth, in deterring Iran and Hezbollah from opening further fronts in Lebanon and perhaps Syria and Iraq as well. Fifth, the U.S. holds veto power at the U.N. Security Council and may thwart or allow a resolution calling for a ceasefire. They go on to say, and I found this extraordinary, again, this is not something you ever hear in the American press. The Americans are closely involved in all levels of managing the war, from operational coordination in the war rooms to the conversations of U.S. President Joe Biden and senior emissaries and officers with Netanyahu, Minister Golan, IDF Chief of Staff Halevi,

and heads of the Military Intelligence Director and the Air Force. They go on to say the American position is shaping up. Thus, Biden will agree to the opening of a second phase in the Gaza Strip campaign, but not to escalation as a result of Israeli initiatives in the north. In return, Israel will be required to expand the humanitarian aid to the Gazans and to produce an outline for the day after toppling Hamas, with the preferred scenario in Washington being the PA's return to the Strip and the opening of negotiations for the two-state solution. So in Israel, there is basically no public sentiment in favor of wrapping up this war, securing some sort of a lasting

truce or ceasefire. Very little sentiment in favor of that, virtually zero. And so the U.S. and these outside pressures are really the only ones that could push Israel to at any point in the near future end their indiscriminate bombing campaign that has been so devastating for the civilians in Gaza. Yeah. And the thing is, is the US policy really doesn't know where it stands right now. Let's put this up there, for example, with Joe Biden. He's continuing to try and have it both ways. He says this, quote, Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack

because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can't do that. So that seemed to be a call for a permanent ceasefire. And yet, at the same time, they put out a statement clarifying the tweet,

saying, quote, he meant that we can't lose hope for peace ultimately in the region. It's incredibly important that we consider to lay the groundwork for, create the conditions for a lasting peace that involves a two-state solution, whatever the hell that means.

Yeah, and they said it's not a change in policy, continues to believe that Israel's right to defend itself, blah, blah, blah. At the same time, we have this we can put there. The Qataris are at least optimistic in the short term that there will be an extension of the truce. They said, quote, they are very optimistic as long as they coast, as long as Hamas agrees to the Israeli conditions of continuing to release 10 hostages per day, as long as the continuation of the negotiations are there.

The problem, though, is that eventually, of course, you will run out of hostages. And then the eventual question arises, what are you going to do? I'm not sure, honestly, where things will stand. At the same time, Netanyahu and all of them are not idiots. They understand U.S. public opinion to a certain extent. They can see polling on ceasefire. And they also know that they've burned a lot of their credibility with a lot of their Western allies who are at this point facing a deluge of calls within their own coalitions to condition aid to Israel, or at the very least, they're seeing demonstrations. So will they conduct themselves in the South in the

military operation in the same way? Apparently Biden behind the scenes has made it clear to Netanyahu, he's like, you can't do that. You're going to have to change things up. Are they going to listen? I don't know. I mean, this actually comes to the question of the Israeli military and what orders they're receiving. Will they be given differing and separate orders to stop or to not reignite a similar pre-bombing campaign that we saw in Gaza before the ground operations continued? Or are they going to do things exactly the same? If I had to guess, I think it's probably going to be somewhere in the middle ground. But the initial response of October 7th, you know, with the bombing campaign that began really October

14th, really, and onward, I don't think they could get away with that now. It's possible. I could be totally wrong. But when you've got 30-some senators who are saying we should condition military aid, I mean, you can only stand against that for so long if you're somebody like Joe Biden. I mean, that is the question because we've been getting all these strategic leaks to The Washington Post, The New York Times this whole time. Like, oh, yeah, publicly they're saying no red lines, but behind the scenes, Biden's been really tough. Well, it doesn't matter. I mean, that's really clear at this point, even if that is true, which maybe it is, maybe it's not. It clearly doesn't matter unless you're actually going to back it up with conditioning aid or pulling support at the UN or, you know,

some other actual use of our leverage. They clearly don't care because again, Netanyahu from a domestic perspective, all the pressure is on the other side to bomb the hell out of the South of the Gaza Strip in the same way that they did the North. So if you don't have the U.S. actually willing to use the cards that we have, then he's just going to continue doing whatever the hell he wants to do and what, and, you know, satiating the desire for revenge among the Israeli public. And by the way, you know, his far right coalition, they've already said that if we continue these truces and if we don't go back to bombing the strip the way that we were before, we're out of the government. He has a very narrow coalition to work with. So if you have a few of these keys

players out, that's it. Then you've got to call for new elections and no way in hell Netanyahu is winning new elections today. Not a chance. So that's why, you know, when you can put it in kind of the American political context of when you have this like narrow margin in the house, then it gives, you know, whoever is like the craziest gives them the most leverage if they want to use it. Well, it's the same thing in Israel. That's why these quote-unquote fringe figures have so much power in terms of the execution of this campaign, because he has to have them to hold onto his grip on power. So as Sagar mentioned before, we do have, this is really different. It used to be a really fringe position held by basically Bernie Sanders and no one else that we should condition aid to Israel.

And this is becoming a mainstream thought among Democratic senators. Put this up on the screen. So Schumer announced that they plan to hold the vote for that $14 billion in emergency aid to Israel as soon as next week. Sanders had previously called to condition aid. He reintroduced that call on November 18th. But you have additional people who are joining those calls. Senator Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz, and Jack Reed, they said, and these are, again, really like middle-of-the-road kind

of Democrats, standard-issue Democrats, we continue to support additional assistance to Israel, but we are all in agreement that this assistance must be consistent with our interests and values and used in a manner that adheres to international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict. You also had Peter Welsh, Bernie Sanders' colleague there in Vermont, saying something similar. If Israel can't meet the standard of placing the highest priority on civilian life, he says the U.S. must give serious consideration to the type of aid that Congress provides in any national security supplemental package. And we had Senator Chris Murphy saying very similar things in a recent interview. Let's take a listen.

Well, I stand by what I said. I do believe that the level of civilian harm inside Gaza has been unacceptable and is unsustainable. I think there's both a moral cost to this many civilians, innocent civilians, children often losing their life, but I think there's a strategic cost. Ultimately, Hamas will get stronger, not weaker in the long run, if all of this civilian death allows them to recruit more effectively and ably inside Gaza. Listen, we regularly condition our aid to allies based upon compliance with U.S. law and international law. And so I think it's very consistent with the ways in which we have dispensed aid,

especially during wartime, to allies for us to talk about making sure that the aid we give Ukraine or the aid we give Israel is used in accordance with human rights laws. So, Sagar, again, these are not radicals. This is like, you know, mainstream democratic sentiment. And, you know, this is this is very different conversation that was having happening previously. And the other thing that people are pointing to is there's something called the Leahy Law, which is supposed to be, you're supposed to make sure that any sort of weapons that you're providing to foreign governments,

that they're not gonna be used for war crimes or against civilians. And with Israel, we've long just ignored that, outright waived it. And so there are now growing calls of also applying the Leahy Act to any of our military aid to Israel as well. I have calls of also applying the Leahy Act to any of our military aid to Israel as well. I have a long history with the Leahy Law.

Oh, really? Yeah. One of the first biggest stories I ever worked on was if people remember sexual abuse within the Afghan forces that was covered up, that was basically covered up by the Pentagon and by the U.S. military, including literal pedophilia that the Pentagon didn't want to come to light, and in some cases, punished US forces. Well, the evidence behind a lot of the pedophilia that pervaded a lot of the Afghan National Security Forces was hidden by the Pentagon and classified specifically so that we would not violate the Leahy Law in our aid to Afghanistan. So this is one of the biggest stories I worked on a lot at the time. And unfortunately, I think that's part of why I almost grinned when you said it, because here's the truth. If they don't want you to know, they'll just classify it. Or they will

drag along the process such that on the letter of the law, you're not violating the Leahy law, and you just continue the weapons. It's a joke. It's a very well-intentioned law. It's actually a good law, but it's one that needs more teeth. Patrick Leahy himself always tried to advance that, but the truth is that when the American military industrial complex wants something, they will usually get it. You know, Leahy was actually

interviewed about this by a Vermont community newspaper group, which is adorable, and Haaretz quoted from this piece that they were able to find that he said, it appears to me that shooting civilians and targeting civilian infrastructure when you can't prove it as being used by Hamas would be a violation of human rights. The U.S. is urging the Israelis to protect civilians. And of course, the Israelis face a terrible terrorist attack by Hamas, which is a violation of every norm

of international law. But he added, what is being done to apply the Leahy law now? I don't know. I know past administrations have been too concerned to do it. I should apply. It should apply to the IDF unless the administration, as many have, has waived it. So in any case, those are some of the bubbling pressures that are being brought to bear, which, again, I think is wholly due to the pressure that has been enforced by the grassroots, these protests and demonstrations all across the country. There are all kinds of reports about how senators and members of Congress are just flooded with calls in favor of a ceasefire. You know, the horror of the images that are coming out

on TikTok and even in some mainstream press at this point is creating so much pressure that even the United States Congress, at least on the Democratic side, is feeling some of that heat and feeling like they need to do something. So that's part of what's shaping whatever is going to come next with regards to this war. Camp Shane, one of America's longest runningrunning weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.

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

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

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. 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,

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It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We also wanted to cover for you, you know, as part of these ongoing hostage release deals, put this up on the screen, some really troubling potential news. Hamas is claiming that the

youngest hostage and three family members were actually killed in Israeli bombing. Of course, this is coming from Hamas. It has not been confirmed, so we don't know for sure. But this report from NBC News says fears were raised Wednesday for the youngest hostage held in the Gaza Strip after Hamas claimed that 10-month-old Kaffir Bibas had been killed along with his brother and mother. Israel's military says they are assessing the claim. Relatives said they were waiting for the news to be confirmed or hopefully refuted soon about the family members who become leading faces of the hostage crisis. You know, it's these two adorable little red haired babies who's, you know, have really captured the hearts and concerns the reasons why a lot of the family members of the hostages have been pushing so stridently from the beginning and protesting vehemently against Netanyahu and pushing for some sort of a deal to be struck. Because they were saying, listen, our family members are in Gaza, too.

Now, again, this isn't confirmed. But to be honest with you, it would be extraordinary if none of the hostages were injured by this bombing campaign because it was so widespread. I mean, most of northern Gaza is completely destroyed. So this is, you know, horrible possible dues, as I said. And look, Hamas also, they need to release evidence of this because it's also equally possible that these kids died of dehydration or, you know, who knows in terms of the conditions that they were being held. Also, I mean, they're small children and a family, like you never know. Well, these are seized conditions too. Yeah, seized conditions. No water, no food being allowed in. There's a lot of reasons why, obviously, you know, that something like this could happen. So if this is true, like they need

to literally release all the evidence, I know that they're not going to. The Israelis also, as far as I understand it, have not acknowledged the claim or they claim that they're investigating. The families themselves just says our family is updated on the latest publication. We are waiting for the news to be confirmed or hopefully refuted soon by military officials. So the family itself remains in limbo. But it is actually I think highlights and one of the reasons we wanted to cover it is some of the complex nature in which Israeli society is grappling with this. Because you're right. There is no organic like we need a ceasefire pushback. But there is a lot of sympathy around

the hostages. And conducting the military operations vis-a-vis protecting the actual hostages is a big cause of concern with the families. We saw it when we interviewed Gili Roman, the family of a hostage here. As I mentioned previously, she was released, thank God, earlier today. But you could see the concern on his face and amongst a lot of others around, are these people going to be safe? Especially when we know from the hostages who have been released so far, they did say many of them were held in Gaza City in the north. And many of them were actually released in the zone of control, supposedly, by the IDF, showing, again, also their control is not as ironclad as one may think. So

we wanted to give everybody that update. Obviously, we don't know any of the details or all of that on it, but it does relate to a big question around it and also to the possible temporary extension about what might happen here. So the last thing we have for you on that, put this up on the screen, is there are additional extension talks which are ongoing. The headline here from the Times, some officials hope that brief pauses will pave the way to talks on ending the war. International mediators were pushing on Wednesday to lock in another temporary extension of that ceasefire. And you guys will remember the deal was basically for every 10 additional hostages released by Hamas, there would be additional day of the ceasefire.

However, the original deal only dealt with women and children. So obviously you also have men and you have military who were not covered by that original deal. There have been some indications that Hamas would like to expand the deal to also talk about, you know, soldiers and men who are civilians. And no indication that Israelis are interested in that at this point, but we don't really know. Officials with knowledge of the talks said they also hope the succession of short-term pauses would pave the way toward a larger goal, negotiations over a longer-term ceasefire to bring the war to a close. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Israeli official said 97 women and children had been taken hostage and that after Wednesday's release, some two dozen remained. So that means if you're just keeping it with women and children, the extent of the pause that's possible is very limited. And that's, again, assuming that all of those individuals

are still alive. It's assuming they can be located by Hamas, which you may think sounds ridiculous, but they were being held by a variety of groups, you know, in a small enclave, which is under complete siege, where communications are frequently cut. So the process of actually locating these individuals is not necessarily straightforward. And they said there are currently no negotiations aimed at a longer term ceasefire or an exchange involving all the remaining hostages for all the remaining Palestinian prisoners. So Netanyahu, we've covered some of these comments, and his defense minister, Gallant, they have been very clear that after this temporary pause, we're going right back at it. There were comments that were made that were like, I think by Gallant, that it's going to be stronger than ever, it's been going to be more aggressive than ever throughout the entire

strip. And just to remind people of where we are, obviously, they already bombed the hell out of northern Gaza. It's basically completely uninhabitable, especially Gaza City. They told everybody to move to the south. So, you know, all 2.2 million are close to it. Palestinians have been clustered now in the south, including in cities like Khan Yunus, where they're now saying they're going to center the new bombing campaign. So as brutal as what has already unfolded has been, the level of brutality possible going forward is even greater since you have all of these civilians now clustered into an even smaller area than before. That's why I just simply don't think that the similar situation will unfold. It's possible, it certainly is.

It's not like I would put it past them. I just think that there's a lot of geopolitical realities that could constrain it, including the hostage situation. One thing to not forget also is that all the hostages released so far, there are many IDF soldiers who are also being held as hostages by Hamas who were kidnapped on October 7th. You should not forget that they too have quite a bit of sympathy. So they are actually not even really on the table in terms of exchange right now because they're seen and operating in a different place. But don't forget also that this will remain an issue, I think, in Israeli society for some time to come. That's right. Especially given the past hostage exchanges that Netanyahu himself had to acquiesce to. We'll see how it all plays out, but we definitely want to give everybody that update. Okay, let's switch gears to Elon Musk, who yesterday gave a extraordinary interview, and I think that's the only way to describe it, with Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC and of Dealbook over at the New York Times. He was asked, Andrew Ross Sorkin of Elon, he was like, okay, what is your message to

advertisers who pulled their advertisers after one of the controversial tweets Elon sent around immigration, anti-Semitism, and more, which precipitated his eventual trip to Israel? Here was his message to advertisers who pulled their dollars, including Disney CEO Bob Iger. Let's take a listen. Obviously, you know that there's a public perception that you're clarifying this now. But there's a public perception that that was part of a apology tour, if you will, that this had been said online. There was all of the criticism. There was advertisers leaving. We talked to Bob Iger. I hope they stop. You hope don't advertise. You don't want them to have a time. No, what do you mean? If somebody's gonna try to blackmail me with advertising blackmailing with money go fuck yourself But

Go fuck yourself Is that clear? I? Hope it is Hey, Bob here in the audience Well. Hey, Bob, if you're in the audience. Well, let me ask you then. That's how I feel. Don't advertise. How do you think then about the economics of X?

If part of the underlying model, at least today, and maybe it needs to shift, maybe the answer is it needs to shift away from advertising. If you believe that this is the one part of your business where you will be beholden to those who have this view, what do you do? I understand that, but there's a reality, too. Right? Yes. No, no. I mean, Linda Iaccarino is right here, and she's got to sell advertising. Absolutely. So, no, no.

Totally. So, no. Actually, what this advertising boycott is going to do, it's going to kill the company. And you think that the company... And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail. But those advertisers, I imagine, are going to say, they're going to say, we didn't kill the company. Oh, yeah?

They're going to say... Tell it to Earth. But they're going to say, Elon, that you killed the company because you said these things, and that they were inappropriate things things and that they didn't feel comfortable on the platform. Right. That's that's what they're going to say. And let's see how Earth responds to that. OK, a little bit of an odd interview that was there, but we want to play any non odd interview. Yeah, fair point.

The reason we wanted to play the full clip there is it makes a couple of things clear. He was speaking basically directly to Bob Iger when he was like, hey, Bob, who Disney CEO, who specifically pulled some of the advertising that they had there. But I think he was setting it up for an eventual bankruptcy lawsuit. That's how I read his comments when he said, well, they'll call the company. And this is frankly a major, and it's complicated for me. I have sympathy for the idea, since we built this business, to be anti-fragile against advertising and boycotts and all these other things based upon a subscription model. The problem is the subscription model they came up with is just not very good. Twitter blew. That's no real compelling reason to sign up for it and has been a tremendous failure in terms of replacing advertising revenue with the company. Twitter itself is so massively reliant on Fortune 500 companies to advertise on the platform because some $5 billion of their revenue, nearly 90% of it,

came from those companies in the year before it sold to Elon. And a huge portion of them have canceled either through management of the platform and even this particular boycott, which this is the other part where I agree. Media matters and all these other people. These are heinous and annoying people. That said, you know, you shouldn't give them ammunition to work with to then facilitate boycotts against your company. You don't have a right to advertise. And this is where, you know, much of the rhetoric around this is so complicated.

Like I hate the ADL. I hate Media Matters. I hate all these people who are, I think, dishonest and bad faith and the way that they encourage all this. But, you know, you also, if you're in a business relationship with Disney and with all these other people where you do literally rely on them for the bulk of your revenue, you're kind of in a rock and a hard place unless you're going to develop a much, much better subscription-based revenue model, which they frankly just have not done with the Twitter Blue program. There's not a compelling reason, honestly, to sign up for it for the vast majority of people and especially to replace $5 billion of revenue. So I think Elon is in a tough spot and it's very likely that he has just resigned himself to like this company's going bankrupt.

I mean, he's already said it's worth half of what I bought it for. But, I mean, a lot of people are interpreting that as the definition of FU money. They're like, well, you can say FU to your biggest advertiser. But the big question is, like, hey, who the hell is going to own this site in a year? Is it going to be Elon or is it the bankers? I'm increasingly coming on the side of the bankers. Yeah, I write it the same way as you did as, like, pre-story and, like, pre-buttle and cope in advance of the failure of the bankers. Yeah. I write it the same way as you did as like pre-story and like pre-buttle and cope in cope in advance of the failure of Twitter of like, well, it's not my

fault. It's these advertisers who are boycotting into your point. Listen, I would love nothing more than to be able to be like go off King when you're telling advertisers to go screw themselves. I would love that. But it's not like it's been used in service of some sort of consistent principle. You know what I mean? Claim claims to be the free speech guy. He just banned saying decolonization on his platform or from the river to the sea, which, by the way, is in Likud's charter as much as it's in Hamas's charter. So it's not like his principles about free speech have been consistent remotely at all. In fact, in some ways, he's been more censorious than the previous Twitter regime. So, again, it's not like this has been in service of any sort of a principle.

And no advertiser owes you their dollars. It's up to you, Mr. Genius Businessman, to figure out a business plan that's going to work without depending on the advertisers. So, yeah, that's capitalism. You're the uber-capitalist. You should understand this more than anyone. And if we can figure out a business model that could be impervious to boycotts and, you know, anticipate the fact that we say things that are controversial and piss people off and could rub people the wrong way and lead to those sorts of things, like if we can figure that out, you can't figure that out for Twitter. So I think it's preposterous that that the world would blame the advertisers for leaving a platform that, you

know, putting aside his like crazy tweets and the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories he endorsed and whatever has just been like horrifically mismanaged throughout this entire time from a business perspective. The person I was thinking about, you know, he shouts out Bob Iger, who's sitting in the audience, which is kind of incredible. And but I'm thinking about Linda Yaccarina Linda Yaccarina, who was brought in. The CEO, yeah. She was like the head of advertising at NBC.

She's brought in to be the CEO specifically because she has all these cozy relationships with, you know, blue chip brands and all of these advertisers that you'd want to be bringing in. I know she put out some kind of a statement this morning. I don't know if you have it. I did. Yeah, I can pull it off. I can only imagine. This has to be one of the worst days of her life. Like how humiliating for her that the very thing she was brought in to try to accomplish, like working these

relationships and try to convince people it's fine to be back on the platform. In three words, GFY, he's able to completely blow any and all of that up. And I cannot but imagine that there's going to be additional fallout. You know, we'll get the numbers a month from now of how many additional advertisers are like, all right, screw you then. I'm gone. So I have the tweet that she posts. I'm sorry that Elon says it's no longer a tweet. He says, today, Elon Musk gave a wide ranging and candid interview at DealBook 2023. He also offered an apology, an explanation, explicit point of view about our position. X is enabling and information independence

is uncomfortable for some people. We're a platform that allows people to make their own decisions, and here's my perspective when it comes to advertising. X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of free speech and Main Street. The X community is powerful, is here to welcome you, to our partners who believe in our meaningful work.

Thank you. Wow. Okay. That's certainly something. In terms of spinning that one, if anything, I just appreciate Elon's, you know, he thinks this is all a game. He thinks that at the end of the day, he seems very, very comfortable with it going bankrupt. I think it's clear that I don't, I think he probably wishes that he didn't buy it in the long run. And I guess, I mean, listen, as a guy who supports Tesla and SpaceX and Starlink and all that, I would love nothing more than for him to fulfill his actual promise that he made a long time ago,

which is to step back and focus on these companies. I think Cybertruck looks awesome. Personally, I'd be happy to get one as soon as it's actually available. I think that those companies are far better validation of his legacy and all that. And he should probably move in that direction if he wants to remain a historical figure. But at the end of the day, I guess he can afford it. He doesn't particularly care. We should also,

it's clear too that that tweet that he sent that sparked all of his Israel trip and all this advertising backlash. He claims the Israel trip was already planned. Yeah, okay. Sure. Anyway, he claimed also in that interview it was the most foolish tweet that he's ever sent. Let's take a listen. When you see all this happening, are you sitting there going, oh my God, I stepped in it.

I wish I didn't do that. Are you saying, screw them. I hate these people. Why are they after me? But all of that. Yeah, all of that. I mean, look, I'm sorry for that pre or post. It was foolish of me. Of the 30,000, it might be literally the worst and dumbest post that I've ever done. And I try my best to clarify it six ways to Sunday. But, you know, at least I think over time it will be

obvious that in fact far from being anti-Semitic, I'm in fact philo-Semitic. And all the evidence in my track record would support that. Let me ask you this though. There are people who say crazy things on X, as you know. Maybe you think they're crazy, maybe they're not. The aspiration for X is to be the global town square. Now, if you were to walk down to, let's say, Times Square, do you occasionally hear people saying crazy things? Yes, but they don't have the megaphone, right? And that's the conundrum.

They can only say it to the 50 or 100 people that are standing there in Times Square. They don't have a megaphone, right? And that's the conundrum. They can only say it to the 50 or 100 people that are standing there in Times Square. They don't have a megaphone. I mean, look, the joke I used to make about old Twitter was it was like giving everyone in the psych ward a megaphone. So there you go, Crystal. He said this is the most foolish thing that he's ever done, which I don't think is true. I think the worst tweet he ever sent is whenever he claimed that Tesla was going to go private, and he ended up getting fined millions of dollars by the SEC. That was a bad one too. In my opinion, the way it works. There are many to choose from. Just as a reminder for people who didn't follow the story closely, he replied to a tweet that said, okay, Jewish

communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about Western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much. You want truth said to your face. There it is, to which Elon replies, you have said the actual truth. It took me a while to actually parse what the hell this original person was saying, but basically the idea is Jews deserve what they get on October 7th because they vote bad in democratic politics. That is effectively the essence of what's going on here. There's not really something you want to co-sign necessarily. I would not co-sign that

if I was Elon. So Elon, go back to Tesla. We will all be much better off. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. 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 One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21stst and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

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

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

Marine Corps vet. 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. Some more billionaire news for you today. Mark Cuban put this up on the screen. Some interesting moves that are sparking 2024 chatter for Mr. Businessman Mark Cuban. He says he's leaving Shark Tank after another season. But in addition, put this up on the screen. This may be even more noteworthy. I don't know. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has also entered into an agreement to sell a majority stake in the NBA franchise to the family that runs the Las Vegas Sands Casino Company. It was announced Wednesday. That deal could be completed in the coming weeks with

a valuation in the range of $3.5 billion. So he's leaving Shark Tank and he's selling off his stake in the Dallas Mavericks. Gee, wonder what he could be planning on doing. So of course, everybody's minds want to, maybe this dude's going to run for president. I mean, he's flirted with it before. He's obviously very politically interested. We pulled an interview with him that I'll get to in a little bit of where exactly his politics are. Actually, I think it's fair to say a little hard to define at times. But you've got the specter of these two old men that everybody hates being the Democratic and the Republican nominee again, people desperately looking for some kind of an alternative. RFK Jr. jumping in the race and instantly jump into like 20% of the vote just because he's not Biden or Trump and because he's got a famous last name. So, you know, it's not crazy for him to look at it and go basically like,

you probably only need like 30% of the vote to maybe win this thing and have a real shot at it. And with all the money in the world that I've got and famous name that I've gotten, influence and, you know, relatively well-liked, et cetera, maybe I should give it a go. Yeah. I mean, I think he should run, especially in this crazy time. I'm for it. Yeah, I've always been pro-Mark Cuban. I like Mark Cuban. Although he has some very cringe boomer beliefs

on many things. But when you've got the array of options we have in front of us, each one of them has to be a very plus or minus situation. Imagine we were able to unite you and Isagra on a presidential candidate. Oh, for pro-Mark Cuban? Yeah, listen, he's not my number one choice,

but if my choices are him and Biden and Trump, I think he's got a pretty good shot. I'm not sure. See, I'm an accelerationist now at this point where I want to see both of them die. So if it comes down to it, we'll see. I'll tease you for what that looks like, especially with R.F.K. Jr. in the race. But I'll leave it and I'll try and analyze it without it. In terms of Cuban, from a personal level, what we all know is he loves the Mavericks. Why is he selling the Mavericks right now? Oh, he's just dying to sell it to Sheldon Adelson. He's not old enough to actually be retiring. He's only 65 years old. His two kids are not, I mean, they're young-ish, I believe. One of them is in college. I'm not sure about the other one. So he still has a place to be. He's in a place where he can keep working

and he's not sacrificing something necessarily at home. From Shark Tank, it's like Trump in the level of normie fame that he has. He's literally a household name. It has been for decades. Remember, he was one of the first famous dot-com billionaires who parlayed it into lasting fame and to television, to interviews. He's always kind of been all over the map. His prescription drug company is genuinely capital G good, like a great thing. It is. That a lot of people use and people rightfully admire. So I put it all together.

He's got the sports fame. He's got Shark Tank. He's got this prescription drug thing. He's charismatic. Yeah, he's charismatic. He's got the sports fame. He's got Shark Tank. He's got this prescription drug thing. Charismatic. Yeah, he's charismatic. He's well-spoken. He loves the media, loves. It's famous.

Everybody in Washington has the guy's email address because he actually replies. I mean, he doesn't even have an assistant sometimes. He'll give his thoughts, and he happily will interviews like with whomever people are asking. He'll opine on politics, economics, and all this stuff. Yeah, we got to interview him once. Yeah, we interviewed him once. He's got the right temperament. He's got the right love of the game.

He's got enough money. And I think he could thread the needle, especially in such a divided race, to come forward. So if you want to get into some of these political things. I mean, I think he'd be formidable. I agree. I think he'd be formidable. I agree. I think he would be formidable. And his politics, I think he's sort of libertarian-ish. Now, we should go ahead and say- It really depends. He's all over the map. We should go ahead and say he vehemently denies that this is in the works. That's right. That's right. Put this up on the screen. This is NBC News. Mark Cuban says he has no plans to run for the White House in 2024. No plans doesn't mean that

you're not going to do it. You can always make those plans, Sagar. It's not too late to make the plan. So in July, Cuban had said he was not considering a 2024 presidential bid as a third party candidate. No Labels is still trying to form a presidential ticket. He said, at that time, my family would disown me if he ran for president. He was asked by NBC on Wednesday if there had been any change in his considerations on whether to run. Cuban said in an email to NBC News, quote, no plans to run. So he officially denies that he's any interest in this. No plans currently, at least, to run. So that's that's where the state of the speculation is. In terms of politics, I just pulled this from

this New York Times interview that he gave not too long ago, where he was being asked questions about how he felt about Biden and what his approach to government spending, et cetera, would be. And put this up on the screen, guys. So he was talking about his libertarian-ish views and if he's evolved over the years, basically comes down on the side of he doesn't want a lot of new quote unquote programs. He prefers, he says, bigger government checks written to people and more jobs created than more programs created, whether that's progressive or conservative, I don't know or care. It goes on to say at another point, has to be direct compensation via jobs and stimulus programs. That has got to be the foundation of everything he, talking about Joe Biden, does.

Yeah. So, and he's, I mean, in terms of cultural issues, he's more or less like on the liberal side of the equation tends to be. Yeah. I mean, he's liberal socially. He's also kind of libertarian. I mean, the reason I'm pro-Cuban is just, again, I'm really at an acceleration at this point where I want to see it all blow up.

And I think he's a formidable enough name to be able to pierce through, especially when you've got RFK and Trump and Biden all coming within 20, 30 points of the vote. He actually could get himself to a point where it would either be a split election, then it could be thrown to the House of Representatives. I'm just pro-chaos. Oh, you want to talk a little bit about that? No, I have been trying to wrap my head around it. Me and you and the whole team spent some time thinking about contingent elections and what it would look like. We have not had a contingent election in the United States since 1837.

That's when the House of Representatives decides the vote whenever not enough people get enough votes in the Electoral College. We came relatively close during the corrupt bargain in 1876 with Tilden and with Rutherford B. Hayes, and that was their whole electoral commission, and they eventually swung it in his direction. But I'm pro-chaos in general, and I think maybe we could be at a time like this. So we'll see. We'll certainly see. Yeah. So, I mean, a contingent election, what that means is nobody gets the requisite number of Electoral College votes. And it's like, what that means is nobody gets the requisite number of electoral college votes. And it's like, what do we do now?

And the basic idea is it gets kicked to the House of Representatives. So then you would assume that whatever the partisan makeup is of the House is what rules the day. But, yeah, it hasn't been done in a really long time. So, you know, it's not super clear-cut exactly how this would all go down. But we're a long way from there. You know, we're way down the speculation train at this point. But interesting moves from Mark Cuban nonetheless. Could be fun.

Also, some interesting moves being made over at GM, of course, in the wake of the UAW strike, which led to significant gains for their membership. GM is now making some really extraordinary decisions with regards to their money. Put this up on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. So they have just announced, remember this company was, oh, we can't afford all these pay raises for workers, et cetera. Well, now they've announced a $10 billion stock buyback in a bid to assuage investors. The automaker plans to stock buyback and dividend increase amid reduced spending on electric and driverless cars. So basically, there's been a pullback, partly, I think,

because gas prices gone down, partly because, you know, consumers are just not doing all that well. There's been a pullback in spending on autonomous vehicles. The GM Cruze autonomous vehicle has run into some issues, too, in its rollout and on electric vehicles. So in an effort to like, you know, sort of like keep their investors fat and happy, they've announced this $10 billion share repurchase. The funny thing about this is that you'll recall the labor, additional labor costs from the new GM UAW contract is in roughly the same ballpark, $9.3 billion. So they were crying poor over that. But then they're just like, oh, yeah, we can just give $10 billion to our investors and do this big stock buyback. They're saying they're going to find the money for the

additional labor costs by cutting back on effectively research and development of EVs and of autonomous vehicles. So prioritizing the desires of their shareholders over like the future of the company, let alone their workforce. Yes. There's actually a lot to say about this. First and foremost, let's put the next buying back their own stock to juice the value. The big other substory to this, though, is a middle finger to the Biden administration. Joe Biden stood up there with the CEO of GM and said that GM was the leader in the electric car revolution. This is something actually Elon talked about yesterday, which is insane because they made like 20-something

cars in the same year that Tesla made 300,000. That Tesla Model Y, as Elon said yesterday, will be the best-selling car on earth as of this year. So to prop up GM, the big three, and all those relative to Tesla right now is absurd. But the big thing that this really calls into question is the internal dedication that the big three have claimed to have on electric cars and the revolution and then now where they're actually putting their money. Because what remains dramatically profitable for them are big-ass trucks and SUVs. For Ford, for GM, that's really the only place America remains competitive in cars. And they're basically doubling down on that, rejecting a lot of the federal dollars and others that the Inflation Reduction Act supposedly was going to try and to fix,

and they're going right back to stock buyback. I have always been for a total ban on stock buybacks for the Fortune 500, especially when they're the recipients of the incredible amount of corporate welfare people like GM and all of them are. Do we save GM? America did. And then infuse them with billions more for electric cars, and then they turn around and then buy back their own stock. So this is a major indictment of Joe Biden that hasn't been interpreted yet that way. But he deserves it. That's a good point. And in that op-ed that Mary Barrow wrote during the union negotiations, she described the UAW's demands as quote unquote untenable because they were, oh, they're so outrageous and there's no way we can afford it. The other piece that is remarkable to me is she said that one of the myths of this misinformation that was being spread during the

strike was that record profits go toward fueling corporate greed. No, she says, those record profits are reinvested in our company and our people as they do a $10 billion stock buyback in lieu of investment, research, and development for the future of the company. More Perfect Union had the very clear-cut take of they know where to get that $10 billion for the additional labor costs from. Put this up on the screen. Guys, they've got side-by-side here. GM says union labor deals are going to increase costs by $9.3 billion. And then next to it, Bloomberg jammed a hike dividend buyback, $10 billion of slumping stock.

So that's that piece of it. But there's another extraordinary thing happening in the labor world and in the autoworker world, which is when the UAW was able to secure and negotiate those new contracts with the big three, they said, hey, we're coming for additional car makers next. Next time, it's not going to be the big three. It's going to be the big five or six. Sean Fain just announced perhaps the largest organizing effort maybe in U.S. history, going after 150,000 workers at a variety of automakers in what is just an extraordinary effort to unionize foreign automakers and also Tesla in the wake of their incredible success with this stand-up strike. Let's take a listen to a little bit of the video that they used to announce this effort. Across the country, from the West to the Midwest,

and especially in the South, are reaching out to join our movement and to join the UAW. So go to uaw.org slash join. The money is there, the time is right, and the answer is simple. You don't have to live paycheck to paycheck. You don't have to worry about how you're going to pay your rent or feed your family while the company makes billions. A better life is out there. It starts with you, UAW. The bottom line here, autoworkers at more than a dozen non-union companies simultaneously announcing campaigns to try to unionize. And, you know, it makes all the sense in the world because, yeah, we all just watched this play out.

And it was so clear the gains that they were able to achieve. And so we said this at the time, like if you're working at Tesla, if you're working at Toyota, if you're working at Hyundai, you can see what they're set to make and what their benefits look like and what their retirement package looks like versus what you are making. And you go, the only difference here, I'm doing the same job.

The only difference is they have a union and I don't. This is totally different from recent track record in terms of labor history, even just if you consider the UAW, you know, their previous leadership was taking these concessionary contracts. They're incredibly cozy with the business class. And so what case do they have to make to autoworkers that it's worth taking the risk to unionize when they're not delivering for their membership? So it's going to be, you know, it'll be something to watch this and how it

unfolds and see if they're able to achieve success. I'm curious, regardless of whether they win or not, actually doesn't really matter because you have had such massive increases at Toyota and many of these other companies already as a result of this. Tesla gave pay raises, didn't they? Tesla had to give a pay raise, and they will remain so, especially if the Cybertruck is a success that we all think it is going to be for the company. I mean, the margins on that. And given the extraordinary sales of that company are something that, again, people do not grapple with. Tesla is outselling freaking Toyota in the state of California. That is insane for an American car company. They're going to sell several hundred thousand

vehicles in the US and across the world in a single year, brand new vehicles, and probably going to do it all again the next year with brand new manufacturing technology, a full electric car. Elon even said this yesterday, and I thought it was particularly insightful. The supercharging network itself inside of Tesla, if it was spun off like AWS would be from Amazon, would be a Fortune 500 company. Just the supercharging. It remains one of probably the largest private infrastructure projects in the modern history of the United States. So anyway, all of this is just a way of showing that American car manufacturing, we genuinely could be reentering a golden age if we crack down on corporate irresponsibility, outsourcing, and stock buybacks, which got the

U.S. companies to where they are today. They basically sold us all out in the 70s and 80s. They decided not to innovate. They let Japan come in and basically eat their lunch completely. They refused to actually negotiate, I think, properly with the unions until it was too late, and then they went bust in 2008. So if they can stop a lot of that, and this is going to require like some responsible federal policy, we, you know, 10, 20 years from now could be living in a much, much better off as for U.S. car companies. And it's remarkable to think back on the history too, because I mean, you know, the big three, these are iconic American brands. They're synonymous

with the American middle class. You know, they were an important part of the growth of, you know, the early labor movement in the United States. And so if these auto workers and car companies, once again, are part of rebuilding the American middle class and re-sparking a resurgence of a new labor movement, I mean, that would just be, you know, an extraordinary moment in terms of American labor history. Yeah, I would absolutely love to see it. I'd love to see it for America. I would love for the majority here. And, you. And again, to bring it back, Elon again saying this yesterday was actually, again, the more interesting part of the interview beyond Twitter was a lot of his thoughts on China is it's very possible in the future if they don't get their act together that the top 10 car

companies in the world 20 years from now will be Tesla and then nine other Chinese companies. We don't want that for a variety of reasons, from supply chain and more, especially if things go more electric and they become more consumer-friendly because they'll basically control the inputs for everything. So if we want to remain competitive and to control the jobs, not even just of the future, but really of the entire world and what they want to consume, then we have to got to rely on it right now. A lot of people don't realize a ton of Europeans drive Ford and drive Chevy. Like when you go over there, you see them everywhere. And if we want to retain that market share and not let BYD come in and just destroy it, like we've got to remain

competitive here and to continue to actually make decent products. Yeah, because I mean, the benefits of electric vehicles over gas poweredpowered vehicles are only going to grow. As the charging infrastructure is built out, as the battery life becomes longer, you know, these things that remain barriers for people in terms of buying cars. And, of course, as the price comes down with mass production, you know, I don't think there's any doubt that there's going to be a switchover. And then it's just a question of whether it's going to be automakers based here or in China that are the ones that win the day. Yes, that's the big question. And people know I'm not, you know, supportive of 100% electric. If people want to be able to drive gas, go for it.

I am supportive of the option and of building the infrastructure and all of that. So we want to make it actually competitive. And I think that's something, again, America could do because China is much more of a mandating society. But there's a lot of stuff that goes into it, and it's a very interesting conversation. Let's move on to the next part here. This is just an amazing story from The Daily. Can't help but grin. I mean, it's a big day for UFOs, actually, here in Washington. And we're going to peg it to this story from The Daily Mail. Now, before you say, oh, it's The Daily Mail, how can you believe it? Many of the people who wrote it have been a long time, research is very well respected in the community. And furthermore, there's been a real mainstream media blackout on the story very recently. Don't

forget that the whistleblower complaint from Dave Grush and others was rejected from the New York Times and the Washington Post or many other major outlets. So in some cases, this really comes down to who's willing to publish what seems to be a highly legitimate story. Let's put it up there then on the screen. This says that the CIA secret office, the Office of Global Access, which apparently is based here in the United States, a wing of the CIA has played a central role in collecting alleged nine alien spacecraft crash sites from around the world. This is since 2003. Not necessarily that these have crashed since 2003, but they have played a role since 2003, quote, in orchestrating this collection. The three sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals

have been briefed by individuals involved in these alleged UFO retrieval missions. And the claims, though, as I'm reading from them, though they sound like they come from a science fiction novel, are part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that the government could indeed be hiding advanced vehicles that were not made by humans. They peg it to a major fight that remains going on here in Washington around the UFO transparency legislation. A lot of this is actually coming to head today while we are filming this. It won't be clear until the end. The TLDR really is this. The Senate passed a piece of legislation inside the NDAA, which is the National Defense Authorization Act, includes all the funding for the Pentagon, which included an amendment that required transparency from the government. It was very

specifically worded around what the government has knowledge-wise around UFOs. There has now been an effort inside the House of Representatives to try and kill that effort. Representative Tim Burchett, who's been a real leader for transparency, spoke with Tucker Carlson just yesterday about the cover-up here. Here's what he had to say. That's really all I want is transparency. We're spending all this money on something, and where is it going, and why do they not trust the American public? Those are the things that people need to ask. As I said at the hearing, I said, we're not going to bring in a UFO. We're not going to bring in little green men, but what we want is transparency. Unfortunately, we don't have much of that in the United States Congress because they'll, oh, look, there's another

shiny object over here. They'll misdirect us over here. They'll misdirect us over there. But I believe this community is very, very in tune to what's going on and the cover-up that's been going on. So obviously, Burchett, he is on the committee. He also has been denied multiple classified briefing rooms in order to get classified information from the UFO whistleblower, Dave Grush.

And the chief opponent of this legislation has been one of his colleagues who is very, very influential on the committee. Here is what Representative Mike Turner, who has been that opponent, he was actually caught in the hallways of Congress yesterday. Here is what he claims is why he has opposition to the legislation. Let's take a listen. We have heard that you had some opposition to that language. Is that true? And if it is, what are your objections to it? Sure. Well, I've spoke to Senator Rounds about this directly, and I'm not holding up his provision

at all. I do think it's a poorly drafted piece of legislation. Also, what I really find interesting about what I call the pro-alien caucus over here in the House, unlike you, not one of them has ever spoken to me about any of these issues. I mean, you and I are speaking. You would think that if this is that important of an issue to them, at least one member of the House who's advancing this cause would actually come up and substantively talk to me about this issue. No one has even raised it. Perhaps you might want to ask them why they haven't. As I understand it, that is not 100% true in terms of the people like Anna Paulina Luna

and even Democrats, Jared Moskowitz, others who have had objections. But Crystal, a lot of people are pointing to the fact that that congressman has some of the biggest donations from military industrial complex and others and a long relationship with the intelligence community. I am told, and I can only tell you this on background from people who are involved, just got an update from people intimately involved this morning, and here's what they had to say. They said that there's a lot of moving parts on the situation.

In terms of what was going on, they believe that they will overcome the hurdle on actually getting the legislation attached, but they're not 100% sure. So lots of stuff going on behind the scenes. It could be that the congressman's objections are legitimate. But from everyone I know who's involved behind the scenes in the process, he really has been doing this at the behest of the intelligence community. Another reason why- He doesn't really raise any objections. Exactly. He's just like, well, it's poorly crafted. By the way, why don't they talk to me? That's not really like a reason.

So more inside baseball. One of the reasons why the intel community wanted to nuke this in the House and not in the Senate is because this was a priority for Senator Schumer, who's the majority leader. Yeah. So CIA and all those others didn't want to piss off Schumer by going after what he was doing in the Senate.

They're like, well, we have the Republicans in the House. We'll just use our stooges who are there to try and kill the legislation. But there's enough actually public, I would say, not outrage per se, but enough people who are obsessed with this topic like me who have been monitoring all of this and who have been calling and bringing attention. So it is certainly possible that we could prevail with this legislation to actually get transparency. So that's the subject of it all. Tell me more about what you thought about this Daily Mail report.

I found it interesting. They go into the description of what this office is supposed to be, the OGA. They talk about one of the guys who supposedly set up the office, how he described his job. He said he was responsible for leading and managing strategic unwarned access programs that deliver intelligence from the most challenging denied areas and served as program manager with responsibility for the end-to-end system acquisition of an innovative new source and method for the intelligence community, which I enjoyed like the ghoul speak number one. But yeah, what did you make of this report? I mean, again, like Daily Mail,

you're like, I don't know, question marks, eyebrows raised. But they have a lot of sources. And the thing that made me the most, I guess, skeptical of the CIA's story on this or the fact that they, you know, deny that this is really going on was some of that ghoul speak covering up what seems to be whatever is going on. I'm glad you read that. That's exactly what I was going to point to. I'm like, point to me and tell me that's not the shadiest thing you've ever heard. And again, it raises the thing, the question of we're entering a binary world. It's like they're either involved in crash retrieval for foreign objects, China, Russia, India, who knows,

one of the world's most advanced countries, developed something which we allegedly had never heard of. It's never even showed up in research or any of these things. And the CIA is covering that up. That in itself is a scandal. It's a secret US government program. I've said this too. Then sure, release it. You know why? Because it would obviously have incredible commercial application. And we would all have to stop having to be on 16, 17-hour flights if you want to go to Asia. Or it is extraterrestrial. Now, of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

All of this is just even more, three whistleblowers say, and enough people in the comments are going to be like, just show me the damn crap. I agree with you. That's why I support the legislation, because if that is going to lead to any sort of disclosure. The other point, though, that I would say is after the JFK movie by Oliver Stone, incredible movie, came out in 1991, it led to the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act, which required release over the next 20 years. And guess what? It's still 2023, and we don't have it. And the reason why is because there are very substantial interests in Washington and every

White House since in Congress and within the CIA who don't want us to know that they were deeply involved in the assassination plot to kill Kennedy. So it's not like this is a perfect catch-all. I think this is actually equivalent really to that, which is another step. It's a tool. Well, and because that, because that is a law on the books, then people like Jefferson Morley, who's a researcher and affiliated organizations can go and say, you are in breach of the law you passed of your congressionally mandated responsibilities. So they can use that as a cudgel then to try to secure additional documents. And, you know, they have not gotten everything, but they have been able to, you know, secure additional information that has been revelatory in terms of JFK's

assassination. So, you know, without really having a dog in this fight, I'm just for transparency and let's learn whatever we can about whatever the hell is going on. Yes, thank you. And I appreciate always a neutral observer on the story. So we'll continue to keep everybody updated. There's allegedly going to be a press conference sometime today. If it's big or anything like that, I'll give everybody an update. But I'm watching it closely. I'm talking a lot with the people who are involved on this. It's not actually that big of a circle. It wasn't that hard to find them in terms of some of the advocates and all. So we'll keep track and we'll let you guys know. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running

weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of

sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, Subscribe today. 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 Glod. 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 shine down. Got be 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 it. 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, so how are we looking at?

When I was in college in the 2010s, nearly every shirt I remember seeing said some variation of the future is female. Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In hit the stands to great acclaim. And the early days of Instagram activism at that time was populated almost entirely by graphics about how women don't make as much as men in the workplace. Female empowerment and equality in the workplace was genuinely considered one of the most important elite issues of the time. I have no problem with the ideas behind that per se, but what has enraged me now for years is the prevalence of this outdated mode of thinking and refusal to admit that in an incredibly short period of time, the story has actually flipped completely. Not only are women doing better in the workplace than ever, it appears that their ascendance has masked the rapid decline of men

leading to a genuine crisis. Nearly every piece of economic data that we have confirms this. Just yesterday, the Washington Post triumphantly published a new op-ed that reflects this reality. Will the spectacular she-covery last, they ask, which includes a chart showing a massive spike in employment for college-educated women with child under 10. Now, coupled with the other chart, though, in the story,

the data is truly remarkable. It shows 75.3% of prime-aged women in the workplace, an all-time high in American history. What they fail to mention is that this is a one-track story. College-educated women are doing better than ever. Everyone else is suffering, and especially men. Employment rates for prime-age males between 25 and 54 is actually at a historic low, only eclipsed by 2020 when people were forcibly held at home. The 85% of prime-age males who are working today is down by 8% from the 1950s, and much of it can actually be explained where value is allocated in society today. The vast majority of employment gains in the modern U.S. economy

are being captured by the college-educated elite. As you can see, even the female employment statistics for those women with no college degree and with a child under 10 are less employed today than they were in 2003. This fits directly with male employment statistics and wage data that shows that declining male participation in higher education is heavily responsible for this. Female participation in higher education has exploded in recent years and amplified even more by the pandemic. A historic share of men are not only dropping out of college, simply not even applying in the first place for a variety of reasons. One is cultural, the perception of male

hostility on campus. Two is obviously just exploding costs with many considering it's not worth the wage premium to attend in the future. And while that may be true as the economy shifts, the lingering effects of the college premium are still showing us clearly women not only have leaned in, but men are leaning out. Young women are not only out-earning young men in almost every major metro area in the US, but especially so in the top dollar markets like New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. The long-term effects of women not only starting out higher wages, but earning more over time will have a profound impact on U.S. society. It is leading to major demographic problems in the future. College is a lot more than just education. You can almost think of it as a quasi-cast system.

Whether you attended a four-year college degree or not indicates a lot about what type of books that you like, what type of alcohol that you drink, where you like to hang out, where you live, what TV shows you like, and much more. It's a very common bond that many share, and it is one of the largest cultural divides that we have today. Furthermore, reams of data indicates now that women who go to college are very unlikely to consider a mate who has not similarly attended. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. It's just understandable because of the common cultural bond that they may share. But at scale, it is leading to probably the highest single rate amongst young men we've ever seen in American history. Now, how does this work, you may ask? But it's because many of these newly successful women are not dating men in their

traditional age bracket. They are dating older men who have achieved more financial success and who are seen as more desirable mates. And as we all might want to deny it, most of this comes back to money and is downstream of education. College-educated women have triumphed in the new economy. Men and non-college-educated women are significantly held back. This, by all accounts, is one of the most profound shifts in U.S. employment in all of American history. And yet, it is mostly ignored. The reason why is that most people just don't want to talk about male wages or male loneliness because they think it validates tropes about toxic masculinity. I actually think it's the opposite.

If the only people talking about this crisis of men are those figures, then they will, of course, get even more attention. The longer and more that this is ignored by the top leaders, the worse that the crisis will get, and the attendant eventual release of all of this rage will be historic. So, Crystal, there's a lot to say about this. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a

miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, Have you ever had to shoot your gun? and subscribe today. cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute season one, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. 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 Corps vet. 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. We have a lot on the show to cover next week. I'm sure we're standing by for anything that's going to be happening, breaking over the weekend. We appreciate it.

We love all of you. Thanking all of you for our Spotify help. So to reiterate that call, if you can text the episode to your friend, it really does help us out in terms of our growth or become a premium member. Yeah, apparently I just learned that. Yeah, just learned it today. So I guess that's going to be a new call-in for us. Otherwise, we'll see you all on Monday. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've heard from hundreds of people across the country 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey.

We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids,

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter.

I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart Podcast.