Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/16/23: Trump Dominates Iowa, DeSantis Claims Media Interference, Vivek Drops Out Endorsing Trump, Navy Seals Missing, Iran And Houthis Attack, IDF Pulls Some Troops From Gaza, And Ro Khanna Calls Out Biden Illegal Houthi Strikes

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump dominating the Iowa Caucus, DeSantis says media interfered in election, Vivek Ramaswamy drops out and endorses Trump, Nikki Haley bizarrely claims it is now a two way primary race, Navy Seals still missing, Iran and Houthi attacks, IDF pulls out some troops as Bibi infights with war cabinet, and Ro Khanna joins to call out Biden's illegal Houthi strikes.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

Crystal is unfortunately at home, but she will be joining us remote. Don't you worry. She's waiting right there in the wings. There's a big snow day there, closing the schools in her area. But of course, we've got Ryan and Emily here at the desk, the full CounterPoints crew. We're going to be going over all of the results from the Iowa caucuses. Vivek Ramaswamy, he's out. He's dropped out of the race. Does he have a future? You can already guess who he's endorsed for president. We will get into some of that. New Hampshire, what the hell is going to happen? Is this the best possible result for Donald Trump? Nikki Haley, she came in third now officially, a little bit of a plot twist. And then the three of us are going to be going over some of the Israel updates in terms of Iranian strikes in the region, very troubling,

possibly escalatory. And then some questions about Israeli strategy and retreat. Congressman Ro Khanna is going to be joining us at the end of the show. We're going to talk about the war powers resolution, whether those Yemen strikes themselves were illegal or not. And Ryan and I got a couple of questions from him on UFOs. He's just received a highly classified briefing on the subject. And so is it real or is it not? What can he tell us? We will get into all of that. But of course, we got to start with the Iowa caucuses. Crystal and I brought everybody the breaking news just last night. Donald Trump officially won mere 36 minutes. The Associated Press made the call. And so the question whenever we woke up this morning was, okay, so who came in second?

And I guess we certainly have those results. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. As you can all see there, the official results now with over 95% of the votes now counted, 51% over the 50% threshold for Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis coming in at 21.2%, so a narrow second there, but still 30 some odd points behind Donald Trump. And then 19.1 for Nikki Haley, a disappointing finish, if we could say. And then finally, Donald Trump also was able to give us a victory speech. Let's take a

listen to what he said. Well, I want to thank everybody. This has been some period of time. And most importantly, we want to thank the great people of Iowa. Thank you. We love you all. What a turnout, what a crowd. And I really think this is time now for everybody, our country to come together. We want to come together, whether it's Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative. It would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world and straighten out the problems and straighten out all of the death and destruction that we're witnessing. That's practically never been like this. It's just so important. And I want to make that a very big part of our message. We're going to come together. It's going to happen soon, too. It's going to happen soon. Congratulations, Ron and Nikki, for having a good time together.

We're all having a good time together. And I think they both actually did very well. I really do. I think they both did very well. We don't even know what the outcome of second place is. And I see Carrie Lake. Congratulations, Carrie. I spotted her. I have to announce because she's terrific. Going to be a senator, a great senator, I predict, right? Going to be a great senator.

And I also want to congratulate Vivek because he did a hell of a job. He came from zero and he's got a big percent, probably 8%, almost 8%. And that's an amazing job. They all did. They're all very smart, very smart people, very capable people. So, Crystal, he said congratulations to Nikki and to Ron DeSantis for having a good time together the most petty way possible that he can. What's your initial reaction after we broke the news for everybody last night? I mean, it's a classic Trump moment there, right? He gets to appear very

magnanimous, congratulating Ron, who he used his actual name, not Meatball Ron or DeSantis or whatever. He uses his actual name, congratulates them, congratulates Vivek Ramaswamy. It's effectively like a little pat on the head. Good job, guys. Nice work. Now it's time to get serious. We all know where this is headed. And he's not wrong. I mean, this is, in a lot of ways, the best possible outcome that Donald Trump could have hoped for. He won all but one county, Johnson County, which is like a college town, is where Iowa City is. Nikki Haley won it by one vote. It's the same county, by the way, that Elizabeth Warren was the only county she won in the state as well in her third place bid too. A lot of parallels there. But, you know, there's no clear, like, dominant second

place winner. Ron DeSantis gets second. Nikki gets third, but she's right on his heels. Ron really doesn't have a single state going forward where he has a shot to win. Nikki has one state going forward where maybe possibly she could mount some sort of a, you know, come back, overcome the odds type of win in that one state. But that's it. This thing is over. You know, he got over 50% of the vote. He's made it so that his opponents are probably Ron and Nikki going to stay in and fight another day. He's asserted his complete dominance among basically every demographic of the Republican Party, save for the ones with like advanced degrees. And so he can afford to be

completely magnanimous in that message. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Emily, I want to come to you on this. Let's put this up there on the screen just to show everybody some of the entrance polls. We saw just the absolute dominance of Trump consistently amongst every demographic. He's winning pluralities amongst men, amongst women, amongst, as Crystal said, every college group except for the total advanced degree holders. I mean, even amongst people who are young voters from what we can see, possibly in the 17th category. What is it?

The vaunted 17 to 24-year-old category for Republicans, always a big turnout group there. But what do you make then of the demographic breakdown from what we can see in the exit polls for Trump's support? I was even stunned by it, even though everybody expected to win. But to win so handily amongst every single group is, I mean, that's a message. That's a message about what the Republican Party is now. Yes. And I think there are a couple of things there. First, he also crossed the 50% threshold. And that's a really big deal because he was, you could tell his team was a little concerned he was going to be in the 40s. But once you cross the 50% threshold in Iowa, that brings me to the second point. Iowa is a place where his opponents spent millions of dollars,

spent tons of time and energy trying to undercut him primarily. You know, you had DeSantis and Haley and for a while Tim Scott sort of sniping about who was better amongst each other. But the bottom line is they were all spending that money and that time to unseat Donald Trump as the heir apparent to the Republican nomination. And still, still you had Trump running up these margins. Now, this isn't even an exit poll. This is from the New York Times. They said in lower income areas. So they're just actually analyzing the demo. Trump won by 43 percent. He was up by 43 points in lower income areas. So let's go over to higher income areas. Trump won by 8.3 points. Areas with fewer college graduates, huge margin, 51. Areas with more college graduates, 7.4. Rural areas, 39 points up. Suburban areas, 22 points up. And in urban areas, he was 28 points up. I mean, these are just gargantuan margins. It's across

the board. And you can see it. Not only is he winning in these lower income areas, rural areas, he also put up massive numbers. I mean, it was just to Crystal's point, this is just a routing. It is the Republican voters prefer Donald Trump. National polls have him around 60%. He's up by double digits over everyone else. Republican voters just prefer Trump. They do at this point. Right. What do you think, Ryan? You know, I saw some liberal commentators referring to it as kind of a wake up call, which is like, what kind of, how deep of a slumber did you have for this to be a wake-up call? But the fact that he got over 50% meant that you had to have people on MSNBC saying, look, there was almost half of the Republican electorate that voted for somebody

other than Donald Trump. And Crystal, I'm curious for your take on how kind of Democrats were responding to this, because it does seem like they were living in some parallel universe where either the Republican electorate was going to somehow derail him. It's that one, then question mark three kind of meme. We weren't sure how this was going to happen, but somehow he was going to get stopped. Maybe he'd be in prison by the time the election started. None of that is happening. So what did you make of the kind of Democratic response last night? Well, I mean, I didn't really watch that much of the Democratic response last night,

to be perfectly honest with you. But there is a level of delusion there. They're kind of in a quandary because on the one hand, obviously, they despise Donald Trump. He is the center of gravity in our politics, period, end of story. He clearly is the center of gravity in terms of Republican politics. You know, Republican voters, they've decided Nikki Haley is like a liberal. If you just look at the issue set, she's actually more right wing in a lot of ways than Donald Trump is. But the only metric of where people exist on an ideological spectrum is how do you feel about Donald Trump? That's in the Republican Party and it's in the Democratic Party as well. So on the one hand, you have this burning hatred of the man. On the other hand, he's probably the only Republican candidate that Joe Biden has a shot at actually beating. So it's a little complicated for them. I think the thing that

I would like to comment on is the level of delusion that existed among these Republican challengers to Donald Trump, who spent the whole campaign squabbling amongst themselves, never really mounted any sort of a serious effort outside of Chris Christie to actually make a case against the man who still is the center of gravity in all of our politics and especially in Republican politics. And to be fair to them, look at what happened to Chris Christie. He didn't even make it to the first votes. So I don't think that there was ever a path for any of these people to dislodge Donald Trump. I don't think that there was an argument that they could have made. I don't think there was an ad buy that they could have placed that would have moved the needle.

Ron DeSantis spent over $100 million in Iowa and visited like almost every county. And it didn't move the needle for him. Vivek Ramaswamy did travel to every county in the state of Iowa and it didn't move the needle for him. So all of these people, in some sense, were counting on something outside, external to the electoral process to knock Donald Trump out of contention magically and make them the guy or make them the gal. And ultimately, it's ended up to be a complete fantasy. Yeah, Crystal, I mean, I'm just did some

quick back of the napkin math here. And Ron DeSantis, $100 million, he won 23,400 votes. That's almost $4,200 per vote that he spent in the state. Nikki Haley's got some similar math going on there. When you start to put it that way, things are pretty out of control. Go ahead. And Trump's dollar per voter is way lower, like significantly lower according to early analyses. And that's fascinating, right? Well, it's not fascinating to the extent that's surprising. It's not surprising at all. But it's interesting because he had to put so little effort into all of this because if you look at, and Ryan described this once as the crocodile jaws, if you look at the RCP polling averages just in Iowa, you see what happened over time when the indictment

started to hit Trump. He just rocketed. It made him even like, it emphasized him as the center of gravity to borrow Crystal's point. I do have one more point though. Sure. Just because it's something I think I disagree with Crystal on, which is that I wonder actually the extent to which DeSantis making the indictments part of his campaign was a problem for him. His numbers started to go down when the indictments happened. He kind of immediately did start using them. He clearly didn't want to. He sort of had to be dragged kicking and screaming to talk about the indictments and the problems there. But Jonathan Swan reported on a memo back in September from David McIntosh, who's the founder of Club for Growth. He was running an anti-Trump PAC. And they found in this memo that, I have the quote right here,

broadly acceptable messages against President Trump with Republican primary voters that do not produce a meaningful backlash include sharing concerns about his ability to beat President Biden, expressions of Trump fatigue due to the distractions he creates and the polarization of the country, as well as his patterns of attacking conservative leaders. But then it adds, it is essential to disarm the viewer at the opening of the ad by establishing that the person being interviewed on camera in an ad is a Republican who previously supported President Trump. Otherwise, the viewer will automatically put their guard up, assuming the messenger is just another Trump hater whose opinion should be summarily dismissed.

And actually, Crystal, I don't even know. I don't know this is even a disagreement. I think actually we agree on this because that shows there's basically never a path. What can you do if your only option is to be that specific and that precise every time you talk about the frontrunner in the race, lest you get tuned out, basically. Well, and here's the thing, right? With that memo talking about, oh, well, one effective argument is electability. Who is going to believe at this point that Donald Trump can't beat Joe Biden? Right. Yeah. Look at the polls, right? So, yeah, it's not an accident that when Ron DeSantis was performing

at his highest peak was right after the midterms. Right. You had this stunning contrast of Ron DeSantis romps in Florida while all of the Trump back candidates are flailing around the country. And so, you know, he even at that point, though, he wasn't beating Donald Trump. But, you know, there was a compelling electability argument to be made at that moment. And it was very visceral. That faded very quickly, you know, assisted by the indictments and other things that were happening. And also, let's be frank, assisted by the fact that once people got a look at Ron DeSantis, they were like, this guy's kind of awkward and hard to listen to and makes weird faces. And I'm not sure that he's really up for prime time. So he needed to be a different person.

It needed to be a different country. Donald Trump needed to be a different person. It needed to be a different country. Donald Trump needed to be a different person. I have never thought that there was actually a path for Ron DeSantis, that there was any sort of needle that he could theoretically thread. I'll tell you when Republicans lost this nomination, when the Republican challengers to Trump lost this nomination, it was right after January 6th, when there wasn't open. That was the only opening you had to dislodge Donald Trump. If you had a concerted, unified effort, maybe among Republicans at that moment, you could have dislodged him as the head of the party. When they decided not to even really try and instead to cover for him on January 6th and come up with all these alternate theories of what

really went down on that day, et cetera, et cetera, it was effectively over at that moment. Yeah, I think you're probably right, Crystal, just because that would have meant he was genuinely disqualified from office. Although, you know, that probably would have opened up a whole other can of worms. So the thing is, Emily, I want to spend some time on this, and we all just were dancing around it, is that the death of retail politics and even money now at this point is one of those where, I mean, we've talked about it quite a bit on the show, but it is sad. I mean, at the end of the day, Vivek did more events combined than everybody else. Ron DeSantis, even he did eventually visit all 99 counties. Didn't matter. Nikki Haley, all of these people, they spent tons

of money. I was just looking this morning. Ron DeSantis racked up the state governor's endorsement, a huge portion of the state legislature, all of these so-called important local men. Who cares? Not a single instance did this end up mattering, Ryan. I mean, Trump visited the state less than every single other one of his challengers, and he got over 50%. I mean, at a certain point, we're not even playing in an arena anymore. It's just all earned media all the time from what we can see. Right. We might as well just get rid of this entire, like, first we do one state, then we do another, then we do another. Just have a national election, national primary, because we are now a national public. We're a national elector. It's

not an original observation, but it's been coming over the last 10, 15 years. And we've arrived at a place where people don't have the same kind of Iowa identities that they have anymore. They have a lot of different identities, but that's way down there. And so going to their living rooms is just not going to do it. It just doesn't do it anymore. The whole, like, what is it? The egg? No, the egg thing is New Hampshire. I apologize. We're only getting a taste soon of some of their arcane traditions. You don't have to remember what they are because it's going to be history. It doesn't matter. Let's spend some time on the exit polls too, because we have some issue by issue ones, which are pretty important. Let's put this up there on the screen from CNN. What we

could see here is, do you think that Biden legitimately won the election? So amongst DeSantis voters and only Haley voters, is there a majority of voters who say that Biden legitimately won? It's still only 54%. Now, amongst Trump voters, that number is 9%. Do you think Biden legitimately won in 2020? No. Amongst Trump voters is 69%. Is Trump fit for the presidency if convicted of a crime? Here is where I think

it's really interesting. Again, only a majority will say no in the Nikki Haley category amongst DeSantis, Hutchison, Ramaswamy, and Trump voters. Of course, you just see like tiny, tiny percentages who are willing to say no. And 71% of Trump voters there say he's, yes, he's fit for the presidency, even if he is convicted of a crime. Keep in mind, these are Iowa caucus voters. Let's go to the next one here, please. What we can see here is, and actually this is, was fascinating to me. As you can always see, the disparate, you know, way that people think about abortion, even within the Republican party is very much on display here. So a view on banning most or all abortion nationwide. Now,

top line, 59% say that they do support a ban. Amongst DeSantis voters, they say 27% favor a ban, 15% oppose. Haley, 11%, 37% oppose. But amongst Trump, you actually have the highest number of people who oppose banning national abortion. Now, don't get me wrong, 53% still say that they would favor a ban, but 42% do not. So a little bit more socially liberal there, I think, when compared to the rest of the GOP electorate. Interesting here also they have about deciding on a candidate. But the abortion thing brings to mind, Emily, something I wanted to get with you today is about these evangelical voters. Because DeSantis' entire strategy was, I got to win over these Ted Cruz counties. And in the very first moments, less than 1% of the vote,

we were seeing counties that Ted Cruz won and Trump placed fourth in 2016, where he's getting 72% of the vote. I mean, the flip on that is one of the biggest flips and realignments within the GOP electorate, and that very few people actually are talking about. So what's your kind of reaction to the fact that the evangelical voters and or block, both either self-identified or actual churchgoers, these people all support Trump by overwhelming margins to a point where he can't really be dislodged amongst that group.

Yeah, and the New York Times in the last couple of years hired their evangelical whisperer as David French, somebody who lives in one of the wealthiest pockets of the country, but pretends that he doesn't because it's outside of Nashville and is the person who translates what evangelicals think to the elite. And of course, it's never what evangelicals actually think. It reminds me a lot of when the entire media was asking this question over and over again in, what year was Roy Moore, 2018? That was 2018. Why would somebody in Alabama vote for Roy Moore? If you went down there and you talked to Alabama voters, they would look you right in the face and they'd say, because Doug Jones is pro-abortion. Boom. That was it. That was like that simple.

And the media could never understand it. The sort of never Trump Republican sect can never understand it. They didn't like Roy Moore. They were media could never understand it. The sort of never Trump Republican sect could never understand it. They didn't like Roy Moore. They were not happy with Roy Moore. There were some people that just don't trust the media and didn't trust the allegations of serious sexual misconduct against him. But for other people, they believed the allegations

and were still voting for Roy Moore because they believe that abortion is murder. And again, if we could put the element back up on the screen because there was just this last one, there's something super fascinating in it. Look at Nikki Haley's numbers. They're the only ones that are anywhere in the ballpark of Trump. And that's in like, look at that.

DeSantis opposed ban 15%. Haley opposed a national abortion ban 37%. It doubles. It jumps and doubles. And you get with Trump 42%. So Trump and Haley, this is what's super interesting. Trump and Haley have those demos that actually are closer to opposing a nationwide abortion ban, and it's two sides of that coin. Trump brings in the sort of Obama-Trump, Rust Belt voters

who are white evangelicals, in some cases, that don't even go to church. That's another misunderstood thing about the white evangelical vote. They think these are the people that are in the pews every single week, and it's not necessarily the case, especially in rural areas. People have written a lot of social science about that. But you have these people that might be socially a little bit more liberal, but culturally, culturally, they're not because they hate political correctness. They hate the media. And Nikki Haley then, on the other hand, just gets the people who are more socially liberal. And some exit polling found that too. People described themselves as liberal and independent went for Haley in higher numbers. Yeah. Go ahead, Brian. Let me say something about this really quick, which is that it seems to me that with Roe being

overturned, abortion has become a central issue in Democratic politics in a way that it really wasn't before. I mean, not to say voters didn't care on the Democratic side, but it has become a real center of gravity on the Democratic side. And I don't know that it is as much on the Republican side anymore because you had Mike Pence and you had Tim Scott. And in a certain extent, you had Rhonda Sanders, who were really betting in Iowa, a state that is famous for its religious conservatism and for that block of voters really being kingmakers. They really kind of bet the farm, especially Pence and Tim Scott, on being the most pro-life candidates. And they didn't even make it to the starting line. So I think the centrality of that issue and the strength of that voting bloc that existed in the past, I think it may just

not be there anymore. And I think that's evident in these Iowa results where, remember, and Emily, you can attest this better than anyone. I know you're following this closely. A lot of the pro life groups were coming out. They were very upset with Donald Trump. He said something critical about the six-week abortion ban that DeSantis passed, saying effectively it went too far. It was too much. They were putting out statements condemning him

and looking for someone who was going to be more consistently on their side. But clearly that didn't win the day. Super quick thought because I'm looking at an exit poll right now. 51% of DeSantis voters said abortion was the issue that mattered the most in deciding whom to support today. And that gets to the point that Sager was making that traditionally, and I'm curious what Ryan thinks about this. If you had run the campaign that DeSantis ran, he hired, he put all of his eggs in the Iowa basket. He hired Jeff Rowe, the guy who did it for Ted Cruz. I'm hiring a guy who helped Ted Cruz lose the nomination. That's a really brilliant idea. And because he knew Iowa really well. He was all over Iowa constantly blanketing it. And they thought they had traditionally all of the makings of a

great Iowa campaign. This is what you do, textbook Iowa campaign. And it shows up in some of these exit polls, 51% said abortion was why they decided to support DeSantis, but it doesn't matter anymore because of the Trump factor. Because they've always been pragmatic voters. He got it done. He's going to win. Let's keep with the guy. But I wanted to linger for one second on that legitimately elected question. On the way into the studio this morning, I had NPR on and they had Scott Walker, as one does. They had Scott Walker. And so they had a very long interview with him. And the entire interview was just pressing him about how Trump thinks the election was stolen.

And isn't that going to hurt him? At the very end they said, isn't he an electoral handicap? But otherwise, like the entire interview was just about this question. If you came from outside the country and were listening to that interview, you'd have no idea which side of the spectrum Trump was on, like what positions he stood for,

what he was gonna do as president, what people were concerned about, just about that one question. But the wording of that was interesting. I'm curious how you guys would answer it. Because if you're forced to answer this, like polls force you to say either yes or no, was Biden legitimately elected? I think if you guys are asked, were more legal votes cast for Biden? Yes. Yeah. But was he legitimately elected given everything I've come to understand about the conservative criticisms of the mail-in balloting and the pandemic and Mark Zuckerberg? Did the CIA step in and collude with Facebook and Twitter in October

to say? Twitter files and all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, this is an easy one because I, as I've understood now, there's an entire media apparatus that has been built to say exactly what you're saying, Emily, which is like, well, yeah, it's not actually bamboo. You got more votes. There were Hunter Biden and Facebook. Unfair. It was illegitimate. I think both of those things are separate questions of which I. That's why the wording. But I think that's why. So that's why so many people answer yes to that.

I'm not so sure, though, because I bet you if you were to ask if you were to ask whether Biden won more votes than Trump, I still think the same number. I don't want to say the same number. That's a good way to ask it. I would say it's marginal. Crystal, go ahead. You have a last thought. I agree with Sager.

I think the all those various like sort of like copes around why it's OK to still be a thinking person and say that Biden did not legitimately win. I think those are basically like DC designed feints. And most of the people who are saying, no, Biden did not legitimately win, like they believe there was, you know, 10,000 mules and bamboo ballots and that there was out voter fraud,

not like, oh, tech companies did things I didn't like. They think that too. Yeah, they think both. But I think the vast majority genuinely believes there's electoral fraud. Last thing that I wanted to say is on this metric that we had up before about what would it mean if Trump is criminally,

if he actually is found guilty? Is that a problem? Does that make him unfit for office? And I just, I don't put a lot of stock in those metrics because on the one hand you look, you say, oh, well, the overall majority, more than 60% say, you know, they'd still vote for him. He's still fit for office. So you might look at that and be like, well, that's terrible. If somebody is, you know, criminally guilty, maybe they should be reconsidering. On the other hand, if you look at it from another perspective, you're like, well, even a third of Republicans are basically saying, no, he wouldn't be fit for office. I just wouldn't put a lot of stock in any of those metrics because I think people are very

bad at predicting what they might do if some future event is to unfold. So I just, I'm very skeptical of any of those numbers, you know, whatever direction they cut in. I could not agree with you more. And I also just want to remind people about who voters are. The CNN, as the caucus opened yesterday, Chris, I sent this to you, where a guy was like, yeah, I voted for Trump in 2020. I was in between Nikki Haley and Ravik Ramaswamy. I think I'll go with Nikki. It's like, what? Like, what is happening here? And she's like, yeah, you know, she seems nice or something like that.

I forget exactly the reason he gave. That's how people are. And I'm not even putting that man down. That's okay. He's living his life. Like, that's how it goes. But, you know, for all the prognostication and crystal, as you said, of people self-predicting

about how people will vote, who knows? I mean, at that point, we could go way beyond. And it's like, well, what even is it? Emily, as you're talking about, what even is a crime? Is it a New York state crime? Is it a Georgia crime? Is it a federal crime? And if you poll people and you ask them, if on Saturday night you have four drinks, would you drive home? They'll be like, of course not. Yeah, absolutely not. Yet somehow, there are people on the roads. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, bingo. Yeah, it's like whenever the time comes and the keys are jingling in your pocket,

you're like, well, maybe Uber's $55. I do not endorse this, by the way. I'm just saying that's how it happens. Just a few felonies, that's right. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder.

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call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her,

is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes.

Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family?

It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general.

Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get now to the second question. This was a big one amongst the DeSantis crew. Crystal and Line talked a little bit about it yesterday. I genuinely don't know what you guys think, so I'm excited to talk

with you all. There was a big kerfuffle by the DeSantis team who were very upset that the media, the Associated Press, and all the networks called the race within 35 minutes of the polls opening. Now, let's be clear, though, about what happened. To actually enter the Iowa caucus, you had to enter at 7 p.m. Central Time. So the doors were closed. No more people could come in. It can't affect turnout. Exactly. It cannot affect turnout. But people were still casting ballots inside of the room. People were still giving speeches whenever the AP and all the other networks called the race. So CNN's Jake Tapper, I believe CNN was actually the first media organization to call the race.

And even he, he was like, look, I'm not used to calling things at this hour. Let's take a listen and then we'll talk about DeSantis' reaction. Let's take a look. CNN projects that Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucuses. CNN can make this projection based on his overwhelming lead in our entrance poll of Iowa caucus goers

and some initial votes that are coming in. The former president pulling off a huge early victory in his bid to return to the White House. Trump easily defeating his top opponents, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who are now in a high-stakes fight for second place. So, Crystal, what we had there, as we said, 30 minutes or so into the election, the DeSantis campaign immediately put out a statement. Let's put it up there on the screen. They say, it is absolutely outrageous that the media would participate in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote. The media is in the tank for Trump,

and this is the most egregious example yet. And there were some further comments that he made there on cable news. So, Crystal, first, I want your reaction. What do you think about the point that they're making of like, listen, you guys called this race when people are still counting ballots like, yeah, you know, you're not stopping anybody from entering the polls, but the people have their phones. They can look down and see the race called literally before they have even called a vote. What do you think?

I mean, I actually agree with Ron DeSantis and his team on that. Now, there's two separate questions. Number one, as a matter of principle, was it the wrong thing to do to go ahead and call this race when there were still people who hadn't even started caucusing yet? Yes, they were in the room, but they had not been able to cast their votes yet. Yes, I think as a matter of principle, that was the wrong thing to do. Because you can imagine, look, it's not fun being out there. You listen to like the Asa Hutchinson representative give their spiel on why the Arkansas governor should be the next president of the United States. You're like, I got to get home. It's cold out there. Like my kids are with my neighbor or whatever. You get the message on

your phone, Trump won. You're the Santa supporter. You're like, what am I even doing here at this point? Like, it's over, I'm getting out of here. So I do think as a matter of principle, it's wrong. I do think it interferes with the election. Do I think it made any sort of measurable difference in terms of these numbers? No. And in fact, actually the later counties that came in

were a little better for Ron DeSantis than they were for Nikki Haley because early in the night, Nikki looked like she was gonna get second. Then more votes came in for Ron. He ends up getting second. So I doubt that it really had a big impact, especially given the margins that we're talking about here. But yeah, as a matter of principle, I don't think it was the right thing to do. I think that's fair. Emily, what's your reaction? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's against their own policies. So we have the policy. If we want to put it up there on the screen, please. This is according

to the Associated Press. And again, we can actually kind of dig into what it means. Their policy is to not call the winner of a race before all the polls are scheduled to close. Now, again, the difference here is that the polls were technically closed, but people were still voting. Tonight, AP, CNN, and et cetera called the race after the caucus doors closed. But before all votes were Cass, people could see on their phones that Trump had won before voting. So with that in mind, Emily, what do you think? Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a policy that's written not for caucuses, because it's like literally the one caucus that everyone cares about in the entire country.

Is Nevada a caucus? I forget. I think it is, but either way, I mean, this is like there aren't that many caucuses. So it makes sense that their policy wording isn't tailored towards a caucus. But all that to say, I think also the DeSantis team is using this as a major cope. And I'm not sure that's super helpful for them at this point because, and they probably know that internally, something that really scares me is as valid as I think their concerns are in this case. You know, people are on their phones and it's going to affect the way people see things. Ron DeSantis ended at 21% of the vote.

Nikki Haley was down at 19%. I doubt that it had any significant effect on the turnout. Crystal just had a really helpful point on that. At the same time, the DeSantis campaign immediately used the words election interference. And I think that's really cynical and scary because when you start to get into, and listen, this is downstream of Donald Trump, but this is downstream of, you know, not just January 6th, but all of the rhetoric that Donald Trump used after he, you know, lost the election. And I'm one of those people that thinks there was a lot of funny business going on, not with ballots, but with the intelligence community and other places. Who knows what it would have done? But even all that said, election interference, because people call the race that you were going to lose by double digits

and did lose by double digits, jumping to election interference, I think the fact that that happened so quickly and naturally from the DeSantis campaign, that's a phrase that used to mean something significant. Yeah, that's a good point. It's got to keep in the rhetoric. And we've lost sort of a consensus on what that means. And that's really banana republic territory. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I can split the difference where I just have trouble taking their concerns seriously because I'm like, guys, you're going to lose by 30 points.

I mean, sure, it's marginal. At the same, yeah, look, I don't want anyone to be disenfranchised. Like, you still won by, I mean, you still got second. As Crystal said, like, people did come out. Now, are we talking about a marginal difference of how many votes? 50 to 100, depending on the thing? It was very close to the polling. The results were very close to the polling.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, well, you know, how much of an impact did this really have? That said, I mean, we can't all remember. Remember when Fox News called Arizona? What, like the day of the election and not everybody else called it for another week? I think in retrospect, we could say they called it too early. They ended up getting the right call. But they, you know, they called it way too early.

Like, I think six days before everybody else. And there genuinely were still ballots to be cast. And that's something that to this day, the Trump people, or sorry, yeah, ballots to be counted. To this day, the Trump people will not shut up about Fox News called Arizona. So almost to a certain point, this is, I wouldn't call it even like election interference per se, but media orgs should think about it whenever they're making a call. So what do you think, Ryan? The principles, I think Crystal's right on the principle. They should change their policy. They should make sure that they don't announce anything until the caucuses are closed. The only other thing I'd say though, to Ron DeSantis' complaint,

every single caucus goer who walked into a gym anywhere in Iowa knew ahead of time Trump was going to win. That's right. That's right. So they got a breaking news alert that Trump had won. They knew already. Right. It was a fight for second place. And they were already in there. They could even see, I mean, this is the thing about caucus. They knew Trump was gonna win and they still won. You have to stand with them. Go ahead, Crystal. I disagree. I disagree. I think you underestimate the level of delusion that people can have. I mean, there were like the vague supporters on Twitter yesterday who thought he was gonna come from behind. The polls were underestimating him and whatever. True.

Maybe you're right. I don't think you can get in the voters' heads and say they knew going in. And we have to think, the reason it matters to talk about the principle and rather than, you know, did it affect this particular outcome is because if this is now the standard

that they can call it the minute that they think they know, even before the votes are cast, well, there are going to be other Iowa caucuses in the future. And they're going to have the same incentive to be, you know, the first out with their calls that media organizations always have. And so maybe it didn't make the difference here, but it could in the future.

And let me also make the case sort of against what I just said earlier about, I don't think it really mattered. Donald Trump barely got over 50%. And that was an important metric for him. He wanted to be over 50% that enables him to say, listen, even if every other candidate, you know, even if there was one other candidate and all the other voters consolidated on their side,

I still would have won. So it is possible that that early call enables him to meet that 51% threshold that gives him that, you know, that additional strength going into New Hampshire and beyond. So that's why principles matter. It's not because you can predict, did it make a difference here or there or wherever? It's, okay, well, if this is going to be the standard going forward, what do we want that standard to be? And I think that this was the wrong precedent to set. So I think that's a fantastic point, Crystal,

because as we all saw during the Buttigieg madness to 2020, it was a genuine question of like, well, what the hell do you say? Did we win or not? We still don't know. Yeah, that's right. We still don't actually know. We just came out, claimed victory,

and then we all just moved past. I believe if we go and we look, some media orgs did eventually call it for him, but of course that is contested. And then that raises the question too, Ryan, you probably have more insight into this than I do. How are they able to call a vote? Is it just based on their exit polls plus their initial stuff that they feed into a computer model? And this is where it's a genuine question of like, okay, well, who designs and audits these models? I mean, like what is the actual econometric software or whatever that's being used here? On this one, they matched polling like in the weeks ahead with entrance polling. So they had people at a bunch of caucuses asking people on the way in, who are you going to caucus

for? Trump, Trump, Trump. They sent that into the central headquarters and they're like, all right, we got eight precincts here, eight caucus sites here. Every single one of them is like 50% plus for Trump. That matches the polling. Boom, we're calling this. When it comes to a primary, if they have the polling and it's like up by 50 points, it's Oklahoma. Like the second polls close, they call it without even waiting for a single precinct.

If it's like a 20, 30 point margin, they'll wait for a couple precincts. And as long as the precincts that are coming in match the polling, they're like, all right, call it. The only other question I'd wonder about the Vivek people who are certain he's gonna win, why are they less certain just because the AP has called it? Who's the AP to them? Yeah. I mean, look, that's the problem is that they're both like the media doesn't matter. And they're like, the media is the only thing that matters. You gotta pick one. But I mean, look, that's the problem is that they're both like the media doesn't matter. And they're like, the media is the only thing that matters. You don't believe that you got to pick one. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, I mean, I think I'm coming around to it. At first I was a little bit dismissive, but the more we talk about the implications, like, look, as Crystal said,

49 51 actually is a big difference because we're all talking. What is the first thing I say? One over 50%. So, you know, clearly it could, maybe it has something back. I don't know. We're talking about a marginal difference at the end of the day, but margins matter. The only county that Nikki Haley won is by a single vote. Who knows whether that had some sort of impact here. Like what if she was able to get five more votes than Donald Trump? And I wouldn't say a single, all of these things do have some sort of downstream impact here. And so I guess the reason we should all be hopeful is we don't want questions going into 2024. As we all were like Fox News called Arizona.

That is still, like I said, a wound that is the deepest for some of these Trump people, even though Biden did it. And for Fox. Yeah, and for Fox too. People legitimately stopped watching Fox after that. Yes, like thousands of people. Now, you know, there's enough boomers who don't know how to change the channel, but that's a whole other conversation. I'm not kidding, by the way. Somebody actually told me that, that some of their viewers are so old that who don't know how to change the channel, but that's a whole other conversation. I'm not kidding, by the way. Somebody actually told me that, that some of their viewers are so old that they don't know how to change the channel.

And they're nervous that they won't be able to find it again if they change the channel. Just the last – there's two separate issues that we were talking about. One is the principle, and the other is whether or not this had an effect last night. I think everyone – like, I agree completely on the principle question. Whether or not it had an effect last night, I don't know. But I also think we can all agree that the DeSantis campaign is now using it as a cope.

Yes, definitely. Almost certainly. Let me, and one last thing on that. Part of the statement, he said, you know, it's another sign the media's in the tank for Donald Trump, which I think is kind of hilarious.

And no, the media is not in the tank for Donald Trump. They just like to be first out with the call and break the news. And so they have the incentive to do that. And, you know, I think it's sort of preposterous to imagine after all of these years of media coverage of Donald Trump that they're, quote unquote, in the tank for him to win. That's real genius through the Santas. Yeah, that's sort of some like the vague level conspiracy, like vote for me to say. That's real G-Dragon. Like Emily said, that's, yeah, that's sort of some like Vivek level conspiracy,

like vote for me to say, to support Trump. Like, wait, what? Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast

Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages

from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother.

She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people.

Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.

Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious do they like rap along now? Yeah, cause I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that

type of music is and they're starting to be like yo, your dad's like really the GOAT like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Making news around midnight last night, he is officially dropping out of the race after, I wouldn't say underperforming expectations, but coming in right along with his vote total,

with his poll totals, which is exactly where he didn't want to be. Hence the reason why he dropped out. He gave a speech last night in Iowa. Let's take a listen to what he said. We are going to suspend this presidential campaign. And this is going to have to be, there is no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don't want to see happen in this country. And I think that I am very worried for our country. I think we are skating on thin ice as a nation. As I've said since the beginning, there are two America first candidates in this race. And earlier tonight, I called Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulated him on his victory. And now going forward, he will have my full endorsement for the presidency. And I think

we're going to do the right thing for this country. He will have my full endorsement. He also made the news immediately after coming off the stage. He will be joining Trump for a rally in Iowa or sorry, in New Hampshire in the coming days. So I don't know. I mean, probably it was inevitable. Anyways, he did eventually, he did just drop out immediately after Iowa with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, not pulling that. I guess, to be fair, they did double his overall vote totals. One of the reasons we wanted to do this was to actually just Spend some time in terms of internet candidacy and what it means

So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, please just so we can again look at the overall results 51% for Trump 21.2% for DeSantis 19.1 for Haley 7.7 for Vivek Ramaswamy and then I don't know who Ryan Binkley is, but he got 0.7. Apparently he's an Iowa businessman. It's Ryan's alter ego. Yes, it's Ryan's alter ego.

He goes by Ryan Binkley in Iowa. There's something to be said here. So Vivek Ramaswamy got 7.7. All right, so that actually sounds better in my opinion than when you look at the actual total vote total. He only got 8,449 votes in the state of Iowa. He did approximately over 250 events in the state. He visited all 99 counties in the state. He spent upwards of 10 to $15 million, I believe, of his own money in the race on top of all the money that he didn't end up spending. He spent inordinate amounts of time on our show, on podcasts, Tim Pool's show, all of Patrick, Bet David, I mean, almost every big

YouTube show you can imagine. He made an appearance. He made a policy of saying yes. He got more earned media in the internet space than probably any other single candidate and made an effort to reach out to them. And let's all be honest, it didn't matter at all. That said, amongst the age group, this is the only place where I think I could make the counter case. Let's put this up there before we get Crystal's reaction. If you take a look here at which age group are you, you see that between 30 and 39-year-olds, Vivek is getting 24% of that vote. But the drop-off from 40 to 49, he gets 8% there. From 50 to 64, he gets 5.

And then from 65 or over, which is the plurality of the people who are voting in here, he gets its marginal. It's like 1 or maybe 2%. And I think this is a media story more than anything I said yesterday. But the fact is, is that if you're over 45, 50 or so, you're just living in a different universe on average. Not everybody. We have many great septuagenarian viewers here at Breaking Points and boomers who like to remind me of that whenever I talk about boomers. But let's be real. I can see our data.

The vast majority of people who watch our show are, you know, somewhere in the millennial generation or in Gen Z. And I think then if you were to consume a show like this, to live your life on Twitter or online on Instagram, wherever, for that to be the primary way that you get your news, as compared to the cable news environment, it's obvious to me then why Vivek Ramaswamy would not do all that well amongst that demo. And then clearly that's something I think he really realized in his second debate performance where he's like, I know I come off a little bit too ambitious and I know I'm just, who's this kid with the funny name and all of that. So to me, Vivek's candidacy is like, you can see it two ways. You can see it hopefully where you can be literally nobody and just rich and then you can become and win 7.7% of the vote in Iowa

and outlast people like Mike Pence and Tim Scott, sitting senators, a former vice president, and actually get to this point. Or you can just see it as like, look, the internet and all that, we still have a long way to go in terms of actual real impact on the election. So Crystal, what's your initial reaction to all this? Yeah, I mean, the media landscape is shifting dramatically. But legacy media, even in the Republican Party, is still king. And I think that that transition is even further behind in the Democratic Party because Democrats have a lot more trust for mainstream press than Republicans do. Great point.

So, you know, especially when you look at the fact, yes, he did better among young voters, but he still didn't win young voters. So it just shows you how much legacy media still dominates and how much Donald Trump still dominates. You know, with Vivek himself, obviously, I'm not surprised that his vote against Trump to support Trump argument didn't win the day. I suspect when he launched his campaign, I suspect he wanted to just like build a national brand, which he did, mission accomplished,

to have additional media visibility and to be able to, you know, go in a variety of directions, potentially a media direction in the future. He accomplished that. I do think that there was probably a moment early on in his campaign when he seemed to be getting traction. And right after the first debate, when there was all this interest and all this focus and attention on him, that he may have actually thought to himself, I think I could actually pull this off.

And then when the polls come back after that first debate, where he's so aggressive and he's so dominant and people basically like recoiled from that, where to me, all the air goes out of the Vivek balloon. And it's like, all right, if that didn't work for me, like me being my full self and being aggressive and sort of dominating the way that I feel like Trump dominates, if that doesn't work out, then you're kind of back to the, how do I make this into a media brand and a media career stuff? How do I make sure that I'm in Trump's good graces at the end of this so that maybe I end up in his cabinet or at least in his favor at the end of the day? So it's a very unsurprising end for him. I fully expected him to drop out after his Iowa performance. But yeah, it is a very clear crystallization or distillation,

or whatever the hell I'm trying to say here, of the fact that if you are just like the internet candidate, there is a very, very low ceiling on your support and how far you're going to get with that. Yeah, both Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard found that out the hard way back in 2020. What were your thoughts, Ryan? I mean, he did finish second among, you know, what you would call our viewers, like the YouTube podcast. Majority of our viewers, not all of our viewers. But I mean, he fits, like, right, yes, exactly. But among the demographic that watches, 40 and under, he finished second. He beat DeSantis and beat Nikki Haley. And if you compare him, he's sort of like a Buddha judge, a guy who a guy who came from absolutely nowhere, has a funny name, annoys a lot of people, but impresses a lot of other people.

And then Buttigieg winds up a captain secretary. But Buttigieg did it through MSNBC, the New York Times, and that element of the party really loving him. Yes. Whereas Vivek had to go kind of around it here. But it shows that there is a path to national relevance. I think he's very happy that he ran. Now he's going to get to be a Fox commentator. He's going to get to give speeches.

I think he's going to get a job under Trump. What do you think, Emily? I think he's lined himself up pretty well. I don't think he could get confirmed through the Senate, so I don't think he could be a cabinet-level secretary, but he could work in the White House. Honestly, he could work as a comms aide, like whatever Anthony Scaramucci was supposed to be.

I don't think he would want – being press secretary is a terrible job. You don't want to be the press secretary. Yeah, that's right. If you're Trump, you want a woman. You've got to have a very hot woman because he needs to find it pleasing to watch. Because, I mean, let's be honest, it's the vast majority of what he does whenever he's president. But what do you think Trump will – what do you think Vivek will end up as within Trump? He's obviously going to be a big surrogate. He's going to be all over TV defending Trump, I think for the next, what, nine, 10 months odd until the election. But

do you think he'll get rewarded or is Trump going to forgive him, you know, for running against him and having to attack him? That's the question. Well, and this is actually, I think, one of the things that's very interesting about Vivek's candidacy. So if you look at these numbers a little bit, when we had this graphic on the screen, so Vivek getting 7.7% of the vote in Iowa. It's sad for someone who did so many events in Iowa, truly an eye-popping number of events in Iowa, spent a lot of his own money. At the same time, Asa Hutchinson was a governor of a deep red state. Mike Pence was the vice president of the United States. And Vivek, they dropped out because they wouldn he's pulling it around 5%. If all of those voters go to Trump, and there's a good argument that most of those voters go to Trump, that puts Trump around the 50% threshold. In New Hampshire, a state that is not super favorable to Donald Trump, and everyone's

now talking about Nikki Haley potentially winning, she's down double digits to Trump. So if you take Vivek's 5%, or if you take his 7% in Iowa, and you put it on to Donald Trump, you're almost out what the national polling looks like, which is a mirror image of what it looked like in 2016, when you had about, I pulled these numbers actually last night, I went to RCP from 2016, you had about 65% of voters saying that they would cast their ballots against Trump at this point in the race in 2016. Now you have about 65% of voters, especially if you predict you're shifting Vivek's voters over to Trump, you have about the same thing saying

that they are going to cast their ballots. They would cast their ballots for Donald Trump. So I think this is where, will Vivek get rewarded? Absolutely. And that's why we're numb to this. Trump attacked Vivek on Twitter twice in the last week. He like broke this long spell of not saying anything about Vivek, attacked him twice on Twitter because he wanted to probably get over that 50% threshold. He was saying a vote for, you know, Vivek is not a vote for Trump, et cetera, et cetera. That is, then he pivots on election night and embraces Vivek, goes to New Hampshire, is now doing an event with Vivek. Why is all that? Because at the end of the day, Vivek was a great surrogate for Donald Trump. That's a good point.

He was a great surrogate for Donald Trump. He said he was the best president of his lifetime. Yeah. One thing we do want to spend time on is just there was, I think out of any candidate, this is what all online, and maybe this speaks to my age, you know, in terms of the people that I follow and consume. DeSantis won young voters in Iowa, by the way. That's a great point. Yes. That's, I think that was amongst 17, that might have been Gen Z. 17 to 29. Right. So 17 to 29 year old voters. One thing we should flag, and this is what Crystal and I, that's why we pulled this video, is there was an attempt by Vivek to actually kind of lean into this MAGA influencer. Like he had Candace Owens with him

that was on the road. And something they kept telling us is like, watch out guys, he's going to massively overperform because he's done the work. Doing the work is the most important thing. We have a video here from one of his campaign events where they're like, look at this packed house, Candace Owens and Vivek Ramaswamy didn't end up mattering all that much for the final vote totals. So as we can see, put it up there on the screen, they say packed house for real Candace Ovek Ramaswamy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If you believe the poll showing Nikki Haley is the one surging in Iowa, you are not operating in reality.

This surge is with America first, as you can see in a hotel conference room. This is, I mean, I will say it is sad because one of the, in general, there was always this barometer of like crowd sizes do matter. And there is an element sometimes to things that you can miss from energy on the ground and surging and all of that. But to a certain extent, the retail politics, just to reiterate, did not end up really mattering at all in this race. And in fact, there was generally a inverse relationship. DeSantis and Nikki Haley did roughly the same amount of events. They both spent an equal ton of money, didn't end up mattering. Trump barely set foot in like 10 counties in Iowa. He only even arrived in Iowa for the caucus like the night before, and then he flew out immediately

after he won. So anyway, I think there is a cautionary internet tale here. Crystal, if you have any last thoughts on this or any of you guys, Crystal, you first. I do. I just want to say, going back to something that Emily said, the person I'm actually most fascinated by at this point is Asa Hutchinson. I'm not even kidding. This man, think about this. You were a governor of a state. Like you were an important person. You got elected. You know, you got to go to these meetings with all these people. And now you're barely beaten. Chris Christie is not even on the ballot anymore. Like I genuinely want to understand the mentality that leads you not just to get in the race and see, okay, what's going to happen, but to stay in and

persist in what you think that you're up to, what your goals are. Like, I am genuinely fascinated by it. And then the other person that I don't want to let this end without mentioning is Doug Burgum, who did drop out and who, after really, you know, kind of trashing Trump and saying he would never hire him, et cetera, et cetera, endorsed him for president and was there in Iowa backing him last night, which is both humiliating, but also a sign that with Trump, you know, as long as at the end of the day, you say, you're right, sir. I'm sorry. You're the best.

You're the greatest. I'm here for you, et cetera. All can be forgiven. So, you know, he was there last night and Trump made an interesting comment about Doug Burgum. He was like, he's so solid. He doesn't attract any controversy. And sometimes you need some controversy to be able to catch on.

And I was like, that is actually an incredible window into the way that Trump thinks about politics. Yeah. Absolutely accurate. Final thoughts, guys? Wasn't Asa Hutchinson just basically like a messaging campaign for Country Club, Republican? I wouldn't even call it Country Club.

I don't know what the hell it was. If people want to watch, Crystal and I interviewed him. I don't remember exactly when it was. It was, I actually kind of enjoyed it. I thought he was a nice man. He's a governor. He's a governor. Yeah, I like talking to him.

Go ahead, Crystal. He's very nice man. Oh, he's terrible. He's terrible on drug policy. He's like a DEA. If you go into like the Cold War trafficking stuff. That you know. Oh, he's terrible. He's terrible on drug policy. He's like a DEA. If you go into like the Cold War trafficking stuff. That's right. Yeah, he's the, he's terrible on drug policy.

Now I'm afraid of it. Listen, I'm putting aside all his policy. I don't agree with any of these people, basically, on policy very rarely. So putting all of that aside, he seems like a perfectly nice, normal, lovely man. We gave him a tough interview because that's what, you know, that's what we do,

especially with someone that's running for president. But yeah, I just can't really wrap my head around the calculation that's going on there. And I'm genuinely fascinated by it. Yeah, we'll see. I don't know if he's going

to drop out or not. I don't know if anybody really cares. He can't raise money. That's been one of his ways. So we'll see. I mean, I think he's personally wealthy. That's kind of the vibe I got whenever he was in here.

Not as personally wealthy as billionaire Doug Burgum, but that's a whole other story. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day.

The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister.

There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her,

Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is,

and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. That's what's really important and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better.

So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go to New Hampshire. This is the final electoral block that we're going to do here.

Just in terms of some of our predictions, what we think is going to shake out. So let's go put the RCP average up there on the screen. This is where things stand as of right now. So Donald Trump currently 43.5%. Nikki Haley, 29.3. Chris Christie, obviously you can discount that. He's been dropped out 11.3. DeSantis was 6.5 and Vivek Ramaswamy at five. So Vivek's five, I think we'd probably safely say either going to peter out or majority of those going to go over to Trump. Chris Christie, who the hell knows? I mean, the question here is, and this is, I put this out last night, but I really do believe it, is that I think this outcome, Crystal, was the best possible one for Trump. DeSantis has no path

to victory in New Hampshire. Nikki did. So her coming in third and not having the number two narrative that she needed and wanted coming out of Iowa is the only thing that could have put her over the edge in New Hampshire and made that a contested race. DeSantis has no chance of winning New Hampshire. And now they're more likely to equally split the so-called Nikki surge in New Hampshire. Now listen, of course things can happen. It's only a week away, et cetera. But you know, this is just my overall, like, kind of prediction of where things go. This just seems to me more likely that Trump then consolidates that vote for Vivek Ramaswamy voters. The Chris Christie voter is so anti-Trump, they may not even come out to vote because they just

feel discouraged by the results. May would have depressed turnout, you know, majority of people backing Trump anyway. And it just seems like he's going gonna tie even more of a bow on it post-New Hampshire than if Nikki Haley had come in second in this race. I think it would be living in a different world only because the media would make it such a big deal that matters a lot to these New Hampshire college educated voters. What do you think? I agree with all of that. You know, even with Chris Christie dropping out of the race and Nikki getting a good bit of his support, it's not like the polls showed her winning in New Hampshire. And there is no state in the union, including her on home state, that is better for Nikki Haley than New Hampshire. So when I look at the Iowa results last night,

and I see that she wasn't even winning among college educated voters, which is, you know, she's a total wine track like Elizabeth Warren, kind of a candidate. I find it very doubtful that she could pull off a victory even in New Hampshire. And let's be real. Even if she did, I don't think it would really matter because then you go on from there and you're going to lose everything else. To me, last night's results proved how limited her appeal and her support is within the Republican Party. She has come to be seen, and Emily, I'd be curious if you agree with this, she has come to be seen almost like a Chris Christie anti-Trump figure, even though she was much more gentle with Donald Trump in terms of her critique. But her favorability rating with Republicans

has been falling off a cliff. So, you know, people who said they were very conservative didn't vote for her. People who said they were somewhat conservative didn't vote for her. The only group she did well with were moderates and liberals, which was a tiny sliver of the electorate last night. So yeah, she doesn't have momentum going into New Hampshire. Ron DeSantis is still hanging around. She needed absolutely everything to go completely perfectly,

plus some things to be revealed that weren't being revealed in the polls. And none of that happened. So, you know, to go back to how we started this whole thing with Trump, basically like giving Nikki and giving Ron a little pat on the head and Babak as well, that's appropriate because this thing is effectively over. I just, barring something totally external to electoral politics, which you'd never know.

But barring that, yeah, Black Swan event, barring that, it's done. It's a wrap. It's over. Donald Trump is still the man in the Republican Party. If you didn't know that yesterday, you definitely know it now. Bow tie. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think if Nikki Haley had had a surprisingly good showing yesterday or Ron DeSantis, I mean, honestly, second place was okay for DeSantis. But if either of them had come close to Trump, for some reason, they had gotten, you know, 40% of the vote, something like that. Even 30% of the vote, they just totally blew the polls out of the water. And we didn't know, you know, if the polling had

proven to be pretty inaccurate yesterday, and one of them overperformed the polls, then especially Nikki Haley could have gone into New Hampshire with some momentum. She's now third place and a distant, distant third place to Trump. She's already down by double digits in New Hampshire with some momentum. She's now third place and a distant, distant third place to Trump. She's already down by double digits in New Hampshire. So in the media, you're hearing all this chatter about how Nikki Haley is heading into New Hampshire with the wind at her back. In fact, people were making that argument in Iowa. They were saying, you know, Nikki Haley didn't put that much money in Iowa. She only focused there in the last couple of weeks. It's kind of true, but not really. I mean, she's been in Iowa for a while. She wasn't doing exactly what DeSantis was doing, but she was doing more than Trump. And so if she's going

into New Hampshire with the wind at her back and is down double digits and just came in a distant third, this race is over. Barring a black swan event, this race is over. And Nikki Haley is the media's last ditch effort to make this narrative appealing and to drive ratings and to sell papers because seriously, this race is over. There was a potential track if she had done well, that they would have done what happened in 2020 with Pete and Amy, right? That Republican donors would have gotten together behind closed doors and said, listen, she's it. She just got 35% of the vote without really focusing on that until the last couple of months. You can't do it. She just got 35% of the vote without, you know, really focusing on that until the last couple months. You can't do it. You can't do it. Ryan. Yeah. And it undermines this gimmick that Democrats were going to try to pull where they were going to, you know, a bunch of Democrats

just going to go out and vote for Nikki Haley. Oh, in New Hampshire. That's right. I forgot about that. Because you can switch. Yeah. You can take whatever ballot you want. But if you're a Democrat at this point, like, is that how you're going to spend your evening? Like, what's your day? Like, what's even the point? Like, if you thought there was a path, and I disagree with this strategy from Democrats because I think Nikki Haley is more right-wing, as we talked about earlier. That's right. More pro-war. We don't die if she were president.

On and on. Yes. But setting that aside, they genuinely like that she speaks in, like, polite, complete sentences. And, like, they feel like she's not a threat to democracy and on and on. So if they thought there was a chance that gaming the New Hampshire primary would give her a boost and give her, you know,

the jolt that she needed to win the Republican nomination, then maybe they go, enough of them go through with that gimmick. But watching what happened in Iowa, I don't see how that incentivizes a Democrat to play games. Yeah, just to throw something on the fire. It's so, you know, I don't really understand how she does this. She's put out this morning, we've had five great debates.

Unfortunately, Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I will do will either be Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it. So she's trying to, like, be like, the race is over. It's me versus Trump. I'm like, lady, the race is over. You're not even in this equation. Actually, a quote from her last night. She said, Iowa just made this a two-person race.

What are you talking about? Because she's going into New Hampshire and the RCP average, she's at about 22% in the polls in RCP. DeSantis is at 11%. Put those two numbers together and you're still nowhere near Trump's 52%. So you could try to do what Pete and Amy did in 2020 and you're still going to lose. You're still going to lose because Trump in New Hampshire is at 52%. If he takes Ramaswamy's 3.3, you're putting him at something like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm in South Carolina. Thank you, Ryan. You're reading the screen for me. Okay, so in New Hampshire, Trump's at 43%.

Haley's at 29.3%. Chris Christie in the polls was at 11.3%. DeSantis is at 6.5%. So if you take Chris Christie's 11.3% from that RCP average, I don't think all of that goes to Haley. I think you probably get half to Haley, half to DeSantis. So that still puts Haley double digits behind Donald Trump. Yeah, and just so we're all clear, I even have South Carolina here in front of me. She's losing to Trump by 30 points in her own home state. Exactly. That's what I meant to say. It's like, what are we doing here, lady? I mean, listen,

you want to burn some billionaire cash on private jets, be my guest. But then you have to go into Super Tuesday on March 5th. And so again, they're down like so much in the national polling. Trump's at over 60% national. And California, don't forget. California is part of Super Tuesday now. Trump is winning by 60 points. We could probably go on ad nauseum, but the point has probably been made here. Crystal, I know you're going to drop off. So any final electoral thoughts before we depart?

Yeah, I was just going to say, last thought with regard to Nikki Haley. Number one, when that Iowa Des Moines Register poll came out and it had her in second, but even the pollster, Ann Seltzer, who's very well known and sort of respected in this, and that's the Goldstainer polling. And by the way, that poll did come very close to nailing the actual outcome. When she made sure to say in the copy, like, it is jaw-dropping how little Nikki Haley supporters actually support her, like how not enthusiastic they are, and was basically saying about her own poll, I don't think that Nikki Haley is going to perform

where this is showing her performing. I, you know, I really took that to heart, which is why to give us pats on the back, Sagar, we're pretty close with our predictions yesterday, including the ultimate outcome of what was going to happen. I will also say, if you're a Republican and your strategy depends on getting Democrats to come to the polls for you to vote, like that's not going to work out. And even, you know, they talk about this every time. Oh, Republicans are going to cross over and cause chaos. Democrats are going

to cross over and cause chaos. I've never seen it happen in really serious numbers. They could have done it in the Iowa caucus last night also when it was still, you know, a going concern that potentially they could beat Trump. And it didn't happen. So Nikki needed for there to be some secret group of voters out there, not reflected in the polling, who really wants to move on from Donald Trump and needed a permission structure to do it. I think we can say definitively after last night,

that group of voters does not exist. And her campaign, whether she does okay in New Hampshire or not is also effectively over. Yeah, well said, Crystal. And we appreciate you. Thank you. Enjoy your snow day with the kiddos. Keep them all safe.

We'll carry on from here. So we'll see you later. Bye, guys. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder.

I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.

She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too.

So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important and

that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, there's been some major news in the international sphere. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Middle East was in absolute chaos yesterday, as rightfully summed up here. There was an attack on a U.S. ship by Yemen's Houthis.

The U. The US intercepted two attacks in the Red Sea. Israel had strikes in Gaza. There was a stabbing and a car-rabbing near Tel Aviv in a terrorist attack. There was an IRGC attack in Iraq, an IRGC attack in Syria, the IRGC being a paramilitary organization under the control of the Iranian Ayatollah. And they say, even for Middle East, this is beyond the usual instability, which I think is actually a pretty good way of putting it. Let's start with the first part. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Houthi rebels struck a US flagged ship off of the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden that was directly after the strikes by the Biden administration

on Houthi infrastructure. CENTCOM, which is the U.S. military command in charge of the region, elaborated a little bit on this. If we can go to the next one. And they say that the Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands flagged U.S. owned and operated container ship. The ship reported no injuries or significant damage. But Ryan, to me, the big headline out of that is they still attacked U.S. flagship after they attacked the U.S. Navy ship with a pretty significant military technology. That's a signal. And it's a signal too, because this is, to my knowledge, one of the

first U.S. flag, or at least U.S. owned and operated ships that's actually come under attack, not some Panamanian vessel or an Israeli vessel like they'd previously gone after. So what's your initial reaction? Yeah, and the Houthis, who really are the de facto, though not legally recognized government of Yemen, have said that they are going to continue this blockade until Israel stops its bombing campaign and its incursion into Gaza. Those are the conditions that they have put up. U.S. responded by bombing Yemen in response. I saw somebody, and I think we have this element later, saying, I guess the Houthis haven't gotten the message. No, the Houthis have gotten the message. Yemen has gotten the message. We have it next. We can put it up there if people want.

The United States- That's Admiral Stavridis, just so everybody knows. He's actually the former commander of NATO forces. He says that the good news is that no one was injured in this attack by the Houthis. The bad news is they probably have not gotten the message to cease and desist, probably going to require additional military strikes to discourage them. Never thought of that. Yeah, and more cowbell. So the Obama administration spent most of its time drone striking Yemen. Yes, for years. After the war broke out, the U.S. gave every weapon that the United Arab Emirates or Saudi could ask for in their war against the Houthis. That lasted about seven years.

Basically, they've been bombing them for years and years and years and years. The Houthis have only gotten stronger. And the Houthis have their own kind of regional and also domestic interests at play here. See some people portraying this as like, what do you guys think that these are like, this is good and evil and these are the Boy Scouts? No, like they have had, you know,

more than a year of cessation of hostilities. Right, with the Saudis. Which has meant that they have had to govern. And governing is much easier sometimes when you have kind of the civilian population behind you involved in some type of external conflict. So it actually helps them domestically. Helps them regionally. If you, like the polls around the entire Middle East show, the Houthis are now like by far the most popular force

in the area. So yeah, a few more military strikes from the US, they're not gonna get the message. They understand what we want. What concerns me, Emily, is that the story, this comes after the tragic incident involving Navy SEALs that we are getting actually some more detail. I'm curious your reaction just literally came out this morning. It appears the U.S. military has finally confirmed, boarded in a shipboarding mission off the coast

of Somalia last week, sought to disrupt that weapons resupply of Yemen, which was specifically then being used in this war. Crystal and I have described this as kind of the first actual U.S. I don't want to say casualties out of respect to the families. These guys remain missing, lost at sea now for three full days. Congressman Eli Crane posted on his Facebook last night, if you saw this. No, I didn't see this. Rest in peace, brothers. And he's a former Navy SEAL himself, member of Congress. They have not confirmed. There you go. We'll let the Pentagon speak to what the official notification. One of the sources I'm hearing is that everyone in that world understands them to have passed. Yeah, it's very sad. So anyway, we've got two

US Navy SEALs officially missing in action at sea right now, currently involved in this mission. John Kirby stopped at distance and he said this has nothing to do with the strikes in Yemen, even though they were literally involved here in Yemen. So this could be kind of a jump-off point for – at least for the U.S. public. Anytime two U.S. Navy SEALs end up missing in some sort of daring raid in the middle from what I'm reading here, we're talking about boarding like some unstable dhow in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of warheads and all this other stuff on it. Obviously, they train for this all the time, but it's recognized as an extraordinarily risky mission. Do you think this could raise possibly like anti-war energy? Because this is one of those where it's really the first time, not only in terms of military action on Yemen, but now we've got U.S. military personnel, service members actually directly involved in combat here. This might seem like a weird word to use.

I find it creepy, though, how little media coverage there has been of these casualties. I mean, it is creepy how serious and substantive of an issue it is and how quiet the media has been about what happened. And I'm not saying they should be out there banging the war drums, but I think actually we're starting to feel an echo of how the Biden administration has prosecuted the war in Ukraine in the Middle East, which is that publicly and in their posturing, they're all in Ukraine as the battle for civilization is the most important thing in the world. And you have a lot of sentiment in the United States that doesn't reflect that. And so what they try to do is just sort of slow walk the war. So they'll give you the weapons, but they'll really hem and haw about it. And so what they try to do is just sort of slow walk the war. So they'll give you, you know, the weapons, but they'll really hem and haw about it. And they'll pretend that this is a

giant sacrifice for the Biden administration. You're like, oh, we went to the Met, we got you more weapons. And then in the Middle East, you know, this is from Dr. Parsi, Trita Parsi, he says, all the Houthis need to do is try. That is enough to sustain a de facto shipping blockade. Western commercial vessels will simply not risk moving their ships through those waters, not in spite of President Joe Biden's military strikes, but because of them. And so again, if your strategy in the Middle East is to do these strikes, and we all know that the Houthis, to Ryan's point, have got the message. We don't know that. So what are you going to do? Are you going to half-ass it? Are you going to full-ass it? The Biden administration is just kind of in between both of those options, trying to bide time until they can sort of massage the

public and figure out what they're doing. And in Ukraine, they've been doing this literally for years now. Yeah, this is very dangerous. In terms of the Houthi statement, we have some of this that we can put up there. They say that they're very long and loquacious, I guess is an easy way to say it. The TLDR of this very, very long statement is the Yemeni armed forces continue to carry out their military operations and impose the decision to prevent Israeli navigation in the Arab and Red Sea until the aggression stops and the siege of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted. So basically, the center of gravity for this particular conflict and more is going to be what the hell is going on in Gaza, not anywhere else. There is, though, a bleeding out continuing of the conflict. There was a major panic here in Washington just yesterday evening as strikes were being reported in the city of Erbil in Iraq. Erbil is one of actually the safest cities in Iraq. It's in the northern part in Kurdistan.

And we saw Iranian ballistic missiles rain down on the city. Initial reports, Ryan, were that the U.S. consulate was actually targeted. It appears that is not true. U.S. officials have now confirmed that no U.S. actual facility was targeted. But it appears that it might have actually been a Mossad facility. So we have some video that we can play here showing some of the strikes. I mean, this is some crazy stuff there, people. I mean, it's the middle of the night there, and you can see there were other things coming out of missiles just coming through the sky, flying there, and then blowing up right in the middle of the city. Some casualties initially

reported. Obviously, though, if it was a spy agency, the Israelis, they're not exactly going to confirm anything. But what did you make of this, Ryan? Because to me, it's escalatory only in this. The Mossad place, surprisingly, very close to the U.S. consulate. People were afraid that the U.S. consulate itself was going to get blown up. But Erbil is not a city at war. I mean, they're not used to ballistic missiles coming from Iran directly acknowledged plopping down in the middle. Imagine if that happened.

And, Sagar, we are not a country at war either. Keep that in mind. Iraq has recalled its ambassador from Iran in protest because they're like, hey, look, I know that this is not about us, but. Yeah, but you can't just bomb the country. Yeah. And the way that Parsi and others have said it is that going after, let's say, let's say the reports are accurate that it was a Mossad facility, they know that this is right near the U.S. consulate. The shockwaves were felt over there. They initially thought it was an attempted strike on the consulate.

It was that close. And it's extraordinarily risky because if you're off by a couple hundred meters or whatever, then you've hit the U.S. consulate. And so it is, you know, Khomeini is understood to be extraordinarily risk-averse. Yet the bombing at Soleimani's funeral, coupled with the killing of the IRGC general in Syria, coupled with the attacks on the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Beirut, have created so much domestic pressure that even risk averse Khomeini sees that he needs to do something aggressive.

And so the shot at the Mossad building so close to the consulate is a ratcheting up. When they attacked Syria, that was going after ISIS. And the risk aversion comes in there too because there's two ways to go after ISIS. Afghanistan, which is where, you know, probably a lot of the strike was planned from. Or in Syria, Syria is the more passive way, because that's further away. You go after Afghanistan, you might unleash a little bit more of a response from ISIS or even the Taliban that come in in he doesn't want

but You've seen the State Department and kind of its allies saying oh boy It looks like it's we're close being caught, you know We're getting closer to being drawn into another war as if it's just this passive gravitational pull things like worse to both worlds This is when they attacked Yemen Everybody could Worst of both worlds. This is when they attacked Yemen, everybody could forecast that Iran is then going to respond either through its militias or directly through the IRGC. Right. That's what's going to happen. So this attempt to de-escalate through escalating is absurd but also not working.

I would put it this way. If it was just – let's say the Houthis out of nowhere start shooting at ships. Okay. Bomb them. Right. But that's not what's happening here. This is about Israel. So it's like, well, we've got to deal with the situation in Israel. Otherwise we're just going to keep going some tit for tat. And now lo and behold, as you know, you put it very well, creepy in terms of the story. It's kind of like when those four, was it Green Berets got killed in Niger? And everyone was like, wait, what the hell is going on in Niger? They're like, what happened here? And then the Pentagon story came out

and it was, let me tell you this, bullshit. It was complete BS. The families of those involved continue to press. There's video that directly undercuts what they said. It was a boondoggle of epic proportions that probably goes all the way up to the Pentagon for denied air support and all this other stuff. There's YouTube videos and all that stuff. You can go watch about it.

I suspect something similar is happening here. We don't even get the official narrative about guys lost at sea until days later. And then we have to think about the strategic mission. You got a piddly little Dow in the middle of the ocean. They're shipping weapons from Iran to Yemen. This is not something that we ever particularly cared about. Like we did, you know, yeah, maybe we'll blockade, et cetera, but you don't put American lives at risk. And then all of a sudden somebody somewhere, probably the white house green lights it. And they say, yeah, let's disrupt it a little bit. And that what, how do you look these people's families in the face

and be like, what do they give their life if they go? I pray that they were found. I pray that. That said, let's accept reality about where things are right now. And let's just think about that counterfactual in which they may eventually be declared missing or dead. How do you look at families and say, for what? So that Israel continues to sell on Gaza? It's like, I thought that, you know, no wars for Israel used to be a meme, and now it's reality. It seems to literally be reality. Anyway, so we wanted to, you know, lay out some of the chaos that's happened in the Middle East there. At the same time, turning to Israel, all eyes there, there's some video actually going viral in right-wing circles in Israel, calling out the government for allegedly retreating. So this is some video that emerged from inside of Gaza, and it shows the Golani Brigade,

it's kind of a famous military unit inside of the IDF, cheering as they're actually leaving Gaza. And the interesting part about it is it's a major question about what the actual plans for post-war occupation look like, how exactly they're going to spin this inside of the country. So, for example, guys, we can go to the next part already, which is an Israeli news outlet. It's Ynet. We've used them before.

Excellent news outlet outside of Israel. And their headline here is that the IDF's 36th Division ends Gaza deployment in a major troop reduction. Military is saying that the division, including the brigade, the Golani Brigade, will leave for a period of training before then deciding whether it should resume operating in Gaza. So I'm curious what you make of this, Ryan. Is it a sign of things going badly? Is it a sign of things going well? Is it trying to get the hell out of Dodge so you don't have to get stuck with occupation. You can stick big old Uncle Sam with

that job. What did you make of something like this in the context of the broader military environment? Yeah, it was announced, you know, Israel announced earlier that they were going to be withdrawing some troops so that they could be sent back into the Israeli economy and others so that they could train and then potentially return. It is a signal that the ground invasion is not going as quickly and smoothly as they would like. But it also is a reflection of just the material limits to 7 million people going at war with 7 million people. If you are Israel, you're trying to run an entire economy and country, which requires a civilian population. And so a mass mobilization of hundreds of thousands of people is not sustainable over the long term. It's not even

sustainable kind of over the medium term. Plus, look at what has become of Gaza, it's this dystopian kind of, just miles long piles of rubble. If you look at the videos that the Kassam Brigades puts out. This is the Hamas. This is the Hamas military wing. We've played some of their videos here, yeah. You can see how difficult an invasion would be. You are sitting ducks as you're walking through these areas, whereas Hamas can go in and out of different buildings, go into their tunnels and out of them.

You can drop as many 2,000 bombs as you want on civilian populations. But if it only takes a couple of guys with an RPG against a tank or against a troop concentration, you're going to be taking losses that are unacceptable to the Israeli public and unsustainable to an Israeli economy. We found this, look, Battle of Mosul, Syrian Democratic Forces, Battle of, what is it, whatever their capital was. Fallujah. Fallujah, Ramadi. I mean, we've spoken, you know, with about this ad nauseum in terms of urban combat. You can see every video. The one that ISIS couldn't take from the Kurds. That's, I forget exactly what it was. And that's the question for Netanyahu and the IDF and the Israeli people as we're testing right here is do you want that? And does it make you safer? So it's one thing for the United States to do that in Fallujah or Mosul.

It's another thing for Israel to do that right next door. And when you're looking at these videos of Gaza right now and Israel says that they're actually not even on the same page. Their own government's not on the same page about what their end goal is in this war. They're not on the same page with the government that they are relying on to prosecute this war. Joe Biden says his end goal is a two-state solution. Netanyahu and the people he relies on in his coalition say absolutely not, no two-state solution. So this is the rubber meeting the road, because do the Israeli people think that it makes them safer? And do they want to, in mass, does the Israeli, the population of Israel in mass, do they want to sacrifice as many young Israelis as it would take to do a full-scale invasion of Gaza? And then what does that accomplish? What is their consensus about why they sacrificed all

of those fighters to do a full-scale invasion of Gaza? The fact of the matter is nobody knows. Nobody can get to the same page about what the goal would be. Is it to eradicate Hamas? Okay, what is the metric for eradicating Hamas? Or rescue the hostages. That's a good point. That's a good point. Because this is very important. Let's put this up there. Because there was a news announcement just yesterday that actually three of the Israeli hostages, according to Hamas, have been killed by the IDF in airstrikes. Now, look, we don't know whether that's true or not. They are shown videos of them previously. Whether and how they were killed is going to be, you know, unless we eventually their bodies are recovered.

The only thing I think we could take from this is that at this point, we saw a major rally in Israel. We played some of the video yesterday for the hostages. Hostages are a very emotional, very important issue inside Israel. The fact is they haven't saved a single one. And that's a problem for them. I mean, I can't imagine. Rescued hostages have said that they felt as though, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, look, when Hamas says it, it's easy to discount it. But when I hear,

and I wouldn't even necessarily, you know, you don't take anything at face value, but when those people have been released, they're like, I literally heard the bombs above my head. And you're like, well, that's, that's pretty dicey situation. And to this point, and this kind of gets exactly to what you're saying, Emily, put this up there, please. The defense minister of the war cabinet actually stormed out of a meeting with Netanyahu. This is something Crystal actually flagged for us because the reason why it's hilarious is that he apparently stormed out over some petty issue where he was told his aides could not come in the room. But then Netanyahu brought like five of his aides. The most classic like bureaucratic situation ever.

But it's just like when you're fighting like that in the middle of a war and for a war cabinet, you're like personality conflicts and all of that come to the fore, then you're not united in a goal both in the immediate and the medium and the long term. Because they all hate each other. And this just breeds just general instability in the country. Yeah, and they're huge internal rivals.

Yes. So this is that bubbling to the surface. Yes, it goes to how deeply unsustainable all of this is. Obviously, Israel's tourism economy is completely in the toilet. The blockade has meant that the port of Eilat has basically no ships in it. And the civilian populations that were living down in the south in the Negev and in the north up by Lebanon are now basically like internal refugees living with family, friends. Huge internal displacement in Israel. And you hear from Netanyahu, this is going to go for many, many months.

Because Netanyahu needs it to continue going because politically and legally, he faces potential prosecution if he leaves office. And so it's in his interest and his interest only to continue this. Everyone else is suffering from this. Well, I mean, again, to your point, he has a coalition that he has to keep happy. And so they actually, it's the opposite for them. You have a lot of discontent with how Netanyahu has proceeded in the war, but they want him to go harder and further and that becomes untenable. Yeah. And this final thing I'll mention here, we've got the Congressman Ro Khanna on standby outside, but we wanted to just wrap with this. Unfortunately, there's actually been a terrorist

attack inside of Israel just yesterday, kind of reinforcing some of the future problems that might await them. Put that up there on the screen. A woman was killed, 17 others were hurt in a suspected car-ramming attack. This was two Palestinians who were actually from the West Bank arrested in a city about 12 miles or so north of Tel Aviv in the capital. Don't forget, there's a significant Palestinian population inside of Israel. What do they think about it? There's definitely a lot of disreputable. Yeah, they can't say anything, but every once in a while, people are going to act out. So it's not, you know, the things are in more of a powder keg, I think, right now, both regionally and inside the country. They're trying to make major decisions about their military strategy.

So lots of things that are up in the air. As I said, we've got the Congressman Ro Khanna who is here on standby. We're going to talk to him about Yemen, UFOs, and more. Emily, Ryan, I just want to say thank you guys so much for joining us. It's always a pleasure. It's always a pleasure to do this. I guess we'll see you in a week after New Hampshire. But you'll see counterpoints tomorrow.

Oh, I'm sorry. You'll have counterpoints tomorrow. Give us a plug. Of course. Counterpoints. Rate, subscribe, five stars. Send to your family. Send to your grandma. So Crystal and I are not going to do an AMA this week. We had so much scheduling stuff going on yesterday. Counterpoints will be handling the AMA. So for the questions, submit premium questions specifically for Ryan and Emily as you would normally, and they will record it tomorrow, and we'll put it out for premium subs. I know some of you guys have been asking that now for quite some time. Next, let's get to the congressman.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.

She was stoic, modest, tough. Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person

that was getting treatment, that was dying treatment that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there

was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Yeah. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, cause I bring him on tour with me

and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend.

So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk

from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is Congressman Ro Khanna, great friend of the show. We are always happy to welcome him. Always enjoy being on set.

Yeah, we love it. It's a hit, like I said, with the Capitol Police. In fact, they appreciated my shout out. Oh, did they? Someone stopped me and said, you know, we're here. I have a couple comments for the Capitol Police, but we'll keep it cordial, I think, for today. Thank you. We appreciate all of our viewers. Let's put the tweet that you put out on the screen. This was very important. We wanted to talk with you about it. It came immediately after the President Biden ordered strikes on Yemen. You said, quote, the President needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against Houthis in Yemen, involving us in another Middle East conflict. This is Article 1 of the Constitution. I will

stand up for that regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House. You clarified that of the War Powers Act, it is clear POTUS may only introduce the U.S. into hostilities after congressional authorization or in a national emergency when the U.S. is under imminent attack. Reporting is not a substitute. This is a retaliatory offensive strike. So, Congressman, you know, first of all, why is this important to you? You were one of maybe, I want to say like maybe a handful who actually spoke out about this, both Democrat and Republican. But what, why are you not buying the explanation of the administration that this is a defensive, covered under the

War Powers Act? Well, this is not a laughing matter. It is a serious thing. I mean, you have the world's strongest, most powerful country bombing one of the world's poorest countries. Now, the Houthis are not good actors. I mean, they're obviously disrupting the ships in the Red Sea, and they certainly committed human rights violations in the war in Yemen. And some folks know that I was very, very involved in Yemen and trying to stop that war. But here's the situation. You've had these reports with the administration from early December. They've been going to the UN. The president's been talking to the leaders of Canada, the leaders of Australia,

the leaders of Britain. They can't talk to Congress? I mean, this is not some situation where Houthi is firing at some ship and the president's saying, okay, you have a defensive moment and let's attack Houthi or defend us, our ships. This is a month and a half where they've been making the case. So they need to come to Congress and say why they think that attacking the Houthis will actually make the situation better. So far, it hasn't opened up the Red Sea. Yeah. And based on a misreading of the War Powers Resolution, you saw a number of commentators pushing back and saying, well, actually, president can do whatever he wants just as long as he tells Congress within 48 hours. Setting aside the kind of, I don't want to elevate community notes to like a place where we're actually like discussing their opinion as if it has merit. But I'm curious, inside Congress,

how fluent are people with the War Powers Resolution? Do they buy that argument or do members of Congress understand, okay, yes, he actually does need congressional authorization to go to war against other countries? I think there's a lot of confusion. And unfortunately, the comments were coming from, quote unquote, experts and pundits. And they were saying, oh, Conor doesn't know what he's talking about. Of course, Bernie Sanders and I are the only two people who've ever passed a War Powers Resolution Act in the history of the United States. There are a lot of things I may not know about. I do know the war powers. And what they were doing is citing the exception. Yes, there is an exception where you can notify Congress within 48 hours if it's imminent

self-defense. If the hooties were shooting at our ships, president says, no, I've got to have an anti-missile strike or take those out. He can come to Congress. He must come to Congress within 48 hours. That exception doesn't apply when there's not an imminent self-defense national emergency. It's hard for me to understand how they're claiming it's imminent national emergency when they're going to the United Nations and making the case, when they're talking to international leaders. But it's created this sense of confusion. The funniest thing is the biggest request I was getting is,

can you text Elon to take community notes off? I was like, just because I've had conversations with Elon, no, I can't text him to intervene in community notes. I would save your text for something far more important. The question I think that it all comes down to is, both in terms of law and in terms of strategy. So let's say that they did come to you for authorization. What would your vote have been? Or what questions would you have had for the administration? We had just talked about it in our show earlier, who these fired on a US-owned operated vessel. They actually also fired after the strikes on a US Navy vessel. I mean, what do

you make then of the fallout of that? And was the Biden administration grappling with a so-called defensive strike that's supposed to be something that is a deterrent? And yet we've still seen some action afterwards. Before giving them authorization, and I would have been open to what their strategy is, I would have asked, what is the strategy? Why is this going to be different than seven years of bombing that the Saudis undertook with the Yemenis? Have they talked to their Gulf allies? Have they talked to UAE?

Why is it that there's only one Gulf country, Bahrain, that is on board with this? And I don't doubt that the Houthis are not acting in good faith, but is this going to actually make the Red Sea safer? Is it going to actually have our ships not be disrupted? Because the Houthis just have to have the threat of that, which they've continued, for commercial ships to be avoiding the Red Sea. So you've seen the price of oil increase. You've seen the Red Sea continue to be disrupted.

And then the question is, how long does this continue? And I think none of those questions were asked. And that's why you have now this creep towards escalation. Because what are we going to do if Houthi continues to threaten? Now are we going to back away? And we've not pursued a diplomatic regional solution. I would get the Saudis involved. I would get UAE involved.

And of course, the elephant in the room is Gaza. And what can we do to de-escalate there? I did want to get your reaction. One second, Ryan. We were just talking about this morning about a story about two U.S. Navy SEALs were missing in the ocean after a daring raid on a vessel that was Iranian warheads bound for Yemen. So this again falls into my gut. We're talking about actual U.S. service members. What's the authorization here? I haven't seen much outcry reporting. I know you're on the House Armed Services Committee. Have they, you know, given you a briefing or anything? Have you monitored the situation? Because it's a very tragic situation as far as what we know right now. Just want to get your

reactions because we learned some more of the details this morning. Well, first of all, my thoughts are with the families of these two brave Navy SEALs. I mean, they do extraordinary work for our country. And I hope we start to learn more. But I want to understand exactly what the mission was. I mean, is it interdicting the arms going to the Houthis, which is something that we have done in the past. And maybe the administration strategy could be, well, we want to make sure that the arms aren't getting to the Houthis.

And that's one of the reasons they need to come to Congress. You know, the irony with these things is a lot of times they may actually get 300 votes in Congress, but you're actually going to have a much more unified stance for the other countries. And this argument, well, Congress is so broken, Congress is unpopular, all of that is true. Doesn't mean you can just bypass it. And getting a vote, an up or down vote on a privilege resolution is much easier than getting a budget. And so, you know, in these situations, I actually think it's in the president's strategic interest to come to Congress. I think you're right. And if you were following the story of the strikes on Yemen through the mainstream media, I don't think you would

really have any idea what was going on. You would assume that this is some kind of just random piracy, basically Somali pirates that have wound up somehow in Yemen, and now we're going to stop them from doing their piracy. Whereas the de facto Yemen government has been very clear that this is a direct response to Israel's attack on Gaza, and that the second that that stops, they will lift this blockade. So that brings into question the validity of that argument. And South Africa has brought genocide charges at the Hague. I'm curious if you've read South Africa's charging sheet. Did you watch some of the hearings, either South Africa's prosecution or Israel's defense, and what you make of their claims that an imminent genocide is being carried out?

Well, I have read parts of it. I haven't read the whole thing. And what I would say is that I would describe it as a humanitarian catastrophe. I mean, what you have there in Gaza is 23,000 or so civilians killed, according to the Ministry of Health and other UN reports. Most of those are women and children, almost 40 to 50 percent. You have 70 percent of the houses that have been destroyed. And certainly, the loss of human life is too much, and we don't have humanitarian aid going in there. It could be a potential starvation. I'll leave it to the legal system and legal experts to figure out what to call it. I call it a humanitarian catastrophe. And my interest is to make sure that all the hostages are released and that we have a ceasefire

and humanitarian aid there. France has said that they also are willing to leave it to the legal process and if the court rules that it is a genocide, that France will support that ruling. Do you think the United States should do the same? Leave it to the process and if the court rules, whatever way the court rules, the United States should support that ruling. I think we have to have our State Department involved. I have respect for the ICJ, but I wouldn't outsource all American foreign policy to the ICJ.

So I do think that, but I think our State Department needs to take a hard look at what has gone on. And we need to look at what the legal analysis is. But I think that the issue, in my view, I mean, let the historians, legal experts figure out the terminology for all this. Right now, it's how do we save lives? How do we stop the bombing? How do we release all the hostages? How do we get humanitarian aid in? And that, to me, should be the focus. Yeah. Well, you called for a ceasefire, and I've done it previously here on the show. I do want to move on to pet topic, very hard turn, but it's UFOs. I know you've spoken about it. You have received, as I understand it, maybe tell us a little bit

about the circumstances of the briefing. Was it in a secure facility or not? Was it classified? You don't have to get into the details necessarily of what you learned. I want this to be my last show. He's at an undisclosed location. One of the things, the process problem that we had heard was that members of Congress were denied a secure compartmentalized intelligence facility to actually look at information brought by whistleblowers, by David Grush, and by others. Have you been able to receive then a classified briefing specifically about his claims and to what extent have they been willing to share information with you on the UFO subject? I've had a classified briefing on the subject of the whistleblower's complaint. Okay. It left me with more questions.

Okay. I have not had a classified briefing on anything about the actual substance of the existence or not of UFOs. But I think that there are more questions that need to be asked about people in general coming forward with whistleblowing complaints. So my question comes it comes down to this, which is like you have been involved now, you're involved in War Powers Resolution and more. On the UFO subject, there's two kind of strains of thought. One is that there's an active cover-up going on by members of Congress and others who are tied to the intelligence community. One is that this is just about lack of transparency for the sake of it, simply because they don't want,

you know, who knows what you would learn if we were to continue to push. And then one is that this is all just like bureaucratic snafu and we're overthinking it. In your involvement, you know, on the House Armed Services Committee and more, your general observation, you've always been honest with us in terms of what you think. What do you see when you're with your involvement here on the topic amongst your colleagues? Is there an unwillingness to look at it? Is it disbelief? People just think that this is crank and kind of a crazy subject. Some genuine interest. Like, what's your assessment of the kind of the landscape now that you've at least, you know, dipped your toe in a little bit?

Well, first of all, members of Congress are incompetent to keep some kind of secret for more than two hours before Ryan Graves will be tweeting about it. I mean, we can't keep a secret about it like if some staff person is leaving our office, let alone a topic like this. But the question is, so I don't think it's the issue of Congress. I mean, Elmer Rushdie once said, in democracy, there are no secrets. That applies to Congress. Now, whether there are other agencies that have been fully transparent on the matter, I have more questions. What I don't know, and this is not talking about anything classified, this is just me as a member of Congress and citizen. What I don't know is, is the reluctance potentially to be fully transparent

because there are things, covert operations that look like UFOs that we are reluctant to share information, or if there's actually any evidence of extraterrestrial life. And I think that that has led to a lack of full transparency. What I will say is that there are members on both sides who are now pushing for more transparency. And it could be one of the few things the Oversight Committee actually gets bipartisan consensus over. How would you describe your position on this question back when you were just a guy before you came to Congress? Just a normal American citizen.

That's a great question, Ryan. Compared to how you are in access to classified briefings, though, of course, not access to the kinds of classified briefings that would be at the very, very highest levels. But has there been a shift in your thinking or understanding of this issue? I think there's been a shift, not because I'm a member of Congress, but I was probably candidly on the more skeptical camp growing up and up till now. And I think it's been more of the public reporting of whistleblower complaints, which the public has said. And I think it's been more of the public reporting of whistleblower, uh, complaints, which the public has said. And I, I, I mean, these are credible people bringing forth, uh, these complaints and certainly that raises issues that, uh, has there been a challenge on,

on transparency and why is that? And, and regardless of whether it's actual UFOs or something else, the transparency, uh, should be a concern to American citizens. I've said that. Look, we could be totally wrong. Who knows? It's better to find out rather than to keep it, you know, to be a secret. So there's millions of people who certainly want to look into the subject. We appreciate your joining us and really willing to talk about it, sir.

And we always welcome you back. So thank you. Always enjoy being on. Thank you. We'll see you guys later. I know a lot of cops. 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. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Sure.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. 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. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.

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