Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/7/23: Attacks On US Troops Escalate, Israel To Occupy Gaza Indefinitely, CNN Admits Censorship, Fetterman Shouted Down By Protesters, Trump Melts Down Amid Trial, Obama Team Flips On Biden, Cramer Admits Defeat By UAW, And Key Elections Today!

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss attacks on US troops exploding in the Middle East, Bibi saying Israel will occupy Gaza indefinitely, CNN admits censorship live on air, Fetterman shouted down by protesters, Trump melts down after wild court testimony, Obama strategists flip on Biden, Jim Cramer admits defeat after UAW wins, and J Miles Coleman explains the key elections taking place across the US today. J Miles Coleman: https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/ To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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 a great show for everyone today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. We've got, of course, the very latest for you out of the Middle East. Hard to believe, but it is one month ago today that the war on Gaza officially began. So we've

got a little bit of a look back and also first indications from Netanyahu directly as to what the future of Gaza may look like. So we'll bring you all of that. We also have a little bit of a focus on the journalists who have been targeted in this war and the silence from a media that used to care about, pretend at least to care about such things. So we'll get into all of that. We also had testimony from Trump in his civil fraud trial. Break that down for you. Apparently it's pretty wild in the courtroom. I guess that's not really unexpected when you're talking about the former president. We also have Dems who are really freaking out about that recent New York Times poll that we brought you yesterday showing Biden losing to Trump in nearly every swing state that they surveyed and new calls

for him to step aside from perhaps some surprising places. We also have a major change of tune from Jim Cramer over on CNBC with regard to the United Auto Workers. And also, guys, it is Election Day. It's Election Day in Virginia, in Kentucky, in Mississippi. I think there are some 37 states that have something on the ballot today. So we're going to give you a little bit of a preview of some of the top things to watch for. Of course, CounterPoints will have full coverage of the results tomorrow, but happy to have J. Miles Coleman with us this morning to break all of that down for us. Let's go ahead and jump into the latest out of the Middle East. Put this first element up on the screen. This is something that we are watching very, very carefully as we worry about the risks

of this conflict widening into a broader war directly involving us. This is via Politico. Attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East spike amid military buildup. The U.S. publicized the deployment of warships and a submarine that were sent into the region over the weekend. Let me give you the details here. U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by rockets and drones 38 times since October 17th. That's according to a Pentagon spokesperson. That is an increase from 31 on Friday afternoons. They're considering that an escalation. 46 service members at this point in total have now self-reported injuries from the attacks,

which he called harassing. All of the 46 service members who did sustain those injuries were hurt during earlier attacks prior to October 26th. The injuries were sustained primarily in attacks on to October 26th. The injuries were sustained primarily in attacks on al-Assad in Iraq and Al-Tanf garrison in Syria on October 17th and 18th. One additional service member was wounded in an incident in Iraq on October 26th. Yeah, but the headline news to me was that the Sunday was actually the most violent day. Five rocket and one-way drone attacks near Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq, two locations in Syria. That was from the DOD. What's even worse, Crystal, is that all of this is being leaked behind the scenes. The official number was hid from the American people of 21

U.S. service members. It now appears to be at least 46 U.S. service members who have sustained injuries were hurt during these attacks. Some of them experienced traumatic brain injuries. Many of them are now in Germany actually seeking further treatment. So, look, this was not, you know, just like something that happened far away or, you know, even away from the service members. They happened to be completely safe. Like, obviously, they were either caught off guard or they were attacked and they suffered some sort of injury.

And the extent to these injuries are being totally hid from us. The Sunday attacks are very significant because they came on the exact same time and Secretary Blinken was actually present on Iraqi soil. So when you consider that and the amount of now visits that the United States and ministers and other officials have been present there, the attacks begin to ramp up as a signal to us, really. They're like, hey, we know who are you supporting. We also want you to know that you are not going to go away unscathed. Now, to what extent? Obviously, it's unclear. Yesterday, we brought everybody the news about all those significant military assets, the Ohio-class submarine that

is present now. We have 17,000 now U.S. service members who have been redirected to the Middle East since the beginning of October 7th. I mean, if you think about that, in a single month to mobilize 17,000 U.S. service members, multiple Marine Expeditionary Force, two carrier strike groups, and all the attendant firepower on top of the existing military assets, it's only one month ago that the terrorist attack unfolded on Israel. And here we are sitting that much later. It just goes to show you how all the pieces are now in place for a broader escalation if needed. Yeah. I mean, to put it in layman's terms, given the amount of military assets that we have rushed to the region, I mean, it certainly looks like we are preparing for World War III, or at least to be ready

in case that is what breaks out. And let's also be really clear in layman terms. The longer that bombs stamped Made in America are being dropped on Gaza, the more risk to our service members and the more risk of this widening into a broader war. So when we're covering these escalations and attacks on service members, the rushing military assets into the region, this increase in tension. These are the concerns that we have about how this could ignite into a broader and incredibly serious conflict for us directly, as if it's not already serious enough. At the same time, another indication of how concerned Washington is about exactly this

possibility, put this up on the screen. The CIA director is visiting Israel and the Middle East amid Israel-Hamas war. This is per the New York Times. William J. Burns, the CIA director, arrived in Israel on Sunday for discussions with leaders and intelligence officials, the first stop in a multi-country trip in the region. They go on to say that he has extensive experience in the region, visited as key intelligence leaders in Israel, have been heavily criticized for failing to detect the attack and the threat from Hamas more broadly. They also point out that he has actually very close personal relationship with King Abdullah of Jordan. He was the ambassador to Jordan when King Hussein died and Abdullah ascended to the throne. And this comes, Sagar, of course, as we covered.

We had Blinken going back to Israel again and going back to meet with his counterparts in both Jordan and Egypt and basically being rebuked at every turn. And, you know, not surprising when they have told Israel, we give you the green light, no red lines, we're with you 100%. And then behind the scenes, hey, pretty pretty please could you bomb a little bit nicer could you have a little bit of a humanitarian pause so we can at least save some face for ourselves or save some space and buy some time for you they said no then goes on and meets with his counterparts in Egypt and in Jordan and they also said listen the real call here is for a ceasefire this humanitarian pause thing that you're asking for is total nonsense so again rebuked at every turn and now we're sending another high-level official into the region to see if they can have any more, you know, I guess, quote unquote, success from their perspective.

Well, the CIA Director Burns actually has a lot of experience in the Middle East. Apparently, he actually was the ambassador to Jordan whenever King Hussein died and the current king ascended to the throne. So he's got a very close relationship with King Abdullah and he's going to try and broker at least some sort or reignite, you know, talks and the rebuke really that the president was given whenever his summit was canceled with all the Middle Eastern leaders. Also, the CIA has long connections, I guess you could say that, with the Egyptians and with a lot of the other people who are in the Middle East, especially the despotic regimes. And they're going to use and try and leverage those connections because William Burns has spent so much time in the region. He knows a lot of these leaders

personally. And of course, he's got the full force of the US government behind him. So this is probably more of a diplomatic trip than it is anything else. Burns, in particular, because of his own diplomatic experience, he did a lot of quasi-diplomatic trips whenever it came to going to Ukraine, whenever it came to negotiating in some cases with high-level Russians. That was some of the contact that was made even after the mostly breaking off of relations after what happened during the invasion. So this, I think, is because of the failure of the Biden diplomacy and the Blinken diplomacy. they're sending somebody who's got a little bit more credibility in the Middle East to actually go and have face-to-face meetings. So this is far more of a sign of the failure of diplomacy, at least so far,

than it is anything else. Although who knows, of course, the CIA director apparently also wanting to share intel with the Israelis about where American hostages are held or, you know, we don't know the exact number. What is it? Less than a dozen? I think that's the official that are currently being held. So some American ISR. I saw a video of the pathways of U.S. drones and air assets that are surrounding Gaza doing lots of loops. So there's a significant amount of U.S. air presence over the Gaza Strip that is not necessarily being reported about, but we will get to that in a little bit. Yeah. And of course, you know, those hostages, their lives are also at risk in this Israeli bombing campaign, which is something that the hostage families in Israel have been very concerned about and really been pressuring the Netanyahu government over,

which is a great transition into what we know about what's happening on the ground in Gaza, which is limited. And we'll get into the challenges of quote unquote journalism in this situation when you have journalists both targeted and killed. And you also have very few journalists allowed in. And those who are allowed in have to preview for the IDF every single piece of reporting that they're going to take to air. So really challenging to know exactly what's going on on the ground here. But this is what we can tell you. Put this up on the screen.

It looks like Israeli troops tightening their positions around Gaza City. This is from the Wall Street Journal. They say Israel deepens push into Gaza City. Israel is claiming much of Hamas's military defenses, its command, and many fighters are concentrated in Gaza City. Of course, it's always important to keep in mind here because this often gets left out of the conversation. Most of Hamas leadership is not in Gaza. Much of it is in Qatar or in Lebanon and other places. So they are not there, present on the ground, which I think speaks to what Israel's real goal here is, which their military offensive has never made sense in terms of just eradicating Hamas, which we've had from a number of military analysts saying exactly that. In any case, if Israeli forces, they say, push into Gaza City, they will likely face Hamas remain in that city and its surrounding neighborhoods, unable or afraid to leave the north because of the continued fighting, despite repeated Israeli

calls for noncombatants to move south. And of course, Israel has continued to bomb the south as well. So it's not like people who have moved to the south have been entirely safe from these bombing campaigns as well. And of course, the entire territory is under an extended siege at this point. And Sagar, from what we can tell, it seems at this point they haven't done a lot more. They haven't really gotten out of the tanks at this point. And so as far as we know, there have been few Israeli casualties, not zero, but relatively few. But again, this is all we're basically like flying blind here with what can be pieced together in terms of the operation that's been executed thus far. We're going to get into in a bit how even the private companies that have these satellite images that they normally sell to news outlets, etc., and to the public, have blocked a lot of the images coming out that makes it even more difficult.

And Israel has been periodically imposing these complete telecoms and Internet blackouts on Gaza so no one can get out information about what is actually going on there. Yeah, that's the difficulty. So Gaza City, they're saying, was the nexus of the planning of the attack on October 7th. They've pointed to the al-Shifa hospital and others as one of the headquarters with a tunnel network underneath the hospital where they claim that Hamas has much of its, at least, command and control infrastructure. So, as you said, I mean, really what we've witnessed so far is, even though we're a month, now basically, well, really only two weeks or so into the actual military response, they've cut off Gaza City from a couple of angles. They've made sure that they've had it in the south. Civilians are fleeing. At least I saw some videos coming out this morning of that.

And then in the north, they've also isolated any sort of exit that Hamas would try and have. So then they're trying to squeeze around the city and encircle it. Now, encircling it is one matter. As you said, that's why the casualties they've been taking have been limited, although, of course, they have a couple hundred so far. However, what they say is they want to destroy the tunnel network. Now, that is going to be incredibly difficult because there is basically no way to ensure that you're doing that, keep the hostages alive, without having to go in and send people and actually have fighting in these hundreds and hundreds of miles of tunnels. Now, it's possible that they may not choose to do that. They may isolate it, try and take out as many civilians as possible, and then level the entire

thing with bunker-busting bombs. We've seen some that have been dropped. That actually might be the most plausible way if you want to take the minimal amount of casualties. But the problem is of the emotional issue of so many of these 200-and-something hostages that are likely being held in that region as well. So this is a true devil's bargain for the Israeli military planners and something that they're really going to have to decide which way they want to go. The other side of that problem is you can drop bunker-busting bombs, you are going to destroy the entire city. It's going to be gone. And not even rubble, it's just going to be dust that is left there. And you've even got your own troops now in there.

And it raises a question then of you're really going to ignite, you know, fears and outrage in the Arab world about like, you've not even, it's like, how can you return to absolutely nothing and the literal erasure when we talk about the parking lot, you know, I mean, it's effectively what they would be turning into. So regardless, this appears to be some sort of turning point. We're going to see how they decide to take care of, quote unquote, Gaza City. Are they going to go in, have bloody hand-to-hand combat, or are they just going to encircle it, try and get as many people out as possible, and then flatten the entire thing? Both will be devastating, really, for everybody involved. Yeah, that's right. And of course, as we're watching this all unfold,

we brought you yesterday the comments coming out of the Israeli government. One minister saying, hey, maybe one option is nuking Gaza. That's one possibility. He also said that all the Palestinians should be dispersed. They can go to the desert or they can go to Ireland. Additional comments like that. You had another member of Netanyahu's Likud party saying, what we want is Nakba. We want a second Nakba. More devastating than the first, I'm paraphrasing, but those were essentially the words that were offered there. You have, of course, multiple now reports, one from a think tank, one from an official Israeli government ministry,

laying out, hey, what we really want to do is we want to push all of the Palestinians out of Gaza. So when you see these extremists who were saying what Sagar was alluding to there, you know, what we should really do is just turn Gaza into a parking lot. That is a very real possibility of what could be happening here. And certainly it appears that the goal of pushing all of the Palestinians in Gaza out of Gaza is being pursued behind the scenes by the Netanyahu administration. We've now had mainstream reporting about the pressure that is being put on Egypt to accept hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Now, they claim, oh, it would just be temporary. It's just for humanitarian reasons. But given the communications that have been potentially intentionally leaked out of the Israeli government, I think there is

deep reason for skepticism about that, especially when you consider that significant parts of the Netanyahu coalition have always had this as their stated objective. 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

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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.

Yeah. 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. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests

trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. Somebody violated the FBI, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them, do you think these people are good Americans? It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century, and the goddamnedest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone, and my thought was, this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life.

I couldn't believe it. I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Moving on, as I mentioned at the top, we are now, it's kind of hard to believe, but we're now officially one month from October 7th when Hamas perpetrated those horrific attacks on many Israeli citizens. And that, of course, on that very day, Netanyahu announced we are now at war and they began their war on Gaza. And just last evening, we got a little bit of an indication from Netanyahu about what he is thinking the future of Gaza may look like or some aspect of it in any case. Let's take a listen to what he had to say on an English language, by the way, American broadcast. Take a listen. President Biden has said that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza.

Who should govern Gaza when this is over? Those who don't want to continue the way of Hamas. It certainly is not. I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we've seen what happens when we don't have it. When we don't have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn't imagine. So he's basically floating there a reoccupation. He's trying to parse the wording because the Americans Biden has expressly said he thinks it's a bad idea for Israel to reoccupy Gaza. What did you make of those comments, Agar? with the consequences. And this is where, look, they're in a hellish situation no matter what, because their past strategy was the only real politically viable one where nothing was going to happen. I mean, viable, I didn't say it was just, but it was at least calm-ish right before October 7th. You're talking about from an Israeli perspective. From an Israeli perspective. They're like, well, you know, we surround it with a bunch of fences. Hamas governs it. It is what it is.

Every once in a while we mow the grass. That's how it goes. Then they said that that is intolerable. Well, if you're going to be responsible now for the security situation, that is going to mean a full-scale military occupation. We're not even talking about settlers or any of that other stuff. I'm talking about Israeli IDF troops setting up checkpoints, letting people go through. Ask any American soldier who had to man a checkpoint in Iraq. A lot of those guys, well, they were faced with suicide bombers. They were faced with horrible ambushes, attacks. They were the vector of so much violence, not even to mention the civil war situation. So if that is the case, if you're saying you're going to have an indefinite occupation,

which is what the United States signed up for before the first Iraqi elections and the bunk elections, honestly, in 2004, well, again, I mean, I would just say good luck to you because you're going to need tens to hundreds of thousands of troops to have security over two something million people. Let's say even that there is 1.5 million or something like that left. I don't know what the actual number will be. It's still so tremendously difficult in that small amount of area to have security, to set up. And now this is the other thing. When you say security situation, as America found out in Iraq, you can just want to be responsible for security. But when you're ending up responsible for security, now you're running the water system.

Now you're running the electricity grid. Now you're running like civil services. Now you have to set up departments to make sure that, you know, oh, well, what happens when one shake hates another shake and shoots at them? And you're like, well, I guess we got to figure this out. That's exactly what you are signing up for. So when he says indefinite occupation or indefinite security for a temporary period or indefinite security situation, you are signing up for an occupation or you are signing up for a return to the status quo. Now, I would personally hope just for everybody's sake that it's at least that as opposed to the other because the other, think about how incendiary it is to have IDF troops in a full-scale military occupation of Gaza now for quote unquote an indefinite period of time. That just means that,

and maybe we should have believed them at the top when they're like, yeah, it's going to go on for years in terms of the war. That is what low-grade, and I don't mean that, I mean low-grade war that just goes on for years and years. And the real issue is if you don't have the political sustainability to sign up for something like that, it will just lead to the worst of all worlds. You're going to have a massive deterioration of the security situation. And let's, you know, just like what happened to America in Iraq is a lot of the populace got radicalized against us. And it actually made things 10 times worse than if we hadn't invaded in the first place. So I am, I'm personally very dubious that this will, I'm personally dubious that this is actually possible,

but that does not mean that just like we did, that they won't try. And they're going to find out all the same lessons that we did. Yeah, and that's without even discussing the utter humiliation, degradation, brutality that would be life for all of the residents of Gaza. The children there, of course, is one of the youngest populations in the entire world and what that would look like for them on a day-to-day basis. And I think Sagar is 100% right when he says this is not a strategy to keep Israel safe. It's certainly not a strategy for the humanity and dignity of the Palestinian people. And, you know, the other open question I think we always have to keep in mind is whether it's

even going to be Netanyahu in place leading this government. And also, you know, he is a liar. So what he says now could change a minute from now. And, you know, it's I think the pressure that is being reported behind the scenes to just end the Palestinian statehood question once and for all. Push all of the Palestinians out of Gaza. We already see the violent efforts from settlers backed by the IDF to aggressively push Palestinians off of their land in the West Bank as well. I think the writing is on the wall for a lot of these things. So as we've been discussing, it is exactly one month to the day since October 7th. We can put up on the screen what we know of the death toll that has been exacted on Israelis and also on Palestinians. So 1,400, as we know, Israeli citizens killed on October 7th. Since then, we've had somewhere around 10,000 deaths in Gaza.

Of course, it is very difficult to know because of all of the barriers that we've discussed before. There is actually an indication, put this up on the screen, from a senior Israeli military source to an Israeli news outlet that they actually think that 20,000 have been killed in Gaza by IDF attacks. They claim most of them terrorists. I think we can see from the number of women and children have been killed that that is unfathomable, that that would be accurate. So, again, very difficult to say. Ryan over at The Intercept, they did some reporting to try to verify, okay, you know, the health ministry in Gaza,

they're the ones we get the death numbers from. And the Biden administration has been trying to throw cold water on this because they're run by Hamas, even though in previous conflicts, their death counts and casualty rates have been pretty accurate. But based on the list of individuals that they put out that had been killed, Ryan was able to cross-check that with people that were known to have been killed, and it actually understated by some amount the number of deaths. So in any case, whatever the number is, we know that it is significant. We know that there are a lot of civilians and that this has been incredibly brutal of a response from the Israelis. We can also tell that by this map. Let's put this up on the screen.

That shows you the level of destruction in the Gaza Strip. So keep this up on the screen so I can explain a little bit of what you were looking at. The orange that you see on this map is damage that was inflicted in the first roughly two weeks, so from October 7th to October 25th, of this war on Gaza. The red areas that you see here are the damaged areas since October 25th. You can see Israeli ground operation. You can see Israeli incursions. You can see Israeli artillery airstrikes. You can see reported fighting. And one thing, while we have this up on the screen, that you can see very clearly, yes, the northern part of Gaza that you see there has been, I mean, vast swaths of it destroyed. But it's not like the south, where people were told to flee, has been unscathed either.

And you can see actually quite a lot of red, which is the more recent damage that has occurred in that area. and you can see actually quite a lot of red, which is the more recent damage that has occurred in that area. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen that gives you a sense of just how much firepower has been used in this month, which is, in the grand scheme of things, a very short period of time. A European human rights group called the Euromet Human Rights Monitor, they calculated that Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip since the start of this bombardment on October 7th. That is roughly equivalent to two nuclear bombs of the variety that we dropped in Japan.

So, you know, when we're talking about nukes and the Israeli minister who said, hey, maybe that's one option. Well, this isn't dropping a nuclear bomb, but the level of explosives have been just as catastrophic. Put this next piece up on the screen just as another way of intellectualizing how much firepower we're talking about here. Israel dropped almost as many bombs in Gaza in one week, one week, as the U.S. did in Afghanistan in their heaviest year of bombardment. And for reference here, Gaza is just 141 square miles, the whole thing. Afghanistan, of course, a vast country, 252,000 plus square miles. So gives you a sense of just how intense and

indiscriminate this bombing campaign has been thus far, Sagar. Well, the issue that they really have is that in terms of the number of these munitions, I remember, because I covered this a lot, the Battle of Mosul, also with ISIS, we were actually dropping so many bombs that we ran out of precision-guided munitions. So I actually do have a lot of questions here in terms of Israel and like, are we going to restock this? If so, it actually took us years to restock the number that we were able to drop on them. Who are they manufacturing some of these? What exactly some of these bombs are? I actually recommend people go and read this piece. It's pretty interesting. It's about the, quote, secrecy shrouds the Israeli targeting process because

the Israelis, and you know, when I spent time there, they would always hammer this in. They're like, look, we have the most precision-guided munitions. We're like, we have a very – they're like, we have a process. Like, you know, the door knock. We knock on the roof. We send the text messages. We try and clear out as much as possible before we strike a building. We have a pretty good ability to tell you, like, which floor that we're able to strike.

I heard a lot of this, too, from the Pentagon whenever that was happening. I mean, I think that the biggest issue that they have is that it's just very clear when you have a massive intel failure on October 7, it really calls into question so many of the things that they were able to assure the U.S. military and, you know, even people like me, like, while I was there who were listening. And I was like, oh, okay. You know what I mean? They say it. We'll see. And whenever you start to see some of this, you know, in terms of the tens of thousands of munitions now that have been dropped, like I said, it really comes to question about the supply issues, about what their ultimate aims are and all of that. So look, the biggest issue,

I think, is that as they continue to have a loss of the trust deficit with broadly the international community, including the United States, let's be honest. I mean, John Kirby yesterday, the state NSC spokesperson was like, well, you know, we have some indication that they're trying to reduce civilian casualty, but that's not an endorsement of what they're doing. It's like, what? What are you saying? It's like triple speak. Just say what you actually think, man. And so anyway, I think that they are truly suffering from, they feel, and this is from my recent communications with Israel, they feel justified for the carnage of October 7th. They're like, look, we're the more powerful, so yeah, we're going to queue up. Like, that's how it works. Well, I think the issue is that they're losing political capital in the U.S.

and especially in the broader international world. And they feel especially like they don't have to justify a damn thing to America and to the rest of the world. And to them, I would say, you've got to, again, think back to some of the lessons that we learned in Iraq. Because a lot of early U.S. commanders used to think the same way. By the time of 2017 rolled around, we, and I talked about this yesterday, the Pentagon and everybody was doing extensive briefing operations to make sure every single target that was hit in Iraq and Syria, they showed you a video. They're like, hey, here's the oil rig that they were using. Here's what we came in and we bombed it with. Here's why we bombed it. Here are the guys that we killed. It was like

trying to get ahead of any potential outrage or ISIS claiming that civilians were killed and all of that. And I think it was a hard fought lesson that we had to learn in Iraq and Afghanistan. And eventually how I watched the US military operate in the late 2010s is we really learned that if you don't get ahead of it and you don't have at least some level of trust for a lot of people that what you're doing is actually fitting with what you're saying, well, you're really going to lose a lot of people. And unfortunately for them, I think that they're heading very much down that road. With the number of munitions dropped, with the level of secrecy that is involved, and everyone's like, that's their right. Yeah, I'm not, you can do whatever you want.

That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about here is if you want to live in the, if you want to live and survive in the long run, I don't think that they're headed to a, I don't think they're operating in a sustainable way. I think something is going to break eventually. And they've been using, you know, throwing in our face, which Putin did as well, our conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan and the number of civilians that we killed. And there's no justification for the way that we conducted ourselves in those wars. There was no justification for the Iraq invasion whatsoever. And there was no justification for the lengthy occupation of Afghanistan. Well, I think it was justified to

go in to try to get bin Laden when we failed at that, like that was the task and then we stay there for forever. It really is shocking to me to see the outright advocation for ethnic cleansing and outright like, hey, there are no innocent civilians, not only being advocated directly, you know, that perspective being laid out directly from the Netanyahu government, echoed by at least one member of the United States Congress here, the total justification of killing of children. I mean, I saw a Fox News segment yesterday where a dude was like, yeah, you know, they could be strapping on suicide bombs, these children. I really, like, it is another level to me to see this just brazenly advocated for this viewpoint, the total indiscriminate bombing, the overwhelming nature of this. I mean, I just, I truly am shocked by it. And so,

Sagar, when you're talking about like Kirby being like, well, it seems like they try maybe to do a little bit for civilians, but I'm not endorsing. I mean, these liberals like Biden, who have put a lot of stock and said a lot of stuff about the international rules-based order, they have no cover here whatsoever. And of course, Israel is not going to respect any little like face-saving humanitarian pause gestures, and they're certainly not going to respect any calls for a ceasefire when there is no willingness to use the incredible significant leverage that we have in the form of our military weapons and our aid dollars. There's no willingness to take that off the table. Of course, they're not going to listen

to us. But, you know, I know there's a lot of like, well, why, you know, Hamas targeted civilians, so why should they be held to a different standard than Hamas? Hamas is a terrorist organization. You're holding yourself out as like the beacon of the civilized world within the Middle East. Of course there's a different standard. And it's insane to me that you would suggest otherwise. Like the number of documented likely war crimes that have been committed here in a month are, I mean, again, I expect brutality from the Israelis based on their previous mow the lawn operations. But this is another level.

And just the last piece that we have here before we get into what a difficult situation this has been for journalists, both in terms of coverage and also in terms of journalists on the ground, just being able to live and have their families continue to live. Put this up on the screen, US reporting Israeli forces have killed 88 UN aid workers. That is more than have ever been killed in a single conflict in history. 47 U.N. buildings, more than 100 health facilities have been hit by Israeli airstrikes. And, you know, to Sagar's point about how, you know, they don't even really try to justify a lot of these things. They do some. I'll give them some credit.

Like every once in a while they do actually put something out. But to give you a sense of how thin it is, okay, when that convoy of ambulances was hit and they were like, oh, it was terrorists. And they got asked on TV like,

okay, well, who were they? Yeah, they said we didn't know. They were like, we don't really know. It's like, okay, then how do you know they're terrorists? You don't even know apparently that October 7th was going to happen. We're supposed to take your word for it that you know who it was exactly in that ambulance you were targeting, and we're supposed to take your word for it when you go on the television and you're like,

yeah, we don't really know. We'll get back to you on that. Come on. Well, it's like when the U.S. actually accidentally killed that guy for the revenge in the ISIS attack on Afghanistan. It turned out to be a totally innocent guy who was like a water salesman or something like that. We killed his family. I would just put it this way. You're talking about on our way out of Afghanistan.

On our way out of Afghanistan. He was an aid worker. Sorry, aid worker. A U.S.-aligned aid worker. I apologize. Yeah. Here's what I would say. If they militarily were actually doing something which I thought that they could destroy Hamas, I would support them 100%.

I just don't actually think that they're doing that. I mean, I think that they're making the situation far worse. I think they're putting us at risk too. I mean, this is the other issue. Everyone's like, oh, support Israel, support Palestine. I mean, personally, I don't really care about either of them. I care about the United States. And I keep, you know, on a human level, I'm like, yeah, I wish you the best. I've got friends in both places. But for me, I'm like, I just don't want to see US service members embroiled in the war. That's like my guiding North Star was on Ukraine, is here too. I'm always going to care about us more first. Second on that is trying to actually keep us out of some sort of conflict. Then, you know, I would look at this and I would be like, all right,

so with Israel, are you actually going to destroy Hamas? Now, I actually support the destruction of Hamas, but I don't think that they're doing something to genuinely lead to that effort. I mean, the U.S. campaign against ISIS in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces was genuinely a masterful operation. And, you know, it took months. It was much more targeted. We killed, along with the Iraqis, thousands of ISIS fighters, and there was about a one-to-one civilian casualty rate. I'm not saying that that's justified, but I mean, in retrospect, I think all the people who claim that that was so brutal can see that if you have the similar number of civilians killed in a single month, as opposed to a two-year campaign, they really should shut up about what that looked like at

the time. So anyway, if I thought that this was a genuinely successful military operation and had a chance of keeping both the U.S. out and of creating some sort of sustainable situation in the future, I would be like, cool. But the main issue for me really has been, I think that they are both inflaming tensions against the United States. I don't think they're making themselves safer. I think that Netanyahu in particular is a genuinely like villainous figure. And I think that he's, that so much of his personal conduct and therefore Israel's conduct is tied up into his own ego and his own political future for the failure of that attack. And that's, that's why I say that. I mean,

whenever I see everything he does, his orientation is he wants to stay into power and he wants to keep things on a longer basis so that he can keep away any sort of investigation into him in the future. And I'm like, hey, you're tied the entire nation's fate, possibly forever, onto your own political sustainable career. That's an insane thing to do if you consider yourself a patriot. If you were to see some sort of conflict of interest like this, any genuine patriot would be like, you know what? I'm too controversial. I'm out. You guys do a coalition government. You can figure it out. I'm some sort of flame figure like this. I'll sit behind the sidelines and I'll support whoever so that we can get to some sort of solution, which nobody can question both in the world and here domestically. He's chosen not to do that. So there's a lot of,

and by doing that also, he has to allow these guys, Smotrich and all these other nut jobs who we – America has never signed on to any of these West Bank settlement people to allow in power in the government and then inflame the situation even more, deteriorating again our long political capital that we've built up now for so long in the Middle East. So that's a very long way of just saying like, listen, I'm not above supporting Israel. If they were to actually doing something, which I thought would work, I would be like, absolutely, 100%. But I haven't seen a lot of evidence from that from day one. And the Netanyahu piece is actually probably the one that bothers me the most is I'm like, you do not have a real like political sustainable coalition at the top of your government, which inspires confidence in your allies that you are acting on the best, you know, on the best behalf of the Israeli people. You're doing it for yourself. Yeah. of the Civil War cabinet and the Chamberlain government in the early 1940s or even the FDR government in the early years of World War I.

You could see so much of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes. We're gonna look at this as one of the main problems for Israel. And they could have massive ramifications, I think, for their history in the future. And also, I mean, any of our pre that like how much we care about human rights or the International rules-based order like it's just completely. Oh, I've just always thought that was fake utter bullshit Yeah, and I can't put the morality aside like the the number of atrocities and the mass killing of Children and women and innocent civilians in the complete Effectively leveling of Gaza at this point and the plans

for an outright ethnic cleansing. Like, I can't just put that to the side. But Sager is 100% right that even if, like, the humanitarian part of this and the atrocities don't move you, then Israel is not taking actions that will keep their own people safer, that will make them more safe, that will preserve Israeli security. They're also, as I said before, as long as American-made bombs are being dropped on this trapped population in an open-air prison, we're creating more and more people that absolutely hate us and will absolutely look to seek revenge. So is that keeping us safer?

This is, and this idea of like, oh, we want to destroy Hamas. That's an impossible goal. Like no one has even really defined what that means. And I think the clearest indication that they are not serious about it whatsoever is, number one, the collective punishment of the entire population, which is counterproductive because you need, in a counterinsurgency fight, you need people on the ground you can work with who are going to actually have some sort of positive disposition towards you. And by the way, prior to this action, actually, Hamas had suffered a huge loss of support among the population in Gaza over basic governance issues where, you know, they were under blockade. Obviously, they understood that the Israeli government was the chief cause of their suffering, but they were very frustrated and upset with the governance of Hamas as well.

So you can see from that, and you can also see because the Hamas leadership isn't even in Gaza, and I don't see any efforts whatsoever to bring those dudes to justice. So you know they're not serious about this, and you know that they're not idiots, and they know that this is an impossible task to begin with. So as I've said from the beginning, it's really clear what the goal here is. I think it's threefold. Number one, retribution, bloodletting. Just go in and get revenge for what they did to us. Number two, and this has been a consistent theme for Israel for decades now, basically, they were humiliated on October 7th. They've got to go in and show

they're the biggest bastards on the block. That's the other piece, to try to restore what they view as their deterrence effect and prove that they're the biggest MFers in the area. That's number two. And number three, and probably the most important goal, as Sagar was just saying, is for Netanyahu to try to cling to power for another day. That's what's really going on here. All this talk about getting Hamas, that's not what they're doing. That isn't, I mean, there is barely a pretense of that at this point, I would have to say. Well, I would like for them to see that. We will see. It's very possible that they could have some

political issues at home where the people wake up and they're like, hey, hold on a second. They're really only a couple. I mean, this is the other thing. They haven't suffered any setbacks yet. And if they're lucky, they won't get any, but we'll see. In war, the enemy does get a vote. So it's very possible that they could suffer some massive military disaster and that could lead to a recalibration of strategy, maybe a debate inside of the country about how they should conduct themselves and others. So look, we're still very early into this conflict. And that's part of why I can't help, but like when I see him say things like indefinite occupation, I'm like you have no idea what you're saying because a lot of people in 03, they're like it will be fine. What is it?

The Iraqis, freedom is a wonderful thing. Whenever Rumsfeld was asked about looting, he's like you have the freedom to do this, but you also have the freedom to go around and to vote and to be empowered once again as an individual. And we saw how quickly the dark side of that can materialize and how many Americans can suffer and also the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died in the security vacuum. They very much could be setting themselves up for that situation too, because once you set yourself up for the security situation, you're not just responsible for your own security. You're responsible for the security of everybody else who's inside. And that's a tremendously, tremendously difficult task.

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 to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter.

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

or wherever you get your podcasts. I 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, 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. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. Somebody violated the FBI and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them,

do you think these people are good Americans? It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century, and the goddamnedest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone and my thought was, this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life. I couldn't believe it. I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on then to the next part here. Around journalism, we've often stressed about just how difficult it is to have proper information about what's coming out of Gaza, about what's even happening in Gaza. Let's put this up there on the screen because this is a very significant, actually, piece of news from Semaphore.

Key providers of satellite photography to news organizations and researchers have now begun to restrict imagery of Gaza after a New York Times report on Israeli tank positions that was based on the images. So the satellite image provider here is Planet Labs and a bunch of other competitors to them. They've revolutionized coverage of wars and disasters because they have commercial satellites that are up in the air that they can get real-time footage, not real-time, but maybe 24 hours or 72 hours delay to actually show exactly what has happened. And it's incredibly useful for reporting on the Syrian civil war, for the Mosul, for ISIS, and especially in Ukraine. Anybody who has been watching the

Ukraine situation knows how useful these Comstack companies are. Well, the issue though is that for some reason, these companies are now, quote, heavily restricting and obscuring parts of images over the Gaza Strip for users, including news organizations. So it's difficult to understand exactly why the subscribers, and again, these are people who pay a premium for this product, have not had access to, quote, high-resolution imagery of Gaza since October 22nd, ever since the New York Times actually reported on Israeli tank positions. So then the question comes, is this at the behest of, is the company owned by an Israeli guy? And he's like, hey, we're just not going to do this. Is this maybe at the request, the behest or the order of the Israeli government? Is it the US government? Because this is such like a new phenomenon

in terms of commercial satellite analysis, Nobody really knows in terms of the jurisdiction on what you are, aren't allowed, you know, in terms of other countries to be able to look at. But I think the net effect is obvious, which is we know less about what's going on in Gaza because of this. Even that financial times map that we used previously, that cut off at October 26. Now we know why. Yeah, that's right. Because we don't know about what's being held and what isn't. And that previously, I think we brought people multiple analysis. It's like based on ComSat imagery, we can say that 25% of the buildings have been leveled. Now, we don't know. Yeah. We don't know anything. Yeah, that's an important

point because actually Axios and a number of other news outlets had done a really good job of putting together, okay, here's the satellite image of this neighborhood before the Israeli airstrikes. Here is it afterwards. And since you don't have, you know, a lot that you can get from on the ground, this was a really important way to understand the extent of the damage. And so now we really are flying blind in terms of what is really happening on the ground. You can't even get these satellite images to get a sense of that whatsoever. And then the other piece was that

it seems to have been tied directly to this New York Times report that showed some of the Israeli tank movements and locations. And it's also important to point out, it's not just one satellite company. There are a number of these satellite companies, and all of them seem to be effectively censoring this information at this point. So even from the air, we really can't get a sense at this now of what is actually happening on the ground. And that's before we even talk

about, you know, the situation for journalists within Gaza. Well, why don't we get to that, actually? Because it just, again, goes to show you the shaping of the information environment is probably the single most important thing in modern warfare. And this is a clip from CNN where they describe the conditions about what it took to have one of their journalists in bed with the IDF. Let's take a listen.

Yesterday, CNN's Jeremy Diamond went into Gaza on an IDF embed. I should note that journalists embedded with the IDF in Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders in the field and are not permitted to move unaccompanied within the Gaza Strip. As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF escort, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication. CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide a limited window into Israel's operations in Gaza. That's as stark as it gets. Not only do you have to agree, you have to provide them with your footage, which, you know, I was trying to think back to the early invasion of Iraq. I'm pretty sure even when U.S. troops were, or U.S. journalists were embedded with Iraqi, or U.S. troops in Iraq, that there was never a condition to this effect.

And I went back actually to try and to look. There was basically real-time live shots that were happening as the Humvees were rolling. And, you know, there are multiple books. A great one of them is Generation Kill, if you want to go and read it. I mean, there's not a single drop of censorship in that entire thing. And that guy rode all the way to Baghdad with the Marines. So, I mean, it just shows you, like, if they're to the extent where they're like, no, we're going to review all the footage before you even broadcast that.

We're not going to allow you to go live from Gaza. That just demonstrates like the level of the level of control that they are putting on what actually gets out of the country. It's also why they continue to cut off all those communications. Of course. Whenever every time they have some sort of major military operation. Absolutely. So you have satellite imagery mysteriously blocked. You have only certain handpicked journalists allowed to go in. And it's basically like, you know how North Korea will sometimes allow journalists to come in,

but they get this like fake tour of what's going on. It's basically like that level of control over the war propaganda coming out of the Israeli side. So they pick the journalist. Then they get to vet all of the footage before it gets to air. And then you have also this frequent communications, internet, and cell complete blackout. So that any sort of real-time reporting of what's going on in the ground, you're just hearing rumors from like one person who happens to have like a Turkish SIM card or some way to get some sort of information out of the Gaza Strip. So, I mean, it really is astonishing. I think it also underscores not only how critical

Israel sees the information war as being, but also just how much control Israel has long had over this little enclave, which, you know, they love. Oh, we withdrew back in the 2000s. And so they were doing their own thing. But they controlled everything about the conditions of that life. What came in? What went out? How many Gazans were allowed into Israel? You know, there was only like a small percentage of Gazans who were allowed to see cancer treatment in Israel. It was complete control over their life. And I think when you see how easily they're able to turn on and turn off the communications for this 2.2 million people in the Strip, you can see how tightly everything really was controlled the whole time. Yeah, I think that is an excellent point. And also it gets to, you know, some of the toll that's being taken on some of the journalists who are covering this

conflict. We have one clip we can put here up on the screen. I'll read from some of the top subtitles. I'll warn everybody, it's pretty disturbing if you do watch it. Here he says, here we have become victims. He says, in a matter of time, we are going one after the other. He's reporting there from the hospital. The anchor is actually crying. This is from Palestine TV. The size of this catastrophe, the crime that we are experiencing here in Gaza. He's wearing full body armor just for context. And you can see that obviously he's breaking down. She is breaking down also as he kind of is watching everything that is happening. He says that there's no international security here at all. There's no immunity or anything at all for these shields or these helmets. This is where it's a really

dramatic slogan. He says, these are merely slogans that we wear. And that is all because he's wearing press. He says they don't protect any journalists at all. So this is the dramatic moment. He just takes off his body armor and his Kevlar helmet, and he just says, we're losing souls one after another. We're victims directly on live television. And he's reporting, we're losing souls from one after another. That was a pretty, obviously, a harrowing situation to be in, and it's come after quite a few journalists actually have been killed. Bronco Marchestique actually wrote about this for Jacobin, if we can put it up there on the screen. At least 36 journalists now have been killed during the bombing campaign in Gaza.

And in some cases, as we showed previously, the Al Jazeera reporter, some families of these journalists have been killed as well, with many of them finding out on live television. And the, quote, media establishment, which a short time ago was rightly decrying the murder of Jamal Khashoggi hasn't said a thing. And so, I mean, this is where I'll just return to something we were talking about a little bit, Crystal. One of the reasons why I reject most moral campaigns outright is because almost no person can be 100% consistent. And so when you try and exert US power based on quote unquote moral terms, like in, I don't know, Ukraine, and then you don't do anything whenever somebody does the exact same thing, whenever it's your ally like in Yemen or in Israel, well, then you look like an idiot. So it's better to just be honest about things from day one, which, you know, look, the Jamal Khashoggi thing, they only cared because it was

Trump who was the president and Jared Kushner. And then Biden becomes the president and goes in fist bumps MBS and they don't say anything because it's all fake. It's all just theater that they want everybody to indulge in. So it would actually be better if people were honest about their critiques, about what they were doing. But if that were true, then I guess we wouldn't even have jobs as journalists. So I'm not sure what the point is. Yeah. I mean, in this period following October 7th, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more reporters have been killed in this period than any conflict that they've kept track of since 1992. For Reporters Without Borders, it's the deadliest conflict for

reporters since the start of the 21st century, outdoing the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Ukraine, with Israeli forces killing more journalists in a matter of weeks than they had slain over the entire period from 2000 to last year. You've also seen a direct targeting of 50 different media outlets in terms of partial or total destruction of the premises like of where their offices are, according to also to Reporters Without Borders in a complaint that they filed with the International Criminal Court claiming that Israel's killing of journalists constitute war crimes.

So again, to lay out the situation here, you've got satellite imagery blocked. You've got communications frequently blocked, especially during the most intense time periods. And then you have journalists that are targeted. There was actually a journalist's family that was killed in Lebanon where she told her kids to play by the car so that the Israelis could see that these were, you know, that these were children. And the car was blown up and they were killed in Lebanon. So the other effort that you see is because there are mostly only Palestinians who are in Gaza at this point. You know, the very little in terms of international press allowed in, except unless

you're CNN and you have to like submit your report before you put it on air. There's also an effort to claim, well, these aren't really journalists. They don't really count because they're Palestinian as well to try to, you know, undermine the extent of the number of people who have been killed here. So, yeah, complete silence from, you know, Biden, all these people who when it was Trump and he was berating the press or whatever, Jim Acosta, remember that whole saga? Yes. Saga. And they were so up at arms. Oh, my God, the freedom of the press and journalism. And it's so important, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, we've always knew they were full of it because they didn't care about Julian Assange, right? How about that? And then with Jamal Khashoggi, same thing. There was a big show of this. Biden says on the campaign trail,

like we're going to make Saudi Arabia pariah. Okay. How did that work out? And now you have the most journalists killed in a single conflict since it's been tracked and total crickets. So yeah, Blinken got asked about this actually. And he did just like little waxing poetic about the importance of journalism and then just kept it, I haven't really heard about those reports and just kept it moving along. So it just shows you how full of it they've always been.

Par for the course, I think. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

I've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

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

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.

My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. Somebody violated the FBI, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them, do you think these people are good Americans? It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century, and the goddamnedest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone and my thought was, this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life.

I couldn't believe it. I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or lawmakers here in the U.S. are starting to be faced with some protests reminiscent of some times during the Iraq War. First up was Senator John Fetterman. Let's take a listen. 4,000 plus dead children in Palestine. 9,000 plus dead civilians. Get off the stage. Get off the stage. I don a stroke. I can't fully understand what you're saying. All right, I got to hand it to him. That was a clever response. But does show you that it is

beginning to happen. Senator Cory Booker was faced with something similar. Here's what happened there. There are so many places in our country right now where people want to make sure that we have. This is what makes America great. The power to protest. The power to have free speech. The power of America. Column A, all the way! Column A, all the way! Column A, all the way! Column A, all the way, column A, all the way, column A, all the way. So column A, from what we've been able to discern, is like when you vote straight ticket. So that's, he was there stumping for some sort of election. So that's what he was doing there. It also comes with some consternation here in Washington.

Let's go and put this up there on the screen. There's a dissent cable that is beginning to circulate within the State Department. U.S. diplomats are slamming Israel policy in leaked memo. For those who don't know, inside the State Department, they have something called a dissent channel, where you're allowed, if you disagree with the Secretary of State, to send a memo via this classified internal system. Obviously, almost every single time, the people who organize it end up leaking dissent cables. But it's supposedly supposed to be a way where you can voice internal dissent and to actually challenge administration policy. It's like the most bureaucratic level of protest ever. It's the dumbest thing, especially because they never stay secret. So every time somebody does one, they just immediately leak it to the press.

We sent a memo strongly voicing our opinion. There's a strongly voiced memo and opinion inside of the State Department that does show you some consternation, which is brewing amongst U.S. diplomats. Most of the people who have been assigned onto it and the organizers of it are from the Middle East desk. They say, quote, we must publicly criticize Israel's violation of international norms, such as failure to limit offensive operations to legitimate military targets. When Israel supports settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly this goes against our American values so that Israel does not act with impunity. The memo then marked sensitive but unclassified. So unclear. Also, they marked it that way so they could leak

it, just to be clear. Anyway, it does show you, Crystal, there's signs of dissent brewing across the United States. But we should also be honest that a lot of people still support Israel. Although, the position of ceasefire is very high. I'm not sure if that would stand if everybody fully were to be articulated and bombarded with propaganda on all sides. Propaganda can change minds, that is true. Exactly. So I don't know. I mean, there is already a lot of propaganda and the numbers we've seen are two thirds of people are like, stop the killing. I mean, it's just such a like normie natural reaction to be like, yes, we want to cease fire. We see all these horrific images of babies and women and kids

being pulled out of the rubble. Like stop the bombing, is such a just kind of human reaction that I think it would be very hard to move people off of that because of just how horrifying the images are that are coming out at this point. And that doesn't mean that people like hate Israel or even, you know, that they share my critique of Israel or any of that. They just are reacting to the horror of the violence that they see unfolding on the ground. And so, you know, it's really something when you think about all of the rhetoric that we've heard from Democratic politicians about Ukraine and about democracy and about barbarism and, you know, accusing, justifiably, by the way, accusing Putin of war crimes. And then you see refugee camps bombed, ambulances, hospitals bombed, schools bombed,

this massive toll in a short period of time taken on women and civilians and children. And they have nothing to say. So yeah, for these politicians having to be confronted face to face with people who are calling for a ceasefire, who are putting in their face their own hypocrisy based on their previous statements, it's something to see. And this was not even the first time that Fetterman has been confronted face to face. There was a video that went viral of a lawyer and one of his constituents, somebody who said, listen, I voted for you. You know, I believe you're a nice guy, but he was also pushing him on a ceasefire and he was shoved aggressively. He was dragged away.

Yeah, he was dragged away by someone who I think was part of Fetterman's like security detail or whatever, a really aggressive response. And of course, as we covered yesterday, here in D.C., massive protests in favor of a ceasefire, largest anti-war demonstration that we have seen since the Iraq war, certainly the largest pro-Palestine march that we have ever had on U.S. soil. So you can see the way that this is really escalating. And, you know, the Biden administration, they think like, oh, they'll get over it. This will die down, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think so, guys. This one, this has really viscerally touched on her with young people, with Arab Americans and with Muslim Americans. I've never seen a collapse in polling support like what we saw from Arab Americans in with Muslim Americans. I've never seen a collapse in polling support like

what we saw from Arab Americans in particular in this recent poll that came out. You now have in Michigan, I just saw a poll that I think it was Arab Americans are actually supporting RFK Jr. at a higher rate than Biden at this point in the state of Michigan. Just as a screw you. Just, I mean, absolutely. And let's be clear, RFK Jr. is terrible on this issue from my perspective. I mean, he's all the way in 100% with Israel, et cetera, et cetera. But as a screw you, it shows you how deep the upset goes. We had another thing that I wanted to show you that I also think is quite remarkable. Put this

up on the screen. Pro-Palestinian activists are blocking a ship from loading weapons and supplies being sent to Israel. This is the port of Tacoma in Washington. So you have a huge protest there to try to block one of the shipments of arms to Israel. I saw something similar happening, I believe, with dock workers in Spain. So this is a bit of an international effort. But you know, this is only, there is no end in sight in terms of the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza. And I think that this sort of protest and resistance is only going to be ramping up and only putting increasing pressure on this administration, which is already floundering. Very possible.

All right. So to turn a little bit more to domestic politics here, we had our former president, Donald Trump, in the courtroom yesterday testifying. Now, this is with regards to that civil fraud trial in the state of New York. And to recall the backstory here, this was brought by Letitia James. She's the attorney general of New York. It all is focused on the valuations of his businesses, the way that he would inflate different asset values in order to secure a certain loan or in certain circumstances, he would deflate the values in order to get off from his taxes. Effectively, they've already found that he committed fraud. This part now is just to figure out exactly how big the penalty is. Trump reportedly pretty wild in the stand.

This is what the man himself had to say after his testimony. to be here for the most part, but I sort of do have to be here because I want to be here. This is a scam. And this is a case that should have never been brought, and it's a case that now should be dismissed. Everybody saw what happened today. Everybody saw what happened with their star witness who admitted that I never told him what he originally said. I did. He admitted that he lied lied and he has absolutely no credibility whatsoever. That's the only witness. And when you look at the numbers, the poll numbers that came out today from the New York Times and CBS, I'm sure the Times was not too happy. But people are sick and tired of what's happening. This is a sad, I think it's a very sad day

for America. Sad day for America. Sad day for America. It's a scam. Case never should have been brought. All kind of typical things you would expect Trump to say. There were no cameras in the courtroom, so it can just bring you what reporters say happened while the doors were closed. Put this up on the screen from Politico.

They say during his four hours on the witness stand, the former president lost his temper and attacked the judge. The headline here is also amusing. I'm not a windmill person. Trump takes the witness stand and doesn't break character in a series of outbursts while testifying. Trump assailed the judge who is overseeing his civil fraud case. There was a lot of back and forth between them. The judge reportedly was beseeching Trump's lawyer to try to get him under control.

He wasn't really answering the questions. He was just berating the judge and doing his typical Trumpian thing. At one point, the judge told Trump's lawyer, Chris Kyes, if you can't control him, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can. This is not a political rally. This is the courtroom, he told Trump's lawyer, ordering him to counsel his client to provide answers responsive to the question. So, Sagar, you and I both saw this analysis, which as best I can tell is probably accurate. The ship has already sailed in terms of he, you know, committed some level of fraud. There is going to be some penalty, I would say, based on his conduct.

It's probably going to be pretty significant. I don't think the judge was too impressed with his presentation here. But also, it feels like this was more of, again, a political response than really a legal response. And I did see some analysis that indicated he undercut some of the defense that his team had prepared and that his adult children, two of whom, Eric and Donald Jr., are both involved in this as well. They tried to say basically, like, we got advice from accountants. We really weren't involved in this. That was kind of their approach. And he did at points undercut that and admit that he was involved in the crafting of these valuations.

Yeah, so part of the issue is that one of the reasons why they are where they are right now is that their lawyers mishandled the case from the beginning in terms of having it a jury trial or not. So that was why they left it up to the judge itself in order to make the declaration of fraud, which is why you're saying here in terms of the commitment in the eyes of the law around fraud, about the overvaluation of assets. I know everyone was talking previously about the Mar-a-Lago thing, but it actually goes deeper in terms of the mishandling actually on the Trump side of it. So whenever it comes to Trump himself and what he's actually going to be able to do, I think he's taking the correct course, which is if you've already lost in terms of the legal minutia, what you do is you attack Letitia James and you make this political, which it obviously is political. She literally ran on in going after him. So obviously that's going to play into it. She's even like, in my opinion, look, I think this is too much.

She's like subtweeting him while the active case is going on. I don't know. Okay, but it's not like he's conducting himself with decorum either. He's on trial. She's the attorney general. He's not the chief.

She's not. He's not the chief law enforcement officer. Former president. Future president. Okay, sure. I'm just saying, he's not the one

who's prosecuting her. It's vice versa. So maybe you shouldn't be doing that. But obviously, that's how you get votes and you're just validating that people think it's political, which it obviously is political. I don't actually know. I still, I've been mostly checked out on the merits of this particular one because, I mean, while I think it will have an impact on him personally and will significantly impact some of his decision making in the future,

who knows? I mean, don't forget, I believe he made himself alone in the last days of the 2016 campaign. He probably won't have to do that again in terms of his own personal wealth. This is far more personal for him and for his family future. Wednesday, Ivanka will take the stand. She'll be the final Trump family member to do so, and then we'll get some sort of determination. But this is not going to have the impact that I think most people think. Like the big convictions or legal problems for Trump are all going to be around his conduct on January 6th, the federal case, and specifically the Georgia. I still think Georgia is one of the worst ones for him. And the classified documents, obviously, that's open and shut.

Politically, you're right. I don't think that this, like, no matter how big the penalty is or whatever, it does strike to the core of his whole persona, though. Because, I mean, this is really like a potential existential threat to his New York business operation. They've already suspended his business licenses. I mean, we're talking about some of his most iconic properties. Trump Tower, right, could be forced into other hands or sold off by the state. I mean, that's the sort of penalties that we're talking about here. What I see as significant about this is two things. Number one, you see the way that his antics, which work very well in the political arena, don't work at all in the legal arena. I mean, this is not going to sway the judge. Quite to the contrary, I think it probably makes it more likely that the judge is going to penalize him even more aggressively than he was likely to before. So the things that he does,

where we have this sense of like, oh, Teflon Don, and he just wiggles, wriggles himself out of every jam doesn't work in the courtroom. And related to that, you know, we do always have this, this joke about like, oh, the walls are finally closing in. Well, this may be the first time where there really is some actual penalty and consequence for his actions and for the way that he has conducted himself. And I don't think it's going to be insignificant. I mean, in terms of his personal situation and his wealth and what it's going to mean for him and his business, I think it could be quite significant. But to your point, Sagar, the bigger in terms of the political questions, and again,

this is a civil case, so keep that in mind. It's different from a criminal case as well. But in terms of the larger political questions, we covered that New York Times poll yesterday that had Trump up on Biden in five of six swing states. So devastating picture for Joe Biden, for his reelect. There's a lot of panic over that. We're going to get to that in just a moment. However, there is one piece of this that the Biden team might be able to take comfort in. Put this up on the screen. As of right now, only 39% of voters in that New York Times-Siena poll actually think that Trump is going to be convicted. But if he is convicted, it really changes the electoral landscape again, at least based on this fall. And people are not always good at predicting what they would do in certain circumstances. So I think that's important to keep in mind.

However, if you just are asking Trump versus Biden, Trump is up by 11 in Nevada. If you say, OK, but what if Trump is convicted? It moves to Biden plus 12. OK, from Trump plus 11 to Biden plus 12. In Arizona, it goes from Trump plus 5 to Biden plus 5. In Georgia, it goes from Trump plus 6 to Biden plus 12. In Michigan, Trump plus 5 to Biden plus 12. In Pennsylvania, Trump plus 4 to Biden plus four. And in Wisconsin, this was the one state Biden had an edge in, Biden plus two to Biden plus 14. So this is a huge wild card hanging over this whole thing. And again, we're not talking about the civil case that he's testifying in right now.

We're talking about those criminal cases, the documents case, the one with regard to January 6th and stealing the election. Also, the Georgia case, which is also about fake elector schemes and stealing the election. Those are the ones that we're talking about here in terms of a criminal conviction. And I will say, Sagar, that we did see when we did our Republican focus group, we did see some evidence of that, where even people who were in the room who were maybe not like the biggest Trump fans, but they were generally on board with him and, you know, they were good with him and certainly going to vote for him, et cetera. When they were asked, okay, well, what if he's convicted? It was

like, oh, I don't think I could do that. Well, yeah. I mean, I just don't know. It's one of those where people say a lot of things. Also, what does conviction mean? Which conviction? Are we talking about Georgia? We're talking about the feds? Are we talking about the classified documents case? Each one of these could be spun. Also, what's the sentence? I mean, if he's sentenced to jail, I feel like that's one thing. If he's sentenced to parole, I think that's another thing. What if it's a mistrial or a hung jury or a dismissed case? There's so many different scenarios I could go down. But something I have warned about previously is I was like, look, there are a lot of normie people in this country who if you say he was convicted by a court, they'll be like, wow, okay, he was actually convicted. And they're like,

that means he did something wrong. Now, as we all know, the justice system can be very difficult and different sometimes about how that all goes. Most people do not, however, mistrust the justice system enough to say that if someone does get convicted, they think that they probably did something and that could affect their overall vote. I think that's what's in the poll. And it does just show us that Trump will suffer something. We don't know the extent to which. Yeah. Doesn't count him out entirely. But also, it's not good.

To me, it's more a question of timing. Yeah, that's question of timing. Yeah. Then whether or not he would actually be convicted. I mean, listen, he'd have to run the table in all of these cases. I just don't see it. Especially think about the documents case. Right. Like what even is his defense at this point? They're not even really trying to mount a defense. It's just taking the political tactic, hoping they can hang on, hoping they can exhaust the appeals process to keep that in mind before voters actually go to the polls. So I think Sagar, it's not just this normie sense of like, well, he was convicted, so he definitely did something wrong. I think there's also just a sense of embarrassment. Like, I'm sure we're going to elect an American president who's been who's like, you know, criminally convicted of a variety of crimes,

that's just humiliating as a country to do. And I think a lot of people have a revulsion to that. So that's why I'm, I am just very reluctant to make any predictions about how this general election is going to go. You've got Biden who has extraordinarily low approval ratings. You've got, you know, now involved in two increasingly unpopular and brutal ratings. You've got, you know, now involved in two increasingly unpopular and brutal wars. You've got, you know, economic concerns that are overriding potentially everything else. You've got the wild card of RFK Jr., who has a lot of money in the bank and who, you know, is a Kennedy and is garnering significant support in these polls. You've got Trump out there and these criminal, you know, possible convictions hanging over his head and the question of the timeline and how that's all going to work out. And then you have the things that we don't even know about that are going to unfold over

the course of the coming year. So all I would argue for is a lot of humility in terms of, you know, how this is all going to shake out and what it's going to look like and who's going to have the edge. I could see everything from a Trump blowout to a Biden blowout at this point and any outcome in between. And I think this is the, this, is he convicted? Is he sentenced to prison? Is one of the biggest wild cards that hangs out there to this day. Absolutely. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I 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 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. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. Somebody violated the FBI, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them, do you think these people are good Americans? It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century,

and the goddamnedest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone, and my thought was, this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life. I couldn't believe it. I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of Biden and what's going on in terms of the fallout from that poll that showed him losing in five out of six states, there are several people who are now calling for him to just drop out. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This was in very, I think, coded language. David Axelrod, the chief political advisor to Barack Obama, kind of the architect of a lot of Obama's career, says, quote, it is very late to change horses. A lot will happen in the

next year that no one can predict. And Biden's team says his resolve to run is firm. He has defied conventional wisdom before, but this will send tremors of doubt through the party, not bedwetting, but a legitimate concern, saying it's a legitimate concern that he is losing. And he says the POTUS is justly proud of his accomplishments. Trump is dangerous, et cetera, et cetera. Only Joe Biden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise, whether it is his best interest or the country's, strongly implying drop the hell out, Joe, and let somebody else in there. And this was

picked up on over at MSNBC, where Joe Biden found himself with a little bit of a defense. Let's take a listen. This person said, well, look, it's no real surprise David Axelrod has consistently been a detractor of the Biden administration. What would you say? I would also argue, and I love Axe, but he was also a detractor of the 2020 Biden campaign. So I'm not surprised by this, but it's very disingenuous. Democrats, especially Democratic strategists know, Republican strategists, anyone who is a professional politico, hell, the reporters know, Joe Biden is the president of the United States of America. Therefore, the head of the party that he is on the ticket of, he is a Democrat. And if the president of the United States of America is eligible to run for

reelection and decides to do so, that's your nominee, baby. That's how it works. I know that that might not sound democratic, but that is the game. That's how it works. And so David Axelrod's comments are kind of crazy because Joe Biden did make his decision. He has started a reelection campaign. But was it the right decision? That's the question. Well, he made it, though. So Joe Biden has been trying to be president since before I was born. OK, he literally he's been running for president since 1988. The idea that he would get the presidency, beat Donald Trump, vaccinate America, finally have infrastructure week, make the largest investment in infrastructure since, like, the people that invented the interstate, and he's not going to run for re-election? Oh, man. That is—I know it may now sound democratic.

As Nate Silver put it, he goes, yeah, it's usually that way because the vast majority of the people in the party want that person to run. The vast majority of the people in this party and in this country don't want him to run again. They think he's too freaking old. So in that case, then no, the traditional rules don't hold. It's not a given. It just has always been that way in the past because usually, at least a little bit, American politics was like a relative meritocracy-ish where people got to know and to view these people and were like, yeah, I support him. Okay. He wants to run for election. I mean, think about it. In 2004, Republicans were gangbusters to re-nominate George W. Bush. The only time anyone had any doubt was Jimmy Carter. And we went through a primary. People got the opportunity to vote for

a candidate who was bloodthirsty and it was tough. And Carter came out on the other side. And guess what? He actually almost won the election. So it just goes to show you, like, in terms of how it would all look, I think that the fact is, is that when you have such a low intra-party approval rating, you have to subject yourself to that primary just to prove that you do deserve it instead of like this noblesse oblige that you have right now. It is amazing how she just comes down and says, she's like, well, I know it doesn't sound democratic, but that's just the game. That's how it is. And it's like, yeah, I mean, listen, I mean, and obviously that is the game because that is the way they've set it up. They, you know, rigged the primary state order

to make it most favorable to Joe Biden. They made sure way they've set it up. They rigged the primary state order to make it most favorable to Joe Biden. They made sure there were absolutely no primaries. They were working the phones to make sure to enforce discipline on everybody. And really the key moment for them was when the midterms went better than expected. I think if it had been a Republican red wave midterms, you might have had Gavin Newsom or somebody who jumps in the race. And of course, Biden does have primary competitors. Marianne Williamson's been in for quite a while. Cenk Uygur just jumped in. Of course, there's questions about whether he's constitutionally eligible. Dean Phillips has now just gotten in, but they've

effectively made it so that there's no awareness that there's any sort of real democratic process playing out. And that's how they want it, because they know that he's incredibly vulnerable. And they also know that he can't actually stand up to the scrutiny of a primary process. I think they'd be less fearful of it if they thought that he could get on a debate stage and just absolutely rock everybody. But they know that that's not the case. So I just want to underscore David Axelrod, who is seen as one of the like wise sages of electoral politics in the Democratic Party. For him to come out and very strongly suggest that Biden is staying in because of his own personal ambition versus what is in the best interest of the nation is really, really something.

And everyone is going to take note of that. Now, do I think that that means Joe Biden is going to do what he should do, which is step aside, make room for a real actual dynamic primary process? Of course not. And that, Simone Sanders is 100% correct when she was like, this man's been running for president since 1988 and you think he's going to give up the brass ring now? She's right about that. There's no way that he's going to, as long as he has one breath left in his body, he is going to hold on to the presidency because it has been his lifelong ambition and he doesn't actually care about whether he's the best person at this point to try to defeat Trump again. And by the way, I think he has genuinely convinced himself that he actually is that person who would be best positioned to defeat Trump another time.

Just to remind you guys of the details of that poll that we covered yesterday from the New York Times that we've been talking a lot about, what was really, really noteworthy and shows you how far he's fallen is even Kamala Harris performed better than he did in that poll. That's a first. Consistently across the board, when we've seen polling like this in the past, Biden has done not that great, but it's always been a little better than Kamala. Now, in this one poll, at least, for Kamala, even her, to be doing a little better than him is really something. And then the, you know, theoretical generic unnamed Democrat was like blowing everybody out of the water. But of course, that's not the way reality works. In reality, you have an actual named person who is subject to all

of the attacks and slings and arrows of political campaign. So, you know, it doesn't quite work out that way. But I guess Dean Phillips will like that particular number because he is kind of the quintessential generic unnamed Democrat. There is no such thing as generic. It's an annoying metric. I'm not even really sure if it's useful at this point because you can never separate personality. Let's put this one up there on the screen as well. Bill Kristol, the prominent neocon, former Republican saying, it's time. President Biden has served our country well. I'm confident he'll do so for the next year, but it's time for an act of personal sacrifice and public spirit. It's time to pass the torch to the next generation. It's time for Biden to announce he won't run in 2024. And then you also had Pramila Jayapal on MSNBC, Jen Psaki's show, saying that I have felt like the 2024 election is in great trouble for the president and for our democratic control, which is essential.

The first time. Well, if that's the first time, then you're an idiot. But maybe it's the first time that you're willing to admit it on television. Anyway, I think the point being that clearly the bat signal is out. You're allowed to talk about it now. We'll see what they do. We all know what they're going to do, which is that they're just going to keep Joe Biden. Yeah. And then they'll- See how it works out for them. And then they'll pretend like none of this conversation ever happened and how dare you question his abilities or any of that and be totally shocked and find a litany of people

to blame if he loses that do not involve themselves or Joe Biden himself. There you go. All right. We had to update you on a change of heart, change of perspective from CNBC's Jim Cramer, who you'll recall, and we'll play some of this in a minute, was just losing his mind over the president of the United Auto Workers, Sean Fain, as they were getting ready to strike the big three automakers. And while that strike was ongoing, well, apparently now he thinks Sean Fain is actually just incredible, brilliant. He's a strategic genius. Let's take a listen to what

Jim Cramer has to say. I think that the UAW was underestimated the whole way because Fain just beat them everywhere. It was very much guerrilla action. It was very smart. They were completely, they were were out gained at every turn. I mean, it was almost like they were they were in that fame was a great NFL coach who really figured out all the weaknesses of the other team and just came in and blew them away. They were blitzing. They were doing everything right. I mean, they had like linebacker and quarter blitzes and safety blitzes. And, you know, they like the other guys like the like I love I love Farley and I love Barr, you know. And I think that they were. Wow. What happened? They were in the wow. What happened, Cam? And when the game was over, it was just a real beatdown.

I love when he's like the UAW was really underestimated. It's like, oh, really? By who? By who, Jim? You will recall, this is the guy who was like, oh, they should just, the automakers should just ship all their jobs to Mexico. Yes, that's what he said. The autoworkers. He was saying Sean Fain is, you know, this is class war and it's shocking to say and saying Sean Fain is a Marxist, et cetera, et cetera. Let's take a listen to what he was saying previously. I want you to compare the labor negotiations here

to the ones in Ottawa, where I think there's going to be a strike and I think it's going to be horrible. You're making that call today? September 14th. I think they're going to strike. This, the man, Sean Fain, the guy who runs the UAW, I find him frightening.

And Teamsters UPS didn't give you any solace? Teamsters turned out to get a good deal. Teamsters is a historically very powerful union, rich union. But the UAW leader won. There was a contested, very contested vote between the company, the union that wants to work with the autos together to try to preserve some jobs and give the elder people a good pay. And then this man, Sean, who is just talking about capitalism and the nature of capitalism and how it's really hurt workers.

This is very Walterter ruther uh language it's a it's the kind of language that when we when we had in this country uh we'll take you down if you don't play ball that's the language i'm hearing from uaw and look i mean it's the kind of language we just say you know what we should have built all our evs in Mexico. It's that bad. I don't think people are paying enough attention. The man is, I'm not saying he's irrational. I'm saying he was elected in order to make it so that there's a very short week to find benefit back. And then the notion that we're fat cats.

The shareholders are fat cats and have been overly rewarded. We haven't seen this. That's class warfare. And it's very shocking to hear class warfare. Class warfare. Very shocking. Very shocking. There's going to be a strike.

I think it's going to be horrible. I mean, this gets to also, there was so much, especially from him, like, oh, this is going to be devastating. Car prices are going to go through the roof and the economy is going to crater. And now he's like, oh, that was great. Sean Fain did a great job. Workers got a good deal. Look at him. He's an amazing quarterback, brilliant NFL coach. They were doing everything out there. They were making all the right plays. A little bit of a change of

heart. Yeah, it's a complete change. It also, I guess we should all, I don't know if it's a victory because you don't really, really want Kramer on your side. So if I were Fain, I would want him to just continue. But I guess he doesn't care because he's bathing in victory now at this point. In a certain sense, I mean, it's heartening, right? It's a good thing to see somebody actually admit that they were completely wrong. Although I'm not really sure he admitted it. He was just like, man, he kind of came out the gate. But we wanted to bring everybody a very rare Kramer of actually admitting or at least saying that somebody who we very much

underestimated very obviously won against all these CEOs. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, they are continuing. We covered Toyota. Looks like they gave their workers directly in response to this. Their auto workers a raise. There are now union efforts ongoing at Tesla. Fain is calling on other unions to align their contract end dates with their end date, which is 2028, to try to set up a potential general strike. So in some ways, this is just the beginning. I think we'll be hearing a lot more from Sean Fain, and I'm sure Jim Cramer will have more changes of heart along the way. That's right. All right. We got a great guest standing by, Jameis Coleman. Let's get to it. Over the past six years

of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder

Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I 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.

My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. Somebody violated the FBI,

and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them, do you think these people are good Americans? It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century, and the goddamnedest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone phone and my thought was, this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life. I couldn't believe it.

I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's the joke that we always make here. Miles is here to join us. He's going to talk to us about these upcoming elections. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. We've got a lot for him to go ahead and break down for us. Places to watch in Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Miles, we talked a little bit about Virginia yesterday, so why don't we start with Kentucky, which arguably is one of the more important races in the country.

We've got a gubernatorial race there going on. Give us a lay of the land, the polls, where things are and what you think may happen. Yeah. So in Kentucky, it's an interesting situation because usually a national poll's governor, Andy Beshear, ranks as the most popular Democratic governor anywhere. But basically, why this race is so close? Because it's Kentucky. This is a state that normally goes to the Republicans.

Governor Shearer is probably a uniquely strong Democrat. He comes from a very big political family there. His father was the governor about 10 years ago. It seems like he's done everything right. Daniel Cameron, who's the attorney general, is known as a protege of Mitch McConnell. He's really tried to nationalize the race, basically trying to tie, you basically say, you know, you may think Andy Beshear is a different type of Democrat, but you know, he's really no different than Joe Biden. Usually our sense of this race is, there were some polls out earlier where Beshear was up

fairly comfortably. It seems like Cameron has closed that gap a bit. Now, part of that could be just Republicans are coming home to the Republicans. But my sense is Bashir probably pulls this out by maybe two or three points. Gotcha. And so if Cameron's trying to nationalize things, what are some of the more local issues that Bashir is trying to put front and center? Yeah, so since Bashir has been the governor, he was elected four years ago. Kentucky has gone through a lot of natural disasters. He's always talked about that.

There were some out in western Kentucky, there were some tornadoes out in eastern Kentucky. They had some record of baloney. He always makes a point to go to those places because, you know, really for Democrats in a lot of these red states, just going out to

these rural areas is half of the battle. So he talks about one of the things his father did when he was governor was Medicaid expansion. That's something he talks about. Okay, we need to kind of keep this going. We don't want to let someone who's going to take us back to basically to undo all this stuff. So, Miles, why don't we talk a little bit about Mississippi then? That was another gubernatorial race.

Tate Reeves, usually this wouldn't really be a question, but out in the aftermath of scandal, maybe it is. Give us a sense of what's going on there. Yeah, so Mississippi, you know, you would expect, yes, the Republican to be a pretty strong position there. But Governor Tate Reaves, four years ago, only won by four or five points. He has a very, as Trump would say, he has a very high energy challenger in a Democrat named Brandon Presley. He is a distant relative of Elvis. So one thing I'm watching is,

okay, well, does the Presley native have any sort of value in Mississippi? But we were just talking about a Medicaid expansion in the context of Kentucky. That's something Pres president is running on, you know, more of a local type issue where, because Mississippi is one of the states that still hasn't expanded it. So that is something that the president is trying to latch on to. And, you know, there have been some scandals that Reeves has been tied to there was this very big welfare scandal involving Brett Favre.

So that's my sense for that race is. So in Mississippi, they have this new system where they have runoffs kind of like Georgia. And Mississippi is a state because it's about 40 percent black by composition. Now, if you're a Democrat, you can probably get to 40, maybe 45 percent of the vote pretty easily. But getting much past that is very hard because white voters are just so Republican there. So that's going to be President's challenge. Gotcha. Now, in Ohio, and of course, all of these races, what's been hanging over the political landscape is the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court seems to have really juiced Democratic turnout

in a lot of races. And in Ohio, you actually have an abortion issue on the ballot. Can you break that one down for us too? So basically this in Ohio basically established a constitutional right to abortion. As your viewers may well remember earlier this year, there was sort of a test run for this referendum. Republicans tried to raise the threshold for these bad ballot measures to be accepted in anticipation for this abortion rights referendum. And, you know, one of the things I've been kind of tracking over the last year or so is since Roe was overturned last year, there have been eight referendums concerning abortion rights. And the pro-abortion

rights side has won in all eight of those cases. And the states ranging from as red as Kentucky and Montana to states as blue as Vermont and California. One thing I'd be interested in watching is it gets a little down into the weeds, but oftentimes on these referendums, if you're a voter, it's oftentimes easier just to vote no on whatever the politicians are proposing. Back in the early referendum in Ohio, the pro-abortion side was no. Basically, no. We don't want to raise up the threshold for randoms.

This time, it's a little flip. The pro-abortion right side is yes. So small, but something I'm looking at. It seems like the consensus is it's on track to pass. Although one thing I will note, it seems like the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike D. Juan, is fairly popular. He's been, he's maybe a good messenger for the anti-abortion right side, just because it's a popular statewide culture. So my question, Miles, for you is, what are the national indicators that you're looking at?

So obviously, Ohio is going to be one. What are some other margins and other things that could tell us a little bit about what to expect in the next election a year from now? Yeah, it's kind of funny because none of these states are really in question next year. I have no question Biden's probably going to carry the state of Virginia next year. He's probably going to lose Kentucky, Ohio, Mississippi. But I would look at if Democrats say in Virginia pulled up well in some of these districts in the higher income suburbs, probably the textbook example of that in Virginia is Senate District 31, which is up in Loudoun County. That's had something like a million bucks, something like 1111 million spent for legislative seat. And think of the types of voters who Democrats have gained since the Trump era.

It's basically Senate District 31. So if this is an area where Democrats hold up well, that may be a good sign for them going into 2020, 2024. Sort of on the flip side of that, one of the things that Democrats still have to work on a bit is minority turnout. In Virginia, we have a number of legislative seats that have high minority population but are still competitive. If Republicans win most of those, that may be a sign that Democrats have more work to do on that front. Now, usually these trends don't happen in isolation. So if Democrats are still having trouble next year with minority turnout in Virginia, it may not matter. But if they're having those same problems

in Georgia and North Carolina states where it may matter, that would be key. All right. Well, we've got our marching orders, things to look for this evening, and I'm sure we'll all be following you on Twitter as well as the results come in. Miles, it's always so great to see you.

Thank you for helping break all of this down for us. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We have a great see you. Thank you for helping break all of this down for us. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We have a great CounterPoint show for you all tomorrow. Thursday, we've got a great guest. I think some of you are going to be enjoying. It will come after the GOP debate. We'll have breaking coverage on that and everything that's going on in Israel.

Otherwise, we will see you all then. This is an iHeart Podcast.