Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/1/23: Israel Bombing BACK ON, Stunning Oct 7 Failure Revealed, Krystal and Saagar REACT: Newsom Vs DeSantis Debate Highlights

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss the breaking news of renewed hostilities after the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Palestine has ended. We also look at the debate last evening between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom.  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.

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continuing in the hopes of quickly reviving the truce. But as of now, you had Hamas blaming Israel for the collapse of the ceasefire, saying in a statement it had offered to release more hostages, including older people, but that Israel had made a, quote, prior decision to resume the criminal aggression. That is Hamas's side of the story. Israel says that Hamas violated the ceasefire agreement by firing on Israel and failing to release as many hostages as it had promised. Hamas released eight hostages on Thursday. That was two fewer than expected after releasing at least 94 since the truce began. And Sagar, you know, basically where we are at this point is the original agreement that enabled this temporary ceasefire had to do with women and children. Well, now at this point, most of the women and children have been released. So what Hamas is saying, and, you know, take it for what it's worth, is that they've been trying to expand that deal to include other categories of people. And Israel at this point has been relatively uninterested. We've covered on our show,

of course, comments from Netanyahu and also comments from Defense Minister Galant about how they are very committed to going back to the war, to even expanding the war and focusing on the south of the Strip. And in fact, this morning, we can also report, put this up to the war, to even expanding the war and focusing on the south of the Strip. And in fact, this morning, we can also report, put this up on the screen, flag by our own Ryan Grimm. They are leafleting in Khan Yunus. That is one of the cities in the southern part of the Gaza Strip where people had fled. And they are warning them that they need to evacuate Khan Yunus lest before this next bombing campaign begins. And we already also know this morning that some of those bombs have already begun dropping. And we've had reports of dozens

of people already killed in renewed hostilities. Yeah. So all of this fits basically what was telegraphed. But the big question is around how long this is going to go. And there's a big dueling strategy between what the United States and really the Western allies of Israel want and then what Israel itself is planning on doing. So we can go and put this up there on the screen. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reportedly told the Israelis behind the scenes, he said, you have weeks, not months to prosecute this campaign. The Israelis are like, no, I really don't think so. And actually, Crystal, just breaking this morning from the Financial Times with a leak from Tel Aviv and the Israeli war cabinet says, quote, Israel plans for a long war, aims to kill the top three Hamas leaders. They say that the intensive ground strategy in Gaza will continue into early 2024.

Obviously, that is one where, you know, that could mean anything. That could mean January. It also could mean March or April, depending on which way that you want to look at it. The top three Hamas leaders inclusion in that actually includes people who are currently living in Doha. So that'll be an interesting thing. But most importantly, is they are basically trying to do to or telegraphing that they want to do to Khan Yunus what they did in North Gaza, which puts them directly at odds with what the U.S. and growing calls for limiting and changing Israeli tactics

here in the U.S. They want to do the exact same thing to envelop the city of Khan Yunus, cut it off from the south. So we will see multiple more ground incursions, most likely from a forward operating in North Gaza. Gaza City could be a staging area and also the shared border. What they did previously to Gaza City could be a staging area and also the shared border. What they did previously to Gaza City is they cut it off from the south in terms of fleeing both fighters and civilians and then came in from the top and enveloped the entire thing while having airstrikes. Now, the airstrikes have already resumed. It's difficult to pin down exactly where, but even some reported at the Rafah Crossing like previously that we had seen. And of course, you know, what we have to always think about are the two million or so

people who remain inside of Gaza to were told and are being told now to flee this effectively. While it was already one of the most densely populated places in the world, they are now fleeing the quote unquote evacuation zone in the south and trying to limit people. It's difficult to see without a map but if you think about the first third is basically been occupied most of the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed now we're moving on to the second third and everybody's being trying or at least ideally compressed into this like a small tiny area of the strip which you know raises a question of where the hell they want to go and is, I think, is going to significantly increase questions and pressure and high stakes negotiations

because I just also saw from the Wall Street Journal increasing calls from Israeli leaders who are pressuring the U.S. officials. They're like, you guys need to take some of these Palestinians or you need to pressure the Arab states to accept them. And of course, you know, the Palestinians themselves are very reluctant to take that deal simply because they don't think that they'll ever be able to come back. This goes to much more meta questions around all of this. But I think we could say with probably good confidence that the truce is over, at least

in the form that we knew it. If there is a temporary ceasefire, it possibly could maybe a day or two, something like that. But the willingness of the Israeli forces to restart the campaign, it looks pretty ironclad. And that is a rebuke, I think, of the Biden administration, who very publicly was like, we don't want this to restart. So it also shows you the limits of U.S. diplomacy. Well, especially when that diplomacy only comes with like, please listen to what we're saying and not the actual use of any of the cards that we could very easily play if we wanted to. And let me read a little bit of the specifics of what Tony Blinken reportedly told the Israeli war cabinet, because it shows you just how at odds the administration, at least what they're saying, is from the Israeli war cabinet, of course, led by Netanyahu. So these reported remarks were

quoted in Hebrew. This is a translation by Channel 12 News, which is part of why it's like English is a little bit choppy. Anyway, Blinken said, according to them, quote, You can't operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there. Need to evacuate fewer people from their homes, be more accurate in the attacks, not hit UN facilities, and ensure there are enough protected areas for civilians. And if not, then don't attack where there is a civilian population. He goes on to ask, what is your system of operation? He told them at one point in no uncertain words, you do not have months, you have weeks. Now, again, is U.S. influence going to be brought to bear to try to guarantee that result remains to be seen? We haven't seen any of that thus far.

He also raised the question of the day after. All right. After you finish your bombing campaign and your ground invasion and all of this, what then? Of course, the Netanyahu government has floated all sorts of trial balloons, which we've discussed here, one of which seems to be their ideal solution of pushing everybody out. And as you're talking about sagari, they're into neighboring Arab countries or some to the U.S. or exclusively into Egypt. But they won't actually commit to what their real goal is. And Blinken said, you don't want the Palestinian authority on the day after. We understand that. That's what the solution the U.S. has been pushing. The best way to kill an idea is to bring a better idea. The other states in the region need to know what you are planning. So putting pressure there as well. But again,

clearly, and I think with the restart of this bombing campaign and, you know, which thus far seems to be approached in exactly the same way that the northern bombing campaign occurs, they don't care what the U.S. says behind the scenes or leaks to the press, etc. There's no evidence that they care about our words and our secret displeasure with their actions. To the point you were making, Sagar, you have so many people condensed now in this very small area that the possibility of even greater civilian death is very real, very real. There's a report that came out. I don't know if you had a chance to read it. It's from this 972 magazine. I may dig into it more on Monday, talking about the way they have approached this war and how it's actually been different than some of the tactics that they've used previously, even within Gaza. And one of the major categories of targets that

they've approached are so-called power targets. These are things like major buildings, high-rise apartment buildings, where in previous wars, it's not that they would have put them off limits, but they would have at least tried to make sure that civilians had left before they struck these targets. This time around, they made these power targets and individual residential homes their primary targets, not because this was the best way to degrade Hamas's capability, far from it. Some of these buildings have very limited relationship

to Hamas whatsoever, but because they want to shock the population into putting pressure on Hamas. So those are the sort of tactics that Blinken is referring to here when he says you can't do in the South what you did in the North. The North is destroyed. Like there is nothing left to go back to. Effectively, all of the civilian life and infrastructure in the North has been gutted. So that's where we are right now today. And this comes also as there is a stunning report from The New York Times about we were debating whether you can even call it an intelligence failure at this point. They knew, put this up on the screen, about the October 7th plans more than a year in advance.

Israeli officials obtained Hamas's battle plan, I'm reading now, for the October 7th terrorist attack a year before it happened. Documents, emails, and interviews show, but Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out. The translated document didn't set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip,

take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters. They go on to say they followed this blueprint with shocking precision. You're talking about it called for a barrage of rockets to start, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot, all of which happened on October 7th. And not only that, so they've got this document laying out the plan. They also had an intelligence unit that was monitoring activities in Gaza Strip. And these analysts were saying, we're watching them prepare for these attacks. We see them training. We see what they're doing. They're serious about this. And those concerns by the higher ups from this,

by the way, all female unit were completely dismissed in spite of the fact that they had this intelligence right in front of their face of what they were planning. It is truly astonishing that this was missed. Yeah, this is not an intelligence failure because it's clearly the intelligence work. This is a leadership failure through and through. There's no other way to describe it. Also, there was a lot of talk after 9-11, not only of the intelligence failure, but everyone's like, oh, it was a failure of imagination. I mean, here, it just seems to be that they just simply did not believe that hamas was capable of a large-scale military operation despite 20 almost 20 years now of them warning that they have military capabilities rockets terrorists they have all of these weapons and

this is why you know you have to just be deeply skeptical here where though when they say bb says we need a long war well the longer this thing goes on the better off it is for him the more he farther away he can get up from october 7th the less questions are going to be asked about what happened he says we'll talk about the failures the day after the war but for now we're going to continue to fight the war and you can't help but think he's one of the least popular prime ministers now in all of Israeli history. The coalition government behind him that continues to support him is held on by a thread, largely by most of his furthest right elements. And he has a direct incentive.

So this is, again, why I just think if he truly cared about Israel, he would resign. There's just no question. You need a leader with actual confidence to be for the Israeli public and also to negotiate in best faith for whenever you're sitting across the table from the U.S., from all of the Western allies. So, yeah, reading through it, it is just it's shocking because what's what's crazy is the plan was followed almost to a T. Right. The blueprint of where and how to attack not just the paragliders, their area, where to go, what to do. What base they wanted to overrun, how they're going to distract them with the rockets. They knew that they had been distracted already in the West Bank by the extremist factions of the Netanyahu coalition. All of it to a T. I mean, it's incredible reading these emails that this intelligence analyst was sending, trying her best to send

up a warning. She said, I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary. She wrote in one email, the Hamas training exercise, she said, fully matched the content of Jericho Wall, which is the name of this document that they were able to obtain. It is a plan designed to start a war, she added. It is not just a raid on a village. I mean, just as direct as she possibly can. And they just dismissed it. And I think it speaks to, you know, it speaks to a complete level of arrogance, right? Netanyahu has this idea, oh, we control the height of the flames. Obviously not. I think it speaks to a level of contempt for Palestinians of like, like oh they're not

capable of anything approaching this so you know which ties into the arrogance also a level of overconfidence in their technology their technology you know their fancy wall with all their super top tech super expensive um with their remote control machine guns etc et cetera, which we know from what unfolded on October 7th was mostly disabled by like cheap off the shelf drone technology, you know, something that an ordinary citizen could easily purchase and acquire. They were able to, you know,

and this is part of why the response also failed for many hours. People were left on their own to fend for themselves when you have this, you know, ragtag bunch of terrorists versus one of the preeminent militaries in the entire world. So it is stunning to see this level of failure. And of course, many people are drawing comparisons to the intelligence failure we suffered before 9-11, where, again, it wasn't that we didn't have the information. It's that people didn't do anything about it and didn't take it seriously. To be honest, Crystal, this is worse because

we knew so the famous warning, I think it was August 2001, bin Laden determined to strike the U.S. We knew that two of the hijackers were in the United States. The Saudis definitely knew it, too. Probably helped him. But that's just conjecture, I guess. We did not know about the World Trade Center. We didn't know about the Pentagon. It was a cell of only 19 people. That's another reason why this makes it even more stunning. You had almost 1,200, 1,500 people who participated in this attack. That's literally, what, a thousand, yeah, a hundred times more than the number who participated in 9-11. So 9-11 is not even comparable in terms of the planning and the scale. It would be as if the CIA and the FBI literally knew they were like,

they were going to hit the World Trade Center with two Boeing 737s. They're going to hijack multiple things. They're going to use box cutters. These are their attacks. They're going to strike in the morning. That's basically the level of precision that Israel had on this and they ignored it. So, yeah, I don't think you can. And this is where the most normie critique of Netanyahu is just so obvious. There's two

options. Either he ignored it and so did the Israeli leadership or his bullshit and cult of personality where he centered all Israeli politics around him, distracted the entire populace and top leadership away from what should have been focused on security. And in that vacuum, Hamas, perfect storm. They were able to pull off this attack. So I think it's 10 times worse than 9-11. that Netanyahu's longtime plan in order to thwart a Palestinian state that he has stated multiple times is we need to bolster Hamas because then we can use them as an excuse for not being able to pursue a peace and keep the West Bank and the Gaza Strip separated with, again, this idea, this arrogant idea that, oh, we'll control the height of the flames. And so I can control what's going on here. I'm Mr. Security. So it really is.

I mean, it really is quite stunning. It will also feed the conspiracy that this was effectively like a false flag, like they let it happen intentionally, which I don't buy. And I'll tell you why. But I'm curious your thoughts. Sure. This is such a political disaster for Netanyahu. Yes, that's why I don't like he is ideological. There's no doubt about it.

Right. That he is very ideological person. But his number one ideology is to himself in his own grip on power. And you would have to be a complete fool, which I don't then try to use that crisis to effectuate whatever their personal political and ideological goals are. And that's exactly what we're seeing unfold right now. Yeah, agreed. One hundred percent. OK, we're going to have another update for you now on Gavin Newsom and the Ron DeSantis debate. Let's get to it. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

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Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Okay, and now turning to the hottest event in American politics, not really the Gavin Newsom rumble in Fox News hosted by Sean Hannity versus Ron DeSantis debate, the two differing ideologies and the governors facing off. And it was certainly something. And we've pulled what we think are some of the best moments from that. We should note, too, the way that we pulled these is, I think, very different than how a lot of others are digesting in terms of what actually matters electorally. What is really going to hit home, according to the priorities of Americans? First and foremost, was a pretty strong opening from Governor Gavin Newsom, where he played off the

initial attacks from Governor Ron DeSantis. But more importantly, he actually hit DeSantis for his underperformance so far in the GOP primary while parrying some of his attacks. Let's take a listen to that. There are profound differences tonight, and I look forward to engage them. But there's one thing in closing that we have in common is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024. The reason that we pulled that one, Crystal, I think is that, A, it shows the political adeptness that was displayed throughout the entire debate by Newsom. Any time, I think DeSantis landed several legitimate critiques against Newsom. Newsom, though, is a politician. And this is the magic of television. He in a greasy fashion moves himself all the way around it, turns it actually

into an attack and a parry and then gets underneath DeSantis's skin, who has that artificial smile on his face for the entire time. And I actually thought it was a very effective way for Newsom to constantly needle DeSantis throughout the entire thing, because if this were just a debate on his face between if neither of them were presidential aspirants or any of that, I think it would have been totally different. But DeSantis has to both manage his presidential campaign of trying to differ himself from Trump and all of that. And Newsom then can use the polling position to constantly undercut De desantis by borrowing and we're going to show you this in a little bit borrowing talking points from the trump campaign

to hit desantis which was very effective to parry him from a lot of these overall that's what i thought his best political strength throughout the entire night was newsome is a slippery m he's good man and this was not easy? Because you're going up against DeSantis and you're going up against Sean Hannity in Fox News. I mean, every single question was, and the stats they put up were designed to be like, California bad, Florida good. These are the facts, governor.

Yeah, these are the facts. Exactly. And so, and it was, I mean, literally every single question, right? So he is very good at just being like a classic politician. Anything they would hit him with, like they hit him with crime stats that you look at and you're like, I don't know how he's going to handle this one.

But he was ready for it. He was like, all right, let's focus in on these cities. Let's focus in on the murder rate and how you have a worse murder rate than we do. Let's talk about Parkland and use that very emotional event to land blows as well i mean partly the topic choice was very predictable you know we're going to talk about homelessness we're going to talk about crime we're going to talk about like cost of living and taxes so he was able to be extremely prepared he's a talented guy um one thing that hit for me in watching it is the fact that a lot of the younger politicians like Beto and Cory Which I think is more of a sort of like universally effective speaking style.

In any case, you're not going to knock that guy off of his game. He's much more comfortable on camera. That much is really clear. But maybe this will be a surprise for people. I thought DeSantis did fine. I think conservatives probably liked what he had to say. I saw a lot of takes that were like, I don't know why DeSantis even agreed to this. But I liked what he had to say. I saw a lot of takes that were like, I don't know why DeSantis even agreed to this, but I do. This guy's down in the

polls. He's got nothing to lose. He needs attention. He needs some kind of something around his campaign. And so in a weird way, if you're going to talk about winners and losers, I actually kind of thought they both won because DeSantis just needs attention and to prove he's up to the challenge and can own a lib when he needs to. And for Newsom, obviously, all he wants is to remain relevant through this period when Biden is the nominee and be able to keep himself in the conversation until next time around. And I'm sure he impressed a lot of people, too, in terms of his debating skills. So I actually thought this event kind of served them both pretty well. I'm glad that you said that because that was going to be my other test.

Why would he do this? This was such a disaster. No, it was actually great for DeSantis. This is also a Rorschach test. If you are a liberal, you're going to come away thinking Governor Gavin Newsom won. And if you're a conservative, you're going to come away thinking that DeSantis won because both played to the most emotive and important issues for their individual bases, unsurprisingly, to their strengths, and actually, I think, did a good job. That said, if we're looking at it from an electoral perspective, one of the ways that, again, Newsom was constantly able to get under DeSantis' skin was to use the Trump criticism

against him, especially on COVID. And that's what we're about to show you here, where DeSantis consistently made COVID lockdown school policy, I think, to great effect to be able to hit Newsom. But Newsom, in his showing, again, his political skill, it hits back. And he was like, no, you were a lockdown governor. You wore a mask in September. So let's take a listen to some of that. You passed an emergency declaration before the state of California did. You closed down your beaches, your bars, your restaurants. It's a fact listen to some of that. You passed an emergency declaration before the state of California did. You closed down your beaches, your bars, your restaurants. It's a fact.

You had quarantines. You had quarantines. You had checkpoints all over the state of Florida. By the way, I didn't say that. Donald Trump laid you out on this, dead to right. You did that. You followed science. You followed Fauci, Ron Zansack. That's not true.

He followed science. He followed Fauci. You were promoting. Why did everyone leave California to come to Florida? Hold on. You were promoting vaccines. Because weinsk. That's not true. He followed science. That's not true. He followed Fauci. And why did everyone leave California to come to Florida? Hold on. You were promoting vaccines. Because we were open. You were promoting vaccines. You even wore a mask in September.

We were open. You were closed. If it's okay with you, we'll do this. Why were you closed for so long? Why don't we do this in a way where we both can have opportunity? Why were you closed for so long? You wore a mask with Donald Trump outside in September 2020. He did all of that until he decided to fall prey to the fringe of his party.

And as a consequence of that, Ron, tens of thousands of people lost their lives. Not true. The equivalent, if I had your policies, the equivalent of 10 9-11s. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives. And for what, Ron? See, clearly, he's like, no, no, no, no, no. You change your mind later on. You, you know,

pursued some of the Fauci policy or whatever, March through September, because you were following along this same line. That's something that Trump himself has used against you. The best, you know, possible parry on all of that. So from that perspective, again, with Newsom, I thought that his his single best ability was to take uncomfortable moments and to either take control of the debate, laugh at Sean Hannity, immediately start questioning DeSantis himself and just ignore the criticism. From that perspective, he never looked ruffle. And this is where I want to come back to this. Newsom loves the the game he is a politician who is comfortable in his own shark skin and that is something you either have that or you don't you know buddha

judge the rest of them they all look a little bit under the lights not ready for prime time at a certain point you know newsome's been in the game for 20 years and more importantly he just loves it and and you can't take away that smile for somebody who loves to be in the middle of the arena. Also, the fact that he was against not only DeSantis, but on Hannity and came with such a structural disadvantage and still came away relatively unscathed from a optics point of view, that's really good. But I have to come back to this. I thought it was good for DeSantis. Net net he got some good uh he got some good some clips out of it he's gonna go viral amongst the right the right right wing people i bet he'll get some more uh i think he's gonna get some more

you know donations and things out of this look let's face it the guy's not gonna be the gop nominee barring unforeseen circumstances so this was probably the best thing for him to do yeah listen if you're just putting the ideology aside and i'm not a gavin newsom fan whatsoever so i think i'm able to watch it and just think about how it's probably landing and who's more politically skilled like there's no question gavin newsom is more politically skilled than ron desantis it's really not even close you know DeSantis had these couple of talking points about like people fleeing your state and yeah he looked more ruffled obviously his face like let's not even talk about his face every time the camera's on him it's awkward he doesn't know what to do with it right it is a thing and Newsom's out there

looking supremely confident taking over as moderator at times um you know in terms of doing the like traditional politician thing you're not going to find someone much better than gavin newsom so um so in any case you know i think it served both of their interests um pretty well but you know desantis had some some decent moments and saga you flagged this one which was yeah um harkens back to what has been the biggest critique of the Newsom administration and helped to launch that recall campaign against him, which he ended up defeating pretty easily, but did gain some traction there on the ground, was that he had a different set of rules for himself and his conduct during the pandemic versus all of the, you know,

all of the underclass and all of the rules that were applied to them. DeSantis hit him pretty effectively on that. Let's take a listen. They tax too much. They regulate too much. They have a political agenda. It's not a good climate for business. They've lost a lot of companies. A lot of companies have moved to Texas.

We have had some to Florida, but they've lost a lot of companies to Texas because they're not doing a good job looking out for folks and not creating a good business environment. And when I have people that come to Florida, they tell me, you know, you guys actually want us to succeed in Florida. And they feel like when they're in California, they don't want businesses to succeed. Is that what Disney's saying, the Tampa Bay Rays? Well, actually, yeah.

I think that's an interesting point with Disney because I had Disney open during COVID, and we made them a fortune, and we saved a lot of jobs. You had Disney closed inexplicably for over a year. You were not following science. You were a lockdown governor. You did a lot of damage to your people. You had more kids locked out of school for a longer period of time in California than anywhere else in the country. It was the working class kids.

It was the middle income kids. His kids were in private school. They were in class. He locked people out because of the teacher's union. He is owned by the teacher's union. You will never cross the teacher's union. Lock, stock, and barrel. Sagar, what do you think of that moment? Yeah, I mean, look, it's his best talking point. He's like, I did this one way. I did this the other way. I thought his second best talking point was about people who were leaving the state i had this is again where i have to marvel though at newsome newsome somehow jujitsu'd and was like well per capita more people are leaving florida it's like dude that's not the conversation no he had his his talking point which which checks out apparently yes is that more people have left Florida to go to California than have left California to go to Florida.

I agree, but on a per capita basis, whereas DeSantis is talking about the overall number. Again, in my opinion, that's bullshit. But he muddied the waters enough. Exactly. Because the other thing is, probably a lot of Californians are not going to Florida, they're going to Texas, right?

Or they're going to Arizona or Nevada or whatever. And so he was, but he came prepared. He knew this was going to beida they're going to texas right or they're going to arizona or what nevada or whatever exactly and so he was but he came prepared he knew this was going to be a big talking point all he needed to do was muddy the waters and be like no actually we're getting more florida residents i don't know what you talk you're talking about and then the average person was like i don't know yeah right the average person's like what uh what does politifact say oh wait per capita what is it i'm not entirely sure what that means what's for breakfast uh whereas i'm watching this and i'm just like i can't believe that he somehow did that but it is his best talking point no question i mean this is why desantis ultimately turned the state red is

people were very satisfied with the way that he handled the pandemic and schools that's the best single uh like the best single mirror that he can hold up against newsome there's's no question that the Newsom approach was a massive failure, especially. And this was another important moment that he would sprinkle through was about the literacy rates, Florida versus California in school versus not in school. Florida still, though, dipping below, unfortunately, just because school closure, just even the small amount that did occur there, it was enough to cause ramifications. But it brings it back to that point i thought though that desantis's weakest moment and this is the one everyone keeps so like his facial structure

and all that i agree it's it's not good uh but that's ever present i thought his weakest electoral moment was on abortion he was desantis is very comfortable school closure covet culture war i actually thought he won uh either or drew drew on every single one of those. He threw Newsom on his heels whenever it came to a lot of the culture war curriculum stuff, but he was rattled as hell whenever it came to abortion. You could really see Newsom hit his stride during that portion of the debate. Let's take a listen. But respectfully, this is an important conversation.

Will you or will you not support a national ban? Will you or will you not support a national ban if it lands on your desk? You couldn't answer that in any other context. Okay, gentlemen, we're moving on to the next issue. No, Sean, not the next issue. You never gave a week. The American people should know this. I'll answer it for Ron DeSantis. He can't answer it. He will sign that extreme six-week ban. Okay, let me move on.

So again, Newsom taking control, questioning DeSantis. DeSantis not confident at all in a six week ban, doesn't know what to do. Most of the Republicans pro-lifers have been trying to pivot this about late term abortion. But the truth is, is that late term abortion is just not, you know, electorally salient. So for me, that was the most electoral problem for DeSantis in that entire debate. And it just shows you the, you know, the albatross around their neck where they don't know how to handle this issue. And that that showed me again, New System's political skill where, look, you know, I would like for some of these culture war issues to be more salient. But the truth is, it's like they're not at all, as we have seen when you're put up against abortion.

And he he used the knife that he had very, very effectively in going after DeSantis on abortion. Yeah. It's also just you see his level of confidence up there, even being two to one against him, being on Fox News. He is taking control of the whole situation. And the other thing I would point out about that moment is I'm pretty sure that was the only, even slightly adversarial question that Sean Hannity asked of Ron DeSantis, which was like, why did you switch from 15-week ban to six-week ban? That was as harsh as it got for him.

And even that little bit of adversarial questioning, he sort of crumbles under. And it's one of these things that it's like, you know you're going to get that question. Like, you know this is going to be, maybe he didn't expect to get it from Fox News. I don't know. But he should certainly expect

that he's got to have an answer for this on the campaign trail, whether it's on Fox News or elsewhere. And you could just see that Newsom much steadier on his feet there. I mean, that is a clear place of strength for the Democratic Party at this point. But what was impressive to me about Newsom Hogan, I'm not a fan of. I think he's slippery. I think he's done some horrible things with regard to labor. I think he's

completely beholden to the donor class in California. Anytime labor priorities come up against Hollywood or Silicon Valley, he's back in Hollywood. He's back in Silicon Valley. So it's not like I like this guy, but you got to admire the game. He was able to take even the most difficult things about crime in California or about people leaving California or about the tax rate in California, whatever, in front of a conservative audience and at the very least muddy the waters and do it very confidently and actually win on a number of these points in very, very difficult circumstances. So I think he handled himself well. You know, I couldn't help but be impressed. And again, DeSantis, I don't he didn't embarrass himself. I think he did

fine. I think a lot of conservatives enjoyed what he had to say. His campaign right now, Sager, we got to admit it's like on the ropes. I mean, not only because he's still so far down from Trump and it continues to kind of like be a wider and wider gap, but Nikki Haley just got the Coke endorsement and all of the billions that come with that and all of the donor class sort of consolidation that comes with that. And so he's really in kind of a corner desperate situation right now. He's got to do whatever he can to try to get some attention try to have some moments and try to rescue himself from permanent political irrelevancy honestly absolutely oh it was the right it was the right call on his part uh i think he'll

come out better this might be one of the high water marks for him certainly uh whenever we're looking back on all that but uh it was interesting i would would like to see more of it. I actually would. I kind of enjoyed it, to be honest with you. The one thing I wish, Crystal, was that DeSantis wasn't running for president. It would have changed the stakes and it actually would have made it more policy focused. I would have enjoyed that more. So but at the same time, who's going to agree to be doing this if they're not presidential aspirants? So Kyle made the comment, which I think is it kind of felt like a throwback, like back to like an Obama Romney debate or, you know, something like that.

Like before Trump just scrambled all the circuitry and like injected this whole other chaotic force into politics. It was like, you know, you can imagine a parallel universe where these are the two nominees and you're having this sort of, you know, I mean, it's partisan and it's silly at times and parts of it are disgusting, etc. But it's this sort of like, quote unquote, normal political debate. That is what it felt like. It felt like kind of a throwback. I agree. OK, guys, we will see you all later. I hope you enjoyed this Friday morning update and we will see you on Monday.

Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. High key.

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