Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/21/25: Trump Sweeping Executive Orders, Jan 6 Pardons, Vivek Exiled, Trump Predicts Gaza Ceasefire Failure

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump's executive orders, Trump pardons Jan 6ers, Vivek exiled by Musk, Trump predicts Gaza ceasefire collapse.    Shelby Talcott: https://x.com/ShelbyTalcott?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor  To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Are we up?

I think we are. I'm not exactly sure in terms of what the holding screen says here, so I'm just going to talk as if we are actually live. It is the first day of the Donald Trump administration, I guess first full day here, after Donald Trump's inauguration yesterday as the 47th president of the United States. Later in the day, Crystal, he took to both Capital One Arena and the Oval Office to sign hundreds of executive orders. We're expecting more executive orders later today, as well as

a press conference around 4 p.m. They say that they're doing a big infrastructure project. So for those of you who've been in politics for a while, you may remember something called Infrastructure Week under Donald Trump back in 2017. And I guess Infrastructure Week is back. It became a joke, but maybe it's not a joke anymore. You know, maybe it's maybe it's officially real. But what we're going to do here is that we're doing a live stream because things are moving very quickly and our ability to be able to prepare a show would be dated by the time that we were even able to put out.

So we're going to react to some of the news from yesterday and then just generally be live with all of you. Kind of a fun new format here to just go through everything with everyone about what's coming in and obviously react to the big stories, the big actions. We do not have a White House press secretary scheduled for today, but Trump will apparently not only be doing a – Trump will not only be doing a press conference on this infrastructure thing. He said he will be taking questions as well. So, Wilson, hope to see you. You took a lot of questions yesterday. So, what do we have today?

A lot of stuff. And, by the way, there's something a little weird going on with, like, our monitors. Yeah, I'm not sure what's happening. So, if we look confused. Yeah, that's why we may seem a little like, where are we and what are we doing? But, in any case, there are a bunch of executive orders to go through. A lot of drill, baby, drill. A lot of drill, baby, drill, a lot of immigration. So we'll break some of the

highlights or lowlights, depending on your perspective, of those down for you. Shelby Talcato is going to join us, fantastic reporter. She's going to be taking a look at the January 6th pardons, which was quite across the board, not just nonviolent January 6th offenders, but people who were beating cops as well. And then there were a few that were sentenced commutations. So she's going to break that down for us. She's also going to break down for us the news about the vague is officially out at Doge. He was the first cut.

Many people have made this joke at this point. But he was the first one to face the act. He's been banished to the hinterlands, to the provinces from the imperial capital. Yeah. So, I mean, it's interesting. There's a Politico article that suggests Elon really just was kind of, like, annoyed with him. Even before the, like, Saved by the Bell, Boy Meets World screed. So that was the excuse to push him aside.

But in any case, we'll get Shelby's thoughts and what she knows about all of that. Update on what appears increasingly to be a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. Trump weighed in on this himself and said he has little confidence that that ceasefire will be able to hold. So we'll take a look at that. We're also taking a look at the whole TikTok situation, which is interesting. We touched on it a little bit yesterday, but wanted to dive into that more because it is, I mean, it says so much about Trump and Republicans and Democrats and who, how to wield power in this era, etc. So we'll take a look at that. We're also going to take a look at these Trump and Melania shit coins.

Some pastor who was involved in the inauguration decided to also get in on the action and drop his own meme coin. So wild things happening there. And a little Elon awkward gesture controversy that has the internet and the media and all the people are talking about this. So Sagar and I will take a look. Yeah, I guess we can debate it because I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say. But okay, all right.

I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say. Let's go say, yeah, that's right. I don't think there's anything that original to say about it. But yeah, so be it. I guess that's what the people want about Elon and Nazism, et cetera. So everyone get ready for a Roman salute history lesson. Oh, boy. If that's what people want, if we're going to do it, let's do it.

Let's start off with Donald Trump. I apologize, everybody. I just want everybody to know this. I got like four hours of sleep last night, and I was out very, very late. And as people know here, I'm a baby about my bedtime, okay? I need my eight hours, and so I've got two cups of coffee and a Diet Coke here. Bear with me with the slips and everything. This is for live streaming.

We're keeping it casual. You can call him Donald Dump all you want, in my opinion. Yes, that's right. I'm going to start sounding like Kyle, you know? But anyways, let's go with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Producers, can we please cue up the clip? Just come in my ear and tell me whenever it's ready. Trump was in the Oval Office for a long time yesterday, actually much later than he was

originally scheduled to, signing multiple executive orders. Some of them are posturing. Some of them will take effect immediately. One of the more high-profile ones, as opposed to January 6th, was this order on birthright citizenship. So let's take a listen, if we can, to what happened in the Oval Office whenever he was signing that. This next order relates to the definition of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment of the United States. That's a good one. Birthright. That's a big one. What about that one in the course? That one is likely to good one. Birthright. That's a big one. What about that one? That one

could be. I think we have good ground, but you could be right. I mean, you'll find out. It's ridiculous. We're the only country in the world that does this with birthright, as you know. And it's just absolutely ridiculous. But, you know, we'll see. We think we have very good grounds. All right. So what we have there from Trump was one of these birthright citizenship orders. It was part of a slate of executive actions. Guys, can we go ahead and put the Trump executive orders, New York Times tear sheet, please, up on the screen so I can just read through a bunch of these. So, for example, one of the more important ones on the federal workforce was freezing of federal hiring. This is a resumption of a policy that was held under the first Trump administration. One of them was to grant top security clearances

to the White House staff. There was also some, like I said, some symbolic stuff stripping John Bolton and a few others of their own security clearances. Yeah, all the people who signed on to that Hunter Biden infamous, oh, it has the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. That's right. They've been stripped of their security clearance. I didn't even know that those people got to keep their security clearance, which is kind of ridiculous. Probably should terminate on your end of government service.

Whatever. On immigration, we are going to, quote, bar asylum for people newly arriving at the border, move to end birthright citizenship. That's the one that we just showed you. That is going to face constitutional challenge within the hour and will quickly make its way to the United States Supreme Court. It is actually an interesting question because the way that the executive order is phrased is specifically trying to target people who are in the country illegally. So it gets to this question of temporary visa status and the citizenship of the people who are born in the United States from those parents. I don't know. I've talked to a bunch of different lawyers. The odds generally

seem to be against Trump. It would probably have to change a constitution. It's like the census. You know, the census, the way we do the census is ridiculous, but it literally says in the constitution that you have to do the census that way, and nobody seems like they want to change it. So there's that one. There is the declaring migrant crossing along the U.S.-Mexico border to be a, quote, national emergency. The National Emergency Declaration unlocks federal funding kind of in the way that you'll do it for a hurricane or something like that. Could also face some constitutional challenge, but because it went through last time around, it worked its way through the courts. There's some legal precedents considering, oh, and then designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organization. Same thing,

it opens up a lot of sanctions power. And also, as you pointed out yesterday, Crystal, opens up the AUMF order if they want to pursue that. On DEI, it was terminating DEI programs across the federal government, recognizing two sexes, male and female. I love the way they put this. Remove protections for transgender people in federal prison. Tariffs. This is actually arguably the most important one here for everybody. So this is basically a confirmation of what Jeff Stein had previously reported. There is no, quote, day one tariff going into effect. The way they are doing this is moving it through the federal process for a study. So what he's effectively said is we're going to carry out a full review of the U.S. industrial

and manufacturing base. The reason that you have to do that is that legally to be able to impose tariffs, you need a justification. So there's some 180-day period where the government goes out, assesses, does a review, and based on that review, you're allowed to then declare a tariff based on a national security basis. The reason why you need to do this study is to survive legal scrutiny. So this is the beginning of the legal process to get us to tariffs, but it will not come through 100%. Similarly, like this, began an investigation into trade practices and trade deficits. This is all legalistic language, but it's very important for actually getting this stuff done. And then finally,

there were a bunch of executive orders withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, declaring a national emergency, which could expedite the permitting, like to get around permitting reform problems for drilling. And yeah, I think, oh, and then the last one is TikTok, but we will get to that. So there you go. Yeah. And he also issued, like I said, blanket pardons, excuse me, for the J6 people. So we'll talk to Shelby about that as well. A couple other things. He rescinded a bunch of Biden executive orders, a couple of those that are interesting. One of them was aimed at reducing prescription drug prices for people who are on Medicare and Medicaid. That was reversed by Trump.

Another one that is significant that we can also talk about a little bit in the context of the latest with regards to the ceasefire is, you'll remember, Biden put into place an executive order allowing them to sanction extreme violent Israeli settlers. That has been applied to some roughly 33 people. He rolled that back as well. And this is consequential right now in particular because settlers are rampaging and rioting like crazy in the West Bank, of course, oftentimes with the backing of the Israeli government. That has been rolled back. Two additional things just to note here and can get your take on too, Sagar. So Jeff Stein is reporting about the latest indications with regards to Trump and the tariff regime. So he

says takeaways from Trump's press are related to the things I cover and maybe you care about. 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada could start in 10 days. Obviously, Trump has been, you know, I guess, aggressively talking to both the Canadians and the Mexican government about what that could look like. You know, if that's an across-the-board tariff, that is insanely consequential. It's very consequential for the auto industry. Those auto parts, as part of the manufacturing process, cross back and forth over the borders multiple times in the course of putting together a vehicle. So that would be incredibly consequential in terms of building materials. In terms of oil, especially Midwest, so if there aren't exemptions, but these are all big question marks if we don't have a lot of clarity on all of this. So put that one to the side.

China could be hit with major tariffs if they don't sell TikTok. Suggests 100% as a possibility. We can talk more about that in the TikTok section. Universal tariff on all countries still on the table. Trump thinks Russia's economy is falling apart but wouldn't comment on if he would keep U.S. sanctions. And Elon Musk's doge will get a White House office with 20 people. More to say about that in a moment as well. Yeah.

To go back to the birthright citizenship piece, the reason why you're saying it'll be clearly challenged if the lawsuit hasn't already been filed, it will be imminently filed. The 14th Amendment says, Section 1 states, all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the U.S. and of the state wherein they reside. Now, scholars in particular on the right who want to say, no, no, that doesn't mean that everybody who's born in the U.S. is a citizen, they point to that subject to the jurisdiction thereof and make the case that potentially some of these individuals aren't really subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, so they don't count as citizens. I think it's previously been a relatively fringe legal argument that has been made. However, you now have, you know, a Supreme Court that is very conservative. And so question mark, what would happen there? And then I think the other question is like, you know, how far does Trump want to push things? Because let's just say theoretically that this goes through the court system, goes to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court's like, no, it's in the Constitution. You can't just end birthright citizenship with an executive order. That's not how this works. There's also a possibility that Trump says, as Andrew Jackson said in the past, like, OK, well, how are you going to enforce that? You and what army are going to enforce that? So since you have this time around, and this is part of what's different, number one, he has immunity for anything that he does in office. So he doesn't have to worry about any sort of, you know, criminal consequences or whatever, that's off the table. Number two, and as part of these executive orders, Schedule F was instituted, you know,

there's been a highly concerted and organized effort in the four years when he was out of power to make sure that he has loyalists in place who will execute on orders, even things that may not be legal, may not be constitutional. So I think you can fully expect the executive branch would go along with whatever his interpretation is. So, you know, it really does open up, like I said, a question about how far is he willing to go on this if the court to do what I think most people would expect them to do, although there are no guarantees of striking down this particular executive order. Yeah, that's right. That's a big question, actually, for a lot of the way the Supreme Court. And by the way, apparently,

Justice Sotomayor, somebody I knew who was in the rotunda, was not looking too healthy. So just people should prepare themselves now that Donald Trump is the president. Can you believe she did not resign? Can you believe she did not resign? Yeah, I do. No, I can believe it too. But it's like after the whole RBG, this is a diabetic 70-year-old woman who's like borderline obese. Like, do I need to show you what a chart looks like? And beyond that, why would you want to string it out your last years voting in the minority, you know, and then allegedly being in the service of some grander ideal? It's just the

most insane thing I've ever seen. Then again, you can say the same thing about our president, now the oldest to be sworn into office, actuarial tables about his age and weight, et cetera. J.D.'s sitting right there in the wings, okay? So it's not the similar situation where literally like, I mean, imagine, like that would mean, it'd be like if there was no vice president and you were that old and you could have risked it to bring in a Democrat. That would be an insane situation. Yeah, it'd be like if the person who was going to take over for Trump, it's like Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, exactly. Pelosi or like Barack Obama or something.

Pelosi was the speaker, and they're like, oh, I'm just going to chance it, and maybe a Democrat will become the president of the United States. So that's what she's decided to do. Overall, with the executive orders, what I would say broadly is that this is a result really of preparation over the last four years. And I made this point in our stream yesterday, but I want to reiterate it here for people. I think it's really interesting to consider that Trump is actually at the absolute apex of his powers because he was not in the Oval Office for the last four years, both culturally with Joe Biden nuking the Democratic Party. I think they have the lowest approval rating for the last four years, both culturally with Joe Biden nuking the Democratic Party. I think they have the lowest approval rating for the Democratic Party in modern history.

According to Gallup polling, he wins the popular vote. But more importantly is the last four years were a battle test of the GOP. Back in 2020, the John McCain's, the Jeff Flakes, the Liz Cheney's, and all of those other people, there was not a ton, but there was a little bit of consternation ideologically and theoretically about the party. But Trump being able to get away with all of the things that he has done, still get the nomination and still get elected to the White House on top of a four-year, what I would almost describe as like a cooling off period for the conservative movement where everyone had a fight about DeSantis versus Trump and all of that. Then Trump won. So for the last two years, the conservative legal establishment, the Federalist Society, all of these people have gotten together and be like, okay, like we're doing this if we win. And this is the way that

we're going to do it. That's so different. I mean, monumentally different than 2017, where everything was up for grabs. Half the people who worked for Trump didn't even like Trump. They actually voted against him or they denounced him a month before they were working as White House chief of staff or whatever, like Reince previous. senior executive service and others who will be replacing the current bureaucrats, the lawyer, people like Will Scharf, the guy who was in that video, the staff secretary. These are Harvard Princeton educated lawyers. These are people with a blue pedigree background. Stephen Miller and them have been working behind the scenes now for years to be able to prepare this. So I do think it will look very different this time around in the interim. Now, there will always be chaos. There will always be Mika Brzezinski facelift tweets, truths, you know, and all of that, et cetera. But at an actionable level, I expect it and see this

in such a difference from last time. I mean, don't you remember that travel ban order he put in place in his first week? It was reversed 10 days later, you know, and it was just chaotic. It made no sense. This time around, everything, like you know, and it was just chaotic. It made no sense. This time around, everything, like the tariffs, everything is moving through the technical legal process to avoid court challenge, to avoid many of the things that struck them down and he had problems with. So that's really what I see in the professionalism of a lot of the people around Donald Trump. That has nothing to do with Trump himself, but it has to do with his movement, what people believe in, and actually trying to make actionable many of the things he talked about on the campaign.

Yeah. I mean, the way that I would say that is basically they have their ducks in a row, and there are no brakes left on the car. And he doesn't have to answer to anyone. He doesn't have to get reelected. He doesn't have to get reelected for reelection again. So there's no, you know, Democratic break. Any sort of GOP opposition has been vanquished. You know, I mean, a lot of Democratic opposition has been vanquished. See the fact that Marco Rubio got approved, which is like total neocon warmonger, but whatever, got approved 99 to nothing in his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday. And it shows you what a great fight the Democrats are putting up

this time around. And I think part of that is, you know, not only, yes, he won the popular vote, you know, by a point and a half. Yes, there's this, you know, huge sort of vibe shift with all the like tech oligarchs backing him and this like cultural, right wing cultural consensus that is formed, especially in particular sort of at elite levels where this has been embraced as their path to make sure that they hold their grip on power, et cetera. So you have all of those pieces that have come together. And then also, you know, Trump from a business perspective, he, in his first administration, he, his big accomplishment was passing a giant tax cut. Some of the more, like, populist direction that he had embraced in 2016, now he's, you know,

hanging out with the masters of the universe, tech oligarch types. He had, like, four of the five richest people in the world at his inauguration sitting behind him yesterday. And so the business community doesn't feel threatened or afraid anymore the way that they did the last time. They feel like there's more to be gained from collaborating with him than there is to be gained from opposing him. So, yeah, I mean, and like I said, one of the questions, okay, so there's a whole raft of executive orders. The birthright citizenship one is not the only one that is ultimately going to be challenged in federal court. And then the question is, okay, well, how far is he going to go? Because what we're basically relying on at this point is for Donald Trump to check himself, to say, you know, the court said I can't do that, so I'm not going to do that.

Because there is no other check in place. Like, that has been part of the effort of the past four years and really consolidated by the Supreme Court with the immunity decision. That has been the project the last four years is to make sure there are no possible checks in place. And yes, they've been very successful at that. So, you know, if I have to look at these executive orders, I took, I read through the whole, the entire, you know, thread listing, all of them, there are quite a number of them, a lot of them in a lot of different directions. You know, there was some like woke DEI, anti-DEI stuff, the transgender, there's only two genders, one. But I think the bulk of them, the impetus is on a really militarized,

aggressive immigration approach. And then the, you know, really opening up, getting rid of any semblance of concern about climate, obviously, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords. I mean, nobody's been following those anyway, so I don't know how consequential that is. But rolling back things like the EV tax credits, making sure rescinding any restrictions on where you can drill, etc. So, you know, from my perspective, at a time when we're seeing more and more extreme climate emergencies, including the ones we just saw in L.A., I think that's a disastrous direction to go in. But those are the two, you know, major pushes here in the early priority of the oil and gas companies. And the tariffs would potentially cut in the opposite direction. Yeah, that's right. They actually could. Yeah, it's depending on how, you know, what the tariffs end up being.

That's what I was going to say. It would be interesting because it could actually increase net export of natural gas and oil if we do tariff, because then we wouldn't be bringing as much. Or so, yeah, it would actually increase net export of natural gas and oil if we do tariff, because then we wouldn't be bringing as much. Or so, yeah, it would decrease our net exports, which is kind of the opposite of where the oil companies and all of them want to go to. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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So, guys, let's go and bring her in and we'll discuss. So there she is. Shelby, how are you? Good. How are you? We're great. Thank you so much for joining us. So, guys, can we go ahead and put a tear sheet here on the January 6th pardon?

Shelby, Donald Trump, one of the big executive orders that he signed yesterday, was commuting the sentences of the Crowdboy and Oathkeeper leaders, along with some over 1,000 other January 6th Capitol rioters. Just talk to us about some of the background that went into this. There was a big question mark as to who exactly would get commutations and pardons. J.D. Vance, the vice president, was on television about nine days ago and had indicated that it would be less sweeping, I guess, than currently. How did they come to that decision and what's the end result? Yeah, I think everybody thought that it was going to

be less sweeping because we heard from so many Trump allies and even Donald Trump himself over the past two years who sort of said that it would be on a case-by-case basis. And there were a lot of people who told me that they would be doing it on a case-by-case basis. And like J.D. Vance said, if you, for example, beat up a police officer, then you deserve to go to prison. But that's not what ultimately happened. And I think what's really interesting here is the backstory. I've done a lot of reporting over the last two years on this situation. And remember, right after January 6th, Donald Trump never really wanted to bring that up. He condemned the situation, even if it was a little bit forced. And then he really didn't want to bring it up.

He never mentioned it on the campaign trail. But there was an outside effort from allies of these defendants to get him on board. And so they started sort of petitioning people in his orbit. And then Donald Trump tapped an individual to oversee the January 6th defendants and their supporters. And they started coming to Mar-a-Lago and they started meeting with Donald Trump and sort of petitioning him. And over the course of two years, we've seen how his opinion of these defendants has changed drastically. And it ultimately ended up that he just gave a sweeping pardon, which I think people in his orbit didn't even anticipate. Interesting. Talk about some of the specifics of the people who were pardoned. I think there were some like

14 or 16, something like that, who had their sentences commuted. And Trump said, we can look into them further. Maybe they also deserve a full pardon. But by and large, everybody, whether they, you know, just sort of wandered in and didn't know what they were doing allegedly, or whether they were, you know, involved in violently assaulting police officers, by and large, they were all set free, pardoned, full and complete pardon, et cetera. So give us some of the specifics of some of the people that we're talking about here and what they were convicted for doing on January 6th. So one of the people who did get a pardon is Enrique Tarrio. He used to head up the Proud

Boys. He was serving 22 years in prison for a seditious conspiracy. And then there were also five other, I believe, Proud Boys who had their sentences commuted. And there were 14 in total sentences that were commuted. And Donald Trump said that they're going to be taking a look and seeing if they could potentially go even farther with that. But then there were other people who were sentenced for various crimes, for breaking and entering, for violence against a police officer. We had a wide array of crimes in this January 6th with these January 6th defendants, and everybody has essentially been pardoned or commuted. One of the things I'm always curious about, Shelby, is how these things

happen. And with Trump, we know that there are always, you know, various side characters and pressures and other things happening. What, since you wrote the story about this, what's your assessment, like the activists and others who've been involved? I know of some people like Julie Kelly and Lara Logan, for example, who really made this into a cause over the last couple of years. Was it their media pressure? Was it lawmakers? Just talk to us about that. I don't think it was media pressure because the vast majority of the media was covering this really from one side of things. I think it was this, you have to remember also Kash Patel, who is very close to Donald Trump and going to be presumably in his administration, was also

involved in this. He had a sort of, I think it was a nonprofit where he raised money for some of the January 6th defendants. When I spoke to him about this last year, he said that it was on a case by case basis and that none of the money was going to violent offenders. I didn't get any details about what those investigations looked like to determine who got the money or not, but he's been involved. And so these were people really close to Donald Trump. And so what happened was these outside figures like Julie Kelly, like the lawyers for the January 6th defendants, started petitioning these folks. And then these folks who were in Donald Trump's orbit helped bring them into Mar-a-Lago and helped have events. Donald Trump had events for January 6th defendants at Mar-a-Lago over the past two years. And it sort

of all was a slow leak towards the big boss, Donald Trump. And eventually, as he sat down and talked with these folks, he was convinced, as Donald Trump often does, right? He talks to people all the time. He always wants people's advice. And I think over the past two years, the other thing to note is a lot of people in Donald Trump's orbit, as these defendants continued to get charged, and as Donald Trump himself was facing legal issues, all of that affected his decision and how he ultimately became, you know, a January 6th supporter of these defendants. He saw what the January 6th defendants were going through and said, I'm going through the same thing. That makes sense. I think it's worth remembering, you know,

on the day of January 6th and in the immediate aftermath, there was almost universal horror. You know, both at sort of conservative media outlets, places like Fox News were horrified. Many Republicans in the immediate aftermath, Republican elected officials were horrified. The public continues to be horrified. You know, taking this action is tremendously unpopular. So talk to us about the, you know, the kind of what it says about the Republican Party and how it's moved over this past number of years that now, I mean, I don't know, maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't expect anybody really to pipe up and be like, this is wrong. They assaulted police officers on the Republican side. Like, he shouldn't have done this. They're just going to go along with it at this point, which is tremendously different from the immediate reaction in the aftermath of that day.

I think it shows that Donald Trump is fully in charge of the Republican Party. And I've, to be clear, heard from a lot of folks who are close to Donald Trump who were a little bit unsettled by this decision. But will they come out and say it publicly? Probably not, because their feeling is Donald Trump is in charge and this is what he has decided. But I know a lot of people in the Republican Party are a little bit uncomfortable by this. I think that they would have been far more comfortable if it had been done by a case by case basis. And if those individuals who did do more violent crimes were not released.

And Shelby, what do you think it says about this Trump administration coming in, too, that, you know, as you pointed out just weeks ago, his own vice president was like, well, of course, the violent ones should be in prison and deserve to serve time. And now here we are weeks later, and it's like, nope, blanket, basically across the board. They're all no problem, good to go. Seditious conspiracy, beating a cop, doesn't matter. You're set free. What does it say about how he's approaching this four-year term? He makes all the decisions. And I also think, you know, when he, when Donald Trump comes to a decision on something, he takes the advice of a

lot of people. But ultimately, everybody in his orbit has always told me, you can give Donald Trump all the advice you want. But at the end of the day, he makes the decision based on what he wants to do. And he'll take your advice oftentimes, and he'll keep it in mind. But he is the ultimate decision maker. And I think this is also example, his chief of staff, has been in his orbit and survived in his orbit for a really long time when a lot of other people have not. And that is partially because she's learned when to pick her battle. So my thinking of this situation is his mind was so made up, probably in part because he himself had gone through all of these legal issues that he felt were unjust, that it was not worth that fight. And so that's how a lot of people in Donald Trump's orbit are looking at it as, yeah, I don't love this, but it's just not worth the fight. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean. But the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone.

In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, we wanted to talk to you about Doge and Vivek Ramaswamy. Guys, can we go ahead and put this up there on the screen? The news is out and it's official 100%. Vivek Ramaswamy will be exiting Doge before it even really gets a chance to begin. They write, everyone wants him out. How Musk helped boot Ramaswamy from Doge. Can you give us some of the backstory here? I know I heard this

probably same to you as Tension and Mar-a-Lago, etc. I'm not sure I realized the extent to which Elon Musk had turned on Vivek actually even earlier and prior to his tweet about American culture. So what do you—first give us some of the backstory and then give us some of what you think about what it portends for the future Trump administration. There's a lot of stories going around, right? You hear from Vivek Ramaswamy allies who say, no, no, this is all just because he wants to run for governor. Right. Probably a little bit of it. But certainly there were tensions that I think none of us really realized.

And I think it came down to, from what I've been told by some people, another version of the story is that there wasn't enough work being done by Vivek and that that H-1B visa debate where he came out and supported it and kind of trashed American culture was another big reason, sort of the nail in the coffin, to get rid of him. But there are a lot of stories going around. Some people have said that he was annoying Donald Trump, in addition to Elon Musk. But ultimately, the run for governor, the impending run for governor, sort of gave them an easy out to, I think, push him out sooner.

Because I know as recently as last week, I was talking to people close to Vivek who were telling me, yes, his plan has always been all along, do Doge for nine months and then run for governor. And certainly it has not been nine months. So are we, like, he just was annoying? Like, they just didn't like working with him? Is that basically what it came down to? And then they're like, oh, the same by the bell thing. This is our ticket to push this guy out entirely. i haven't i honestly have not heard anything you know any specific instance or a specific blow-up fight it was just from my understanding a bunch of different small things combined with some people some people's personalities just don't work. Exactly. Wow, that is genuinely

hilarious. And with the new, Donald Trump also signed an executive order sort of solidifying Doge within the U.S. government, might have been difficult for Vivek Ramaswamy to do that while also running for Ohio governor. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. So the executive order, people are flagging, all it really did was change what the digital... The IT service department. Yeah, there was some already existing digital modernization thing that was created actually by Obama. And they're like, we're just renaming this Doge. And so the way the executive order is written, at least, doesn't have this broad reaching like slash regulations and cut personnel and do all of these things. The executive order is pretty narrowly focused on IT, which some are saying like, oh, well, that would be a great way for you to give yourself and your friends a lot of tech contracts.

But what is your reading of the specifics of that executive order and whether that has any bearing on what the ultimate mandate of Doge is going to be? So from my understanding, the Doge will get a White House office with about 20 people. And then each agency, this executive order directs each agency to implement sort of their own Doge team. And so that is sort of how they're going to go about it. But you're right, a lot of it is directed on, you know, boosting the technology capabilities, which we already have. So I, you know, I don't think we know the answer of how effective it's going to be. And the other question that I have that I don't have the answer to is, with these teams, with these interagency teams, is there also going to be an out-of-agency overarching team that sort of oversees all of it and directs each agency into, here's what we want you to do for the agency, here's how much money we want you to cut,

or is it going to be up to each individual team to try to, you know, get a combined $1 trillion? Yeah, very, very important. Are you seeing any there's been a lot of speculation, like, oh, Trump is certainly at some point going to fall out with Elon Musk and be upset that he's stealing the spotlight, blah, blah, blah. I don't really see any signs of it. But what do I know? I'm like, totally on the outside. Have there been any indications of that as best as you can tell, Shelby? I haven't seen it. And again, you know, when I ask people about this, there have been people in Trump's orbit who are close to Trump who don't love Elon Musk, right?

Steve Bannon, for example, has not made it a secret that he has issues with Elon Musk. But Elon Musk has a lot of money, and Donald Trump likes people who have a lot of money. And so Elon Musk also really helped Donald Trump win the election. And so for now, especially with Donald Trump in office, I think actually that helps because it was one thing to be at Mar-a-Lago where Elon Musk, even though Mar-a-Lago is a private club, could get in pretty easily and be very close to Donald Trump day in and day out. Once he's in the Oval Office, it's going to be more difficult. And I think that helps Elon Musk because he won't be around every single day. Interesting. Yeah, that is a really good point. Well, oh, sorry. Oh, well, before I let you go, Shelby, I had to pick your brain on tennis. If you had any time to watch the Australian Open this week, for people who don't know, Shelby was a pro tennis player, which is crazy. I didn't even know that. And unbelievably impressive. I've known you for eight years. I don't even know that.

I am in awe of that. But have you got any time to watch? There have been some incredible matches. I saw Djokovic took out Alcaraz early this morning or last night or something like that. Yeah, I'm a big Djokovic fan. Are you? I have not gotten to watch a ton of tennis because I've been so busy. But my mom watches it nonstop. So I

always hear about it from her and she always texts me as if I have it on, you know, the screen 24 hours and him watching it. Um, but I know a lot of the girls who, who were competing in it. So I also see it like on my Instagram. Um, but I haven't, who do you cheer for female tennis player? Who's your favorite? Um, you know, I haven't watched it. I haven't really been in tune for a few years. You have other things going on. For like the oldies from like, you know, eight or ten years ago. I took a break. I was a little washed up. I needed a break from it. I relate to that. I relate to that. I relate to that.

I never achieved the athletic prowess that you did, but being a former swimmer, people are like, oh, do you still swim? Nope. Not unless I'm just like, you know, hanging out, lounging, whatever. So, Shelby, in any case, you're a pro and a star reporter that we always appreciate. So thank you so much for helping shed some light on these early actions in the Trump administration. Thank you, Shelby. We appreciate it. Anytime.

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

Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia

that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis.

We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean. But the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down.

He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. So we wanted to talk a little bit about the latest with regard to this, what I think we can now pretty clearly call a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, which went into effect shortly before Trump took office. Mac, let's go ahead and pull up just so people can see, you know, as now Palestinians in Gaza are starting to return home. We're getting more and more images of some of the devastation here.

Mac, if you can pull up the Gaza devastation and also this image of Jabalia that we have here in the rundown. You know, I mean, the level of destruction is just nearly complete, especially in northern Gaza. It's absolutely insane what it looks like. You can see it's just, I don't even know what that is. That looks like an ambulance at one point. You can see images of vehicles, trucks that are crushed, rubble everywhere.

People have been reporting that as they've been returning to their destroyed homes. Horrific reports of relatives' remains that they're finding, in some instances with sniper wounds having been shot in the head. There have been some breaches, by the way, too, already of the ceasefire by the Israelis in the Gaza Strip. So it has been largely calm, but not 100 percent calm. And then Trump actually was asked yesterday, if we can prepare the Trump ceasefire shot, Trump was actually asked yesterday in the context of signing all of these executive orders how confident he was that they would be able to maintain the calm in Gaza. Let's go ahead when you guys are ready for that and take a listen to that. Are you surprised that you can keep the ceasefire in Gaza and conclude the three phases of this deal?

I'm not confident. This is not our war. It's their war. I apologize. I'm not confident, but I think they're very weakened on the other side. Do you support the two-state deal? Gaza, boy, I looked at a picture of Gaza. Gaza is like a massive

demolition site. That place is it's really got to be rebuilt in a different way. Are you planning to help rebuilding Gaza? My mind. You know, Gaza's interesting. It's a phenomenal location. On the sea,

best weather. You know, everything's good. It's like phenomenal location on the sea. Best weather. You know, everything's good. It's like some beautiful things could be done with it. But it's very interesting. But some fantastic things could be done with Gaza. How do you see the future in governance for Gaza? Well, it depends.

I can't imagine you could have. Well, you certainly can't have the people that were there. Most of them are dead. So he says there he's not confident at all that this will continue. And, you know, Sagar, this, of course, comports with some of what

Bibi Nanyahu has been saying as well and Bezalel Smotrich. So I think Shael, when we had him on, laid it out pretty clearly that basically, you know, as part of Bibi's coalition, he had Ben-Gavir, who has now actually exited the coalition because he's upset about this deal. And he has Smotrich. Smotrich extracted a promise. I mean, I don't know that Bibi was like really opposed to this, but that they would go back to the war once phase one was complete. And this has now been reported by many Israeli sources.

Bibi himself came out and said effectively the same thing. He said that he got promises both from Biden and from Trump that they would be able to return to the war after phase one was complete. And so when you see Trump here, two of his executive actions, too, by the way, and I'll get to that in just a moment, had to do with Israel. But when you see him here, honestly, just like, yeah, whatever, I'm not confident it's going to continue, not seeming to really care whether it continues or not. I think it's a very negative indication of where this is potentially heading. Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I think I was I was modestly I was modestly optimistic that something would happen because I thought that the Israeli government might fall, not because of what pressure would happen on the Trump side. And I don't know.

Maybe I still am an idiot, but, I mean, Israelis, do you really want to keep this shit going? Like, you're losing a lot of money. 500 of your soldiers were killed as a result of the same ceasefire deal being on the table. I mean, I know the government may not care about the hostages, but I know all of you care about the hostages. There's still a lot of hostages who are being left. Like, you know, is this really the course of action that you want to take? We've had a resurgence and or recruitment of a number of Hamas people. If you want to continue the war, this will take, I mean, how long has it been since October 7th? It's been almost 18 months, right? So if you think about it in Iraq context, we're roughly in the 05 mark.

And, like, guess what happened to somebody else's country when they fought a similar type war in 05? It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare for years going forward. That's effectively what you were committing yourself to. So maybe I'm dumb. I just think that I still have modest a modest confidence. Like there's some democratic input or something going on in that country. I have no idea. Um, look, cause I think, I think what they would say, obviously I wildly disagree with this, but what they would say is

it's, it's sort of analogous to when we withdrew from Afghanistan, then you have to reckon with this. What did we do all these years? Right? The Taliban is just right back in power. Like, what were we doing all, what did we spend all this money for? What did we lose all these lives for? What did we destroy this entire country for? Like, what were we doing? And it's a similar thing here. Like, already, you know, Hamas is out in the streets, and they're happy that the, you know, ceasefire is in place. And there is no other because, you know, the Israelis weren't interested actually in some sort of peaceful solution that would lead to a better governance. Bibi has always

enjoyed the fact that Hamas was in power in Gaza. So he could point to them and say, I don't have a partner for peace. Those dynamics haven't changed. And so they don't want to have a reckoning with the fact that, yes, they killed a lot of civilians. Yes, Gaza is rubble. Yes, they have inflicted mass pain, suffering, starvation, illness, death, etc. But you did not destroy Hamas. And so I think there's a desire to not reckon with that reality that pushes not all but a large part of Israeli society

towards, no, we just need to keep killing more. We just need to keep this war going. And, you know, certainly within the like Bibi's coalition, that's the majority, I would say, sentiment is in that direction. So, you know, again, there was some hope that, like, maybe this would be important to Trump because he would think it would be embarrassing if they just went back to the fighting. But certainly the indications from that side are, he's just like, yeah, it's their war, whatever. I don't think it'll really hold, but we'll see. I think you're right. I mean, look, let's also be honest. Like, Trump is the most pro-Israel president to literally ever take office. Not in terms of his background, but in terms of the concrete promises he made.

And the people he's put in place. Miriam Adelson was sitting right there at the inauguration. As you said, I've tried to prepare people for reality. The reality is Israel is going to annex the West Bank, okay? Get over it. And if you were with Trump, like, that's just part of the things you're going to have to think. If you care a lot about it, you shouldn't have voted for him. I don't know what to tell you.

If you didn't want, if you want him to cut weapons off to Israel, it will never happen in the current political context. The issue has become totally polarized left and right. There is zero, what, reward mechanism in the Republican Party. That's right. But why would you do it? You know, I mean, I can't, you don't even want to know. Maybe one day I'll tell everybody the stories here about what even my modest commentary, I would think, maybe you would disagree, on the Israel issue has cost me in terms of my personal life, in terms of ties cut, et cetera, and bullshit smears, you know, being pushed

behind the scenes. Yeah, I should do it one day. But my point is just like that. And I'm an idiot. I'm nobody. Just a commentator over here. Now imagine being in power, somebody who's a congressman or a senator. Their roar mechanism doesn't exist. Here's, again, the truth. Israel will never be cut off. What really happens is up to them. They will annex the West Bank. Our ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said he doesn't believe in a two-state solution, which basically means that's U.S. government policy. The best thing that you should all hope for, if you're pro-Palestine or anti-war, whatever, is you should hope that the chaos over there is so out of control and so affects domestic politics and or energy prices here at home that they'll do something about it, which is the main impetus, right? For a lot of this is he loves the peacemaker, the image, he doesn't care about the issue. By the way, who cares how we get it done? And I gave advice to people,

send the people in Gaza bag of hats. Like if you really want this to happen, like you need to make it politically convenient, interesting for Trump to posture. Like for example, remember that article that we put up on our show, Arab officials from the Times of Israel? Trump pressured Netanyahu more in one meeting than anyone else. Guess what? He posted that on his truth social because all he cares about is his own ego.

Apparently, the Israelis are now attacking Steve Witkoff. They've been leaking and being like, he's a Qatari-owned asset or what the Las Vegas Jewish billionaire is, of course, a Qatari-owned asset. They hate him because he pressured them to take this ceasefire deal. So stuff like that, if you get it to Trump, he's, you know, an egotistical person. So to the extent that if you guys all want to play the game, that's the only way this is all going to happen. Yeah, but even that, like, I mean, Hegseth and Huckabee are both end times, like, zealots. You know, the administration has already been staffed in the way that Miriam Adelson wanted it to be staffed. Yeah, that's true. And so, you know, to your point about the West Bank, which I will not personally be getting over, but I know what you're saying, just like, that's the reality.

Look, Chrissy, you didn't vote for Trump. I'm saying, look, I'm being totally honest. I had to reconcile myself to this. I'm like, all right, this is, look, we have two choices. It's binary. It's not easy. What do we choose? We choose probably in the same way that you used to think about Biden before Gaza. You're like, I like the IRA tax credits. I like Lena Kahn, right? You're like, at the end of the day, look, I mean, people know my worldview. I don't give a shit about most other countries. I mostly care about what's happening here. To the extent I care about what's happening abroad is to the extent that it's affecting us here at home.

That's probably the decision I had to make. That's probably millions of people had to make that type of decision. And I don't begrudge people. But I do think that there was a lot of, like, fake wish casting about, that was not, like... It's a campaign, no? I know, but I'm just saying,

like, you may have been in touch with that reality. But I don't I think there were many people who weren't and honestly aren't still. But, you know, I mentioned two executive orders from Trump relevant to Israel. One of them was I mentioned before, Biden put in place. I mean, it's like the most tiny slap on the wrist sort of thing that Biden could have done, but sanctioning some of the violent settlers, pretending like they're not like fully backed by the Israeli government. But in any case, there were some like 33 individuals who were sanctioned through these methods. Trump rolled that back. And he also rolled back some limitations that had been put in place on

shipping 2000 pound bombs, which I didn't even know there were any limitations on any armed shipments from the Biden administration. But in any case— That's a supply thing. It's not because of morality. Yeah. It's to keep them for ourselves. That's the reason. So in any case, those restrictions have been lifted under Trump as well, just to give you a sense of where things are headed. And then, you know, in addition to, I think, very likely after phase one, you know, bombings continue in Gaza and they go right back to the site. The West Bank is under increasing attack. We can put this up on the screen. Jeremy Scahill and Dropsite News have, and our own Ryan Grimm, have, of course, been doing a great

job of covering what's going on there. One thing that they did is they announced this quote-unquote counter-terror operation in the occupied West Bank. They shut down all kinds of roads. I mean, Palestinian movement in the West Bank is already extremely limited, and now it's even more so. And then you have settlers that have just been violently rampaging in a number of Palestinian villages, in some instances overtly backed by Israeli forces that are now, as Jeremy reports, invading and attacking parts of Jenin. In addition, there was actually an incident where settlers were setting fires and attacking this village. And Israeli police thought the settlers were Palestinians and shot them. And now this is like, this is a big story in Israel because it turned out that, whoops, they weren't Palestinians who we don't care about killing. They were actually settlers, Jewish settlers. So there's, you know, this is sort of an explicit plan that,

all right, while we're having this calm in Gaza temporarily, we're going to move on the West Bank. This will be also a pretext that's used in addition to return to the war as well. So that's the latest that we have coming out of the Middle East, and none of it is particularly good news. Yeah. Look, my only optimism for a ceasefire for any of this was the, at least credit, by the way, if you, another reason, a way that you would want this to happen is you should have the Nobel foundation award Trump, the Nobel peace prize. They should come out and do that immediately to give him more of an incentive. People think I'm kidding. I'm not

kidding. This is, if you got, if you guys want to play Washington, if you look, you could care about one thing. You could care about posturing or you can care about getting shit done. I can guarantee you the people who would be alive from influencing Donald Trump, they don't care how you accomplish this. So if you are the Irish government or any of these other people who are taking a little bit of a dissonance policy or whatever towards Israel. That's how you should get it done. That's the only way, is you have to fed him. You have to feed his ego. That's how it's going to work. By the way, I'm already prepping for myself on Ukraine, just to give people the background. There is a titanic fight behind the scenes going on right now over Ukraine because you have people like Mike Waltz and others who have completely different historical pasts on the Ukraine issue

and are willing to come along, but they're not going to do the work, right? Some of the people who are actually going to be in charge of this policy, Keith Kellogg and a few others, are true believers. But you have to work your way through the bureaucracy to get that up. And then when I turn on Fox and Friends, the dumbest program on cable television, which Donald Trump watches every day, is Brian Kilmeade, who is a Ukraine fanatic, right? Oh, he still is? Absolutely. I mean, he's not going to say it anymore, but I'm, listen, some of us haven't forgotten. Brian, some of us have not forgotten. He's an old school neocon Republican. He's worked at Fox News for 20 years. He needs a

brain lobotomy. So many of these people just stopped calling themselves neocons but did not change their ideology even a sliver. You know, they just realized that the term has a negative connotation now. So they're like, oh, I'm not that, but I totally support every war that's ever existed. Right. So that's the thing about – but my point is about the media environment, right? So the media environment that Trump needs to consume is one which actually has some dissonance in it. Now, that's helped a little bit because of Tucker being no longer at Fox News, and he's in his year on Ukraine and on Iran and a few other things that he can do. But he's just one man. I mean, you can't ultimately, you know, truly affect everything through just being on the internet. We're dealing

with a, what, 79-year-old man here at the end of the day? So yeah, look, I'm being very transparent. Like, that's the one thing I'm gonna peg myself to is trying to end this war. I think it will be one of the biggest fights in the history of Washington because Afghanistan is nothing compared to the cash cow and the ideology around this, like, remember, you know how Biden worshipped at the feet of NATO?

Like, that's a real thing here. Like, people, the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie. Every August voters here within a 10-mile radius. These people religiously pray to the God of NATO. There are people in my neighborhood who have NATO flags. Where do you even get a NATO flag? It's unbelievable. I mean, it's still you even get a NATO flag? It's unbelievable. I mean, it's still like Cold War hangover mentality.

It's crazy. It is wild how much that still really dominates the foreign policy blob in this town. I mean, I took very close note, maybe in some of the later speeches in the day, Trump brought up Ukraine. But considering how much a focus it was among Republicans, how much of, I mean, he talked a lot about it on the campaign trail. Tons. I think partly he he didn't really bring it up because, I mean, he repeatedly promised like it's going to be solved before I even get into office day one. We're going to have a deal. Obviously, that didn't happen. So, you know, I think it's an acknowledgement that even if he wants to end it, it's not like you can just, this isn't one.

Israel, you could actually just snap your fingers and be like, we're not supplying you these weapons anymore. You're going to stop. We're not doing this. Like, you could actually do that with Israel. Ukraine and Russia, it is a little different because you have to, you've got to get the Russians to the table. You've got to get the Ukrainians to the table. You've got to, you know, I mean, obviously there's a lot we could do, but it's not as simple of a fix. And it does require like real ideological consistency of a sort that Donald Trump is frankly not particularly known for. And he has a soft spot for Zelensky too. He breakdown of his Zelensky interview. And I don't think he would mind saying this. I spent a lot of time with him this weekend because he said it publicly. So I'll just repeat what he said. What he was telling me and what he also said publicly was his big takeaway

from his Zelensky interview was it's not a show. He believes it and he does not care about peace. He has no interest in peace. So Lex asked multiple iterations of peace questions to Zelensky. Zelensky has drank his own Kool-Aid to the extent that he believes he is like Winston Churchill. And the policy which will require to force a political settlement on Zelensky, which is now the only option to achieve peace in Ukraine, is either we'd have to support a coup in Ukraine, which I don't think is a good idea, or I mean, maybe they could have their own elections. That's up to, Zelensky's not going to allow that to happen. We have, there's, the only option here basically is a return to some like, you know, treaties from the 1800s where Trump and Putin will sit across a desk from each other and just be like, here's the line of control. That's it. And then you go to the Ukraine and be like, this is what's happening. And I mean, as you know, and we were just discussing, do you know the political fallout from the freak out of the media here in Washington of forcing a political settlement onto him? I don't think Zelensky will ever play ball based on what Lex

told me. I could be wrong. I mean, at the end of the day, he's a client state, right? He'd rather be alive than be, you know, like be defeated and humiliated on the battlefield. I mean, at the end of the day, he's a client state, right? He'd rather be alive than be defeated and humiliated on the battlefield. But equally, Trump would want to avoid that at all costs. Because, look, even if Ukraine got taken over, I mean, I still wouldn't think it would be worth going to nuclear war for it over. But, as we all learned from Afghanistan, if you broadcast cities' key 24-7 and turn this into a cause celeb, it can go like this in public opinion. Public opinion is still not, in my opinion, great on Ukraine. I mean, it's still number three issue that people rate Biden's effectiveness on. There's a boomer mentality about Russia that lives deep in the American mind. Yeah. I mean, it was really sold

as like a values proposition. And I think a lot of people, and I mean, there is a value proposition there. Like, that's not, like, our country doesn't have really the credibility to frame it as a values proposition. But this idea of like, no, we have this established order that you don't get to just push your weight around because you're the larger country. Like, Russia invading Ukraine was genuinely bad and wrong. But then you have to ask, like, okay, given where we are, what is the best and most reasonable path forward? And the Ukrainians would have gotten a much better deal if instead of being interested in continuing this war, if we had been interested in negotiating a peaceful settlement. massive missed opportunity, so many lives, so much destruction between then and now, only for Ukraine to be in a worse position, worse position in terms of what they're going to end up getting here at the end of the day, whenever this thing burns out. So I don't know if I read the

media landscape the same way you do, because I feel like there's a lot of Ukraine fatigue, and also just less willingness to resist Trump's edicts in any particular direction. Jake Tapper literally wrote a book. No, I expected the Afghanistan withdrawal reaction. I definitely expected that. But with regards to Ukraine, I don't know. I think there is an increasing mainstream media acknowledgement that Ukrainians are not winning, that it's going to be impossible for them to get all of their territory back, and something is going to have to be figured out. Nobody would like that more than me.

Whether it actually happens, I don't know. I still think that these people have religious connections to Ukraine. They think Kyiv is the 51st state. It's crazy, like, you know, the way that they think about the issue. And if there were ever, like, if there was ever, like, real Afghanistan type images that came out, I do think it actually would cause a big problem for Trump. And at the end, like, what is my theme of all my commentary here with Trump? Trump is a transactional figure. Well, and the Afghanistan example is destructive because he knew it was popular in theory to get Trump is a transactional figure. He can easily influence.

The Afghanistan example is instructive because he knew it was popular in theory to get out of Afghanistan. Yes, that's right. But there's a reason why he didn't pull the trigger. Because when you end a war, guess what? Then you have to actually grapple with the reality of what was accomplished and failed and all of those things over those years. And so it wouldn't be quite the same event as Afghanistan because obviously we didn't have troops directly there. It was a shorter time period, et cetera. But, you know, Biden, he was quite popular, Biden was, up until the Afghan

withdrawal. Nuked him. And it did nuke him and he never recovered. And obviously there were other things that contributed to that negative sentiment towards him. But that really was kind of the beginning of the end of his presidency. Unfortunately, because it's one of the best things that he actually did and one of the more courageous things that he actually did. But nothing will form a bipartisan consensus faster than, you know, trying to not be in a war. They will unite against you. Fox and CNN and MSNBC, man, they will all be singing the exact same tune the minute that you try to exit or avoid a potential war. And yeah, I do think that Trump is quite aware of that. We'll be right back. The Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop.

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