Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/18/23: IDF Shoots Hostages, Israel Protests Erupt, Shipping Crisis Amid War, Trump 'Nazi' Blood Rhetoric, Nikki Haley Pressed On Trump, Ukraine Kidnaps Citizens For Draft, Fetterman Says He's Not Progressive, Senate Staffer Fired For Sex Tape, And Bibi Admits Two State Solution Dead

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss protests erupting in Israel after the IDF shot 3 hostages, shipping crisis amid escalating Yemen US tensions, Trump uses 'Nazi' immigrant rhetoric, Nikki Haley sweats when pressed on Trump support, Ukraine kidnaps disabled people for war service, Fetterman says he isn't a progressive, Senate staffer fired for gay sex tape in Congress, and Bibi admits two state solution is dead.    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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But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots to get to this morning. So Israelis kill their own hostages as a broader war looms. Huge backlash domestically in Israel over what exactly happened there. So we'll break that down for you. We also have Trump saying that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation. This coming as Nikki Haley is genuinely surging in the polls, at least in New Hampshire. So some very interesting development there. Ukraine resorting to some pretty outrageous tactics as manpower becomes a massive issue in that war. John Fetterman says he is not a progressive. Funny, that's not what he was saying before when he was, you know, raising money and posturing and all this sort of stuff. So a lot to get into there. And also there were things happening in a Senate hearing room. Yes. You just got to wait

and find out on that one if you don't already know. I'm also taking a look at some new comments from Bibi Netanyahu admitting that the two-state solution is never going to happen, at least from his perspective, if he has anything to do with it, and exposing many of the fairy tales that have been told about this resolution for a long time. Yes, that's right. And before we get to any of that, it is the holiday season. I'll be having Christmas ties all this week as we head into it. We just did want to say, though, thank you to everybody who's been taking advantage. We've got our one-year discount happening right now for our annual membership, breakingpoints.com. If you can go ahead and sign up a year from now, we'll be in the midst of, I'm sure, what is going to be a very

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Yeah. Go ahead and look forward to that. Okay. Let's go ahead and start with Israel as Crystal alluded to. So over the weekend, news broke that three Israeli hostages were actually shot and killed by IDF soldiers in a very disturbing incident. This has ignited major protests inside of Israel, both by hostage families and others who are opposed to the war effort. We can go ahead and play some of this. What you're seeing here are live crowds in Tel Aviv that are protesting against the killing of these Israeli hostages. This has built up major domestic pressure

on Bibi Netanyahu to change the way that the war is prosecuted. We'll get to the IDF, their defense of the conduct of their forces in a little bit of a second, but it is igniting a major, I think, controversy around the rules of their forces in a little bit of a second, but it is igniting a major, I think, controversy around the rules of engagement about IDF conduct in the war. We're going to take a listen here to a protester herself. They said they do everything.

They say that the hostages is first in their considerations, but it doesn't seem like this. It doesn't look like this. So what you could see there was that Israeli protester in English saying but it doesn't seem like this. It doesn't look like this. So what you could see there was that a Israeli protester in English saying, it doesn't seem like the hostages are preeminently being put at the center of all this. And the circumstances of this killing are really disturbing. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.

The preliminary IDF report, and this is from Israeli media to be clear, says that the hostages were killed by soldiers waving white flags. One yelled for help in Hebrew. Quote, according to the report, Israeli soldiers spotted a building in the area two days prior to the tragedy with the inscriptions SOS and help written in Hebrew on one of its walls. IDF forces operating in the area marked the building as a possible trap and that they were eventually mistakenly killed.

Now in the description, a soldier who was stationed on one of the upper floors of a building noticed that these three figures were quote, holding a stick with white fabric attached to it. The report states, the soldier felt threatened and opened fire at these three. Two of the hostages were hit and fell to the ground. A third actually managed to escape into a nearby building. At the same time, a soldier reported to his commanding officer he had encountered enemy militants. The commander arrived at the scene while another IDF squad was following the third hostage,

who managed to find a hiding place inside the building. The report says as the soldiers approached the building, they heard shouts in Hebrew asking for help. The hostage who was hiding inside the building came out and ran inside again. According to the soldiers, they then believed it was a Hamas terrorist attempting to lure them into a trap. They entered the building where they shot the hostage dead. When retrieving the bodies, they then noticed identifying marks that raised suspicions that the three were Israeli hostages who had somehow managed to evade their captors. And according to the report, in the area, they spotted the words SOS and help. And we actually have some images of that we can put here up on the screen for people to take a look. This is some of the blood spatter from the killing of two of those hostages. Guys,

let's go to the next one because you can actually see the signs in question. Pretty, you know, the universal distress signal for SOS and written in Hebrew asking for help. Raising some very disturbing questions, Crystal, about the conduct of the IDF here. The trigger-happy nature of some of the troops in the area. And also just a nightmare of urban combat in general. I mean, you've got here, we covered just on our Thursday show about these 10 IDF guys who got killed and were lured into a trap in an ambush, which was a whole nightmare of a situation in and of itself. But it does show you that these guys are on a hair trigger alert, and they're basically just willing to kill anything that they can deem a terrorist,

even in a trap type situation, they're willing to just spray and pray and unfortunately resulted in the death here. But I think it does raise disturbing questions about the rules of engagement, which the IDF maintains now that while the soldiers will not be punished, that they were in violation of the ROE, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So curious to your reaction. I mean, it's pretty clear here that the only reason that there's any outcry over the killing of these three individuals is because they were Israeli. Think about this situation. You have these three hostages who knew that, you know, it was possible that they could be killed if they came out and presented themselves to the IDF. So what do they do?

They fashion a white flag that they can wave. They take their shirts off so that it's clear they are not suicide bombers. And none of this saves them. One of the reports talks about the reason why they even, you know, checked out to see, oh my gosh, are these actually Palestinians, was one of them appeared white. And so they decided to go in and do a double check over who these people actually were. And that's how it was determined that these were hostages. But it makes it pretty plain. The IDF, at least operating, especially in Northern Gaza, anyone that they see, they are just assuming is, you know, fair game, a legitimate target.

And if they're asking questions, that's not coming until later. So it is an absolutely outrageous situation. And by the way, you know, this isn't far from the first time that the IDF has been accused of firing on individuals who are waving a white flag. There's a Human Rights Watch report. We can put this up on the screen that has some language. You know, this is an in-depth report. depth report, but some of the cases that they analyzed here, seven of the cases, they said at least one person was waving an improvised white flag made from cloth or clothes, which international humanitarian law recognizes as a sign of truce or surrender. Civilians are immune from attack with or without a white flag. In these cases, they undoubtedly wave the flags to communicate.

They were not engaged in hostilities, posed no threat, reaffirming their civilian status. They go on, two Israeli commanders have alleged that Palestinian fighters used white flags to shield themselves from attack, but without providing details to allow an investigation of the claims such as date, time, and place. One colonel told the media that his soldiers had seen Hamas fighters move between houses while holding white flags. A second colonel said his soldiers had seen a Hamas fighter hide behind a woman with a white flag and a group of children. It is impossible to understand what threat they thought these hostages posed when they clearly did not have suicide vests on.

They could have used that as an excuse if they had shirts on, but their shirts were off and they're waving a white flag. What in the world did you think that the risk was here? And Sagar, I think you are right to point out the fact that they're saying, oh, this was against the rules of engagement, but they're not punishing these soldiers. They are not even really castigating them. I mean, all of the language that I've heard about them is, oh, this is so understandable, and, you know, it's a very difficult situation. Again, what risk did they think that these people, these hostages, who had managed to escape from their captors and were hoping that the IDF would help to rescue them, what threat did they actually think that they posed in this moment?

That's the issue. I mean, look, people are trying to parse it. I think you have to look at these things on a case-by-case basis. So U.S. hostages actually have been killed in previous hostage raids by Delta Force operators or SEAL Team 6 operators. But the circumstances of that are very different. That's when you're like raiding into a dark room where everything is off and they're usually like held in captivity and in a very different scenario. This is quite literally three of them managed to evade their captors, had signs saying SOS and help that were public and were basically lit up by these guys and not even noticed until later on, even including shouting for help in

Hebrew. I mean, I guess the only slack we can cut is these guys are probably like 19 years old, reservists. They don't have a lot of training. The fact is that a lot of people in Hamath probably do speak some Hebrew or rudimentary enough Hebrew, so it's not necessarily something that you could cut out. But the SOS flag, at the very least, you should probably pause and just wait and see what's happening here as long as you're maintaining some sort of distance. This is not me saying this is us. According to some people I've spoken to who have experience in hostage rescue, and they were specifically castigating them based on these circumstances. They're like, it's not unheard of to have hostages killed in a hostage rescue mission. But this demonstrates just really a lack of discipline

within the IDF itself. Yes. One of the things that I want to mention here with regard to the protests and the domestic backlash, you know, Bibi has come out since this incident and said, quote, military pressure is essential both for returning the hostages and achieving victory over our enemies. That is the polar opposite of what many hostage families have been saying, which is common sense. You're bombing Gaza. You're shooting everything that moves there, our family members are there. You are putting them at risk. Now, we know in this instance that it was Israeli fire that killed these three hostages. There are other hostages who have been confirmed dead at this point. Hamas

is saying many of them died in Israeli bombings. We don't know the veracity of that, but it's certainly not preposterous to imagine, given what northern Gaza looks like at this point, that that's exactly what's happening. And so that's what these protests are about, to say this is ridiculous, this idea that the longer you bomb the hell out of Gaza, the safer our family members are. That's absurd. And so previously you had, just to show you the way that this domestic pressure is being applied, previously you had the Netanyahu administration refusing to go back to Qatar to work on another hostage deal. Now these family members, many of them, I don't know if it speaks for every single one of them, but many of them are saying, we want a deal that would exchange all of the Palestinian prisoners that we are keeping in

exchange for all of the hostages. That's the deal that they have actually been pushing for for a long time. So enough pressure is now being applied after this horrific, outrageous incident that the head of Mossad has gone back to Qatar now to try to restart negotiations on some sort of a hostage release deal and potential additional ceasefire. So you can already see the way that this public pressure is changing the calculations of the Netanyahu government in real time. Yeah, so that's overall what we're saying. I wanted to highlight, too, a couple of other instances,

which I think really underscore the discipline issue within the IDF. One was actually an incident where the IDF themselves end up having to apologize for their conduct. Let's go ahead and play some of this. What you are seeing here is actually a mosque in the city of Jenin in Gaza where you have IDF soldiers on inside of a mosque, one of them taking the imam's position and using the microphone to broadcast Hanukkah songs. The IDF themselves specifically rebuked these soldiers. What you're watching here is actually was broadcast live on CNN Turk, and it involved a journalist who had his hands up and was immediately basically beaten,

thrown to the ground, put his knee placed on him by IDF soldiers who started, I mean, you know, even hitting him with the butt of their rifle. There's also been just general TikToks and other things that are emerging of a lot of Israeli soldiers broadcasting social media. I just saw another one this morning. We don't actually have it cut, which shows an Israeli soldier smoking a hookah or shisha right next to a bunch of blindfolded hostages. The level of social media discipline in all this is just, I mean, honestly outrageous compared to the way that U.S. soldiers were often held to a very different standard and absolutely would have been punished in all of these incidents that I mentioned. But what I think it highlights

to me, Crystal, is exactly what we were trying to portray in our Thursday show, which unfortunately was really prescient, was that the discipline and near amateur nature now of a lot of the guys within the IDF and their conduct is doing them no favor and is very much igniting. I mean, they've had Abu Ghraib-level incidents almost every day now since that was broadcast. That mosque one, I mean, I don't think I can really characterize how incendiary it is for an IDF force to walk into a mosque, got their shoes on, taking the imam's position, broadcasting from the call-to-prayer microphone, Hanukkah songs. That is not going to, I think, engender any goodwill,

probably I could say. And the best way for you to understand how incendiary it was is not to listen to me is why the IDF themselves immediately after the incident were like, these three guys have been taken off duty. This is, we unequivocally condemn this. And they were even criticized by religious rabbis inside of Israel.

They're like, you cannot be doing this. I mean, it adds an even more religious dimension to the conflict, which is the opposite of what you want. It seems like those dudes who were in the mosque got more punishment and opprobrium directed at them than the ones who murdered the hostages. That's a good point. And, you know, listen,

the IDF has told everyone to evacuate from northern Gaza, and you now have 1.1 million Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced from northern Gaza. And basically what they've said to people is if you stay, you will be a target. We are going to assume that you were a target. So was it really against the rules of engagement when they just fired without asking questions on these three people that they saw, even though they're waving a white flag, even though they have their shirts off to prove that they have no suicide vests and that they're no threat to anyone. And certainly they were 100% unarmed. So really against the rules of engagement. Would there have been any concern whatsoever if these had been

three Palestinian civilians to add to the body count now of over 20,000, somewhere around 25,000 who have been killed in Gaza at this point. Of course not. Of course not. They're not even going to punish these guys for killing their own people. There is no interest in, you know, sparing the civilians who are caught up in all of this. So I think it's a very, I mean, it's humiliating, puts a lot of pressure on Netanyahu to take a different approach to the hostages. The hostages continue to be a very emotional issue in Israel. And we shouldn't kid ourselves, like with regards to these protests that are happening right now. We saw the polls. 60% of the Israeli public thinks the IDF isn't going far enough.

Only 2%, less than 2% actually, said they've gone too far in terms of the damage that they have wrought. But this hostage situation is the one thing that could apply domestic pressure to Bibi to take somewhat of a different course and put at least the hostages' lives first and foremost. So we'll see how this all plays out. We certainly will. U.S. policymakers have reignited their push to try and get the Israelis to change their course of action, although the Israelis certainly kind of threw it back in their face. Here you have the defense minister basically openly rebutting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on camera after a meeting in which Sullivan told them, you need to wrap up this war effort by the end or the major operations by the end of the year.

Gallant openly in English in front of him, you can kind of see his soul leave his body, saying, yeah, that's not going to happen. Take a listen. So thank you for being side by side with us in this effort. The Hamas is a terror organization that built itself for a decade to fight Israel. And they built infrastructure under the ground and on the ground. And it is not easy to destroy them. It will take and require a long period of time. It will last more than several months, but we will win, and we will destroy them.

So thank you once again for coming to Israel, for helping us, and for supporting us. So, yeah, yeah, he said several months. Like I said, you can literally see the life leave Jake Sullivan's body as he said that. It also comes on the heels of Defense Minister Lloyd Austin. He arrived in Tel Aviv actually this morning. Let's go and put that up on the screen. And I have a little bit more that I can add to this. Austin, quote, returns to Israel with a tougher message and lessons learned. The defense secretary is stressing the Biden administration's support for Israel,

but concerns about the rising Palestinian death toll. After he stepped off the plane, his message was blunt. Mr. Austin reiterated the strategic defeat that would leave the country less secure if it does not do more to protect civilians. And he is emphasizing early U.S. efforts to target the Taliban and insurgents in Afghanistan in 2004. And basically the cautionary tale that if you take your eye off the ball, you go to, I mean, you can go to a variety of different ways that if you, you will end up in a situation in the same way the U.S. did with having to do a surge in Iraq and Afghanistan and eventually actually failing in both of those categories. So that's where the U.S. officials are. They're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. They really don't know how to reconcile President

Biden's rhetoric and some of the rhetoric here in Washington. Obviously, the very strong Israel lobby with the reality that all of America is now entering a phase where the Israel tax we're all about to pay in inflation is going to be near or equal to the Ukraine tax. And we're about to talk about that with global shipping. But any last thoughts on this, Crystal, from the U.S. officials? Yeah. I mean, the Floyd Austin, it's a sick joke at this point. I really want to go back. Adam Johnson has actually been doing some of this and look at all of the times that they've, oh, we're worried about civilians. Oh, you need to wrap it up. Oh, we need to know more about the day after.

We're having hard discussions behind the scenes, et cetera, et cetera. What a joke. Like, they have literally not listened to you a single time, not once. And now you have even Joe Biden saying, describing their bombing as indiscriminate, which let's be clear, if the bombing is indiscriminate, which I think is pretty freaking undeniable at this point, that's a war crime. So you're admitting that your ally, who you're pushing as hard as you possibly can to ship, to bypass Congress, to ship munitions, to pass $14 billion, to give them whatever they want, are committing war crimes. And all you can do is like leak a little to the press about how worried you are and how they need to wrap it up while they humiliate your officials in public and know that you are not going to say a word about it and you

are not going to do a thing about it. That's the situation. I mean, it's putting aside the immorality of it, the humiliation of the U.S., the entire country, and certainly the president, that his wishes are apparently asserted with the Israelis time after time, and they do not care. They spit in their face, literally have Jake Sullivan up there and just publicly humiliate him and force everyone to watch his soul leave his body, as you said. So when I see these articles now, I mean, it's just preposterous to me. It is truly like sick comedy to watch these pieces come out again and again about how worried they are, et cetera, et cetera. 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. It's a cold case. I've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter.

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

or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in.

I'm Nyla Simone breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was my son and my daughter

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

It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. That's what's really important and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast

Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Well, let's head to the next part here. As I mentioned, the Israel tax that I think we're all going to start paying.

Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The U.S. is now considering striking the Yemeni group the Houthis after repeated attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The Biden administration quotes them for they are increasingly concerned that the Houthis and their sponsors in Tehran are trying to undermine global maritime trade, both to undercut trade to Israel and to raise the cost to the U.S. and its allies for supporting the Israel state's now 11 week war in Gaza against the Palestinian group Hamas. Already, some global shipping lines are diverting their cargo traffic away from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to routes circling the horn of Africa. The Suez Crisis 2.0, I guess, that we are now in is genuinely extraordinary. So I wanted to highlight this statistic in

particular. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Four out of the five's largest container shipping companies, CMA, CGM, Hoppard Lloyd, Maersk, and MSC have now paused or suspended their services in the Red Sea. Together, those four companies account for 53% of the global container trade. The amount of container shipping traffic currently going through the Red Sea has gone down dramatically in the days since the war. And actually, currently, just this morning, I saw the update. 46 separate container ships are now diverting around the Cape of Good Hope rather than transiting the Red Sea, which is an extraordinary cost in the amount of fuel that you have to pay.

And obviously, all of that is going to get transited to American consumers and to really global consumers. This is significantly going to have an impact on the price of oil as well. So British Petroleum announcing this morning they will no longer transit through the Suez Canal and through the Red Sea. I mean, that's almost 10% of global supply. So all of this is going to have significant upward pressure on prices, just as we're already dealing with the quote-unquote Ukraine tax from whatever's happening with our Western sanctions and also out of the Black Sea fleet, etc. This also comes on the heels and is a major challenge right now to the supremacy of the U.S. Navy. So let's go and put this up there right now. The U.S. and the British Navy now say that

they have shot down 15 attack drones just yesterday over the Red Sea. These suspected attack drones were going after commercial shipping. It's important for us to note here, the commercial shipping vessels that are being targeted are not just Israeli. They are US flagged, British flagged, and all kinds of different nations, as I'd mentioned previously. The increase in these attack drones or quote-unquote unmanned aerial systems that are being shot down, I think just really highlights to me, the cost of asymmetric warfare. Every missile that we or the Brits launch against these drones costs a million dollars,

maybe a little bit more. And if you factor in oil, the price of the guys on the ship, and all this other stuff, it's probably even more than that. Each one of these drones costs $25,000. So every single drone is costing Americans a million dollars in weaponry that we are used to shoot these things down, not to kiss your presidency goodbye in terms of not just handling of the Israel crisis. Inflation will come roaring back, you know, to the extent that it has declined very small, you know, in the last several months. So this is probably the single largest existential threat to global security and to the global economy that we've seen since Ukraine, largely because of the massive impact it's going to have on global inflation. I don't think we can talk about it really enough. And I've said this

to you before, you know, one of these, just one of these missiles goes off target. One of these drills kills an American sailor or an American, you know, an American flagged crew member, some type of Captain Phillips situation takes hostage. I mean, I mean, we've all seen that movie before. It can literally pause the entire globe. It can change the entire strategic picture. Well, I was really struck by a quote that they had in that semaphore piece from Lieutenant General Michael Nagatu, oversaw U.S. special operations forces in the Middle East during the Obama administration. He said, there's something close to an undeclared war between Iran and the U.S. when it comes to the attacks and the reprisals

that are going on outside of Israel. That's a very important aspect of this. And just to back up for a second to give a little bit like top layer of history with regard to the Houthis. I mean, the Houthis more or less control half of Yemen, including the capital city. They're backed by Iran. So there's been like this proxy civil war going on in Yemen for years now the Sunni backed government backed by Saudi Arabia and by the way backed by us and they've kind of come to this uneasy stalemate right now or truce there's talks of a potential partition plan so the Houthis are in charge of a good bit of Yemen you know in the U.S. perspective we sort of pretend like there are these still rebel group but they do control the capital city and they do have significant weaponry that

has been provided by Iran. Now, from their perspective and why they have eagerly engaged in these attacks is because, you know, now that there is a bit of a shaky truce, their domestic political situation in Yemen is a little bit shaky. And the one thing that rallies everybody together is support for the Palestinian cause. For them, it's a win-win situation because not only do they get to, you know, show themselves as being pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel with these attacks and with these threats that are being made on the Red Sea, they also get to please their benefit of factors Iran and try to keep them on their side. And for them, let's say that, you know, the U.S. intervenes aggressively. Now there are

active talks that I think it's very likely to occur that the U.S. will strike Yemen directly, strike some of their, you know, weapons and missile systems and silos directly. That would only inure to their benefit as well, that they're seen as being taken on directly by, you know, the big bad guy, the United States of America. So that's why for them, this is a no-lose situation. It benefits them tremendously. And with just a little bit of drone warfare and boarding these ships and threats being issued,

they have managed to completely upend shipping around the world. I mean, it's very difficult to overstate what a tremendous impact this is already having. So 12% of global trade by volume normally flows through this area, perhaps 30% of global container traffic. In addition to the added cost

of having to go all the way around Africa, you also have skyrocketing insurance costs, which also add to, you know, obviously the cost of shipping goods. So you've got fears of a broader escalation as Sagar was laying out, fears of drawing us more directly into conflict with Iran,

which, you know, nobody, I think, wants. I hope nobody wants. Actually, I'm wrong about that. There are a bunch of people, there are a bunch of politicians who want that. But in terms of the American people, nobody wants that. And then you also have the dramatic economic impact that they are able to exact, extract with very minimal, very minimal efforts here. Yeah, it's not good. And also just again, to highlight how much this is costing American

taxpayers, I'm going to put this up there on the screen. There are three separate now U.S. destroyers that have entered the Mediterranean Sea via the Strait of Gibraltar. The USS Laboon, the USS Delbert Black, the USS the Sullivans, all in the span of just six days. All of them being dispatched specifically for a new joint mission that we're currently running with the Brits to try to protect global traffic in the Red Sea. But even with this power projection on the commercial, to try and protect the commercial fleet, a lot of companies and insurance, really, this is a game of insurance. We all learned this during the hostage Somali crisis, where during the Captain Phillips thing, they were like, wait, why don't you just

pay to have mercenaries on your ships to protect them? They're like, honestly, it's just cheaper to pay the ransom. Well, what we're learning here is that you only start to take action like this until the insurance companies give you the green light such that you are allowed and you can pass these on through contracts law. It's very complicated in terms of international shipping and maritime law. But eventually, it just comes to a point where the risk becomes so high that it's made at a company-wide level that everybody's willing to eat that cost. And that, of course, means that you get passed on to the consumer. But the significant toll right now on the U.S. Navy I don't think can be overstated. I mean, we've already got two carrier strike groups in the region that we moved there previously. Now we've got multiple U.S.

destroyers that are on their way here. This is a full-blown international shipping crisis, even if nobody wants to name it as such. And we are really on the precipice of something. I would also add, Crystal, in terms of striking the Houthis, we would not necessarily pay the price there, although we probably pay some. But the Houthis have demonstrated capability to target Riyadh if they want to. And then, yeah, you can all tell me what America is going to do if Saudi Arabia finds itself in some sort of missile war with the Houthis, which they have in the past used Patriot missile defense systems. I just saw this morning the United Arab Emirates is heavily pressuring the United States to militarily target the Houthis. So there's pressure building too in the Gulf to try and have some sort of military campaign,

which could easily spiral out of control. Don't forget that. One possible idea that's been floated is to use armed escorts for all of these ships traversing this strait. And apparently we used these in the 1980s during the so-called tanker war between Iran and Iraq. But it would require a huge number of warships to be committed to this effort. So that's why there's major hesitation in doing that. So, you know, and there's a larger conversation to be had at a different point about the massive economic toll that is being taken on Israel, not only through the fact that, you know, they have all these reservists called up. People are basically, you know, during the war, they're basically,

all tourism has stopped, all like normal activity has stopped. Huge hit to the economy. And the economy has become very dependent on foreign direct investment. Well, that was already dropping off a cliff because of the Netanyahu judicial like takeover situation. And that is expected to drop even further. And then you add to this that it's specifically, I mean, they have targeted other ships, but they're specifically saying they're targeting any ships that are going to Israeli ports or that are Israeli flags. So huge impact on them in particular in terms of shipping. And, you know, that's another massive cost to them of this war. Absolutely.

All right. Let's talk a little bit about what's going on in the Republican Party. So Donald Trump giving a rally recently and reiterating some outrageous rhetoric that he had used before with regard to immigrants. Let's take a listen. They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're pouring into our country. Nobody's even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous.

The terrorism is going to be, terrorism is going to be, and we built a tremendous piece of the wall. So poisoning the blood of America there. He had said this in an interview previously. I mean, this is obviously just some like out and out Nazi type rhetoric. And Sager, to me, it seems like, you know, the immigration thing has always been what he has used to, you know, both rally his base, trigger the libs, which is what a lot of his political power comes from. Some of the old rhetoric, which seems mild, frankly, in comparison to this, it doesn't hit the way that it used to. So he's got to up the ante and just go like full Nazi in terms of the way he's described. I think Trump is a genius in terms of getting people to set the conversation. I mean, we're covering it here now. This was,

you pointed this out to me. I actually missed this entire news cycle, but I went back and checked and it was dominating every single one of the Sunday shows. The reason why I honestly think it wins on a strategic ground is that he's leading by double digits on immigration. Anytime you're talking about immigration, you're highlighting border policy. For Republicans, they've got probably the biggest lead over Biden that they have in the entire thing. So for him, I mean, as long as you can center immigration, I think, at the front and you can get people to talk about you and to draw contrast with Biden, I think it's an overall win for him. I'm not going to defend what he said necessarily, but I do think, look, throughout history, what do we show? When we have uncontrolled net migration

that we have like right now, effectively uncontrolled with the US border and with probably the highest level of foreign-born population in modern American history, you're going to have some major ethnic strife, especially when you've got economic problems like we have right now. And it's not a shocker to me that something like this is going to hit with a lot of people who want to vote for him in the first place. It goes back to some of the original appeals of the 2015 campaign. So yeah, I mean, do I think it was a smart thing to say? Like, no, not necessarily. But from a strategic ground, I think in that way, getting people to talk about it and to just highlight his border policy versus Biden at a net level, it probably works for him.

His border policy versus Biden is not all that different at this point. But we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to the bill that they're working to push through, which would include the border peace and Ukraine and Israel. That's if it's signed, though. Right. And even then, that's basically just a return to the 2020 consensus. But even many of the policies that Biden has instituted, I mean, he's, you know, remain in Mexico. He's been holdovers since the Trump era that Democrats, you know, opposed then but suddenly went quiet when it was Joe Biden. So a lot of the border policy, frankly, isn't all that different from the Trump years.

But he was dragged kicking and screaming two years back to remain in Mexico. The asylum process is still very different. There's some eight million illegal immigrants have entered this country probably since Biden took office. So, I mean, from that perspective, I mean, if you look at someone like Trump, that's just that's a massive winning issue. Like the American people do not support most of what's I mean, every poll we have seen are definitely concerned about immigration. And they should be. By the way, I agree with you. I think they should be. I don't think that we should have, you know, I think people deserve to have a controlled and orderly process at the border. I think that, you know, the fact that there's been a failure to deal with this massive backlog in terms of asylum cases is just a catastrophe and an utter failure of governance.

We'll talk about that more in a minute. In terms of the politics of this, I'm not so convinced because the big problem with Trump is this sense of extremism. And, you know, that comes out in concern over abortion. It comes out in concern over January 6th. And most Americans are not looking at the immigration issue in this type of just like out and out Nazi. They're poisoning the blood of America way. They want law and order. They want basic security. They want it to be an orderly process. And so the more that he uses this sort of rhetoric, I do think that it can serve as a reminder of like, oh yeah, that's what it was like when this guy was president of the United States. And you know what? This was not great. And it was very chaotic. It's possible. I don't know. I also wonder though, if so much of this is just baked in. I mean, for example, using the word Nazi, I would, I would just say like,

how many times have people called Trump a Nazi? Like at a certain point, the words like lose meaning. It's like, what does it mean? And so even if he were to say something, which is quote, unquote, Nazi-esque, but if it's just going to roll off, most people are like, yeah, whatever. I've heard it a million times before. They're calling Trump a Nazi again. I see it. There's all these long Washington Post articles. People who like him certainly think that way. But even people on the edge. Nobody has heard for the—this is the first time that someone's going to be like, oh my God, Trump is a Nazi.

It's like this type of criticism is just—it's like calling Bernie a socialist and defund the police. Anybody who supports him or is even on the—everybody's heard it a million times before. So at a certain point, I just don't think some of this criticism is going to work for him. I think immigration is such a net winning issue for Republicans that anything he could say is probably going to be good for him. I mean, that is possible that just by putting the issue front and center and forcing a conversation about it, that he wins. I think that is an entirely possible situation. I also think it's entirely possible that people here, I mean, this is very antithetical to the idea and the concept, the ideal of America, right? That when people hear these type of comments, which even like Fox and Friends had to cover, I mean, this

was wall to wall in terms of the coverage. And I would say, understandably so, that people remember some of the things that they really didn't like about him. Because keep in mind, like, this is not a popular man. The overwhelming majority of Americans do not like this dude, okay? They're not giving him the benefit of the doubt, right? They are not in love with the idea of another Trump presidency. Yet, because he has been out of the news cycles, he's not dominating the news cycles the way that he used to, there's been a little bit of like a fuzzy memory with regard to what he really is like and what it was really like to have him as president of the United States. So from that perspective,

I'm not sure that it really serves his interest. I just, I honestly don't know. I will wait and see. I have seen, look, everyone thinks, for example, I always talk about this, Charlottesville, everyone's like, oh my God, Charlottesville. Guess what? Charlottesville wasn't even close to the lowest level of Trump's presidency. The lowest approval rating that it ever got was not anything to do with Charlottesville. It was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the day that it passed, and it aligned with appeals to, what was it, repeal and replace Obamacare. Those were probably the two single most unpopular things Trump ever did as president. So in terms of, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know, especially because the immigration situation today is still so net different than 2020.

The sheer amount of illegal mass migration, the foreign-born population is a higher level than ever before. I mean, look, I don't think it's a secret. I strongly support reduced illegal and illegal immigration now at this point. And I would put it to you this way. I think one of the eras that rhymes with current America most is the 1920s, like the turmoil of the post-World War, the crumbling of the international system. America's trying to figure out what it is. Depressions and wild spikes in the economy, all of that. One of the things I think that really helped with calming down politics was that we had an immigration policy where we effectively restricted it for 40-some years to allow basically an assimilation of migration that was similar levels of foreign-born population, and things just chilled out for

a little bit before we eventually returned to the 1965 consensus. This is something Raihan Salam has written about in his book. I forget the exact title right now. I do recommend people go and read it. And I think that Trump is responding to exact. Now, listen, we got lucky because we had much more responsible politicians who were in charge at that time. But that ethos, if you want to go back and look, there's a reason the KKK and all these organizations surged in popularity sometime around that time period. And it's not a secret in terms of how it could

have gone in a very different direction. It's also not, I mean, there's no doubt that economic stress and a lot of cynical politicians will take that out on immigrants and use them as scapegoats all the time. It's also not a secret that during that same period, when you talk about politics chilling out, that we had the New Deal, that we had, you know, a basic social safety net. I agree. We had the middle class growing. So we had people feeling a lot more secure in their economic future. And that also is part of what made politics, quote unquote, chill out. So how this plays, the other thing that I would point to is that we've had multiple elections now where Republicans try to put immigration front and center, where you have had very large

populations of undocumented immigrants coming to the country where people are saying this is a big concern for them, hasn't worked because there are other issues that they are also very concerned about. And in particular, abortion has become incredibly central. But even in that midterm election with Trump, remember the whole migrant caravan thing and this was really front and center. Well, that actually helped save a lot of Republicans in 2018. That helped in red states where it was possible that Democrats were going to be able to pull off upsets in some red states. But it did not help overall. Overall, you had a very good election cycle for Democrats. So for people who are, you know, with Trump and they're, you know, all in on this issue and this is the primary focus, does it hurt him with them?

No, absolutely not. With the general public, I think it is a much more mixed bag. Here would be my case for why I think it's going to help Trump. And no matter what he says, I think it would, is that the migrant situation now is so different and it's not. Honestly, the most genius policy the red states came up with is ship them to New York and ship them to Chicago and to all the other sanctuary cities. Look at the rhetoric coming from Eric Adams. He's like pleading on his hands and knees for money from the federal government because of the New York City right to shelter. And I can tell you from what I understand, New York politics behind the scenes is exploding over the migrant issue. You

got motels and other things in places like Rochester, which are overrun. You've got Chicago with the same, I believe the mayor of Chicago said something similar as well. California always has been a complete mess on this issue. But the more that the red states continue that policy, I actually think it could, could invite some sort of pushback. Although, you know, you tease this, if they do some sort of border deal, things could change. The reason I don't is that the Dems are holding strong on a parole issue where they will not either have remained in Mexico or they're allowing, you know, so-called, you know, asylum migrants, what I would say economic migrants, to be paroled into the general public and to have work permits for years to come. On that issue, if they're going to hold strong on that, that doesn't necessarily change the overall picture. So with so many of these blue states,

Crystal, with so many millions of people who have now been trucked in, you know, from California or from Texas, from all these other places, I do think that could change this calculus. New York in particular.

Well, I don't think, in terms of where the politics on immigration are, I don't think there's any doubt that they've shifted hard to the right. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I mean, you can look at the way Biden talked about immigration in his presidential campaign. And you can look at the policies that he's apparently open to now, which are a lot of Trump type policies that, you know, let's we'll save this a little bit. We'll get into it a little bit more when we talk about John Fetterman and the way that, you know, he may be emblematic of the way that this is has shifted hard. Right. But let's talk a little bit more about the presidential

election landscape and the question over whether this type of rhetoric and approach from Trump and him saying I'll be a retribution and be dictator on day one, etc., is a net positive or net negative for him. You have Obama now worried that Biden may not be able to get reelected. Put this up on the screen. So this was, I think, the Wall Street Journal actually picked this up, but the Daily Mail sort of noticed it and ran with the headline. Barack Obama thinks Joe Biden could lose the White House next year with President's polls continuing to tank as worries over his age and cost of living crisis persist, with Donald Trump edging ahead in the polls and concerns about the President's age,

immigration, Israel policy, and economic plan denting confidence. A person described by The Wall Street Journal as being familiar with Obama's thinking said the former president was troubled. Obama knows this is going to be a close race, the source said, and feels that Democrats very well could lose the 2024 election. And he worries the alternative is pretty dangerous for democracy. You would have to be an idiot at this point to not be worried that Joe Biden could lose. Now, in fairness to Obama, I think he has always doubted Joe Biden and his political abilities. That's why he was so late to endorse back in 2020. You know, he waited to see if there was anyone else who, other than Bernie, who might make a run at it and then at the very last minute intervene to try to, you know, get things to fall into place and successfully did. So for Joe Biden,

there is all that reporting about the sort of frictions and tension between Obama and Biden during the Obama administration, where, you know, Obama's this like hyper intellectual, smarty pants type of guy. And he looked down on Joe Biden as being sort of inferior to him from that perspective. So in some ways, those dynamics are not new. But Obama still has a lot of sway in the Democratic Party. And I'm not just talking about with base voters who still love him. But with the party elite, he has been the ultimate like kingmaker and chess player. So the fact that he's concerned at this point is noteworthy. But of course, does that mean they're going to like, you know, have a open Democratic primary process to try to pick a better candidate?

Doesn't look like it. Yeah, absolutely. It does not look like that at all. So I am very skeptical of Joe Biden's presidency, obviously, for a lot of these reasons. And also, just to highlight some of the things we were talking about, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Polling-wise, in every single swing state, Trump is now currently leading. On average, 47 to 42. In Arizona, 46 to 42. Georgia, 49 to 43. Michigan, 46 to 42. Nevada, 47 to 42. In Arizona, 46 to 42. Georgia, 49 to 43. Michigan, 46 to 42.

Nevada, 47 to 44. North Carolina is not a swing state. I don't know why they put that out there. I know. I was thinking that too. Pennsylvania, 46 to 44. Wisconsin, 45 to 41. What is it?

Didn't Obama win North Carolina by like a hair in 2008? Yeah, and we haven't won it since then. It hasn't been won since then. So let's just, everybody, let's resign that to some crazy separate politics. At least in the interim, this is bad news. You know, with the average at 47-42 and the individual state-by-state polling, the only thing Biden could hope for is a massive 2022-style miss that underestimates abortion, which I am not ruling out, but that's a hell of a lot to bet on to try and win the presidency. Yeah, it sure is. And one of the things that comes out in

this poll is a lot of the fall off for Joe Biden in recent weeks is among Democratic core constituencies. So among black voters, support has dropped since October among young voters between the ages of 18 and 34. There has been a huge drop-off in disappointment over the failure to actually execute on a widespread student loan forgiveness program. And of course, on his handling of the Israel war and the unconditional support for Israel, which is dramatically at odds with young people and very energizing for a lot of young people who just feel this is way too far for them to, you know, not to say they're going to vote for Donald Trump, but they may vote for Cornel West. They may vote for Jill Stein. They may just not vote at all because they don't want to feel like they are supporting someone who is enabling

a genocide, which I think is a very reasonable position to hold. So not only has he lost the trust of a lot of swing voters, but he has lost the trust of a lot of key constituencies that need to turn up in droves in order to help him defeat Donald Trump. So not a good landscape for him at this point. 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

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It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. A little bit of movement, actually, on the Republican primary side. Nikki Haley surging in a new New Hampshire poll. We'll show you those numbers in a second. But it was an interesting moment. She was on one of the Sunday shows. She was getting pressed over why she's very, you know, kind of tepid or timid about

criticizing the guy who continues to be the overwhelming frontrunner in the race, Donald Trump. Let's take a listen to that. Y'all want me to either love him or hate him all the time. I'm just asking you to respond to a New Hampshire voter. So I did, and I responded to him in every way. And what I said to them was, anti-Trumpers want me to hate him, pro-Trumpers want me to love him, but this is where I stand. There are things I agree with the president on. I had a good working relationship with him. There's things I don't agree.

I don't agree with the fact that, yes, we had a good economy while he was there. But he put us $8 trillion in debt that our kids are never gonna forgive us for. I don't agree with how he handles national security. He focused on trade with China, but he did nothing about the fentanyl flow. He did nothing about the fact that fentanyl has killed so many of our Americans. I don't think you should praise Hezbollah. I don't think you should criticize Netanyahu when Israel's down on her knees. I don't think you should congratulate the Chinese Communist Party on their 70th anniversary. And he talks about annihilating his enemies and using the criminal justice system to do so. What do you think of that?

You guys are exhausting. You're exhausting in your obsession with him. The thing is, the normal people aren't obsessed with Trump like you guys are. The normal people care about the fact that they can't afford things. They feel like their freedoms are being taken away, they think government's too big. I know you all wanna talk about every single word he says and every single tweet he does. That's exactly why we need a new generational leader. Because people don't want to hear about every word a person says or every tweet. They want to know how you fought for them that day. And they want to know how their life is going to be different. And life will be a whole

lot different if the media would stop this obsession with Trump. I mean, I was just asking you about his central campaign theme, which is, I am your retribution. And he's winning in the polls, that's why I'm asking. Well, if I could, you know, one thing. I'm asking you about the leading candidate. He does everything he can not to talk about issues. He almost acts like he wasn't there, right? He doesn't want to talk about building the wall

and securing the southern border because he didn't do it. What do you think of that? And by the way, that's Governor Sununu of New Hampshire, who has endorsed Nikki Haley. I thought it was ridiculous. It's like, you guys are obsessed with him. Yeah, because he's beating your ass by 50 points in the overall GOP primary. Maybe you should be more obsessed with him.

You should be more obsessed with him, actually. I mean, look, like you said, at the same time, she's actually not doing so badly in New Hampshire. We can put that up there on the screen. Our graphics team did a great job with this. You can see here in New Hampshire that Trump is currently at 44, Nikki Haley at 29, DeSantis at 11, Christie at 10, Ramaswamy at 5, Hutchison at 1. I didn't even know – Still hanging in there, I guess. Hutchison was still running, honestly.

But that does show you that – look, and it makes sense. If there is an anti-Trump constituency, it is broken up amongst all these little candidates. Nikki, I actually think, is the best case for an anti-Trump candidate because that's around where it should sit, 29%. People who are neocon and traditional, you know, honestly just like the old school Mitt Romney style boomers. That's around where their support would look like between 20 and 40, especially in a state like New Hampshire, which has got people like Jeanne Shaheen who represent them. But the overwhelming majority or at least plurality in this case are Trump-esque or Trump-style with DeSantis and Ramaswamy's support in them. I would also say there's a lot of talk right now, Crystal, like, oh, Christie should drop out and throw all of

her support to Nikki Haley, and then maybe she could beat Trump in New Hampshire. We've seen consistently that the second choice for a lot of these candidates is also Trump. There's no evidence to support that the vast majority of the support would go there. Although, I was going to say with Chris Christie, I would think that you would have the best possibility of most of his support flowing to probably Nikki Haley. And, you know, we could look at polling and see who the top second choice for his voters is. But, you know, New Hampshire is very different from a lot of the other states. For one thing, you know, they do have this sort of like muttered independent streak. For another thing, actually, independents can vote in this primary. And many of them probably will since

there isn't that much of a contest on the Democratic side because the Democrats have decided not to really have much of a contest on the Democratic side. So that's part of why she's doing well in this state. And one of the things that was interesting in this CBS poll is they polled Iowa and they polled New Hampshire. And the picture is very different. In Iowa, the fact that Nikki has been perceived as a sort of like moderate on Trump is a major downfall for her there. It's a major impediment for her there. The fact that she's tried to moderate some on abortion has been a major impediment for her in Iowa. Those are things that are all boosting her in New Hampshire. These are two very different populations. A couple other things that I just thought were interesting in terms of her potential upside, if I'm going to

try to make the case for Nikki Haley here in New Hampshire. So she actually tied Trump when they asked who is prepared to be president. She and Trump had the top numbers. I think they both had like 57% or something like that, but she did well on that metric and matched him. She was described, 55% described her as likable. She was top on that quality over DeSantis was at 37, Trump was at 36. So people said they liked her. They felt like she was prepared. You had 51%. So a majority saying that she was reasonable, quote, versus 36% for Trump. Trump had the edge though, when it came to being seen as a strong leader and being the most electable. That one was really interesting to me because, you know, it's not what the polls reflect. The polls reflect that Trump is in good position to beat Joe Biden. But actually, some of the polls that have come out

have shown Nikki Haley with even more of an edge over Joe Biden because she doesn't come with a lot of the Trump baggage and isn't saying things like, you know, immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation. Yeah. But but the Republican primary electorate sees Trump overwhelmingly as the candidate to beat Joe Biden. They think he's the guy who has the best shot at it. So, you know, to the extent that that was ever one of the big concerns for a Republican electorate in one of the cases that Ron DeSantis, for example, was making, it seems that seems to have not worked out for them. No, certainly. And also, you know, on the DeSantis side, the implosion of his entire operation is really something to behold. I mean, I still honestly can't believe it with the resignation of the never-backed-down chairman Jeff Rowe, who ran Ted Cruz's campaign, Crystal, and who really engineered a lot of the Iowa win.

He's resigning. And we've also—remember, we had the stories that we played here previously about DeSantis in open war with his own super pack. Like their inability to get donors to have a tight, like run an actual tight ship, have a robust campaign infrastructure is really like a catastrophic implosion, which is Jeb level, I think, for what's coming. Yeah, it's wild. Since the day before Thanksgiving, I think, did we put this up on the screen? Oh, yeah, we can put it up there.

Now we've got the element. The pro-DeSantis super pack, which is called Never Back Down, which, by the way, they were going to try to run their campaign different. And basically, Never Back Down was going to be the campaign. Most of the money was going to reside there. A lot of the strategy was going to come from there. Even things like paying for on-the-ground organizers. They had this, like, oh, we're going to revolutionize the way that campaigns are operated and funded, et cetera. That has not worked out. So since Thanksgiving, you had the resignation of one

chief executive, resignation of one board chairman, the firing of a second chief executive, along with two other top officials. And now you have the late night quitting of Jeff Roe. All have come after massive infighting and finger pointing as Mr. DeSantis has slipped in polls. Roe put out a statement on ex-formerly Twitter that said, I can't believe it ended this way. And, you know, this came after some internal recriminations, et cetera. But, you know, this is what happens when you're losing. People place blame. They point fingers.

They get angry at each other. They throw each other under the bus. And so the fact that there is turmoil in the Ron DeSantis super PAC world, I think is just emblematic of how his campaign is going overall. I think you are absolutely right. At the same time, let's turn to Ukraine. Some really disturbing stories that are coming out, really the truth beginning to emerge about Ukraine's manpower problems. Let's go and put this up there on the screen by a genuinely courageous reporter, Thomas Gibbonsbonsneff, who's previously been banned by Ukraine from reporting about the realities on the ground. Gibbonsneff here, Crystal, reports a full-fledged, quote, people-snatching campaign by Ukrainian recruiters to use to fill the ranks of conscription and recruitment depots. So here's

what he writes, quote, recruiters have confiscated passports, taken people from their jobs, and in at least one case tried to send a mentally disabled person to military training, according to lawyers, activists, and Ukrainian men who have been subjected to coercive tactics. There are now videos of soldiers shoving people into cars, holding men against their will in recruiting centers that are surfacing with increasing frequency on social media. We had some, but we didn't feel confident enough in their veracity to play them. But at the very least, a lot of these videos are going viral inside of Ukraine, and it highlights the intense manpower problems that they have. I would combine this story with one that I brought in my monologue on Thursday about Ukraine Zelensky admitting to the U.S. Congress that to continue the war effort, he's likely going to have to expand conscription to men over the age of 40 years old. A 58-year-old taxi driver who, quote, feared retribution said the recruiters showed up, took his passport, returned it only after he showed up for his medical screening.

He's describing it as, quote, lawlessness. So what they're doing is they take your passport away. You can't – if you want to retrieve your passport, you have to go to the recruitment depot. And they make you sign the papers for forced conscription. And in many small towns across Ukraine, many of the people who have been forcibly conscripted have unfortunately died on the front line already after only several months in the military, which is having a chilling effect because a lot of people don't want to serve. So you have two problems. One, 600 some thousand Ukrainian prime age males have fled the country. They don't want to fight, period. Everybody left, basically subject to being kidnapped by the government and thrown into conscription, which at this point, I think

manpower is their single biggest problem. We were discussing, I want to float a credit to our friend Yegor who flagged this for us. There's a report coming out from the deputy of the ruling servant of the People Party that said that Ukraine is preparing for general mobilization, including a bill proposing to mobilize women to serve in defense enterprises and voluntarily to serve at the front under contract. So, I mean, voluntarily doing a lot of work there. Yeah. And they've already required women who have certain skills, in particular in the medical profession and pharmaceutical, to register for conscription. So, this would be, you know, potentially expanding that. And there are a lot of, you know, there's obviously a lot of domestic concern over what that's going to mean. They had previously closed the borders and that has remained for military

aged men. So a lot of women wondering if that is going to follow for them as well. This story is heartbreaking about the quote unquoteunquote people snatchers. And what comes out is not only have you had devastating losses and casualties, high numbers, so that obviously there's a loss of men, so there's a need to recruit more men and bring in more men. There's also because of that and because the war's not going well, it was one thing in the beginning, people wanted to sign up for the cause. There was a huge surge in recruitment because people wanted to be part of a winning war effort. Now the Zelensky, you know, propaganda efforts have sort of faltered. They can see the distance between how things are actually going and how it's been portrayed to

them. So that has dampened enthusiasm for getting involved in this. And the other piece is massive corruption. So people who are wealthy, they pay off their recruiters and recruiters go to a doctor. This is all reported out in this piece. They'll go to a doctor, they'll get them to write up a medical exemption and boom, you're good to go. So they have a quote here from one Keith-based lawyer who's been representing some of the individuals who've been wrongly or who are saying they were wrongly drafted, said it's a war for poor people because those, anybody who doesn't have the means to pay, those are the ones who are being snatched up and sent to the front lines. So it is truly heartbreaking. And, you know, we're about to talk about the aid situation. And I just, I think that

our approach to this has been disgusting because we've given them enough weapons to give them hope. We've given them enough to basically, like, stay in and fight the last man. And yet, you know, we have, we blocked peace at the beginning. You know, we are now likely to suspend aid altogether. I don't even know what you do at this point because Russia has no interest in doing any sort of deal at this point because they're in such a strong position. So I'm just thoroughly disgusted by our political class. I'm thoroughly disgusted by our media class, by the fact that you couldn't even have these discussions until right now. And they're in a horrific situation at the moment.

Yeah. Let's highlight some of that. So let's put this up there. And again, these are the voices of Ukrainian Marines and soldiers from the front line who are saying on the record that they are, quote, engaged in a suicide mission on the Dnipro River. And one I really want to read is about this, is that, quote, for two months, the Marine Corps has been spearheading an assault across the river in the southern region of Kherson to recapture territory. The operation is the latest in the flagging counteroffensive. Soldiers and Marines who have taken part in this river crossing describe it as brutalizing and futile. Waves of Ukrainian troops struck down on the riverbanks or in the water before they even reach the other side.

Conditions are so difficult. A half dozen men involved in the fighting said in the interviews there is nowhere to dig in that there are, and including, bodies that are rotting in the mud and in the river for a period of now two months. Dead Marines that have just been laying there because they're unable to be retrieved from intense shelling. That is straight out of Passchendaele

and of the First World War. I've even visited some of these places, some of their graveyards, where you'll go there and there's just graves randomly scattered in the field. And I was like, what's going on here? And they're like, oh, this was a mud pit and we don't even know who died here because we didn't reclaim it until nine months later. So we just put up a bunch of crosses. That's what we're dealing with here now inside of Ukraine. And really what they talk about is that in this case, they specifically went on the record because they said that Zelensky and other defense officials, quote, recently suggested

that Marines have gained a foothold on the Eastern Bank. These Marines say, quote, there are no positions. There is no such thing as an observation post or position. It is impossible to gain a footh or position. It is impossible to gain a foothold there. It is impossible to move equipment there. It is not even a fight for survival. It is a suicide mission, period. I mean, this is a commander who put on the record to the New York Times here for one reason. He wants to stop the bleeding. And I can guarantee you he's probably only going to face retribution as a result of this when all he's trying to do is save himself and all of his

men who are being brutally killed in this offensive. And this is the reality now. You've got the manpower problems on top of the tactics and the way that they want to fight. This is what they want us to try and continue to fund. And it's just so obvious that it is not only not going to work, but at the very best, you are just bleeding the poorest people who can't afford to bribe their way out of getting into the draft. And now like mentally disabled people who have an actual medical exemption and are still being forced into conscription. I made the reference last time, like the Hitler-Volkstrom policy of calling up like really old men and 13-year-old boys to defend the fatherland. They're not that far away from that right now. They're really not. And this really just highlights too where they're asking for more ammunitions, artillery, and weapons to just continue to fight this way. So let's put this up there on the screen. This is about really two weeks of reality for Zelensky. Number one, his visit to Washington where, you know,

he did not get the aid that he wanted. It's possible they may still get more. But there also was a $50 billion appropriation from the European Union, which was rejected by Hungary, which stopped some of the flow of future aid to Ukraine. There's a splintering in international and global support, now in economic support. And it just, again, raises the question of like, what are you even going to use the money for to continue this? To what possible benefit is this to your country and to our country? Zero.

Yeah. There are no good solutions. I think that's the bottom line answer. And all I can keep thinking is when you're in a hole, stop digging. You know, if you if we continue this policy of like dribbling out aid to enable them to, you know, send their young men and now there are older men and now potentially there are women to fight and die in the trenches with basically no hope of being able to secure a victory. Like, you're only going to end up in the even worse position down the road for any sort of a negotiated settlement. So it's an utter disaster. With regard to Zelensky's trip at the White House, they say Biden was forced to downgrade the U.S.'s pledge from supporting Kyiv for as long as it takes to supplying the country with weapons as long as we can. And keep in mind, let's say they get this package through. You know, Republicans are eager enough to

get their border deal and everybody apparently is eager enough to get their Israel money. And so Ukraine gets another tranche of funding. What then? What then? You've got a presidential election around the corner where it looks damn well likely that Donald Trump could be coming back to the White House. And if you think that he's going to continue this, I think that's very, very unlikely. So it's nothing but grim scenarios and grim possibilities from here on out with Ukraine. Yeah, absolutely. Nothing looks good in terms of what their future is. We also highlighted, too, the Russian response where they currently are probably less likely to pursue a deal in terms of what Putin and all of them said because they're like, listen, what are you guys going to do?

And it's a geopolitical reality where the current cope that I see is, oh, if we'd just given them the planes and all this stuff in the first place, then they would have won and we would never have been in this position. I actually don't think that's true at all. They've been incompetent in all of their employed use of Western-style tactics and technology on the battlefield, which is why they're throwing guys into a river and making them die like it's World War I. That's what they know how to do, and that's fine. But in a world where constraints exist for our aid to Ukraine, like F-16s and long-range missiles, where it could spark a broader war, then this was the inevitable outcome, which is why peace deal itself was always the best policy, April 2022.

Now you've got, who knows, maybe half a million dead. Nobody knows what the real number is, or at least dead and wounded inside of Ukraine. You've got diminishing manpower. You've got basically zero industry of their own. And the Kremlin is revved up for war production, and they don't care at all. So honestly, the worst case scenario was actually more likely, I think, today than ever before. Yeah. I mean, on the other hand, like, I actually do have more sympathy now, though, for that idea of, hey, if we're going to block them from doing a peace deal early on,

you better give them everything you can to give them at least a fighting chance of actually securing some kind of a meaningful gain and meaningful victory. They had momentum at the beginning. The Russians were a chaotic, disastrous mess. They hadn't been able to spin up their war production. You know, everything was going awry in the field for them. Now they have become a much more effective fighting force at this point, and they've been able to spin up their industrial domestic production. So I agree with you, Sagar. Do I think it would have worked? Probably not. But in one sense, we've really ended up with the worst of all worlds for them because we've bled them out and given them no possibility of any sort of victory.

Now, obviously, the reason we opposed the other approach of going all in was because of the very real risk of a broader war between two nuclear-armed superpowers, which was a risk that I always found wholly unacceptable is why I opposed that position from the jump. But I do think that the people who were like, we gotta go all in with them, if we were gonna block the peace deal, you know what? That was the correct moral and strategic position

to take at that point. Yeah, I totally agree. And it's obvious now. However, will they change their tune? No, they certainly won't. 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 mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that

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my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now, too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like, he's a legend. So he gets it.

What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app,

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Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, so let's talk a little bit about our friend, Senator John Fetterman. Maybe your friend. What? It's not my friend anymore. So put this up on the screen. Senator Fetterman, who has become very aggressively pro-Israel, like one of the most pro-Israel members of the Senate, just gave an interview in which he also broke with the left on immigration.

And he told NBC News, quote unquote, I am not a progressive. Really? That's very interesting because that is not at all what you've been saying for the entirety of your political career since you burst on the scene in Pennsylvania where you wrapped yourself when it was convenient in Bernie Sanders and endorsed him in 2016 and called yourself, you know, progressive routinely, especially when you're asking for money. I'll give you some of those examples in a moment. But even on the immigration piece, this is a total 180 from the way that he campaigned and noteworthy because his own wife is actually an undocumented immigrant from Brazil. Here's one of the campaign ads that he ran when he was sounding a very different note on the topic. Take a listen. I'm proud of my wife Giselle's origin story,

and I'm so grateful for the sacrifices that her mother made all those years ago to come to this country looking for a better life. Because if they didn't, I wouldn't have the incredible family that I have now and the partner that I have in Giselle. The Statue of Liberty says, send us your poor huddled masses. And as long as we remain true to that original sentiment, America will continue to grow and prosper because immigration makes America, America. We diminish ourselves and are never more un-American when we eliminate citizenship for those that just simply want to contribute and be a part of our great country. So, like I said, very different from the tone he is striking now on immigration. And this is all, of course, in the context of this potential aid

bill, which absurdly ties together Israel, Ukraine, and tougher border enforcement policies. Fetterman signaling to NBC News that he is very open even to the toughest of those increased enforcement border policies, which is really different from the way he campaigned and what he said in the past on this issue. We especially have to highlight, and this is part of why I get annoyed about the conflation of immigrant and we don't apply the proper rhetoric here. She was an illegal immigrant. Now, I guess she was brought here by her mother whenever she was a child, but is a direct recipient of an amnesty policy from the Bush administration, gaining her green card in 2004, becoming a U.S. citizen eventually in 2009.

So that is why I think his comments are especially noteworthy is because he's not talking about immigration. He's talking specifically about illegal immigration, of which his wife literally was the beneficiary of said policy, and he's changing his tune. I have no problem with that because that's a policy that I support. I don't even think his wife should be allowed to have citizenship. But that's a secondary question because it's done now. But I think it does highlight, Crystal, for your point about something that I personally hate, which is taking advantage of political constituencies when convenient and then turning upon a dime. And with this guy, he was a Bernie Sanders-like progressive type person

when it was convenient and he was running against Conor Lamb. And I mean, you remember that. The Democratic establishment was totally pro-Lamb. They only came to him after they saw how much he won in the primary. And really after he won his election that they were able to reconcile themselves. But now it's like he's changed completely on a dime. I honestly, I don't know what to make of his thing. I personally just think like it's obvious that the money played a huge role here on the Israel side based on Ryan's book. On the immigration side too, I think he's trying to save his ass like Eric Adams and all these other Democrats because Pennsylvania is a – you know, Pennsylvania is not a red state per se, but it's a swing state certainly.

It's a swing state. pissed off progressives so much, especially on Israel, I have to say. The immigration comments are new, but that's certainly going to piss people off as well, that he does actually have to worry, I think, about a primary challenge in the state of Pennsylvania. And on the immigration front, like, it's a long time before he has to face re-election. So to be making this hard pivot right now, it really is a head-sc scratcher. And just to give you some of the proof, because there were a lot of people put this up on the screen who were like, hey, this individual says, funny, he was a progressive when he was asking me for my effing money and posted a bunch of examples. I mean, these were not hard to find. He's retweeting,

he's tweeting his Bernie support. Retweet if you're standing with these progressive champions, he says with a picture of Bernie and a picture of him. Progressive rhetoric is great, but progressive results are 100, he tweeted. He tweeted also, we have started a progressive movement here in Pennsylvania. So, gee, I wonder, John Fetterman, where people got the idea that you were a progressive with consistently progressive principles. Now, what the hell happened here? I don't know. I mean, did the

strokes shake something loose? Possible. But I think you're right, Sagar, that the best indication we have is what happened with Israel. He made an incredibly politically cynical and expedient decision with regard to Israel policy. Ryan Grimm reported it out. Basically, he saw that AIPAC money and AIPAC-affiliated money was coming into these Democratic primary races aggressively on the side of anyone who had any dissenting word on Israel and Palestine. And so he went to them himself and was like, okay, here's my position. Is this good enough? They're like, no, you need to make this change and this change and this change. He's like, okay, done.

Here's where it is. And he ran with that and has now aggressively leaned into that. So I have to think this is all cynical political maneuvering. Is it intelligent cynical political maneuvering? That part is not so clear to me. Because like I said, that there, you know, there is a sizable progressive movement, organized movement in the state of Pennsylvania. And I do think that he is becoming like Kyrsten Sinema or Joe Manchin level of hated by plenty of progressives in the Democratic base, especially among young people. So, you know, it's not just the general election that I think he would ultimately have to worry about here if he continues in this direction.

But just the political cynicism here and the denying that the posturing like you never presented yourself as a progressive. If you've had a genuine evolution, you want to explain how you came there. OK, fine. Like I may still believe that it's cynical political, but at least you can acknowledge that this is a shift. But he's just pretending like, oh, this is who I've always been. It's complete nonsense. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's personally. Listen, I tried to tell you guys the dressing thing. It wasn't about connecting to the people. He's a narcissist and it's all about egoism. You're right.

I would just say, cinema and Fetterman, the two worst dressers are the two biggest narcissists. Two most cynical political operators. And, you know, if you're happy with his positions now on this, like, he is going to just go wherever it is most politically convenient for him, wherever the campaign donations are the richest, that's where he's going to position. And that's what we saw with Sinema as an example here. But yeah, it's pretty wild to watch this all unfolding in real time. I tried to tell you. I tried to tell you. All right, let's move on to the, I don't even know how to set this up. Let's just put it this way. There is a Senate staffer

who was engaged in some pretty crazy conduct. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. So my old colleagues, my old friend, Henry Roger reports this story. This is definitely not safe for work though for everybody who's watching. Senate staffer has been caught filming a graphic gay sex tape in a Senate hearing room, posing both in amateur pornography images that he distributed on Instagram

and amongst a group chat of fellow gay staffers on Capitol Hill, Hill in addition to posting video of himself engaged in a gay sexual act while he was in the Senate hearing room. Now, this hearing room is the Senate Judiciary Room of which he actually worked for Senator Ben Cardin and had access to this room as a high-level staffer largely because this is open previously to things like Sonia Sotomayor's hearing room, the James Comey testimony, and it's also one that he posted about on his private Instagram. So anyway, this was, I was telling our editorial team, the number of people who have sent me a gay pornography of this gentleman, please stop. Because my phone is now full of gay porn of this man. And I don't want to see this man's ass ever again. I've seen so

much of it now at this point. And largely it was people who worked with him on Capitol Hill. And they were like, you got to put this out there. I'm like, I'm sorry. Enough has been done at this point. What I find personally humorous is this gentleman's defense of himself. Let's put this up there on the screen. His name is Aiden. I'm going to go with Mace Krosepki. Anyway, here's what he says on LinkedIn, which is also amazing. This has been a difficult time for me as I have been attacked for who I love to pursue a political agenda.

Right. love to pursue a political agenda. While some of my actions in the past have shown poor judgment, some, I love my job, would never disrespect my workplace. Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters. As for accusations regarding Congressman Max Miller, I have never seen the congressman had no opportunity to cause, yell, or confront. I don't even know about that. So there was a dual controversy. So the other part of the controversy was that Aiden, the staffer, was a staffer who yelled at a congressman, Free Palestine, who was a pro-Israel congressman.

They had named him anonymously, but nobody knows it was actually him. Max Miller has not confirmed that it was him. At this point, I have no idea. I mean, but nobody knows it was actually him. Max Miller has not confirmed that it was him. At this point, I have no idea. I mean, he rejects it. Nobody else seems to have any information to the contrary. What we certainly do have information to is how this gentleman was conducting himself very openly. What I find astounding about this guy is that this was not a single incident. As I said, I've got plenty of examples right here that have been going on for months. And it was out in the open.

I mean, posting on his Instagram and even sharing like with dozens of fellow Capitol Hill staffers. But other things happening in the Capitol or? Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I've got some photos here on my phone. This was not the first time. I mean, listen,

the funniest one, I'm just going to say, there's no allegation behind this, is him in the Senate, I literally have it here, is of him in his Senate, in the Senate shower

being like in the work shower waiting for you, Lindsey Graham, which is pretty wild. There's a couple others that I have obtained which show him like with members of Congress staring at his fingers, being like, I want to lick his luscious fingers. I swear, this is all real.

This is in the workplace. I don't personally care about anything he's doing in his personal life, although there's some wild photos from that too. Just the ones that I'm willing to talk about here are on the Capitol, you know, posting a lot of stuff. And actually, apparently was told, Crystal, behind the scenes, bro, you need to calm down after he was promoted in Senator Cardin's office because his social media was like a widespread, like a known thing amongst a lot of his coworkers. NBC News, putting this out here. Let's put this up there.

Also, their headline is so ridiculous. Put this up there. Senate staff are alleged by, yeah, it's not alleged, okay? We've got the video. To have had sex in a hearing room is no longer employed. So Senator Cardin's office just says this. Aiden is no longer employed by the U.S. Senate after the Daily Caller published it.

Just ludicrous that they wouldn't be able to just confirm it. And last but not least here, Madison Cawthorn, who once alleged Coke-fueled orgies happening on Capitol Hill, tweets this out, quote, I told you. And look, he was right. He was certainly right. Coke-fueled orgies. That's where we're at.

He could have named names, Madison. Why didn't you drop a name? He should have named more names. Yeah, that's all I got. George Sanders is probably weighed in, too. Yeah, George, of course he's weighed in. He went after, he's like, you're not being fired because you're gay. He's like, you're fired because you fucked somebody in the Senate hearing room and you put it out on social media.

Which is certainly something. Also, from what I understand, Crystal, just last thing, the alleged top is actually a former employee of the German government. So there's even an international spy angle going on here. Oh, great, great. In some ways, the wildest part to me is the statement he put out. Yeah, I think you're right. Where he's like, people are attacking me for who I love. It's like, no, they're not.

Dude, come on. I mean, yeah, if it was heterosexual sex, I'm pretty sure people would also care about this. It's insane. If it was a woman, I mean, can you imagine the level of like slut shaming

perhaps appropriately should still go on if this was so, put the identity piece aside. Yeah. There were a lot of jokes being made about like, this is probably

the most wholesome thing that's happened in the Senate hearing room in some time or like at least someone's deriving some joy from the things that are happening in the Senate hearing room. So, I guess there is a bit of a point there. But, I don't know. It's just, when I see characters like this, you know, like the George Santos of the world where he's just so brazen in his lies and just over and out.

Like, you're so brazen with this. I can't wrap my head around it. That's the part of it to me that's fascinating and interesting. Call me a boomer. I don't really know why you have to talk about your sex life, period, with all your coworkers. And look, if you want to post it on your social media, I mean, that's fine. But look, I don't think people understand this too.

When you're young, he's what, like 24, 25, something like that? He's something like that. On Capitol Hill, it's a social network. You all go out drinking together. Everybody knows each other and all of this. And this was a well-known secret, apparently amongst all of his coworkers, such that his bosses had to talk to him

whenever he got promoted. And they're like, you need to tone down some of the stuff you're posting. Like, for example, talking about how you want to lick the fingers of a fellow congressman, which is crazy. I'm horrified by that. In the Senate cafeteria. Literally in the Senate cafeteria.

You know, the shower photos. Also ran a Twitter account without his face blurred, purely of just like sexually suggestive evocative photos that was open to the public up until this entire thing. So there's an insane narcissism going on in the minds of this individual. And I would just say- People just think, I don't know, they just think- I don't know.

What do you think? That this is never gonna come out? That the rules are never gonna apply to them? I think that, yeah. You get away with it once and you're just like addicted to that thrill, I guess? I think it's a culture of narcissism. Yeah, I think it's a culture of narcissism

where they just think you can use identity politics to shield yourself from any inevitable criticism. And the reality is that you're just engaging in, like, really disgusting behavior. It really almost seems like— From a public perspective. Addictive behavior. I agree. Yeah.

I think—I honestly think there's something wrong with him, like, on a mental level. Not having anything to do with his gay. Just, like, this crazy amount of exhibitionism and clearly, like, indulging in it and forcing your coworkers to sit down. Yeah, where it's impacting your whole life. Literally. I mean, that's like the telltale sign of, like, some sort of addictive issue. Right. Is it's, you know, you're not able to confine it to the appropriate spaces in your life.

Look, you know, honestly, I wish him the best. I hope he gets the help that he needs and all that. You hurry up, you learn from this. And I hope every other Capitol Hill staffer you guys should learn, too. It will eventually come out if you're going to conduct yourself this way. 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 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. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes.

Yeah. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT.

Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that i'm really happy or my family in general let's

talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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

Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, Americans have, for years, been fed a pack of lies about Israel and Palestine. These lies enabled successive administrations of both parties to offer nothing but unconditional support for Israel and nothing but unrestrained contempt for Palestinians. American presidents stood meekly by as Israeli governments blatantly violated international law year after year, Israel aggressively expanded settlements in the West Bank, imposed a brutal blockade of Gaza-aided settler violence, passed apartheid-style laws, and used a vast bureaucracy to put a veneer of legality on seizures of Palestinian homes and land.

Our support for this criminal and inhumane status quo was enabled by an elaborate mythology surrounding the so-called two-state solution. Now, there are a number of components to this myth. First, that Palestinians have received multiple generous offers of statehood and have unreasonably rejected them. Second, that the Israeli government would love nothing more than to come to some sort of a two-state peaceful resolution but have no, quote, partner for peace. Every part of all of that is a lie. Fortunately, this mythology is actually crumbling in real time. Killed by friendly fire, you might say, as Netanyahu himself has announced. Not only will he do everything in his power to block a

Palestinian state forever, but that he is proud to have been a primary impediment to the dream of a peaceful settlement. In a press conference last week, he said the following, quote, you and your journalist friends have been blaming me for almost 30 years for putting the brakes on the Oslo Accords and preventing the Palestinian state. That's true. I'm proud that I prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state because today everybody understands what that Palestinian state could have been, now that we've seen the little Palestinian state in Gaza. Now, this, of course, is a transparent bit of blame-shifting from Bibi. He would absurdly have you believe that those who supported the Oslo process were to blame for October 7th, rather than him,

the dude who promised you could keep Palestinians locked in a cage forever with zero consequence, who cynically built up Hamas as a Machiavellian means to an end of blocking Palestinian statehood, whose administration was so distracted by his own corruption scandals and pandering to extreme settlers that they completely ignored the October 7th planning that was happening right in front of their faces. But I rather appreciate Bibi's comments here nonetheless, because they are the beginning of the end of our national delusions about the two-state solution. Now, literally no one should be surprised that Bibi is bragging about blocking a Palestinian state. This has been his entire political program and raison d'etre for decades. But such comments and naked admissions rarely make it into the U.S. press.

They're said in Hebrew for an Israeli domestic audience, and American politicians just pretend they didn't hear them. Or they pretend that Bibi is some outlier, a fringe political character inconsistent with mainstream Israeli politics. This is all false. In fact, Netanyahu gives himself far too much credit as the sole bulwark against a Palestinian state. In fact, the various Israeli prime ministers differ not in their opposition to an actual Palestinian state, but in their tactics for permanently blocking one. So first, it's simple enough to demonstrate that opposition to Palestinian statehood has been a permanent feature of Israeli politics no matter the prime

minister. Maybe most illustrative is this chart. Under every Israeli prime minister, moderate, liberal, or right-wing, from lionized hero Yitzhak Rabin to the odious Netanyahu, year after year, illegal settlement building continued and the settler population exploded. Now, why, you might ask, is this a key fact? Because the entire purpose of these settlements is to block a Palestinian state. Don't ask me. Ask the settlers themselves. One of their activist leaders was recently interviewed by Isaac Chotner, and she explained it very plainly. Quote,

The world, especially the United States, thinks there is an option for a Palestinian state. And if we continue to build communities, then we block the option for a Palestinian state. We want to close the option for a Palestinian state, and the world wants to leave the option open. It's a very simple thing to understand. And she's right. It is indeed a very simple thing to understand. The consistent commitment to settlements

under every single Israeli government exposes the lie that Bibi is somehow an outlier in his opposition. Now, here's another key fact in understanding the consistent opposition to Palestinian statehood. Let's allow Professor Norman Finkelstein to lay this one out. Every year, every single year, the United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution called Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine question. And every year it lays out the terms, which I just described.

The terms of the settlement are anchored, embedded in international law. Every year the vote is the whole world, which is to say approximately 190 countries on one side embracing those terms, including the Palestinian representative organizations. And on the other side, it's usually the United States, Israel, and several South Sea islands,

the Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu, Tanga, on the other side. So next time you hear someone lazily parrot the mantra that Israelis have no, quote, partner for peace on the other side. So next time you hear someone lazily parrot the mantra that Israelis have no, quote, partner for peace on the Palestinian side, you might challenge them on whether Palestinian extremists

have really been the primary impediment to peace when the UN record here that Norm Finkelstein lays out is extraordinarily cut and dry. And just wait until they find out what the Likud party charter has to say about from the river to the sea. But you might say, what about Oslo? What about Camp David? Weren't Palestinians offered statehood through the Clinton

negotiations? Weren't some Israeli prime ministers genuinely committed to this process? The answer is yes, some were committed to Oslo. But unfortunately, Oslo was never meant to achieve full statehood. Even the venerated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by a Jewish extremist over Oslo, probably the most committed to this process of any Prime Minister, even he admitted he never envisioned a full Palestinian state. Interestingly, current Bibi senior advisor Mark Ragev just explained this to Piers Morgan. Take a listen. Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel who wanted to make peace with the Palestinians, who was the prime minister at the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords, he gave a speech and he was very clear. He said that the Palestinians will have

less than a state. Yitzhak Rabin said, the man who was shot for his efforts to move forward on the peace process. He said that the future Palestinian areas will have to be demilitarized. He said the Jordan Valley, that area on the eastern edge of the Palestinian territories, would have to remain under Israeli control. The idea that a Palestinian area will have to be demilitarized in any future settlement, that's common sense. Another important moment of honesty there. So what does he mean by less than a state or state minus, as Netanyahu has called it? Well, Palestinian-American activist and intellectual Edward Said laid out in a famous piece what that has meant in opposing Oslo. He argued that far from a process to achieve statehood, Oslo envisioned placing Israeli security needs above actual Palestinian statehood and autonomy in perpetuity. This led Said famously

to write, let us call the agreement by its real name, an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles. So actual statehood was never on the table, but something short of that was, and plenty of Palestinians did support trying to achieve that negotiated settlement. Which brings us to the supposed conclusion of the Oslo tale as routinely recited by American politicians and media outlets. In their telling, Bill Clinton came tantalizingly close to a peace deal in 2000 at Camp David, only to see Yasser Arafat walk away from a generous offer over the smallest of differences. Now at this point, you should be unsurprised to learn that this narrative is also nothing but invented ass-covering to serve the Israelis and their American benefactors.

To start with, the deal was very lopsided, far from the generous offer that it's routinely presented to have been. It required extreme concessions from the Palestinians, including security demands, which would have divided the West Bank into three cantons, effectively continuing some of the worst parts of the Israeli occupation, creating not a state but a series of Bantu stands with no control over airspace, no military, no control over their own borders with Egypt and Jordan. Even one of the top Israeli negotiators, Shlomo Ben-Ami, later admitted, If I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well. What's more, far from Arafat walking away, negotiations actually continued. Formal negotiations continued at Taba until right-wing Israeli governments were

elected to kill the process entirely, and the rest, at least for our purposes today, is history. So to sum up, the deal was far from generous. Arafat had some good reasons to walk away, but he actually didn't, and it was the Israelis who put the final nail in the coffin of Oslo with help from extremists, let's be clear, on both sides. But don't take my word for it. As our own Ryan Grimm has been pointing out, the right-wing hawk, Zbigniew Brzezinski, set Joe Scarborough straight in spectacular fashion on the Camp David fairy tale many years ago. Take a listen. You can't blame what is happening in Israel right now on the Bush administration. Yes, you can. You can't. Let's go back to 2000, on the Bush administration. Yes, you can. No, you can't.

Let's go back to 2000, Dr. Brzezinski. You and I both know Bill Clinton gave Arafat and the Palestinians everything they could have wanted. Such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you. Oh, is it? If you were to look more closely at what happened in the Clinton-Camp David discussions, you would know that what we have just said is absolutely wrong. There were all sorts of provisions and catches to the so-called proposal. And it wasn't rejected.

The negotiations went on in Taba. And then there were elections in Israel. And Sharon came in. And everything got aborted. Now listen, I think it would be fair to look at this history and say, even so, given what we know today, Arafat should have just taken what was on the table in 2000 because it's got to be better than the horror, pain, and bloodshed that we are witnessing.

Very possible. I think it's also fair to point out that Palestinian violence in the Second Intifada in particular is what helped to turn the Israeli public away from those politicians promising a settlement and toward those, openly advocating for brutality, leading to a parade of maniacs culminating in this Netanyahu government complete with overt genocidal psychos. But I think you can also see when you look at all the facts,

there were legitimate reasons for Palestinians to oppose Oslo in its entirety. It wasn't just extremists bent on genocide who found the framework unacceptable and sought to undermine it. Now, in some ways, this past is irrelevant since the thing that really matters is what happens next. But if there's one thing that's clear to me watching this conflict unfold, it's that the lies of the past, the narratives that color our understanding of this current moment, are the most potent weapon enabling the atrocities that are unfolding today. So let's take a cue from Bibi and drop all the fakery. Biden can say two-state solution as much as he wants. Israelis do not want one. So what now?

And Sagar, as usual. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

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

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

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. my old tapes yeah now i'm curious do they like rap along now yeah because i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the

better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that I'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st

and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We've got a great show for everybody tomorrow. Tune in. Otherwise, we'll see you all then. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine 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. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, 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've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?

And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.