Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/3/25: Trump Demands Somalis Out Of US, Hillary Complains About Pro-Palestine TikTok, UK PM Tries To Silence Emily

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Ryan and Emily discuss Trump demands Somalis out of the US, Hillary complains about anti-Israel TikToks, UK PM plot to silence Emily.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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breakingpoints.com. Well, in Donald Trump's marathon, year-end, two-hour-plus cabinet meeting at the White House yesterday, you won't be surprised that he brought up the allegations that about a billion dollars in taxpayer money was stolen in three different fraud schemes, perpetrated mostly by Somalis in Minnesota. Now, this is what Trump had to say. We're going to break it down. But those are the allegations as they stand

of the people who have been charged. I believe only eight are not. Minnesota and Somalis, part of the diaspora. So that's where this is coming from. Obviously, you've probably already seen the New York Times ran a big story about this. Semaphore reports that story came after or came out when it did,

because the New York Times was trying to be Chris Rufo of the Manhattan Institute and City Journal, so conservative think tank to The Punch because they outlined their story, which is a bit different from the New York Times story, and I think Ryan and I will get into why, because Rufo actually alleged, based on sourcing that some of the money

because it was going to remittances, which are a huge part of Somalia's economy, we're funding al-Shabaab. That's, we're going to put aside for just one second and take a listen here to what Donald Trump and Christy Nome had to say. Let's start with Trump yesterday. Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions, every year, billions of dollars. And they contribute nothing.

The welfare is like 88 percent. They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest. Somebody would say, oh, that's not politically correct. I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country's no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don't want them in our country.

I can say that about other countries, too. I can say it about other countries, too. We don't want them to help. We have to rebuild our country. You know, our country's at a tipping point. We could go bad. We're at a tipping point. I don't know if people mind me saying that, but I'm saying it.

We could go one way or the other, and we're going to go the wrong way. keep taking in garbage into our country. Elon Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These are people that work. These are people that say, let's go. Come on.

Let's make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain. And here's what Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Knoem, said at that same cabinet meeting. You told me to look into Minnesota and their fraud on visas and their programs. 50% of them are fraudulent, which means that that wacko governor walls either is an idiot or he did it on purpose. And I think he's bold, sir.

He brought people in there illegally that never should have been in this country, said they were somebody that they're not. They said they were married to somebody who was their brother or somebody else. Fraudulent visa applications, signed up for government programs, took hundreds of billions of dollars from the taxpayers, and we're going to remove them, and we're going to get our money back. So gnome echoing Trump's harsh language about Minnesota governor, Tim Walls there. Trump called Tim Walls, quote, seriously retarded over the weekend.

Walls went on Meet the Press and responded. Here's a little bit from that. Certainly I take responsibility for putting people in jail. Governors don't get to just talk theoretically. We have to solve problems. And I will note it's not just Somalis. Minnesota is a generous state. Minnesota's a prosperous state, a well-run state, where AAA bond-rated, but that attracts criminals. Those people are going to jail. We're doing everything we can. But to demonize an entire community on the actions of a few, it's lazy. So Wall's taking credit there for what has been a federal investigation. Walls really has not had much to do with it. Ryan, there's a lot to talk about in this story. What's your initial reaction to the back and forth over the last few days? that well so and we should we get in a rufo's more sweeping claims or first we can talk about

the the general claims here like is there is there is there you know public benefits fraud among the Somali community uh in minnesota yes like it's a thing like they um you know there have been some major prosecutions and that's you know two walls's point um that have that have targeted now on the one hand, if you go looking in a particular community for more fraud, you're going to find more fraud. On the other hand, there's a good piece by Case of Magin, who is one of the prosecutors in the case. It was just the Minnesota Reformer piece? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we can put this up on the screen.

This is actually really good. This is E5. He was one of the prosecutors. He is himself of Somali descent. I would recommend people go and go and read this piece, but he makes a couple points. One, he says that a lot of the Somalis who are here now in the United States... This is from 2024, by the way, before the story blew up. He wrote this summer of 2024.

So, yeah, these cases have been going on for a while. He said a lot of them have much more, like, education and experience than they're able to use here in the United States. And you see this a lot. let's say you know somebody is you know was like a colonel in the military and is now driving an uber yeah um or you know or what have you right and he makes the point that that's going to um create a lot of frustration that can lead to a desire to take shortcuts to get back ahead to where you feel like you should be because you worked so hard your whole life um and now and now here you are and you feel like that's unjust because you and you've got a family to support here plus you're sending remittances back to Somalia

and that's an enticement to fraud he also makes the point and this is this is a point that applies across the country and applies you know very particularly in south florida as well it is true that there's different communities that are more you know prone to fraud just south florida being a perfect example of this What he argued is that we are, the U.S. system or the state system is set up to go after recipient fraud. Yeah. Like if you're fudging the paperwork and you're ripping off the government, like, we're like, aha, we got you. Right. But if you're a dentist office or you're a doctor's office or a fake doctor's office or you make fake wheelchairs or whatever, or you give out free meals and the meals are funded by the state.

or whatever. And you then pay off, give kickbacks to recipients. So now all your paperwork's kind of in line. You're just not doing anything. That is harder for, for prosecutors and investigators to catch based on the way that we're set up. Yeah. And that's all, that's a complaint I've had about our public benefit system forever, which is that think about who that is benefiting. Those are the, those are the richer people who are pillars of the community and who are donating big amounts to politicians. And that's of people of European descent, Somali descent, Cuban descent, Venezuelan descent, doesn't matter. Like, those types of people, Rick Scott, for instance, is one of the greatest perpetrators. He's the Florida senator of Medicare fraud in the history

of the United States. But because he is at the top of it, he had to pay a gigantic fine, and I think he admitted no wrongdoing or some nonsense like that, walked away with the money and then used the money to buy a Senate seat, he's okay. He's allowed to skate. So that is, we do need to change the way that we investigate fraud. And it feels like if AI is going to be good for anything, like it's it's got to be good for this

like you we are at a point where we should be able to figure out if you're actually making wheelchairs and selling them are you really really selling wheelchairs or not prove it right and we should be able to figure that out like give us some photos of the wheelchairs or something

and no stock photos like this this is a solvable problem but it would take political willpower because you're going after rich people right not just poor people who are bilking the system i think that's totally reasonable um the minnesota reformer article you were just reading from again i think you know the other the other part of this is we should be able to say you know and i always put it this way we are completely correct to be sensitive about racism in a country that had a literal chattel slavery system um up until you know 150

years ago there's like a huge important part of the country's history that would be ridiculous to just get over. That's, you know, not how it works. And Jim Crow is within living memory of people today. So we're right to be sensitive about it. But it's also important that we don't let those claims get weaponized, which is exactly what actually Casey, how am I saying that? I should say it correctly. Megan in the Minnesota reformer admits. And it's not even an admission because Megan is totally happy to say this is what's happening, and more people need to be comfortable diagnosing the problem. It has nothing to do with skin color,

but it was obviously involved with the Somali community. And Megan writes, our system of Quran provides a social safety net. I don't think that I'm pronouncing that correct either. Provides a social safety net in the form of financial... Right, not to be confused with the book. The book, right. It's spelled similarly, but not quite to be confused with it. It provides a social safety net in the form of financial assistance

to those who have fallen on heart. times. Unfortunately, it has also been used to financially support people who have been charged with defrauding the government. And this is, again, like a billion dollar, alleged billion dollar money laundering operation. They're not, the money laundering claims are not flimsy. We're talking about housing programs, autism programs, feeding our future. So kids who were supposed to, you know, hungry kids who were getting meals, looked at the documents. I don't think that this is a case of over-prosecution, and neither does Megan, who was an investigator in the Medicaid fraud. Right. It was part of the prosecutions.

Right. Of the Minnesota Attorney General Office. And so one thing I just do want to say is that I think DFL folks, Dems, progressives, it's not good for them to say, hey, this is a sad story for hardworking Minnesotans who are generous and want to support refugees and are getting absolutely screwed over by this. By the way, Minnesotans who are of all stripes getting screwed over. by this. And Megan notes that Somalis got screwed over by this were some of the victims of all of this. And so, I mean, it just, I don't think it's good for anybody to pretend that this isn't a problem in the Somali diaspora community, because what that does is open the door for people who are racist and do have bad intentions to be like, look, they're telling you, you can't say it. And that's what's going to happen. And people still have agency if they get suckered into that stuff. That's their fault. But if we also can't be clear about what's happening because people are dancing around, that's not good for anyone either. Right. And he was writing kind of

to the Somali community saying, like, we need to clean this up. Otherwise, you know, the hammer's going to come down. And you're going to get a Christyneum situation where she's going to come in and say like half your visas are now invalid. Start like rating people that and you know it is important from a left-wing perspective that that they're in order to get buy-in for universal programs that people trust that the programs are being run honestly because if if you don't look like you're willing to root out fraud, then the right can easily come in and be like, look, this is all well. welfare fraud. Like, let's, since they won't clean it up, let's just get rid of the welfare.

It's the same thing with refugee programs. It's important to get buy-in for refugee programs that people feel as though there's a respect for rule of law and for, like, the country, the state that people are being resettled in. I mean, Minnesota is a very, very generous refugee resettlement program. A lot of states in the Upper Midwest are Wisconsin definitely has that too. A lot of states in America do. And it's because a lot of Americans genuinely feel like they want to be a place of refuge for people who are fleeing. And a lot of very generous and kind-hearted normal Americans who are happy to see a little bit of their money go to these types of programs that the state is running.

But you're going to lose buy-in for them if people believe increasingly that certain communities are taking advantage of their kindness. Yeah, and another point, and there's nothing, and what people need to be able to say is that there's nothing unique or intrinsically bad about the Somali community here, that fraud often spreads through a tight-knit community by word of mouth. So, and you can imagine how this would happen. And this would be the case with, say, the Irish and Italian. I was just going to say Irish and Italians, yes. Like, I mean, obviously, the programs are different at the time. But the word of mouth system where somebody says to you, hey, you know, if you switch providers here, they're going to give you

$1,500. Yep. And you might not even know. know why they're giving you 1,500 bucks. And the reason they're giving you $1,500 is they want your number and that they're going to say they gave you all of these services that it didn't actually give you. And then they're going to get $10,000. You get free treatment or no treatment at all, but you get $1,500. And then you tell your friends, like, hey, if you want a free $1,500, go over to these guys. Yep.

And it feels like, really, can I do that? Right. And then a bunch of people do it. and get away with it. I'm like, well, I'm a sucker at this point for not getting my $1,500. Right. And so, yeah, so at that point, it has to be kind of a top-down situation because, like, just from a risk-benefit situation, most people are going to be like, well, okay,

I'll take $1,500. Yeah. Seems legal-ish. Right. I don't know. Yeah. You kind of know in the back of your mind, you're like, probably isn't right, but you don't know why and it's not right and they're telling you like just sign here and the program was passed

by the state and you'll get this money and right and okay and i really think this is why you're starting to hear the trump administration talking about denaturalizing people because they don't have a lot of legal pathways to like boot somali americans from the country because his decision to remove tPS so temporary protected status from uh somalis it's like 700 people in minnesota out of a 60,000 population, roughly 60,000 population. Those were the numbers I saw in time. But 700 TPS recipients, that's not, like, that's not what the Trump administration actually wants to be able to do, which is why I think you've started to hear them flirt with

the idea of denaturalization just over the last week or so. I mean, obviously, that comes up from time to time. But 700 people on TPS, a lot of these people are American citizens. They've been here for a long time. They've gotten citizenship. toward that end that seems to be where the Rufo piece comes in

so what Chris Rufo is arguing is that not only is there this significant amount of fraud which is established and has long been reported he's saying it's then being funneled to al-Shabaab and his sourcing for that

is basically the like blind claims of some like intel officials or something right? I think two officials something like that like who are just like saying stuff like now if you send assert enough remittances in general to any particular place like a powerful organization

who's in that place is going to wind up with some of the money like that is that's how it goes but that that's that's not like what he's trying to imply is that this is like some al-Shabaab run operation right to fund itself and then there's just no evidence for that

whatsoever and it would be rather striking use of al-Shabaab's time if they were, like, hey, let's go through the Minnesota. Like, I mean, it's crazier things have happened, but there's no evidence for it at this point. Yeah, I mean, this is, remittances from Somalis in Minnesota are a huge portion of the economy, of Somalia itself,

which is, I mean, the same is true in a lot of Central American countries. Right, I think Honduras is like remittances are like a third of the economy or something. It's massive. Venezuela, massive, yeah, it's huge. and in Mexico, actually, really big, too. And so that, the, the notion that some of that money is going to al-Shabaab is eminently believable. Whether it's a concerted operation is a different question. And it's actually kind of similar to the question of Cartel de los Soles in Venezuela, which the Biden, actually was the Biden-DioJ's indictment that walked through,

their allegations of state-sponsored narco-trafficking in Venezuela, and a lot of what it amounted to was people in the military here and there, taking bribes, being involved. The question of whether Nicholas Maduro is using this cartel to wage war on Americans with drug trafficking is different. These two things are not the same. So you can have some state involvement, or you could have some al-Shabaab benefits,

but does that justify particular, can that be used to justify particular actions? Different question. I think it's a different question. So I think it's probably true that some of this money ends up in the hands of al-Shabaab. I don't see any other way to go about that. Money is fungible, yeah.

A lot of them, and it makes up, you know, it's hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, if people take that to claim that this is an intentional military operation from al-Shabaab, lots more evidence is needed that lots more evidence is needed on that front. Yeah, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Yes, so

we will see, but... Not what was provided. Again, we're talking about 700 people maybe losing TPS and where it goes from there, hard to say, and whether that holds up in court also hard to say. Yeah. And on that note, actually, let's transition to our guest, Sammy Hamdi, Ryan,

someone who was in court battles with the Trump administration over immigration as well. Yep. May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Berry's car. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of Rip Current, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Barry? And why? She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California.

They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture. It was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history.

And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way

into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad.

And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. It's okay not to be okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love within each other.

Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another. I'm Elliot Connie, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real families come together to heal and find hope. What would be a clue that would be like? I've gotten lots of text messages from him. This one's from a little bit better of a version of him. because he's feeding himself well.

It's always a concern. Like, are you eating well? He's actually an amazing cook. There was this one time where we had neighbors and I saved their dog and I ended up inviting them over for food and that was like one of my proudest moments. This is Family Therapy.

Real families, real stories on a journey to heal together. Listen to season two of Family Therapy every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you've, get your podcasts. Joining us today is British journalist Sammy Hamdi, who thankfully is joining us freed

from American detention, Sammy. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. So for people who don't know, you became kind of a cause-selebe when it comes to the question of free speech and criticism of Israel here in the United States when you were, when you became a kind of high-profile ICE detainee for about two weeks. You talked just briefly for people who don't know the story about what you were doing here in the U.S. and how you wound up in American custody. Thank you very much, Ryan. So I had a B1B2 visa that was valid for 10 years.

It was due to expire in 28. And I had been visiting America on numerous occasions over the past three years in which talking about the Middle East politics, whether it's talking about Syria, whether it's talking about the Gulf, and more recently about what's happening in Palestine, what's happening in Gaza, this genocide that is taking place. On my trips to America, I spoke at universities such as Berkeley, Stanford, Cooney and these others, and welcomed in America, and never really had any issues going in and out of America. And then two weeks prior to my detention, a right-wing individual called Dinesh De Sousa put up a video of a lecture that I gave in Kuala Lumpur,

where I expressed quite passionately that to the audience that they should keep talking on social media. It's making a difference. Americans have good hearts. When they're seeing the truth, their hearts are flipping, when they're seeing the realities of what's taking place in Palestine, when they're seeing the images of Sidra's legs blown off and her body hanging from the wall from the force of the blast,

when they're seeing Hindrajab and hearing the audio note where she's surrounded by her corpses of her family in the car, being shot up by 320 American bullets supplied to the Israelis and the Israelis bomb the ambulance sent to save her. Americans are moved by it. Their hearts are changing as a result of it. When they see the video of Nahban, may Allah have mercy on his soul, holding his granddaughter, calling her the soul of my soul,

I was arguing in Kuala Lumpur that we should have faith in humanity and that when you speak through social media and provide the truth, it's dispelling the propaganda of those supporting people. the genocide and the like. Dinesh D'Souza took this clip in which I was arguing that there are hearts in corners we didn't think possible that could flip like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, etc. He took this clip and he tweeted, Muslim Brotherhood operatives celebrates the role of Candice Owens and Tucker Carlson

in spreading Islam in America. And Grok would respond and say this is absolute nonsense, nothing in the video says anything like it. Grock to the rescue finally. Exactly. But an individual who called Ted Cruz, senator of Texas, decides to retweet it. on the attention of a lady called Laura Luma, who tweets on the Monday as part of this Israeli lobby, tweets on the Monday and says, there is somebody from the UK who is touring the U.S.,

criticizing the Israelis, I'm paraphrasing here, we need to get rid of his visa. I didn't take it seriously in the sense that this is America, there's land of law, Laura Luma is not the arbiter of free speech in the land of the free and home of the brave, as the America calls itself. On the Wednesday, she tweeted, I'm in Congress, and I have good news. coming in two days about a certain so-called operative touring the U.S. at this moment. And I knew she's talking about me. On the Saturday, I gave a lecture in Sacramento at a care banquet, the Council of American Islamic Relations, in which I argued that America needs to be

saved from the Israel First Lobby. I argued in that speech that it is unfathomable that an American can freeze on magnificent mile in Chicago and cannot access any funds to save him from homelessness while Congress gives $14 billion to the Israelis first. It makes no sense. It makes no sense that an American goes bankrupt because they can't afford medical bills because $8 billion gets given by Congress to the Israelis to give them free health care and then commit genocide on top to slaughter the Palestinians. My argument was that this is not just about American Israel as one, save America from a lobby that demands that America suffers for the sake of genocide taking place in Palestine. The following morning, I'm going through

San Francisco airport. I was wearing a Malaysian batik, which is a noble dress from Malaysia that Americans mistook for a disco shirt. I don't know why, but in any case. I go through the check-in. I go through security. I look up, D-38, the gate to go to Tampa to give another lecture. A gentleman approaches me and says, excuse me, are you Sami Hamdi? I said, yes. He said, sir, I'm here to inform you that your visa has been revoked. And it was revoked two days ago. I said to him, nobody told me my visa was even under review. What do you mean it's been revoked? He said, sir, here is the memo from the State Department. I read it.

It doesn't state any reason. It just says section this, article, this. We have the right to revoke it. I said, did they give you a reason? He said, sir, they just told me to wait for you here and to pick you up. I said, okay, I was supposed to go to London on 2nd of November, six flights a day from San Francisco. I'll just book a flight now and just go to the gate for London.

That's not how this works, he said to me. Then six agents appeared out of nowhere. They escorted me out of San Francisco airport. a black car with tinted windows was waiting for me I asked to call a lawyer they refused and then when I told them there's no way I'm getting in the car I'm a British citizen I'm not some random guy you find on the street

one of them said relented said okay you got one minute I called a lawyer who's in civil liberties and then the lady behind me when I asked to call my family one of the agents pushes me against the car that's enough you're under arrest now cuffs me and they take me on a six hour ordeal in the back of a van to the middle of nowhere someplace McFarland and they put them in a facility

and I stayed there 18 days And thanks to two federal judges who indicated that there were serious breaches of freedom of speech and therefore my case should be expedited, the DHS lawyer in private, I know what they were saying publicly, but certainly in private, they sort of said, listen, can we just clear this up, go home and let the storm pass and we'll clear the record in that regard. But it was quite the experience in that regard. But the final thing I'll say here is before I hand back over is, I know a lot of people focused on what happened to me, but I think it should be placed in the broader context, Ryan, in the sense that I think that the extreme Israeli lobby, bear in mind I was not the first person they targeted.

They actually went after American citizens first to curtail the freedom of speech in terms of what they can say about Israel. You'll remember, Ryan, they went after American students who were with the American Muslims for Palestine. They went after them in Michigan. and the judge ruled that the case should be dismissed. Then they went after American citizens telling them freedom of state. Oh, yeah, we had one of those American citizens on this program, actually.

That's right. Exactly. And they went to Nevada. The judge said, this is absolute nonsense. We have freedom of speech in this country. Then the extreme Israeli lobby said, okay, we're struggling to go after American citizens. Let's go after naturalized citizens. So they targeted Mehdi Hassan and some of these others, and they failed.

Then they said, okay, let's go after green card holders. We need to restrict the rights of ordinary Americans to prevent them from accessing truth. They went after Mahmoud Khalil. They found that it's much more difficult. The judges ruled he shouldn't be deported. His case is still in limbo, but he hasn't been deported yet. Then they said, let's go after student visas. They went after Ramesa, Ostok, Moshamedu, and other students. Let's scare students like Likar Kordia from preventing them from speaking out. And they failed. The judge's rule they should be released. Then they thought, this is really bad. The constitution is against us. We're unable to restrict American freedoms.

We're unable to push our way and prevent this truth from penitentiary. the filters that we put on the flow of information in America. Then they thought there's a random UK guy from London, touring the United States. Let's go off their B1B2 visa and we'll take that as a victory instead. And thankfully, they failed. In the end, I was able to go home free, 18 days in ice, which was a bit rough, to be honest. But thankfully, I'm home and I consider it a win. Let's take a look at the video Laura Lumer posted, and I think this was 2023,

but also Homeland Security posted this video. We'll play it in full here so that people can see. you what's in question. Netanyahu did not envisage that for the first time since 1948, the Palestinians would actually retake land back from the Israelis.

Netanyahu did not envisage that for the first time since 1948, the Palestinians would be able to hold those territories for more than 72 hours. We are pitying a people who brought a huge victory since 1948. Don't pity them.

They don't want your pity. celebrate the victory. Allah has shown the world that no normalization can erase the Palestinian cords. When everybody thought it was finished, it's roaring. How many of you feel it in your hearts

when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allah, how many of you felt it? Why did you feel it? Because in despair, vanish. You said this oomah is alive. Okay, so, Sammy, obviously, speech questions.

I just want to put aside for a second. question that a lot of people might have is, what was the huge victory that was, people were, should be celebrating and then feeling euphoria about on October 7th or after October 7th? Sure. I think that anybody who watches the full lecture will see that the buildup to it makes it abundantly clear. The sense that normalization was taking place over the heads of the Palestinians, people were warning that you have to engage the Palestinians in any peace talks. And now it's abundantly clear after everything that has happened, that the Palestinians are relevant and that they must be included in peace talks, celebrate the victory that people are talking about,

the Palestinians again, and that people are no longer steamrolling them in any talks and discussions about their particular future, which is why this video was inadmissible in court, because it's been stitched out of the wider context and even the Department of Homeland Security found that it could not be submitted. And the irony is that one week later, BBC would stitch a video of one of Donald Trump's speeches and a BBC director would end up resigning as well. I think anybody who watches the full lecture sees abundantly clear what I was talking about. And I don't think something from memory that is Islamophobic and targets all Muslim representatives and anybody who talks as a Muslim, I don't think that any court would take anything they say seriously,

which is why not even many of the mainstream media managed to pick it up anyway. And I do want to emphasize this particular point, that nothing of what was being said publicly ever made it into a charge sheet or was even mentioned privately. In fact, on the Wednesday, so 11 days after I was in, the lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security went to the federal court and said, you have no jurisdiction to assess the right of freedom of speech for Sammy Hamdi because he's a foreign alien. The judge ruled that not only do they have jurisdiction, but in the words of the judge, we believe there are serious signs that his freedom of speech has been infringed. The following day, the Department of Homeland Security appointed a specific lawyer for my case to call email and text my lawyers and say to them, listen, can we just make this go away? We'll just, you know, clear the record. We will pull a few strings.

We'll get you home, you know, and we can just forget that all of this took place. And this is the point that I'm emphasizing here, in that this had nothing to do with anything that I said, everything that I've said, there's nothing wrong. Even in that clip itself, it was not admissible in court. The problem was, how do you silence Americans from talking about what Israel is doing in Palestine? How do you create a climate of fear where even somebody who comes from the U.S., UK, a journalist, is frightened to talk about Palestine? How do we make Americans stop spreading on TikTok what's actually happening in Palestine? Something that Hillary Clinton yesterday complained about when she's talking at the Zionist Forum,

something that Anthony Blinken and Mitt Romney complained about when they said, we need to ban TikTok and then the 50 billion purchase of TikTok for what? And this is the point. Actually, Sammy, let me pause you on that real quick because we have that clip. And I think it's really telling. Let's roll F1 for people. That our students, smart, well-educated young people from our own country, from around the world. Where were they getting their information?

We were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok. That is where they were learning about what happened on October 7th, what happened in the, you know, days, weeks, and months to follow. That's a serious problem. It's a serious problem for democracy, whether it's Israel, the United States, and it's a serious problem for our young people. And it was frankly shocking to me how little the students we were encountering, not only in this class we teach, which is a very large class, international relations about crisis decision-making, but students more generally. And that's why I mentioned the social media piece of it,

because when you would try to talk to them to engage in some kind of reasonable discussion, it was very difficult because they did not know history. They had very little context. And what they were being told on social media was not just one-sided. It was pure propaganda. And so when you think about how to tell Israel's story, and it's important, it's not just looking internally, it's looking externally, and particularly looking at young people, because, you know, it's not just the usual suspects. It is a lot of young Jewish Americans who don't know the history and don't understand. I was talking to Condi Rice, and, you know, she said in an interview that I did,

after the 20-point plan came out, she and I were on CBS, and she said, you know, when people were chanting from the river to the sea, she would ask the students, what river, what sea, they didn't know. I had the same experience. A lot of the challenge is with younger people. More than 50% of young people in America get their news from social media.

So just pause on that for a second. They are seeing short form videos. Some of them totally made up. Some of them not at all representing what they claim to be showing. And that's where they get their information. And so that's at an event put on by Israel's largest newspaper, Israel Hion, which is funded by Miriam Adelson. So just to underscore your point about the attempt to control the media, but go ahead. But Ryan, I want to ask the viewer to listen to what she's saying.

She's not just saying they were listening to TikTok. She's saying they weren't listening to us. We are the gatekeepers of information. How dare Americans go somewhere else? How dare Americans exercise their freedoms to listen to the likes of Ryan or Crystal or Sarah or the Palestinians or Muadze Aziza? How dare Americans actually believe that the Constitution entitles them to go to listen to information from sources other than that which we're. we feed them. How dare they go to breaking points instead of CBS where we've appointed Barry Weiss in order to filter the information that goes to Americans? How dare they go and listen

to Mehdi Hassan and Zateo instead of going to listen to all of these other different outlets that we set up specifically to make sure that the Palestinian voice is never heard? And what Hillary Clinton is saying, as others have said, as one of Obama's former speechwriters has been saying consistently is, is that we need to tell the Americans how to interpret history the lesson from the Holocaust is not that we should support the oppressed. It's that and then she goes on one, two, three, four. The point that I'm saying here is this is not something about Sammy Hamdi. It's not about the video that you played.

It's not about anything to do with me whatsoever. I got caught in the crosswind. This is about should Americans be allowed to see the truth of what's happening in the world or should they only have the right to listen to Hillary Clinton and listen to that which Israel deems to be legitimate information that should go through? And bear in mind, when they talk about TikTok, they're also talking about breaking points, they're also talking about Zetaio, they're also talking about the new media that is emerging that is no longer beholden to these filters that used to be put on the American people. And I'll finish on this point, Ryan. I went to every state in the US except New Hampshire. And I would go to different places, whether it's Fort Worth in Dallas and these other places. I cannot stress that even the American who was pro-Israel and might be hostile to the information. coming out of Gaza in terms of denying the genocide, denying the slaughter, denying the pictures. Whenever they saw those graphic images, you saw Obama's former speechwriter saying,

it's like I'm talking through a carnage, you know, of dead children when I'm speaking to them. The reality is that she mentions it Hillary Clinton. You find even ordinary Jews and these others, American citizens, waking up to what's happening. And the tragedy of what's unfolding in America is this. It's that you're no longer talking about America first, and I don't hear me in MAGA. I mean about the interests of the American citizens. The whole politics at this moment seems to be geared towards how do you control the flow of information to the ordinary American people for the sake of a foreign government. And I was not detained because I criticised the Americans, albeit I've said in the past they shouldn't be supporting the genocide that's taking place.

Laura Luma came after me, not because I criticised Washington, but because I criticized Israel. Ted Cruz came after me, not because I criticized America, but because I criticized Israel. This is not the America that I think American citizens want to live in or believe in. And that's what Hillary Clinton is talking about. How do we silence these voices before the Americans wake up? Because if the Americans wake up, we get a Memdani phenomenon in New York. If the Americans wake up, we get a situation in New York where when Democrat and Republican establishment ally behind Cuomo against Mamdani,

the people support Mamdani. Memadani wins. The fight in America has nothing to do with Sami or the like. It has to do with Israel first versus America first. And again, I don't mean MAGA America first. I mean the interest of American citizens. At this moment, it looks like it's not clear who's going to win in that regard. I got caught in the crosswind, but thankfully I came out, okay.

But I do hope that anybody listening to this can see the reality of what Hillary Clinton is saying. She is saying to you, O American, that you have no right to exercise freedom in where you get your information from. Listen to us and will tell you. It's very Orwellian, very 1984, very the sense of, you know, the news speak and all these others. And that's where I think the greatest threat to America is not the Muslim. There's not anybody that's being targeted by this sudden upsurge in media that Tucker Carlson, although I find it very weird that we're quoting him left-right center these days, but it is what it is, given the changes that are taking place.

It does feel like an op. The greatest enemy to America today is the one attacking American freedoms, and that attack seems to be coming from Tel Aviv. I did want to press on one thing you said, because I think it really underscores how important your case actually is, because it reveals how thoroughly the American people are being lied to. press on this. You said, so you saw the clip that Laura Lumer circulated along with that clip, she and other people said, this is a terrorist supporter, this is a Muslim Brotherhood

supporter, this is somebody like training people in like digital, like terrorism or something like there. There are all these words that they used to like make speech sound very scary. And what, but what you're saying is that when it came to. behind bars, the our government, who was sharing these Laura Lumer ideas and accusations, our government who's telling the American people that they have detained a very scary person who is doing terrible things when it comes to criticism of Israel, that they didn't even attempt to make those allegations behind bars and behind the scenes. Is that right? Not only that right. Not only did they make those allegations behind the scenes.

Not only did they not even allude to it or suggest it or even presented in any way whatsoever. The sense that my lawyers got, or indeed that we got, when the DHS lawyer came to talk to my lawyers, the sense was that somebody had walked into the State Department or the DHS and sort of said, guys, what idiot listen to Laura Luma? What on have happened here? Why are media coming after us with all of this attention? Who is this guy? And who even revoked his visa?

And why did you guys listen to Laura Luma in doing so? And the lawyer was appointed to clean up the mess very quickly. The sense that we got was the government was almost saying, please allow us to safe face. We'll let you go home. Return, let the storm pass, supply for a visa again, et cetera, whatnot. But let's just make this very easy. We can get you home within 48 hours.

Because bear in mind, some inmates, when they agreed to go home, they still keep in their three months, and they still keep there two months. I was expedited within 48 hours because of the urgency with which the Department of Homeland Security felt they needed to close this particular case. And this is the point that I'm making, whatever they're telling you online or whatever the battle is taking place on social media is not the reality of what's unfolding before you. The reality is that there is a PR battle.

But privately, the government is very much aware that there is this schism that's taking place. And it's true, even within the State Department, whatever Marco Rubio says, whatever Trishan, I'm not sure how to pronounce her, say, name is, what, exactly, whatever she's saying, there are people in the State Department and there are people in the federal courts. There are people within the government who are not happy with the way Israel First is taking over U.S. policy. There is resistance in these particular areas, even around Donald Trump, and this is not a defense of Donald Trump at all, like there's many stuff that, to be honest, we can say it all day and criticize his policies. But even around him, there is this battle between Israel First and America First, which is why you're seeing this clash that's manifested online between Tucker Carson, Candace, Owens, Dave Smith, and these others, and the Ted Cruz's and the Dinesh D'Sus and Laura Luma. It shows that the perception is not of a unified government that's agreed on these things. There is a battle for America that is taking place. I'm not saying one side represents America.

I'm saying there is a battle for the heart of America and the preservation of the rights enshrined by the constitutions. The attack is coming from Tel Aviv. I pray that the Americans wake up quick enough before they wake up one day and find that Tel Aviv has not only constrained their freedoms, but even managed to amend their own constitution. Okay, well, Sammy, thanks so much for joining us, you know, really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, guys.

I'm Robert Smith. This is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need. for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that

story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Berry's car. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of Ripcurrent, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why? She received

death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture. It was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate a chance to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's okay not to be okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love within each other. Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another. I'm Elliot Connie, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real family. come together to heal and find hope. What would be a clue that would be like? I've gotten lots of text messages from him. This one's from a little bit better of a version of him.

Because he's feeding himself well. It's always a concern. Like, are you eating well? He's actually an amazing cook. There was this one time where we had neighbors and I saved their dog. And I ended up inviting them over for food and that was like one of my proudest moments.

This is family therapy. Real families, real stories on a journey to heal together. Listen to season. two of Family Therapy every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of the United Kingdom, we have a wild news story at DropSight News today. That is an adapted excerpt of a new book called The Fraud by Paul Holden, and it uses expanded reporting and documents that are also not included in the book.

because the book is basically an investigation into the political operation of Sir Kear Starrmer, current UK Prime Minister. The piece that he's writing for us today looks at a secretly funded operation that Starmer and his current chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, were running, that has some implications for work that Emily has done in the past. So what they did is when Jeremy Corbyn was rising and was the head of the Labor Party, they came together and said, how are we going to undercut the support for Corbinism and elevate Starmer? And so they identified a lot of progressive media that had grown up around the kind of Corbinists rise and said,

we need to undercut these folks. And so they created two organizations, and this is what he's able to report with these documents, and this is what hasn't been known before. They created an organization called Stop Funding Fake News, SFFN, and another one called the Center for Countering Digital Hate. And so they presented themselves as these, they're just grassroots. Brits, Britons, who are concerned about fake news and misinformation and disinformation out there. Not that they were funded by secret money from pro-Israel elements that were funneling it into the Keir-Starmer political machine. That's what he can report. So this whole thing, this whole fake news scheme that they were running was not grassroots just concerned Britons.

it was a Kier-Starmer machine aimed at destroying Jeremy Corbyn. So it went after a bunch of left-wing publications. They also went after, for balance and for fun, a bunch of populist right-wing news outlets as well, including Breitbart and the Federalist. And they went after them quite hard. Turns out, Emily is quite familiar with the CCDH, Center for Countering Digital Hate.

So tell us what your experience was with this. What we now know is a Kear-Stormer machine operation. But at the time was said to be just people concerned about fake news. Yeah, well, I think this actually is a really important story because it wasn't just like MAGA news organizations. Zero Hedge was also targeted at the same time as a lot of other conservatives, now we know Breitbart, but back in 2020, Ben Collins, who I think was like the disinformation or misinformation reporter at NBC News.

So this is a journalist. Basically, I'm going to read this little section from a story he published at NBC News at the time, tattletailed to Google about a CCDH report on the Federalist comment section. So this is a quote from his NBC News story. Google blocked the Federalist from its advertising platform after the NBC News Verification Unit brought the project to its attention. Incredible, first of all, that you have a journalist tattletailing on another news outlets, because they don't like this news outlet, on another news outlets's comment section to who? To Google, which owns YouTube. So if you're familiar with the YouTube comment section, that's a hilarious move on Ben Collins' point, on Ben Collins' part. It was always so maddening that a journalist would take the CCDH report and then tattletail to a big tech company. I mean, just infuriating. And at the time, I mean, I remember the entire, like, mainstream media cheerleading this report from Ben Collins.

Yeah, get him, get him. Well, if you tattletail to Google and they shut down your advertising platform, you are out of business in 2020. There has since been sort of parallel efforts to back up. What was the effect that it had on the Federalist? So Jim Jordan came in, and a couple of Republican congressmen came in and pushed back on it, and it went away. It would have totally shut down the website. It destroyed the Canary, which is not just, the Canary is now making a comeback, but the canary is a left-wing outlet in the UK. It took the Canary from a influential news outlet of 25 to 30 journalists to like one person.

Right. And they took credit for like just destroying it that way. Sorry, go ahead. Well, no, and I mean, that's why you've talked about this recently. The speech protections in the United States make, especially if you're a journalist, can make you very patriotic when you look at what happens in the UK. Because Google, it was brought to Google's attention that they had a clear legal problem on their hands. And also that this type of activity was going to animate Republicans on the antitrust front, which it absolutely did. Now, I would argue Google has played Trump a little bit like a lot.

fiddle over the last, you know, six months plus, or I guess what, almost a year now since he won the election and big tech has been getting all kinds of goodies from Donald Trump. But at the time, Google was freaked out because all of a sudden you had these Republicans talking about repealing Section 230 and anti-trust law and all of that. And so they backed down pretty quickly. But it was still, I mean, I think really telling that a journalist was laundering a report from what we now know to be a foreign government's operation. Well, hoping to be a foreign government, foreign political party.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how does it feel to know that it was a Kier-Starmor machine operation that was masquerading as this kind of good media watchdog? It's not surprising at all because we saw it from, you know, Tabe did a lot of reporting back in the day with the Global Engagement Center and Gabe Kaminsky did a lot of this too that was propped up by the American State Department that was putting media companies on blacklists, including the federalists,

including, I think unheard, where a McCormonist got on one at one point, not a conservative media outlet at all, places like Zero Hedge, like heterodox things that question, heterodox outlets that question the establishment, like they were all being targeted by actually also groups that were propped up by the U.S. State Department, where they were getting most of their funding from, you know,

state and from other U.S. governmental or non-governmental organizations that are mostly given, where their budget is mostly comes from the government. It was clearly, like, ideologically aligned with, say, like, the Clinton wing, and it flowed out of that whole Russia gate and all that. But that's a little different than it being a straight-up black-ops operation run out of the Starmer machine. Like, it's one thing to be like, these are our allies and our friends, and we hope that, like, we can weaponize them a little bit, to our advantage. And it's different to be like, oh, this is Kier-Starmer's chief of staff. It's crazy.

Who is setting it up and operating this thing. Or at least it, or at least is very heavily involved. And I think that's a good point because it's especially egregious than that you have a foreign government attempting to influence the boundaries of free speech in the United States. I'm like offended on the federalist's behalf. We should all, I mean, we should just all be offended as Americans. And Breitbart's behalf, too. that an ally, like the U.K. would be interfering in what are, what is our far superior approach to free speech and the press in the United States. They have to clean up their own damn house. And yeah, we make a lot of mistakes. And the Trump administration has had some crackdowns that journals should be uncomfortable with and are uncomfortable with. But our system is better than their system. So how dare they stick their fingers and metal into our free press?

because guess what, it's going to come out. We're going to figure it out. Dropside exists. The Federalist in Breitbart, they might be SOBs, but they're our SOBs. That's right. How dare you? That's right. We will take them on.

Don't try to do this for us. What's your problem with Zero Hedge, right? Your problem with Zero Hedge is that they question... It was Brexit and Nogel Farage and like... Right. And the problem with these organizations is that they question... It's happening with... TikTok. We covered this earlier in the show with our guest. It's going to come for the left.

Just because the kind of Clinton, like you said, Clinton wing controlled a lot of our institutions post-2017 and used them to resist Trump and push back against Donald Trump. So it was coming for the Federalist and Breitbart and Zero Hedge, whatever else. It's coming for the left too. It's coming and it's going to... Right. Yeah, exactly. But that was always so myopic and gross. And especially especially that a, like, lefty journalist would participate in. It was really, really disgusting. Yeah. Hope we learned a lesson, though I doubt. Okay, I get a comment from him now.

You should. Now that he knows that I didn't realize that part of it. Yeah, I'll send you some stuff. Excellent. Cool. Well, there should be some good follow-ups because, you know, hopefully... He owns the onion now. So, what a joke.

I don't know that was going to. But so hopefully the Breitbart and the Federalists will actually follow this up. Yeah, we'll see. it goes from here. Ryan, so glad Dropside Exist and is publishing this. There you go. All right, well, interesting show today. So interesting.

No doubt about it. We'll be back on Friday. That's right. We'll be back. We have two shows left in studio before Christmas, too. So we'll be here next week, week after, with the gorgeous Christmas lights and Christmas decor. And again, catch us December 10th. Where is it?

It's on Capitol Hill. What's the place called? Eastern Market Barrett's Row, The Majestic. The Majestic Theater. You can check out the description for the link. But yeah, Ryan and I are debating that Big Tech does more harm than good. All right. We feel great about our, we are morally confident in our position.

We're doing this with the lovely folks over at Reason. If we lose, it was rigged. If we lose, it was rigged. So make sure to stay tuned. If you're interested, come and see us in D.C. And we will see you on Friday with more break. points. See you then.

You know the shade is always Shadiest right here. Season 6 of the podcast, Reasonably Shady with Jaisal Brian and Robin Dixon is here dropping every Monday. As two of the founding members of the Real Housewives Potomac were giving you all the last. drama, and reality news you can handle. And you know we don't hold back. So come be reasonable or shady with us each and every Monday. Listen to reasonably shady from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Greatness doesn't just show up. It's built. One shot, one choice, one moment at a time. From NBA champion Stefan Curry comes shot ready, a powerful never before seen look at the mindset that changed the game. I fell in love with the grind. You have to find joy in the work you do when no one else is around.

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Order shot ready. Now at stephen currybook.com. Don't miss Stephen Curry's New York Times bestseller, shot ready, available now. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History, about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline is. The most Texas story ever.

Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.