Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 12/8/25: Jan 6 MAGA Pipe Bomber, Hillary Doubles Down On TikTok And Israel, Sydney Sweeney Backtracks After Flops

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Krystal and Emily discuss Jan 6 pipe bomber, Hillary doubles down on Israel and TikTok, Sydney Sweeney backtracks after movie flops.   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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So you guys covered this on Friday, but there were some updates that happened on Friday that we wanted to make sure to get in here as well. So let's put D1 up on the screen. And you guys probably, know this, like, this pipe bomber has been a real fixation on the right. And I understand why because it's like, okay, this was a series out, like, pipe bombs were placed outside the RNC and the DNC. And this just never, we just never solved this case. Like, really, in this age of mass

surveillance, we can never figure this out. Oh, on Capitol Hill. Yeah, on Capitol Hill. And Kamala Harris was going into the DNC and we never figured this out. Yep. So in any case, they apprehend this guy. And the initial thing that was put out is he was an anarchist. Okay. Well, now they're saying during interviews with the FBI, the suspect, told investigators he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and the RNC headquarters. So basically, it looks according to this interview and this report, that he was a stop-the-steel guy.

And the reason I give this credence is because this, this is because this is, This is not what like a Cash Patel FBI would want him to say that his motive is. Definitely. Right? And that's why I think when the government or any source says something that is sort of against their interests, you can give it more credence. Not to say you shouldn't be still skeptical, skeptical, the narrative, whatever. That's like your responsibility to ask questions and question the government, especially when they're making claims. But if it's a claim that goes against their partisan ideological interests, I do think that that is worth getting more credence than something that just like fits

really neatly with what they would want this narrative to be. So anyway, apparently they brought this guy in, and Piro, Genean Piro is saying, like, oh, he was an equal opportunity. He hated both parties. That may also be the case. But in any case, he at least bought into these Stop the Steel narratives. Yeah, the story is deeply weird. And I have all kinds of skepticism about the story period. But just on this note, Kendalayan right away, who is very tethered to kind of,

like deep state, for lack of a better word, people who are like careers at the FBI, basically. He's, I forget who called him Fusion Ken, but that was because he was reporting so much on the Fusion GPS stuff. Maybe that's a Glenn Greenwaldism back in the Russia collusion days. But he reported right away before the suspect was named, but when we knew that there had been an arrest, that he had, quote, anarchist leanings. And that was sourced to two people with knowledge. And now Cash Patel and Dan Bongino are getting asked about all of this. They're getting asked about the fact that this guy worked for his dad's bail bond company that worked with Benjamin Crump, a very ideological attorney from the left as they were bailing out

immigrants in jail and they're not going much further. And now we get this, that he's also stopped a steal. And Patel and Bonino are kind of punting on it and saying we don't want to interfere in the legal process. So I think Bongino has said this is chapter one of a 10 to 20 chapter book. And so just over the last five days, everyone's like, well, so what's actually going on right now? Like, what is what is actually happening with Brian Cole, who was discovered seemingly out of nowhere with information that Patel and Bongino said existed at the FBI for years? And if you read through the affidavit, they're essentially connecting the dots between phone records,

license plates, records, purchases, hardware purchases, so pipe end caps, things that are really specific wires, that sort of thing. Also, though, that were bought after January 6th. So the affidavit lists out all of these purchases, a couple of them, that go into late January after January 6th. So it's a very, very strange, the entire story right now is strange, and it could be cleared up fairly quickly if the FBI opens up and explains some of these inconsistencies and just, you know, question marks. But right now, I mean, there's just such a vacuum of clear explanations. It's like, what the hell is this story supposed to be?

Yeah. Well, and if we think about a motive and why it would make sense, if you're a stop-the-steel person to, you know, plan a bomb both at the DNC and the RNC. Like, the DNC part, okay, that's obvious, right? You're, you know, you're mad that the election was stolen. You think they were complicit, whatever. But, I mean, there was a lot of upset, too, at the, mainstream Republican Party in a sense that like they weren't doing enough to go along with,

you know, to just quote unquote stop this deal and to go along with Trump's election lies and delusions. So it's, it does make a level of sense that if that is your motivation, you would be going after both the DNC and the RNC and just generally looking to cause fear and chaos on that particular day. Another, I don't know if you could call it funny, but, But whatever you want to call this, ironic, yeah, we'll call it amusing, put D2 up on the screen. Element of this is it's possible that with Trump's very broad pardoning of the J6 rioters that he may have accidentally also pardoned this guy. So this says Mr. Trump in one of his first official acts after returning the White House this

year issued a grant of clemency to the nearly 1,600 rioters charging connection with the capital attack. his clemency proclamation was extraordinarily broad, covering all defendants, accused or convicted of, quote, offenses related to events that occurred at or near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, at or near. It is possible defense lawyers will ultimately try to argue that the placing of the pipe bomb should also be covered by Mr. Trump's proclamation. I'm not a lawyer, but, I mean, it seems like they could definitely make that case because offenses related to him. I mean, it was certainly related to the events. It certainly occurred at or near the U.S. Capitol. It was on January 6th. So I don't know. I mean, maybe technically did he actually place the bombs on January 5th? Yes, but I think that might still be covered because it's at or near. I mean,

they were discovered on January 6 with timers that I bet are going to be argued. I mean, that's another very strange part of this. It looks like one hour. I mean, if people haven't seen the pictures of the bomb, I keep telling everybody of the pipe bombs, I keep telling me. people to Google them because they are the most cartoonish-looking, like Looney Tunesass devices where they have kitchen timers strapped, like literal oven timers strapped to these pipes and with like the wires on the outside and all of that. And so these look like one-hour timers. So are the timers being controlled remotely to detonate on January 6th?

That could be a pretty crucial question because if the administration wants to put screws to this guy, they're going to want to say that these devices, were created, were viable. We've already seen them hinting at that for January 6th. So it might not be wiggle room on the date, actually, if the date is the problem. Because it seems like what they're trying to insist is that January 6th, these were intended to disrupt the process.

Yeah, so I don't know. That's an interesting one. We'll definitely continue to follow those developments. Emily, can you talk a little bit about some of the theories that have been preculating on the right and how the right is responding to these developments? Yeah, let's put D3 on the screen. So this is from an account called at 459 Crimes,

and this is where you're definitely starting to see the like anti-deep state right split into two. So on the one hand, you have people like Julie Kelly who have covered this story really closely from the MAGA perspective for a long time. And does seem to think that Cash and Dan have the right guy. Then, on the other hand, you have some of the more skeptical folks. I mean, Thomas Massey has already insisted

he's not buying this story, this thread that we have up on the screen now, it's called the five-year fuse. It's not even this thread. It's a published article on X because you can do that now very long, that casts doubt on the official story that Brian Cole is the man in question. And Kyle Seraf and others still seem to be pretty set on the idea, actually, that the person the Blaze named and then retracted the report about, this is D4, we can go ahead, put this up on the screen. Some people seem to be still pretty serious about, and this was in the 459 article

we just had on the screen too, that the person the Blaze named and then retracted the article naming them, that that person was or is still, in their opinion, the likely are suspect and that Cole is a patsy. So that's where this is going. I don't know. I mean, Crystal, I honestly am trying to reserve my judgment in this entire case because the FBI is continuing to say they don't want to interfere in the legal process, they don't want to taint jerry pools or whatever and isn't giving us a lot of information

about what's actually going on. It sounds like Cole is cooperating. Patel and Bogino have said they've talked to him, they've interviewed him, they're so sure that he's the right guy. I mean, the, what I, soft theory,

I think somebody definitely planted that story with the blaze because I've gone back and read it a couple of times. And I mean, to say, within the government. It seems to me planted that story with the blaze, which is a really weird thing to do, obviously, to name a specific person. Right. Who also, by the way, had FBI outside the house next to their house when the blaze was scoping out the house before the reporting, which, again, just it could mean a million different things, but it does seem to me that there's something very fishy happening with some faction of people, whether it's at the

FBI or elsewhere who were trying to deflect, divert, or pin this person knowing that another person was about to be found. It could be the like tickling the wire approach where they dangled that to the blaze to see how Brian Cole reacted because the story of, the Blaze story popped right when they said they had a break in the case. So four to five weeks ago, the timeline matched up exactly. So maybe they were trying to plant a story in the media to see how Brian Cole would react, no idea, but there's something really strange happening with this story, and I don't know what

it is. I don't want to speculate recklessly. But I think clearly if you go back and look at the blazes sourcing, they had people in the government pointing them in the direction of this person at the CIA who they've retracted the claim about. So weird shit. Well, I never put a lot of stock in that, even though, you know, I've been following this pipe bomber thing as well, because it's genuinely like, well, what happened with that? That was the same. significant event and then it just never got resolved and so i ride the blazes thing and i didn't put much stock in it because it was like based on like oh a gate analysis like her gate met and like this seems like bullshit like i'm gonna wait on this one and see what transpires but they did

have to your point they claim to have sources from inside the administration that were also saying oh this is the the lady which is part of why when they were challenged on it they were so like no we stand by our reporting they were very adamant there's also weird tie-tie in with like Tulsi Gabbard in the office of the DNI where they either I don't know if they originated this or they wrote up it was very unclear from the reporting they just wrote this up the blazes information as like a tip but in any case what I definitely got out of it is that she and her whole team are very much on the ounce apparently the piss people off too because they were looking into the Tyler Robinson investigation to see if there was anything

else there that was being missed. I think there was another instance, too, where they, you know, stuck their noses in and the way the rest of the administration was not happy with. But what did you make of that, that Tulsi Gabbard piece? Yeah, so it's very weird. What seems to be the case from media reports, the claim at least, is that the blaze went to the government, and maybe the blaze got a tip from inside the DNI. Like, that's how circular, these stupid intelligence leaks can happen sometimes. Right. Went to the ODNI, office of the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, with this idea that it was this person, again, they've retracted the claim that currently works at the CIA in security at the time was in Capitol

Police. And from there, the Blaze then, because the DNI wrote the memo up, the Blaze then was able to report the story because they reported on the DNI memo, which gives you a hook to say, this is something that exists in the government. It's not just crazy speculation. Right. It's a government memo. But that could have been circular. It could have been them putting it to the DNA. The DNI writes up a memo, then they're able to report on, oh, there's a memo at the DNI. So this gives us more credence. And it can get even crazier than that, meaning, okay, so this person who, again, the claim was retracted about, works at the CIA, worked in Capitol Police. FBI has been doing this investigation. This is the office of the DNI, did another agency, plant it with the

blaze. The blaze goes to DNI. The memo gets written up, and because DNI is desperate to also look like it's solving, moving, you know, and getting to the bottom of a big MAGA case, something that MAGA is really concerned about. They write up the memo, lays reports on the memo, and they would play like a fiddle by FBI, CIA, or someone else. This stuff like sounds crazy, but it does actually happen. A lot of this happened with rush a collusion. So there's something is really off about this story.

Maybe it'll all be cleared up, but so far it's extremely weird. And I think people moving on entirely from the Blaze story, are probably missing a hint as to how the, like, quote, deep state was handling this investigation before Cole was arrested. Yeah. Well, you know, I was sort of skeptical when the initial announcement about Cole came out. Yeah, yeah. We should say that in terms of the evidence they're claiming to have against him,

there are my understanding three components from what I was reading in the indictment. So you've got the assembling of all these parts, right, the constituent elements of the pipe bombs themselves. then you have his vehicle is, you know, in the vicinity at the right time. And then you have cell phone pinging in the relevant towers at the appropriate points as well. And then I think there's also like, you know, a stature analysis. He is, I think, five and six, the person that's roughly the same, which is why it was credible that maybe is a woman because it's a relatively small stature person. So those things all fit.

And I think there may be some other, you know, pieces. But those are the big pieces. Okay. I mean, that's pretty significant in terms of, you know, an evidentiary footprint. I became more convinced that this was the guy when he told interviewers, oh, I was, you know, I didn't believe the Trump election claims. Because like I said, that goes very much against what they want the storyline to be. So if you have a suspect that you are claiming to have this evidence on and you have a motive

that isn't really the motive that they were hoping for here, that to me made it more credible. that this is, in fact, the individual because if they were going to set it up and, like, you know, blame some person who's just a patsy and innocent, whatever, that is not necessarily the storyline that they would want to go with because the whole point is to satisfy MAGA here, and MAGA is definitely not going to be satisfied with someone who did this basically to avenge President Trump and to buy into his claims that the election was stolen, that this was a great crime against the American people. And I also think we should be open to the possibility.

So his grandmother has already come out in the press, and this just, it hurts to hear this type of thing, and said that she thinks he's on the spectrum. Yeah. So I think I'm also open to the possibility that what we're seeing is a disgusting, possibly, I'm not saying this for sure, but possibly exploitation. It's very easy, well, relatively easy to get people on the spectrum to commit to crimes that they didn't do in confessions. This is a documented phenomena.

And so it's possible that there's something going on with that, too. I do not know. Keeping it open to that. Also, Crystal just want to mention the big picture. I think always worth keeping in mind, which is that the implication of a lot of the conspiracy theories, and I don't say that pejoratively, because, again, I'm kind of open to the idea

that there's something weird going on with this. But the implication is that the FBI, under Trump, by the way, had some role in whipping up the violence on January 6th, that either resources were diverted over to the RNC and the DNC at a critical time. That is actually true. Or that in a way that let security sort of fall apart and people run into the capital and create a pretext for mass surveillance of MAGA, etc. Or that this could have possibly been, these could have been viable bombs that, you know, the FBI was planting not even just as a setup, but to do real damage and violence and that sort of thing. Just worth saying,

again, yes, there were FBI assets at January 6th, true. There are a whole lot of... Because, like, half of the oathkeepers are feds. A hundred percent. And the pro boys. And whatever, like, all of these organizations are top to bottom chock full of feds. Yep. I'm reading from the Office of the Inspector. General for the Justice Department right now, 26 FBI Confidential Human Sources. We're in Washington, D.C., on January 6th, in connection with the events of January 6. This is from Michael Horowitz. So, yes, that did happen.

A lot of, but another important point is a lot of regular MAGA people were caught up on January 6. Saw it with my own eyes. It was a lot of people who have since come and said, talked about how they got caught up in violence and other, now that's not everyone. really did. And there were, you know, average MAGA folks who got caught up and did awful, horrible things on January 6th. And again, they've since talked about it. So the Fed Surrection, quote Fed Surrection narrative, to the extent this pipe bomb thing could play into it, I'm open to the idea that these were planted as some type of op. But I also just want to say, like,

that was not just a quote, Fed's direction. There were a lot of regular people who got caught up in it. And I think it diminishes the sort of lessons from January 6th in a way that I think people should be really honest about to pretend that it was all. I mean, some of it, I'm curious, if it was whipped up by feds, I think that's essential information we don't have much. And I think that's probably possible. But at the same time, there are a lot of average people who got caught up in this. And that's, I don't think it's worth whitewashing that either.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, from the left, my perspective is that you, you, I mean, it's without a doubt you had all these Fed informants and assets within a bunch of these organizations who would have been privy to some of the planning. And, but, but many of those people were also sympathetic to the right-wing causes. Like, even as they're fed assets, they're also genuinely sympathetic to right-wing causes. And so I think there was a downplaying of the risk, even as they were getting Intel in. that this would turn into the violent chaotic, you know, disaster that it ended up being. So that's always been my interest in understanding, you know, what they knew and when and how many fed, like, human intel sources were involved and were privy to the planning.

And if they were there, then why wasn't, why weren't the Capitol Police more prepared? Why weren't there more precautions taken on that day? So, you know, there's that aspect to it as well. But in terms of the pipe bomb thing, we'll see where it goes. We'll see what other evidence they're able to offer. You should always be skeptical of government claims. But like I said before, the fact it does not fit the narrative they would want it to, to me gave it more credence than, you know, than if it was just like very neatly like, yeah. Oh, he was, he was anti.

He was actually trans Tifa. I'd be like, he wrote it on the pipe bombs that he was trans Tifa. I'd be like, I'm going to live, but let's see some more evidence on that one. The bottom line on this is that they need to tell the full story ASAP. I get not wanting to intervene in the legal process. And I mean, we've seen our government rush to do dumb stuff over and over again for public relations purposes. But the story is quite odd. So the more information, the better.

Somebody hates the blaze, apparently. Or, yeah, yeah. I mean, somebody says somebody hates the blaze and, you know, really screwed them over. because they look, I mean, it's humiliating for them that they directly accused this one woman and who had an, like a very easy alibi, like, here's a video of me playing with puppies on that day. I guess it wasn't. Well, that I think it's also, sorry, but I like, that's another part of the story to me that I'm just like, what the, they, this, you name a person who has this, who works at the CIA and has a literal video at the exact time of the bomb being planted of her with her dog. yeah what the like it's a it's a lot they're asking us so far by not filling in the gaps they're asking us to believe a lot so uh hey i'm open to it want to see the information it's a crazy story yeah i want to know who's out to get the blaze and i just administration one of the what i think one of the benefits of the last like ten plus years is the right developing this deep skepticism of uh the like intelligence agencies the intelligence community which seems to be like not unsurprisingly lapsing as they have retake in the intelligence community, but I feel like this is just a great surprising, I mean, it's a great reminder of why that skepticism, those seeds were planted during Trump One

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Please enjoy responsibly. What up y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Month, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on? What is their heartbreak?

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we got into the small talk and they were just like, so what do you got? What? What ideas? And I was like, oh, no. What? Check out Not My Best Moment with me, Kevin on stage, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast.

All right, should we check in with our friend Hillary Clinton here? Why would we not? So what was this conference? She was at some like a Doha Security Conference. Security Conference. Tucker Carlson was also there for reasons. I don't really know. But in any case.

Oh, the Global Security Forum in Doha. Okay. So she's re-emerging. No, the Doha Forum. Okay. Sorry. Doha Forum. She has reemerged because she wants us all to know

that we just don't understand what's going on with Israel, Palestine, and that the real problem is not Israel murdering, mass-murdering babies with our support. the real problem is TikTok. So she said this. We covered it last week. Now she was sort of questioned, more aggressively questioned on these comments and asked to defend them, which she did. Let's take a listen to that. I want to talk about you now. You've been in the news this past week for some comments you made at an event in New York, organized by the newspaper Israel Hayam. And I'm going to paraphrase here, but you said that smart, well-educated young Americans are getting their news from social media and from TikTok.

and you went on to say that this is how they're learning about what happened on October 7th and then what happened in Gaza in the months that followed. And it appears that this was a broader lament on your part about declining support among Americans for Israel. That comment has generated a lot of controversy, and it's led Congressman Rokuna, for example, to point out that I don't think the answer is to disparage the intelligence of young people. It's been a few days now since you've done.

said that, how are you reflecting on your words and the controversy around it? Well, I think it is a provable fact that most Americans and a even bigger percentage of young Americans get their news from social media. If that is controversial, then people are not paying attention to how... Is that a bad thing? I don't know if it's a bad thing, but I think it's an incomplete. We are not going to implement the 20-point peace plan or any other peace plan, unless people come with some sense of historical perspective and empathy about how we're going to move people toward what I still believe is the only

realistic outcome, a two-state solution, and we're not going to get there. If people, you know, when they say from the river to the sea and you say what river and what sea and they don't know, which have personally happened in conversations that I've had. And I can't gauge how well young people grapple with history, but what I can speak to is they're grappling with the here and now. And they are witnessing images that are live-streamed, that are coming out every day. And yes, there is misinformation and disinformation, but a lot of it is real.

And I think there's a genuine anger in the United States and around the world that some of that anger is deflected. But, Ravi, I'm angry about all of the human rights abuses. I'm angry about all of the excessive use of force. I'm angry about, you know, what happened on October 7th in Israel and what happened in Gaza. I'm angry about what Russia is doing in Ukraine. I'm angry about Sudan. I'm angry about the Eastern Congo.

I mean, I think we should be all looking at the tragedies and the conflicts that are bringing about so much suffering and be dealing with them. That's why the national security strategy is not, to my liking, because I think the United States has an important role in trying to resolve these conflicts and alleviate the suffering and give people a chance to have peaceful, prosperous lives. That should be our goal. That is in America's interest. I don't care where in the world you are.

So of course, the suffering in Gaza is horrific. full stop. Suffering everywhere is horrific. Suffering everywhere is horrific. And, I mean, she uses a lot of tactics there that we've seen deployed before. I mean, first of all, just suffering in Gaza, no attribution of blame, of course, no attribution of blame on the United States, no attribution of blame on Israel's. If this is just like a natural disaster that occurred and, oh, my gosh, these poor children,

if only someone would do something, but no direct assignment of blame. that's one thing. And then the other one of, well, suffering everywhere is horrific with the suggestion, the suggestion always, the subtext there always, is that, well, you only care about this one because you're anti-Semitic is basically the subtext there. And if you aren't as focused on, you know, other suffering, other places in the world, it can only be because you're anti-Semitic and also an attempt to just sort of like diffuse and deflect of like, well, of course I care about that, but I care about other things as well. So let's talk about those other things. not so much talk about this one. So classic sort of liberal Zionist, I would say, deflection tactics, not to mention the, you know, original assertion from her in the original comments and reasserted here as well, that, well, it's just complicated and you just don't really understand. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a little bit of an irony here in that people who make the argument,

Clinton was just laying out about this being rooted in anti-Semitism and the tell being that people are obsessed with this particular conflict. You know, people right now who make that argument are very upset about this forum being in Doha and Tucker Carlson going and all of these other, you know, people taking money from Qatar, the United States, supporting Qatar. Why? Well, because the United States is involved with Qatar. That is the same reason that people are upset particularly about Israel-Palestines that they

don't like, they believe as Americans. have a responsibility to, they have an obligation to follow this particular conflict so closely because it is so heavily dependent on U.S. involvement. Yeah. You know, a fifth of Israel's annual military budget. That might even be an understatement. You know, the permission structure that Netanyahu was reliant on whether it was Biden or Trump to continue prosecuting the war, like that is the reason for the level of attention.

I remember, you know, obviously as somebody who is Christian, the treatment of Christians in Nigeria is, like, horrifying to me. But a lot of times that is used by people on the right to say, see the anti-Semitism, they don't care what's happening to the Christians in Nigeria. It was like, a couple of months ago, I was like, all right, I'm looking it up. I'm going to see how much money, how much aid is in one place versus the other. It's not even close. I mean, in terms of like percentage of, even if you look at percentage of annual budgets, what does you? US aid constitute. So it's obvious. I mean, it's just, it's, that line drives me up a wall because, of course, it's true that some anti-Semites are completely obsessed with Israel and will

find any reason to criticize Israel at every turn because they're anti-Semitic. Of course, that's true. Yeah. But to impugn the motives of people who care about this particular conflict because the U.S. has a heavy level of involvement, it's the same reason people make the arguments about you? I mean, it's just Ukraine. Like, it's just all, it's, it's, it's sophistry dressed up as sophistication. By the way, uh, the guy who was doing that interview, I was like, wow, I need to look up who that was because it was really well handled. That was, uh, Ravi Agrawal of, uh, foreign policy. I was actually just on his podcast and his voice was familiar. I was like, I know who that is. Fantastic job sticking it to her and saying,

this is different than what you're saying it is. Yeah. You said one thing. I mean, even asking her about that I thought was pretty bold, because she's the type of person that is now seen as like an August states woman. Yeah, sort of unimpeachable character, yeah, all sorts of things. Right, and people use these opportunities to sort of fawn over her.

Yes, and be very deferential. Yeah, so I thought that was actually really impressive. You know, when I've witnessed to is, I mean, first of all, to your point, there is just no other country that we have a comparable relationship to as Israel. No. Like, there is just no other country.

that is part of what makes the Somali memes so funny, right? It's because their posture, like they have all this influence, all this money behind them and a pact back. Of course they don't, right? I mean, not nearly on the scale. If they do, nothing like the scale of what Israel has in terms of their influence operation here, in terms of what has been lockstep bipartisan support for decades that is only now coming unraveled.

And so there's just nothing comparable that you could point to of another country that has similar level of influence, similar types of. relationship as we do with this one nation. So that's one thing, too. But, you know, I'll tell you, as someone on the left, what I've witnessed is as people have had their eyes open to our maligned influence in terms of, you know, the horrors that are being perpetrated in Gaza, it has made them more open to, okay, well, what is, what's going on in Sudan?

Because, you know, with, with RSF and this horrific massacres that they're perpetrating. And we aren't the ones directly sending those bombs, but our ally, the UIA, is backing them. And we are certainly in a position to put pressure on them to end their support of RSF. We are certainly in a position to use our influencer. And so what I've witnessed isn't that people are like, oh, I only care about Gaza the exclusion of everything else. In fact, what I've witnessed is people sort of that being one area where they go in really deep. And that opens their eyes to other ways that we're impacting events around the world. And yes, other horrors that are being perpetrated as well and to sort of expand their horizons rather than narrowing their

focus just to this one place. Well, was it, I mean, of course, it wasn't anti-Semitism that made people mad about what was happening in Nicaragua and El Salvador. It was U.S. support, right? Like in the 1980s, it was U.S. support, the 70s, the 80s. It was literally the very obvious issue of U.S. support for backing death squads, all that sort of thing. And again, that is, I think as far as I can tell, it's a pretty similar side-by-side of people who were furious at this, at the U.S., not because they really, in every case,

it wasn't that people were sympathetic to the Sandinistas. They were like average Americans. Congress said that we could no longer fund it because average Americans were like, hey, this is pretty bad. Like, you know, there are priests that are being killed by people using U.S. weapons and U.S. money and getting U.S. backing. So it wasn't just like Sandinista's sympathists who were like upset about that. It was people who were upset about cruelty backed by U.S. support. Yeah, that's the U.S. support. It's the U.S. support. It's going to that evil. Yes. And so argue against the actual argument. Stop making shit up. It's not helping anyone. What about this? What about that? You don't get it.

It's complicated. The problem's TikTok. Like all of this, it just feels so tired at this point. I know. And out of touch. At this late date, so on a touch, so tired, and just really quite pathetic. I mean, I think if the biggest thing is, you know, Hillary Clinton is not a person without knowledge and skill. He's been in the political arena for a lot of years at this point. And for her, for this to be the best that she can do on behalf of the Zionist cause, I think shows you how much all of their arguments have just been thoroughly discredited and thoroughly destroyed. And that's why you see, you know, within the Democratic Party, support for Israel, I mean, it's dead. It's done. It's over. And you're going to see that you're already seeing this playing out in a lot of Democratic primaries right now. It is an earthquake within the Democratic Party. It's an earthquake among young people in a really bipartisan manner.

Well, I was just going to say, I mean, Hillary Clinton is like a scene as a leading figure in the Democratic Party, not without reason. I mean, she's the presidential nominee 10 years ago. And she is so, like, clearly out of touch with where the party is. I mean, has she talked to a significant number of young Democrats? Because she's calling them anti-Semitic right here. Like, she's calling them anti-Semitic or stupid. And stupid. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's just such a giant cope rather than actually grappling with it's not making their, it's not making the situation any easier at all. It's like how Republicans use, we were talking about this earlier in the show, Obamacare, to not cope with health care. problems. Like, people actually want a better health care system. Right. You can't just keep saying repeal Obamacare, repeal Obamacare. You have to actually deal with their argument. Mainstream Democrats are used to these sorts of arguments coming at them from like a French group. And his, her husband. Code Pink. Yeah. Her husband, you know, really like pioneered the strategy of like

punching left, right, and using that as a way to bolster his credibility. And they just have this instinct for always doing that. And they haven't realized the way, or she hasn't anyway, realized the way the ground has shifted where it's like, no, this isn't just, you know, this isn't just Bernie supporters or Bernie bros or fringe lefts or Democratic. So it's like, this is, this is the entire Democratic Party at this point that agrees with this position. And you are in line with maybe, maybe like 10% of where the Democratic Party base is at this point. So when you're punching left right now, you're punching like, no. 90% of the party.

Another good example of why that Agro-Well question was important, because if people don't publicly push her on that, she doesn't even know. Yeah. I mean, like, she just attributes it all the anti-Semitism. Right. Or idiotic. Or idiocy. Right.

When you have, like, the editor-in-chief of foreign policy doing it on stage and it's going to go viral. Yeah. It's very patronizing. Yeah. You have to cope with that. All right. Shall we get to Sidney here?

Of course. I'm excited about this. Let's visit F3 up on the screen, and then we'll get to what is that? actually a bigger story, but this is the new Sweeney one we're going to start with because it's more fun. In any case, so you're going to use Sydney Sweeney to talk about antitrust. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And Tim Dillon, I made that connection earlier as well with the vibe shift. Yes. Okay, so you guys will remember. She did this interview. Who was, what was the outlet? It was like GQ, right, that she sat down with the recent one. The recent one. This interview that went super

viral, especially on the right, because she got asked about the eugenics adjacent nature of the American Eagle ad that she cut. And she said at that point, she was like, when I have something to say on an issue, you'll hear from me. And sort of like shut her down in that moment. So I was like, oh, this is amazing. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Then her movie that came out totally bombed at the box office, the one about a like queer um boxer that she put on a bunch of weight for it was very sort of like artsy film hemsy and i don't know if it was good or bad but i know it did very poorly at the box office in any case now she's talking to people magazine and her tone is a little bit different here emily she says i was honestly surprised by the reaction i did it because i love the jeans and

loved the brand i don't support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign me being one of those people. Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren't true. So she keeps the vague, right? She doesn't directly disavow like eugenics or MAGA or white nationalism or any of that, right, any of the sort of like broad groups that have embraced her. She doesn't directly disavow them, but clearly very different tone being struck here and her wanting to, you know, sort of clean up what I guess she's, she and her PR team. Because all these, you know, all these These actors, like, you really shouldn't think of them as individual people. You know, you should think of them as like a whole team and a brand.

It's a business. It's a corporation. It's Sydney-Sweeney, Inc. Exactly. And so clearly, Sidney, Inc. decided that this direction was not going all that particularly well for her, and there needed to be a recalibration. It's so funny because this is given as a statement to People magazine. Yes.

Right. So it's not like she put this on Instagram or anything. This is a complete, like, why does it sound like it's not Sidney-Sweeney? because it's not Sidney-Sweeney. This was some workshopped PR, yeah, statement. She goes on to say, this might even be chat GPT. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm trying to bring people together. I'm against hate and divisiveness.

In the past, my stance has been to never respond to negative or positive press, but recently I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it. Any end dashes in there? Not, not yet. Yeah, actually, not all. And she goes, so I hope this new year brings more focus on what connects us instead of what divides us. I mean, God, a statement to People Magazine.

Yeah, it's pretty funny. I don't even know. Like, if this were in politics, you know, you wouldn't run with this statement as news because it's so, it's such a PR. It's like running a press release for Sidney, basically to just go with this as a, quote, exclusive, which is what People magazine did. I get it. It's entertainment news. But yes, clearly somebody on the team was like, Sydney Sweeney with Gen Z, which is true. Gen Z girls are kind of

her should be, I would imagine, her target demo. But I don't think they are. Well, I mean, I'm sure it's men. But like for selling jeans, you would want, if your value to American Eagle is that you're selling women's jeans. And so she wants to keep getting deals like the American Eagle one, she has to

have some appeal with younger women. And younger women are like liberal, like increasingly liberal. They're going to side with Zendai in that fight. Oh, my gosh. Ten times out of ten. Yeah, no, like, I literally was just writing a piece about this. Like, young women are, they're accelerating to the left. And so the vibe shift did not come for young women. The vibe shift came for young men, not young women.

And so clearly Sydney-Sweeney's teams, like, and I wonder actually if this is influenced at all by American Eagle, middle of Christmas season, Christmas shopping season, people should be asking for their American Eagle jeans. I definitely got American Eagle jeans for Christmas, like 20 years ago. So I wonder if it has something to do with, American Eagle sales too. Could be. Could be. I mean, I am curious

what kind of factored into this. And you know, I mean, in terms of her personal views, it almost doesn't really matter. Like, she did, she registered as a Republican in Florida. So we know she has, and recently. So like during, you know, Trump 2.0 and MAGA

and the vibe shift and whatever, she registers as a Republican in Florida, which is a choice. So, you know, I mean, think we have a general sense of what her political leanings are. She comes from a conservative family. Whatever. I do not buy that she and her whole team, because again, we're not just talking about Sidney, we're talking about a whole team, that they did not realize what they were flirting with in that American Eagle at.

I think they knew. I think they were fully in with the vibe shift, thought she could be a sort of pin up for the right, and was, by the way, and already was occupying that space. So they thought, okay, this is a good way to lean into this. This is where the culture is going. This will help us, like, this is where we are now. And so we're going to play with these concepts that are in the air that are a little edgy and controversial for fun and profit. And so she did that and thought that was like the lane for her to occupy up until recently when you have you have a political vibe shift, which is why I connected us to Tim Dillon in his comments.

You have a very clear political vibe shift. Whatever vibe shift young men had been caught up that in that is also dissipated. I mean, the numbers for Trump among young men are. almost as devastating as they are among young women. Although on cultural issues, young men are still, like, attracted to certain things that young women aren't. Like, certain cultural questions, um, they're still more liberal than every other generation. They absolutely are. Yeah. Just meaning that there's a gulf culturally between young men and young women. Like, young men have, have different opinions on, like,

trans, immigration, like, they tend to still be polarized from women on those. Maybe the case. But in terms of affirmative support for MAGA, that's, like, dead and gone. Yeah, right? And if you're doing an American Eagle brand, I mean, she really created a brand that wasn't really pitching herself to young women. It really was leaning hard into the male case. The problem with that is, number one, there's no loyalty there, right? The minute you put on some weight and do an artsy film, they're like, I don't know, I'm going to see that. Like, what are you doing? That's not what I'm here for, right? You're an athlete? Yeah. The minute you, you know, you hit a certain age, it's over for you or show any sign of aging, like it's over. You know, if that's what you're kidding. towards, there's not going to be any loyalty or longevity there. And if you're trying, American Eagle carries, you know, jeans for men and women or, you know, young people of any gender. So the male audience matters there. But yeah, if you are wanting to sell to women, you're really sort of isolating yourself and ostracizing yourself from that part of the market. So, you know,

I don't know that the box office bomb, and this wasn't her first box office bomb, by the way, that that really had anything directly to do with, like, the MAGA flirtation and all these sorts of things, but maybe her team feels like it did, maybe she feels like it did, maybe the dynamics was Zendaya were also, like, personally taxing for her. I don't know, but to me, it's sort of emblematic of a movement in the culture that we see in other, you know, in other spaces as well. Yeah, I mean, and this gets into our next story because, you know, Hollywood is still not like an easy place to be seen as quote pro trump and i bet people were uncomfortable working for sidney with this new reputation that she was getting as someone who's like hardcore

maga and is like a um almost a mascot for maga so i'm sure some of that was uncomfortable but just to get into the antitrust component we can about f2 on the screen um i'm sorry we can we can one second We actually have a clip of Donald Trump who was on the red carpet of the Kennedy Center honors last night, which he hosted. We should note. Donald Trump hosted the Kennedy Center honors. Maybe that'll be a presidential tradition. So glad that Joe Biden didn't do that. Actually, we could have gotten some great moments of Joe Biden attempting to host a late-night Kennedy Center honors. Yeah. Amazing. So Trump is asked about this attempted merger between Netflix and Warner Brothers and says something very interesting on the red carpet last night at the Kennedy Center. Let's roll this. to buy Warner Brothers? Should Netflix? Well, that's the question. They have a very big market chair. And when they have Warner Brothers, you know, that chair goes up a lot.

So I don't know, that's going to be for some economists to tell. And I'll be involved in that decision too. But they have a very big market share. Did he make any guarantees to you about the merger if they do merge? No, no, not really. He came up. He was in the Oval Office last week. I have a lot of respect for him. He's a great person.

But he's done one of the greatest jobs. one of the greatest jobs in the history of movies and other things. And he's got a lot of interesting things happening aside from what you're talking about. But it is a big market share. There's no question about it. So that is, I mean, he said, I'll be involved in that decision. There you go. Now we can put F2 on the screen.

This is the Netflix CEO, not a surprising story at all. But this is Ted Sarandos meeting with, according to Bloomberg, Donald Trump in the Oval Office, as Trump just mentioned, actually, in the clip. And so the connection was Sidney's Sweetie Gristle. Basically is that the vibe shift sort of came last year. We'll remember, like, this exact time last year, it looked like Hollywood, Silicon Valley. We're all getting swept up in kind of reckoning with the reality that they'd alienated a lot of the country and that Donald Trump was going to be mercurial and was going to wield his power where he wanted you to kind of come.

kiss the ring in an aggressive way, and then he would reward you in, reward you back. Now, this deal, this attempt to merger, which looks like a pretty clear-cut violation of the Clayton Act, although no of that stuff is super clear-cut because it depends on how you define market share and all of that, it's already getting criticism from Mike Lee and Republicans and it's getting absolutely panned across Hollywood. There is no love in Hollywood for this. I mean, it's predicted to absolutely decimate theaters. You could understand why.

But people are pissed about this. It is not going well for Netflix so far. Well, and we've got a new factor to add in as well. I think we can add this in post this New York Times tear sheet because we're just learning now Paramount, headed by David Ellison, is making a hostile bid for Warner Brothers Discovery. I'll just read from this, tar sheet. Paramount on Monday mounted a hostile takeover bid for warmer.

Warner Brothers Discovery, a brazen attempt to secure a Hollywood prize snatched away by Netflix last week. Netflix announced an $83 billion deal to buy a big part of Warner Brothers Discovery on Friday in an agreement approved by the boards of both companies. In a news release on Monday, Paramount went around the Warner Brothers Discovery Board and straight to shareholders with what it called a superior offer. Paramount said it would pay $30 per share in cash, valuing the company around $108 billion, including debt, said it was going to shareholders the board of Warner Brothers Discovery is pursuing an inferior proposal that would lead to a challenging regulatory approval process. Paramount has offered to buy all of Warner Brothers Discovery, including

the Warner Brothers Movie Studio, the HBO Mac streaming service in a portfolio of cable channels, including CNN. The cable channels are not part of the Netflix deal. We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood, David Ellison, the chief executive Paramount Center press release. It is in the best interests of the creative community consumers and the movie. theater industry, Warner Brothers Discovery, had no immediate comment. How about none of these would be in the best interest of creating a stronger Hollywood? How about we stop mergers? Yeah, I mean, this is what this was expected from David Ellison. And this has been a concern both because obviously of the corporate consolidation, but also because of Ellison's ideological leanings. So he is pro-Trump,

is close Trump ally, very Zionist pro-Israel. You know, we've seen what's going on at CBS. I mean, he's, you know, so we're, the idea here is you have a consolidation of all these media properties now under and like affirmative avowed Trump supporter. And so more sort of like state influence on media bleeding over into these other outlets, including HBO Max, including CNN. So obviously really significant there. So now you, I guess, have these two rival bids and even more uncertainty about what may ultimately happen here. Right. And what's the goal? I mean, that's Matt Stoller over at Big which is the essential newsletter to read

if you don't on these questions and he's been following the Hollywood stuff a lot absolutely open question as to what the goal of Netflix is with this merger you have to you basically freeze the assets of the competitor that you're trying to merge with in a case like this

what is what does David Ellison think is going to come of this is he trying to block Netflix from hurting the competitiveness of Warner like this is this is success level drama, obviously. And I wonder what we're seeing a little bit is somebody like Sarandos, and maybe you could argue even Ellison, who, by the way, Trump did get to Greenlight the new Rush Hour movie. So something good will come of this. That actually happened. I don't know if you get. Did you just cover that? Like I don't think that. We did it, but I did see that it

happened. Yeah. And like just the perfect Trump story on every level. But it, it, you know, Did it was there an overreach that has spawned serious backlash that ends up actually hurting them more than it helps them because they've overreached? I don't know. That's, I think, an open question right now. And I think the sort of way that we can make this full circle with Sydney Sweetie is that none of what everyone was feeling this time last year was permanent. And could the Trump administration have come in a second time around and maintained that cultural momentum? I don't know, but it's kind of an interesting counterfactual to ponder. Yeah.

Well, and they also came in with a lot of, you know, gestures towards the antitrust movement and some, you know, even personnel decisions that were like, oh, maybe, you know. And some of the antitrust movement started under the first Trump administration. And now that's just been basically completely abandoned and certainly where tech world is concerned. I mean, they're just given whatever, whatever they want. And if you can get in good with Trump, you're going to get your deals approved. And that's pretty much how he operates. Yeah.

Now, they can use it as a weapon against you. If they hate you, then I'm, you know, I don't think anyone would be surprised to see them using it as a weapon instead of just using it as like a neutral enforcement mechanism. And that's really one of the things that Trump has completely not to say that the government's been perfect in terms of being neutral, but the general expectation was that the government bureaucracy would be neutral in its adjudication of these questions. And Trump doesn't even pretend that that's a goal. Like, that's just out the window. And he says he's going to be involved in the decision. So there's another component of it. If you want to keep getting in Donald Trump's good graces, you know how to do it.

Apparently, the Oval Office is open. Yeah, not hard to figure that one out. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for watching. Emily, thank you for filling in today. I'm always happy to help pick up Sager slack and then to call him out for slacking. I'll never just do it out of the goodness of my own heart. I know he appreciates that about you.

I'll do it to roast him. That's my real motivation. I enjoy that aspect of your personality as well. I think it should be Sager. We'll see how Sager's doing tomorrow. Should be me and Sager tomorrow, but we'll see it. And in any case, you guys have a great day. We're going to do, I'm going to do the AMA with producer Mac, I think, because Emily has to jump.

But if you want to get access to those live AMAs, make sure you sign up at breaking points.com. See you guys soon. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang. You're going to push that line for the cause? Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it.

When Larry's killed, Game Must Untangle a dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or bevel. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentlemen's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky.

For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right.

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