Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/1/24: Bibi Govt In Tatters Over Hostage Deal, US Court Rules Plausible Biden Complicity In Genocide, Biden Abandons Michigan Arab Americans, House Moves To Impeach Over Border, Senators Humiliated In Tech Hearing, Rightwing Taylor Swift Conspiracies Explode, CNN Catches IDF Lie On Cemetery Atrocity

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Krystal and Emily discuss the Bibi government ripping apart amid a hostage deal in the works, US court rules Biden plausibly complicit in genocide, Biden reportedly abandoning Michigan Arab Americans, House plows ahead on border impeachment of Mayorkas, tech execs and senators humiliate themselves in wild hearing, conservatives create insane conspiracy surrounding Taylor Swift, and CNN exposes IDF cemetery atrocity lie.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Alright, good morning. Crystal, how are you today? Very well. How are you doing, Emily? Lovely to see you as always. It's great to see you. We have a girl show. That's right. Sagar out sick today, getting some needed rest, and he will be back hopefully next week. So thank you for filling in. Yeah, anytime. I'm not sure I believe that Sagar's actually sick. I think he's off. I don't know, Crystal. He could be doing anything.

We'll find out and report back to you guys. In the meantime, we have a great show planned for you today. A lot to get into. We actually have a U.S. court that just found Biden may be, in fact, aiding a genocide, but also saying there's nothing they can really do about it. So we'll get into that. We're also waiting on details of a potential hostage deal that's been in the making possibly all week. We've got some new swing state polls with more bad news for Joe Biden in terms of his reelection prospects. Republicans are now looking to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security this over immigration. There was a raucous tech hearing yesterday that we have many highlights and

lowlights from that we can share with you. And Emily and I also have to talk about the way that Republicans have absolutely lost their damn minds over Taylor Swift. I'm actually really interested to hear. I want you to explain this to me because I just can't really wrap my head around it. I'm also taking a look at how CNN caught Israel in a blatant lie over their desecration of cemeteries. This is a wild story that you almost have to see to believe. So lots to get to this morning.

Let's go ahead and start with the updates out of Israel. Put this up on the screen. So this was actually quite surprising that a militia that was responsible for killing three of our service members and wounding dozens of others, they're saying they're basically backing down and that they're not going to attack us anymore. In a surprise move, this article says the most powerful Iran-backed militia in Iraq, Qatayb Hezbollah, announced on Tuesday the suspension of its military operations against U.S. forces in the regions two days after a drone attack killed three U.S. service members and wounded dozens of others. In that statement, they say they will continue to defend our people in Gaza, but in other ways. And we recommend to the brave Mujahideen of the Free Hezbollah Brigades to carry out passive defense temporarily if any hostile American action occurs towards them.

They also, in this statement, Emily, attempted to distance themselves from Iran, saying basically like, listen, they didn't have anything to do with this. This was all us. They said, I quote, in the Islamic Republic, they do not know how we work jihad and they often object to the pressure and escalation against the American occupation forces in Iraq and Syria. And the Iraqi government is taking credit for this move. We've talked before. There are some negotiations going on behind the scenes. Basically, the Iraqi government wants us the hell out of their country.

And so what they're trying to push for is negotiations in which we would leave, which in my opinion would be a good thing. And in exchange, this militia has been pushed to back down from additional attacks on our service members. So a surprising potential result from this attack, which, you know, tragically, unbelievably tragically killed three of our service members and wounded dozens of others. Well, and to your point about having troops based there, Ryan and I were talking about this yesterday. I mean, that puts us in danger constantly. And not just people's lives in danger, but then also the entire world at risk of a greater conflict, the more targets that you have essentially there. So you still have to start asking the cost benefit question, is it worth the risk to have people stationed there when this is the potential outcome at any given moment, basically, of escalation? Yeah. And when at this point,

the U.S. government can't even really explain what our troops are even doing there. You know, they'll just say vague things like, oh, they're fighting terrorism, but no specifics whatsoever at a time when ISIS has basically been destroyed. We also are waiting to hear what the U.S. response to that attack is going to be. They've signaled something like it's going to be multi-part, et cetera, et cetera. It's good to see that Iran is trying to distance themselves from these attacks. It's been good to hear the U.S. administration say, hey, we don't want war with Iran. Hopefully this doesn't spill into an even broader conflict. I know you and Ryan were covering the total gaslighting from U.S. spokespeople trying to claim like, oh, there is no broader war. It's contained to Gaza. How can you say that at a

time when our service members, not just these three, but the two U.S. Navy SEALs who died, the five who died in a training exercise, the over 160 attacks that our service members have been facing, what's going on in the Red Sea, what's going on with regard to Israel saying that a full-on war versus Hezbollah in Lebanon is imminent, and you're still telling us with a straight face that this is contained to Gaza? It's complete insanity. It's complete insanity. It's disproven. If you look at, you know, if we were able to map out everything that's happened, you would see it literally as a broad spread out war across the Middle East. And so it's just the administration is having, I think, a really tough time giving direct answers about that. Not surprising in the midst of a broader war, but actually, I think a real political challenge for Biden going forward, too.

Yeah, well, I mean, and it all comes from their unwillingness to push for a ceasefire. I mean, that's where all of these attacks— Or have any clear policy. Well, that's true, too. It's muddled. Well, the policy is unconditional support for Israel. I don't think it is actually muddled. It's quite clear. But they won't say it. That's the thing. They go back and forth. They were talking yesterday about recognizing a Palestinian state. They're trying to please everybody without actually saying what they're doing. They want to do lip service to their liberal supporters who are a

little uncomfy with the fact that they feel Joe Biden is aiding and abetting a genocide. And a majority at this point of Biden voters, of Biden 2020 voters, believe that Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian people. And an additional 30% aren't sure. So 80% of Biden voters feel like this either is a genocide or could be a genocide. We're obviously directly involved in it. So on the one hand, while the policy to me is very clear, it's unconditional support for Israel, it's rushing through the weapons shipments, it's backing them in their total opposition to the ICJ, it's cutting the funding for UNRWA. I mean, they're doing everything from a policy perspective that Israel would want them to

do, combined with a little bit of lip service to try to give them some sort of CYA with regard to their liberal base. You know, just to remind you of the, you know, very personal stakes here, because obviously, you know, the big concern is this broader conflagration that we're already seeing and where this escalatory chain could lead. But three families just lost their son and two daughters. Biden called the family of one Slade and service member. This is

Specialist Kennedy Layden Sanders. She was a 24-year-old Georgian. And we have a little bit of a video of her parents and her family having to take that phone call from the president of the United States. Let's take a listen to that. I know there's nothing anybody can say or do. He's the pain. I've been there. Yes, sir, we understand. I just want you to know that you're in my prayers and my heart. I know you don't want the press at the return of the body, but with your permission, I'd like to be there with you, if that's okay.

We would love for you to be there. Well, you know, and by the way, we're promoting her posthumously to sergeant. Oh, wow. That is the best news I've heard today. Thank you so much. You don't know how much that means to us. Oh, well, I tell you what, it means a lot to me. You know, these three, Emily, all three young black service members, Army reservists from the state of Georgia, you know, they signed up thinking, OK, this is something I can do one weekend a month. I can get benefits. They're deployed to a region that's not a war zone. They were thinking in Jordan. And now they're dead. They're gone. That's it. And it is the direct result of Biden's failed policy, of their

unwillingness to push Israel in any way towards ending this conflict. I mean, all of these attacks stem from that one core conflict. And the thing that's really, I mean, it's all outrageous, but they know that. They've been telling the press, we understand that, you know, the hostilities and the tensions in the region and these attacks are all coming because of Israel's assault on Gaza. And yet they're willing to put our service members at risk for what? What are we accomplishing here? I think that's the real, like, even we accomplishing here? I think that's the real, like, even from a bipartisan perspective, I think that's the real problem. What are we accomplishing here? Because, again, we've talked about this many times. Kamala Harris can't even

answer a question about whether the Biden administration is pro one-state solution or two-state solution. The United States, and she, you know, she says two-state solution, but she can't answer the question about why the United States is funding this war at an extreme level through munitions and financial assistance when Netanyahu says anything except a one-state solution is absolutely unacceptable. It's a bizarre—it's a bizarre tension between two people that are prosecuting the war. There's no question that we're—you hear it from Israeli officials that we are essential to the prosecution of this war, and we have two dramatically different ends. One end is a two-state solution. One end is a one-state solution.

And I think what you end up seeing in these policy discrepancies is all downstream of that. And to say with a straight face that this is not a broader war when you're calling the families of service members who lost their lives in Jordan, I think is particularly despicable. It's despicable is the right word for it. It is truly outrageous. It's an insult to those families. It's an insult to the entire intelligence of this country and the world.

You referenced this before. This is kind of an interesting development. I'm curious your reaction to it. Emily, put this up on the screen. So we're now getting this report from Axios that the State Department is going to conduct a review about options for potential recognition of a Palestinian state. Let me read a little bit of the details here and then I'll get Emily's reaction. I'll tell you what I think about it. So Biden administration is linking possible normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia to the creation of a pathway

for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of its post-war strategy. This initiative is based on the administration's efforts prior to October 7th to negotiate a mega deal with Saudi that included a peace agreement between the kingdom and Israel. They say there are several options here for U.S. action on the issue, including bilaterally recognizing the state of Palestine, not using our veto for once to block the U.N. Security Council from admitting Palestine as a full U.N. member state or encouraging other countries to recognize Palestine. And so Tony Blinken asked the State Department to conduct a review and present potential policy options on those

possible paths. This is according to two U.S. officials briefed on the issue. What do you make of this development, Emily? First of all, post-war strategy? What do you mean? I thought this war was to eradicate Hamas. So there will be no post-war strategy because that is not a war that can end. True. So first of all, what are they talking about? But that's a great example of how even when you were reading the headline, they're looking at potential options. Maybe they'll put it together, a white paper at some point in the future on possibly potentially recognizing maybe. Not using a veto, yeah. And maybe we'll just push other countries to do it and not do anything ourselves. Right. No, it's exactly what you were saying earlier, that the political dynamics for Joe Biden are really, really bad on this question.

And so this is, you know, strategically, you can see why somebody sitting in the West Wing was like, well, let's talk to Axios about this. Let's get this in the press. I don't think it means much. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that this is the new version of the like Biden behind the scenes is very upset with Netanyahu and they're pushing him really hard behind the scenes, I promise. And they feel like the civilian death is too much. Are they willing to do anything about it? No, but we're willing to leak to the press that we're uncomfortable. I think they'd played that ship one too many times where everyone was just rolling their eyes when these new, you know, hand-wringing missives would be leaked to the press about how deeply concerned they are,

blah, blah, blah, when it was never, ever backed up by any sort of action, use of any sort of leverage to actually push Bibi Netanyahu and his government in another direction. So I feel like they felt like that ship had been played a few too many times. This was their backup. So this is the new like, oh, we're really serious about a two-state solution, guys. And yeah, I know this is awful. And 20-some thousand Palestinian civilians have been massacred and more than 10,000 children and the entire Gaza Strip destroyed. But afterwards, I promise we're going to get to a two-state solution. And it's like, at this point, your words are completely meaningless, completely

meaningless. Because we know Netanyahu does not want a two-state solution. He's said that publicly a million times, not just post-October 7th, but again, reiterating post-October 7th, like, hey, I am the guy who's blocked a Palestinian state. I will continue to be the guy that will block a Palestinian state. This will never happen under my watch. And by the way, there's a reason why he adopts such a hardline posture at this point, and it's because it's popular in Israel. So if we aren't willing to push hard in the direction of a Palestinian state, there's no way it's going to happen. So my question is, okay, that's nice that you theoretically

support a two-state solution, which has been the official U.S. government policy under every administration for decades now. That's nice that you have that theoretical position on a piece of paper. What will you do to achieve it? And based on what we've seen during this war effort, we know the answer is absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Even by their own logic. I mean, so if they had said after October 7th, on October 8th, that we're going to, you know, really start looking into recognizing Palestine, you would have bipartisan, not bipartisan, you'd have centrist Democrats saying that's a reward. You're rewarding an act of terrorism

with recognition of Palestine. So I just don't understand how Biden's even going to defend that within the Democratic Party, not just if it actually came to pass, which I don't think it would, but it just doesn't make any sense. It sounds so clearly like it was engineered for a media leak as a backup, like you were saying. Yeah. I mean, I understand why people would say that and why they would feel that way. In the wake of the atrocities of October 7th, there was clearly a desire for revenge. But if you're actually serious about solving this problem in the interest, not just of the Palestinians, but in the interest of Israeli security, I mean, this is never going to be resolved. There will be endless cycles of horrific violence until there is

some sort, something approaching a just solution. So, I mean, ultimately, this is the only end game, whether or not the Biden administration sees it that way, whether they're willing to lift a single finger outside of a theoretical potential maybe white paper coming out of the State Department to achieve it, that's another matter. At the same time, Netanyahu is facing a lot of domestic political pressure over a potential hostage jail. And within Israeli society, basically everybody supports the war. The numbers are very clear that Israelis are not, very few are uncomfortable with the level of destruction and killing of Palestinian civilians. But the question of how to approach the hostages

and what to do to try to secure their release has been a major dividing line, not just within Israeli society, but within the Netanyahu government coalition as well. So put this up on the screen. This occurs as there have been leaks about negotiations occurring in Paris, where they're trying to put together this three-phase hostage release deal that ultimately the goal would be to end with all of the hostages being released and a cessation of Israeli attacks for something like two months with all of the details to be worked out in the future. Hard to say yet whether Hamas is accepting those details. And this article gets into the political divide within Netanyahu's coalition and some of the political dynamics that he is having to consider. So this says, analysis, Netanyahu's current

coalition will not survive a hostage deal with Hamas. The Israeli prime minister is nearing a critical decision point to accept the deal with heavy concessions and face criticism from many Israelis or reject it as demanded by far-right ministers Ben-Gavir and Smotrich, risking the departure of centrist ministers. Meanwhile, he's resorting to vague semi-denials. So at one end of the spectrum, you've got Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, who do not want any sort of a deal. They do not want the war and devastation to stop. They are threatening to leave the governing coalition if he does pursue a deal of the type that is being discussed here. On the other side, you have more, I use the term centrist loosely, all of these people are, you know, extremely right wing, but people like Ben Gantz who want to see the hostage

deal. Because Emily, at this point, I mean, the idea that you're going to secure the release of hostages through military means, that has been completely disproven. It hasn't worked a single time. The only time hostages have been released in the context of this assault was when there was a temporary six-day ceasefire. That's the only time they've had success in bringing hostages home. And of course, they horrifically murdered their own hostages, thinking that they were Palestinians as well. And that was the military approach. That's right. That's the military approach has been a complete failure.

So people who are interested in seeing the hostages safely returned are saying, well, you've got to negotiate. This is the only path forward in order to try to bring our people home. But the hardliners in the coalition are threatening to leave. And Netanyahu, of course, has a very narrow margin in terms of keeping his governing coalition together and is dramatically unpopular as a person within Israeli society as well. Well, and a lot of that is actually coming from what families of hostages have been saying after meeting with him when they are not meeting with him. I mean, these have been devastating blows because they touch on some very real problems in the conversations about the hostages that have been happening. The hostages themselves, rescued hostages themselves, have said that they didn't feel like there was precision strikes going on, basically.

You didn't know where the hell we were or where we were was the quote from one of them. We didn't feel like you knew that we were there. All of those different reflections on how there was bombing all around them and they felt like they were at danger constantly. That's coming from the hostages, some of the recovered hostages themselves. So that's been really difficult for Netanyahu. I know we're about to talk about the politics in just a bit. But when you think about layering the political challenges that Biden is facing on top of the political challenges that Netanyahu is facing, as somebody who typically in wartime, you get a surge of support.

And you get, you know, remember George W. Bush after 9-11. Even Democrats were rallying around George W. Bush after, you know, he had stolen an election from their perspective. He got so much widespread support. That has not lasted in Israel after October 7th. So then layer the sort of pickle politically that Netanyahu's in with the problems that Biden is facing politically, it's like an impossible situation. It's completely untenable for both of them. Well, and here's the thing. It's very clear. And actually, there was a Democratic senator, it might have been Van Hollen, I'm not sure, that was saying, look, at this point,

Smotrich and Ben-Gavir have way more influence over Netanyahu than Biden or the U.S. does. And there's a reason why, because they're willing to actually threaten things and actually use what leverage they have and say, listen, if you take these actions, we're going to leave the coalition. Whereas the U.S., the only thing we're willing to do is like, you know, leak again to Axios and pretend like after this is all over, maybe we're going to be a little bit more pushy about a two-state solution. So, of course, we're going to get thoroughly ignored in this. And in the meantime, our service members are at risk, and the whole world is at risk of this igniting a broader conflict, which is in the direct interest

of Netanyahu, who only holds on to power so long as this war continues, which is exactly why they're signaling they want to expand the war to Lebanon. They want to do in Beirut what they did in Gaza. They want to go after Hezbollah because the longer this war goes on, the more it expands, the more chance, more of a fighting chance Netanyahu has and other ministers in his cabinet, by the way, who also share the blame for the failures of October 7th, the more of a chance they have to holding onto power. So still very unsettled whether this hostage deal is or isn't going to come together. Still very unsettled what the exact terms would be and what the time period would be. As I said before, the reporting suggests we're looking at a three-phase deal where in the initial phase you would have a certain set of hostages released.

Then you would have basically military-aged men and IDF soldiers released. Then you would have the bodies of Israelis, because that's the other piece with this hostage situation is, you know, it's not theoretical that the hostages are at risk. Some of them have been killed, and according to Hamas, have been killed by Israeli military actions, which, you know, certainly is very plausible given the level of destruction that we've seen in the Gaza Strip. So ongoing questions there about what comes next and whether this hostage deal will ultimately come to fruition. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

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If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do this regime is coming down on us and I don't want to just survive I want to thrive

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, this was pretty interesting. So there was a court case. It hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but here working its way through the U.S. courts, accusing Biden of complicity in genocide. And we actually just got a ruling yesterday that is pretty interesting. Let's go ahead and put this

up on the screen. So a federal judge just ruled the Biden administration does appear to be supporting a genocide. They go on to say, but he must dismiss the case under the political question doctrine, despite preferring otherwise. So this judge is saying basically like, because of the political questions doctrine, I can't actually do anything here. But he backs up the ICJ ruling, which found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Let me read you a little bit of the judgment here so that you guys can hear the way that this judge lays this out. They say, similarly, the undisputed evidence before this court comports with the finding of the ICJ indicates that the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the

Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law. Both the uncontroverted testimony of the plaintiffs and the expert opinion proffered at the hearing on these motions, as well as statements made by various officers of the Israeli government, indicate the ongoing military siege in Gaza is intended to eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the international prohibition against genocide. It is every individual's obligation to confront the current siege in Gaza, but it also is this court's obligation to remain within the meets and bounds of its jurisdictional scope. In conclusion, the judge writes, there are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is

inaccessible to the court. This is one of those cases. The court is bound by precedent and the division of our coordinates branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter. Yet, as the ICJ has found, it is plausible that Israel's conduct amounts to genocide. This court implores defendants, that would be Joe Biden, to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza. So basically, you know, this is kind of a mixed bag, Emily, for the Biden administration. On the one hand, the judge says, listen, I can't do anything because of the

political questions doctrine. But to have an American judge rule that the ICJ is correct and implore Biden directly to cease his aid of what may well be a genocide of the Palestinian people is nonetheless a pretty extraordinary outcome. And a refresher on the political questions doctrine, I pulled up Ballotpedia here. They write, the traditional expression of the doctrine refers to cases that courts will not resolve because they include or they involve questions about the judgment of actors in the executive or legislative branches and not the authority of those actors. So Biden himself, people who are making decisions at the Pentagon, they say, for example, cases involving foreign policy or impeachment often raise political question concerns.

So foreign policy, which is so heavily controlled and influenced by unelected people at the Pentagon, at the Department of Defense, more broadly by people in the executive branch, fall under the political questions doctrine, which is pretty interesting in this context where you have a court decision by the ICJ that's in question. It makes sense and then it doesn't make sense because, again, you have a court decision that you're talking about. So it's an interesting ruling for sure. And this doesn't make anything better for Joe Biden. Yeah. And there have another challenging situation that's going to unfold this week, which is the ICJ is set to rule on another case. This one, not about Israel, this one about Russia and Ukraine. And so the U.S. has, they, I mean, again, the level of gaslighting

from this administration is outrageous. First of all, they tried to say, well, you know, the ICJ didn't find that Israel was guilty of committing a genocide. Well, no shit. That wasn't the question that was before them right now. So they've completely tried to dodge. They've said, oh, actually, the ICJ backs up our position on Israel and Gaza, which is insane if you read the ruling. It's the total opposite of what the US has been claiming and the support that the U.S. has been giving to Israel. But put this up on the screen. So judges at the world court are going to hand down a judgment this week in a case in which Ukraine accused Russia of violating an anti-terror treaty by funding pro-Russian forces, including militias who shot down a passenger jet.

And the reason this is uncomfortable, Emily, for the U.S., obviously, is you can't, on the one hand, be like, yay, ICJ, I agree with your ruling when it comes to Russia, but boo, ICJ, I disagree with your ruling and I'm not going to abide by it when it comes to Israel. You don't get to pick and choose. Of course, I mean, you shouldn't be able to pick and choose, but of course they will pick and choose. And it just becomes blatantly obvious the level of hypocrisy and how they just use international law for their own ends. When it's convenient, they, oh yes, the international rules-based order. And when it's not convenient, then they just ignore it. And even beyond ignoring it, the fact that in the wake of the ICJ saying Israel must increase humanitarian aid to Gaza, people are starving to death and you must do better. And our response on that very same day is to cut funding to the number one aid agency

on the ground in Gaza to the benefit of the Palestinian people. It's not just an we're going to ignore the ruling. It's we are actively going to flout and thumb our nose at the ruling. And I think this is where we we were talking about this yesterday, when you're picking and choosing from the international rules-based order, and you're also doing it with that sort of sanctimony that is seen, especially in a lot of the Arab world, as that kind of hubris, Western hubris.

Yeah. That, I think, is where it gets, I find it extremely grating. And I can only imagine how people experience it in other parts of the world, because it is, I think, is where it gets—I find it extremely grating. And I can only imagine how people experience it in other parts of the world, because it is—I mean, it's what fosters animosity towards the United States. That's right. That you, on the one hand, have this arrogance about the international rules-based order, and then on the other hand—and we see this happening also—it happens with climate stuff, too, that, you know that the West benefited from all these fossil fuels and all of that.

And then, no, well, we're cutting it off when it gets to people in different parts of the world. It's just the arrogance and the hubris. We've had decades now of experiencing what kind of animosity that fosters in other parts of the world. And it's a lesson that's so obvious, but it has not been internalized whatsoever. They still have that sanctimony. They still think that what they're doing is totally above board. And if you criticize it, you're just a hater and a bigot. Well, and this is why when it came to Russia and Ukraine and the Biden administration was all, you know, talking about the international rules-based order every other day and, you know, making these grand appeals to ideals and to democracy and

might doesn't make right, et cetera, et cetera. And they were very clear. Back then they knew what a war crime was. They were able to call it out. They were comfortable calling it out. There's a reason why most of the world looked at that very skeptically and were like, you don't care about these grand principles that you claim to be supporting. That's not what this is ultimately about. And now that you see our support for Israel and all this at the podium, whether it's Matthew Miller or John Kirby or whoever the propaganda spokesperson, spin master of the day is, when they get asked about very specific incidents of, hey, how do you feel about people going in, soldiers going in, dressed as women and as medics and point blank assassinating

wounded people in the hospital? Like, how do you feel about that? It's all this, you know, oh, I didn't see it. We don't know. We call on them to follow the rules of war. They can't say when it comes to Israel. And so you see this gigantic, glaring hypocrisy. And Dr. Trisha Parsi has been pointing out that, you know, there's a reason why in recent months they don't talk so much about the international rules-based order anymore, because it's just so clear that they only accept it and they only use it when it serves them, when it serves their interest. And when it's inconvenient, it's like it doesn't exist at all.

Well, the hospital thing is a great example of where if you think that you should flout the international rules-based order, criticize the international rules-based order. Don't pretend and lie and say you're upholding the international rules. Just criticize it. But they won't because it's used as a weapon and a bludgeon, as a way to bludgeon other countries in a very useful way for the West. So they won't criticize it because they know as soon as they criticize it, it means it won't be useful down the line. Yeah, that's right. At the same time, I don't want to lose sight of

the big picture of what's unfolded in Gaza. And we have a new investigation from The Guardian, did a great job in terms of satellite analysis of the level of devastation and the unprecedented bombing campaign that has leveled so much civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. We can put this up on the screen. So they have colored in red here buildings that have been destroyed or damaged. And I mean, you can see the entire north of Gaza is basically destroyed. I'm surprised it's not more, to be honest. I mean, it's insane, this level of devastation. There have been other analyses that have found

this is more by square footage than the bombing campaigns in Dresden and other sort of like historically massive bombing campaigns. They found between half and 62% of all buildings in the entire Gaza Strip have likely been damaged or destroyed. You can see, we have a couple of neighborhood zoom-ins that you can see to see some of the additional devastation just on a block by block nature. You can see even farmland, greenhouses, things of that nature have been destroyed block nature. You can see even farmland, greenhouses, things of that nature have been destroyed as well. This is one of the denser areas of destruction that you can see in the Gaza Strip. And so, you know, already at this point, even if it ended today, the idea that people could just go back to their homes, there's nowhere to go back to.

You have almost the entire population of the strip that has been displaced at this point. The bulk of the population lived in northern Gaza, which is where Gaza City was. And there is very, very little to go back to, whether it is apartment blocks, whether it's schools, whether it's refugee camps, universities, the parliament building, hospitals, et cetera, there has been a sort of totality level of destruction of civilian life. And at the same time, the devastation continues. And this is something Ryan had really highlighted from the beginning and had his eye on from the beginning, the potential spread of communicable diseases because of the crowded circumstances and lack of sanitation, and critically, the lack of food and the fact that 80% of the starving people in the world right now are in this tiny, crowded enclave of the Gaza Strip. You have a UN official

once again sounding the alarm about the number of people who are in crisis with regard to their food levels. Let's take a listen to that. Well, first, let's see what's going on with the Palestinian people. Every single person in Gaza is hungry. One quarter of the population is starving and famine is imminent. We've never seen a population go hungry so quickly and so completely. And the reason is, first of all, humanitarian aid is being blocked. It's not reaching people in Gaza quickly enough and to an adequate amount.

It's just trickling in. Second, to follow up on your point, the food system is being destroyed. What we know is that Israel has destroyed 22% of agricultural land in northern Gaza. And as Israeli forces move south, they're destroying more and more agricultural land, greenhouses and orchards. 70% of fisher boats have been destroyed. So people don't have access to the sea. And this is a longstanding problem. There was a 16-year blockade. So Gazans were experiencing food insecurity before the war. So it was already a precarious situation. And civic

infrastructure has been destroyed. People don't have the necessities of life. Their homes are destroyed. Hospitals are destroyed. All civil infrastructure is being destroyed. And you combine all of this, and this is why we have this profound risk of famine in a way that we haven't seen before. Gazans are eating grass and drinking contaminated water in a desperate attempt to survive at this point. This is the context in which the U.S. has now cut funding to the main on-the-ground aid organization, along with some 12 or 13 other countries around the world. And in which also the Israeli government has been allowing these protests to continue.

They are blocking aid trucks, the few small trickle of aid trucks that are even allowed to go into the Gaza Strip. They've been blocking them from being able to go in. So it is a desperate situation on the ground. A desperate situation. And as we discussed yesterday, you have Hamas returning to northern Gaza. So from any metric, this has not been a successful operation. That's the tragedy of it. There are still hostages who have not been rescued. There is Hamas activity in the area that was supposed to have been devastated for the purpose of, quote, eradicating Hamas. And we are barely, what, four months, not even four months past October 7th, and Hamas is back in northern Gaza. So all of this has been unsuccessful. That's the big tragedy. Yeah, I mean, that is one of the tragedies

of this situation. Of course, I would say the goal was never really eradicate Hamas, which has always been a ludicrous idea that that would even be possible through any sort of military solution. We had Tony Blinken himself saying there is no military solution to Hamas. So I would submit that this devastation was actually the goal. And the grander goal, which is laid out very clearly, I'll be taking a closer look at this in my monologue today, by people like Smotrich, by people like Ben-Gavir, is keep pushing people south in the Gaza Strip. Now they're all effectively some million plus people clustered in Rafah right on the Egypt border and eventually try to push them entirely out through, quote unquote, voluntary migration, which is I'm going to starve you and bomb your

house until you're forced to leave. Like you said, just a completely desperate situation. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case,

bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no,

you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us, and I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George!

And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean,

but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage,

just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's go ahead and get to some domestic politics here. We've got some new polls to chew on, which obviously ties into some of what we're talking about here with the Biden administration policy towards Israel. So put this up on the screen, some new morning consult polling of swing states. Trump is leading Biden across every single swing state. They polled here seven different states. You've got North Carolina. Trump's up by 10. Nevada. Trump's up by 8. Georgia. Trump's up

by 8. Wisconsin. Trump is up by 5. Michigan. Trump is up by 5. Pennsylvania. Trump is up by 3. Arizona. Trump is up by 3. Biden, of course, winning all of those states last time, save for one, save for the state of North Carolina. And I mean, there's a lot that goes into this, Emily. You can't pinpoint one particular factor, but I don't think there's any doubt that the fact that Biden's policy towards Israel is so dissonant from the Democratic base. And I'm not just talking about young people. And I'm not just talking about Arab Americans or Muslim Americans who overwhelmingly went for Biden. All three of those groups overwhelmingly went for Biden last time. But as I mentioned earlier, you have a majority of Biden 2020

voters who say this is a genocide. There is an overwhelming majority of Biden voters, actually an overwhelming majority of voters, period, in the country who say we want a ceasefire. Yeah. And yet the policy continues. So you have that. You have, you know, all of the continued upset concerns about, like, can this man even live through another four years? That doesn't help his case.

There's concerns, you know, from some swing voters about immigration. We'll talk about that. There's huge concerns about the economy and where things are heading there. And just a complete sense of both despair and malaise and outrage over some of the policies that have really dragged him down and made it so that even someone who is as hated and disliked as Donald Trump has a real shot to beat him. Which again is a great explanation for the Axios post that we talked about with them flirting with the idea of maybe at some point recognizing a Palestinian state earlier in the show. And those numbers are very interesting because in a state like Wisconsin, you have

the sort of urban areas that are Democratic strongholds. So a place like Madison, huge college town, a place like Milwaukee. You can see and you could understand why the administration and the campaign is probably freaking out about these numbers right now because exactly what you just said, if Gaza becomes a priority for voters and voters think, so those two things have to happen. If it's a priority for people when they go to the, pull the lever and cast their vote, then that's a problem because step B is that the polling finds that a lot of the Democratic voters are really unhappy with the Biden policy to the point where they would consider it a facilitation of genocide. Right. So when you combine those two things and you see some of these Midwestern

swing states that rely heavily on a college vote for Democrats, if you want to win a swing state, you need that college vote to come out good for you. That happened for Democrats in 2022. They got young voters to come out in states like Pennsylvania. Ryan crunched some of the numbers on that and it was really convincing. States like Wisconsin, you have the cities that tend to be blue strongholds. That's going to be where you're losing support over the war. The war in general, though, for voters, independent voters, not even just reliable Democratic voters who might be upset or just stay home. That's another thing people can do in college towns.

Those independent voters are looking at what's happening in the Middle East and whether or not they agree with the genocide designation. Three service members were just killed in Jordan. The administration says that there's no broader war. Yeah. There is a sense of chaos. Yes. And the world on the brink. And it's not just a sense. I mean, I think that is the absolute reality. Two hot wars. Ukraine, this will be the first presidential election since that hot war broke out. And now the same other in Palestine, you have the same thing under Biden's watch. Yeah. And here's the thing. I'm under no illusion that the majority of voters are going to be basing their vote on what is

happening and what our policy is with regard to Israel. But it kind of reminds me of one of these litmus test issues that are highly motivating for a small group of voters. And when you're talking about in any national election now between the two parties, it's going to be razor thin. That's just how our polarization works at this point. So when you're talking about these small margins, you know, a few percentage point of young people saying, I cannot support a man who is backing a genocide, or I'm just going to stay home, or I'm going to vote third party. That in and of itself could be the difference in a number of swing states. You'll recall, I mean, Biden had a pretty decent electoral college

margin over Trump last time. But if you look into these states like Georgia, that was a very thin victory. Arizona, very thin victory. It does not take many votes going in the other direction to totally flip those results. And that was at a time when Trump was in office, when everybody had a daily reminder of how terrible and chaotic and stressful his administration was. So even though it's kind of ironic because usually incumbency confers certain advantages. Yes. Actually, I think for Trump, not being an incumbent is an advantage because it's easy for people to forget on a visceral basis what it feels like to have this man in charge of our government every single day. Or they can also compare it to Biden.

So like on the right, there are a lot of people who are now like, screw it, mean tweets. I'll take the mean tweets over whatever else. And that's not my rationale because I think you can't really disconnect the crazy, chaotic mean tweets from the policy. I think he was making policy with the tweets. So I don't necessarily buy into that bifurcation. But a lot of people have been sort of like using that refrain on the right, whether that starts to land with independents and Democrats, I doubt. But if you're voting on the economy, if you're voting on

the Middle East, Donald Trump is going to have a huge political tool, which is going out and talking about how, and it's a separate, this is just about the politics, not the strategy or the policy itself. He's going to be able to talk about how he facilitated the Abraham Accords and how peace in the Middle East was imminent when Donald Trump was president. And that's going to be really powerful if people are thinking about foreign policy, because it's hard for Joe Biden to respond because his administration was touting the success of the Abraham Accords right before October 7th. They said, what was the Jake Sullivan quote? He was like, peace in the Middle East is stronger than it has been in years.

Yeah, it's been more stable or something like that than it's been in years. I mean, listen, I could sit here all day and say, Trump increased the drone war. He, you know, bombed Syria, went beyond Obama, bombed Syria. That the Abraham Accords, by the way, were central to leading Hamas to launch October 7th. Assassinating Qasem Soleimani and risking a direct hot war with Iran. Getting out of the Iranian nuclear deal, which also brought things to the brink with Iran. I could go through that every single day, and intellectually, people could understand that. But you're right, that it's a very potent talking point to say, hey, these wars didn't happen on my watch.

I made it work. This is all on this guy. And And, you know, the other thing is Biden's political strength was always his sense, the sense of, listen, I may not agree with him on everything. He may not be like a real firecracker in this there at this point, but I feel like he's a good guy. I feel like he's an empathetic guy. I feel like he's basically decent and trying to do the right thing. Yeah. Well, when you have half of your own voters, like you're facilitating a genocide and another 30% who are like, you may be facilitating a genocide. I think you're probably going to get knocked down a few points on that. I'm a decent guy, um, sense, which really was his political strength, especially versus Donald Trump. Well, and he also was pledging to bring civility and normalcy back to American politics. That's a great point, too. Two hot wars have broken out on his watch, which is, I mean, devastating for the theory

that Joe Biden is going to restore the world to stability and stability, that you're just going to make everyone feel happy. I'm trying to remember the Mean Girls quote, like, I wish I could bake a cake of rainbows and unicorns like we did in middle school. That was basically Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. Andbows and unicorns like we did in middle school. That was basically Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. And everyone could get along like we did in middle school. And that has clearly not happened. People have dealt with, even if it's going down right now, what they feel are staggering levels of inflation.

He sort of baited people with student loan debt relief and then took it away, knowing it was going to be taken away. I mean, this was going through the court system, but he knew what was going to happen with his student loan decision and did it anyway, and then didn't really stand by it, hasn't taken, as you guys have covered really well, hasn't taken all the steps he could as an executive to push it through, even if the courts are. So, I mean, those things are not normal. They don't feel stable and normal to voters, and that's a devastating blow for Joe Biden. So what they're counting on is, let's put this next graphic up on the screen from Bloomberg. They're counting on potentially a legal verdict going against Donald Trump. And they're counting

on Roe versus Wade. And they're also counting on some sort of amnesia about how much everyone is horrified by the Israel policy. So the headline here is Trump risks losing more than half of swing state voters if he's found guilty of some federal crime. Even more voters say they will not support him if he is sent to prison during this time. I've always been a little bit like I think you should take these type of polls where you're asking people how they would theoretically feel in the future of if some theoretical event comes to pass. I think you should take those with a major grain of salt. But it seems to me reasonable that a lot of normie voters would be like, all right, you're found guilty of a federal crime. You're facing potential prison sentence.

Yeah, I may be upset with Joe Biden. I may think he's too old, whatever, but I just, this is just a bridge too far for me. So I think they're counting on that. And I think they're also counting, like I said, on Roe versus Wade and also just this general sense of these people, and we'll talk about this some with the Taylor Swift block, but like these people have kind of lost their minds on a, in a variety of directions, like stop the steal, on abortion, on excusing Trump for literally anything. And even though I may not be happy with the Democratic Party, these people just seem too insane and too extreme for me to get behind.

So, and I think also with Trump in particular, one of the reasons those hypotheticals are, I think there's a lot of reason to be skeptical of those hypotheticals, is that it was the same thing we heard before the lawfare started. That as soon as Trump gets hit with these indictments, he's dead in the water. Like the DeSantis campaign was pushing that very hard. They believed that as the lawfare started to come, that voters would say, this is a bridge too far.

It's a distraction. It's going to needlessly tar him in the general election. I'm going to go with DeSantis. And what we're seeing is Trump, not just in the primary with Republican voters, but also if you're looking at his matchup polls with Biden, he has not been devastated. He hasn't been given the scarlet letter by the indictments at all. He's hanging in there. And in some polls, he's actually still beating Joe Biden in the general election hypothetical matchup at this point. So I do agree that you can imagine a lot of normie voters just being like, OK, this is way too far. Like this guy might be going to prison. I don't want my president in prison. I don't want to vote for somebody who's in prison.

It just feels wrong to people. On the other hand, if the other choice is Biden, that's how the celebrity apprentice host beats the former secretary of state. If the other choice is that bad, it can work. Yeah, true. I mean, look, to state the most obvious thing on the planet, both of these dudes have a lot of problems. And I just, you know, when I focus in on one of them, I'll be like, oh, there's no way that dude can win. And then when I think about the other one, I'm like, there's no way that guy can win. And obviously one of them is going to win. So I have a lot of humility this election cycle about making any predictions about how this is all going to go. On the one hand, you can look at these swing state polls and go seven states,

and they're all going for Trump. Doesn't look good for you, buddy. I did see another poll this morning that had Biden up six points in a national general election head to head. But then you look at the special election results and you look at the midterm election results and you're like, well, that seems to cut in the other direction. So I just genuinely don't know. I'm just trying to lay out some of the factors that may be at play as we get closer to the actual general election. Speaking of Biden and swing states and the impact of his Israel policy, he's headed to Michigan today. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was asked what Biden's message is to Arab Americans as he visits that state where the Arab American vote could be, could easily be the determining factor

on whether or not he is able to carry that state again. Sagar and I interviewed the Dearborn, Michigan mayor, who is a longtime Democrat, and said, I cannot commit to voting for Joe Biden today, who refused to even meet with his campaign manager. That is reflective of how many Arab Americans in the state are feeling at this point. Here's what Karine Jean-Pierre had to say when asked this question about what his message is to Arab Americans. Take a listen. The president has faced a lot of criticism in Michigan from the Arab American community. What does he say? What's his message to them, those who feel disenchanted by the Gaza operation? But what I would want to say is that, you know, the president has met with Americans with varying

opinions about the conflict that we're seeing, sadly, in Israel and Hamas. Officials at the White House have had numerous conversations and in regular contact with Muslim and Arab members, Americans. Look, the president's going to continue to believe that Israel has a right to defend themselves. They have a right to defend itself as long as they continue. It is done in accordance of humanitarian, international humanitarian law. So we will continue to have those conversations with them. At the same time, at the same time, he is heartbroken, heartbroken by the suffering of innocent Palestinians. So their message to Arab Americans is Israel has a right to defend itself. How's that going to go over? It's a winning message, Crystal, that they just sealed.

The lady is so bad at her job. Did you see the East Palestine question yesterday? Yes. So a friend of the show, Philip Wegman, asked if Biden would drink the water in East Palestine because he's now visiting Ohio and other states, and he's probably not going to be competitive in Ohio, but it's the anniversary of East Palestine coming up in a couple of days. And Karina Jambier called that a political stunt, which, I mean, she's really, really struggling on some of these questions. And if their message to Arab Americans is shrug, Israel has a right to defend itself, he's going to lose Michigan.

He's going to lose Michigan. Well, here's the thing. He's going to lose Michigan. Here's the thing is, this was flagged by Ken Klippenstein, put this up on the screen. This was like in a, you know, political larger article, but kind of buried in there. It's almost, they almost seem to have given up on winning back the Arab American population in Michigan. What they say here is Biden's support for Israel has hurt the campaign badly with the sizable Arab American population in Michigan. What they say here is Biden's support for Israel has hurt the campaign badly with the sizable Arab American population in Michigan. His team is scrambling to find other paths to victory

in the battleground state, according to two campaign advisors granted anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak publicly about strategy. So they basically are in a place right now where they're like, oh, that ship has sailed. We're not winning them back. It's done. And this is a group I believe he won 65 percent of last time. It was like an overwhelming margin last time around. And they're like, we can't win with them. So who else is out there that maybe we could win over? So I was just going to whip out a super hot take about the Electoral College that is like actually interesting here. When you have this pocket of Arab Americans around Dearborn, around Detroit, that's really powerful in Michigan, but doesn't represent like

a wide swath of the American population, they become like disproportionately powerful in the popular vote with the Electoral College because they're in Michigan, and Michigan's an incredibly important swing state. And that's one of the benefits. Yeah, if it was Dearborn, Kentucky, no one would care. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I mean, I go back and forth in the Electoral College myself, but I do think examples like this where you have pockets of really, really, really powerful voting blocs are always compelling and interesting in that sense. Because even if Biden and his campaign, as that Politico article just showed, are giving up, that's stupid. Their path, I mean, they should be working day in and day out. They should have people on the ground in Dearborn

talking to people. I don't know how that would go. Probably not great for them,, they should be working day in and day out. They should have people on the ground in Dearborn talking to people. I don't know how that would go. Probably not great for them, but they should be trying because their map to the 270 without Michigan is very, very tough. Yeah. And listen, I think the core of the issue is just the policy itself needs to change. You know, that's the bottom line. And they may be right that it's too late, that at this point, even if they did change course and put pressure on Israel and, you know, secure a long-term ceasefire and actually start making some movements towards recognition of Palestinians today or whatever, I think they are probably correct that in a lot of ways the ship has sailed because it's already gone way too far. I mean, many people in Dearborn know people who have had family members who've

killed, who have family members who were in Gaza who have been killed. I mean, this is deeply personal. And so, you know, this little bit of lip service they're giving to, oh, maybe we'll theoretically do a white paper about possibly recognizing Palestinian state is certainly going to be insufficient. They also, our video just went viral, which is really not a great look for them of a campaign organizer outside of a Kamala Harris, I believe, event fundraiser or something of that to that effect. Kicking two women wearing hijabs out of the event, keeping them, barring them from going into the event, even though they had received invites. I'll tell you what the campaign is saying about it afterwards, but I think we could all agree. Not a great look for them. Let's take a look at this.

We are choosing who's going in and out of the event. I'm sorry. Why are you choosing us not to go in when we have an invite? Right, you specifically singled us out. That's racist. Is it because we have hijabs? I'm happy to talk to someone else. It is because that's clearly, I was afraid of this. You singled us out of everybody. When we have an invitation, just like everyone else, what is the problem?

By a man who's in the LGBT community too. You're going after another group. Can they come in? They were already. Why not? It is because why isn't it? We have an invitation. No, here, don't come up with excuses because I... I'm not coming up... I didn't give you an excuse. I'm letting you know that you've been

disinvited from the event. Why? So she says you can choose to leave at this point. You've been disinvited from the event. The campaign is saying, oh, these women were involved in previous protests, which speaks also to the fact that, you know, every Joe Biden event, every Kamala Harris event, Nancy Pelosi obviously has been hounded by protests. Like, they really can't go anywhere without having some sort of disruption,

some sort of protest over their Israel policy. But what that leads to is a sense that they may be just like out and out racially profiling anyone who shows up with a hijab or looks Arab American or Muslim banning them from the event because it appears that these are basically like the only two women with hijabs. And it's like, you guys can't come in. Like I said, not a great look. And it leads to social media posts. So even if someone's not outside a fundraiser, you know, watching what's happening now, this is going to go absolutely everywhere. And actually, by the way, I love the idea that this might have been a Kamala Harris fundraiser, because, yeah, can you imagine Kamala Harris making people want to donate to the Biden campaign. Like, when I hear her talk, I say, give me my checkbook.

I must have, like, you have this. You guys are going to win. I mean, it's just outrageous. But this is a terrible, terrible look for the campaign. And it's not going to stop. That's the other part of this for him is that this is going to keep on going. We just got word that here in D there's pretty massive protests outside the State Department Union Station here in DC with traffic being blocked.

So short of a huge policy change, this is from now until November going to be blasted on young people's TikToks and Instagram feeds. So the vote in those college towns, those younger, know, younger, bluer urban areas is in really tough shape for Joe Biden. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger.

This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us. And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross.

We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean,

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

Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, obviously the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Now, late at night on Tuesday, there was a markup of the impeachment articles that Republicans have drawn up for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a longtime target of this Republican majority and the Republican majority before it under the Biden administration. The move is to pass those articles, which they did end up passing late in the night, so early yesterday morning. The articles moved out of committee, and that means they will now be set for a full vote in front of the House. So the House of Representatives will be voting on whether to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security. And actually, there's an interesting statistic. This would be like the first time in 150 years that a cabinet secretary faced impeachment, like the second time ever.

This was from the New York Times. Do you know what the first one was? I don't know who the first one was, but now I'm really curious. Yeah, you go over to Google, figure that one out. But it's not a common thing. I feel like we're almost sort of numb to this happening now from the Trump administration. And that's kind of what Republicans are, why Republicans are arguing that they're doing it is, you know, they're not saying that aloud, but behind closed doors, it's an idea that you fight fire with fire and that if they're going to impeach Donald Trump two times, then you go ahead and impeach one of them. We know, obviously, they've started looking into impeachment. They've opened that inquiry

into President Biden. But now they're going after Mayorkas along similar lines. But the problem about these impeachment articles, and I think Mayorkas is doing a horrible job, the problem is an interesting one. So let's start playing some clips of the debate in the committee, which get to sort of the heart of what's going on. I'll start with this tweet from Mike Johnson. This is his statement. We'll put this up on the screen. The speaker, Mike Johnson, since the moment he was confirmed, Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, feeling the worst border catastrophe in American history. He said, I commend the House Homeland Security Committee for conducting a thorough and exhaustive investigation into Secretary Mayorkas's failed leadership of the

department. He also says that Mayorkas, quote, violated his oath of office and obstructed lawful oversight of DHS. So pin those two things because they're important to these articles of impeachment. And let's roll this next clip, which I believe is Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat, talking during this debate that went into, again, the early hours of the morning yesterday. And any shortcomings that Mayorkas may have, frankly, are your fault. He's asking for authorities to do more, to have more border agents, to have more resources. And so his limitations are caused by you.

You put them in place. You won't let him do it. So Marjorie Taylor Greene was sitting just across the room from him. Let's roll a clip of MTG laying into Mayorkas. Congress has the responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable when they fail to uphold their oath of office, abuse their authority, and or are dishonest with the American people. This is essential in a constitutional republic built on and separation of powers. In its 2023 ruling in United States versus Texas, the Supreme Court left the House of Representatives with little choice, little choice, but to pursue impeachment articles against Secretary Mayorkas. Secretary Mayorkas must be impeached for his failure to uphold his oath of office and for willfully breaking federal immigration laws. So again, you heard right there, oath of office and for his failure to willfully uphold federal immigration laws. Crystal, before we get your thoughts, let's roll this clip of Chip Roy, again, getting

at the heart of the impeachment articles. And that's what we'll open up for discussion right after you hear this exchange between Chip Roy and Mayorkas. And if you're watching this, you'll see the date. It's 2022 on your screen. So pay attention to that as well. Will you testify under oath right now? Do we have operational control?

Yes or no? Yes, we do. And we have operational control of the borders. Yes, we do. And Congressman, we are working to. Listen, what operational control define in this section, the term operational control means the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics and other contraband. Do you stand by in your testimony that we have operational control in

light of this definition? Congressman, I think the Secretary of Homeland Security would have said the same thing in 2020 and in 2019. So Republicans have been using a clip of a deputy of Mayorkas who has said, obviously, we don't have operational control of the border and testified to prove that Mayorkas lied when he said that they had operational control of the border. Mayorkas said he was using a different definition of operational control with a lower standard of what constitutes operational control. But the articles of impeachment accuse him of violating provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which we were talking before the school. They require that migrants, quote,

shall be detained pending a decision on whether or not they should be removed. So if they're claiming asylum, you typically, if you have a normal immigration system, that's what would happen. But that has not been upheld in years and years and years. It's basically impossible. I mean, I don't know how that would be possible. It's why the Trump administration also didn't do it because it's not possible with the number of people that you have going. So the oath of office, the knowingly made false statements, these are the articles of impeachment. And if your argument is that we need to impeach Mayorkas because they impeached Trump, that actually is probably more— and we know it's not going to go anywhere

because we're just the House of Representatives and it's never going to pass the Senate. It's more of a symbolic impeachment. If that's your argument, it actually is probably stronger than the legal constitutional case for impeachment here because I don't think it quite meets the bar. Yeah. I mean, it's theater. It's theater. I mean, I don't even want to really dig into like what they're claiming and what he said and operational. If that's your definition of operational control, literally that has never happened in the history

of the United States. And it will never happen in the history of the United States that you have, you know, every single person that comes in, there's going to be at least one who gets by. Then you don't have operational control. So, I mean, there's a reason I looked up who was the last cabinet secretary to be impeached. Oh, gosh, who was it? May 1876, Secretary of War William Belknap,

who apparently, this is kind of funny, this is from senate.gov. So they say, at issue was the behavior of William Belknap. He was part of the administration, President Ulysses S. Grant, former Iowa state legislator and Civil War general. He held his cabinet post for nearly eight years. In the rollicking era that Mark Twain dubbed the Gilded Age, Belknap was famous for his extravagant Washington parties and his elegantly attired first and second wives.

Many question how he managed such a grand lifestyle on his $8,000 government salary. By early 1876, answers began to surface. A House of Representatives committee uncovered evidence supporting a pattern of corruption blatant even by the standards of the scandal-tarnished Grant administration. Now, it's interesting history. I also do think it's relevant here, though, because it's not like he was impeached for the policy that he was implementing, because he was impeached based on his personal conduct and allegations of corruption, which apparently had quite a bit of merit, judging by the addresses of his first and second wives. So does anyone really believe that Secretary Mayorkas is the locus of the issues in terms of immigration? We have been having debates and

struggles over immigration and border security and how to handle immigrants that come in and claim asylum. We've been having these debates for decades. They did not start with Secretary Mayorkas. They will not end with Secretary Mayorkas. They will not end with Secretary Mayorkas. I have no opinion on this man's conduct, whether he's been a good or bad Secretary, how he is, whether he's commented on his job. But he's clearly trying to implement the policy that's been directed to him by the president. And I actually think Swalwell's point is a reasonable one of the biggest, there's a lot of issues, but the biggest issue in terms of our immigration policy is this massive 3 million case asylum backlog, which means exactly like you said, people come

because they know that they can say, I'm claiming asylum and it will be years before it's adjudicated. Right. The best thing you could do to deal with that problem is not, you know, as the House, as the, sorry, Senate negotiated bill contemplates just, okay, we're just going to close the border and end due process. No, the biggest thing is to have a massive scale-up in resources so that you actually have a shot to be able, in a timely fashion, to adjudicate these asylum claims and say, yes, this one meets the definition, and no, many of these other ones don't. So you can handle it in some sort of judicious manner. Mayorkas is not a magician. He can't like, you know, magically make all of that happen or magically make the three

million case backlog go away without support for Congress. So when you couple that their response is this show trial and these, you know, fake impeachment articles of impeachment that they know aren't going to go anywhere with their rejection of the Senate negotiated package, which I oppose because it's too draconian, but which is consistent with the things they claim to care about and support. It's just very clear to me that they like immigration as a political issue. They like the images of migrants at the border. They like the narrative of no operational control and chaos under Joe Biden, etc., etc. But they don't actually even support the things that they claim to support, which I don't support again.

But they don't even really back up their words and the things that they claim to believe with any sort of governance or action. They just like it as a political issue. Establishment Republicans sure as hell don't. I mean, you'll hear Mitch McConnell talk all day about the border. And then, you know, we have completely different takes on the Senate bill because that one would still, like from my perspective, it doesn't even crack down until you're like 1.8 million people, like 5,000 people a day is when it starts to, the standard sets in for when you have automatic detention and removal of migrants. And it's just Mitch McConnell all day. He'll use the border as

a political issue. He won't take a vote on anything hard ever, never. He would never do that because there's a lot of cheap labor to be had and we could get into that whole debate. I know we probably disagree on some of those things, but I share the frustration of this, like basically just being a political wedge issue for the political establishment to bash over and over again. And honestly, I think Mayorkas has done a terrible job. I think Biden has done a terrible job. I think it's frightening what we don't know about how many people are here. I think it's frightening for people's safety. How many are living in the shadows of our society in sanctuary cities where they're in danger? They come over here in debt to cartels.

It's just horrific. Many of them have been raped, sexually assaulted on the way, and then are still in debt to cartels. And I wonder, actually, if there was a much better avenue for impeachment over the people who have died crossing the river, over the people who have come here in debt to cartels and been victims of violence, over the people who have been victimized. I mean, it was like 35,000 arrests last year or removals last year of people who had been in the country illegally with a criminal record. Why not any of that? And it kind of gets to your point that the human element of this gets lost in the political element of it because it's more fun

to just use this stuff as a weapon. Yeah. I mean, Sagar and I covered the other day, Senator Lankford, who was like sort of adorable in his shock that the Republicans in the House were not going to accept this deal because it's not just this deal, which again, I don't support because I don't think the answer to we don't have enough resources to, you know, go through a due process. The answer to that is more resources so that you can deal with the flow and get it under control so that there isn't the sense of, oh, I can just show up and claim asylum. And it's going to be years and years before this is adjudicated. But he was sort of like, I thought you guys like agreed with me on this. And also, by the way, you all were the ones who pushed for this to be paired with Ukraine aid and Israel aid.

You know, the whole idea was like, we're not going to give any money to care about Ukrainian borders before we deal with our borders. So Democrats are like, OK, we'll, you know, combine these things together. And when the rubber meets the road, some of them were out and out like,, no, we're not going to quote unquote, give Joe Biden a win. Now, again, on the other side of this, I don't think that this is good politics for the Biden administration either. Anytime that the policy discussion is focused on immigration and where the narrative and the argument is all on the side of we need harsher policies and we need to shut down the border, et cetera, you are not going to out immigration hardline Donald Trump. That's not going to happen. So if you are making this the center of political conversation,

if you're accepting that framing of like the thing we need to really do is be harsh and crack down at the border, that is not going to be a winning argument for you. And you've already lost progressives, young people, you know, a lot of constituencies in the democratic party based on your support, uh, unconditional support for Israel. Now you're antagonizing them on this issue as well. So you're further demoralizing your own base. You're not winning any immigration hardliners over. So I think it's foolish from their political perspective as well. But yeah, I mean, when it comes to this impeachment situation, like bottom line to me is it's a political stunt. It's symbolic of the fact that most of Washington revolves around political

stunts at this point, you know, outside of any like real genuine attempt to try to address the problem, even if you don't 100% agree with the solutions and find common ground. No, no, no. It's all about what can I do for the cameras? What can I do to spur my own fundraising base? How can I own a lib and have a viral moment that's going to help me raise money for my own campaign? That's what all of our politics centers around. And this whole impeachment situation, I think, fits squarely in that mold. Yeah, it's frustrating because I think Biden's critics really do have, as much as I disagree with the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and basically everyone, but as much as I disagree with them, this is one of these issues where they should have the moral high

ground. People are dying. People are being abused. Our government is literally helping the UN hand out debit cards in the Darien Gap, which people die crossing, it's not good. It's horrible. And this just seems like such a small ball excuse to even do the political theater. So. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country

begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was

still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back.

I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do.

This regime is coming down on us, and I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon.

Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020,

I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence.

So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Some real political theater happening yesterday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee where they actually had to subpoena some of these tech executives to get them to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not all of them. Some of them actually did have to be brought by subpoena some of these tech executives to get them to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not all of them. Some of them actually did have to be brought by subpoena, though. And we have a lot of video from this hearing. They grilled these tech executives. We can go ahead and put the first element up on the screen here. They grilled them about the safety of their

platform. So this was the CEOs of TikTok, of Snap, of X, and Meta. So you had Zuckerberg was there. I think the guy from Discord, he was one of the people that actually had to be subpoenaed, was there as well. And they were answering some really tough questions. This is kind of an interesting subject, Crystal, because we're going to roll a lot of these clips. And one thing you'll hear in some of the clips is pimping of legislation that they want to pass, that they think, you know, this is the necessary legislation that will save the children from your horrible apps.

Well, the problem is a lot of this legislation is seriously flawed from a speech and civil rights perspective. And that's one of the scary things about, we talk about all of the issues with TikTok and there are many, many serious issues with TikTok. The solution that was devised by people in the Senate was a huge power grab that would wildly infringe on civil rights. And that's what some of this legislation is as well. So keep that in mind as you're watching these clips, that to the point we were talking about in this last segment about the border, a lot of politics is stunt making for the sake of power grabs. Now, there are going to be some real questions. So let's play this first clip of Mark Zuckerberg. He's addressing parents

that were in the room behind whose children had been lost to suicide and other problems. There were parents from Snap there whose kids had bought drugs very easily over Snap. Let's roll this of Zuckerberg addressing those parents when Josh Hawley kind of demands it of him. Have you apologized to the victims? Would you like to do so now? They're here. You're on national television. Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed by your product? Show them the pictures. Would you like to apologize for what you've done to these good people? So it was kind of hard to hear, but he was just saying, you know, nobody should have to go through

what you're going through. And that's why Facebook is working really hard, Crystal, to solve these problems. And actually, interestingly enough, I don't know if you've noticed this, but in some of the like Axios morning newsletters, Instagram has been the lead sponsor for a couple of weeks. Interesting. And saying that they support the legislation that is popular, some of the pieces of legislation that are popular, which is very, very interesting. It's sort of like how they supported Section 230 reform as well. Yeah. I mean, I think, listen, everyone wants our kids to be safe. Everyone understands that social media in a lot of ways has had a really deleterious impact, especially on mental health among teenage girls in particular, but teenagers in general. like is a very valid topic of concern. However, the solutions that are proposed by these people almost all of the time just lead

to encouraging tech platforms to do more censorship and be even more aggressive in taking down a whole range of content, not just the things that are genuinely bad that you would genuinely like to see taken down. And beyond that, a lot of these little regulatory band-aid type things as well, they're also not really getting at the core of the issue, which is that these companies are gigantic monopolies. They profit off of the attention economy. They're always going to push in the direction of keeping you and your kids on the app longer. There was a lot that was revealed about how Facebook does that, how they even were happy to degrade the experience of their website where people felt bad using it if it meant that their eyeballs stayed on there longer. So, you know, as long as that is the core driving incentive, that and like, you know, selling off all of your data and like not caring at all about your privacy, as long as

that is the business model, you're going to end up with a lot of negative impacts on young people and on everybody in general. So, you know, there was a lot of like this clip of Zuckerberg apologizing, really got a lot of play and went viral or whatever. It's like, this is not going to do anything. Like I enjoy big tech humiliation as much as anyone else. It was good watching Zuckerberg be like, like he had just been sent on a timeout. Yeah, fine. But the bottom line of this entire hearing is that not to oversimplify, but this really is sort of like the big takeaway in a whole variety of directions from the left and the right and the center and whatever. They're pushing for more censorship. That's what they want.

And they want to use which issues that are genuinely emotional issues to try to continue pushing that agenda. So let's look at Mike Lee talking to Mark Zuckerberg also about sexually explicit content on Instagram. We can roll this. Instagram recently announced that it's going to restrict all teenagers from access to eating disorder material, suicidal ideation themed material, self-harm content, and that's fantastic. That's great. What's odd, what I'm trying to understand is why it is that Instagram is only restricting. It's restricting access to sexually explicit content, but only for teens ages 13 to 15.

Why not restrict it for 16 and 17-year-olds as well? Senator, my understanding is that we don't allow sexually explicit content on the service for people of any age. How is that going? You know, our prevalence metrics suggest that I think it's 99% or so of the content that we remove, we're able to identify automatically using AI systems. So I think that our efforts in this, while they're not perfect, I think are industry leading. Industry leading could mean a lot if the standards of the industry, or it could mean very little when the standards of the industry are very low, which is exactly what is true in this case. Which probably comes from the monopoly power too, like they don't have to really care.

Exactly. And the crowd breaking out into laughter, I really enjoyed. Speaking of the sort of pleasure to be derived from tech humiliation, that was pretty good. Let's roll this clip. So, Lindsey Graham was on one yesterday. You may have noticed, Crystal. She often is. Let's roll this clip of Lindsey Graham. TikTok, your representative in Israel quit the company because TikTok is being used in a way to basically destroy the Jewish state. TikTok is being used to destroy the Jewish state, Emily. Oh, my God.

One of the interesting things about that is a lot of Republicans and centrist Dems were really upset about the research showing that in the aftermath of October 7th, content on TikTok that was pro-Palestine versus pro-Israel was wildly disproportionate. And if you're listening to this, I'm making like a bar graph with my hands because that's exactly what the charts showed. And attributing that to Beijing is because of the control by dance and TikTok, which we'll get into in just a second. But attributing that to Beijing instead of the organic sentiments of actually like 18 to 20 plus year olds, that is not borne out by the data at all. Yeah. From everything we know, this is a completely, and by the way, one of the people that thinks that they probably are manipulating this and probably are having an impact on public opinion, but this is maybe on the margins on this issue.

This is organic. This is, you can blame tech all you want. This is where young people are. Yeah. There's a whole moral panic about TikTok. I mean, there's a lot of layers to this. In part, there's just like, you know, these are old people who don't use TikTok or don't understand it.

So it feels like foreign and scary to them. There's like that very human level of it. And then there's also the panic at a loss of control. Because we've covered here, you know, the way that the sort of traditional corporate media, the way that they cover Israel-Palestine and how manipulated it is. You know, there's a Wall Street Journal reporter was like in the IDF. It was just like laundering. Yeah, just laundering IDF propaganda in the pages of a Wall Street Journal, which is supposed to be this respected outlet. There have been all these analyses of the incredibly visceral and emotional language that is used to describe, rightly used

to describe Israeli deaths that is denied to Palestinians to try to deny them humanity. And so the fact that you have this alternative source where people can see, you know, the videos of IDF soldiers publicizing themselves doing war crimes and bragging about it, where you can see the horrors of the kids who are being buried under rubble or going through horrible amputations with no anesthesia, where you can see these things directly. And then you already have a generation that was very inclined to see this conflict in wildly different terms than older generations. And there is a genuine freak out about what that loss of control means for them, for their narrative, for their political agenda and view of the world. And so I think that's very reflected when Lindsey Graham makes just outrageous,

insane comments like TikTok is being used to destroy the Jewish state. And it also kind of reminds me of what Dems and Never Trump Republicans do with the Trump phenomenon, is they just are like, this is Russia. Russia made Donald Trump win. Or Pelosi, blaming, saying ceasefire protesters are on Putin's message and the FBI needs to look into their financing, or that they need to go back to their headquarters in China. They just, I mean, it's, yeah, total conspiracy, brain worms, insanity. And I think this Lindsey Graham's comments fit in that category very nicely. And if you don't grapple with the authentic sentiments of voters, you are not, it might

work in the short term. It doesn't work in the long term. Right. So, and here's another clip. This is Tom Cotton. This one, Crystal and I might have a different take on that. Let's roll Tom Cotton talking to the CEO of TikTok. Of what nation are you a citizen?

Singapore. Are you a citizen of any other nation? No, Senator. Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship? Senator, I served my nation in Singapore. No, I did not. Do you have a Singaporean passport? Yes, and I served my military for two and a half years in Singapore.

Do you have any other passports from any other nations? No, Senator. Your wife is an American citizen. Your children are American citizens. That's correct. Have you ever applied for American citizenship? No, not yet. Okay.

Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party? Senator, I'm Singaporean. No. Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party? No, Senator. Again, I'm Singaporean. No. Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party? No, Senator. Again, I'm Singaporean. Let me ask you some hopefully simple questions. You said earlier in response to your question that what happened at Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 was a massive protest. Anything else happen in Tiananmen Square? Yes, I think it's well documented. There was a massacre. Clearly, Khan there is trying to get

him like make him uncomfortable, like, make him uncomfortable. Like, oh, you can't say this because you're being handled by the Chinese Communist Party. And he has no problem saying it whatsoever. And in my opinion, Cotton just looks like a total and complete idiot there. And whatever point he's trying to make, I think it's very badly served by this line of questioning in which he seems to not understand that Singapore is a completely different country from China. He had asked these questions leading up to that exchange, which were interesting about him formerly being the CFO of ByteDance, which is based in Beijing and is the parent company.

And then the CCP was given a board seat on the ByteDance board. And the next day, Chu was made the CEO of TikTok, which is an American-based company. And so he was talking about how he had lived in Beijing for those five years. And that's where it was leading up to that exchange with Cotton, which I think does make it more interesting that he did. There is a CCP, like many, many companies, and this is what the TikTok CEO says to Cotton, like many, many companies, and this is what the TikTok CEO says to Cotton, like many companies, basically any company operating in China, there's a branch of the CCP that is made up of TikTok employees that operates, I'm sorry, ByteDance employees that operates within the ByteDance headquarters in Beijing, which again,

is totally normal in China. Although when you have vast power over an American company and Cotton gets him to concede that because of the national security law in 2017, technically ByteDance is able or would be compelled to give data over to the Chinese Communist Party, et cetera, et cetera. Now the Tiananmen Square thing, a little bit of a different story.

There was evidence that they were like suppressing that, but they haven't been for a while, ostensibly. I mean, I used to be sympathetic to these security concerns with regard to TikTok and China. I would say I was skeptical, but somewhat sympathetic. I'm just not anymore because there's a variety of reasons. I mean, first of all, once again, it's these people's job to regulate tech companies. So if you want to regulate TikTok, then you're a United States senator. This is an American company. You can do that.

That's number one. Number two, no one could ever spell out for me, like, what is the super scary possible outcome that we should all be so terrified of that is different with TikTok than the outcomes of invasion of privacy and failing our kids and all of those things that we already have to deal with with all of the tech platforms. And I've never heard a good answer for that, especially because the data

that is being collected on TikTok users, this is data that is open for purchase on the free market. So there's not anything like extra special, super secret that TikTok is collecting here that's not already available. And again, I think that Cotton's line of questioning here sort of exposes that a lot of the concern is really mostly just like a ginned up moral panic where, you know, it's people who are China hawks that want to say anything that China touches is bad and scary and we should have

nothing to do with it without laying out to any sort of conclusion of what we should genuinely be frightened of. And again, Tom Cotton is one of the most, you know, I don't throw these terms around lightly, but he's one of the most like authoritarian in what's the right word. He's like has the most authoritarian instincts. But he wants to raise the minimum wage of any senator in the United States Senate. And so what this ultimately amounts to is just cracking down on a platform that, again, a lot of these people are panicked about because they don't understand it and their kids are on it. And oh, my God, what are the kids doing these days? And by the way, they're trying to destroy the Jewish state, et cetera, et cetera.

So I just, I don't really have, I don't, I no longer have the sympathy for these concerns that I once entertained. Yeah, I don't worry so much about the data as I do like the very subtle explosion of Chinese propaganda. That would be really scary if there were like a hot war over Taiwan and not to get into what the right move would be. I if there were like a hot war over Taiwan and not to get into what the right move would be. I don't want that to happen. It does seem like some hawks on the left and the right do want that to happen, like Nikki Haley. I feel like she wants that to happen. So yeah, I don't see that. But you could say the same thing about, you know, like Rumble got banned in Brazil and France because I think in one of those instances, it was because

they had RT on there. And it was this, oh my God, the Russian propaganda and RT getting banned from YouTube or whatever. Oh my God, this foreign government's propaganda. But basically nobody watches RT and TikTok is like super, super popular. But I mean, I'm just saying that that argument is used in a lot of different ways and I don't support it because I do think that it's important to be able to hear what foreign governments are saying. Agree. Totally agree. And it's only ever used against the like official baddie countries too, by the way, like the ones that the U.S. has an issue with. They're the ones that get subjected to this level of censorship. So yeah, I view this whole genre of concerns

about TikTok at this point, I basically view as sort of like an anti-China moral panic. I want you and Soccer to have a cage match, like WWE style fight about this. I think that would be really fun to watch. Do it while he's still sick, so I've got an image. If he's sick, we don't know that we haven't confirmed it. He says he's sick. But again, Crystal. We haven't seen the test. I think he's smoking weed. That's my favorite joke about Sagar.

I use it too much, but it never gets old in my mind. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country

begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was

still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This five months, we are not just celebrating, we're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out.

You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us, and I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross.

We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part?

Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you.

But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of important political issues, Taylor Swift. The most important political issues. We have to talk about Taylor Swift. Indeed, we do. Yeah. So there's a lot going on. I really need you to explain this to me, Emily, because I can't say that I really understand. But OK, I'm sure you guys are aware Taylor Swift is dating this football player and it's become this whole thing. And there

was a whole freak out over their relationship and the fact she'd be on camera at his games. And this has sparked some next level conspiracy theories. Yeah. And it's not really confined to like a one or two right wing influencers. This is like really taken root and has sparked an entire genre of Taylor Swift, deep state Joe Biden conspiracy theories. In some ways, it was kicked off by Vivek Ramaswamy. Let's put this up on the screen. So he says, I wonder who's going to win the Super Bowl next month because the Kansas City Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl, and that's the one the team that Taylor Swift's boyfriend, Travis Kelsey, plays for. And I wonder if there's a major presidential endorsement coming from an

artificially culturally propped up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here. Let's see how it ages over the next eight months. Okay. So the theory here is that the Super Bowl will be rigged to benefit Taylor Swift, who already has been an A-list pop star for like a decade at this point, at least, at least a decade at this point. Okay. So, and somehow that's going to enable a Joe Biden endorsement, which is going to be a real game changer because, yeah, celebrity endorsements really seem to make a huge difference in politics. That's a theory that's being floated here by the vague, but he was far from alone. As I mentioned, there's been a whole raft of additional commentary and theories about what's really going on here. We've got a smattering of

this commentary for you to sample. Let's take a listen. America's pop star celebrity sweetheart joins forces with a top dog in the NFL playing for the team that's going to the Super Bowl. I mean, let's be real here. This is bread and circuses on steroids. Major League Sports in and of itself is nothing but a psyop. Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports, only to be cut from the team, at which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never happen.

So then they become obsessed with some grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a ball around while promoting poison death shots and child slave labor through various brand deals and endorsements. So sad. Imagine being so brainwashed by sports you actually show up to your team's stadium to shovel snow for free so you can watch a bunch of grown men who are overpaid tackle each other. Sure seems like something that is like concocted in order to accelerate the fame of these two people, get them to the Super Bowl, largest screens on earth, get maybe a, get maybe like a proposal after the, this is my, this is what I think is

going to happen. There's going to be like some type of proposal. Or maybe she just bought into all the lies about conservatives and Republicans that they're racist and sexist and homophobic and xenophobic and transphobic and Islamophobic, that Republicans and conservatives want dirty air and water and a total ban on all abortion with no exceptions. If she believes all that, she is believing a lie because those talking points are simply untrue. Now, I'm just saying maybe she wants to think twice before making a decision about 2024. That was just, you know, the tip of the iceberg.

There was a lot more of that. That dude, Benny Johnson, who we had a little clip of, he also put out this tweet that I have to read for you because it really does check every box. He says, by now everyone knows Taylor Swift is the government psyop, and this is exactly why corporate media is having a meltdown about it. By the way, you all seem to be the ones having the meltdown, just to say. Four years ago, the Pentagon Psychological Operations Unit pitched NATO about turning Taylor Swift into a social influence asset. In 2019, George Soros bought her entire music catalog. In 2020, she came out as a raging liberal Joe Biden supporter after previously being politically neutral. In 2023, her heiress tour

raked in higher revenue than the GDP of 50 countries. In 2023, she helped register over 35,000 new voters with a single Instagram post. And now she's dating a Pfizer and Bud Light agent in the NFL. Agent, agent. Yeah, agent. Apparently he does like ads for them or whatever. And that was part of the freak out. The most watched live sport in America. Even the NYT wrote a story on how Biden is courting her for an endorsement and how he wants to appear on stage with her. Emily, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to put it all together. You just have to be paying attention. That's my favorite part. You just have to be paying attention. And yeah, I know Benny. Benny actually has a lot of support, and he's very popular on the right.

So I can't excuse this one in a lot of ways. It is legitimately true that sometimes the media will take, it's called nut picking, will take quotes from a crazy leftist or a crazy hardcore conservative and paint the entire movement that way and say conservatives en masse are freaking out about Taylor Swift. This is actually so widespread among people on the right that we have a big story up at The Federalist today with the headline that is simply stop trying to make Taylor Swift as a psyop happen, telling people like there's actually something very conservative about Taylor Swift who has rocketed to astronomical degrees of fame. Fall in love with this like middle American football player who, if people know about the Kelsey's, are still like pretty humble. His brother Jason is just like a total bro. And I have a friend that Sager knows who I was talking to him the other day about this.

And he was like, I don't know why conservatives are so upset. The bros are back. Travis Kelsey, Taylor Swift, the bros are back. The bros have never been back so hard. It is time for the bros to reclaim their territory because Travis Kelsey is the ultimate bro and he just got the ultimate girl. And there's something, in a way, as conservatives have now rebutted the other conservatives saying, let them be happy. And if they want to get married because there's been leaks about an

engagement, all power to them. Good for them. Yeah. You're supposed to support marriage, right? That's supposed to be like a conservative family value situation. I actually think that part of why there's a freak out is because a lot of conservatives feel like she should have been one of them. She's like, and, you know, football, they feel like culturally this is one of the few cultural areas where we have some sort of traction, very popular in middle America, et cetera. And she originally had, I mean, first of all, she became a star at such a young age. And she did just stay completely, she didn't say anything political.

She came on the scene as more of like a country star and out of Nashville and whatever. And then she politically came out in 2018 when she opposed Marsha Blackburn for Senate in Tennessee. And I mean, her politics are very like plain vanilla resistance a lib. Exactly. Like some 90% of Hollywood. There's nothing, she's not been particular. I mean, she really has been fairly non-political. She very occasionally will weigh in. She did endorse Biden last time around. But the panic and the freak out over this is also preposterous to me because there's some, I don't, I feel like the Biden people are deluding themselves about this too, that a Taylor Swift

endorsement is going to mean absolutely anything. Like if we learn nothing from Hillary Clinton, she had every celebrity endorser. They were doing concerts with Jay-Z and Beyonce. Did that matter? Is Hillary Clinton, was she president of the United States? No. So the idea that Taylor Swift's endorsement is going to be the game changer for the election is also to me so incredibly silly.

So there's so many levels of this genuine freak out that I can't understand. And then I do have to go back to that Allison's angle clip that we played where she was like, not only is Taylor Swift a psyop, professional sports are a psyop, youth sports that you put your kids in, you know, the parks and rec league or whatever that your kids are playing. And that's a psyop too. I can't imagine messaging that is more poisonous to just like regular Americans going about their lives. If they heard that would be like, what the hell is wrong with you?

What are you on? And I want nothing to, no part of whatever your political project is here. Weren't you like a youth sports champion? I was a swimmer. Yes. So back in my day. You have spoken like somebody who was brainwashed by the youth sports side. That's right.

Well, the other thing, I mean, we could go on forever about this. I think you're right about people thinking that Taylor Swift was one of them. Taylor Swift, a lot of people forgot. She had a song where she originally, the lyric was, that's fine, I'll tell mine that you're gay about like friends yeah i think it was pictured a burn it was like her first or second record and uh she said i think at one point that she was republican so she did given signaling in the other direction and then got really famous and uh you know did the welcome to new York, move to New York thing, kind of the small town girl archetype moving to New York City. To the big city.

And seemed to, like, be liberal. So people could project all of that onto Taylor Swift. As she got wealthy, she became more liberal. And maybe there's something to that because the arc potentially, like, of her signaling where she was politically might follow that. But that's not just Taylor Swift. That's very common. And, you know, I don't find her politics to be that compelling. I think she's been very snobbish about her politics, honestly. And I've written about that before. But all that is to say,

there was data behind the fact that when Taylor Swift posted a link to a voter registration drive, I think it was like in Tennessee, voter registrations among young people actually were huge. She actually legitimately drove voter registrations, and Democrats are even too willing to buy into that, that Taylor Swift can like swing the election for them. But but if you're conservative, it's true. Like a lot of the country is sick of the cameras panning to Taylor Swift when Travis Kelsey plays. It is like I find it incredibly annoying. I understand, especially why a lot of people who aren't Taylor Swift fans or don't care about pop music find it really annoying. But this woman sold out tours, like revitalized local economies. Didn't she like cause earthquakes with her tour? I mean, it was like gigantic. And here's the thing.

Enormously popular. So the way to address the idea of Taylor Swift driving voter registration is not to attack Taylor Swift. I mean, that's insane. Like she's beloved. So going after Taylor Swift as a psyop is not the way to like win your election. That's not going to help you. It's not going to help you. Again, I mean, I'm just skeptical that these even the biggest celebrity endorser really makes any difference in the grand scheme of things.

Democrats typically get, you know, the overwhelming majority of the celebrity endorsements. I did love Jack Tosovic when he was talking about his theories on this and Taylor being a psyop and whatever. He's like, but we got, you know, Kid Rock and John Boyd. And Ted Nugent, don't forget. And Ted Nugent. So, you know, we're good. We don't even need her. We don't even need her. That's the other layer that has been really interesting, Emily, is the number of conservatives also who are out there like, I don't even think she's, like, good looking at all.

Like, she's not even my type. She's mid, yeah. Come on. This whole trend of pretending, like, incredibly beautiful women are actually not that attractive and mid is extremely annoying. And so there's also that level of a bunch of dudes who know they could never get Taylor Swift or anyone approaching her level being like, I wouldn't even want her anyway. She's not even attractive, whatever. Who even cares about this woman? But to your point about her success, like if you have a problem with Taylor Swift being everywhere and being so successful and NFL panning to her and, you know, more tickets being sold to

the Kansas City Chiefs or whatever, because she's there, your problem is with capitalism. Like they're just trying to get more eyeballs and make a buck. That's what, there's no conspiracy. That's just capitalism. That's just like marketing. And she has a very broad appeal across a wide demographic who are interested in her and her songs and are more likely, I guess, apparently to watch a football game when her face is up there, you know, or when her boyfriend dynamics are on display. So that's the real psyop here, I guess, is capitalism. My colleague Mark Hemingway, well, actually a lot of people on the sort of new right would agree with that. They'd be like, hell yeah, the problem's capitalism. But my colleague Mark Hemingway, when he was writing about this in The Federalist this morning,

was like, the right desperately needs to stop letting very online people control the sort of conservative message and discourse. And in a sense, it's great that people who are marginalized, disenfranchised, don't have a foothold in Washington, D.C., have a voice. And those aren't always going to be perfectly packaged cable news voices. And that's totally fine. On the other hand, there's some legitimate cranks that are able to just spout off about absolutely insane stuff. And it builds on each other. Yeah. Because people are so scared of getting piled on on Twitter that they don't just say, dude, you gotta cut this out. This is not good.

I know the guy did commercials for Pfizer, but this isn't part of a grand scheme to tip the election for Joe Biden. So it's just snowballs in a really unfortunate way. The internet has its own set of incentives. Corporate media has a set of incentives. The internet has its own set of incentives that has helped to perpetuate and pour gasoline on the flames of the Taylor Swift is a PSYOP conspiracy theory. Yay. Just an absolute delight. Crystal, you have a really important story to cover right now. Tell us what you're thinking about today. Well, after all these months of horrors, things that once shocked and ignited global debates now pass with barely a word.

Attacks on hospitals once covered and Israeli justifications for what is almost always a war crime were fiercely contested. Now, scores of hospitals have been attacked. The media doesn't even keep track anymore. As Israeli atrocities have become impossible to defend, the easier path for liberal Zionists has been to simply turn away, plug their eyes and their ears, harden their hearts to the horror. Even for those of us who can't or won't look away, how can any person truly, fully grasp the absolute heartbreak and agony represented by images such as this? This map is a result of a Guardian investigation showing the sheer level of complete destruction

of the Gaza Strip. The red areas you see there that dominate the map vividly illustrating the impact of a bombing campaign that even Joe Biden has described as indiscriminate. Each red pixel representing a house where a family gathered to celebrate a birth or a death or just the normal, beautiful humdrum of life. A school where children's dreams were nurtured. A hospital where countless newborns took their first breaths in the loving arms of their parents. And now it's all painted in red and reduced to rubble. Somewhere under these red pixels are also the solemn places where Palestinians said goodbye to their loved ones, buried them according to sacred traditions, laid them to rest with what they hoped would be eternal dignity. Even these graveyards, places of mourning, symbolizing the link across generations,

even these were destroyed by the Israeli military. Today, the Israeli military acknowledged that they rolled into a cemetery, took bodies out of graves as part of what they say is a search for Israeli hostages remains. But as the Israeli military put out that statement, we were completing our investigation into the Israeli military's desecration of cemeteries. And what we found is 16 cemeteries across Gaza damaged or destroyed. I do want to warn our viewers that they may find some of these images disturbing. In Gaza, even the dead cannot escape the indignities of war. More than a dozen cemeteries, like this one in Jabalia,

desecrated by the Israeli military. Gravestones destroyed, soil upturned, treadmarks leaving little left for the living to honor their dead. This is that same graveyard before the war. One month later, a series of treadmarks can be seen on the northwestern edge. It is no exception. A CNN analysis of videos and satellite imagery found that 16 cemeteries have been damaged or destroyed by the Israeli military since it launched its ground offensive. So 16 cemeteries, as I said, there were identified by CNN as having been desecrated in every way imaginable and some truly beyond the imagination.

Bodies exhumed, tombs destroyed, military outposts established on top of grave sites. Now, it would be easy to overlook the destruction of these places in violation of these bodies. After all, they're already dead, and the scale of suffering of the living understandably takes precedence. But in the desecration of cemeteries, we catch a glimpse of the true goals of this operation, and it has nothing to do with hunting Hamas or with destroying Hamas tunnels. In truth, Israel seeks the total annihilation of Palestinian life. In fact, 80% of the tunnel system remains intact.

And while some Hamas fighters, yes, have been killed, the commitment to violent resistance that's the lifeblood of Hamas has probably never been stronger. In practical terms of organization and power as well, Hamas is apparently regrouping and retaking civilian control of northern Gaza as the IDF has moved south. In fact, Israel's shifting justifications for desecrating the

cemeteries are so thin that even CNN is calling bullshit. So in that initial report that I just showed, the IDF claimed, you heard Jeremy Diamond say there, that they raised the cemeteries to search for hostage remains. In a follow-up investigation, though, the Israelis changed their story, attempting to claim that they had no choice but to destroy at least one cemetery because of Hamas tunnels located underneath of it. Having already seen too much, however, CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond does not buy it. Back with our world lead now. A week after a CNN investigation into the Israeli military's destruction of cemeteries in Gaza,

the IDF invited CNN's Jeremy Diamond to what they say was a Hamas tunnel underneath a Gaza cemetery. Then they refused to show him exactly where the tunnel entrance was in the crater that was once a graveyard. This is no ordinary quarry. It's where the living once buried their dead. Gaza's Bani Seheila Cemetery, hollowed out by Israeli excavators. These were all graves. This was a cemetery. But the military says that they were forced to come in here because they discovered a Hamas tunnel running right underneath that cemetery.

But the Israeli military failed to prove that stunning claim during a three-hour tour of the area. So in the segment, they go on to show an Israeli general leading Jeremy Diamond through a tunnel network, including a so-called command center that he claims, the general claims, runs underneath of the cemetery. But the entrance that Diamond is let into and out of is not really close to the cemetery. And the entrance that Diamond is let into and out of is not really close to

the cemetery. And when Diamond presses for visual confirmation of the tunnel system actually being below the cemetery, the general gets really squirrely and is ultimately caught in a complete lie. We're asking the general if we can actually see the shaft to the tunnel, but the answer is no. So? There's all kinds of machinery which I don't want you to, uh, just to take pictures of. The security might force it. What about if we don't film it? We just look with our eyes? No security, and then you might fall in.

The whole thing can collapse. You have to walk to the edge. The edge is not secured. It can collapse. There's machinery, so on. It's not something I'm going to take a risk on. Sorry. The Israeli military later provided this drone footage,

showing the tunnel shaft we entered and another one nearby. CNN geolocated the footage using this satellite image. This outline shows where the cemetery once stood, and these are the two tunnel entrances, clearly outside the graveyard. As for the tunnel they say they found here, where the cemetery once stood, the military never provided any evidence. And Jake, we pressed the Israeli military multiple times for that evidence, but instead they released a press release today that actually poked more holes in their story, the story that General Goldfuss told us when we were in that underground command center. He said that we were just below the cemetery,

but the press release, a map that the Israeli military released today, actually places that command center well outside the bounds of that cemetery. More questions than answers. Actually, I think you pretty clearly got your answer. And if you need more answers, I'd recommend you listen to the detailed plans and grand visions which were laid out at the massive conference that a dozen ministers from Netanyahu's government just attended. Here, they don't hide behind lies about tunnels, hunting Hamas, or human shields. The goal of annihilation is out in the open. And that goal is entirely consistent with the military operation that we have witnessed, the imposed starvation, and the new attacks on vital aid agencies.

According to Haaretz, the crowd at this resettlement conference was most rapturous when hearing calls for genocide and ethnic cleansing. Quote, the biggest response came for videos of soldiers in Gaza calling for the strip to be resettled, shouting out that there are no innocents or photographing themselves with banners for the Katif block, that's the former Gaza settlements. The crowd responded to these with deafening cries and whistles. An attorney who was there distributed pamphlets positing a legal rationale for what he openly called Nakba 2.0. A rabbi claimed the only righteous course of action was to conquer the territory and quote,

the destruction and expulsion of anyone who opposes the rule of the Jewish people. Now, this genocidal philosophy explains the rationale behind the utter destruction of civilian life in Gaza far better than any preposterous hunt for Hamas narrative. The attack on UNRWA, the UN agency devoted to Palestinian aid, also fits perfectly with this actual objective. It serves two purposes in the goal of annihilation. The first is quite obvious. At a time when Palestinians in Gaza are eating grass and drinking polluted water and literally starving to death, defunding UNRWA means more suffering, more death, more pressure on the population to flee out of the strip entirely, never to return, just as those conference attendees are very clear that they ultimately want.

As Bibi's communications minister put it at the ethnic cleansing conference, quote, voluntary immigration is at times a situation you impose until they give their consent. But it is also an assault on the very idea of Palestinians as a people with any right to self-determination. Because UNRWA's mission is to serve Palestinian refugees, which necessarily means that Palestinians are a people, that they deserve a state, and that they will remain refugees with a right of return until such time as a just land settlement occurs. For the Israelis, this is unacceptable. Palestinians, their families, their aspirations, their places of worship and education and daily life, and even cemeteries

should be crushed into oblivion until as a people, they just simply give up. All the IDF lies are really in service of hiding this true goal. And even the dead aren't left in peace. What chance do the living stand? And Emily, this is one of those stories. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Emily, thank you so much for stepping in today and doing a great job today. And as always.

Thanks for having me. My pleasure. And you guys enjoy a great weekend. We got some content posting for you over the weekend, and we'll be back with a full show on Monday. We'll see you then. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila.

And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast

every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.