Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/15/24: Russian Space Nuke Hysteria, Morning Joe Pushes Russiagate, Former Biden Trump Voters On RFK Jr Support, The View Panics Over Jon Stewart, Israel Storms Largest Gaza Hospital, IDF Photoshoot In Gaza Kitchens, Ukraine Sends Troops To Meatgrinder, Taylor Swift Conspiracy Backfires On Republicans

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss the Russian space nuke psyop sweeping DC, Morning Joe pushes Russiagate to smear Ukraine aid skeptics, former Trump Biden voters on RFK Jr support, The View panics after Jon Stewart Biden age criticism, Israel storms largest remaining Gaza hospital, Haaretz runs IDF lifestyle piece on soldiers cooking in Gazans kitchens, Ukraine forces troops to die to prevent retreat, and Ryan James Girdusky on Taylor Swift psyop conspiracy plaguing Republicans.   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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell,

and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct.

And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's

get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. A top Republican talking about some big, scary threat set Washington on fire. Is it a sign up? Spoiler alert. Yes, it is. We'll break it all down for you. We'll talk about it. We also have the last edition, I believe, of our RFK Jr. focus group, some really interesting comments. They're kind of pressed on, OK, but if the election is really coming down to it's either going to be Trump or Biden, are you still sticking with RFK Jr.? Very interesting responses there. This comes amid a report we'll get into whether this is just a total hit job or whether there's any there there, but about his campaign staffing and chaos, et cetera.

So, again, we'll break that down for you. We've also got to take a look at the continued liberal meltdown over Jon Stewart's return. Mary Trump said that he is a threat to democracy. So, I mean, we just couldn't resist with that one. Also in more serious news, we've got some breaking news this morning. Israeli forces are storming

the largest remaining operational hospital in the Gaza Strip, threatening tens of thousands of Palestinians who've been sheltering there. Of course, hundreds of patients who've been seeking care there. So we will give you all of the latest there. I'm taking a look at a truly horrifying and disgusting piece that Haaretz ran in the context of Israel's assault on Gaza. Sager's taking a look at the state of the war in Ukraine. And we're looking forward to have Ryan Gerduski joining the show again. He's got some harsh criticism for Republicans in the wake of their most recent loss in New York's third congressional district. So always interesting to hear from Ryan and his assessment,

his unvarnished assessment of what is going wrong. Ryan will always shoot it to you straight. And that's what I appreciate and love about him. He does not hold back. He says what he really thinks, whether you agree with him or not. Absolutely. Before we get to that, as a reminder, if you can support our focus group work at BreakingPoints.com, the full focus group, and I'll give another one during our focus group segment, will be coming out to all of our premium subscribers, I believe, tomorrow. And then it will post later on on all public platforms.

But if you want to see it and you want to see it first and support future endeavors like this, you can sign up at breakingpoints.com. So let's go ahead and start with the great threat. What is it? This set Washington alight. My phone has never buzzed more than in the hours that this was all going on. This all started yesterday at 11.35 a.m. with a very ominous statement from Representative Mike Turner. He's the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He said this, quote, let's put this up there on the screen. Today, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has made available to all members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat. I am requesting President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the administration, our allies can openly discuss

the actions necessary to respond immediately. People are like, wait, what? Are we under attack? You know, some of us may have been wondering whether it was aliens. We were like, what is happening here? Is it Iran? Is it China? What could it possibly be? Things got even more ominous because just minutes later, at the White House, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan took the podium, refused to tell us what it was, but he was like, well, I was frankly surprised that the congressman had put out this statement. Here's what he had to say. So first, I reached out earlier this week to the Gang of eight to offer myself up for a personal briefing to the gang of eight. And, in fact, we scheduled a briefing for the four House members of the gang of eight tomorrow.

That's been on the books. So I am a bit surprised that Congressman Turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting on the books for me to go sit with him alongside our intelligence and defense professionals tomorrow. That's his choice to do that. All I can tell you is that I'm focused on going to see him, sit with him, as well as the other House members of the Gang of Eight tomorrow. And I'm not in a position to say anything further from this podium at this time, other than to make the broad point that this administration has gone further and in more creative, more strategic ways, dealt with the declassification of intelligence in the national interest of the United States than any administration in history.

Okay. So as the mystery continued, it began to leak out to everybody that this, in fact, this threat, not Iranian, not Chinese or any of that. It's Russian. And not only is it Russian, it involves space. So here was the details that was immediately broken after a background briefing and some other leaks were strategically placed to the media. Let's take a lesson. They confirmed to me that this has to do with a threat related to space. We already have from our other sourcing that there has been reporting on the Hill that sources here have confirmed is in the ballpark, which is that it has to do with an emerging capability from Russia that would be of grave seriousness potentially, but that the threat is not immediate. Okay, so the threat is not immediate.

Okay, so the threat is not immediate. The details on this are so ridiculous. And immediately, the PSYOP alarms began to go off because it became, started to become very clear, this is a huge stunt on behalf of Mike Turner that all involves FISA reauthorization, which is the ability basically to spy on your and my communications under the guise of spying on foreigners. So one of the ways that we know this is that some of the people who also were privy to the intelligence in terms of the way they described it, let's put this up there on the screen, they say a thing, look, like, it's disturbing. They're like, well, it's a longer term concern. It's not a today thing. People are like, well, it's a serious issue, but it's not an immediate crisis. Still unclear what it is. Now, we do know now that this is apparently based on space-based nuclear weapon concerns. And to be clear, this is not a weapon that has been launched. This is a weapon allegedly satellite killing weapon, which if deployed could destroy civilian communications and others.

It is not believed to be some sort of weapon out of science fiction that could be launched from space through the atmosphere into Earth. It's like an anti-satellite based device that does happen to be nuclear. But it is clear, Crystal, that Mike Turner, who is one of the most pro-Ukraine Republicans in the House and has been very frustrated, also very, very anti-UFO transparency too, by the way, is one of these goons who is trying to incite a massive Sputnik-level panic over this, both to push aid for Ukraine and to usher in new FISA reauthorization. And especially like Russian space nukes, really. If it's up there and we didn't know about it, okay, that's one thing. But we're tracking the development. Also, aerospace experts that I now follow for years are like, what is he talking about? Everyone here has known about this. It's declassified. In December of 2023, the Russians made some launch into space.

People were openly talking about this. By the way, the weapons development and all that, you think we don't have an X-37B program that's been going on now for quite some time. So look, yes, is a concern? Sure. You know, it's one of those that's like ever present and all that. Is it clear, immediate? Does it, you know, require launching some literal panic, you know, here in Washington? No, absolutely not. It's just a clear gambit on behalf of Mike Turner. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, anytime someone in this town comes out and is like, there's a huge threat. I can't really tell you about it, but you should be very, very scared. You should really start to think about, okay, what is their motivation here? What are they trying to accomplish? And there are two pieces that are incredibly significant. Number one is obviously there is this ongoing debate, and we'll talk a

little bit more about where we are with this, about the Ukraine and Israel funding bill that passed the Senate that looks like it's pretty much dead in the House. But people like Mike Turner are very interested in getting that money both to Israel and especially also to Ukraine to continue our proxy war against Russia. But as you said, Sagar, that's actually I don't think even the main action here. priority, making sure that the government is able to maintain their really unconstitutional ability to wiretap Americans on a warrantless basis, which they have obviously been doing for years now. And have been caught in all kinds of scandals with regards to what is called Section 702 ability of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

It is set to expire in April. And so that is actually their top, top priority is making sure that they preserve that ability to spy on foreign nationals. Yes, but this is the sort of thing where Americans have gotten caught up in this, including like, you know, Black Lives Matter activists and other protesters, including U.S. senators and members of Congress. I mean, the abuse of this program has been legendary. We're talking hundreds of thousands of queries that are outside of the bounds of effectively the Constitution here, but they want to make sure that they can preserve that particular ability. And so, you know, as we move into talking about the Ukraine and Israel bill and that fate, I was actually, the red flags went up for me. I was reading a piece in Playbook, which is,

you know, the DC insider tip sheet rag rag where they said they may not actually these national security hawk types go to the mat over Ukraine because they're saving their firepower for this other FISA ability. That really is their top priority right now. And so, you know, making up some terrifying foreign threat. Well, that's exactly what's used to justify these unconstitutional power grabs at the executive branch level. So it fits perfectly together. Yeah. And the way that we know this, and this is a huge panic behind the scenes, for example,

here's some very choice words. So let's put this up there on the screen. This was flagged to me by one of my friends. Notice just yesterday in the Washington Post, the retiring head of the NSA, he says, quote, I was head of the NSA, he says, quote, I was head of the NSA in a world of threats. This is my biggest worry. I go, oh, what is it? Is it, you know, like Russia or China? No, no, no, no, no. He says, I worry we would make ourselves blind to external threats such as the ones that I have named above if Congress allows a critical intelligence collection authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to expire in April or renews it with crippling restrictions.

Either move would be a self-inflicted wound that our nation cannot afford. He says, I was at the Pentagon when people tried to crash on September 11th as they found out through basically the reauthor, FISA and its current form, the 702 authorization and more, has all basically been a part of the Patriot Act infrastructure that was enacted immediately

after 9-11. It was also a key part of some of the abuses that Edward Snowden revealed back in the day in 2013 with his original leaks. There was some sort of reauthorization and changes to the program in 2018 in response to some of the Russiagate concerns that we saw previously, for example, with Carter Page and many of the other things that you just discussed. But behind the scenes, this is the single most important priority other than Ukraine aid for these Russia hawks because it's one of the ways that they allegedly spy on Russians. Now, as critics of the program, including Rand Paul and many Republican, more libertarian-minded folks would show you, is that it often allows for the

mass collection of American data. And the perfect example is you or I, if we are communicating as American citizens with a member of, who is somebody who is not a US citizen, who is outside of the country, our communications can be swept up in there and then further declassified, non-anonymized, and used to spy on us without obtaining a warrant through the normal procedure of which you would need to spy directly on an American citizen. It is a direct backdoor by the NSA and others for a mass data collection of U.S. citizens and has been directly abused by members of the Obama, Bush, Trump administration to spy on domestic political opponents. We have direct

evidence of all of this. And the fact that it's even a question is outrageous in the year 2023. We're not living in 9-11 hysteria anymore, which is part of why you got to have space nukes. You need a new hysteria. And that was the goal of this whole thing. Just to give you guys a little bit of a sense, the Brennan Center has been tracking all of the abuses of Section 702. They say, to give just a few examples, the FBI has conducted warrantless searches of Section 702-acquired information access communications of Black Lives Matter protesters, U.S. government officials, journalists, political commentators, and 19,000 donors to a single congressional campaign. The FBI conducted 200,000

of these backdoor searches in 2022 alone. Yeah, exactly. So this is, and this is the top priority of the national security hawks to make sure they can continue to spy on you and me and political activists and journalists and government and officials who they think are doing something untoward that they don't like. And so it is outrageous. And it was so naked, this particular PSYOP, that people immediately saw through what he was up to here with his, you know, vague warnings of some amorphous threat that we should all be terrified over. Exactly right.

So anyway, you can probably sleep easier. Everything is fine. Even if they do put a nuke in space, allegedly at some point in the future, it would be anti-satellite. I will tell you, anti-satellite is one of those things I enjoy reading about just because it's kind of fun

about the idea of what everything looks like up there. We have plenty of things at our disposal, as I understand it, that we would be able to use against such a weapons platform and all the others. I am not worried about it really at all. 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 Catherine 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. High key.

Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff

we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter.

Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real?

I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. though, by the way, on the Democrats who are nearly unanimous in wanting to pass this combined bill for aid to Ukraine and to Israel. To give you a taste of what some of the criticism looks like

from the Biden administration's favorite TV show, Morning Joe, this is the new line, is that you are the friend of Putin and an enemy of democracy, an enemy of freedom across the globe. Let's take a listen. Where you have Republicans parroting Vladimir Putin, you have the Republican nominee, likely nominee saying, yes, Putin invade Europe, Russia invade Europe. You have all of these things happening at the same time. And it's not an accident. And I've got to say, even I am shocked that that Republicans on the Hill haven't stood up to Donald Trump saying that that Russia should invade NATO allies. But they haven't. Which means, again, this is a moment in time. Everybody has to stop and recognize that not only is American democracy on the line, but freedom across the globe on the line.

Donald Trump is siding with Xi. Donald Trump is siding with Putin. Donald Trump is siding with Kim Jong-un. These are the people that he wants to make alliances with, and he wants to turn his back on a free Europe. Turning our back on a free Europe enemy. I need a brain lobotomy after listening to something like that. But the crazy thing is, is that this is not just, you know, it's one thing if it's on Morning Joe. This is what Biden himself is saying. He's like, you are an enemy of freedom across the globe. You are a Putin puppet if you refuse to pass this. It's basically what Biden had to say to whenever he urged the passage of this bill very shortly after the Morning Joe segment. Let's take a listen. By a margin of 70 to 29 to move forward the bipartisan national security bill.

Now, now it moves to the House. And I urge Speaker Johnson to bring it to the floor immediately, immediately. There's no question that if the Senate bill was put on the floor in the House of Representatives, it would pass. It would pass. And the Speaker knows that. So I call on the Speaker to let the full House speak its mind and not allow a minority of most extreme voices in the House to block this bill even from being voted on, even from being voted on. This is a critical act for the House to move. It needs to move. The bill provides urgent funding for Ukraine so it can keep defending itself against Putin's vicious, vicious onslaught.

Putin's vicious, vicious onslaught. So this is what the line is now, Crystal. And it does seem, though, that Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, is taking up these words. Let's put this up there on the screen. Jeffries, basically, the only thing they have at their disposal is the ability to try and hijack a tool called a discharge petition. A discharge petition effectively allows circumvention of the House Speaker and of the Rules Committee to bring a piece of legislation to the floor, most famously used in the case of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I thought you were going to say in Legally Blonde.

Oh, sorry. I apologize. I'm not familiar, actually. Is that Legally Blonde 1? Are you sure? I think you might be referring to Legally Blonde 2, which has been panned by the critics. I am a great fan of Legally Blonde 1. But as we see here, the House minority leader, the Democrats, are trying and preparing to be able to use this tool. However, Crystal, people I spoke to who are very, very anti-Ukraine aid and who are working on Capitol Hill, intimately involved in this, they are not worried about the discharge petition. So I'm not sure what you think. I'm a little worried. It's possible. I'm not saying they would definitely not use everything at their disposal to bring it about. It's just that procedurally, at a minimum, this takes 42 days to be able to get it there. And it

would require a very decent amount of Republicans to buck the House speaker and to openly put themselves up for target by the Republican base, by Donald Trump and others who are urging not to pass this bill. So I'm curious what you think as well. I mean, I hope that analysis is correct. I'm really betting on Washington dysfunction on this one. I'm delighted that they scuttled the border plus Ukraine plus Israel version of this bill. And I am hoping that this one also fails. But this is some very potent Kool-Aid that they are selling here in this town. I mean, think about the fact that in the Senate, you had at least Chris Van Hollen and Elizabeth Warren. They have openly acknowledged Israel is committing war crimes, and yet they still voted for billions more to Israel because of Ukraine. they feel so strongly about the fate of democracy around the world that you have to, you know, rush more money into what is now a failed and losing cause and is subjecting not us,

but the Ukrainian people to, you know, endless misery with no end in sight. That's supposedly what this money is supposed to go to is, you know, the fate of democracy around the world, when in reality, the fact that we have pursued this course in Ukraine has been an utter disaster for the Ukrainian people first and foremost. So that is why, because there is such a commitment to this issue that almost defies any sort of logic. It really is almost like a religious devotion at this point that I can't help but be concerned that they are going to find some way through because, you know, when it's health care money or money to like feed kids or like, you know, homeless people or whatever,

then there's a million obstacles. We can never get it through, et cetera. But it seems like when it's money for war, somehow they always freaking find a way on the discharge petition piece. The way that this works, you have to get a majority of the House to sign on to the discharge petition. So you would need basically all of the Democrats. I do think there are some Democrats who would not sign on, you know, squad members and other lefty type Democrats who wouldn't sign on because of Israel. And then, but you know, then you have to cobble together some Republicans. Are there some Republicans that are committed enough to Ukraine to buck whatever Donald Trump wants and sign on to this? I'm not confident that there aren't. The other thing that I was reading about, and I don't really understand this, guys, but allegedly

there is some other discharge petition that got started on some other issue that already has 236 signatures that they could use as a starting point and then just have to add to that to get to a majority. And then they could swap out what it was originally supposed to be for and make it about this, which puts them a lot closer to accomplishing their goal than they would be if they have to start from scratch. Again, the legislative mechanics are not my specialty. This is just what I read from some political analysts that said that this option was on the table as well. Like I said, Sagar, that's why I can't really rest easy believing that this is completely dead on arrival because they always seem to find a way to fund these freaking wars when it comes down to it. I will not rest easy. We need several more weeks before I be officially,

I think this thing would be dead. Let's put this up there on the screen just to give an idea, though, of why things are pretty tied up right now. So this is from Jake Sherman over at Punchbowl. They say Johnson has effectively said the bill is dead. The House is in this week, but it is out next and then has three days in session to deal with government funding, which comes due on March 1st. Meanwhile, most Republicans are opposed to Ukraine funding. They are stuck on attaching H.R. 2, which does not have a prayer of passing. HR2, by the way, is a border legislation. Discharge petition is also an option, but there are a lot

of hurdles there. Some that Dems will dash because of Israel funding. So some ours will be afraid to put their neck that is on the line. So I think that's a pretty good analysis. As you said, I wouldn't put it past them. I don't put anything past these people. Yeah. Johnson's also not really reliable here. The problem with Johnson is not even his reliability, Crystal, it's that he is weak. And he does not have a total control of the caucus. A lot of Republicans right now are very pissed off at him for allowing the expulsion of George Santos, the original failure of the Mayorkas vote, the fact that the Israel bill was put up and then it was failed.

Then he then gaveled in a failing vote before the House of Representatives. I know this all sounds like inside baseball, guys, but the reason it matters is because when you're weak and you don't have institutional control and you lose control of the floor and all of that, it opens the door for exactly, you said, chaos loves a vacuum. And with that vacuum, the Democrats or pro-Ukraine Republicans or Russian space laser, PSYOPs and all of that could create a situation where they would pass something like this. Let's also not forget about the influence of the Israel lobby here in this town. I mean, that's why the vote was so overwhelming in the Senate.

I saw, you know, the people who were in favor of this bill were urging AIPAC and these other associated groups to apply as much pressure as possible to try to get this bill through one way or another. And so, yeah, I think, you know, I'm hoping it's dead. The fact that people who want it to fail aren't nervous about its prospects and think that it is in fact dead, that's a good sign. But you have a lot of very powerful constituencies and very powerful ideologies that exist in this town, which are used to getting their way, that want to see this aid go through. And so, you know, I don't think that we can completely count it out at this point because of that, you know, array of powerful interests and interests with a lot of money, too. I mean, don't forget that AIPAC funds huge amounts

into these congressional campaigns. And, you know, a lot of these members are not going to want to get crosswise of AIPAC in the upcoming election season. Are you saying it's all about the Benjamins? Yes, I am. You can say whatever the hell you want to say about that. But that's just reality in this town. 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. High key.

Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're gonna gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know.

Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her.

Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.

Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on to RFK, guys. So as we have alluded to, this is going to be the last segment that we're going to be doing on our RFK focus group. The full focus group is going to post for our premium subscribers to get access to that. A more edited version will eventually post on all of our public platforms. But if you want to be able to watch it to support future work like this, which is very, very expensive in order to put on breakingpoints.com to be able to help us out. Let's get to the actual focus group itself, though, which is we learned a little bit about the people who participated, whether they had voted in the past for Trump, for Biden, or for third party, and who they might support in the future if RFK

is not able to get on the ballot. Let's take a listen. Let's think back to how you voted last time. So I want a show of hands if you voted for Biden last time. And then show of hands if you voted for Trump last time? Oh, boy. And then show of hands if you voted for Trump last time? Third party? OK. So, Shannon, why not Biden this time? His health, his age, I mean, he's... I don't think he's capable to do another four years. Maybe a year, but not four.

Why wouldn't I vote for him this time? I didn't want to vote for him the last time. So I didn't really stand behind what he was talking about. I was more Trump. And like I said, I was persuaded to vote for Biden because he was Democrat. I just really didn't, I didn't like how the economy got crippled a little bit to me. It's like they brought us up to bring us back down and I just don't like it. Like everything has got risen up. Like the way where you stay, everything you eat, the things you buy is just high and it

just doesn't make any sense now. For me, although I think he's very knowledgeable in politics from his past history, I just think at this point, close to 80, I have older parents and we deal with caregiving and different things, not saying that they aren't all there physically and mentally. But I'm more concerned about it taking his health, taking a toll, it taking a toll on him and not being able to make the best decisions that a younger candidate could. Is it the Democrats you're going off of or is it Biden? It's Biden. For me, it's Biden. Trump voters, tell me why not Trump this time? Even from day one, I thought Trump would be good for policy and getting things done. That's why I voted for him initially. And so I think he

did that. But I also with that came the personality. You know, he's known to be abrasive with all the lawsuits, with all this stuff, there's so much drama going on. So to me, it's a distraction. And even though I know he's an effective person in getting stuff done in the leadership end, but he just alienates people on the road, and he can create the divisiveness that we have in this country now. There's a lot of drama, we don't we don't need the drama I just feel like between Kennedy and Trump. I'd actually be okay with either but I would give

Kennedy my vote because we really need to be for the people and I don't think Trump was as informed as He needed to be how likely would you be to change your vote? From RFK to somebody else if people were saying to you look only one can win and The vote for RFK jr. Or a vote for any other third party candidate is as they say sometimes say don't they wait a waste a wasted vote I really don't know how to answer that because like I said, whether it be Trump or Kennedy I would be happier than it's anybody but Biden. I'm going to stay safe until the campaigns continue, the conversations continue, just to learn more about Mr. Kennedy and see how the rest of the candidates are behaving.

I'm going to do a lot more research and go from there. I can never say never. I'm a man of principle, and so I'm firmly going for him right now. But you put a new dynamic in there saying, you know, what if it's going to be Biden? So that doesn't, that complicates things for me. You're a firm tenement, maybe not. No, I mean, if you're saying it's going to be either one or the two, it's either Trump or RFK Jr. or it's going to be Biden. I'm going to do what I can so it's not Biden.

I'm still open to second chances. Biden still can redeem himself. You know, everybody's not perfect. I think this is what every election gets boiled down to and everyone turns it into this. It has to be one or the other. I think that's not perfect. I think this is what every election gets boiled down to and everyone turns it into this. It has to be one or the other. I think that's the problem. I'm with the bearded guy.

I totally agree with him. Very interesting. But, yeah, I mean, a couple of things there. I love how all of them can see clearly. They're like, well, you know, with Trump, I thought X, Y, and Z. Then this happened. I don't see it all that clearly with Biden as well. She was like, well, I didn't particularly Trump, I thought X, Y, and Z. Then this happened. I don't see it all that clearly with Biden as well. She was like, well, I didn't particularly want to vote for him.

And then I did, and I was pretty disappointed with the results. So I'm not going to vote for him. And same, you know, with the way they all feel about Kennedy is clearly a total rejection of the current status quo. They're very uncomfortable with. That said, if I was watching, if it was Biden I was watching that clip, I would feel uncomfortable because, and this makes sense, for a was Biden I was watching that clip, I would feel uncomfortable because, and this makes sense,

for a lot of people who are drifting away and they feel that Biden is infirm and they can't vote for him, for them, that's already a choice. They're like, I'm not gonna vote for Biden. So being forced back into voting for Biden is going to be difficult. Whereas Trump, I mean, benefited from this

when he was running against Hillary, was he can capture the anti-Hillary agenda. And don't get me wrong, Biden is definitely a beneficiary of this too. I just don't think it would manifest itself in the same way in an RFK Jr. focus group. So just to recap, very interesting the reasons that the previous Biden voters and the previous Trump voters moved off of those candidates. So it's, you know, I think very consistent with what we see in the polling overwhelmingly. With Biden, it's age. It's age. They're just like, I don't even know if he can do another term.

And then you have the one lady also talking about, and she talked in one of the previous segments we showed as well about inflation and economics and how she just feels like the economy has been really poor under Joe Biden. With Trump, it's the personality, the lawsuits, and the drama. I mean, that's what those two both talked about, even though the woman in particular, I mean, the one who said that, listen, I just would be happy with any one of them in Biden. I'd be okay if Trump got back in there. I would wager that she, at the end of the day, if it is coming down to Trump and Biden, is going to vote for Trump because she feels comfortable with him. But what she said is also the drama, the divisiveness, and she felt like he wasn't as well informed as she

wanted to see. And again, I mean, these are things, the personality, the lawsuits, the drama that you see very much when it comes to reluctance to support Trump again is the sense that it's just like chaos. He's divisive. He's tearing the country apart. And those are some of his biggest liabilities. With regards to when they're actually pressed on, okay, if it really is coming down to the wire and it's not looking like it's going to be RFK, it's looking very much like it's going to be Trump or Biden. What are you going to do then? You basically only had one guy who said, don't care, still with RFK Jr. Everyone else was like, that gets complicated for me. I'm anyone but Biden. So if my vote, I can't cast a vote that I think is going to help Biden get back in there by taking it away from Trump, etc.

And this is why you frequently, I mean, basically routinely in American politics, see that third party candidates poll better than they end up performing on election day, because a lot of people do that calculus at the end of the day. And it's logical, it's rational that because our system is so rigged against anyone outside of the major two parties that they don't want to feel like they're a spoiler. They don't want to feel like they're, quote unquote, throwing their vote away. And so when push comes to shove, they do pick whoever they see as the lesser of two evils. That's what the Joe Biden campaign is really counting on. You know, that is what they're counting on, is that when it comes down to it, the people who are with him before, who, you know,

absolutely hate Donald Trump for whatever reason, are going to realize that they have no other option than these two individuals. And so they got to suck it up once again and vote for Joe Biden. But Sagar, I do agree with you that I think that is, I think it will work to a certain extent. I think that's true. A good number of the people who are typical Democratic voters who are expressing a lot of disgust right now over Israel or his age or a variety of or the economy or variety of other issues. I do think at the end of the day, many of them will come home, but he needs all of them to come home. And they've used this argument a lot of times. And it is a different deal now where we've had four years of Trump and I thought

it was horrible, but we did all survive to the end of it. The world didn't come to an end. So I'm not sure that it has the terrifying factor that it did, you know, once did. And even in 2016, obviously it wasn't enough for it to work out. But also in 2020, you know, memories fade very quickly. At that moment, we had the clear and present example of like, this is what it's like right now to be under a Donald Trump presidency. And people were so disgusted. They were just ready to move on. I think a lot of the visceral nature of that angst has faded over time. And Trump really benefits from that at this point. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think Trump, I could say, I could call it both ways. If we, if we got to a point where Trump and the chaos, what do you hear from all these people?

Like, I can't handle this, man. It's just difficult. It doesn't seem all this. What if we're in the middle of a trial in a Supreme Court, you know, high stakes gamble between the two about whether he's even going to be in prison or not, let alone a convicted criminal?

I could see it. I could definitely see a bunch of these people being like, all right, well, you know, I'm either going to sit it out or I'm going to vote for Biden or vote for RFK. Vice versa too, whenever, who knows what the situation

is going to look like at the time. But it is clear, though, that it's real, that the support for RFK, you know, I wouldn't say it's as sticky as you would want for a two party camp in a two party system, obviously. But it's not bad either. You know, it's as good as it's been for a long time. Yeah. I mean, that is the there are the biggest challenge for him. And we're going to talk about this a little bit more in this campaign drama piece that Mediaite put out. But the biggest thing for him is ballot access. And it's not fair because the system has been completely rigged.

He's already facing lawsuits from the DNC. I guarantee you they're going to go after him every single state. I mean, they're just going to make it as difficult as possible for his name to even appear on the ballot. So that's number one. Number two is if you're going to defeat this trend of, you know, polling decently as just an alternative because people are so disgusted with these two, but them actually coming to the polls on election day and sticking with that

commitment and not being scared into, ah, but at the end of the day, I just got to, it's only going to be Biden or Trump. So I got to go with one of the two of them. You are going to have to give people more of an affirmative, like, no, I'm not just against these two. I'm actively for this guy for whatever the set of reasons is. And I think he has some of those diehard supporters, but not nearly enough, certainly, to win or even to really impact the, you know, the outcome of the election, especially as it appears right now, he's drawing pretty evenly from both candidates. So to me, those are kind of the two main challenges that he has coming, upcoming, and really the ballot access one just looms so large in terms of what he'll be able to accomplish. That's the key. If the man can get on the ballot, then this is a whole different ballgame. But if he's not, and this is where, yeah,

we wanted to discuss this for all of you. Let's put this up there on the screen. There was a bizarre report that came out from Mediaite where they are claiming that there's been a mass exodus of RFK Jr. campaign staffers. Basically, they're like, oh, it's a campaign in disarray, arranging amateur leadership and all of that. I will say I had a couple of red flags that came to me immediately afterwards, which is, first of all, this is not a traditional political outlet that breaks real scoops and or stories. That said, they did correctly report Mediate back in the day that RFK was going to do third party, so possibly there's some there. They claim that there have been an exodus, but when you look at it, they say it's 12 field staff and two mean staff who are alleging chaos on the ballot access initiative and, quote, unquote, lavish spending.

Most of the spending, though, has been concentrated at a relatively lower level in terms of consulting. But maybe the one part that we could take away from this is that people who were in the campaign are coming away and are leaking at least to this report. And they're like, the ballot access is a problem. Now, I went, like I said, on the Kennedy website. They have an entire ballot access page where they have it. And one thing that was definitely a red flag for me, for example, like we both live in the state of Virginia, is they're like, well, it's forthcoming details. And I was like, well, you guys need to get on this now. It's like, it shouldn't be forthcoming. I even said previously, I'm like, hey, if you're involved, reach out to me. I actually walked past some RFK volunteers where I live. And I was like, hey, is this for ballot access? And they're

like, no, no, no, that's later. They're like, thanks for your interest, though. But I was like, well, what are you doing here? What exactly is this? I'm like, you guys need to hit the pavement. Put first things first. Yeah, exactly. It's like, look, bumper stickers are great, but that's not the first thing that we really need to get to. So that was my look. If there's any grain in this of truth or any of that, he's still only on the ballot in one state. He's got to get on the ballot in 49 more states. Yeah, it's a big, big lift. It is a it is a massive, massive lift. It will require an massive amount of money, not only to run the actual ballot access campaign,

but also to fund the lawsuits that have already started coming your way. And so, like you, Sagar, this is the typical initial hatchet job that comes out. They do the same thing with Marianne. You see this all the time, where it's all the staff is in chaos, and we got this leak and that leak from whatever disgruntled staffer. Listen, if you're running a significant organization, someone is going to be bitchy and disgruntled. That's just like the reality and they're going to be out for blood and willing to leak whatever to some friendly and get their story out there, throw whoever they're pissed off at under the bus. This is typical campaign stuff. So I always,

when you see these types of reports, you should take it with a lot of grains of salt. So that's my starting point. That being said, they do have these two letters that they got from staffers of, you know, that they sent to the campaign of why they were leaving. And the line that really sticks out above all others is this one that says, quote, it bothers me every day that so many in the campaign can't see the iceberg that is dead ahead called ballot access. If that's true, that is a real problem. And again, it's not fair, right? It's not fair that so much of the campaign has to be focused around that. It is anti-democratic the way that our system has been set up and rigged by the two major parties. But it is the reality

of the system that they are going to have to be able to navigate. This staffer who left goes on to say, sure, you're hiring national folks for these efforts, but what about the field where the vast, vast majority of the action happens? The logistics for these operations are already complicated, made even more onerous and costly by the Volt happens. The logistics for these operations are already complicated, made even more onerous and costly by the vault process. I don't know what that is. And vary in every state. And somehow you expect these things can be worked out by mostly volunteers who will be probably overwhelmed

with just the signature gathering. Good luck with that. So what the staffer at least is alleging in their exit letter was, is that, you know, this is being run by a largely volunteer staff. They're going to be overwhelmed. It's insufficiently capitalized. The campaign doesn't have their eye on the ball with regards to this. And if that's true, that is a major, major issue. And I do think that the large sums being spent, you know, going to consultants,

that is a problem too. I will say again, you know, it's so hard when you're not one of like with the establishment of ever of either party because people don't want to work for you. You know, you know, if you are an experienced political operative and you go to work for, you know, Dean Phillips or Marion or RFK Jr. or whoever who is outside of Joe Biden or Donald Trump, you know you will never work in party politics again. You're done. That's a good point. So in terms of getting, you know, seasoned professional operatives, you basically don't have any available. I mean, they're, you know, the list is practically zero of actual seasoned campaign professionals that you can get. So who do you turn to? You got to go to people you know, maybe people from the business world, people you trust. You know, that's another big thing is, yeah, competence is important, but also in this game, it's really important you have people

around you that you actually trust. And so you can end up with some people who are less experienced, a little more amateurish with regard to actual campaign operation, but that's basically all that's available to you. So this is also really not fair. And that's how you can also end up getting really scammed by consultants who overcharge you, who are just looking for a quick buck, who don't really care about what the future is going to hold for them. They're just, you know, going to get that cash now and worry about that later. That's how you can end up with, you know, staff upset over one of the things they talk about here is someone who was brought in that they felt like didn't have the adequate experience for the job that she was put into.

But I actually really sympathize on all of those counts because the world of professional operatives with campaign experience is effectively completely closed off to you. Yeah, very well said from somebody who has a lot more knowledge on this stuff than me. We'll continue to track it. Just remains, though, the ballot access is a problem. Some of his people will, it seems, go elsewhere if they have to. So not giving them the option to do so seems to be pretty paramount. Yeah. Having your name on the ballot is mission critical. There you go. Joining us now is Ryan Gerduski. He's the author of the National Populist Newsletter,

of which we have a link down in the description and encourage everybody to subscribe. Thank you for joining us, sir. Thanks for having me. So Ryan, the reason we booked you is because you always have unvarnished analysis, especially in terms of what Republicans are doing wrong and how they are winning votes. So what you wrote immediately after the results of Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and New York elections was this, is why are we performing so badly? We lost high propensity, mostly college-educated white voters. We gained lots of low propensity voters who don't show up. The weirdness around

conservative culture, Taylor Swift is a CIA plant, election was stolen, et cetera, is only making these people run away more. It is hurting up and down the ballot almost everywhere we go. And the fact that these low propensity voters won't vote early is because they believe in nonsensical conspiracies about voting machines. People need to be aware. So Ryan, not only are you descriptively writing about the problem, but you also have some solutions and things in order to be able to move past this. So just give us your general reaction to those results in New York, building on top of what I just read there. So in New York, Mozzie Phillips, the Republican, the Nassau County GOP, which is Nassau County's

in the third congressional district along with Queens, is one of the most efficient and actually powerful local Republican parties in the country. They've done an amazing job winning elections for candidates up and down the ballot. The thing is, is that to me, they got very cute with how they picked their endorsement process. They picked a woman, black, Jewish, IDF, former veteran, mother of seven, immigrant. I mean, they went through the checkboxes, but she was a registered Democrat who had close to no conservative beliefs. I mean, on immigration, on abortion, I mean, on any close to anything. I didn't hear her say any Republican or conservative talking points. I mean, on immigration, on abortion, I mean, on any close to anything.

I didn't hear her say any Republican or conservative speaking talking points. And she ran against a very long that Tom Suozzi has been in elected office since 1994. He's been here for a very, very, very long time. The short this this the reason that she overperformed Trump and overperformed even George Santos in 2020, who ran against Suozzi in 2020, was because Nassau County and that area of Queens is moving to the right. Nonetheless, and yet still, she lost. And she should, and a better Republican would have been able to win. And it's not one specific thing.

I mean, Mazi did not campaign. She wouldn't campaign on Saturday. She wouldn't campaign in the evenings. She was multiple campaign events. She didn't even show up up to altogether. She was a bad candidate, but there is something larger going on. In Oklahoma, we had a special election for state Senate, a Republican plus 26 seat that they won by five. In Pennsylvania, there was a Democrat plus 10 seat that we lost by like 50. There is a problem right now. And the problem specifically is there were a lot of Republicans used to dominate special elections.

We would absolutely dominate it just 10 years ago. But we traded high-propensity college-educated voters for a lot of non-college-educated voters of many different political persuasions who do not vote in most elections. They just don't. And the persuadable independent voter are looking at Republicans a lot and agreeing with them on immigration, on education. We're winning them on a million different issues. We are winning them on. But yet they are looking at them saying they're weird. Something is really, really weird about them. They don't want to be around. And that is a very the vibe check is a very big problem. Let's talk a little bit more about that. This poll just came out about the alleged Taylor Swift, NATO, Soros, Pfizer, PSYOP. Let's put this up on the screen. So you've got 18% of the public believes in this covert government effort for Taylor Swift to help Joe Biden win the presidential election.

73% say this is insane and it does not exist. 9% say they don't know. But also, critically, Ryan, there was a large proportion of the public that knew about this insane conspiracy that obviously is overwhelmingly rejected by the public, but is believed by a significant proportion of the Republican base. So I think there's a lot to your instinct that just like normies who may, you know, agree with Republicans on some issue and be open, especially to like a more moderate Republican in Long Island or whatever, like these people are just going off the deep end, like this Taylor Swift conspiracy, you know, nonsense and a whole host of other down the rabbit hole online conspiracy theories are just too much for me to swallow and associate with. Look, because the media, the established media has failed so spectacularly at doing their job and presenting honest facts. There is a business model, a very substantial business model where if you can get 10,000 people or 15,000 people who like you and will give you $ dollars a month and support you you have a very serious business so you have insert you know ex-republican

conservative influencer name um sitting there and peddling nonsense to like it's as if it's like pure heroin to their loyal people who believe they are the only arbiters of the truth and they are they have to sell the most pure i mean it, it has to go 10. You got to go, you got to push that envelope every single time because if you don't, somebody else will. That is very, very, very damaging, especially when so many of those thoughts are just free of facts. A lot of them are peddling influence to other campaigns in order to get more access to other people in hopes of getting invited to the White House Christmas party. It is an extremely toxic trait in our culture right now. It is especially toxic right now in Republican politics. And I don't know. I mean, it is the great irony of the Donald Trump

campaign is it has never been more establishment within the inner circles of the Donald Trump campaign. It is the most professional has ever been. It is the most establishment Republican it's ever been. And the periphery, the people who hang out at Mar-a-Lago to get one picture with him have never been crazier. And it is just the absolute true strange dichotomy of Republican politics right now. That is such a good point. You know, Ryan, I also saw you tweeting a lot

about mail-in voting and about early voting. I was wondering if you could expand on that. I know there's a big war in the Republican Party about that, but something that you have to acknowledge is the strength of a lot of mail-in voters, as long as it is allowed for Democrats. What are some of the thoughts on that and then how Republicans should think about it as well? I mean, Republicans used to dominate early voting because early voting was primarily the method that elderly people voted in, people 75 and older who couldn't make it to the polls. And that obviously changed really during COVID. But there is no excuse why Republicans are losing the early in-person ballot voting. I mean, people can go to the polls for two weeks, three weeks, whatever, ahead of time and actually vote in person. I understand fears of early voting. And obviously in the recent case in Connecticut, it was shown that early voting did result in some temporary, some changing of the

ballots or something like that. But there is, I understand the fear, but there is no fear of in person early voting. If you are a two of four voter, that means you voted in two of the last four elections or one of the last four elections, There is a very high chance that you're not going to wake up on a Tuesday for a special election and say, I got to get to vote. Someone like me, I will always vote. I've never missed an election in my life. But the people that Republicans need to get out and go vote early are those one of four, those two of fours, those people without the high propensity of voting. And the way it breaks down in America is the people who vote the most often are college educated whites who are increasingly liberal. Blacks are second, non-college educated whites are third, Latinos and Asians are fourth and fifth. Well, who are Republicans gaining with? Asians and Latinos and white non-college educated

voters while losing college educated voters. So we are trading in high propensity voters for low propensity voters. That is problematic. And there is no and as long as this perpetual fear that every election is stolen is going around, we're not going to move the needle with a huge mass of people. There's millions and millions of people in that latter pool Republicans gain. You just got to get them to show up. Yes. So famously, back in 2016, Chuck Schumer said, for every blue collar Democrat we lose in Western PA, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia.

And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin. Obviously didn't work out for Democrats in 2016. But it sounds like what you're arguing is basically like he was right. Over time, that is what happened. And historically, Republicans always had the turnout advantage because they tended to do better among wealthier, college-educated people. And those were the people who are the more reliable voters. But that dynamic has now completely flipped. Right. I mean, that's true. And that's why these special elections, I mean, in 2023 so far and all the special elections and I think 2022, the average number of vote is D plus six from where it was in 2020. The electorate is six more percent Democrat than it was in 2020. And that is not because everyone who was Republican changed their minds. It's because of who was showing up to actually go vote in these elections. In 2022, we Republicans in states like New York

and states like Florida, where the issues were crime and COVID, and the Republican independent vote was very, very strong. They had a very, very great performance. In other places around the country, when it was about either Donald Trump or abortion, and the independent vote was weak, it had a negative impact. We lost a lot of these races. But more importantly is the number of Republicans turning out to vote wasn't high enough because we were losing those high-preventative college-educated people. That is a long-term problem, but it's not a problem that can't be fixed. It's not like Lee Zeldin didn't get 47 percent or 46.5 percent in New York State or, you know, Governor Ron DeSantis didn't get 59 percent in Florida.

There are places where people have made that impact in the inroad. It's just the issues that they talk about. It's the vibe that they sit there and bring about. And it's the fact that they are, you know, really hitting voters where they're at rather than trying to take them on this, you know, merry-go-round into crazy land. And I think that that really is, I mean, but there is a big difference between the Pennsylvania governor's election and the New York governor's election. New York had a closer election, you know, than Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was to the left of not only, I think, not only just New York, but of California. And it wasn't because the electorate changed, it's because the candidates

changed. And that really does mean something. I think that matters more at the state level than it does for federal elections, which I think increasingly are more subject just to national trends than candidate quality is. I mean, that's how you get like an Andy Beshear that can win in Kentucky. That's how you can get such an outsized result in a place like Pennsylvania or New York, who's unique and well-known in the state that can outperform in a governor's race. I think it is a little different at the federal level, but your points are all well taken. How do you think that it translates for 2024? Because, you know, I mean, this is basically the Democratic cope at this point is like,

yeah, the polls look really bad for Joe Biden and 86% of the country thinks he's too old and his approval ratings are trash. However, in these special elections, we are consistently outperforming because people are just so disgusted with whatever it is that the Republicans are trying to sell them. Do you think that that logic works out for 2024 or the dynamics of a special election different enough from a national presidential general election that the trend doesn't really hold up? I think they differ. I mean, they definitely differ substantially. There's big questions.

I mean, minority turnout has been down in almost every one of these special elections. There is no indication of whether or not minority turnout, especially black turnout, will be where it was in 2020. If it reflects 2016 numbers, which was blacks were 12% of the national electorate rather than 13%, that 1% dip is enough to swing the entire country towards Donald Trump. The other question is, is that does the white college educated vote will not mean enough if the

millions upon millions of non-college educated voters, both Hispanic, Asian, and white, come out in droves like they did for Trump, not only in 2016, but in 2020. I mean, Trump had very high turnout among those groups in 2020. It just wasn't enough because he was losing independence, and he was losing enough of non-college-educated voters to sit there and matter. But nonetheless, it's not, I don't think special elections reflect the presidential election, but they do reflect a changing issue where we will have issues in midterms going forward. We will have issues in specials going forward. That is a serious, serious long-term problem that needs to be solved.

But I don't think it's reflective of 2024 yet. Really well said, Ryan. As we said, he's got the National Populist Newsletter. Link is down in the description. Go subscribe to it and help him out. Thanks for joining us, man. Thanks, Ryan. Good to see you. Bye. 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. High key.

Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff

we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.

Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we could not resist covering some of the continued fallout over Jon Stewart's return on Monday night in what was, you know, very solid performance. But ultimately, the hilarious thing about the jokes that Jon Stewart made is that all of it is really widely accepted by the mayor. I mean, it's obvious. It is not controversial to say that Joe Biden is old and that people are concerned about it. And yet, you know, liberals are acting like the sky is falling and Joe and John Stewart is some like, you know, absolute threat to

democracy on the level of Vladimir Putin now at this point. So first, we have to turn to our friends over at The View for their trenchant analysis of Jon Stewart and the threat that he represents to the country. Let's take a listen to what they had to say. You have on the one hand, you've got a guy, Biden, how old is he, 81? 81. And so he stammers. He's had a stammer all his life. I think that's part of the reason he sometimes looks a little doddering. He's trying to get the words out. The guy has accomplished a lot. I don't want to repeat all the things he's done for Americans already.

On the other hand, you basically have a 77-year-old criminal who only cares about getting out of jail. A difference between age and vitality. There's a difference between age and really being up on things and having that quickness of wit that Joy has. Let me just tell you that Martha Stewart's 82. She's still cooking in front of people. She's selling kitty litter.

She's selling, exactly. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are getting it in. They've got babies in their 80s, okay? Jane Fonda, 86. Representative Maxine Waters, 85. Bernie Sanders, 82. Nancy Pelosi, 83. I don't know.

They look like they know what they're doing. They have the wisdom. They have the history. The problem with this country is that we don't value people with their wisdom. We don't value seniors. We don't value entrepreneurs. And I'm sick of this ageism problem. I don't have a problem with Biden.

I voted for Biden. I'm an anyone but Trump, Biden. I voted for Biden. I'm an anyone but Trump, but I was voting for Biden anyway. But I also am honest about the gaffes I see people concerned with, which I think you can have both things right now. And I think that voters are concerned, and by telling them they shouldn't be or that they're following a Republican narrative by listening to it, you're literally saying, like, close your eyes to what you're seeing, or you're making them feel bad for raising something.

And as Jon Stewart said in there, replace age with vitality. He showed stammering and different points with each candidate and said the only record they're breaking as the oldest one is the record they set four years ago. So it is a fair concern to say this. We asked people to keep their eyes open on January 6th. I don't think it's fair to tell them to close their eyes to what they're seeing. Okay, then don't close your eyes to the tape, the rest of the tape that Jon Stewart showed.

And then they go on to show the parts where he's showing Trump's forgetfulness, etc. And I mean, I just want to know, what is the market for this? Like for this absolute delusional view, Joey's saying, oh, it's his stammer. He stammered all his life. That's why he looks, are you kidding me? 86% of Americans say this man is too old. A majority of Democrats say this man is too old. And you're acting like Jon Stewart

is some like traitor to the cause because he acknowledged what is clearly apparent. And you know what? He did go on to say like, you say, listen, it's a legitimate issue, especially because there is so much at stake with Trump on the ballot too and his potential criminal convictions and all of the indictments, et cetera. He even said that thing. So the panic over this and the cope over it and the complete otherworldly bubble that they insist on inhabiting is just pretty incredible.

I remember the two of us getting attacked for this back in 2019, whenever we would go after Biden there. This is when the stammer fakery began because there was this whole Atlantic article. It was like, well, he's got a stutter. I'm like, yeah, so he has a stutter that miraculously had as a child, went away for his entire professional life, and then suddenly reappeared whenever he was old. Or he's just really freaking old, you know? And then to use that as a defense about why we're not supposed to attack him, ridiculous. One of my friends who actually has a stutter and now has spent a lot of time in speech therapy, put out a whole thread on this. He's like, this is deeply insulting to those of us who actually have stutters. It is debilitating. It can be really

annoying, all these things that we've had to deal with for life. But Biden clearly is not suffering because of his stutter. This is not a result of the condition itself. It is driven entirely by age. And that is obvious to anyone with a brain. Realistically, what this is, is that it's just about political correctness. It's about creating and opening the space such that we are not allowed to discuss this at all, even in the context of humor. But that's why Stewart's, frankly, anodyne observation that all of us see is funny because we know that he's one of the only people who can say it in that type of space, which is then what invites the crackdown, the criticism. I mean, Crystal, you found this. But here we've got freaking Mary Trump, who is the resistance, what is it, a niece? Is that who she is? I think that's right.

Niece of Donald Trump? Something like that. She wrote a book, you know, all this, Why Trump is a Threat, and all of that. Big MSNBC fan fave. Big MSNBC fan favorite. I'm sure the boomer grandmas out there all know who she is. But now she's saying, you know, that Donald Trump is, no, sorry, that Jon Stewart is responsible, it seems, for Trump's election. Yeah, this is incredible. Put this up on the screen. So she has a sub stack, apparently,

wrote a whole piece about how Jon Stewart is a potential disaster for democracy. I did read this piece, guys. I couldn't resist. And I'll share with you a little excerpt here. She says, not only is Stewart's both sides are the same rhetoric, not funny. It's a potential disaster for democracy. Stewart helped wipe out the motivation generated by Obama's 2008 message of hope and change, motivation that led to record turnout in 2008. The damage done by his rally to restore sanity, a DC rally joke which inspired an entire generation to shrug off politics and ignore the dangers the right wing cannot be overstated. It was in no small part responsible for helping Donald come to power. This rally we're looking at, is it 2010 or 2011? It was 2010, October of 2010. I was there, by the way.

October of 2000, a rally that he did in October of 2010 is apparently in no small part responsible for helping Donald Trump come to power. And he now represents a potential disaster for democracy because he dared to say what is plainly obvious to anyone with a functioning brain, 86% of Americans looking at this man and saying, you know what? I'm not sure about another four years. And you know what it is really, Sagar? It is this cult-like denial of reality that is mirrored on the right. I mean, they are like two sides of the same coin at this point. It's like anything I have to say,

any inconvenient fact or reality that I have to deny in order to avoid giving the other side some talking point, I am gonna do it and I'm gonna attack anyone who doesn't follow the rules of the game of just complete denial

of the obvious realities in front of our face. Yeah, I mean, it's totally nuts. And it also just gets back to the idea that you're not allowed to criticize people within your own side. And I think it really is insulting to people. There are a lot of people who think that Biden is too old and are going to vote for him. You know why? Because they hate Trump. Now, you can make fun of them. We can certainly discuss it here if you want. But you cannot criticize that because people are informed enough to discuss it, to rationalize

it in their head and to make the choice that they feel best. But you can do it vice versa. Go ahead. Well, here's the other thing is you could have had an open Democratic primary process so that people weren't having to go like, oh, my God, is this man going to drop dead before we even get to Election Day? If you thought Donald Trump and you think Donald Trump is such a threat to democracy, and I personally do not want to see Donald Trump back in the White House, you could have opened up the process so people had other alternatives of candidates who aren't in their 80s, of candidates who are able to formulate a sentence, of candidates who don't routinely tell stories about foreign leaders who died 20 years ago, okay? 30 years ago. Mitterrand.

You could have. Who's dead? You could have done. So the people to blame are the DNC and the Democratic Party establishment who decided they wanted to have an anointment of King Biden rather than actually give voters a choice so you had a better shot come November. Because the truth of the matter is, if you had a run-of-the-mill, Dean Phillips-style generic Democrat, they would be in a much, much, much better position to win come November. And that was another thing that stuck out in that RFK Jr. focus group is

the people who had said, we voted for Biden and we're not voting for him this time. They were asked, okay, is this about Biden or is it about the Democratic Party? No, no, no, it's about Biden. It's about Biden. And so all of the celebrations around the special election results, like what just happened in New York three, where people are saying, ah, thank goodness. I think we're going to be fine, et cetera. That was for like a generic Democrat. It may be a very different story when people are actually considering the person of Joe Biden. And it wasn't Jon Stewart who created these freaking dynamics, Mary Trump and Joy and whoever else at The View. It was the Democratic Party that forced the public into this horrific

choice of, you know, it's Joe Biden and that's the only option on the Democratic side. Yeah, no, it's totally crazy, especially with the way that you have the media that then enforces within this. You see why they get away with it. And when the vast majority of these Democrats trust the media, I'm talking about the Democratic base, it's very, very difficult to have an open and a real conversation. It's genuinely a tragedy because if they do lose or if he dies, imagine, you know, what are we going to do? What is going to happen to this country? And it's an entirely foreseeable, predictable event that only, you know, after a special counsel writes the obvious, are we even allowed to.

And now they're trying to get the tapes of that conversation not to come out. Oh, that's another thing. You know, we won't have time probably to cover. It's not a big enough story in and of itself. But you know how Biden said, he said, how in the hell dare he ask me when my son died? Yeah. Well, it turns out for people familiar with the transcript, he never asked him, the special counsel. Biden brought up Beau's death and then he couldn't remember when he died. And I'm sorry, I don't want to sound mean. I really don't. But you're gaslighting the whole country and forcing us to

walk the plank with you, dude. Yes. Like that's the problem. And by the way, for the ladies at The View, I mean, did you ever even inform your audience that Joe Biden had opponents? Yeah. Did you have any of them on your show? So, I mean, you actually have direct culpability for the fact that this is the choice facing the American people at this point. So, you know, don't look at don't put the blame on Jon Stewart for pointing out the absolute obvious, you know, do a little self-reflection about your role in enforcement for Joe Biden that led us to this place that the majority of Americans are disgusted to be in. Absolutely.

We've got some breaking news this morning that we wanted to bring to you. Israeli special forces are storming Nasser Hospital in Qanunis in Gaza. This is the largest remaining functioning hospital in the entire Gaza Strip. We can put some images that are coming out this morning. These are courtesy of Middle East Eye. You can see, and by the way, this is, you know, very difficult to watch, but you can see some of the horror unfolding there in the hospital. I'm actually going to read the report here from New York Times. They say Israel sent troops into Nasser Medical Complex on Thursday in what it described as a, quote, limited operation against Hamas, raising concerns about the fate of hundreds of patients and medical workers and the many thousands of displaced Palestinians who had sought shelter there from the war. The raid came two days after Israel's military ordered

displaced people to evacuate the hospital. Put a pin in that piece because I've got some news for you there as well. This is the largest hospital in southern Gaza and one of the last ones even functioning in the enclave. This, of course, as Israel has made targeting hospitals a real focus of this operation, something that was previously absolutely unheard of, something that was sparking earlier in this operation. Huge debates about whether this was justified. Of course, hospitals typically completely off limits in terms of the rules of war, not so in terms of Israeli operations in Gaza. They go on to say this came after warnings by health officials that a military operation there could be catastrophic

for civilians. A Gazan health ministry spokesman said the Israeli military demolished the southern wall of the complex and begun storming it, overrunning the ambulance center in an area where displaced people have been living in tents. He said Israeli forces were attacking the hospital's orthopedic department and had killed one patient and injured several others. As far as the Israeli military, what they are saying is that the special forces soldiers are, quote, conducting a precise and limited operation inside Nasser against Hamas, which it accused of hiding in the hospital among wounded civilians. Israel, which has said Hamas uses hospitals across Gaza as cover for military operations, said it had intelligence, including from released hostages, that Hamas had held

captives at the hospital and that their bodies might be there. Israeli authorities, though, also lowering expectations that they will actually be able to find and recover any of the bodies of those hostages. So take that justification for what it's worth. Of course, you know, this comes in a broader context, Sagar, of you initially had people pushed out of northern Gaza into Khan Yunus. Khan Yunus became a real center of the population. Khan Yunus has been under massive attack and bombardment from the Israelis. People have been pushed down to Rafah. We are still waiting to see what happens there, but already bombardment of Rafah started as well. So you had thousands of Palestinians who had sheltered in this hospital, in this medical complex, thinking, apparently wrongly, that hospitals may be a safer location to shelter.

And now even this hospital also being targeted. One more thing with regard to the initial order to evacuate, because this is absolutely horrifying. Put this report from The Intercept up on the screen. They did a good job on reporting this out. So the headline here is IDF sent in handcuffed prisoner to evacuate hospital, then killed him when he left. Basically, the entirety of the story here is in the headline. They sent a Palestinian prisoner in, in handcuffed, I think basically zip-tied handcuffs,

into this hospital to tell them that they had to leave or they would all be killed. And then on the way out, his mother, I believe, was there in the hospital begging him not to go back out. But he said, they threatened me. If I don't leave, the civilians here at this hospital are at risk. He left and then the Israelis shot him. And this was all documented by The Intercept and by witnesses on the scene. So yet another scene of horror emerging out of the Gaza Strip and hospital that had been serving as a sanctuary for many displaced Palestinians. Yeah, I mean, the big thing is the Israelis are already downplaying, as you said, some of the initial claims about why

they're going into the hospital. And they haven't been they didn't exactly have the best track record in terms of what happened earlier in Gaza City. So they're going to have to show results if they want to continue to justify this. As you saw from the footage as well, you know, it's it's pretty terrifying about what exactly that looks like. And the question, too, I believe you can correct me if I'm wrong, because it's the last remaining one. The question is, is that it's going to be irreparably damaged such that it can continue medical facility. This is the last bastion, I guess, of healthcare for Doctors Without Borders, for many others. It also is one of the easier ways when supplies are able to get through to be able to get it to this hospital. So if it does shut down, it would obviously constitute complete, basically a absolute shutdown of all healthcare in the entire strip. So very terrifying in terms of what's happening right now. Absolutely. And by the way, I should say the

doctors and hospital administrators absolutely deny the claims that are being made here by the Israelis being used as justification for the storming of the hospital, which again, you know, I think the news media has almost become accustomed to hospitals being targeted in this conflict. But this is very much outside of the norms of modern warfare. As I said previously, hospitals should be completely off limits, and it is a war crime to target them, except in the most exceptional of circumstances. And since we had sort of these, you know, debates early early on and there was this overwhelming propaganda campaign to justify some of the early hospital attacks, some of the latter ones have gone barely without notice, not to mention the targeting of ambulances, the targeting

of other health care clinics and facilities. And this comes, of course, as there's been a massive shortage of medical supplies as well, such that you've had children having to undergo amputations without anesthetic, women having to give birth and suffer through cesareans without anesthetic. I did see some videos online this morning that I can't verify, but would comport with the reality of what's unfolding. Women who have literally just given birth half an hour before being forced to evacuate the hospital with their babies. I mean, I can't actually even imagine what that would be like. At the same time as we're watching that, there are other significant developments. Let's put this up on the screen. Report from the Wall Street Journal. The U.S. is reportedly probing

some Israeli strikes that killed civilians in Gaza and the possible use of white phosphorus in Lebanon. The investigation could result in new conditions being set on the delivery of US weapons to Israel. I would not hold my breath on that second part. They even go on to say in this report that the probes are not indicative of a broader policy shift. But Sagar, they're basically looking at two separate incidents here, both of which we've reported on here on this show. One was that attack on the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza City. It killed more than 125 people, according to US officials. Israel had said they were targeting a Hamas commander in a tunnel under a high-rise building. It appears they used a 2,000-pound bomb in that strike on that refugee

camp. That is why there were so many deaths and so many casualties. We're talking about huge numbers of women and children who were killed in that strike. The State Department reportedly probing basically to see whether or not this was a war crime. The other incident that they are investigating is one that the Washington Post did expensive reporting on, and we talked about here as well. And that was the use of white phosphorus in Lebanon in ways that are also inconsistent with the laws of war. Again, I would not raise your expectations that this is gonna result in much, if anything. But you have a quote here from Sarah Yeager, former human rights advisor

to the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, now serves as Washington Director for Human Rights Watch. She called the continuing investigations a, quote, much needed step for the U.S., but also expressed, as she should, a lot of skepticism about the impact, saying, quote, will it lead to anything? That's where I'm less confident about how great this thing is. To be effective, she said, very senior U.S. officials will need to take the findings seriously and act on them. This kind of trust of policymakers to do the right thing has a history of not working out so well. Let's see. And I believe it was Matt Miller, a State Department spokesman.

It might have been Jake Sullivan or Matt Miller. I can't remember. I get all these schools confused. But basically sort of downplayed this probe and what it might also mean from the podium. I have the quote here. He says, the process is not intended to function as rapid response. Rather, it is designed to systematically assess civilian harm incidents and develop appropriate policy responses to reduce the risk of such incidents occurring in the future. I mean, the big question is like, look, I mean, at a certain point, I almost just find this annoying because we reported

on it months ago. Anybody with a brain can see that it's obviously white phosphorus, not from the attack, but because we've been able to assess white phosphorus attacks previously in, let's say, Russia and in Syria with almost instantaneous results. But this has been, I mean, how long has it been since this white phosphorus attack? I remember covering it in the early days. I mean, it's been several months. So why is it that when Russia uses white phosphorus, we can be like, oh, this is an obvious, clear use of white phosphorus munitions, where we don't even have technically like a ground ability or investigation or an ally there to be able to verify it.

Same with the Syrians. We're like, we can automatically say, oh, Assad used X exact chemical weapon, you know, whenever this happened. But here it's like five months later, whenever we're the ones who sold it to them, then it just disappears. Yeah. Just laughable. You know, it's one of those where don't lie to our faces. And because then also what if you do conclude, what if you do conclude that it was used? What are you going to do about it? Are you going to follow official U.S. law? The law says you're not allowed to do that. You get cut off. You have a restriction. That's what literally what the State Department, the Leahy, and other things that ascribe for U.S. military aid. Now, the president can waive that, but then it's like, well, what are we even doing here?

We all know that you're probably not going to do it. It could be maybe a pretext, Crystal, for in the future they can cut it off whenever they want. But, I mean, six months from now, is it really going to matter? Who knows? I think it basically just gives, you know, ghouls like Matt Miller something to say at the podium. Oh, we're investigating that. And then the investigation can take months and months and months and never really come to a conclusion. Or by the time there is a conclusion, it's way

too late for it to even matter. And they'll, you know, test Israel do better in the future, but it'll have no real impact. Something that Ryan and others have been pressing State Department people about has been, you know, their go-to justification for like the killing of Hind and the medics who were trying to rescue her, that six-year-old little girl that I did the monologue on. They'll, you know, ask, okay, well, what about this? What do you think about this? Have you talked about the Israelis about this? Isn't this a war crime? And they'll say, oh, there's this, we've talked to Israelis, an investigation is ongoing. They've done this for months at this point about a whole variety of war crimes that have

been reported out and are clear as day. And they always just push out, oh, an investigation is ongoing. And so they've started following up like, well, what about that investigation? What are the results? When are we going to hear the results? And of course, it's just a dodge. It's just a way to get out of the moment and pretend like they care at all when obviously by their actions, they clearly do not.

The other thing that they've been getting pressed on quite a bit is, hey, your whole strategy of giving Israel total and complete support and then just occasionally leaking to the press that you're very concerned about this or that. How is that going for you? They had to admit the other day, in many instances, it's not going that well. And I think a case in point on that is on something that is so basic, it's insane, that the supposed superpower, the United States of America, cannot even accomplish pressing the Israelis to deliver a shipment of flour that we reportedly made clear to them was important to us.

The Israelis are blocking that shipment because they say it's going to UNRWA. Of course, we help them with that PSYOP by buying into the completely evidence-free claims that they leveled against UNRWA. And we cut their funding, and that led a whole cascade of countries around the world to cut their funding. So in any case, Jake Sullivan getting pressed about how the Israelis are blocking the shipment of flour to Gaza at a time when a majority of Palestinians there are absolutely starving. And Cindy McCain, head of World Food Program, is saying kids are now literally starving to death. Let's take a listen how he responds. Well, it's why we're asking the question on the aid coming through. And you're right, that aid, that flower has not moved the way that we had expected it would move. And we expect that Israel will follow through on its commitment to get that flower to Gaza. But we are asking the question, how do you do something like RAFA and make sure all those innocent people not only are protected physically, but can have access to aid? That is precisely the point that we are pressing on quite actively as we speak. That flower has not moved the way that we expected it to move. I also love that phrasing,

like the flowers, the flower's fault, like the flowers just not getting it together and moving where it's supposed to move. But think of how pathetic this is and how outrageous it is, even especially in the wake of the ICJ report that called on Israel to make sure they were improving the aid situation, that they were rushing more aid in. And instead, here they are completely blocking the shipment of flour that the U.S. officials at least claim to say that they care about getting in. Yeah, it just reminds me of the Bill Clinton behind the scenes quote whenever Netanyahu was badgering him, trying to get him on the phone phone and he said, quote, who's the fucking superpower

here? This was behind the scenes. So I never expected to praise Bill Clinton, but I guess here I am. Let's put this also up on the screen please. D3, the BBC News Tear Sheet because this is just one of those that we need to watch very closely. There was a major airstrike yesterday in Lebanon. Lebanese government claiming 10 people were killed. This

was retaliatory after Lebanon or Hezbollah launched attacks inside of Israel, which killed at least some members of the IDF. Israel's military said it was hitting, quote, Hezbollah infrastructure in response to a deadly rocket attack on northern Israel. Always just a reminder that as tensions and all these things ratchet up, this is probably the most strategically important place, you know, for where things could pop off. We've seen things like this happen in the past. But we also know that the Netanyahu government and the defense minister are chomping at the bit to be able to enter Lebanon or to mount some sort of attack, already calling it the axis of evil, saying we can do to Lebanon what we did to Gaza. They should watch out. There have been behind-the-scenes talks about some sort of negotiated ceasefire, but I mean, this is very

obvious, you know, that it hasn't happened. And it's also just a consistent reminder that any explosion of conflict between Lebanon and Israel would be 10 to 15 times more deadly than anything that's going on in Gaza. Gaza is a basically isometric conflict. Hamas has nothing, you know, one-tenth or something of Hezbollah's overall military strength. Hezbollah is a very, very strong military organization. I'm not saying they would win, but they would definitely be able to put up a fight, and it would decimate the entire country. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been warning Israel and Israeli leaders. This is in that piece that we just had up on the screen in a speech that launching a war against the group would result in a million evacuees from northern Israel. Right now, I think there is maybe 100,000

Israelis who have been evacuated from northern Israel. Quote, to those who threaten us with a widening of the war, if you widen, we will too, he said, adding that those who think the resistance might be afraid are mistaken. Also vowed that Hezbollah would only cease fire when the aggression stops and there is a ceasefire in Gaza. And it is incredibly important to keep this already widened war in perspective because I actually, NBC News did a great job putting this map together of the way that the conflict has spread. And when you see it, it really is astonishing the number of countries that have been pulled in at this point. I mean, you're talking about Lebanon, you're talking about Israel, obviously Israel, Gaza. You're talking about Syria. You're talking about Iraq.

You're talking about Iran. You're even talking about freaking Pakistan getting pulled in. I mean, it's just a huge regional swath. Of course, Yemen, the Red Sea. And then you have US leaders pretending like, oh, our goal to keep this confined to Gaza is totally working out when we're bombing multiple countries over a single weekend. And when these strikes, tit for tat strikes between Hezbollah and Israel have been going on consistently since post-October 7th, so we never want to lose sight of that. At the same time, you know, there was some, I was pretty skeptical, but a little bit of renewed hope that potentially

there may be some new ceasefire deal lasting potentially six weeks on the table. But it looks like Bibi is backing out of those talks completely. Put this up on the screen. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli delegation not to return to Cairo. That's where the negotiations were ongoing for further negotiations for a hostage release deal with Hamas that were scheduled to take place in the Egyptian capital today. In light of the move, by the way, the families of hostages are absolutely furious. They said they intend to demonstrate in front of the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv in protest of, quote,

the decision to sacrifice the lives of the hostages. And, you know, I mean, I'm a broken record on this. We've talked about it a thousand times. Bibi has no incentive to end this war. He's fearful that if there is some significant length of a ceasefire, that it'll be very difficult to go back to the overwhelming level of aggression that they have been using in the Gaza Strip previously. So he does not want to make a deal. The far right parts of his coalition are dead set against it and have basically threatened to completely blow up his government if he goes forward with any sort of significant deal with Hamas. So that's why I've been skeptical that this would work out from the beginning. But you do have this counter domestic pressure

of the families of hostages and not just the families of hostages, but the majority of Israelis who want the primary goal of the war to be returning the hostages. And so, you know, short-circuiting and pulling out completely of these negotiated talks, any sort, you know, really short-circuiting any possibility that they're going to come to a deal in the short term could be very politically difficult for him to sustain domestically. Obviously, the U.S. has made clear that we want them to be involved in some of the ceasefire. They clearly don't give a shit about what we have to say. And since the Biden administration is completely unwilling to use any sort of actual leverage or pressure, I don't think our stance on this is it's pretty much irrelevant, whatever our stance on this is. So, Sagar, really, the only

hope you have for pressure is coming from the Israeli domestic populace. I feel for them. I really do, especially the families and all of them, because it's just so difficult. Because you have a military operation being mounted in your name. You've only had two people be rescued. And then you have active attempts at this point where the government is antithetical to the overall aims. It really, when you pair it like that, and you look, you know, in all that to the future, the government is really not responding to the wills of the populace. And that's one of those where, that's why I do find it outrageous in many respects is, you know, we talk about Israel as a

monolith. It's not, you know, it may not necessarily align with some of the most pro-Palestinian people, but it's a nuanced country. And they really do want an actual ceasefire, not a ceasefire deal, but a hostage negotiation deal. And they probably would be willing to put up with a ceasefire, at least for a prolonged period of time, if it meant the release of all of their hostages. So they and the government do not agree on this. The government's position is a ceasefire for like maybe a portion of time before resumption of hostilities. I haven't seen enough polling though to confirm my suspicion, but basically from what we've seen, I think a decent portion of the public would probably agree to at least a significant ceasefire of several

months in exchange for all of the hostages to be released. There was that poll, and I'm going to get the numbers roughly correct, but don't quote me on the exact numbers here. But they asked Israelis, is your top priority for this war bringing home the hostages or eradicating Hamas? And a majority said the top priority should be bringing home the hostages. And it was somewhere in the 30s, like I want to say like 36 percent that said the, you know, the goal should be eradicating Hamas. But the reality of the Netanyahu coalition is, you know, it's extremely far right and very tied in with the most fringe elements within Israeli society. And that's why they're not only allowing but encouraging these

psycho demonstrators to block aid from going into the strip. You know, I mean, this is being done with the tacit and sometimes explicit support of the Israeli government. So that is the type of ideology that you're dealing with here. There you go. 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 Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country, begging for help with unsolved murders. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into,

call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about.

I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.

She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.

Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, Israeli liberal news outlet Haaretz just published a piece for their Hebrew language audience that reaches breathtaking new levels of dehumanization and tone deafness. The piece was highlighted and documented by a Twitter user called Gowan Mac. not English, an incomprehensibly vile article in the style of a lifestyle cooking feature about Israel soldiers finding and cooking with ingredients in the kitchens of Gazans who had to flee their homes and are now starving. I was also able to pull up the article and use Google Translate to verify the content is indeed as represented in this Twitter thread. Basically, for this feature, they interview several IDF soldiers about how they scrounge around in the bombed-out homes of Gazans, combine these pilfered goods with their own rations, and then prepare bountiful feasts that help them take a much-needed mental break from all of that hard genocide work.

It's replete with images of these thieving chefs and the culinary delights that they concocted in the family homes of terrorized Palestinians. Just take a look at this scrumptious dish that the article labels bruschetta alla Gaza. I guess the scent of smoking ruins, death, and ambiance of utter devastation really brings out the flavor, doesn't it, guys? Here we see some war buddies sharing a meal with the caption, War Meal, we understood that it is possible to fight and take part in campaigns and yet eat well. And this became the story of our unit. How heartwarming. We'll time away from raiding hospitals and terrorizing children to cherish a basic life necessity, which you are currently denying to the entire Gaza population. The story of your unit, meaning the elaborate meals you prepare as you impose on Gazans a story of a daily search for scraps. Any concerns about the war crime-laden context are shrugged off by both writer and

soldiers. Haaretz asks casually about, quote, the feelings of cooking and eating in Gaza family homes. The response, at least per Google Translate, quote, there are mixed feelings, no doubt. After all, I use their tools in their house when they are not here. But on the other hand, we have to eat. In the end, the urge and desire to eat increases. It is important to clarify that these are abandoned houses, some of them destroyed or destined for demolition. And this is the way the IDF fights in Gaza. Oh yes, we are well aware of how you fight in Gaza. Back in December, the Wall Street Journal reported that a full 70% of Gazan homes had either been damaged or destroyed, part of the complete destruction of civilian life that has been one of the actual primary goals of the Israeli response.

That's part of the context in which this glossy lifestyle feature was produced, soldiers quartering and pilfering in the very homes they forced families out of through sheer terror. The other context is the mass famine that these soldiers are helping to impose on Gazans as they steal the food from their houses. In fact, we just learned this week from the head of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, that children in Gaza are now actually dying of starvation. Here is Senator Chris Van Hollen revealing this horror on the Senate floor just before, of course, still voting to fund the war criminals. Yesterday, I began to hear reports of people who have actually starved to death in Gaza. So earlier today, I asked the head of the World Food Program, former American Ambassador Cindy McCain, about these reports. I sent her a note, text message, asking about reports that

some children have now crossed the awful threshold from being on the verge of starvation to dying of starvation. She wrote back, and I quote, this is true. We are unable to get in enough food to keep people from the brink. Famine is imminent. I wish I had better news, end quote. Now, we knew that this was coming. Back in December, the UN reported that half of Gazans were at risk of starving. The entire population was going hungry. The chief economist at the UN World Food Program put it this way to The New Yorker's Isaac Chotner, if you look at the total numbers of starving people right now, 80% of the people, or four out of five people in famine or a catastrophic type of hunger, are in Gaza right now. Now, that report, of course, came before the U.S. led the charge to defund UNRWA,

the primary aid organization on the ground in Gaza. Also came before Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich decided to use our acceptance of their evidence-free attacks on UNRWA to block critical shipments of flour from reaching the Gaza Strip. And it was before the most psychotic people in the world began blocking aid shipments from entering the Gaza Strip with the tacit and at times explicit backing of the Israeli government, police, and military. Here, you can see a festive rave atmosphere with Israelis dancing and celebrating while they endeavor to starve the neighboring Palestinian population to death. According to a Washington Post report on these protesters, every explosion in Gaza raises a cheer. Dead, dead, dead Arabs, one camper shouts at a roaring volley of outgoing

fire. Then she notes the presence of a reporter. Hamas, she corrects herself. The protests are allowed to continue for the same reason that illegal settlers are allowed to violently steal Palestinian land. Their actions support official government policy. As Yoav Galant stated famously at the beginning of the siege, he announced a complete siege of Gaza. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly. At the pro-starvation rave, protesters shake hands with IDF soldiers and think absolutely nothing of the single police car on the scene, per the Washington Post. These dancing pro-starvation Israelis, really the perfect side dish to accompany the feasting of the occupying soldiers. Because in between courses of their Instagram-worthy bruschetta a la Gaza, IDF soldiers have done their part in making sure Gaza's starvation is here to stay. Here, you can see them destroying food warehouses in northern

Gaza, an action documented by an IDF soldier who proudly posted his contributions to the famine war crime on social media. In addition to destroying homes and other civilian structures, the IDF has also made a point of raising Gazan farmland, destroying greenhouses and olive groves, so that Gaza's already limited food production capacity is further degraded for the long term. Starvation now and starvation forever. But why focus on all of that ugliness when we could instead feast our eyes upon the gourmet treats these soldiers were able to scrape together? Behold their delight at stealing Gaza family provisions. Soldier Nadav says, the Gazan kitchen is rich in spices.

In every house, you find a lot of mixed spices like you find in shops. There's lots of lentils. So we did a lot of cooking with lentils. In every house we were in, there were olives they had made, which we tasted. There is olive oil in every house, and it helps diversify and make the food tasty. There is this spice sauce that is very good. Sometimes we come across special things. Suddenly we find garlic, and we make pasta with garlic and tomato.

I came across carob molasses, which we added to porridge, and that was delicious. So lovely for them. Meanwhile, the Gazans, who have survived the terror of bombardment and Nakba 2.0, have told reporters that they have been reduced to eating grass. Now, Haaretz, it's not the worst Israeli news outlet. Actually, it's one of the best. They've done important and they've done courageous reporting that we have oftentimes relied on. That even Haaretz could casually publish this appalling, repellent trash speaks to just how thoroughly Palestinians have

been dehumanized, how blinded Israeli society is by apartheid and militarism, and how oblivious they are to the way the rest of the world views their actions with utter and complete revulsion. And Sagar, I think it's a bit of a tell that they at least knew- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

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

Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account.

Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.

She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying.

This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so how are we looking at? Well, perhaps the most irksome thing about the debate around Ukraine funding is how completely unmoored it is from reality. Ukraine, which is one of the most corrupt countries on Earth, is suddenly the front line of democracy.

We should support Ukraine also so that we don't have to fight a future war with Russia. Or we must supply Ukraine now because they're right on the cusp of victory. Now, I've done multiple monologues about those first two propositions and why they're ridiculous, but let's really focus on the final part here. What exact difference would another $66 billion to Ukraine actually make on the ground? Let's focus on some major developments in the Ukrainian military to see who exactly that we are supplying. Just days before the Senate passed the Ukraine aid bill, President Zelensky fired the overwhelmingly popular head of the

Ukrainian military forces, General Valery Zaluni. The critical difference between the two was Zaluni's crime of telling the truth. The split between the two happened after he was too frank in a recent Economist interview where he admitted that the war was a stalemate between Ukraine and Russia, and that absent some major change in conditions on the ground, very little would change in the future. For this crime, Zelensky not only fired him and eliminated a man with a 92% approval rating in the country who could plausibly have challenged him for leadership in the future if things went south. In his place, he has now put in a new top general named Alexander Sersky. Sersky's pedigree in Ukraine is this. He led a long time ago to successful counteroffensive

in the early days of the Ukraine war, but since has now earned a nickname inside the country by the armed forces, the people he now commands. That nickname is the butcher. He has that nickname because he is the one responsible for the idiotic and murderous last stand in the city of Bakhmut earlier last year. Sersky, who has educated at the military academy in Moscow, has embraced fully Soviet-style war of attrition tactics in a war which he put tens of billions of dollars of U.S. weapons, ammunition, and perhaps most importantly, thousands of Ukrainian professional soldiers' lives,

only to end up losing the entire battle. The so-called butcher shows us no signs that he's changing his tactics, which means this. An extra $66 billion to Ukraine is a check to this man to continue throwing Ukrainian lives into a meat grinder with no discernible goal. For a preview of what we could be funding if any dollars continue to flow into this country, look at what Siersky is doing right now. Ukraine is throwing its best troops into the city of Advika in the hopes of staving off a so far successful Russian offensive.

However, analysts are noting that losses sustained so far by the Ukrainian forces in the hopes of staving off a so far successful Russian offensive. However, analysts are noting that losses sustained so far by the Ukrainian forces in the battle indicate they are being billeted altogether, the Ukrainians, in barracks very tightly, despite frequently being targeted successfully by Russian forces. The surmised reason is dark. They all have to be kept together to stop them from running away. In effect, they are prisoners of their state, being forced to defend the city in old school tactics with no choice to flee of their own. Consider that at this point, most of the able-bodied patriotic men in Ukraine

are either dead or maimed for life. The average age inside the Ukrainian military at this point is somewhere between 40 and 50 years old. Consider that average means that there are many who are much older than that. Furthermore, multiple reports now indicate that Ukraine is resorting to literally kidnapping men off the street, previously exempt from military forces, and forcing them to join up. More so, it is clear the Ukrainian enthusiasm to fight is waning amongst the surviving able-bodied men. An estimated 650,000 men of conscription age have fled the country illegally. I can personally attest through my own recent travels in Hungary and Austria, the streets are crawling with Ukrainians.

And it is an open secret that rich Ukrainian men have been living outside the country now in luxury for two years straight. They have no intention to go back and fight. What brings us to a final point. Ukraine does not have a major weapons and ammunition problem. It has a manpower problem. Every dollar and bullet shipped east is going to prolong a conflict with the most predictable end of all time. The only question, how much more bloodshed and how many more poor and mentally disabled people will be caught in the crossfire in the meantime? The humanitarian thing to do is to stop military aid and pressure both sides to a negotiated solution. President Putin of Russia recently told Tucker Carlson that if aid does stop flowing to Ukraine, he would consider a peace deal with the United States.

Maybe he's lying. There's only one way to find out, though. Unfortunately, this was immediately shot down by the Biden administration, who seemed to believe that there is some rosy alternative ahead, where the grim truth is now clear for us all to see. Ukraine needs to accept their victory is being able to survive with intact territory at all. The sooner that we relieve them of their delusions of grandeur, the sooner that we can restore peace, not only to the world, but to save untold numbers of Ukrainian lives. I mean, Crystal, it's stunning. Like the butcher. And if you want to hear my reaction to Saagr's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate you. If you can support our work here to BreakingPoints.com. If there's any breaking news, we'll break it down for you over the weekend. Otherwise, we will see you all on Monday. murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there's a case we should hear about, call

678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan

Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're gonna gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct.

And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community.

From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.