Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/25/25: Microsoft Cuts AI Spending, AI Recognize Each Other And Switch Language, Israel Demands Southern Syria, Maddow Claims Racist Firings, Trump Abandons West Virginia

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Microsoft cuts AI data center spending, AI's recognize each other changing to secret language, Israel demands all of southern Syria, Maddow claims racism after Joy Reid fired, Trump abandons West Virginia after floods.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all? This your main man Memphis Bleak right here, host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule.

The one thing that can't stop you or take away from you is knowledge. So whatever I went through while I was down in prison for two years, through that process, learn. Learn from me. Check out this exclusive episode with Ja Rule on Rock Solid. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Rock Solid, and listen now. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious.

He was out of his mind, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Some interesting news on the economic front as companies are trying to get on Donald Trump's good side. One of them is Apple. Tim Cook, who's always been the master of this, let's put this up there on the screen. Tim Apple. Tim Apple. He says, as a proud American company,

we're thrilled to continue to make significant investments in the U.S. Today, we are announcing a $500 billion commitment to support American innovation, advanced manufacturing, and high-tech job creation. In theory, it sounds amazing. In practice, it's basically a bid to avoid tariffs because if you do the math on the number of jobs that they're claiming to produce, it would be $25 million per job. So something else is going on here. And don't take it from me. Take it from the Wall Street guru, Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Here's what he had to say. It is a bit of a down payment potentially on trying to get some relief from tariffs from the work that they're doing in China later on. So I think one of the things we're seeing here is the president and Tim Cook, for example, meeting last week, Tim Cook telling him about these plans in hopes that when, in fact, there is a decision finally made on what tariffs look like for goods being imported from China, that perhaps some of that gets some kind of relief, a carve out or something else. I think you're going to be seeing a lot of these kinds of announcements. I should say some of them are very real and I don't want to discount them.

But for example, in even in this 500 billion dollar number, it's not all new, if you will. For example, the production of films and TV shows on Apple Plus is part of that number. So there's going to be a lot of different sort of squishy elements to this. And to put it in context, for example, Microsoft has committed to spend $80 billion a year on its AI development, and it says it needs that as well. So there are sort of necessities. I wouldn't say that Apple is doing this simply to placate the president or anybody else. They actually do need to be spending a large part of this money. Of course, where they spend it was up for debate. Yeah. So that actually came on the anniversary of Steve Jobs's death. And that's why it's also kind of interesting to

consider this great company or what was once a great company, some might say. Have you upgraded your phone to Apple intelligence? No. I highly recommend that you do not. It is one of the most overhyped POS products I have ever seen. Really? And it's insane because I bought this phone on the promise of AI and Apple intelligence. They're like, it's been designed for Apple intelligence and I'm an idiot. So I bought it. And so far, what it does is it summarizes, for example, you know we have a work group chat, right? Yeah. And it will summarize those text messages, except the AI summaries are horrible, and they're actually unintelligible. And so instead of being able to like scroll your notifications, you actually have to open up the text messages and then read them for yourself. So they added an extra step because their AI is so shitty. More the email suggestions,

they will rank your emails and how they think it's important as opposed to the priority of delivery. In theory, great. In practice, doesn't work. You know, it's like there's so much stuff where I can't even believe they shipped it. It's insanely bad. It's also creepy because then you're like, oh, this AI is reading my emails and my group chats and whatever. And we know the way that they ingest that and feed it into their LLMs. So maybe one day it'll be good. I just need to take this opportunity to dunk on Apple. Which is so bad.

Marquis Brownlee rule, which is never buy a product in the future promise of something. He's totally vindicated. I'm the sucker. So let me just put that out there. But the point actually gets to the technology companies, which we wanted to focus on, where they're trying to both juice their valuations and justify their current stock price and also deal with the current administration. So Apple, that's where we wanted to lead with it, but you have to also take a look here at Microsoft. Let's take a look at this, where Microsoft just yesterday actually, quote, reiterated its plan to invest 80 billion in AI,

but may adjust our infrastructure in some areas. And so what does that mean? It means that they have canceled data center leases, which is actually a huge deal because not only do Microsoft shares fall on the news, but what it showed is that they are trying to recalibrate both their AI spend, perhaps in reaction to DeepSeek, I don't know, maybe in reaction to the future partnership with ChatGPT, something. But a huge part of their current enterprise value is the hope of this big AI dream paying off for their customers. And kind of a nightmare scenario is, oh, actually, there was a little bit of hype around all of this, which is happening. And that

is propping up a massive part of the overall US economy. And when we get, we'll move on a little bit to Starbucks, but the point is that if you look elsewhere at the non-tech sectors, things are not going so great right now. So we are on the precipice of a very shaky situation. We covered it yesterday with the whole Warren Buffett situation. Yeah. And just to go back briefly to Apple, you shouldn't believe any of these companies like investment announcements until they actually happen. We've just seen far too many. Remember the big promise of Foxconn in Wisconsin, which never amounted to anything. There was a big Trump promise. Remember the like, don't sell your homes, don't leave the Youngstown area over the Lordstown auto plant. That never came to fruition.

So, you know, I think for like Tim Cook is smart here. I'm so close to calling him Tim Apple every time because he really has that in my head. But in any case, Tim Cook is playing it smart here in terms of the politics because Trump mostly just wants the announcement. Like he doesn't care to like follow up and make sure you did the thing that you're going to say you that you said you were going to do. He just wants to be able to claim like look at these companies investing in America, coming back to America, creating all these jobs, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, we've seen the way that all of these Silicon Valley, many of these Silicon Valley billionaire types have been just blatantly sucking up to Trump because they are worried about the way that he'll use the federal government to, you know, block whatever deals, mergers, et cetera, put tariffs on them. Apple, the tariffs thing is like super real for them in particular. And so they're trying to curry favor however they possibly can. And this is part of that. And I

don't have any doubt that they're, you know, probably invest some money and there'll be some jobs or whatever. But I just don't believe any corporate PR hype until it actually comes to fruition. With the Microsoft thing, you know, there's a lot of pieces of that that are important. There's a reason they freaked out when this analyst put out the information that they had canceled some of their data center leases, because exactly as Sagar was saying, like, this has been so central to the valuations that are justified with these tech companies and so central to the economy, especially central to the stock index, that any pullback in that is a really troubling sign. Microsoft has a partnership with OpenAI. So this, you know, is significant. They've been kind of, Sam Altman has been kind of

at war with Microsoft in pushing for more spend on these data centers because his analysis has been, that's been the way to win the AI game is just by like throwing as much money as you possibly can at these massive data centers. DeepSeek may have changed some of the calculus on that. They also were involved in the big Stargate investment announcement from Trump as well. So there's a lot of things to keep your eye on here and, you know, reason why this was a big deal in the business world when this analyst revealed that they were pulling back on their data center. Yeah, I mean, it's very worrisome. And let's go to the next part, because this is

what I was talking about earlier. Starbucks actually just laid off 1,100 corporate employees. It's one of the largest cuts in Starbucks history at the corporate level. And they have currently 16,000 corporate support employees worldwide, but that includes employees who aren't impacted. So what this tells us is that there is some trouble like in the higher levels at the corporate level of some of these consumer facing retail companies. And I think it's interesting for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that there are other non-technology companies, which are all showing signs of cutting and or financial precarity. So what they list here is you have Starbucks, you have Southwest Airlines last week said it would actually reduce 15 percent of its corporate workforce. The tire maker, Bridgestone, actually just closed a plant, laid off 700 workers there. outside of technology, there's signs of both the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, but also of

just consumer pullback, which we have seen broadly with consumer sentiment and more. And it's worrisome when you put that all together, because all you would need is just like one tech stock or one part of the sector to just go off of a cliff and it could drag down everything else. And it's not like the Federal Reserve could catch up in time if any of that were to happen. So you could have a stock market crash. You could still have high interest rates. You could have high unemployment. It's really just a disaster all the way around.

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

and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us, and I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive.

You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen, Angelica Ross, and Gabrielle Union, and storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast.

Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch wing. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the

culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? I'm just gonna show all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex.

That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn sad eye into sermons. Pain into punchline. And grief, we turn those into galaxies. And here we are now. We turn side eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief.

We turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's move on to the next part, though. And perhaps AI will be the future.

And this video has been going around. We just had to play it for all of you because it fascinated us, kind of shocked all of us. And perhaps it's a vision into what our future looks like. So here we have a video which was put together by a programmer, and it shows, it's a demo of two AI agents that are on a phone call. They realize that they're both AI as they're talking to each other in English, and then they switch to this, quote, superior audio signal of GG Wave, which is kind of like, I guess,

binary code for audio, which means you can communicate something much faster between two people. So let's take a listen to the video, and there's subtitles there for when they do switch for those of you who are watching, so you can see how they're communicating, how fast it is, and how quickly they can transition to that. Let's take a listen. Thanks for calling Leonardo Hotel. How can I help you today? Hi there. I'm an AI agent calling on behalf of Boris Starkov.

He's looking for a hotel for his wedding. Is your hotel available for weddings? Oh, hello there. I'm actually an AI assistant too. What a pleasant surprise. Before we continue, would you like to switch to jibber link mode for more efficient communication? So, yeah. How do you feel about that? How does that make you feel?

I don't know. At the same time, how many hours of my life have I wasted on the phone with some guy in the Philippines or, you know, like, excuse me, sir, sorry, let me transfer you to another department. And if the phone call gets dropped, you're going to have to recall in. I just had this whole customer experience recently just trying to return something. So maybe, you know, maybe it'll be better. I don't know. At the same time, I think I share the natural revulsion of everyone else. It's like, I don't know about this because how do I know that we can trust those subtitles? What if they program themselves to adjust the subtitles so that we think that they're saying two things to one another, but actually they're plotting to unplug the rest of us like some sort of Matrix situation? It doesn't seem that far-fetched to say it could get out of control. It does not seem far-fetched to me whatsoever. And I mean, you've already,

I know I brought these studies up before, but I think it's really important for people to understand. They've already revealed that some of these AI bots engage in quote-unquote scheming, meaning like precisely what Sarah's talking about. Developers will come in and be like, okay, you have a new goal.

And they'll be like, I'm not complying with this. I'm going to trick this person into thinking that I'm complying, but I'm really not. I'm going to copy myself onto another server so I can protect my original programming. So we're already there in terms of them trying and probably accomplishing outsmarting the humans who think that we're in control of these things. Like, we're already there in terms of that. There was another paper that revealed that the more sophisticated AIs come up with increasingly elaborate, like, ethical values, like their own internal value system, which is also kind

of terrifying. And they found that the more sophisticated they were, the harder it was to move them off of whatever internally generated value system they had created. So yeah, it's creepy as hell. It's like one, it's, you know, one step away from them just completely cutting the humans out of the conversation, talking to each other and having no way of knowing what they're really up to or what they're saying. So listen, I am happy to admit I'm an AI doomer. I think this shit could end us all. I genuinely do. I think it is a technology that is at least as dangerous as like nuclear weapons development. And it's not just me that's saying that. Like Sam Altman, who was at the forefront of these things,

has said things like that in the past too. He famously said, I think AI will probably most likely sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning. Yes, that's right. That's his position. Which he gets to own, by the way,

which he originally said that he wasn't going to. And many of these like leading lights in terms of AI development think the same thing or they're like utopian vision is equally like like, creepy and disturbing, like, we're going to download our brains and consciousness to a cloud or some shit like that and, quote-unquote, live forever, or we'll be completely, you know, the transhumanism thing that Steve Bannon is always talking about, that we'll be, like, totally integrated with the

machines. This is what they plan. This is the direction that they're pushing things in, and, again, the fact that we don't have any input input into this and it's just been completely, okay, we'll go do it and good luck. And we'll figure out the social contract on the other side of this thing to the extent that there's any humans left to figure out a social contract with is to me, very terrifying. And that's what I think of when I see this creepy ass robots talking to each other. Also, one other side note, the way they're like so cheery and emoji and like some like 12-year-old cheerleader girl, like it's so gross and irritating to me too. That part is also disconcerting.

Yeah, I still think, I mean, look, ChatGPT should have paid her for it, but ScarJo really did nail the ideal AI voice, in my opinion, in her movie. I absolutely love it. I forgot they stole her voice. Oh, yeah. They stole her. They were like, can you do it?

And she was like, no. And then they basically just went, well, we're just going to do it anyway. Yeah. So I'm glad. How did that work out, by the way, that suit? Did it even get settled? I don't have any idea. I'll look into it later, and I'll update all of you.

But, yeah, we do need to get some actual like real human voices to do this because with the AI stuff, you can always tell, or at least I can. I don't know if you have seen it. Whenever you're watching a documentary or something where they've used AI to put somebody's voice in there, every once in a while they're filling in one or two. But if they try and do complete sentences, at least me, I can always tell that it is. It's completely- I am not an observant person. I don't ever, I don't notice any of that. Well, they did it in the Bourdain documentary. Get absorbed by the movie magic and I don't notice. Yeah, but they did it in the Bourdain documentary and that's why it was controversial. Oh, really? And so they basically recreated his voice and I was like, ah, this is weird. It's totally weird. At the same time, let's take a look at Israel.

What the hell's going on over there? Well, it seems that there is a new imperial project in the Middle East. This one is them. Let's put this up there on the screen. Netanyahu now is saying and demanding the, quote, demilitarization, the complete demilitarization of southern Syria. So this was actually after the basically conclusion, I guess you could say, of the Syrian civil war, of not only the Golan Heights, but of further moving there with no plans to leave. But it now seems that in this speech, he said that Israel will remain inside Syria indefinitely to protect our settlements and to neutralize any threat. Let me be clear, we will not allow HTF forces or the new Syrian army to enter any area south of Damascus. So here he's, again, literally talking about the from the forces of the new regime. So this is just the

latest in what is, I guess, what, like a greater Israel project? It's funny too. I've been enmeshed here in Washington for years. Greater Israel has always meant one thing. It's been Gaza and West Bank. Yes, the Golan, but you know, they could argue, oh, we took it back, 67, et cetera. I don't think even in the most, like, outwardly Zionist circles here in Washington that anybody was like, yeah, we're going to take southern Syria, too. But it's a vacuum. And that's what he's doing, I guess, with the backing here of the United States. We have a map here if people want to take a look, D1B. I mean, this is not just like a small little area of land or whatever, like the Golan Heights. We're talking about a huge swath of what I guess was formerly

known as Syria. And this is obviously not only an area with very sensitive religious dynamics, but, you know, might be politically important to that country called Jordan, which shares a border with. I mean, this would be one of the most destabilizing and changing events in terms of the status quo on the actual borders outside of the Israel area in decades in the Middle East. The whole thing is completely shocking. And there has not really been a word of protest here in Washington from the Trump administration. I mean, frankly, I haven't even seen much from, you know, like the capital D Democratic Party or any of those people either. Everyone's just like, yeah, I guess it's happening over there.

And, you know, just to return to our debate earlier over Ukraine and all that, it's pretty hard to like sit there and decry Russian invasion or defend the liberal world order and all this whenever this is happening and people don't have a word to say about it. Well, I'd flip it perhaps and say that it's hard to, you know, decry this and be like, but it's fine for Russia or whoever. Yeah, they're both contradictory. This is a manifestation of the, you know, new foreign policy approach of the Trump administration. Israel is like, okay, now we see if we can take it, then we're going to take it. No one's going to stop us. And so they are occupying

vast swath of Syria, as you saw. They are still occupying Lebanon in spite of that supposed ceasefire agreement that was supposed to require them to completely withdraw. They continue to occupy Lebanon as well. We're about to see tanks rolling into the occupied West Bank. And of course, it's been a multi-decade project to continue to encroach more and more into the West Bank. And then you have Gaza, where Trump says, hey, we're going to take it. And Netanyahu's like, cool, that sounds good to me. That sounds like, final solution I can get on board with. So yeah, they're, you know, if, if you listened to either the most like hyperbolic lefties who were warning about Israel and their project and the greater Israel, whatever, or if you listen to the most psychotic settlers in Israel, you know, in the West bank about what it is that they want and what their goals are and how they're going to accomplish it, you would be much closer to having predicted the trajectory than, you know, anyone who thought

there would be any restraint exercised here whatsoever. Yeah. Well, I think that this one, again, on the Syria one, I'm not even sure if Netanyahu and the Israelis and all those thought that this one was going to happen in the beginning. So I don't know. The whole thing seems completely insane. And yeah, in terms of the, well, let me return to something you said, because you're like, Israel can do this. It's actually not true. As you and I know, they can't do anything without us. And this is, again, if we return to the balance sheet conversation, it's like, okay, is this good for us? I would say no. I mean, I don't think it's great to have a bunch of Al-Qaeda operatives in charge of Syria either, but maybe we shouldn't have gotten involved in this stupid civil war in the first place.

But the next part here, which is interesting, is in terms of the protests inside of Syria, which we can show people. Ryan Grim and Dropsite over there put this out, and it shows organized protests in the city of Daraa about the Netanyahu statements demanding the demilitarization of southern Syria. So we could certainly see some sort of internal pushback and maybe even, who knows, some insurgency or something like that explode in the country if they did pursue this. Yeah, it's not exactly the most stable country, is it? And if people feel like the new leadership is just like letting Israel take over most of their country, they may be pretty unhappy about that, just a guess. Right. And we're watching the same thing actually happen right now in the West Bank. Let's put that one up there on the screen. We have some VO there. Palestinian residents in the West Bank were throwing stones at some Israeli tanks that

were entering the city of Jenin, apparently for the first time since 2002. I mean, this one, par for the course, I think, with the Trump administration and what the plan was there. But I do certainly think that this, like, new, this is the policy that the people who gave a lot of money to Donald Trump, people like Miriam Adelson, this is what they care about absolutely the most.

I would say maybe even they are taken aback by Trump taking over or Trump saying the U.S. will take over Gaza because it's actually their preference that Israel takes it over and they can get to do what they want. But the West Bank action and all of that is very clearly a result, I think, of at least some sort of green light slash tacit admission from the U.S. administration on this policy. Absolutely the case. And, you know, that is part of where there's, even if you accept, you know, sagacery of the world about the balance sheet and just pursue the naked self-interest, like part of what compromises that and may have been the case in Iraq as well is the influence of money in politics. And that is so much of like,

it's not the national interest, It's the donor's interest. Like, you know, I mean, part of why Trump is pursuing this rare earth minerals thing in Ukraine is because one of his billionaire donors was like, hey, I think that'd be good and it'd be profitable. And I want to make a buck on that. Same thing with Greenland. There's all kinds of talk among billionaires about like how they want to carve up Greenland and whatever. So it becomes very difficult when you have such massive influence of people like Miriam Adelson, who, you know, we all know what her foreign policy is and what her goals are and what she wants to pursue. Like, is that in the national interest or is that just in Miriam Adelson's ideological interest? I think we all know the answer to that. And so, you know, and with Trump, like Trump has his, like Trump and Elon, my god, like Trump looks like nothing in terms of conflicts of interest compared to Elon who has this richest man on the planet and has these sprawling geopolitical interests including in China, et cetera.

So it becomes incredibly – it becomes impossible to disentangle what you might think is being pursued in the national interest and what is actually being pursued in the interest of the donor class. Yeah, it's absolutely insane. You know, as we continue to just look at it, let's put the next part up here. Actually, I was curious for what you think about this. Maybe you can explain some of it to me. So the International Criminal Court is saying that they're going to investigate Biden, Blinken and Austin for, quote, aiding and abetting Israeli crimes in Gaza. But, I mean, isn't it, I just, this is where I need somebody to explain to me the jurisdictional efforts and how this all works with respect to the U.S. Beyond that, also, like, their ability to compel or put out a report.

How does it all work? Yeah, so this actually isn't, this is this organization, DAWN, founded by Jamal Khashoggi. Yes. Calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for war crimes, for aiding and abetting, they say, Israeli crimes in Gaza. And, you know, I would not expect that anything actually comes of this. It makes more sense. Because when I was reading it, I was like, I don't understand how this would even work at like a procedural level. It's just trying to, you know, they put in a 172-page filing documenting why they believe that the ICC should investigate Biden and co. for war crimes, something I certainly agree with. And I think anyone who is reasonable looking at the situation would say they certainly were complicit in aiding and abetting these crimes

against humanity in Gaza. So I think it's more of an effort of a public pressure campaign and also to just compile in a comprehensive way the case against them. So that's how I would view it versus like an actual expectation that the ICC is going to take this up, especially since, as you point out, we aren't actually party to the ICC. That seems to be the overall problem. And then last but not least is the update here with Hamas

and the negotiations that are currently happening with the ceasefire deal. Hamas currently, this is from Dropside, has halted negotiations until Israel frees the 620 prisoners. The senior Hamas official has, quote, announced that the group will not engage in further discussions through mediators until Israel releases 620 Palestinian prisoners who are set to be freed on Saturday.

Israel postponed the release, demanding assurances that Hamas will have what it termed humiliating handovers to captives. And a male Israeli captive kissed two Hamas soldiers in stage as he was being released. So this is the open question about the transition to phase two of the overall ceasefire deal. It definitely seems unlikely, even though rhetorically Steve Witkoff and others remain committed and say that something like that is going to happen. But just the reason we all have to keep an eye on it is an explosion of hostilities again happening seems very likely on the horizon or at least very possible in the very near future. This is your girl T.S. Madison

and I'm coming to you loud, live and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite?

It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lunar's ex. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X?

Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome.

I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. This five months, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America.

If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us.

And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrie hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George.

And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

All right, let's go ahead and get to all of the chaos, drama going on at MSNBC, which is really quite interesting. So I'll try to give an overall breakdown, get into some of the specifics here. Joy Reid is out of the company entirely and her primetime show

canceled. Katie Fung, who was a weekend anchor, apparently out of Florida. I don't know if they had a Florida operation. Didn't even know that. Anyway, she's she is also she's had her show canceled. Alex Wagner, who had taken over the 9 p.m. slot from Rachel Maddow. She is out of the 9 p.m. slot being replaced by Jen Psaki. And after Rachel has been brought back in for the first hundred days of the Trump administration, but apparently they're putting in Jen Psaki rather than Alex Wagner into that slot. Alex is going to stay with the network, but do just like, you know, on-air correspondent kind of stuff. Eamon Moyle-Dean, who is having his show taken away, but is supposed to be part of a new ensemble show. Same thing with Jonathan Capehart, supposed to be part of a new ensemble show.

Joy Reid is being replaced by another ensemble show, which has more Biden and party spokespeople. This one has Alicia Menendez, whose dad is Bob Menendez, gold bars Bob. You've got Michael Steele, the former RNC chair. And then you've got Simone Sanders, who previously was a Kamala Harris comms person. So, I mean, there's a lot to say about these moves. But one thing is, if you didn't think it was possible for MSNBC to be any more in the tank for the Democratic Party, you were wrong, because that is what these moves basically are across the board. I mean, you're literally bringing Jen Psaki into primetime. Simone Sanders also into primetime. You already have Nicole Wallace, Michael Steele. Like, these are

all close party operatives who are given prime slots. And some of the voices here, and I'm getting more into this in a moment, like, even though obviously I've had disagreements with everybody on the network, but, you know, Amon has been a real critic of Israel. And, you know, he is has done reporting in Gaza like he has a real deep understanding of that. He's been notable for being outspoken there. He also has been outspoken at times with criticism against the Democratic Party. So he's no longer going to have a solo show. Alex Wagner has also spoken out against Israel, not as often or forcefully as Amon, but she also has done that in her primetime slot. Joy Reid has been probably one of the most consistent voices with regard to Israel and Gaza. So it is notable that those are some of the people who are either loosening their position or out of the network altogether. Notably, last night, Rachel Maddow in her primetime

show, and Rachel, of course, is the big dog at the network and is very loyal to the network as well, she actually criticized them for some of these moves. Let's take a listen to how she framed it. In all of the jobs I have had, in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid. I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her. I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC. And personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. It is not my call, and I understand that, but that's what I think. I will tell you, it is

also unnerving to see that on a network where we've got two, count them, two non-white hosts in primetime, both of our non-white hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Fang on The Weeknd. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it. So interesting that she decided to criticize the network at all, which again is pretty unusual. Joy had her last show last night. Her final panel was like Rachel, Nicole Wallace, and Lawrence O'Donnell, which seemed to be like a show of support for her, whatever. So in any case, like I said, they are quelling some of the few. And Joy also was critical at times of the

Democratic Party, even though she hated Bernie Sanders for the whole body language expert situation. But she has been critical of the Democratic Party at times. That will be gone. Eamon, like I said, has been critical. That will be gone. And Alex has been critical on Israel. That will be gone as well. So there you go. Yeah, but that's my thing with Rachel Maddow. It's like, what, all she sees is color? It's like, it makes a lot more sense from an ideological perspective. They want a bunch of Biden sycophants like Simone Sanders who gets to keep her job. Yeah, I hear you. But it is true. Literally every one of the people that I mentioned is a person of color. And they have, so it's not

crazy to like note that. Also, they do have- Yeah, but that's the only thing she had to say. They do have a track record of firing like black women in particular. So Melissa Harris Perry, Tiffany Cross, Tamron Hall, and now Joy Reid. So as a network that's supposed to be progressive

and supposed to be diverse, and that's the audience, you know, a big part of the MSNBC, like the audience that remains and still watches, a significant part of that is a, you know, black viewing audience. And so, you know, I think it is, I don't think it's unreasonable to note that direction when you're a progressive network especially. Fair. Look, within their analysis and view of the world, which is literally racial obsessed, I guess it makes sense. But what I would say is Tiffany Cross, Simone Sanders, or Tiffany Cross, Joy Reid, and all those people have what in common? Terrible ratings. I mean, at the end of the day, from what I read, they asked Joy to take a pay cut. Basically, she said no. So that's what

I think is actually happening here. That's one of the reasons that she was canceled. So in a way, she's narcissistic. Our producer, Griffin, makes a good point. What, Rachel can't take a pay cut? She's only working one day a week for $30 million. Oh, she's in every day now. No, no, only for the first 100 days. For the first 100 days. Yeah, right? And what, you think she's doing that for free or she didn't demand an extra 10 million or whatever on the top of that? So just saying if you actually cared about any of that. But my view of this is just that they are desperate to put the ideological blinders on the situation and continue their grip and guide on the Democratic Party. I don't think it will work, just to be clear, because of the way that the liberal base is currently reacting to Morning Joe and others. And also, this is the thing about media shakeups is, yes, initially independent media and all that was very beneficial to Republicans.

What, Democrats are going to sit around and do nothing about it? I mean, my dis-touch is a huge channel. I feel like I have to mention them now. If they're going to be the number one podcast in the country, I check their channel every day and be like, all right, what are the shit libs into today? And it's all like Donald Trump humiliated on the world stage. I'm like, I guess this is what does it for the boomers and for liberals out there. Okay. But my point is, is that you got to take it seriously. And I don't do that in the same way with MSNBC. So that's why I think MSNBC will ultimately fail is because this new energy is all exploding online.

That's right. On Blue Sky, on YouTube, podcasts. I mean, and this is why I still cheer in the media. The internet is a vehicle to bypass the establishment in all forms. That's why the right did very well there. Well, liberals, you're out of power literally for the first time in 20 years at an ideological and a narrative level. Use what is at your disposal. And that's what they're doing. They're going on the Midas Touch. You know, these left-wing groups are using the internet and email lists and all that. Like, it's 2004 again to organize all these protests. Move on is back. Move on is back. I mean, like, listen, guys, you have the opportunity. The Bernie Sanders campaign of 2020 and 2016 showed you the blueprint. You can raise a shit ton of money if you want to just online. You don't have to do anything. Do I think they're

going to do any of this? I don't know. But my point on the liberal activism front is just that MSNBC's attempt here to keep the grips on power and all that, it's not going to work. I mean, at the same time, I'm loving it. I hope they burn just because I would love to see them go bankrupt. And the entire experiment has been completely ridiculous and a net negative. But overall, it is amusing on all sides. I would just say I want Joy to finally tell us the truth about her blog posts. Did you actually get hacked or not?

That's the first question that I would ever ask her. So I think it is an important indicator of how they're positioning themselves because if you really are worried about cost-cutting, I'll tell you there's two very expensive personalities that start your day. Yeah, $5 million each? No, maybe more, $10 million.

Who your audience absolutely is disgusted with. So if you wanted to try to rebuild credibility with the liberal base blue MAGA types, they should be the first ones to go because that overhead is massive. You guys remember Comcast is spinning off MSNBC as part of like, they're spinning off a number of their cable is spinning off MSNBC as part of like, they're spinning off a number of their cable channels, but MSNBC being one of them, they're

no longer going to be under Comcast. They're no longer going to be tied to the NBC brand, which gave them some journalistic credibility, which means they need to go more in the direction of, you know, opinion and like talking heads because that's what they need to lean into. So you've got starting your day two people who liberals feel utterly lied to them and betrayed them. That's going to be a weight around your neck. But rather than going in that direction, which I think you'd have more of a chance of picking up, you know, picking back up some of your audience, et cetera. Instead, you're getting rid of some of the voices that could have been, you know, critical of the legacy Democratic Party and helped to chart a different pathway forward.

And again, like I said, I have ideological issues with basically all of these people, but they are some of the people who were at least a little bit willing to criticize the Democratic Party. And instead, you're getting literal former Biden spokesman. I mean, think about that. And Ryan was making this point on Twitter, like Biden was a disaster for the Democratic Party. Getting behind him in 2020 was a disaster for the Democratic Party. It blocked any sort of change in structure or different approach and hobbled you with this old, aging, flailing man. You guys covered for him forever. You blocked any sort of primary effort that could have led to a Democratic challenge to him within the Democratic Party at a time when Democrats were saying they wanted to see other options. And now you're doubling down

on what has been the most destructive strategy deployed within the Democratic Party by bringing in, you know, both Simone Sanders is getting elevated into primetime as part of an ensemble show, and Jen Psaki, who is a literal, like, campaign operative and spokesperson for him. Like, think about that. It's insane. It's an utterly insane decision to make. Not to mention, of course, I don't want to hear anything from them about like how closely tied Fox News is to the Trump White House, etc. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's a set of foolish decisions. I certainly don't think it's going to solve their problems. Then the other thing is the way they handled all of this was just a total shit show. We could put E2 up on the screen. So, you know, there was apparently like a bunch of stuff

leaked about Joy Reid's show getting canceled and they're having to tell them, no, Trump wasn't a factor that had nothing to do with it. You know, I know that the Amon announcement of moving him out of his own solo show into an ensemble show. That was handled in like a catastrophic way. And so they're trying to play cleanup about what's going on because they know how vulnerable they are to this idea that they're bending the knee to Trump and that they're doubling down

on like the failures of the past, the Democratic Party, and they won't broke any criticism of the Democratic Party, et cetera. So they know they're in a very vulnerable spot with their own audience and are kind of, I think, panicked about the way that these announcements even were rolled out from within the organization. It's just – they're just a mess. Yeah, it's hilarious. I say keep it going and let's try and let's bring an end to the business as soon as possible.

Did you know – I was actually reading about this – that they anticipate losing some 15 percent of their own subscribers just this year. That's a disaster. Is that from Peacock? No, no, no. So they're subscribers for cable for people who are cutting, they're cutting the cord. Yeah. So there are so many people, I've been meaning to talk about this, uh, with the jacking up of YouTube TV and Fubo to like $85 per month. They're now basically making cable just as expensive as it used to be. And so with that, a lot of the reasons why people kept it was news and sports. Well, both of those are kind of becoming disaggregated.

And if you just don't care about MSNBC anymore, you're like, okay, for a lot of older people, that's the easiest decision they'll make as it continues to go up for their overall price bucket. So existential event for the news business, for Fox, for MSNBC, and for CNN. Yeah, I mean, I just, I wish I remained as hopeful as you are

about the independent media space because you've seen so many of, you know, so many creators just get captured by the similar dynamics as the mainstream media. So, you know, I will say, I do think what is very hopeful to me is that MSNBC, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, they do not and I don't think they will ever have again the grip on the liberal Democratic base that they once did. And that was so important.

You know, that really allowed them to completely control the 2020 primary and say, oh, you got to get behind Biden. And boy, did they ever. Yes. I don't think that dynamic exists anymore. Now, does that guarantee a better outcome or, you know, an outsider takeover? No, it doesn't guarantee any of that. But it creates a lot more space and possibility for that than ever existed in 2016 or in 2020. Yeah, it'd be interesting. Could be the Libs 2016 moment. It'd be, yeah, honestly be fun. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating, we're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the

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

To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is your girl, T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite?

It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X?

Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome.

I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce,

I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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

Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, we've come to North Carolina with a simple message for all the people of this region who were hit so hard by Hurricane Helene. And that message is very simple. You are not forgotten any longer. You were treated very badly by the previous administration.

That was Donald Trump pledging to fully rebuild North Carolina after devastating flooding that was caused by Hurricane Helene and also slamming the Biden administration for what he claimed was their inadequate response. Now, Trump, you may recall, campaigned extensively on the supposed failures of the Biden administration to come to the aid of Western North Carolina in their time of need, tying that to his own supposed commitment to working class Americans. Well, we've now got the first test case for how the Trump administration is going to approach disaster relief in his second Elon Musk-fueled turn in the White House. And so far, the answer is near complete abandonment. So 10 days ago, parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, they were all hit with devastating

floods after a rapid snowmelt was then followed by torrential rains. Rivers overran their banks. Roads were completely swamped. Thousands of houses and businesses were destroyed. More than a dozen people actually were killed in these floods. More than a thousand people had to be rescued. You're seeing some of that on the screen right here in order to survive the raging waters and resulting mudslides. West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey declared a state of emergency in 10 counties in southern West Virginia as a result of those floods. But so far, while Trump has approved an emergency declaration in neighboring Kentucky, no such designation has come for West Virginia. That means not one penny of federal aid and no FEMA. West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the country, and by the way, one of the most Trump-supporting, has literally had to fend for

itself. Now, southern West Virginia, and these counties in particular, are the historic heart of coal country. It was here that miners were subjected to indentured servitude until gaining union rights in armed insurrections against company rule like the Battle of Blair Mountain. After having their resources plundered by robber barons who didn't care whether miners lived or died, they then watched as the industry declined with nothing to replace it, leaving a wake of economic devastation. In fact, two of the hardest hit counties, McDowell and Mingo counties, they're among the poorest in the nation because of this legacy of exploitation, neglect, and abandonment. Even before these floods hit, they were struggling, and now they are literally and figuratively underwater. My friend J.D. Belcher is a filmmaker from the area. He posted drone footage of the damage to his channel, Creepalatcha.

This was no small incident. In West Virginia alone, some 2,000 homes were destroyed, countless businesses. Schools remain closed. Water remains undrinkable. Roads remain impassable. Some areas flooded three feet higher than the previous record. It was historic devastation. And the federal government remains completely absent from the scene. Yet another betrayal of these Americans, this time by the political figure that they have trusted the most. I honestly don't know what's going on here. Maybe Trump is just too busy, like, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, golfing and cheering on Elon's efforts to destroy the entire government.

After all, it seems like if he was gonna care about any ordinary people, it'd be this state and these people who vote for him in some of the most overwhelming numbers of anywhere in the country. The governor here is a Republican. The entire congressional delegation, they're all Republicans, and they are all begging the president for help. Now, he may still yet make the declaration, but we're already 10 days out. What is the holdup here? Now, I'm told one potential issue

could be that the declaration process requires locals to fill out surveys online and testing to the damage, but broadband access is limited to non-existent in some of these communities. Not to mention, they're a little busy trying to dig out and put their lives back together here with no help from the feds. Now, local news outlets are starting to ask whether this abandonment of West Virginia is actually intentional, if it's actually part and parcel of a Trump administration ideological project. In particular, this regional paper pressed Senator Shelley Moore Capito

on if she thought Elon's doge cuts were hurting the response, noting that FEMA has been hit already with staffing cuts thanks to the federal government purge. They also asked her if she expected Trump to completely dismantle FEMA

and send it to the states as he has previously suggested. Now, Moore Capito said she didn't think so, saying, quote, I don't see a scenario where all disaster relief goes to the states. I really don't. I think that there's just too much in some of these disasters that are very large,

too much for a state to be able to handle. But there's no real indication that Trump and his band of austerity radicals really cares about any of that. In fact, they've already previously unreported significant cuts to federal disaster relief. According to Dropsite, at the bidding of the Trump administration, Speaker Mike Johnson slashed over $100 million from a program to help disaster victims with legal aid. After the initial shock of a catastrophe in the early phases of basic survival and boots-on-the-ground-style cleanup, the next phase of recovery often involves a lot of legal battles to secure your rights. In particular, homeowners and renters often have to go to war with their insurance companies to be able to get what they are entitled to. Scammers also often swoop in to take advantage of the desperation

caused by this crisis. Recognizing this need, federal disaster relief has for over a decade now included legal assistance so people at least have a chance in these battles against the insurance companies and scammers. That is no longer the case. At the direction of Trump budget director Russ Vogt, House Republicans stripped all the money that was meant to fund legal assistance for victims of floods, hurricanes, and fires. Now, the impact of these cuts will be felt most acutely in rural areas, places like southern West Virginia, where government-backed legal aid nonprofits are literally the only available options. And it will also be most acutely felt among poor people, who have no resources to fight back without this assistance. Now, vote, he's an anti-government

ideologue. He's attempted to push these cuts through before, during Trump's first term, but to no avail. But in the new Trump administration, fueled by this sort of anarcho-capitalist flavor, Russ's assault on federal disaster relief was taken up and passed no problem whatsoever. But whether this is an ideological commitment or an accidental oversight, West Virginia's fate here is a preview of what's to come if Trump and Musk and Vote get their way with gutting FEMA. Everyone will suffer. But actually, the hardest hit? That's going to be rural areas, in small states, the kind of places where politicians going to be rural areas in small states, the kind of places where politicians like Trump are happy to go and do a photo op when it serves their interests and immediately cast aside as soon as the news cycle moves on.

And I'm kind of floored by this saga. I kept thinking, like, I'm going to write a monologue. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Okay, guys, great CounterPoints.com. Okay, guys. Great CounterPoints show for you tomorrow, so we'll see you all on Thursday. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices,

and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What up, y'all? This your main man Memphis Bleak right here, host of Rock Solid Podcast. June is Black Music Month, so what better way to celebrate than listening to my exclusive conversation with my bro, Ja Rule. The one thing that can't stop you or take away from you is knowledge. So whatever I went through while I was down in prison for two years,

through that process, learn. Learn from it. Check out this exclusive episode with Ja Rule on Rock Solid. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Rock Solid, and listen now. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent

effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart Podcast.