Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/27/24: Big Tech Freakout Over SCOTUS Case, Biden Popularity Plummets, Ukraine Says Navalny Death Natural, NATO Floats Troops In Ukraine, Seth Meyers Laps Up Biden Gaslighting, Pelosi Freezes On Basic Israel Facts, Vice Shuts Down, Rogan Fights Kid Rock Over Israel, NYT Writer Outed As Propagandist

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss big tech freaking out over SCOTUS censorship case, Biden popularity plummets as Trump warnings emerge, Ukraine says Navalny death natural causes, Russia warns of war as NATO floats troops in Ukraine, Seth Meyers laps up Biden gaslighting, Pelosi freezes when pressed on basic Israel facts, Vice shuts down, Rogan claps back at Kid Rock on Israel, NYT writer outed as IDF propagandist.   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. 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 Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting stories to talk about this morning,

including oral arguments in a landmark free speech case in front of the Supreme Court. This one is really, really interesting, cuts across ideological lines, deals with a lot of very thorny issues around state power and social media. So we're going to dig into that and tell you what the implications could be. We also have some new theories out about something we talked about yesterday, Trump's consistent underperformance in the primaries that have been held so far. Nate Cohen did an analysis of different theories of why that may be occurring. So we're going to take a look at that and what that could mean for the future and for the general election. We also have new details about the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny that we're going to get into.

What exactly the hell happened there. Interesting details that are coming out now from his team and from others. Joe Biden was on late night. That's all I got to say about that. It went a certain way. Yeah. Ate some ice cream. We've That's all I got to say about that. Yeah, we've got some ice cream. We've got some highlights from that to bring to you. Also, today is the primary in Michigan. And obviously, Joe Biden very much expected to win. However, a very open question about how many voters, especially young voters, are going to cast their ballot for uncommitted

as a rebuke of Joe Biden and his unconditional support for Israel. John Stewart was back on last night with some Israel takes. We'll take a look at that. And I am looking at an extraordinary scandal that is unfolding right now at the New York Times that is just absolutely unbelievable. This woman with literally no journalistic experience ending up with a byline on one of the most fraught and sensitive stories of all time that has now been discredited. I can't even believe some of the details here, so I'll break all of that down for you. Yeah, I'm really excited to hear that report. As a reminder, for BreakingPoints.com, you can become a premium subscriber.

We're doing an exclusive subscriber-only livestream after the State of the Union where our subscribers can interact with us and ask questions. You're going to learn some more details, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So if you could support that and all of our work, we're already developing new focus groups. We've got the State of the Union special, et cetera. You can go ahead and sign up for that. But let's go ahead and begin with this social media case because it is probably one of the most significant First Amendment cases to come before the court in quite a long time. It comes down to two separate laws in the state of Florida and the state of Texas, which were designed by these two state legislatures to try and protect, quote unquote, conservative viewpoints. But the legal question before the

court, and is actually, frankly, very interesting, is this. Do the tech platforms, are they common carriers as classified by the state legislatures, aka like the internet company, which doesn't censor information that you or I might be pinging and it doesn't have any say at an auditorial judgment? Or are they editorial platforms that have the right to pick and choose the way that a newspaper would, the way that you or I would? The reason why this is all at play is it comes back to the way that they were originally classified, where the tech companies effectively are both allowed to behave as quasi-common carriers because of the monopolistic effects of the network, basically the network effects of their business, but also because of pre-existing

law from 1996, Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act, which also allow them to have some editorial judgment. So basically, the states have passed these separate laws. They're now before the court. The people who are challenging the laws are the trade organization, which represents all of the big tech companies. We have a little bit of flavor from the arguments, which showed some skepticism, but also some interesting alignment between some

of the liberal justices and the Republicans and then some of the more conservative justices who are countering. First here, we're going to play for you some questioning by Justice Alito of the lawyers about who exactly is making speech determinations, what the algorithm is, and how the mechanics of this all work. Let's take a listen. They're not going to see a bunch of material that glorifies suicide. Is there any distinction between action or editing that takes place as a result of an algorithm as opposed to an individual? I don't think so, Your Honor. These algorithms don't spring from the ether. They are essentially computer programs designed by humans to try to do some of this editorial function is well but what do you

do with this a deep learning algorithm which teaches itself and has very little human intervention you still had to have somebody who kind of created the universe that that algorithm is going to look at who's speaking then the algorithm or the person? I think the question in these cases would be the Facebook is speaking, that YouTube is speaking, because they're the ones that are using these devices to run their editorial discretion across these massive volumes. And the reason they're doing this, and of course, they're supplementing it with lots and lots of humans as well. But the reason they have to use the algorithms, of course, is the volume of material on these sites, which just shows you the volume of editorial discretion. Yeah. And finally, I'm sorry to keep going, Mr. Clement. Exactly what are they saying?

What is the algorithm saying? I don't know. I'm not on any, you know, but what is it saying? It's saying... Is it a consistent message? What, I mean, usually when we had Hurley, it was their parade and they didn't want certain people in their parade. You understood that. What are they saying here? They are saying things like Facebook doesn't want pro-terrorist stuff on our site. Okay. So as you can see, there's a little bit of the pushback there from the lawyers for them. But Crystal, it's a very interesting question and it really comes back to, as I said, some of the press release, for example, that they put out, they go, just as Florida may not tell the

New York Times what opinion pieces to publish or Fox News what interviews to air, it may not tell Facebook and YouTube what content to disseminate. He's looping in the algorithm with the plugged-in editorial judgment. The crux of the Texas and the Florida law are that there is a baseline free speech assumption, especially in the case of the Florida law, that applies to elected representatives that does not allow for editorial discretion of these quote-unquote standards to come into play. I think it's a very important one. I definitely support the law, even if it may be intended to be applied you know, applied solely or whatever to conservative viewpoints. But I think that's why we've seen even liberal outlets and people who are skeptical of technology and not really necessarily supportive of Texas or Florida who say that if they rule in the opposite direction, you're giving them carte blanche to censor whatever they want.

Yeah, I'd encourage you to in some some ways, put aside the specifics of like the motivations of these particular laws and think about the core issues here. So the argument from the tech companies is effectively like the libertarian argument. We are, you know, we have these companies and we have a right to basically run them the way that we want. We have a right to enforce our terms of service. We are not a government, so we are not subject to free speech laws. And basically, we can do what we want on our platforms. On the other side is states like Florida and Texas and presumably other states around the country that also have an interest in this saying, no, this is the modern public square. Free speech is incredibly important for society on these platforms because that is the way our society is constituted at this point.

And the state has an interest in making sure that there is some level of free speech, especially with regard to elections and candidates, that is protected and preserved on these platforms. And so the interest of citizens and of the state in protecting free speech rights is superior to the interest of these companies that are arguing, no, we have free speech rights to publish on our platforms what we want. The other thing that I would say here in terms of these companies, Augur, is they really want to have it both ways in terms of this question about whether they're common carriers or whether they're publishers, when they don't want responsibility for bad things that are published on their platforms, oh, then they're not publishers. They're common carriers.

They don't want any liability and any responsibility for the content that's going out on their platforms. But when they want to effectively please their advertisers and protect their business models, then, oh, we're publishers. This is our speech. We have to protect our free speech rights here. And we're just making editorial judgments in the same way as The New York Times. And I would say basically, like, you can't have it both ways. And so to me, that's sort of the core of the issue here. Now, I do think that the questions are somewhat complex, right? I do think it is a thorny, tricky issue to legislate, okay, where is the line? How much can these states just dictate to companies how to run their platforms and who to censor and

who not to censor? I mean, that can get into very tricky grounds as well. But when I think about it at bottom, when you have this core competition between, you know, the corporations and the state, at least the state, there's some sort of theoretical democratic mechanism for making these choices and having citizen input into way that free speech is mediated and moderated and, you know, permitted on these platforms versus with a company, whether it's a public company or a private company, you have no say. It's just up to these few oligarchs what they feel like doing on their platform with massive costs and consequences as we've seen for society. I'll continue and dig into a little bit what you said where you're talking about liability.

And this is something that we can understand, but people who are not in publishing may not, which is at the end of the day as editorial organizations like Breaking Points, like The New York Times, or others. We, because we curate information, are also liable under defamation and libel law. As in, if we were to publish something which was, you know, absolutely wrong, and that somebody could then prove that we knew it was wrong before we published it, we did it specifically to defame or libel somebody else, they could take us to court. But the Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act actually allows the social media companies not to be liable under the same standard. As in, if I take to Facebook and I quote unquote defame somebody else, that person cannot sue Facebook for platforming defamation. So in that case, they're trying to treat themselves as a common carrier. In the same way that a common carrier like AT&T, they have no editorial judgment

over who I pick up and call. They don't drop my phone call because I'm saying problematic things. Now, maybe the government will, but that's a different story in terms of how the actual company itself, which has allowed this effective legalistic monopoly or regulatory monopoly on top of the service that they provide, even though it's a private company, we classify it under a very different set of standards, the same way that Comcast and ISP internet providers do as well. The social media companies in this weird gray area and actually thought Justice Katonji Brown Jackson did a really good job of digging into this about elected officials and the elected official standard under the Florida law, which allows anyone running for public office not to be subject specifically to this.

Really listen to the counterargument being given by the social media company and some of the Democratic implications. Let's take a listen. What about a straightforward one, right? I understood that one of these was no candidate can be deplatformed. That seems pretty straightforward. Right. And so why isn't that enforcing anti-discrimination principles?

If somebody is a candidate for office, they can't be deplatformed. So that means they can't be deplatformed no matter how many times they violate my client's terms of use, no matter how horrible their conduct, no matter how misrepresenting they are in their speech, we still have to carry it and not just have to carry it. But under this statute, we have to give it pride of place. And it doesn't take much to register as a candidate in Florida. And so this gives a license to anybody, even if there's somebody who's only going to pull 2% in their local precinct, they can post anything they want. They can cause us to fundamentally change our editorial policies and have to ignore

our terms of use. So that's really worth digging into. You know, when he says it, you're like, oh, well, that seems, you know, reasonable or whatever. But I'm like, well, OK, let's hold on a second. How do you get from 2% to 10%? Anyone want to tell me? Maybe it's by being able to reach voters, which is online. So yeah, if the state of Florida

makes it so that anybody can get on the ballot and poll at 2%, I mean, listen, what have we all learned from the RFK Jr. thing? It ain't that easy to get on the ballot, okay? And so if you can get there, then yeah, you should be in a place where you are in a level playing field against other candidates on the social media companies. I don't see what's exactly wrong with that. And when you phrase it that way, you can then understand some of the inverse ways where this could apply. As we all learned post-January 6th with the deplatforming of Trump from the simultaneous deplatforming and really the simultaneous destruction of Parler, you're like, whoa, you have companies which are technically separate, effectively working in concert from a major social pressure campaign. And the company and even the individual at that point, the sitting president of the United

States, has no genuine recourse to reach millions and millions of people. You know, we're not talking about a plumbing business in Ohio here. We're talking about the basically singular ways which the vast majority of Americans are interacting with presidential candidates and fundraising. And so when you consider it in that vein, we come much more to the common carrier status. Again, the companies don't want this because they simply want to be able to do what they want to do so it doesn't affect their advertising businesses. But these are multi-trillion dollar companies if we look at their market cap,

I don't even think, honestly, it would have that much of an effect, especially if they're legally required, Crystal, what are they going to do? They're going to be like, hey, we have to legally do it. What are we supposed to do? That's true. That's true. And especially if they're all held to the same standard, then it's an even playing field. I mean, the core tension here is this question. Do citizens have an interest in the way these platforms are run that goes above and beyond the profit motive of the companies themselves? Because that is kind of the unspoken part of all of this. And you just pointed to it, Sagar, in terms of the advertising dollars. The reason these companies are making the decisions they are, whether it's kicking Trump off the platform or, you know, moderating speech in the ways that they do,

it's all because of profit. It's not because they, you know, are interested in speech. It's not because they have some message that they want to convey through their algorithm the way that, you know, a newspaper wants to publish the news and cover it in a certain way. No, they're making these decisions because they believe they're the decisions that will maximize profit. So where do we place in our order of priorities the desire for these companies, their owners, their shareholders to maximize their profits and the interest that citizens have in having platforms that enable free speech, that allow them to understand candidates and their platforms, that allow candidates to be able to run and get their message out, even if they aren't the best

funded. And so it's very much my position that this is the modern town square, that we do all very much have an interest in what goes on here, and that in some certain ways, when you're talking about core rights like free speech, they do trump the prerogatives of these companies to run their platforms in precisely the way that they think will absolutely maximize profit. And you're right. I don't think it would be massively harmful to them if they had to comply with these laws. You know, one of the things that would be implicated here is definitely with the Florida law. I think with both the Florida and the Texas law. But because you're dealing with the way that the algorithm promotes and suppresses content,

you would also have to have some level of transparency around how those decisions are being made, what content is being promoted, what content is being suppressed. And so it would also give us a tool to be able to understand the inner workings of these companies in a way that I think would be extraordinarily beneficial just in terms of transparency and, you know, sunlight being an incredible disinfectant. So there is a lot at stake here. Again, I'm not going to pretend like the issues aren't tricky and that there isn't an important balance to strike here, et cetera. But to me, at its core, this tension between a democratic society, our interest in speech, which is, you know, a core constitutional right, and the interest of these companies to just absolutely maximize their profit,

there is a limiting principle there. Our rights as citizens of this country trump their rights to, you know, do whatever they want on the platform in the interest of maximizing profit. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's OK, YouTube, the platform where a lot of you are consuming this right now. I don't think people understand the scale. YouTube in 2023 accounted for thirty one point five billion dollars in profit. That is just ten billion or ten percent of Google's overall revenue. And that $31 billion is bigger than Netflix. How much money Netflix made in the year 2023.

10% of Google is roughly equivalent to Netflix, which is one of the most predominant streaming platforms in the whole world. YouTube is media now, basically, at this point. And this is just here. I'm talking in the U.S. context. I've talked to you about this before, Crystal, but in many countries like India or in South America as well, which did not have the same analog TV, YouTube is media because they don't have cable television in the same way. Everybody skipped and started the entry point at the mobile phone level. And with data, that is the major way that people consume not just news, everything, television shows.

And when you think about the dramatic cultural power that something like that has, not only here but all around the world, you start to understand why I think common carrier status is not only justified now. I mean, it would have been justified many, many years ago. So let's put this up there on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. I encourage people to read this if they want a decent primer on some of the things that were, you know, at play. I would note, you know, based on the arguments, it definitely did seem as if the majority of the conservative justices were not on the side of the red states in this case, using a much more libertarian point of view in some of their questioning. Let's go to the next one there, please. This is NetChoice. It's kind of a write-up of their specific allegations as to why the law

should be allowed to stand. It basically just comes back to an argument is that they're private companies. No matter at the scale, they should not have to be told by the government how and when and which way to run their business. But I mean, that even to me falls apart a little bit, Crystal, because you and I have all kinds of regulations that we have to comply, like workers' comp. Anybody who runs a business, you have to buy workers' comp, right? I think that's fine. Or, you know, if you're a certain size, like you have to provide health insurance. If you're a plumbing company, you have to have a trade certification. You can't just be going out and doing anything. You know, there's all kinds of

things that we're all required to do. To pay minimum wage. Right. We have to pay minimum wage. There's so many different things that we all have to do whenever we run a business. I don't necessarily enjoy it all, but we don't have a choice. So the idea then at a baseline level that, you know, this principle, like you can't tell people what and what not to do. It's like, well, we already do that. It's just that we're trying to apply it to a 21st century standard. If anything, I think we're some 20 years late. That's a good point. That's actually a very good point. Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of how this case is going to play out, I genuinely don't know. There was questioning that, you know, from both ends of the ideological spectrum that seemed pretty skeptical of the

presentation coming from these companies. So it left me somewhat hopeful that they will rule in favor of free speech and the rights of states to regulate these companies in the interest of citizens to, you know, have the First Amendment protected. But I genuinely don't know how it's ultimately going to play out because, you know, it's tricky and it's not an ideologically clear cut case. As you said, just thinking about the right, you know, you have these competing ideological strands of, you know, this newfound, at least rhetorical interest in free speech. And then the, you know, sort of radical libertarian strain that has been on the rise in the Republican Party for decades at this point. So which of those ideologies wins out here among the conservative justices who obviously have a significant majority on the court

is really an open question. We don't know. You know, I hope this has been a decent enough primer just so people can really dig into it. However this happens, we won't know for several months, of course, in terms of how this all plays out. It's going to have big, big impacts. And especially consider this, Crystal, if it comes before the 2024 election, who knows? November could be a very interesting, imagine if they do uphold the legislation, November could be very interesting in terms of what's allowed to stand and what's not. Yeah, well, and that's an important note is right now these laws are on hold. They haven't been implemented while they go through the court system and these justices make a decision. So we will see how it all turns out. There you go. Interesting analysis yesterday from Nate Cohn in the New York Times of why it is

that Donald Trump has consistently underperformed his polls in these primaries. Now, no one here is saying that he's not an absolute lock for the Republican nomination, that he isn't an incredibly force in the Republican party, that he isn't probably at this point the favorite to win the general election against Joe Biden. But it's an interesting enough phenomenon that we wanted to spend some time digging into it. So put this up on the screen from The New York Times. Nate Cohen says three theories for why Trump's primary results are not matching expectations. He's underperformed the polls in each of the first three contests.

So first, let me give you just the data. We shared this with you yesterday. But just to refresh, so in Iowa, the final 538 polling average had Trump leading Haley by 34 points with a 53 percent share. Instead of beating her by 34 points, he beat her by 32 points with a lower share, 51%. Not that different, but a little bit off. In New Hampshire, in the polls, he led by 18 points with 54%. In the end, he won by 11 points with 54%. So a narrower margin than was predicted. In South Carolina, Trump led by 28 points in the polls with 62 percent of the vote, and he ultimately won by 20 points with 60 percent of the vote. So, again, it's not a huge underperformance, but it is a consistent trend in the primary states that we've seen thus far.

So the three explanations that Nate floats here, possibilities. Number one is just simply undecided voters who, you know, we're telling pollsters, I don't know, going into it ultimately broke for Nikki Haley. There is some evidence that this accounts for part of it, but it can't account for all of it because of the piece of Trump also underperforming his vote share going in. So again, like in South Carolina, he came in with 62 percent. He ultimately won with 60 percent. So you can't just attribute that diminishment to undecided voters breaking in Nikki Haley's direction. The second possibility is that pollsters are getting the electorate wrong, especially because on the Democratic side, there isn't much of a competition.

There's been more hype around the Republican side. So you've had a proportionally larger number of Democrats voting in Republican primaries and independent Democratic leaning independents voting in primaries that pollsters typically polling a Republican primary. They are not calling Democratic voters at all to see what they're going to do because they're just assuming, well, a Democratic voter is not going to vote in a Republican primary. That assumption may be off and that may be part of the Trump underperformance here and the Nikki Haley relative overperformance. The last one, which is the most tantalizing to Democrats and Biden supporters, is that there is actually a hidden Biden vote and that there is some secret enthusiasm for Joe Biden or secret antipathy towards Donald Trump that isn't being picked up in the polls.

This is sort of akin to the like shy Trump voter theory from 2016. And what they say here, I'll just read from the piece. In this theory, the polls did well in modeling the electorate while undecided voters split between the candidates. But anti-Trump voters simply were not as likely to take surveys as pro-Trump voters. If this theory were true, then the general election polls might also be underestimating Mr. Biden by just as much as they've underestimated Ms. Haley. Quote, there is one reason the anti-Trump turnout might have relevance for general election polling. It's consistent with other data showing Mr. Biden with the edge among the most highly engaged voters. This could yield a slight turnout advantage even in a general election and may also mean the current polls of all registered voters slightly underestimate Mr. Biden compared

with the narrower group of actual voters. And Sagar, this is something that a number of polls have found is right now, this far out from the general election, pollsters are looking at all registered voters. But in the instances where they've narrowed that down to the likely voters, the voters who show up consistently election after election, Biden does a little bit better in those polls. actual electorate is more likely to favor Biden, which, you know, makes some sense given the realignment amongst the parties and so many college educated voters who tend to be the most reliable voters year after year, election cycle after election cycle. They're the ones that reliably show up. This used to be the advantage that Republicans have. Now with the electorate shifting, it seems to be an advantage that Democrats have. So that's the other theory that's out there. Yeah, the theory is, I mean, I really don't know what to say.

So back in 2020, just for context, one of the things I heard all the time from the Trump people were, don't believe these polls. Look at how people feel about the economy. And they were actually right in terms of how close the election was. The how I feel about the economy and who I trust more, where they had Biden and Trump tied, as opposed to Biden beating Trump by like six to seven points in many of these nationals. That ended up being a very good approximator for the overall vote totals, even though Biden must have been able to take it up. However, what did we all learn in 2022? We apply that exact same logic where Biden is historically underwater on the economy compared to every single other modern president in a midterm. We apply the midterm lesson and we say

Biden would have to overperform by more than a century. And then he almost does, nearly does. And so what do we learn from that is that in certain instances, some social issues can trump the economy. Now, of course, there are a lot of different lower propensity voters who stayed at home. The high propensity people really jacked it up because of all of the abortion turnout that happened. Lots of college educated people. The Trump cope, again, I'm going to give here as well. 2024 will be more of a normal election because lower propensity voters who love Trump but don't necessarily give a shit about Mitch McConnell or anybody else will be coming out to vote. I could see it in so many different ways. In terms of my prediction, I still come back to 50-50. But I do think it's humiliating actually for both of them, you know,

considering Trump's unpopularity, it should be runaway. It should be so, so easy. Considering Biden's age, he should be beating him by 55-45 or something like that. So the fact that it is 50-50, I think is not good for either of these people. Well, this was basically the case Ryan Gerduski was making to us when he was here about how Republicans, not Trump specifically in the primaries, but Republicans in these special elections, why they're doing so poorly. And it's because the white, affluent, college-educated, suburban vote is so heavily Democratic now, and they're showing up for all these elections and that since, you know, Republicans have chased all these, you know, weird conspiracy rabbit holes that are like disconnected from the interests of that population and make them sort of like,

and just are like an instant turnoff to a lot of normies in that population, that it has led to disaster and abortion being, you know, the primary issue where Republicans have really put themselves out on a fringe extremist position that is abhorrent to not just that group of voters, but really the overwhelming majority of Americans. But he thinks that that is a very different story in a special election versus a general election, because obviously you have more people turn out in a general election. And so those people who are the low propensity voters, maybe they're motivated, maybe they come out, maybe that erases this advantage that Democrats have had in the special elections. I genuinely don't know. I mean, if I had to guess, it's probably like a combination of all of these three things that he floats here.

All of them make some sense to me. You know, it does seem there's some data to back up that undecideds have been breaking towards Nikki Haley. There some data to back up that undeciders are have been breaking towards Nikki Haley. There is data to back up that Democrats are making a larger up a larger percentage of the electorate in these primaries than pollsters are really anticipating. And so there's sort of like this built in inaccurate electorate that they're pulling on. think that the data surrounding the fact that likely voters have a, you know, Biden gets a slightly more favorable outcome when you limit the universe to those people who are most likely to actually show up in an election. It does sort of indicate that there's something going on there as well. Actually put up the third element here and we can show you this sort of underscore some of the points you're making, Sagar, about specifically Joe Biden's weakness. So this is the latest Gallup poll. His approval has now edged down to 38 percent. That is three

points. That is three points lower than the last reading, one point shy of his all time low. And this person also says accurately well below the 50 percent threshold that is typically led to reelection for incumbents. I took note, though, too, Sagar, of the specifics on his approval rating on various aspects of the job. So he actually gets the highest rating. I mean, this is not a great number, but on the situation in Ukraine, he gets a 40% approval. What was noteworthy to me is that his handling, his unconditional support of Israel, his handling of what they describe as the situation in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians, now

nearly as poorly rated as his handling of immigration, which has long been, I mean, his handling of immigration has now long been one of the low points in terms of public perception of how he is doing in the presidency. So I thought that was quite noteworthy because, you know, across the, first of all, I mean, he's dramatically at odds with the Democratic base in terms of what they want to see when you have 50% of Democrats saying this is a genocide, you are very much at odds. But you have a majority, there was a poll that just came out, there's a majority of all religious groups who support a ceasefire. And then you have people

on the other extreme who think that, oh, actually, we should be doing even more somehow for Israel. I don't even know how that's possible. But you do have this rhetoric on the right as well of like, oh, he's not doing enough to back Israel. And even this little hand-wringing behind the scenes is like, he shouldn't be doing that. He should just be saying, go and kill the bad guys. So that has become a major, major problem for him in terms of facing re-election. Yeah, I think it's certainly true. You can definitely look at that. I would combine the economic number, immigration being very low. He basically is just being hit at all sides from

everybody, which is very, very problematic. At the same time, an interesting situation developing in Ukraine and in Russia. The head of Ukrainian intelligence making some very eyebrow raising remarks. Let's put this up there on the screen from the Kyiv Post. The head of Ukrainian intelligence making some very eyebrow-raising remarks. Let's put this up there on the screen from the Kyiv Post. The head of Ukraine intelligence believes that Navalny, Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died in Russian prison, quote, died of a detached blood clot, says that the cause of death actually aligns with the initial assertion that was made by the Kremlin. Now, this has sparked a lot of discussion because it's like, well, is this confirmation that he did die of natural causes? However, that one countervailing piece of evidence,

which definitely needs to be discussed here, is put this up there, please, is according to Navalny and his or Navalny's organization after his death, there was actually a prisoner swap proposal that was being discussed, which would have allowed for the swap of Navalny in exchange and likely Evan Gersovich and possibly even another American who is in custody to be traded for an alleged Russian hitman who is being held in a German prison. This is somebody who Putin has personally spoke about before. Including for a while in that interview with Tucker. Right, exactly, with the Tucker Carlson. So the reason why, I don't know, we've read it two ways.

And I read it one way, which is, well, maybe he did die of natural causes because why would you kill him if he was going to be a valuable part of the prisoner swap? The other is, well, they killed him so they don't have to swap him and have to deal with him on the outside. Both seem equally and very plausible. The other thing that I come back to is even if he did technically die of natural causes, if you guys saw the video, he looked terrible the day before he died. I mean, it's very obvious that being, I mean, being in prison, you know, newsflash, not good for your health. So I don't know. That's kind of my summary of the situation. It's sort of like if Julian Assange died in prison right now of quote unquote natural causes, it's like, well, his health is in such poor condition because of the captivity, because of the imprisonment condition because of the because of the captivity, because of the imprisonment, because of the years of effectively like psychological and physical torture that he

has endured. So then if you know, even if someone didn't slip poison into his tea, he still was really murdered by the state. You know, he still did not, in my opinion, die of natural causes in the same way that someone who was free and living their life, quote unquote, dies of natural causes. That death is still on the hands of the United States government and, you know, the UK government at this point as well, who have been imprisoning him for years at this point. So I sort of view it in the same way. With regard to the Ukrainian report, there's a few things to put out here that because I was talking to our friend Yegor about all of this. And he for what it's worth, Yegor is very convinced that Putin actually murdered this guy.

Now, he doesn't have any special knowledge. He's just reading based on his insight into Russian politics and specifically how happy Putin seemed after Navalny was dead. But he said, keep in mind, the Ukrainians also hated Navalny, which may be sort of confusing to you, but they wanted him to be very explicitly pro-Ukrainian. And he didn't follow along with the messaging and the position they wanted him to take. So they didn't like Navalny either. And there's also a question of like how they would have this special knowledge into whether it was a blood clot or whether it was something else. So as I said, listen, in terms of the specifics of how he died, why at this moment, I do think it's compelling what the Navalny team is putting out there. Their theory is effectively, they said Putin was clearly told the only way to get Krasikov, that's the dude he talked about in the Tucker Carlson interview, who he clearly wants back, is to exchange him for Navalny. Putin decided since they're willing to offer Krasikov in

principle, then I just need to get rid of that bargaining chip, then offer someone else when the time comes. So that would be the theory on the side of it was Putin. It wasn't just, you know, him dying from being in captivity, but it was, you know, an explicit intentional murder. Do we know? Will we ever really know? No. But again, to me, the top line of he, however you feel about him, right? Political prisoners should not, first of all, there shouldn't be political prisoners. Second of all, they shouldn't be held in abhorrent conditions. Third of all, they certainly shouldn't be murdered. No matter how you feel about them, whether you agree with their politics or not, his death is on the hands of Vladimir Putin. That, to me, is very clear to that.

And the question now about the prisoner swap, kind of interesting. Some news that just broke out of the Financial Times I have in front of me. The Germany appetite, apparently, for the deal with the Kremlin is now much lower, as you said, because Putin had assumed that if they could swap him in principle, then all he had to do was to have some sort of, he would get rid of Navalny and then he can offer up Evan Gersovich and possibly this new American citizen, dual American citizen who's in prison in Russia. But it appears now that the Germans are cooling on their, any sort of prisoner swap. I mean, one of the reasons this is bad news is, look, Evan has now been in prison now for almost, what, 300 days. I mean, he's nearing a year in captivity. Seems fine.

You know, the images that are coming out of Moscow, he appears healthy. But, you know, that's not good, as we've learned here with Navalny, to be put in prison for quite a long time. So I would hope, certainly, that even if the, you know, yes, I think this is abhorrent and all that, but, like, we need to get our man out of there as soon as possible. And, you know, in exchange for a Russian hitman, doesn't seem like too bad of a deal. So be it. Right. So be it. Absolutely. So be it. All right, let's move on to the next part here. This was some major news that happened just

yesterday, combines with some even worse major news. I'll start with the major headline coming overnight from our allies in France. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. In terms of nobody asking for this and yet being floated anyway, President Emmanuel Macron at a major meeting of the European powers to mark the two-year anniversary of Ukraine's invasion, now is floating the idea of Western troops on the ground. He says, quote, there is no consensus today to send in an official endorsed manner of troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out. This is absolutely extraordinary news to me, news to a lot of people in NATO.

Very quickly, Crystal, overnight the Kremlin reacting, saying that if this is in fact true, then war with the United States, with NATO, is, quote, inevitable. Here's what they say, quote, in that case, it wouldn't be likely inevitable. That is how we assess it. That is according to the official spokesperson for the Kremlin. So Macron basically floating an entire war with the NATO alliance. I do find it interesting that immediately the Germans actually smacked him down. Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, immediately putting out a tweet in German saying, just so we're clear, there will be no Western troops or NATO troops that are being sent

into the country. But just goes to show, you know, the brain worm is there. Even with reality on the ground, they're like, well, Ukraine's losing. America won't ship them anymore. Ammo, we literally don't have the capacity to send ammo. So what's left? It was inevitable. I didn't think they were stupid enough to float it, though, especially somebody in a democratic country. But if anything, I'm happy about it. Please run on it. Put it to the American people. Should we send Western troops to save Ukraine on the battlefield? I think I know what that answer would be. NATO Chief Stoltenberg came out to also rebuff Macron's comments. Although I think his phrasing is very interesting. He says there are no plans. Yes, exactly. For NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine. But Macron didn't say there were plans.

He said that this is something that needs to be kept on the table and, you know, a theory that needs to be discussed. He didn't say that there are active plans to do it. And listen, it makes some logical sense if you are in the, you know, extreme pro-Ukraine camp where you genuinely believe that Russia intends, you know, next is going to be Poland on their list and they're going to, you know, try to have this incredibly expansionist imperial project and that it's going to force the NATO conflict down the line anyway. So if you're looking at the situation, the battle situation in Ukraine, and you realize they don't have a chance to win unless you do have something like NATO and US and French boots on the ground in the country, that's how you end up saying like this.

I think it's extraordinarily revealing about how dire the Ukrainian situation actually is right now and how out of ideas they are for changing that, save for, you know, something that would be incredibly not just unpopular, but insane, foolish, reckless, et cetera, as is being floated here. What's really fascinating to me is that if you read, so I talked previously about how Germany, their parliament, you know, they have a democratic system over there, Crystal, where major things actually get floated to the legislature and they get to vote and decide how and whether they should send certain types of cruise missiles. It's a really interesting concept. We should maybe want to try it. Well, in their parliament, they overwhelmingly voted not to send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. And the German chancellor gave a very good justification for this. He says, listen, these are longer-range missiles. They could use them to strike Russia. But more importantly, the Ukrainian troops are

too incompetent and not well-trained enough. And to actually employ these on the battlefield would require German troops on the ground to operate these cruise missile systems. Thus, I am not putting Germany in a place where we're going to become an active combatant. He says, quote, we will not become a party to the war. I have to come back to the strategic logic. The entire point of our supposed, you know, why we got to back Ukraine to the hill is that if we don't stop Putin here, then he's going to continue into NATO countries. Then why are the major powers in NATO, like Germany, the largest economy on the continent, largest economy out of Britain

in the NATO alliance, why are they so cautious? And they're not shipping everything they've got because they don't believe it. It's one of those where at this point, the Ukrainians have been roughly hung out to dry. They've been screwed. I think, you know, from day one, they're like dangled here. They're basically being used as pawns. Vast majority of the prime age, courageous males, they're all dead and or amputated now. And so now I think we're really starting to get a taste of what this war is really all about. You see it being pitched here in Washington as like, hey guys, the money's not being sent to Ukraine, it's being sent to our defense contractors. So it's good for the economy.

I'm like, wait, what? Multiple officials have said that now. Victoria Nuland came out and said, we just gotta keep in mind this money that we're sending to Ukraine. This is really going to our defense industry. That is so sick. I can't even believe it.

I can't even believe it. I can't even believe it. You know, there was a an executive from one of those companies that went to speak to college students in Texas. And they were getting all these questions about, like, you know, how how much if I go to work at your company, you know, will I get to directly be involved in making the bombs that kill Palestinian children. He was like, he had no idea how to do it. But the sickness of thinking that that's a reason to go to war. Right. It's really I mean, that's a mask off moment, because that is a big part of the reason why we end up in these endless conflicts, because there are people that are making a buck off of it, not just making a buck. They are filthy rich and they all live right around here, by the way. There's a reason why McLean, Virginia is one of the wealthiest zip codes in the entire freaking country. It's because of these ghouls and that ideology of like, well, war is good for the economy. Sick.

It is absolutely sick that they would make that argument, and it's extraordinarily revealing that they feel like that's the best that they can do at this point in terms of selling this for the American people. We were talking about this before, Sagar, but I do think it is worth noting. Now that you have the Israel war on Palestine, the Ukrainian cause, it really has taken a massive hit because all of the aspirational, ideological language about, oh, it's a fight for democracy and we're so principled and human rights and we're against these Russian war crimes and whatever, like they can't even talk like that anymore. No, they don't even talk like that anymore.

And actually, John Stewart made this very point in some of his dialogue in his show last night. We'll show you a little bit of in another segment. But, you know, they can't even say those words because the hypocrisy is so blatant and so shameful that even these basically shameless people can't bring themselves to, you know, say the words international rules based order when we're there saying, you know, basically we don't care about what the ICJ has to say. And we're going to argue on Israel's behalf that the occupation, the settlements aren't really illegal, or at least they're not, you know, you're not the proper venue to be dealing

with it. We can't really say what war crimes are when it comes to Israel. All of that has gone out the window. So now they're just left with like, well, it's good for the weapons makers to keep shipping these weapons and making more money. Insanity. So Russia annexing eastern Ukraine, illegal. Israel settlements, it's complicated. It's like, well, you know, they both got a historical claim, right? That's the defense that all these people,

the sanctimony that we have been subjected to over the last two years, it has been one of the great pleasures to watch it completely unwind. Just to make it all clear, though, by the way, in terms of NATO, just because Germany may be acting well in this one instance, there has been a major development, which we would miss if we didn't go into. Put it up there on the screen, please. Officially yesterday, the Hungarian parliament voted for Stockholm, Sweden to join the NATO alliance, clearing the way for all 32 countries for allow to its ascension. This is effectively very noteworthy because Sweden, I don't think a lot of people understand this, has had an official policy of neutrality for 200 years. They were

actually neutral in the Second World War. A lot of US airmen who had damaged aircraft actually went and landed in Sweden and were interred there. Apparently they had a good time whenever they were there. But my point just being like even when the Nazis were around and the Russians, the Cold War, they had an official policy of neutrality. You really want to tell me that the things have changed so much for them to abandon it? Now, listen, it's their right, but it's also our right not to allow them in. We've decided to. Finland and Sweden adding a huge border with

Russia. We actually have a map that we can show everybody here. This is extraordinary. I mean, look at this new map of NATO. But if we go to the next one, guys, please, I want everybody to understand just how much frontage has now been added for the overall NATO border. Look at that border crystal between Finland and Russia. We are talking about some 800 miles of new territory that basically the United States is now set to defend and of which we will go to nuclear war over. Finland, a country which has literally been at war with Russia and invaded by them previously, the theory being that we should extend it all the way over there to make sure that nothing happens. And lo and behold, what has been the effective result? Has Russia, you know, invaded Finland and all that? No. But guess what? They haven't backed down. They've increased defense spending, historic levels, not just to fund Ukraine. They've actually re-militarized their border with Finland. And both Finland and Sweden now, who were both under the 2% defense threshold,

are doing everything in their power to try and meet to 2%. Which look, I guess if they're going to be in the alliance, at least I support that. But it's one of those where the circular logic of the war, it's like, we got to expand NATO to defend NATO. We got to defend Ukraine to defend NATO. It just, it never ends. All it leads to is more of U.S. entrenchment on the continent where nobody ever asks why it makes any strategic sense. Like, sorry, Finland, you know, you guys have been invaded before. Are you really that critical to the U.S. economy? No, absolutely not. You people literally fought with the Nazis also in World War II. Like, we have to really think about what we're extending ourselves for. So I've been saving this rant for a while, but it's one of those where, you know, you can't just let it pass because it's one of those.

It's just how that's just how North Macedonia got into the alliance. Just how Montenegro, everybody just signs these people up as if there's no consequence to it. And then one day there really might be. And look at that border and tell me that you don't think nothing's going to happen. Yeah. And remember, those expansions happened under the supposedly-NATO Donald Trump. Yeah, under Trump. So keep that in mind when you see this little freak out. Oh my God, he's going to break up the NATO alliance. Really? Yeah. Because he did the exact opposite last time he was in office. You know, with regard to Finland, the Russians, the Kremlin spokesman Pescovi told the BBC Russia

be watching closely how NATO uses the Finnish territory, quote, in terms of basing weapon systems and infrastructure there, which will be right up close to our borders, potentially threatening us based on that measures will be taken. So as far as I can tell, the entire logic of admitting Finland into NATO is basically like, oh, the Russians aren't going to like this. Right. That's right. So is that what our foreign policy is based around, like owning the Russians? Because what you're doing is you're creating more potential vectors of escalation, more potential vectors of conflict, and you're calling that improved security. Right.

Not to mention, I mean, the discussion that you're having here about, hey, American people, are you ready to send your sons and daughters to, you know, die for Finland or die for North Macedonia or whatever? That's never discussed in the U.S. press. I mean, really never discussed in the U.S. press. Should be, yeah. And maybe the American people say, yeah, we believe in that, you know, we think this is good for us, whatever. But the very fact that the debate doesn't even happen, you know, it's just never spelled out what the implications actually are of this expansion. It's effectively taken as a given. It's accepted as just all upside, no downside, as a great way

to like own Putin, you know, put him in his place and show him that we're going to do the thing he doesn't want us to do. And for what ultimately? So that's the other tragedy here is just, and this has been the case throughout the entire Ukraine war, is there's only ever been one side and one narrative presented. None of the potential follow-on costs and consequences have ever been laid out. And that's how you end up in a situation like we are right now and like the Ukrainians are right now that is horrible, absolutely horrible for everyone involved with no end in sight and no plan for how we're going to ever resolve this conflict. That's how you end up there. So it is, it is, you know, it is a troubling dynamic. There's just no doubt about it.

It's just one of those where, you know, look, I can think about it in terms of economic terms. You know how much trade we do with Finland? $11 billion. Like, you want to go to nuclear war over $11 billion? Not everything is Munich. You know, not everything is World War II and the fall of France. It's the infection of the brain that, you know, you can double NATO's border with Russia, and nobody talks about it. And think about it in terms also, not just, you know, the nukes, because obviously it would get to there. Let's say it doesn't go nuclear and it's merely conventional. That means, just like in World War II, there are going to be guys from Kansas or wherever deployed up to the Arctic Circle to defend the territorial integrity of the Finnish-Russo border.

Sorry, I don't think it's worth it. I think most people would agree with me if you actually put it up for a vote, but that's why it all just sneaks in. And the next thing you know, boom, you get involved in this and you never even had a say in the first place. Enough of the soapbox, I think, Crystal. We've got Israel. We've got things to soapbox in regard to Israel as well. So our great president of the United States, Joseph Biden, he went on Seth Meyers last night. Before he did, though, he decided they decided to go get ice cream at 30 walk, as you do. And it's just a bizarre scene unfolding. He gets asked about Israel and makes some actually consequential news about his expectations of this temporary ceasefire.

Let's just watch how this all unfolded. Can you give us a sense of when you think that ceasefire will start, sir? Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend. I mean, the end of the weekend. At least my national security advisor tells me that we're close, we're close. It's not done yet.

And my hope is by next Monday, we'll have a ceasefire. I mean, I don't know. There's just something optically about talking about something so extraordinarily serious where thousands if not millions of lives are on the line while you're casually eating an ice cream cone with

Seth Meyers that it's just strange. It just is very discordant I guess would be the right word there. So in an attempt to I guess silence the critics and show he's really, really up to the job, etc., he decided to do this softball interview with Seth Meyers on late night. He won't sit for, you know, a journalist at a real newspaper or anything that might be even remotely contentious, like what would have probably also been a softball interview in front of the Super Bowl.

But he'll go on late night television and do a little banter with Seth Meyers here. He did address a bit of his Israel policy. Let's take a listen to some of what he had to say. Because again, we see this horrible, every day, we see these horrible images out of Gaza. And is there a path forward? Is there a safe future for the people who live there? There is a path forward with difficulty, but here's the path forward. Look, first of all, the hostages being held must be released. And then we've got a principle agreement, there'll be a ceasefire while that takes place. Ramadan's coming up, and there's been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out.

That gives us time to begin to move in directions that a lot of Arab countries are prepared to move in. For example, Saudi Arabia is ready to recognize Israel. Jordan, Egypt, there's six other states. I've been working with Qatar. And the bottom line is that I'm not, I think the only way Israel ultimately survives, and I make no bones about it, I get criticized for having said a long time ago, you need not be a Jew to be a Zionist. I'm a Zionist. Where there's no Israel, there's not a Jew in the world to be safe. But here's the deal. They also have to take advantage of an opportunity to have peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians who are being used as pawns by Hamas. Israel has slowed down the attacks in Rafah. They have to, and they've made a commitment to me, they're going to see to it that there's

ability to evacuate significant portions of Rafah before they go and take out the remainder of Hamas. But it's a process. And look, Israel has had the overwhelming support of the vast majority of nations. If it keeps this up without this incredibly conservative government they have, and Ben-Gavir and others, I've known every major foreign policy leader in Israel since Golda Meir, they're going to lose support from around the world. And that is not in Israel's interest. So there's a lot there, actually, to say, Sagar. First of all, on that last piece, you know, he wants to frame the problem with Israel as just being specific to these few extremists like Ben-Gavir. Just like with his settler policy,

I'm going to sanction these four violent settlers as if the problem with the settlements is just this fringe, violent group, not the entire policy of settlements, which has been ongoing since the Golda Meir days. He wants to paint it as like, oh, it's just the problem is just this government, which obviously is not the case, especially when you look at the fact that, you know, all of the coalition members of the war cabinet, even the ones that were quote unquote moderate, you know, people like President Isaac Herzog, who's out there saying there's no uninvolved civilians, like the overwhelming majority of Israeli society, regardless of where they situate themselves on the domestic political spectrum, is on board with this outrageous assault on the Gaza Strip. So I think it is very disingenuous

and really gaslighting to try to pin this just on, oh, it's just Ben-Gavir, it's just these few extremists. That's the real problem here. That's number one. Number two, on Rafah, I noticed the language has shifted from originally the Biden administration was really warning Netanyahu against going into RAFA at all. Now he's saying, oh, I got this promise from Bibi that he's going to evacuate the civilians because they've done such a great job of protecting civilians thus far. So I noted that shift in language, which we've seen some of before. The other thing, Sagar, I find so disgusting this language about how if there wasn't an Israel, there wouldn't be a Jew in the world who was safe. We have a huge Jewish diaspora here. And the idea that you are president of the United States and you don't think you can keep your own people safe is a real admission that is, you know, that is sort of scary and disgusting and pathetic all at once. But the other thing is here in terms of Jewish security, I would say that there is no country on the planet that is making Jews less secure than Israel. Think of those comments we played the other day

of that women's equality or whatever minister that they have in Israel, who said she wants, she's proud of the ruins of Gaza. She wants the children and the grandchildren of these Palestinians to know not what Israel did, what the Jews did to them. There is no country in the world that is fomenting more likely future extremism and radicalism against Jewish people than Israel is right now. So on

every level, I found those comments so obnoxious, abhorrent, disingenuous, and just wrong that I can't even begin to describe it. But that line too has always bothered me, and it's like a typical Bidenism. So I just have it in front of me. There are 7.6 million Jews in the United States who are living peacefully, freely as all other American citizens. There's only 9.3 million people who live inside Israel. And if I have my math right, what is it? Around 20 percent of those are Arab. So what do we got? We have probably the same number of Jews who live in the U.S. than who live in the state of Israel. So if Israel didn't exist, then the Jews in America wouldn't be safe. There have been Jews in this country since the Civil War. You know, there are people, Jews who fought on both sides whenever they didn't exist. They were proud patriots, and they have a deep tie to our American history. And they had nothing to do with the state of Israel, just so everybody knows. But this is the problem.

You know, the Israelis want it both ways, too. They have it so that you have a conflation of Judaism and of their own sovereignty, which basically allows Israel not to be treated as a nation state like any other, through which there are pluses and minuses. They imbue themselves with the religious sense. And then same thing here is that you conflate anti-Zionism, quote unquote, with anti-Semitism and with Jewish safety here in America. Now, if the Jews themselves want to make the decision, that's your right as an American. But for an Irish Catholic president to say that, I think it's anti-Semitic. I do.

Because, again, it's a conflation of a nation statehood with the identity as a U.S. citizen. I would say the same thing about India. India's sovereignty or whatever has no place on my rights or my conception or my identity as an American citizen. It happens to be a place my family is from. There are a lot of countries that don't exist anymore, Silesia or whatever. It's not a country, but a region that people emigrated from to the U.S., but they don't think of their territorial integrity of that, you know, place, let's say the Balkans, Yugoslavia, as conflating with their own identity and safety here in America. And that's the exact problem where a lot of domestic Jews want to have

it both ways, but now the president wants to have it both ways too. And I think that's really wrong. So I think part of this little, you know, late night appearance and whatever also has to do with the fact that the primary in Michigan is today. I think that the Biden campaign people have stopped deluding themselves about the idea that, oh, all these people worried about the, you know, our complicity in genocide in the Gaza Strip. They'll get over it. They'll get over it. They'll move on. Don't worry. That's just this fringe group. They're really not that big a deal. I actually saw a poll that from yesterday from Emerson of the Michigan Democratic primary electorate that had roughly 10 percent of voters planning to vote uncommitted, which is pretty extraordinary.

That is a lot. And almost 30 percent of young voters between 18 and 29 planning to vote uncommitted. I mean, this is like an ad hoc movement that just sprung up that has next to no money behind it, et cetera. And yet you have enough sentiment that it could potentially today take a significant chunk of the vote. So I think part of the why he's out there, you know, doing his little ice cream ceasefire bit is to try to persuade people that, oh, I'm really interested in peace. Oh, I'm really standing up to the Netanyahu government, et cetera, et cetera, when it's going to take a lot more than that at this point. You're going to have to actually change policy,

not just pretend to be interested in peace for one late night appearance. In a sign of how concerned they are about, you know, what the vote total will be in Michigan for uncommitted, they sent Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is way more popular in the state than Joe Biden, by the way, out to try to get the vote out, to try to convince the Democratic faithful that they needed to go, they needed to show up, they needed to vote for Joe Biden. Let's take a listen to how she is making the case. Well, I'm not sure what we're going to see on Tuesday, to tell you the truth. I can tell you this, that Michigan has been so fortunate to be the home of a robust Arab, Muslim, Palestinian community and a robust Jewish community.

We've lived in harmony as neighbors for decades. And there's a lot of pain all across all of these communities because of what's happening halfway around the world. This is, I think, a very high stakes moment. I am encouraging people to cast an affirmative vote for President Biden. I understand the pain that people are feeling and I'll continue to work to build bridges with folks in all of these communities because they're all important to me, they're all important to Michigan, and I know they're all important to President Biden as well. It sounds like you're preparing for a sizable

portion of the vote being uncommitted and sending that protest message to President Biden. You know, Dana, I'm just not sure what to expect. Just not sure what to expect. I mean, that's very interesting. So she doesn't want to set any expectations whatsoever for how it's going to come out. I mean, you can imagine, first of all, very clear she's a much better politician than Joe Biden is. You know, she went out of her way. She really should have been picked, like her vice president. She'd be way better than Kamala Harris. Yeah. I mean, you know, in any case, you can see she's going out of her way to try to express her sympathy for Arab American populations in the state,

which she knows is a significant constituency in Michigan and very important to her electorally, not to mention Joe Biden. So, you know, she's really trying to express this sympathy while fully supporting the guy who is doing all the terrible things that are causing them so much pain and grief and causing them to turn away from the Democratic Party. But I found it extraordinary both that they felt the need to send her out to a variety of cable news shows. And I also found it quite extraordinary that she would not commit to what percent of the vote she thought uncommitted would get. She did not want to set any sort of expectations so that they can spin after the fact, you know, if uncommitted does get 10% of the vote, oh, that's not that much. That's not that significant. In reality, that would be, I think, quite significant in the context of, you know, voting for literally uncommitted over the guy who was president right now on this sort of like ad hoc shoestring effort that sprung up.

It's interesting. It's interesting for a protest vote. We'll see what happens. No, I think they're worried about it, Crystal. I really do. And because there's no other reason to have that. Also, I'm not sure if you saw, Beto, he had some sort of like mea culpa. He put out a statement. He's like, actually, I do support President Biden, just to be clear, just so everybody knows. My opinion of Beto is back to what it used to be. The phone is ringing over there, folks. That also shows they're concerned. They couldn't even let, you know, the great influencer Beto O'Rourke to have a say on this. They had to completely lock it down. Absolutely. What a what a weakling. That's so lame. Agreed. Immediately caved. We also wanted to show you Nancy Pelosi was subject to something she's not used to, which was an actually tough interview.

And there was a number of extraordinary moments, but one in particular where she's both exposed as completely ignorant and her attempted support for the Biden policy just crumbles in real time. Let's take a listen to how this went down. We have a, I don't want to call him Mr. because I've lost so much respect for him, Netanyahu there, who seems to be- You've lost respect for him. Long time ago. But nonetheless, he seems to be calling the shots and he and his very extreme right wing, I wouldn't even say conservative because that's a legitimate place to be calling the shots and he and his very extreme right wing. I wouldn't even say conservative because that's a legitimate place to be in the world of thinking on the spectrum. But right wing, radical right wing cabinet.

But there are levers that Biden could use, which he hasn't used. There are levers which previous presidents have used when Israel has in their view crossed the line. For example? Go back to 1956, Eisenhower threatened sanctions if Israel didn't pull its forces out of Sinai. Reagan, you know, held up delivery of fighter jets over Israel's action in Lebanon. George Bush Sr. blocked loan guarantees because of settlement building. He did. I was there the day that That I know he's going back to 56. I mean, so these leavers are there there's some but the president has

said something about of the the settlements he has said something about the settlements but saying and blocking Weapons supplies for a very different things, aren't they? Well, it's a path. It's a path. It's a path. It's a path.

The Reagan example was great. And she apparently, I guess, wasn't aware. She seemed to know about the Bush one. Lady, you were alive at that time. I'm pretty sure you were in Congress, so you know. And then this week, like, well, the president has said something about the settlement. Oh, wow. He said something about the settlements. What a brave warrior really standing up for human rights here. And then when she's pressed on, she's like, it's a path. It's like, well, yeah, I guess it is a path, isn't it?

But, you know, it's so rare that American politicians actually get pushed on any of this. And they're so locked into this mindset that, oh, well, Israel can just do whatever they want. We really have no power over them, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, that is exposed right there, then and there in real time. And she also, Sagar, echoes the same language about like, oh, it's the problem is just this like extremist government. That's the real issue. Trying to confine it to a few bad apples, so to speak, versus, you know, the entirety of the project and the illegal occupation and the settlements and the, you know, assault on Palestinians, the collective punishment, et cetera. Yeah. I mean, that is one of those where

for a long, for a while there was a sizable, I wouldn't say anti-settlement, but people who did not agree with the policy. It doesn't appear that they have any real power in Israeli society right now. A lot of that is downstream of demographic. A lot of it is downstream of how people feel about Hamas, about with the war. There's no use in pretending that a society that exists doesn't exist. We can't project our own neuroses and desires onto another country. I see this with American Indians all the time. They don't like Modi or a lot of the BJP. And it's like, yeah, well, India does. And you don't live there anymore. So deal with it. It's one of

those where you can't conjure up a fake country in your head. You just have to deal with what's actually in front of you. You also flagged this, Crystal, about the ICJ. Let's put it up there on the screen. They're currently filing their report to the ICJ by trying to protest the ruling that plausible acts of genocide were occurring. politicians who are defending them, but at the baseline level, they are preparing and are worried about the continued pushback from the community of nations, even if there is no genuine enforcement mechanism, you know, per se. It just, you know, basically, imagine it's like South Africa. Like, if you find yourself basically, you know, at the crux of a global, genuine BDS movement then post-October 7th, let's say two, three years from now, that's going to have some serious ramifications for your economy. I actually just saw a piece of news that flashed this morning about how Secretary Janet Yellen

just sent a letter to Bibi expressing concern about the situation of the Israeli economy and directly tying it to the West Bank and to a continued settlement saying that you have a real problem here. So if our Treasury Secretary is getting involved, you know it's bad. Yeah, that's right. So this report was mandated by the ICJ in their initial ruling saying that Israel is plausibly committing genocide. And they said, you have a month to file a report about how you're complying with these injunctions. They stopped short of overtly calling for a ceasefire, but they called on them to cease the actions that basically led them to that conclusion that you're plausibly committing genocide.

There was a lot of focus on cited in South Africa's filing go all the way up to the president and the prime minister and numerous security cabinet members, numerous Likud party members, et cetera. So this report that Israel filed, which unfortunately is actually private, it's not made public, but reportedly they said it would be brief and that they were expected to assert, this is per Haaretz, that it is permitting humanitarian aid, including food, medical equipment, to enter Gaza in an organized manner, is permitting civilians to leave areas in which there is fighting in accordance with international law. The report is also expected to state that Israel investigates suspected war crimes and cases of incitement advocating harming civilians in Gaza.

To your point, Sagar, about how Israel does appear to be concerned about what happens at the ICJ, even as it doesn't, you know, as everyone always say, have an enforcement mechanism. Our Supreme Court also doesn't have an enforcement mechanism. It's all about the way that the institutions and bodies that are involved, whether they respect the decisions or not, they do seem to be concerned. They put out that memo, remember, from a top leader of the IDF, basically being like, don't do any war crimes, guys. And definitely don't record yourself doing any war crimes. That was seen as basically, you know, a sort of like last minute attempt to cram for the exam of showing that they're serious about war crimes and human rights, et cetera. But let me show you the reality, which won't be any surprise to any of you

who have been watching this show, because we've been covering the fact that they've been allowing these protesters to block aid from coming into the Gaza Strip. So the idea that they've been really expediting in aid and that that's been a top priority for them in compliance with what they're required to by the ICJ is obviously preposterous, not to mention the fact that we now have confirmed reports of babies and others actually dying from starvation. But Human Rights Watch had specific numbers to

rebut what Israel is claiming here in their ICJ response. We can put this up on the screen. They say Israel is not complying with the world court order in the genocide case, failing to ensure basic services and aid. Here's the bottom line. Fewer trucks have entered Gaza and fewer aid missions have been permitted to reach northern Gaza in the weeks since the ruling than in the weeks preceding it, according to the UN. So data published by OCHA and the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East say that the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza with food, aid, medicine, etc. dropped by more than a third in the weeks following post ICJ ruling versus 147 trucks per day. And you only had 57 trucks per day in the most recent time period between February 9th and February 21st. So we're actually going

backwards. We're going in the wrong direction in terms of humanitarian aid to a population that is now literally starving to death. And some portion of that certainly has to do with these protests that are being allowed, which are blocking the trucks. Another part of why this is occurring is because you've had now documented reports, including by CNN, that Israeli forces have struck a food convoy that was back on February 5th. You've also had relief organizations saying that they can no longer operate because of their fear that they will be attacked in spite of the fact that they're coordinating with the IDF, with Israeli authorities. They're giving them their coordinates to avoid being attacked. Standard deconfliction

channels, that has been no guarantee whatsoever. So that's the other portion, is that these aid convoys have no ability to move, especially to northern Gaza, and remain safe. And you have very limited amounts coming into the Strip in the first place. So, you know, it's preposterous to imagine that Israel has actually fulfilled their obligations that the ICJ ruled back a month ago. Yeah, no, it's the, the protests that they've allowed have been absolutely insane, especially considering their response that we covered yesterday to the protests that are against Bibi. Yeah. They just don't treat them equally. It's like, well, then you're basically allowing it to happen. And, you know, people have eyes, unfortunately for them, we all have,

you know, there's video and Google Translate. I honestly think if this had happened in the 90s, we'd be living in a totally different situation. Imagine, no phones, you know, no footage. I mean, in a lot of ways, it's kind of what 2006 was like. 2006 was a brutal war. We didn't really learn that much. Most of it was totally controlled by the media apparatus. But in the current system, the stuff doesn't work anymore.

There's some major media news, which we've been wanting to cover now for quite some time. I have some mixed feelings about this. Let's get into it. Let's put it up there on the screen. Vice Media, which was once valued at $5.7 billion after filing for bankruptcy previously, is now shutting down vice.com and laying off hundreds of staffers. This is really extraordinary. So Vice, as we all remember, filed for bankruptcy last year. It was then bought by a consortium led by basically like one of those private investment groups. They're selling the company off piecemeal. They've come to a decision where they've decided we're just not going to publish on this website at all anymore. I don't really know what plans they have that remain for the brand. And hundreds of the people

who work there axed. They're gone on top of the hundreds of people that were already laid off previously. And I guess the only reason why I can say I have mixed feelings is I'm not quite sure that we would be, at least I don't think I would be here without Vice. Vice was one of the major inspirations that I had for getting into this business, watching the Vice Guide to Travel. Shane Smith was a huge inspiration to me back in the early 2010s, all of them, all of the original founders, kind of their image and the gonzo ability. But more importantly, it was a story of legitimately rivaling the mainstream. And the millennial aspect was played up a bit too much. But the thing that they did get right

was that the staid and the boring aspect and the propagandistic ways that original media worked was not something that the new generation wanted. And I think early, early days of Vice genuinely spoke to that, and that spoke to a lot of their success. But look, you know, at the same way, Shane has also been a very cautionary tale. One that I think about for our business all the time is I'm like, this guy, I mean, he was raising billions and billions of dollars to turn into a Ponzi scheme where he's like taking money out, inflating the value. At one point he admitted to somebody that there was no grand plan. It was to try and sell to the latest idiot who was buying their marketing plan. And now he's living in luxury in Los Angeles last time I checked. And all these people are screwed. That was what a lot of people pointed out is that executives

were still getting big fat bonuses last year, as recently as last year, even as their business model was completely crumbling. It's wild for me to think about. First of all, it's sad for the people who weren't there. And this is part of a broader trend of massive media layoffs that we've been seeing. LA Times, BuzzFeed, the collapse of the messenger, that's a whole other story. But there's clearly a failure of some of the business models that supported especially these digital-focused companies for a long time. I agree with you. The early days of Vice, you know, I was at MSNBC when Vice was really hot. Right. And they were terrified. They should be. They were terrified of Vice. You know, because they could go out, they could send someone on a freaking ISIS ride along.

And it was good. Which was wild. Yeah, it was good. In any established media outlet, you know, you have to have, first of all, you just probably wouldn't do it. Right. But if you did, the expense involved, the caution involved, the number of fixers that you'd have to have, the amount of security you'd have to have, all of that would have to be in place for understandable good reasons because you want to protect your people. And here comes Vice just willing to go balls out and do all kinds of crazy stuff. And people were glued to it because it did have that like authentic, unvarnished, unpackaged, non-corporate feel. And so it really was a glimpse and a preview into, you know, some of the media brands now, the alternative media brands that are successful, you know, some of the media brands now, the alternative media brands that are successful,

you know, in terms of their business, I looked at their YouTube channel yesterday to see what kind of things they're doing. I mean, there's. Yeah, what's up? I haven't looked in a long time. It's very niche, but some of their stuff still pops off. You know, it still gets millions of views sometimes on YouTube. And so I was thinking, you know, Vice at this point, it probably makes sense as like an operation a little bit larger than what we do, you know, to just put out like video content on these, you know, interesting or edgy or whatever topics that have a real audience that people still are interested in. But, and I think this is the case for a lot of these news organizations that have failed. But to have this like 900 person operation with this giant headquarters in Brooklyn or

wherever and support all of that, there's just that's just not going to work. It's just not going to work. The other company that was the big hot company at the time when Vice was coming up and that everybody was terrified of and trying to get in on their success was BuzzFeed. And it's the same deal. I mean, completely, completely hollowed out. You know, that business model is also completely collapsed. And so, you know, a lot of ways it really is an end, the end of an era for Vice and BuzzFeed and these other outlets to be totally hollowed out. But there was a moment there when there was a lot of dumb money flowing to these companies, many of which were much less credible than Vice or Buzz Feed. You think about like Mike.com and all these companies that sprung up then that were getting

these multiple hundred million dollar valuations and whatever and money was flowing out. There was just a recent with the recount was a video play that raised millions and millions of dollars. And it's like, I just want to know how that ever penciled out, how it ever penciled out that that was going to work out from a business perspective. It just doesn't really make sense to me. No, it doesn't. Well, and the reason, look, it's funny whenever the rich people go bust, but it's not funny whenever you hire people and then they get screwed and you legitimately sell them a vision. And also, there are hundreds of people who are now out of work. Let's put this up there on the screen.

Just in January 2024, 500 journalists were laid off from the LA Times, from Vice, from so many different places, GQ, Sports Illustrated. So a lot of this is ideological. A lot of this's just bad business. As you point out with BuzzFeed, I just looked up their stock. Currently trading at 33 cents a share. Whenever it debuted, it debuted at $10 a share. So what is that? You can do the math in terms of what the overall loss in their stock value is. I mean, it's basically a bargain company just waiting and being chucked off piece by piece. It's kind of humiliating for not only a lot of the money that was put in, but just for the game that a lot of those people talked at the time. It's one of those, it's a good lesson in humility, but also just,

you know, you gotta run scared. You gotta be careful whenever you're running a company. And I don't think a lot of these people did. So it's sad what happened. One of my favorite vice docs was the guy, Haimo, the one who lived in the Arctic Circle. It came out like 2009. I remember watching it. I've never seen anything like this. And I just watched you, went on YouTube, debuted 11 years ago now at some point, has like eight and a half million views. I mean, that was the heyday, the Vice Guide to North Korea with the cannibal thing from Liberia. I mean, these were incredible, incredible to watch. They changed the whole game. And then, boom, you know, for a variety of reasons, most of

them their own fault. It just all went away. Yeah. I mean, that ad-supported model just, it just doesn't, it just doesn't work. It just doesn't pencil out. There just isn't the money there. And so you have to be able to switch to, you know, reader-supported or viewer-supported, some sort of membership model. And to make that work, you have to be able to switch to, you know, reader supported or viewer supported, some sort of membership model. And to make that work, you have to be providing something that is really meaningful to people where they feel like they want to be invested into it. And even then, you know, it will be difficult to support, you know, 900 people. That's just an insane size and overhead to be able to support. I think there used to be, you know, going back in the day,

there used to be like a prestige ethos around media where it wasn't so much about like, this is a money-making venture. It was more about like, this is a civic commitment. This is a, you know, prestige for me, my family, my whatever, my business. And so the profit-making was also not as central, but also the business models worked a bit better than they do now. So I think we're very much in a transitional phase right now. And it's not clear whether what comes out on the other end is better or worse, I'd say. Big time, big time. All right, let's move on to the next part here. There was a very interesting exchange between Joe Rogan and Kid Rock on the war in Gaza that we wanted to break down for everybody. Let's take a listen. If you lived in Gaza, you would be convinced that it's the end of the world,

right? Because it is the end of the world in one place. In that spot, it's the end of the world. But where you are, it's not. And you got to look at it that way. And when I look at it that way, the only wars we won were fucking ones where the most brutal motherfuckers on the planet, which I don't disagree with what Israel's doing. It's like they should just go in there and be like, you know what? We want our hostages back. If we don't have them back, clock starts now in fucking 24 hours. We're going to start bombing motherfuckers and killing fucking civilians, 30,000, 40,000 a fucking time. So you civilians better fucking pack up and fucking get these fucking motherfuckers.

You go against Hamas. You fucking go against them. We're not playing fucking games with you. That's the only thing people understand. This is what happened to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Boom. Swiped out. They're like, oh, yes, we don't have supreme leader anymore.

We did not know you had such big bombs. Yeah, but everybody has big bombs now. The problem is you use a big bomb. You set a precedent that they can use a big bomb. They don't have one. Well, they don't, but they're allies too. That's the real problem. Then we bomb the fuck out of them. Someone's going to learn. Yeah.

You got to get your ass beat hard enough. You can't just nuclear bomb people. I didn't say nukem. Nuclear bomb you back. No, I didn't say nukem. Nuclear bomb you back. No, I didn't say nukem. Okay, you said Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I thought you meant it like that. No, no, I was saying just the brute force of strength used in those conflicts. Yeah, but even

a conventional bombing campaign, if you want to do that somewhere, they can do that to your place. And this is what we have to avoid. Fuck around and find out? Yeah, until someone launches nukes. Yeah, but if you think about you're a kid and you don't know why there's a conflict between Palestine and Israel. It's fucking war.

And you're living in Palestine. And then they start bombing. It's war. And then they kill your mom. It's fucking war. Right, but you didn't do anything. Sounds like Bud Light. And then you get guns.

You're going to go want to attack people. You're going to want to avenge them. You're going to want to join whatever group, whatever terrorist group. So why did World War II end? No, I'm sorry, man. This is fucking war. It's terrible. It's the worst thing on earth.

I'm a peaceful man. Right, but you're not supposed to pick civilian targets. That's actually a war crime. You can't fight war like that. But you're not supposed to pick civilian targets. They're hiding in civilian targets. They are. Wow. So there's a lot, I think, going on there. I think it's, okay, first of all, what I find interesting about Kid Rock is he clearly, you know, no offense, Mr. Rock,

but it appears you haven't done actually a little bit of reading about the Second World War and exactly why Hiroshima and Nagasaki and those targets were picked. Even at that time, the explicit justification, Crystal, was not to hit civilian targets for the sake of them. It was to wipe out mechanical centers and specifically centers of production. The only time where there was an explicit goal of basically burning an entire city of civilians and all that to the ground was Dresden. That was actually not the U.S. It was a U.K.-centered operation. But even then, there was a lot of consternation in America, in the U.K. government, and elsewhere

when that decision was made. And it was never justified in the terms that Kid Rock is laying out there. And it didn't work. Well, okay, but let's presume that it did work. I think there's a case of the atomic bomb that it definitely compelled, right, the surrender. But my point is that throughout the entire justification of the firebombing campaign on Tokyo, on all of the major cities of Japan, it was always to center industrial production.

It was never a primary goal, including of Curtis LeMay and of Bomber Command. You can go and read the history if you would like to. I have done an extensive deep dive into the topic. And it was explicitly agreed from the chief of staff, the president of the United States, Harry Truman, and everybody involved that it was not the quote-unquote the purpose of the operation. And that was when we had atomic and air supremacy. Rogan's best point there is like, well, first of all, dude, you know, other people can also do that.

And this, the reason I'm talking this way is let's accept that this actually would work. Well, it didn't work. Number one. Yeah. You know, it may have worked in the atomic case, but the atomic supremacy and all that we had at that time no longer applies in this. And then whenever we did firebomb Dresden and in much of the later stages of the war, the ferocity of the firebombing campaign compelled many Germans, including Luftwaffe pilots, Wehrmacht soldiers, children, older men, to fight even more for Hitler because they didn't want to repeat the same humiliation of Versailles, which made it much more bloody and much more difficult to compel victory in the first place. So that's if you just don't even accept much of the morality.

And then Rogan's point, of course, is like, hey, man, that's also a war crime. Like, you're not supposed to do that. And that's the thing. What shocks me is even, you know, everybody just tries to retcon World War II. They didn't even talk like this then. And we were fighting the Nazis and the Japanese. And they hid the photos and videos of what was done to civilians for decades because they knew the horror. And there's also a reason why after World War II, we say, all right, we got to have some rules of the road here. Because to your point, even at that time, it was clear that the

U.S. wasn't going to be the only one with nuclear capabilities. And so, you know, that was why we had to establish, all right, we have to protect civilians, number one, because this shit that just happened cannot happen again. And why there was so much policy around nuclear deterrence, because it is a very different deal when you are the one and only baddie out there with a nuke. And now, you know, Israel, Iran is close. You have numerous. Saudi, Saudis have nukes. You have numerous global powers

with massive nuclear capabilities that could literally destroy the world. And I actually appreciate Rogan bringing that up because that is the facet of this that we actually don't explore that often. We talked about it. We talk about it more with regard to Russia and Ukraine because the conflict there is so direct. But that is the logic of, you know, Kid Rock's idiotic fuck around and find out mentality is like, oh, really?

Let's explore where that actually goes. He raises not only the fact of, you know, the escalation that you do not ultimately want, which could have massive implications for everyone on the globe. He raises the morality of you can't target civilians. That's a war crime. There's a reason why we put that out of bounds. But he also talks about the fact that, you know, even in terms of even if you put aside the morality of it, which I don't think we should do, but even if you put that aside, these little kids who just had their mom killed, like, what do you think is going to happen to them? They're going to be radicalized. They're

going to grow up and join whatever militant terrorist organization is available, and they're going to try to come and kill you. So even just from a logical, like, all right, we got to win, and we got to keep our people safe, et cetera, perspective. This is foolish. And it has been clear that this is foolish from the very beginning. So I actually thought he did a good job raising some very salient points in a very accessible way. And, I mean, Kid Rock is just embarrassing. Sometimes people think Joe is just going to go along with whatever insane bullshit they're going to spell.

And he has this normie instinct of, like, you know, other people have big bombs, too. And by the way, those are war crimes. So maybe we shouldn't be going in that direction. Yeah, and it's also, it actually doesn't make sense, too. I mean, what everybody, where the instinct comes from is, you know, it's an obvious instinct. And it's one that a lot of Americans said after World War, sorry, after 9-11. They're like, oh, there's a bomb back to the Stone Age. Everything I learned about Islam lot of Americans said after 9-11, they're like, oh, it was bombed back to the Stone Age. Everything I learned about Islam, I learned about on 9-11.

But here's what people don't get. I think the only historical precedent for the mindset that he's talking about there is Genghis Khan and the Mongols in terms of the way that they were able to subjugate many of the powers that were under them. Here's what everybody forgets. After a while, those people all, you know, they may have acquiesced in the beginning. They mostly fought back. And in the end, they threw off the Mongols after, let's say, 100 years or so. My point only being that it doesn't really ever work, you know, in the long run. The best empires, the ones that were ever able to successfully conquer, which even the Mongols eventually resorted to, was, listen, you know, we're in charge. You pay us some tax, but you do what you want to do. As in trying to compel people through force

for a long and sustained period of time is very rarely a winning solution. That's, again, the point that I would make. I would also say, you know, look at the number of people that they've already killed. If it was, if the logic was theirs, we're going to continue to kill tens of thousands of people without the hostages being turned over.

Well, it hasn't worked so far. You know,'t worked so far. If anything also, I mean, what's the most common talking point? Hamas doesn't care about the population. Well, if that's true, then why would they care if you continue to massacre the population? What's the population supposed to do about it? You think they know where all the hostages are? No, they don't. I just saw a video yesterday, I think yesterday, of Ryan that Ryan highlighted of people of Hamas explicitly, you know, having a conflict or whatever with the local population. But it's one of those where you really still obscure, you know, the actual people who are on the ground and they're genuinely defenseless. That's something that I've taken away from a lot of the reading on the Tokyo

campaign, on the firebombing campaign, and on Dresden and all of that as well. These really were ordinary folks. I'm talking like farmers, daughters, people who were 16, 17 years old, little kids, and they burned alive. And it's one of those where the people around them never forgot it, and they fought to the death as a result of what they saw. And in many cases executed prisoners of – our prisoners of war and others as explicit revenge for those tasks, which I do not hope or want invite. It was a horrible time and it's not something we would ever want to repeat again. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want to go backwards there. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? A massive scandal is developing at the New York Times where

it has now been revealed that the co-author of a discredited article on rape on October 7th, liked genocidal posts on social media, is a former member of an IDF intelligence unit, and had not even worked as a journalist at all prior to taking on a central role in Times coverage. The Times is now investigating the journalist, a woman by the name of Anat Schwartz, but the questions about this incident go so far beyond this one journalist and her appreciation for psychopathic social media posts. So here is the backstory. On December 28th, the New York Times published and news alerted what appeared to be an extensive investigation into one of the most fraught and contested parts of the Israeli October 7th narrative,

that sexual assault was used by Hamas systematically as a weapon of war on that day. The piece was headlined Screams Without Words, How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on October 7th, and the byline named three different authors, Jeffrey Gettleman, Anas Schwartz, and Adam Sella. Now, the fact that Hamas committed atrocities on October 7th is not in dispute. However, certain particularly horrifying anecdotes claimed by the Israeli government have fallen apart under scrutiny by Israeli outlet Haaretz. These debunked claims include that 40 babies were beheaded, that a baby was found in an oven, and that a pregnant woman had her baby cut out of her, among others. It is no accident, of course, that these stories were propagated. This agitprop about the barbarism of Hamas was crucial for Israel in their attempt to justify a barbaric assault on the Gaza Strip.

So this piece, Screams Without Words, was published by the New York Times purporting to back up Israeli assertions about widespread rape on October 7th. It was incredibly significant. But no sooner had the piece been published that major problems emerged. The family of a woman murdered by Hamas, who was presented as a central figure in the New York Times narrative about widespread rape, denounced the story in furious and unequivocal terms. They claimed that when the Times interviewed them about their murdered loved one, Gal Abdush, under false pretenses,

the family said that they had no indication Gal had been raped, no evidence to support such claims, did not believe them to be true, and that they had no idea that the Times had planned to say that Gal had been raped. Multiple family members told the Israeli press that the media invented the story and demanded that they stop spreading lies. Gal's story comprised no less than one-third of the lengthy Times report. And that was really just the beginning of the problems with that report. Key witnesses were caught telling inconsistent stories to different news

outlets. Screams Without Words had relied on the testimony of a volunteer with an ultra-Orthodox nonprofit called Zaka that had been caught fabricating some of the most visceral debunked anecdotes about October 7th, including that one about the 40 beheaded babies. And the Times itself, well, they appeared to lose confidence in the reporting. As our colleague Ryan Graham, along with Daniel Bogoslaw, reported for The Intercept, an episode of the New York Times flagship podcast, The Daily, had been planned to detail the reporting from the sexual assault piece, which had originally been much hyped by the New York Times newsroom.

But as the quote-unquote reporting in the piece fell apart, the Times was left with a major dilemma about what to do. Should they ignore the problems, stand by their shoddy reporting, and push out the daily episode as recorded? Should they edit the daily episode in an attempt to correct the record, add caveats, and effectively admit the problems with that original report? Or should they take the coward's way out and just shelve the episode entirely? Now, a responsible outlet would either correct the original story or retract it, given the serious journalistic failings that have been brought to light. But the Times chose to keep their propaganda piece as is, shelve the Daily episode, and hope

that everyone just moved on. Incredibly, the lead author of that piece, Jeffrey Gettleman, was at great pains to explain that as a journalist, he did not see his job as providing evidence for his reporting claims. Take a listen. I don't want to even use the word evidence because evidence is almost like a legal term that suggests you're trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court. That's not my role. We all have our roles, and my role is to document, is to present information, is to give people a voice. So if this investigation didn't include evidence, what the hell are we doing here? But as if all of that wasn't wild enough, we are now learning some absolutely shocking things about the background of the second reporter on that piece, the aforementioned Anat Schwartz.

Shout out to the squirrel for doing this digging online. First of all, on October 7th, Anat liked a post calling for Gaza to be turned into a slaughterhouse. This post was so overtly genocidal in its rhetoric that it was actually cited in South Africa's filing at The Hague. The post read, in part, one principle that needs to be abandoned today, proportionality. Need a disproportionate response. May Israel see what she is hiding in the basement. If all the captives are not returned immediately, turn the strip into a slaughterhouse. If a hair falls from their head, execute security prisoners, violate any norm on the way to victory.

The post goes on to explain, quote, those in front of us are human animals. Anat also apparently liked a post about that 40 beheaded babies lie, and another one calling for an effective propaganda operation to equate Hamas with ISIS. Love for our journalists to be out here explicitly advocating for propaganda campaigns. This is completely insane. If a journalist had liked a similarly genocidal post calling for Israel to be turned into a slaughterhouse, it would be a national scandal. The entire New York Times leadership would be dragged in front of congressional hearings and summarily fired. In fact, New York Times forced out a prominent

staff writer who was not involved in Israel-Palestine coverage simply for signing a letter opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice, of course, has now agreed that it is in fact plausible Israel is committing genocide. Now, after Anat's posts were exposed, she locked down her Twitter account, deleted most of her history before returning. But while she can delete her social media history, she can't really so easily delete her professional past, which, if anything, is actually even wilder. So apparently, prior to landing this plum gig at the New York Times, Anat Schwartz had never worked as a journalist, never published a single piece anywhere ever before being scooped up by the Times in November,

just after the October 7th attack. She had been working as a small-time filmmaker. Perhaps the Times was looking for someone with a flair for the cinematic. But really think about this. Actual journalists spend their entire careers dreaming of a New York Times byline. The Times, after all, is the holy grail of elite journalism. And this lady, with literally zero experience, somehow gets brought in on a highly sensitive

investigation on one of the most fraught topics imaginable. How the hell did this happen? But Anat is not only a former filmmaker, she is also a former IDF soldier who served, I kid you not, in an Air Force intelligence unit. So the lady with the genocidal social media posts with no prior journalism experience and a background in Israeli military intelligence was contracted to report on a piece which perfectly served Israeli government propaganda efforts at the time. What is happening here? Ryan, of course, has been doing great reporting as usual.

He's got it from several sources. The Times is parting ways with Anat. It's already been reported she is under investigation. But at this point, those actions seem like convenient scapegoating to cover up much graver questions. Who brought this lady in? How did they find her? Who greenlit this piece? Why have they not addressed the journalistic collapse of their supposedly blockbuster investigation? And what other Israeli propaganda and lies are they currently laundering? It's not

only the New York Times, by the way. Wall Street Journal recently published a piece based on zero evidence that ran cover for Israeli claims about UNRWA, which helped justify the U.S. pulling aid at a time when Palestinians in Gaza are starving to death. That piece, too, was co-authored by a so-called journalist named Carrie Keller Lynn. With undeniable biases, she, too, served in the IDF and in an interview bragged about how her very close friend literally created social media for the IDF. Those are her words, not mine. Once these photos that you can see on your screen started circulating, Carrie Keller Lynn also locked her accounts, scrubbed her history to prevent anyone from gathering further insights into her pro-Israel bias. Now, this incident casts in a whole new light. The studies would show systematic bias across major news outlets when it comes to

coverage of Israelis and coverage of Palestinians. Israelis are slaughtered. Palestinians just mysteriously die. Great pains are often taken to make sure that Israel is never directly ascribed blame. And as the Palestinian death toll has climbed, the coverage of their deaths has actually plummeted. It is a testament to the outrageous nature of the suffering that in spite of this onslaught of lies and propaganda, the American people still overwhelmingly support a ceasefire. Even Anat, with her skills as a support a ceasefire. Even Anat,

with her skills as a filmmaker, with an Israeli intelligence background, can't craft propaganda strong enough to overcome the visceral horror of what has been done. And Sagar Ryan has another piece, which is going to post. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, we'll see you guys later. This is an iHeart Podcast.