Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/18/24: Trump Says Biden Weak On Israel, Media Pushes Trump 'Bloodbath' Hoax, Nathan Wade Resigns, NY Case Delayed, Boeing Whistleblower Friend Alleges Foul Play, Bibi Furious After Schumer Election Call, SCOTUS Rules Politicians Can't Block Constituents, New Migration Data

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump floating abortion ban, Trump says Biden has turned on Israel, media pushes Trump 'bloodbath' hoax, Nathan Wade resigns in GA case, Trump NY case delayed, Boeing whistleblower newly unsurfaced prediction, Netanyahu furious after Schumer calls for Israel elections, Israeli spox claims Israel doesn't interfere in US politics, SCOTUS rules politicians cannot block constituents, and new data on Covid impacts of domestic migration.   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 Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Many things to tackle this morning. So we've got a

whole bunch of Trump comments about abortion and Israel and immigrants and bloodbaths that we got to break down all of these. Very revealing as we really turn to the general election here. Both of them have Biden and Trump have now sewn up their nominations and are the presumptive nominees. So get into all of that. We also have some Trump legal news. It seems that his luck on the legal front continues. We're now facing the prospect that it is very possible he may not face any of these criminal charges in front of a jury before Election Day.

So we'll talk about that. We also have new comments that we wanted to tell you about. A friend of that Boeing whistleblower who was found dead speaking out about some of the things that that whistleblower had said to him. You will find this very, very interesting. We also have Chuck Schumer and Netanyahu really going to war. Schumer had called for a new government in Israel. Netanyahu responding. He is very upset. We don't interfere in your politics, LOL. So why should you interfere in ours? We'll break all of that down for you. We've got some new APAC talking points that are also quite revealing that we can bring to you today as well. And it's new SCOTUS ruling that is quite consequential about when and how public officials are allowed

to block their constituents on social media. So some major First Amendment implications here that could be relevant for the TikTok thing as well, possibly. Yeah, certainly. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm also doing a monologue as well, talking about census data. Before we get to that, for two things. Number one is we apologize. There was a major technical malfunction in our studio, so we're getting started a little bit late this morning. We preemptively apologize to all of our premium subscribers. And number two, you should go ahead and sign up for premium today and very soon in the coming weeks, because we have a major, major announcement that will be coming to all of you. Our premium members in particular are

going to get a real boost and there's going to be big plans that will be announced. They will, of course, be the first to hear about it. So breakingpoints.com, we still have our discount going on. You can take advantage and become a premium subscriber there. But as Crystal said, it really is the official start of the general election. And I know, you know, it's been happening now for a while, the presumptive nominees. We lived through the fake primaries. But this has largely been, you know, kind of we've known where things are going. But now that it is, and these two candidates have officially sewn up their nominations, we have to pay very close scrutiny to where and what things that these candidates are choosing to highlight, what they're choosing to turn to, what the media is

doing and all of that. So first and foremost, on the topic of abortion, it is going to be the most difficult topic for Donald Trump. He's been all over the place in his positioning on the issue. And he spoke about it at length in a Fox News interview coming out now for a 16 week abortion ban. Was curious to hear what Crystal thinks of this as well. Let's hear what he had to say. It's like fertilization. On fertilization, you saw I took the lead on that, and it's actually now our subject.

It's a positive. We want to help women. And that could have been a very negative thing. We want to help women. With Roe, you take a look at what was going on. Abortions in the seventh, eighth and ninth month. One thing that you say is nobody wants that killing of a baby after the baby's born. That was the governor, the ex-governor, last governor prior to this one, by the way.

It's a good guy. The last governor of Virginia. He said you put the baby aside and you discuss with the mother whether or not essentially you want to kill the baby. They are the radicals. There'll be a certain, there's a certain spot. If you look at France, if you look at different places in Europe, if you look at a lot of the civilized world, they have a period of time. But you can't go out seven months and eight months and nine months. And if the Republicans spoke about it correctly, it never hurt me from the standpoint of elections. It hurt a lot of Republicans. I think you have to have the three exceptions. So he says we have to have the three exceptions.

He's talking there about late-term abortion. But really what strikes me, Crystal, is he still, he just does not know how to position himself on the issue. He's coming out for IVF there at the top, then adopting more of a pro-life talking point there about late-term abortion, coming out also for a 16-week ban. I mean, this is just one of those where his lack of confidence on the issue is very un-Trump-like, and I think that shows you how difficult it's going to be for him in the election. I don't think that this is an issue problem that he can message his way out of. He's not the first Republican to try this, like, let me flip the script and talk about the areas where Democrats could be perceived as extreme on abortion. That's a playbook that's worked well for Republicans at different points in the past.

I don't think it works for them now because that's just not the landscape that people are facing post Roe, post Dobbs. That's not the battleground that is being fought on right now. So you can tell he looks very political, trying to search for an answer that's going to be at least acceptable to his base. But I think at this point, even if you had pulled previously a 15-week or a 16-week ban, it actually would have been relatively popular with sort of like a centrist moderate position. At this point, I think that the folks who are very concerned about the erosion of rights that has already occurred and potential additional erosion of rights, just hearing that you're

open to any sort of additional restrictions and bans is a major red flag and incredibly motivating in terms of coming out and voting. So I do continue to think this is a major problem for him. And listen, he's the guy, as he said many times, who put these justices on the Supreme Court that, you know, made the decision with regard to overturning Roe versus Wade. And that's not really something that you can run away from. Yeah, I think that the late term abortion talking point and debate is easier whenever there's Roe versus Wade as a status quo, because then you're arguing from a position of where the status quo is and then how far things should go. That's a very different conversation than where we are right now with abortion literally illegal in several states. And then the topics here of national bans and fear, I think, honestly justified by some

Democrats and other voters who are like, hey, what are they going to do whenever they have power? Like what's it actually going to look like at an overall federal level? Because clearly, at least some of the Republicans, Mike Pence and others, as to extent what they'll be influential or not, have advocated not for a leave it to the states, but actually have a federal standard. The second topic too, where Trump again, all over the place, both wants peace, wants an early end of the war, never would have had a war. Also going after the Democrats is Israel. I've been watching him flail now on a couple of topics. Abortion, it's TikTok and it's this one. Let's take a listen to what he said on Israel.

They're very bad for Israel. The Democrats are very bad for Israel. Israel sticks with them. I guess Israel's loyal, maybe to a fault, because they stick with these guys. Biden is so bad for Israel, they should have never been attacked. If Biden were good to Israel, they wouldn't have been attacked. President Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel because of the terrorist attacks by Hamas. If he were a supporter of Israel, they wouldn't have been attacked. President Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel because of the terrorist attacks. If he were supportive of Israel, the Iran nuclear deal would have never been signed and Israel would have never been attacked, Howie. Well, Schumer is, of course, the top Jewish Democrat in Washington.

And he says that Netanyahu is too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza. Yeah. And that he's more concerned with his own political survival and that that could make Israel a pariah. Your reaction? Well, they lost a lot of people on October 7th, too. People have to remember that. Oh, people should never forget. They've totally, well, I think maybe he's forgotten it. He doesn't forget it. He looks at where do I get more votes? And I guess he's seeing, you know, the Palestinians and he's seeing the marches and they are big. Then he says, I want to go that way instead of Israel. I don't know how Israel stays with these people. I just don't know. But he obviously said,

I see a lot of people protesting out there and they happen to be Palestinians or wherever from the Middle East. And he was probably shocked to see it. And all of a sudden he dumped Israel. That's what he's doing. He dumped Israel. Well, he's not walking away. Yeah, so he dumped Israel. Later on in the interview, Crystal, he does say, though, but I want peace very, very quickly. He's like, we've got to wrap things up. So he's trying to do the pro-Israel position there. It also never would have happened under him. But some flashes of the Trump who moved the embassy to Jerusalem in that interview, for sure. Of course. Yeah. The idea that Biden hasn't stood strongly enough with Israel is absolute lunacy. But this is the position that the Republican Party

has, by and large, moved to. That's their criticism of Biden at this point. If you listen to Fox News or other conservative media outlets, it's that he's abandoning them. Of course, the policy continues to be shipping arms, giving them unconditional support, drawing no real red lines, letting them do what they want, trying to pressure them into doing little PR moves so that they have more time to prosecute the war. But by and large, it's just been consistent, unconditional support with a little bit of rhetorical flourishes in the direction of human rights. So that's the position Trump has landed on. I mean, the reality is that it would be hard to discern a difference between the two substantively from a policy perspective,

vis-a-vis Israel. You see that with Biden. He continued the Trump policy, basically, continued to further the direction of normalizing relations with other Arab and Gulf states. You saw this with the Saudi Arabia normalization attempts. And the truth of the matter is that part of the context that triggered October 7th, and this is not to deny agency of Hamas not to let them off the hook for the horrific atrocities they committed, but part of the context was that normalization of relations that began under President Trump and was continued under President Biden, where they basically shared this perspective of, we're just going to pretend the Palestinians don't exist.

We're just going to push forward and look out for everybody else's economic interests and give them those sorts of carrots to just ignore the Palestinian people and allow this problem and this humanitarian crisis to fester for decades. And October 7th appears to have been an almost direct response to that direction in that sense that the door was completely closing on any sort of dignity or self-realization for the Palestinians. Yeah, it's interesting too, because watching him, he is often sliding back and forth. He actually gave recent comments on TikTok as well,

where he's like, well, as long as we also force Facebook to sell, then yeah, we should allow that. And I was like, wait, what? You just came out against it and now you're here? He really is torn from what I can tell, where he's always trying to look at where things are moving for his own coalition, how to keep it together. On Israel, it tell, where he's always trying to look at where things are moving for his own

coalition, how to keep it together. On Israel, it's obvious, you know, where he is and pretty much has been there for the whole time. A lot of people were coping during the previous administration saying that it was all Jared. And, you know, it was always very clear that I think Trump himself, he doesn't care necessarily, but he thinks that there's obviously quite a lot of political benefit. I think you'll obviously be rewarded for it as well in terms of AIPAC donations and perhaps the Republican Jewish Coalition as well, which has been very, very influential, at least so far, post-October 7th. The final part that we did want to come to, though, was Mike Pence. And this is the big question, is how many people who did previously support Trump and who are willing

to vote for him, even serve with him now in the Pence category, are they going to stick with him in the general election? They may not vote for Biden, but they may not vote for Trump either. So Pence, at least trying to stake out a position here, saying that he will not endorse the former president. Take a listen to the reasons why. Well, Martha, I appreciate the question and it should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. Look, I'm incredibly proud of the record of our administration. It was a conservative record that made America more prosperous, more secure, and saw conservatives appointed to our course in a more peaceful world. But that being said, during my presidential campaign, I made it clear that there were

profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues. And not just our difference on my constitutional duties that I exercised on January the 6th. I mean, as I have watched his candidacy unfold, I've seen him walking away from our commitment to confronting the national debt. I've seen him starting to shy away from a commitment to the sanctity of human life. And this last week is his reversal on getting tough on China and supporting our administration's effort to force a sale of ByteDance TikTok. Why do you think he did that? Why do you think he had that reversal on that before we go, sir? Well, I can't speculate on it. What I can tell you is that in each of these cases,

Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that, that we governed on during our four years. Uh, yeah. So it's because he's not too pro-life, uh, and he's not too pro-ban TikTok. This is the, always the thing, you know, with Mike Pence where, look, his constituency and his support within the Republican party, he didn't even make it really to any real primary. But I do have to wonder, Crystal, I'm curious what you think. Is this going to be an important enough effect in

the overall election? There are at least 30 some percent of those Nikki Haley people who still came out to vote for her. So who knows? I mean, I always have to remember that because this is all a game of margins, that these people who are upset about Gaza, these people who are upset here, Republicans about Trump, they really could be the deciding vote. It's really about who and what and where and in particularly in which states. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, in theory, in a normal political world with any other political figure, your former vice president coming out and saying- That's crazy.

I am not endorsing you. I don't think you should be president again. It should be an earthquake, right? It should be incredibly consequential. Do I think that this is incredibly consequential? No, I do not. And I mean, listen, I don't want to parse whatever. He's got his reasons. But it also feels very dishonest to me. Donald Trump is not significantly different today than he was when you ran with him in 2016 or when you ran with him in 2020. He's the same dude, right? He's, you know, predominantly just did the bidding of the established conservative think tanks, the Heritage Foundation, whatever was sort of queued up for him,

incredibly erratic, often all over the place in terms of what he says he wants from a policy perspective. You can point to little issues where he said something different in the past and says something different now, like TikTok is a prime example. But fundamentally, he's the same dude. The reality is he wanted you basically dead on January 6th. And that's a reasonable reason for explaining why you might not support him in the future. I think that if he was more direct and honest about that, I would have a bit more respect for him. Like I said, I think it's entirely reasonable to feel like the guy who was cool with supporters running around the Capitol and saying, hang you, while your family was there and in danger too, by the way.

Like, I think it would be fine for him to explain it that way. But in his mind, I believe this is more a rationalization for himself than it is for the American people, because he has to explain to himself why he was the loyal foot soldier for all those years, even though Donald Trump was the same dishonest, politically expedient man who had many principles that were always in conflict with the terrain that Mike Pence had staked down as this sort of very traditional Reagan-style conservative. So I personally think this cope is more for his benefit than the American people. Do I think that the overwhelming number of former Trump officials who have come out against him, do I think that has an electoral impact?

It's my personal view that probably the kind of like suburban college educated types who would be turned off by Trump and the way he is and the people who react against him, I feel like that realignment has already occurred, but it's a question mark. And there are some warning signs for him in the primary results. And we're gonna talk about his legal troubles. Things seem to, the balls seem to be bouncing in his direction, but that continues to be a cloud that hangs over him, which could, you know,

further depress the number of people who are willing to stick with him and willing to embrace his chaos after all of these years. Yeah, I think that's well said. I think you're right. I mean, obviously it is personal. He has to come up with his conservative reason or whatever for not endorsing him. But it all comes back. In terms of the realignment, it probably is baked in already. And then it's just a question of the margin, whether Trump actually can have some turnout.

Let's go to the next part here. As we said, it is the official start of the 2024 race, which means it is also the official start of Trump said X news cycle. One of the things that he said was definitely headline worthy. The other one was twisted and turned into a little bit. We put those two together so we can react. Let's take a listen. If I had prisons that were teeming with MS-13 and all sorts of people that they've got to take care of for the next 50 years, right? Young people that are in jail for years, if you call them

people. I don't know if you call them people. In some cases, they're not people, in my opinion. But I'm not allowed to say that because the radical left says that's a terrible thing to say. They say you have to vote against him, because did you hear what he said about humanity? I've seen the humanity, and these humanity, these are bad. These are animals, okay? And we have to stop it. We can't have another Lakin.

We have so many people. We have so many people being hurt so badly and being killed. They're sending their prisoners to see us. They're sending and they're bringing them right to the border and they're dropping them off and we're allowing them to come in. And these are tougher than anybody we've got in the country. These are hardened criminals. Mexico has taken over a period of 30 years, 34 percent of the automobile manufacturing business in our country. Think of it. Went to Mexico.

China now is building a couple of massive plants where they're going to build the cars in Mexico and think they think that they're going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border. Let me tell you something to China. If you're listening, President Xi and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal, those big monster car manufacturing plants that you're building in Mexico right now, and you think you're going to get that, you're going to not hire Americans, and you're going to sell the cars to us. No, we're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you're not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected, now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole, that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That'll

be the least of it. All right. So Crystal, those were the two controversial things that Trump said. One of them he's actually said before, I remember when he said it during his president. The other about the bloodbath comment though, this is how some of our media outlets covered it. Let's go and put these up there on the screen. Here's the major takeaways. At least CNN, ironically, did end up writing it correctly. They say Trump warns about bloodbath for the auto industry and the country if he loses the election. That's actually accurate.

Politico, though, Trump says country faces bloodbath if Biden wins in November. New York Times, Trump says some migrants are not people and then predicts a bloodbath if he loses. NBC News, Trump says there will be a bloodbath if he loses the election. Bloodbath now being seized upon, even though it was clear, you know, if you watch it, it's obviously in the context of the U.S. auto industry. Even the New York Times, only half of their headline correct. And Ryan McGrimm made a point on whenever he was following this. Trump, prior to going on stage, had talked about how he wants all of his people to snap to attention the way that they do in North Korea with Kim Jong-un. And Ryan was like, guys, he says enough actually crazy shit that you don't need to invent new cycles about the things that he said to go after.

But they were so desperate for the bloodbath comment. That's how I feel about it as well. I mean, if you listen to the whole context, he throws in that thing at the end of leg, and that'd be the least of it, which kind of muddles the comments and gives them a little bit of something to stand on of like, see, he's talking about the country as all. But obviously, if you're an ordinary person, you're reading those headlines, you hear Trump, you know, says it's going to be a bloodbath. If he loses, you're thinking about January 6th,

you're thinking about political violence. You're not assuming that he was, you know, building up to this with this whole long rant about the auto industry and China taking our jobs, et cetera. So I do think that's very misleading. And, you know, we played the comments that he just said about immigrants, which are horrifying and disgusting on their own. So when you mess around with the other comments that he made and you muddle, intentionally muddle the meaning of them,

it gives you less credibility to talk about the things that he says that, in my opinion, really should be out of bounds and just to address that directly, and I do think that watching what's unfolding in Gaza has made me perhaps more sensitive to this type of directly dehumanizing language than perhaps I would be otherwise, because we can see in real time what the potential atrocities and results and horrors that unfold when you routinely dehumanize a group of people.

But it's fine, as as we do to have an argument about what the appropriate immigration policy should be and what that should look like. You shouldn't have to lie to do that, which he is lying when he talks about, oh, they're emptying their prisons and paints the entire immigrant, migrant population as a bunch of criminals and lunatics, overwhelming the majority of people who are coming here, they're fleeing violence, they're coming for economic reasons. Again, you can debate how many of those individuals have legitimate asylum claims and how many should be let in and what we should do.

But you shouldn't have to rely on lies to make the case. And also you shouldn't have to rely on stoking false fears of this existential threat of, you threat of this overwhelming wave of criminal migrants in order to make your case either. And so I do think that that is disgusting. I think it's condemnable and I think it's dangerous. I think it's fair for you to say that. Look, and I'm not gonna defend what he said, but I will at least lake the political point. What Trump's genius is always is he says the most outrageous thing and he gets people to say, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, some criminals are human, whatever, you know.

And then now you're actually talking within the frame of migrant criminality and and or the murder, as you said, of Lake and Riley, which is what he was trying to raise. I agree with you. I personally would like it if people debated things the way that we do here and we can talk about it in a respectful manner. But that's not how politics works, right? You know, everything is about seizing upon the most outrageous and extreme example and using that in order to cast your enemy. So, I mean, personally, what I do think at least is, again, I'm not defending it, but I can only analyze in the politics of this, is that if you have a media outrage cycle of people being like, hey, Trump says migrants are not people, people are going to be like, well, hold on a second. If you watch the clip, we're talking here about people who are MS-13

gang members. Again, you can go and you can analyze the number of people who actually do commit crime or whatever, but in general, people do feel a certain different way about people who are here illegally committing crime versus legal citizens because people who are illegally shouldn't have been here in the first place. And in general, I think it, I would say probably to his political benefit, given the way that people feel about the immigration crisis, regardless of whether you think he's telling the truth or not. Go ahead. It's obvious that that's why he does it. Yes, that's right. It's obvious that's why he does it. I'm not talking about the political benefit or optics or whether it's good for him or bad for him.

I'm talking about the morality of it. And, you know, I do think it's absolutely condemnable. You know, he catches you in a trap. Because on the one hand, if you ignore the things that he is saying, right, then that sort of rhetoric and, you know, really disgusting, dehumanizing rhetoric becomes normalized and almost accepted. If you cover it and you talk about it and you say this is condemnable and we should, in fact, condemn it and this should, listen, you have your First Amendment speech rights, but as decent moral people, we shouldn't be in the business of dehumanizing immigrants.

We shouldn't be in the business, as he's also done, of dehumanizing leftists as vermin. We shouldn't be talking about immigrants using Nazi language, which he doubled down again when that Howard Kurtz interview that we played part of saying, yes, they're poisoning the blood of the country, that we shouldn't be doing that. Then you are sort of playing on his turf because now, oh, what are we talking about? We're talking about immigration. And that's the issue where he's strong and where Biden's approval ratings are the lowest. So he does politically catch you in a trap, which, yeah, you're right. That's exactly why he does it. But you also can't ignore the fact that he has some, you know, really hardline immigration restrictionists in his circle and that some of the policies that he implemented last time around, you know,

which some of which, by the way, Biden continued. But he is he is at least positioning himself to be even more hardline this time. So it is legitimate to talk about the way the rhetoric informs the actual policy decisions as well. But I mean, you're right, Sagar. It is definitely like a well-laid political trap. And that's precisely why he does it. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, I remember watching it because there was some meeting. I think it was something about MS-13. This is the first time he ever did the animals comment. It was in front of Nancy Pelosi. It sparked this whole thing. And I just remember like, man, they go for it every time in terms of how it generally works out for him. On this one,

we will see. By the way, it's possible why that's why the Biden administration decided to seize, not necessarily on the migrant comment, but on the quote unquote bloodbath thing to try and turn it into a thing. Here is a perfect example of how the media ran with it. We have Jen Psaki, the former press secretary on our new MSNBC show with the Biden campaign's communications director, both of them trying to turn the bloodbath thing into a conversation around political violence, which is definitely ground where they have benefited in the past.

Here's what they had to say. What I heard was a continuation of the same rhetoric, the same endorsement of political violence that we've seen from Donald Trump for years, as you pointed out. It goes even farther back, right? This is the same guy who, after Nazis marched on Charlottesville and

killed a woman, said there were very fine people on both sides. It's the same guy who, in 2020, told the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group, to stand back and stand by. And now every single day on the stump, he is championing and praising the insurrectionists who he encouraged to violently storm the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow our democracy. So it's not simply one comment. This is exactly who Donald Trump is, and this is exactly the threat that he poses to our democracy every single day. I think the problem for Trump, though, is that the American people saw what happened on January 6th, and they've responded consistently since, right? They responded in 2022 when Democrats had the most successful midterm cycle for a Democratic incumbent since FDR. They continued to respond last year in states like

Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia in the fall elections then, and they're continuing to respond right now. That's why we're on our front foot heading into this general election, because the American people fundamentally understand, A, what Joe Biden has done to fight on behalf of the American people over the course of the last three years. But they see every single day now, uh, the threat that Donald Trump poses. If he's able to regain power, he is talking every single day about tearing down the fabric of our democracy and enacting political revenge. If he's able to serve on a dictator on day one, as he is promising to do.

So that was Michael Tyler. He's the communications director, very much trying to turn the bloodbath thing into a major story. So any final thoughts here, Crystal, in terms of the media handling and all this? Well, just to reiterate,

I mean, Trump does talk all the time about how he's going to, you know, pardon the people that were there on January 6th who were convicted of crimes or whatever. You don't have to invent

a context that didn't exist for the bloodbath comments in order to make the case that he's making there. And I think it undercuts your credibility in the long run. OK, let's move on to the legal part then. Yeah. So a few key developments that continue to benefit Donald Trump and his push to not necessarily beat the charges against him, but just delay them until after the election, which has always been his goal. So first, we have an update out of Georgia. We can put this up on the screen.

So you recall, there were a lot of questions about potential conflict of interest after it was revealed that Fannie Willis was having a personal relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had appointed and who had also been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in the context of this prosecution. So basically what a judge found here was that the evidence presented did not fully meet the bar of a conflict of interest, but said nevertheless, and this is my layman's version or reading of what he had to say, this looks bad enough that one of y'all needs to go. So Nathan Wade has now resigned, allowing the Fulton County DA, Fannie Willis, to move ahead with this Trump case. This resignation came hours

after a judge ruled that either he or District Attorney Fannie Willis had to withdraw for the prosecution of Trump to move forward, Wade tendered his resignation in a letter to Willis. It is still possible—you can see my cat in the background. Both the animals are in here, so this could get a little wild. It is still possible that the Trump side could appeal, so this could get dragged on even further, you know, given Sager how bad this all looked, this is perhaps the best result that Fannie Willis could have expected at this point, that they wouldn't fully rule that it was completely a conflict of interest, that they would allow it to continue if you just have one or the

other of them resign. So that is, you know, indeed where we are with this. But again, calls into question when this trial is gonna get going, when this is going to get moved forward, and is yet another delay in a key case for him. Yes, as you said. So the Trump team can still decide whether to appeal this decision or not. It's probably for the benefit, I think, that Mr. Wade has gone. Big question, though, about whether and what happened to some of that money that he was paid by the state, nearly $700 or so, $1,000, and then the reimbursement questions that surround Fannie Willis herself. Nonetheless, I can't help but think, you know, this is going to be, I mean, let's say it does go to trial, and assuming it will go to

trial at least sometime before the election, you are going to hear quite a bit about this from the defense in terms of their argument about political prosecution. I don't think you can at least sometime before the election. You are going to hear quite a bit about this from the defense in terms of their argument about political prosecution. I don't think you can at least deny that in terms of what was going on behind the scenes there with her own personal affairs and conduct isn't at least going to factor into the public and then the private case where Trump and his lawyers would make to a jury about why there should be some reasonable doubt into why he was being prosecuted. Another thing that happened while you were gone, Crystal, I'm not sure if you saw,

is that the legal charges had been dropped or had been forced out by the judge, specifically relating to that phone call, which is the most memorable part. Now, remember, the lawyers in the DA's office said that they were going to re-grant jury those charges to try and reissue them to fall within the scope of RICO and of the case. But a point that Ryan and I were trying to make is that if you couple this, you have the appeals, and then you have the re-grand jury process that they all have to go through, this is months and months and months on end, which gets us to the question, and I think a reasonable question at this point, is this thing even going to go to trial before November? Honestly, I would probably at this point. Is this thing even going to go to trial before November?

Honestly, I would probably at this point bet money against it just because, look, you do have the former president. You have all these crazy legal questions that have to get resolved at the Supreme Court where even when they're on an expedited timeline, it takes forever. Here we have the state law case, which is a total mess now gone awry with her own personal conduct. And with all the appellate and the money that they are able to throw at this, they're going to try and drag it as long as possible. And I honestly think they'll probably be victorious, at least in pushing this particular case, which at the beginning was the strongest against him. One of the very strongest actual election cases,

not the documents case that was against Trump that he was facing. It caused some of the biggest legal hurdles for him because it's a state case. So, I mean, there's two pieces there. Number one, he can't, if he is elected president, just pardon himself for these charges because of the state. And second, because states are by and large tasked with running elections. The fact that this was a state, state criminal charges gave it some strength

where some of the federal charges, especially with regard to January 6th, the Jack Smith prosecution there, you know, is a little more of a novel interpretation of the law, et cetera. But I agree with you at this point, the delays are stacking up,

entirely possible that this one doesn't go to trial before November. And the case in New York with regards to hush money has now also been delayed. Let's put this up on the screen. So this is weird. There was apparently this like last minute, massive document dump, 100,000 pages of records that just came into play here. And so even the prosecution said, we got to delay this thing at least 30 days. So you can see the New York Times headline here, judge delays Trump's Manhattan trial until at least mid-April. The judge scheduled a hearing

from March 25th, the day the trial had been scheduled to begin, to consider Donald Trump's request to further delay or dismiss the case. There's a lot of questions here about why these documents were so late in coming. These tens of thousands of pages of documents came from federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. In 2018, they had investigated the same hush money situation with regards to Michael Cohen.

That was the investigation that led to his guilty plea. So they had all this relevant stuff. I don't know why it took so long for it to be requested or turned over, etc. But, you know, this case, which is the weakest, I think most people agree, of the cases and has the lowest level of charges, felony charge associated with it. It looked like it was going to be the first one to go. It looked like it was going to be the first one to go. It looked like that was going to start imminently. And now big question mark as to when that one begins as well. So even this, what's been called like the stepchild case, even this one has now been significantly pushed back and don't know when it's going to start.

Yeah, it's so ridiculous. I mean, with all of these cases, it's just the validation. This is where I almost am sympathetic to the resistance libs who are screaming at Merrick Garland. They're like, why don't you indict him? I'm like, look, now you have the boast of the world. Why didn't you indict him? Why didn't you indict him in 2021? That's when it was on the public's mind. That's when you can resolve this question. They didn't resolve that. They waited for three years to even file charges. And even remember, if whenever those charges were filed, I think you can even go back and look. Some of us, I know we even mentioned that we're like, hey, these cases take a long time. Like it's a big question mark whether you're going to get this stuff before the court in November.

You're going to prosecute a president, specifically the Jack Smith case, for example. Right. That has all these crazy constitutional questions about presidential immunity. And what does it mean. Already we've had two Supreme Court cases. On that question, we're going to have even more likely in the future, not to mention appellate cases, even if there is a conviction. Here in Georgia, it was the same thing. They took forever. That's where I have to come back to the grand jury thing.

I mean, do you remember, Crystal, when we played the forewoman of that grand jury? That was like a year ago. That's how long ago that the grand jury process had taken. We're still not at a point where the case is even thinking about going to trial anytime in the interim. And now you have this Stormy Daniels, like, you know, the hush money case. Same thing. They're running into legal troubles. It really does validate a lot of the early criticisms there where if they were going to charge him, they should have done it a long time ago. Because now not only does it look political because it is,

but then, you know, in terms of the legal timeline, you have set this country up for a nightmare. What the hell are we going to do when this man go, if he is elected president elect of the United States and his ass is on trial, what are we going to do? I mean, it will be madness, literal madness if he's about to go and take the oath of office coming from a damn courtroom or if he's in handcuffs. I mean, at this point, you're just looking at chaos because now at the earliest, you could actually have some of these cases unfolding right as people are literally voting. So, I mean, the delay in appointing Jack Smith, to me, is the most mind-boggling. I also

don't understand why this Georgia prosecution took so long to spin up, but, you know, state bureaucracy, whatever. Who knows why it took so long, but that one did as well. And then with Jack Smith, you know, on the January 6th stuff, we all saw it happen. If you thought there were criminal charges, you should have got right on that. The documents case is a little more understandable because that one was unfolding and they had to wait for him to commit the crimes and refuse to comply and, you know, obstruct, etc. Before you could put that case together. But it does give credence both to, you know, those who said, listen, you should have gone after him from the jump. And I think also those who say

you were waiting to see if he was going to run. And then once he did, that's when you're like, all right, well, then we got to slap the charges on you. That it was like a very directly political decision, which it's hard to explain the delay without assuming that that was at least part of the calculation that was going on.

So just to, you know, put a pin on or underscore some of the comments you were making about the various cases, we pulled this article. You can put this up on the screen about the way that delays are racking up in all of the different cases. So you've got, they say neither of Trump's two federal prosecutions in Florida and D.C. are guaranteed for trial this year, in part because of his efforts to stall the proceedings. Well, of course, he's going to do that. That's obvious, right? And that's his right to do it, too, by the way. Georgia election interference trial has not been scheduled. That case was rocked Friday by judges ruling, prompting special prosecutor Nathan Wade to step

aside. That's what we're just discussing. Trump's trial in Florida, that's the documents case, had been set for May 20th, but it's been clear for months that date would not hold as the judge has weighed multiple challenges to the indictment of various evidentiary disputes. That's the judge, Aileen Cannon, who seems to be sort of most favorable towards him, most inclined to, you know, hear him out and accede to his wishes with regards to delays. They say, we very much believe a trial that takes place before the election is a mistake and should not happen. That's the Trump team. The easy solution is to start this trial after the election. That's the case they're making there. Trump's DC case, those are the ones involving allegations he plotted to overturn the 2020 election, had been seen as the most likely one to reach trial first, but that is no longer the case. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had scheduled the trial for March 4th,

but that was upended by a Trump appeal contending he was immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House. That is the piece that the Supreme Court has said they are going to take up. Now they're going to take that up on a somewhat expedited timeline, but that is still going to take some significant time.

We don't know exactly how much to resolve, and then it will take a further amount of time after that, as the judge has indicated, to go ahead and schedule the trial start date. So, you know, in every single instance, he seems to be having a lot of success in pushing these trial dates back and back and back. And I guess it shouldn't be a surprise, just knowing the way that our justice system works, it's not speedy. It does take time. There are a lot of appeals. There are a lot of objections you can throw up. If you want to muck up the works and push things off and push things off and push things off, there are a lot of avenues, especially if you're a former president with a large amount of money

to throw at these legal challenges. There are a lot of avenues you can pursue to try to push things off into the future. So that's what it looks like right now. And I do think that perhaps Democrats are starting to reckon with the fact that these prosecutions are not going to save them. They're not going to be the silver bullet that perhaps some of them may have imagined that they're going to have to actually defeat Donald Trump. And so they're seizing on bloodbath comments and whatnot to try to make that case. Let me tell you, Dems, bloodbaths and legal, it ain't going to save you. At the same time, I wanted to give everybody an update on the Boeing whistleblower situation.

We brought everybody the news previously that the major Boeing whistleblower in the midst of an investigation into the company had been found dead in an alleged suicide. We are now getting some information, though, to possibly expand this into a criminal investigation. Let's put this up there on the screen. According to the Boeing whistleblower, a close family friend of John Barnett said that he predicted that he would wind up dead and that a story would surface that he had killed himself. At the time, he told his friend not to believe it. She says, quote, I know he did not commit suicide. There is no way. And that he had told her allegedly, quote, if anything happens, it is not suicide. She says that she has known him for a long time, over the years, get togethers, et cetera, et cetera,

for more than 30 years, that she had followed his career. And that one day, whenever he needed help and he came to see her, they had talked specifically about his upcoming deposition in Charleston, where he was found dead and said that after he had filed an extremely damaging complaint, he had specifically raised the possibility that he could have been murdered. So this is pretty extraordinary testimony there, Crystal. And this has expanded into major inquiry across the nation as we've seen a slate of more recent incidents with Boeing. Just our team put together this graphic. Let's put it up there on the screen.

I mean, this is stunning. This is just in the last few months. So it started January 5th after the Alaska Airlines door plug blew out. But even just look at the last week or week and a half or so. On March 4th, United Airlines, an engine burst into flame right after takeoff from Houston,

forcing an emergency landing. All of these involved Boeing, by the way. On March 7th, a tire fell off in San Francisco International Airport and returned to the San Francisco airport. March 8th, a plane rolled off the taxiway into the grass during its landing. March 11th, there was a midair hydraulic leak, which forced takeoff, come back to Sydney. March 11th, there was a major incident where a number of passengers were injured at LATAM Airlines, where there was a nosedive in the movement of a flight deck seat. And then on March 13th, a tire blew out, taking off from DFW Airport. Now, some of these may appear investigation into Boeing and now the death of

this whistleblower who we played previously video of him noting all of the problems inside of the Boeing company that led to the quality setbacks, not only that we saw in the previous investigation, but now the current investigation to what the hell happened with Alaska Airlines, Crystal. It's mighty convenient for Boeing that this man is dead. That's true. That's all I'll say. Mighty convenient for them. Because think of how much they have to lose. And John Barnett was very credible. In fact, some of the previous allegations that he had made had been backed up by investigations. For example, he had said that sometimes they would pull parts that had been backed up by investigations. For example, he had said that sometimes they would pull parts that had been deemed nonconforming, that were defective in some way. They would pull

parts off of the scrap heap and they would install them. And lo and behold, when they did an investigation, Boeing was unable to locate dozens of nonconforming parts that are supposed to be specifically tracked for exactly this reason. We're now seeing with regard to the incident of the door plug coming out mid-air and endangering the lives of every single person on board that plane. Oh, the surveillance footage of the maintenance that occurred on that is gone. It's been taped over. And, oh, somehow we can't locate the records about the maintenance that happened with that door plug. So this is an incredibly precarious moment for Boeing, for their executives,

for everyone who has been involved in recent decision making. And, you know, some of those problems are becoming increasingly manifest from a business perspective. Put this up on the screen, Sagar. You really flagged this as quite significant. United has said, hey, we're out. Stop making these MAX 10s. We don't want them right now. The plane maker has agreed to build MAX 9s instead. The airline confirms it's in talks to substitute some Airbus A321s instead. So, I mean, this is quickly escalating into a, it's already a massive issue for them. And because John Barnett had such specific knowledge, because he had worked there for so many years, because some of his claims had already checked out. I think he in particular was a real problem for them. And

there needs to be a wholesome and independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death. Yeah. And this also what jumps out to me from reading about Barnett is he loved the company. I mean, he worked there for a long time. He was a whistleblower because he was so upset at the cost-cutting maneuvers that were taking place that he felt was undermining safety for the aircraft and for their customers and ultimately for passengers. And let's not erase, too, this is becoming a major business problem. Already, the United Airlines CEO has had to issue like a general call to all passengers. He's like, don't worry. I know we've had a lot of problems recently. Everything's going to be okay.

Don't worry about it. Even if you're flying on a Boeing aircraft, everything will be fine. I personally have seen, I've had friends who've been flying on the 737 MAX 9s and 10s and posting on Instagram being like, that's it, everybody. I'll see you later. I guess this is my last flight. I mean, this has really entered into the public consciousness and to the flying public where previously, I mean, who the hell even knew? Most people don't even know what type of aircraft that they're stepping onto. They just get on the plane and they go where they're supposed to. Anytime you're entering that way and in a negative association is really terrible for your company. The other thing I want to come back to is that what this

is again is exposed, which we talked about previously, is exactly what Barnett warned about, which is that the Boeing pursuit of shareholder profit has dramatically undermined the performance at a hardware level of the company, is that they sold off Spirit Aero Systems, which is the supplier that made that door plug. It appears that there was a problem both on the Spirit Aerosystems side and on the Boeing side in terms of quality checks. We've had a complete lack of government regulation where Boeing is allowed to self-certify its own planes for safety, which is insane. I mean, how can you possibly have a system like this? We were thinking, Crystal, we were like, hey, has the Secretary of Transportation,

Pete Buttigieg, said or done anything about this? Beyond the cursory? No, not really. So where the hell is Pete? That's another big question, too. That's a constant question for me. He's in power, which is very unfortunate. That's where he is.

I also have to highlight this psychotic, really, truly sociopathic headline from the New York Times about this whole situation. Listen to this. This is from January 30th. But nonetheless, I wanted to highlight the way that these things are thought of. Boeing faces tricky balance between safety and financial performance. Tricky balance. Right.

Do we keep people alive or do we maximize our shareholder returns? I don't know. So hard to say. It's a tricky balance that we have to strike. And of course, the unfortunate reality, Saugers, we see that they were not striking that balance at all. They were moving explicitly in the direction of financial performance. That's how a Nikki Haley gets on the board there. Boeing moved a significant part of its airline assembly to South Carolina because of their, you know,

their right to work status and the fact that they were so anti-labor. That was a big part of drawing them to the state. That is where John Burnett worked and, you know, was observing these failures in terms of safety and making sure that every plane was assembled incredibly precisely

and making sure that it was was assembled incredibly precisely and making sure that it was really safe. And then you're right to point to also, this is a Boeing issue, of course. It is an industry-wide issue in a lot of ways. And it is a government regulatory issue because you can't let the fox guard the hen house. And that's exactly what had happened here over years and over bipartisan administrations. Trump did push through some further FAA deregulation, but this has been a trend multi-decades in the making. It is, you're right, absolutely insane that Boeing would be able to self-certify the safety of their planes. But that's precisely the way that many of these agencies have, the direction that many of these agencies have gone over the neoliberal era where they outsource expertise.

They no longer have either the funding or the technical know-how to really do these functions themselves. And so they just assume industry is going to be honest with sometimes completely catastrophic consequences. That's right. So huge developments with regards to a war really now between Bibi Netanyahu of Israel and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer has suggested in comments that we'll show you a portion of in a moment that there should be a new government in Israel really condemning Bibi and citing him directly as an obstacle to peace. Bibi did not take too kindly to this, but he was pressed on those comments on CNN over the

weekend. Let's take a listen to this exchange. That's what I really want to focus on here is Senator Schumer not calling to sort of topple the government, but specifically says when the war winds down, will you commit to calling new elections? That's my question. Will you? Dana, two thirds. First of all, what you said is wrong. The vast majority of Israelis oppose early elections until the war doesn't end. We've just had many polls on that. Look, a lot of the polls are, you know, are twisted. Channel 12 says 64% of Israelis support early elections. But all polls show that's not. No, I'm afraid that they asked them the question,

do you support it during the war? And they said, no. But that's not what Schumer is calling for. He's calling for new elections when the war winds down. Well, we'll see when we win the war. And until we win the war, I think Israelis understand that if we were to have elections now, before the war is won, resoundingly won, we would have at least six months of national paralysis, which means we would lose the war. If we don't win the war, we lose the war. And that would be not only a defeat for Israel, but a defeat for America, too, because our victory is your victory. We're fighting these barbarians that are not merely threatening the survival of Israel, but threatening everything that we hold dear together. Will you commit to new elections when the war winds down? I think that's something for the Israeli public to decide. And the reason why the world is shifting in public sentiment is the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Organizations call what they are seeing near famine in Gaza. So why won't you allow more food trucks to drive through the border crossings into Gaza to feed starving civilians while you continue to take out the terrorists in Hamas. Well, our policy is to do exactly that. And in fact, we've enabled our policies to not have famine, but to have the entry of humanitarian support as needed and as much as is needed. He is such an incredible liar there in that last part. I mean, we've seen that babies and young children are literally starving to death. The toll, as we know, is now in the dozens. We know there are aid trucks lined up. We know even standard Democratic senators like Chris Van Hollen are calling out Israel for blocking aid. And also, by the way, Van Hollen, just in

some pretty noteworthy comments, said it was absolute nonsense, the attacks on UNRWA, which is the primary aid organization on the ground. But to get back to the Schumer comments, let me play you a little bit of what Chuck Schumer had said on the floor and what was a very lengthy speech.

And then I'll react to what he said and to Bibi's response to that. Let's take a listen to Chuck Schumer. Five months into this conflict, it is clear that Israelis need to take stock of the situation and ask, must we change course? At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government.

I also believe a majority of the Israeli public will recognize the need for change, and I believe that holding a new election, once the war starts to wind down, would give Israelis an opportunity to express their vision for the post-war future. Of course, the United States cannot dictate the outcome of an election, nor should we try. That is for the Israeli public to decide. So, Sager, on the one hand, it's very noteworthy for Chuck Schumer. I believe he is the most powerful Jewish person in D.C., elected official in D.C., longtime staunch pro-Israel. He even was against the Obama nuclear deal, for example. He didn't criticize Bibi

when Bibi came and gave that speech over the objections of Democrats, sort of undermining the Obama administration with regard to the Iranian nuclear deal. So it is no doubt extraordinarily noteworthy for him to come out so directly

against Bibi to cite him as a primary obstacle to peace, to call for new elections after the war. That is a significant and noteworthy shift from Chuck Schumer that I think both reflects the horror of the undeniable humanitarian crisis that is unfolding. And in particular, the massive political pressure that has been applied to Democrats, to the

Biden administration, and also the fact that, listen, a majority of Jewish Americans want to cease fire. An overwhelming majority of Israelis do want Netanyahu gone and think very poorly of him. On the other hand, it continues to be very convenient for Biden and Schumer and other liberal Zionists to just point to Netanyahu like, oh, the problem is just, you know, a few bad apples. And if we just got a, you know, more quote unquote moderate government in there, everything would be better. Everything would be different.

It's also very convenient to just give a speech rather than using the incredible, you know, tools of policy, money, and diplomatic leverage in order to actually compel different behavior from the Israeli government. The last thing that I'll say here is, you know, in some ways, I'm curious your thoughts on this, Sagar. In some ways, this really plays into Bibi's hands, because even his, you know, potential opposition, Benny Gantz, distanced himself from these comments because he can go out there and say what he did to Dana Bash, even though, you know, we laugh at the idea that Israel doesn't try to meddle in our politics. But,

hey, we're a sovereign country. Like, who are you to tell us what we need to do and how we need to run our government and to meddle in our domestic political affairs? So those are some of my thoughts. What was your reaction? Yeah, I mean, I actually think that, well, first of all, yeah, I think you're correct in terms of the domestic side. In terms of whether this is actually going to change anything, no. I mean, what exactly is happening? Nothing in terms of actual effect on the Netanyahu government in terms of change of policy. That said, in Tel Aviv, I would hope that this actually is a wake-up call. Let's put this up there on the screen. For example, Barack Ravid reporting from Israel, quote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's

speech calling for a new government landed like an earthquake, delivering a huge shock to the already tense U.S.-Israel relationship. He says specifically and points to the fact that since Schumer is understood in Israel as one of the great friends of the country, that for him to call for a change in government was seismic. But what you pointed to is very important about Gantz as well, distancing himself from the comments and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as well, is that the fact is, is that they are all trying to preserve their ability to operate in a way that they, whatever they want, with U.S. backing. So they're rhetorically trying to shift to this idea of like, hey, how dare you tell us

what to do? And it's like, well, you know, if we gave you no money, then maybe you would have a point. But whenever we're the guarantor of your security and have been now for decades, and we sell you the vast majority of your weapons, and where was Iron Dome invented, actually? Oh, right. Okay. Well, then no, it is a little bit different. Maybe we can and we should tell you what to do. That's kind of where I take issue with where it is. Politically, I think you're right. I think this will become the mainstream position of the Democratic Party. It's like, well, Bibi himself has to go. I do want to say, I mean, it's not like a change in government. I'm not saying everything would change, but I think some things would change. I think if Gantz was, you know, for example, I've said this before,

I do think a ceasefire would be more likely because you wouldn't necessarily have the same political incentive that Bibi does to have the war going. I think that actually, perhaps most importantly for our purposes, the idea of an expanded war in Lebanon would at least be likely dramatically reduced because there is no direct political incentive at least to continue the war after any operations in Gaza. So I wouldn't say that there aren't very, very big substantive changes that would come as a result. And the problem though, is that if we still ultimately are not going to reach for any leverage, then you can rhetorically be against the Bibi government, but you'll still support the Bibi government and he's not going to reach for any leverage, then you can rhetorically be against the BB government, but you'll still support the BB government. And he's not going to voluntarily

resign anytime soon. If anything, the longer that this goes, the better off it is for him. And that dynamic, I mean, I don't know that there is much we can do about that without actually conditioning and changing aid. And when both Schumer and Biden have said that that's off the table, then the de facto policy is basically the same one as Trump, where we just support the government. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. I don't want to say that nothing would change if you had Benny Gantz running the government. You'd probably have a different coalition. As you said, you know, may not include Ben Gavir or Smotrich, some of the most, you know, absolute genocidal psycho maniacs that exist.

But we also have to reckon with the fact that this war and the way that it has been prosecuted in all of its horror and brutality is very popular domestically in Israel. Bibi's not popular. You know, when he tries to act like he is and like people want him to be there and they don't want elections, that's a lie. And Dan Abash did a good job of catching him in that particular lie, both in saying you're misquoting what Schumer or misunderstanding what Schumer was saying, because he specifically said after the war. And also you're misrepresenting what the people of

your own country want, because there is an overwhelming majority that wants new elections after the war is through. And there's a good number that want those elections to occur now. But it's not because they think the war has been too brutal. There is some dissent with regard to prioritizing, quote unquote, destroying Hamas, which we know is impossible and is, you know, fanciful and was always wishful thinking from the beginning, and the release of the hostages. So there are tensions there. And perhaps if you had a Gantz who was in charge of the government, had a different coalition, he would be more sympathetic to the hostage families and their allies who prioritize a ceasefire in order to obtain the release of the hostages over continuing

the absolute annihilation of the Gaza Strip. But what these comments don't reckon with is, number one, the fact that we have massive power that we're choosing not to use instead, just using these rhetorical flourishes or these leaks to the press or whatever to signal our displeasure while not actually doing anything about it. And number two, the fact that, yeah, domestically in Israel, the war, the prosecution of the war, the brutality of the war, the complete annihilation, we know the numbers. It is overwhelmingly popular.

So to just pin the way this has gone down on Bibi and his right-wing government, it's very convenient. And I think it allows Democrats a talking point to posture like they care about the humanitarian crisis and they really care about what's happening to civilians in Gaza while not actually doing anything that will change the results. I also want to dig further into this umbrage that Bibi et al. are taking at the idea, oh, how dare you meddle in our domestic politics? We would never do that to you. Let's take a listen to, this is an Israeli government spokesperson, Tal Heinrich,

making that case to Newsmax. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. I'll address what Schumer said there, these statements. You know, Israel is a sovereign country. We're a democracy. This concept, we're the citizens choose who leads them, the government. And right now, in case someone hasn't noticed, we have a unity government in place. We don't intervene in American politics, and we expect to be treated with the same respect. The unity government and the war cabinet that we have in place right now, and and the prime minister who leads them, really represent what the overwhelming majority of Israelis want to see. And that is a total victory over Hamas.

We want to see all hostages back home. We want to see the elimination of this terrorist organization. We want to make sure that Gaza will never, ever pose a terror threat to us again. You remember very well that right after 9-11, when Osama bin Laden and radical Islamist, attacked the United States, the civilized world closed ranks and rallied behind the United States. And President George W. Bush back then, he said, it's either you're with us or you're with the terrorists. 20 years later, we ask the same question.

I love how she cites that favorably as an example. Like, you know, like, we didn't say you should have new elections. Well, maybe you should have. Maybe you should have said what you're doing is insane. Yeah, you're right. I mean, by the way, Bibi was a staunch advocate of the war in Iraq. A lot of people forget that. He testified before Congress about how we would be greeted as liberators and all that.

Of course, because he wants to get us involved in the region. He wanted us to fight Iran on their behalf. So he's always thinking like 15 steps ahead. Yeah. The idea that these people don't meddle on our elections is insane. This is what always drives me crazy about the Israel exception. You know, I know a lot of people who have worked or let's just say, come into contact with the U S intelligence agencies and what they are always briefed on is they're like, listen, in terms of counterintelligence threats, the number one most sophisticated spy agency in Washington is the Mossad. But they never say it publicly. They're always warned. They're like, hey, pretty girls approaching you in bars and all that. It's not just a Russian phenomenon.

It's not just a Chinese phenomenon. It's an Israeli phenomenon in terms of being spied on, in terms of spyware. We know about Pegasus. We know about Mossad infiltration into our own government. Don't forget and look past that entire Jonathan Pollard incident. But the problem I always find is, you know, we have a huge intelligence penetration in this country of, let's say, Chinese assets, Russian assets. And these are front page news. I mean, recently there were multiple incidents of Chinese spies that were working on their behalf, either in AI companies, U.S. military. But then whenever it comes to people who are Israeli spies, we had that man, Jonathan Pollard, who several presidents considered pardoning because of pressure from the Israeli government. And then after he was released from prison, he's greeted like a hero in Israel. And nobody in America, you know, says anything, even though in terms of the crime, it's exactly

the same. So the idea that they don't spy on us, that they don't infiltrate us, that they don't meddle in our politics is ludicrous. None of this is anti-Semitic. It is just an acknowledgement of reality. You could say it about any other country that has this amount of foreign influence. And yet, you know, they try and use that exception and their kind of policing of rhetoric to quash a lot of what we're talking about here, Crystal, and to pass, you know, things like those BDS legislations or anti-Semitism definitions in the state of South Dakota. I don't believe we ever put that on the show because we had so much going on. I mean, that's a perfect example of like when their ambassadors are literally campaigning at a

state by state level for BDS legislation, which is infringing on the state, on the speech of U.S. citizens. How can you not call that meddling in our policy? Imagine if we were going to some Israeli prefecture, I don't know what they call it down there, but state, province, whatever. And we were like trying to advocate for local legislation. They would lose it. And you know, we should too. Yeah. Yeah. You are more free in America to criticize our own government as you should be than you are to criticize the Israeli government. It's insane. I mean, it's literally codified. And now, especially in South Dakota, they've codified this definition of anti-Semitism, which includes all sorts of things that are just criticism of the Israeli government. So a Twitter user put together some of the examples of Israel influence in American politics. We can put these up on the screen. This is Asal Rod who pulled

these together. She says, quote, we don't intervene in American politics. And here are the headlines, quote, Republicans invite Netanyahu to address Congress as part of spurning of Obama. Israel's aggressive spying in the U.S. mostly hushed up, to your point, Sagar. John Kerry reminds Congress Netanyahu advised U.S. to invade Iraq. Oh, really? And pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC secretly pouring millions into defeating progressive Democrats.

I believe Bibi was just featured in a political ad in a Florida campaign. I think I saw a headline, something like that. But speaking to APAC specifically, we can put this up on the screen from the American Prospect. They just had this big conference right outside of DC National Harbor, same place that they had the CPAC conference. And American Prospect was able to get in and get their hands on the talking points that AIPAC was pushing and handing out. And, you know, it's pretty astonishing. So first of all, there were massive attendance from high-level American political officials, along with Bibi Netanyahu himself and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog.

According to a speaker list, the entire Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress all delivered remarks, including Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Hakeem Jeffries, Mike Johnson, John Fetterman, and Tim Burchett were both in attendance, among other representatives. They go on to say the documents reveal AIPAC's legislative strategy and the talking points

that we use to support an unconditional $14 billion military funding package that has thus far been held up. They also include numerous positions on aspects of the U.S. response to the war that have not previously been made public from abolishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, that's UNRWA,

to opposing recent restrictions imposed by the Biden administration on Israeli settlers. the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, that's UNRWA, to opposing recent restrictions imposed by the Biden administration on Israeli settlers. No mention of a two-state solution. Surprise, surprise. They also touted their prowess to members as dollar for dollar, the largest contributor to candidates

in the 2022 midterm elections. In fact, I think, Sagar, that they cited some of Ryan Grim's critical reporting of them to prove just how impactful and influential they have been in these election cycles, which I think is pretty undeniable. And they also had a list of lies for people to spread about what's unfolding on the ground in Gaza. In particular, they told members of Congress that, quote, Israel is not blocking the delivery of aid to Gaza, out and out lie,

and that reports that people are starving in Gaza are false. We've all seen the pictures. We've all seen the pictures. And we know that our own government has resorted to these ridiculous, inadequate boondoggles of dropping aid, which, by the way, killed some Palestinian civilians and building this temporary port pier situation. Ridiculous, expensive boondoggles that's going to take a while to even come into play. Why? Because Israel won't just let in the hundreds of aid trucks that are massed at its border.

So that's a little bit of what the Israel lobby is up to here just outside of our nation's capital. Yeah, it's genuinely amusing for them to claim that they don't meddle in other people's politics when, as I said, they are one of the biggest meddlers in our own politics. But, I mean, look, you have to give it to them. It does work. And they still have the ability to compel all of those bipartisan politicians to come to their summit. I definitely think, of course, in the long run, I think that they're standing in the U.S. and the change in politics here is something they will have to reckon with.

But in the interim, it is paying dividends for them in their war. So look, we'll continue to see and look at it. Next part that we want to go to is about the Supreme Court. And this is a pretty impactful ruling. We wanted to cover and to actually give people some more insight as there's a number of cases coming down the pipeline now, specifically about social media, about digital rights and democracy, something I really welcome. This in particular, let's put this up there on the screen, was a ruling that came across the wire on Friday, where the Supreme

Court laid out a new test for determining when actions taken by government employees on social media, such as posting messages, deleting comments, or blocking users, constitutes an official business versus their personal conduct. So what they have decided is that public officials can set some rules on when public officials can block certain social media users. And what they find specifically is that they have to protect freedom of speech, and they specifically also want to retain First Amendment rights for private citizens to be able to engage with their constituents. This particularly came as a result of this case of a Michigan man, his name is Kevin Lindke, after comments that he had posted to a Port Huron City Manager's

Facebook page, which were deleted and his access to the page was blocked entirely. He had criticized the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The person who blocked him said that his personal account, that his account was personal and that COVID was not part of his officials' duties. So what they basically ruled, Crystal, and they have come to, is that blocking your own constituents is therefore a violation of your public duties. But there are some narrower rules as to where they are set. And I really welcome some of these changes as to how exactly these people who try and mix their public and private life and their accounts and all of that can actually interact with the rest of us when they are imbued with public responsibilities.

Yeah, so it seems like there's still going to be more suits in this direction and more defining of exactly where the line is, because it is kind of a tricky question. You know, if you've got an Instagram that's 95% your dog and your kids, and occasionally you post like a government press release, is that public? Is it your private personal? How do you find where the line is? But I think the fundamental insight here is that these platforms are a critical part of the digital town square, if you want to call it, that there are huge First Amendment implications in terms of how people are allowed to conduct themselves on the platform. And that public officials have a responsibility in accordance with the First Amendment to make sure that their own constituents aren't blocked from accessing these official government communications.

So I believe the ruling was unanimous. I think it's important. I wonder, and I genuinely wonder, this is a question mark for me, whether it could have some implications for the debate and discussion that's going on with regard to TikTok, because part of the question there is also a First Amendment question. Some legal analysts saying that depending on how this is described and depending on how the government, if a ban were to go into effect, how that would be effectuated, that it could also come under legal scrutiny because of First Amendment questions. And so to me, it seems significant that the Supreme Court is directly acknowledging that these are important First Amendment concerns that are being considered with regards to social media platforms in particular. Yes. Yeah. Like I said, the crux

of the matter really comes down to allowing suits to go through whenever constituents specifically are then blocked by their public officials, allowing and setting those rules. What's important also about what you raised, and actually maybe we can cover our current life in the town square that's all been litigated over the last 200 years and applying it to this. For example, there's actually a very important Supreme Court case that is going before the court today around the Biden administration contacting social media companies and alleging that misinformation, this was around vaccines, that was occurring on the platform. The plaintiffs are bringing a case saying that that was a direct violation of free speech and was specifically meddling in the speech of U.S. citizens by advocating for this, especially when it was an official position of the White House.

And we'll remember that infamous Jen Psaki comment that if you're blocked from one place, then you should be blocked everywhere. That could then set up the rules for where the government is even allowed to interact with these social media companies. So putting, you put all these kinds of things together, what I think is important is that it really just gets to the idea that we do have rights as citizens on these companies, that the companies themselves are now, it's being taken out of their wheelhouse and never really should have been there in the first place. And it has been entering the public sphere to which we can have a commonly held understanding that is not just up to some idiot in Menlo Park. And so what I am allowed to say and not, and especially when we're interacting here,

when you think about it too, in the COVID context, this is a man who is under a lockdown, who is protesting against his government's handling, specifically local government's handling of the COVID pandemic. Well, he was under a lockdown. So how else was he allowed to make his speech heard? It's not like he couldn't go out into a public without a mask and actually say something. So that's when it becomes really critical for the ability to voice dissent. And that's where I think a lot of this comes down to. I also would be remiss if we didn't mention our own Ryan Grim. Let's put this up there on the screen.

We were all trying to determine whether we're blocked by public officials. We're not actually sure because you never necessarily know who you're blocked by unless you go and look. But Ryan is actually blocked by Congressman Richie Torres. So as he says here, yo, Richie Torres, the Supreme Court says this is unconstitutional. Not quite, although we would definitely support a lawsuit there if it were to go through to try and force Richie Torres to unblock him and then deal with Ryan some critical questions. Anything else you want to say on this? Yeah, Richie Torres is kind of notorious for blocking anyone who criticizes him, So no surprise. Ryan is not a

constituent of Richie Torres. I have no doubt that Richie Torres has plenty of his own constituents blocked. So he may want to look into that before he faces a lawsuit given this new precedent. I just want to say on a practical note for Twitter users out there, I never block anyone. If someone is annoying me, I just mute them. It's such a much better function. They don't know they're muted. You know, you don't give them that like ego boost of realizing that they got under your skin enough that you actually blocked them. So I guess we'll have to wait for the Supreme Court hearings on whether muting your constituents is also a violation of the first. Yeah, you know, that's a great point. Actually, here, I'm trying to see if I've ever blocked anyone.

So according to, yeah, no, I have not blocked anybody according to my Twitter blocked account. As you said, if I click on muted accounts, there's a hell of a lot of accounts of people who I have muted. Mostly people were like, please debate me

or somebody who's annoying, but that's it. So I agree with you, public officials, uh, establish a crystal and saga standard, just mute them. Then you don't even have to interact with them and they can waste their life, you know, replying to you and trying to ruin that, you know, trying to poison your headspace and you won't even know about it. So anyways, there you go. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? COVID has had many long-lasting impacts on American society that we haven't yet fully grappled with, from learning loss as a result of school closures to the enduring effect of

hybrid work with white-collar workers. But my personal favorite subject really is the vast internal migration that has taken place in the U.S. over the last three years, which is going to completely redefine the America of the future from our economy, our demographics, and our electoral map. Every new release of census data tells us that a vast internal migration not seen since the days of World War II is taking place with really not that much paying attention at the national level. Newly released data from the Census Bureau at a county-by-county level presents a stunning picture of how people with the ability and means are fleeing different parts of the country for others. Of the top 10 counties in the United States that experienced annual numeric growth in 2023, a stunning eight are in the state of Texas. The other two are Arizona and Florida. Especially noteworthy is that the Arizona

County is Maricopa, which was the largest and so critical in the last election, and Florida's Popoke County ranked at number five. Where are these people coming from? It's also clear, though, when you take a look at where the largest outflows are happening. The county, which lost the single most amount of people in 2023, was Los Angeles County in California, followed up quickly by Kings, Queens, and Bronx County in New York State, and then Cook County in Illinois. In other words, LA, New York City metro, Chicago, Philadelphia County, the city of Philadelphia, next on the list at number four, then Wayne County, Michigan, where Detroit was, finally San Diego. Are you sensing a theme? You got major cities that have high levels of crime, housing affordability, and in metropolitan areas that are losing hundreds of thousands of people now, on top of the hundreds of thousands already lost. That confirms the 2021 to 2022 trend of net migration loss from the Northeast and Midwest,

with people heading in droves to the South and the West. The overall migration center of the gravity of center of gravity of this country is rapidly moving away from the coast and much more into the heartland and to the Sun Belt specifically. Florida has experienced stunning growth. The census actually says 96% of Florida's 67 counties had population growth in just one year from 2022 to 2023. Similar percentages actually experienced in Idaho and in the state of Tennessee. Population loss from major metropolitan areas to Florida and Texas plus smaller states like Idaho and Tennessee is significantly changing already the politics in those states. We've seen this happen, for example, in the state of Georgia. You had a former red state that is now fully purple,

showing major metro growth in the city of Atlanta. Florida and Texas remain solidly red, but with very different red coalitions of voters that are delivering these victories. And same thing in Arizona, which has become fully purple. What really I see from the map is not just a rejection of the ultra blue metropolis model, but it is one of hope that I always try and highlight in these monologues.

A lot of this just comes down to the cost of living, housing, and accessibility to the American dream. I don't think it's an accident. When you overlay a housing heat map on the most expensive places to live in the US, they almost exactly one-to-one match up with the places that are losing the most amount of people. Cost of living is a math problem that people are not willing to put up with anymore, especially in places where much of their quality of life was eroded by crime. The story of just simply being able to live and be safe is so basic that it should be accessible to everyone.

Which is where I'm really going to end this, on the same note I always do. I'm genuinely happy for friends and others who have been able to leave major cities for the Sunbelt or for the West. They have a better life. We also can't forget about the people who are already there, or those who are just too poor or who lack flexibility to move. The single best policy we can pursue is optionality and affordability. It's the best way to ensure that those who don't want to stay are priced out of their own homes,

and those who want to leave can do so without it being zero-sum for where they're going. The current hodgepodge system is unfortunately not working for everyone, as it should. People often think that policies of the past, like vast migration under the Homestead Act and Western expansion, is no longer possible. But the complete and the rapid shift already in where people are living, just with flexible and hybrid work, shows that combined with technological change, a potentially even bigger shift inward and downward is in America's future. I know I do this monologue every six months, Crystal, but I mean- And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you guys so much for watching. I know we had some technical difficulties,

et cetera. We'll make sure everything is set and ready to go for tomorrow. We appreciate you. Sign up if you haven't. Otherwise, we'll see you on Tuesday.