Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/24/26: Israel Pushes Lebanon Annexation, Airport Chaos, AI Bubble Collapse

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Israel pushes for Lebanon annexation, airport chaos, AI bubble collapse. Jeremy Scahill: https://x.com/jeremyscahill?s=20 Brandon J. Weichert: https://x.com/WeTheBrandon?s=20 Brendan Steinhauser: https://x.com/bstein80      To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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up on the screen. I mean, here you see effectively an entire village that is just completely destroyed, blown up by the Israelis. You now have a level of mass displacement in Lebanon that approaches some of the worst conflicts in the world. And obviously, this just happened in a very short period of times. You have over one million people in Lebanon, civilians, who are internally displaced from southern Lebanon. And you can see just the absolute destruction here. Of course, there have been very high death tolls and very high civilian death tolls as well. Let me go ahead and put this up on the screen, though, because this will not be surprised to anyone who watches this show, but just so you know, Israeli officials making it very plain

what their goal is here with regard to this invasion of Lebanon. Smotrich urges Israel to annex southern Lebanon as assault intensifies. Israel's far right minister of finance, Bezaliel Smotrich, has urged to country to annex southern Lebanon as the military has destroyed bridges, we'll come back to that, and homes in an intensified assault on the area. And an Israeli radio interview on Monday, Smotritch said the bombardment of Lebanon needs to end with a different reality entirely, which includes a, quote, change of Israel's borders. Quote, I say here definitively, in every room and in every discussion, too, the new Israeli border must be the Latani, he said.

referring to the Latani River, a critical waterway that cuts through southern Lebanon about 19 miles from the border with Israel. His comments come as Israel continues to carry on deadly attacks on Lebanon striking residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure, which the UN has already said may amount to war crimes. So, greater Israel project, here we go. And it's not just, listen, people love to dismiss him as some just like, oh, he's just some far right crime. No, this is a government. He is a part of this government. a very influential one, by the way, who has gotten his way in many other instances.

And oftentimes, characters like him are the ones who will just say it outright, what is actually happening, what the thinking, and what the goals are behind the scenes. So you should absolutely believe him when he says that this is the goal and this is what they're going to try to achieve. Yeah, look, if you've been watching the show,

we talked about this literally last week. We said what? Is that the Israeli security people were putting out calls? We have to evacuate the population from the Latani River or above the Latani River. And that means usually what? Mass ethnic displacement.

Then they said what? Well, you will not be allowed to return until Hezbollah is no longer a threat, de facto annexation and security control. And now, oh, let's just annex it. Do you see how this all... This is the span of one week. And he's saying, you know, all the classic stuff,

we cannot return to October 6th where the enemy is on our fences. We will push them away on all fronts and create a sterile security corps, that will separate the enemy from our citizens. The yellow line is the point within the Gaza strip, so they basically want to recreate the Gaza situation and turn it back into this. There you go. I mean, it's all out in the open. The politicians are not willing to go as far as Smotrich, but de facto annexation is basically the same as annexations like the West Bank, which we're about

to talk about here in a second. Like if you control the area, if you're militarily occupying it, if you've expelled the population or ongoing efforts to do so, you basically do control the entire country. So here we go. We can add just another few square mile, not a lot of people live there, but, you know, more square miles into the Greater Israel Project since October 6, 2020. It's unbelievable. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen because this relates to what I was saying about the amount of displaced people. So this is the current ongoing level of displaced people as a percent of total population. You can see one million people have been displaced in Lebanon. This is equivalent to 20% of their population.

This has happened in just three weeks' time. And the person who posted this says Israel has pushed Lebanon into the ranks of the world's worst displacement crises almost overnight. Syria and Somalia took years to reach this level. And Israel did this in three weeks. Let's put the next piece up on the screen. You've got yet another bridge over the Latani River that was just. destroyed in an airstrike. This is just the latest one. Put the next image up on the screen where

you can see a map of all of the bridges that they have already destroyed. So you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven bridges over the Lutani River that have been destroyed. What is this? This is an effort to separate southern Lebanon from the rest of the country. So again, if you're looking to annex this area and not just temporarily, but permanently, displace the civilian population, what would you do? You would destroy the civilian infrastructure. Check, they're doing that. You force people to leave, obviously under bombardment. That's already been done. Then you would destroy the ability of them to be able to come back so that you can totally control the space. That's exactly what is going on here. And you know, you can see it really clearly when you take a look

at this map. The next piece we wanted to get to is in the West. Bank. We're also going to have Jasper Nathaniel on on Friday to talk more about what is going on in the West Bank because he has done such incredible on the ground journalism and activism with regard to that. So put D6 up on the screen. Obviously, these pogroms in the West Bank are just sort of permanently ongoing, but there has been a spike in violence recently. And it appears to have been sparked by this incident. So you had an Israeli settler who was riding around on an ATV or in a pickup truck. I can't tell which it looks like a pickup truck there. Trying to menace Palestinians, you know, roving through the land, trying to intimidate them and gets in an accident.

Okay. Keep this on the screen. So what this footage shows is the very Palestinian residents who were being menaced by the settler when the settler was in trouble went over to try to help these settlers who were injured. And one of the settlers ended up dying in this accident. then you had some of the settlers and ministers in the Israeli government falsely labeled this as a murder, claim that the Palestinians intentionally caused this crash and attacked these settlers. And that is what helped you incite this uptick in pogroms against these Palestinian villages. So think of how sick this is. These Palestinians who were under direct threat from these settlers, when the settlers were in trouble,

went over and tried to help, brought in Palestinian Red Crescent teams, And then they got blamed for it and it incited these, you know, this violent race attacks from the settlers. So we can put the next piece up on the screen to see, you know, Griffin put together a whole compilation of some of the images that are coming out of the region here. And it's just absolutely horrifying. You can see these, these fires that are on. This is, okay, this is settlers who are lined up on the road outside of a Palestinian village waiting to come in. These are settlers rampaging through the streets as they, you know, go on their violent attack and attempt to steal land. Here you can see Israeli settlers and West Bank rampage through Palestinian villages.

More images of this infiltration, you know, which leads to attacks. You can see buildings being set on fire here by settlers as well. You know, more damage destruction, fires, et cetera. and there's a whole, it's what some of the people, like I've seen, you know, Richard Torres and, you know, Baccia, Angar Sargon and others who are, you know, big Zionists coming out recently to condemn these attacks. And they love to paint the settlers saga as this sort of like fringe, rogue element. And that could not be further from the truth. These settlers are performing the actions the government wants them to perform.

And they're protected by them. and they are protected by them. They're protected by the government. They're protected by the IDF. When they commit these crimes, when they kill people, when they, as we're going to show you later, when they rape people, when they assault them, when they steal their land, when they burn down their homes. Are they held accountable in a criminal court?

No, not at all. If anyone in the exchange is going to be criminalized, it will be the Palestinians. So if you see people who are out there, you know, doing a little perfuncter, oh, these settlers, they have to, you know, Israel needs to crack. down on them. They are covering for the fact that this is a systematic, intentional campaign that is supported both overtly and covertly by the Israeli government. And that's not just me saying. That is a well-documented fact. I don't know if you saw this. J.D. Vance, he said to Netanyahu, you need to cut this out. It's like bullshit. I mean, if you're not going

to do anything about it and there are going to be no penalties, this is utterly, utterly meaningless, you know, in the same way that, you know, when Biden was in control and you would have the finger wagging, it was also utterly completely meaningless. The point that they were apparently upset about actually proves the point, which disproves all of these people who are allegedly upset about it. The government does not use administrative detention against these Israeli settlers. They only use it against the Palestinians, where denial of rights, they basically kidnap you, right, put you in prison and all that. They never use it or haven't used it very recently, except in extremely rare cases, they might now, because of all of this pressure.

I don't really know why everyone woke up one day and it's like, wow, this is so horrible. I'm like, this has been going on for years? It's like, it's accelerated? Like, what's the theory? I saw a theory from Shail who was like, the reason is because since the IDF has to get involved over there to, like, protect the settlers or whatever, it takes away from their ability to invade Lebanon. So it's like a, you know, it's a forced distribution issue, not actually a more.

Oh, like Oxford 7th. Oh, like October 7, whatever all those guys were in the West Bank protecting the settlers and not on the border? Oh, shocker. Wow, weird. Never happened before. I mean, and also look, these people are sick. Let's put D8 up here on the screen. Story after story after story. Palestinian man recounts brutal sexual assault by Israeli settlers. The man said that his attacker stripped him naked, beat him zip tied his genitalia, an account that was corroborated by family members and rights activists who were also beaten. And, I mean, their family, the children, they were all beaten by these settlers. They sexually humiliated him in front of the entire family.

The only one who escaped unscathed was a young, you know, several-month-old baby because she was, like, hidden and slept through it. What a miracle. But everybody else was assaulted by these settlers. And listen to this. They also stole the family's 400 sheep, its entire livelihood, along with wedding rings, jewelry, cell phones, cash, and identification papers. Has there been any punishment? Not currently. Now, ask yourself, just ask yourself, let's say the roles were reversed. Oh, yeah. Let's say it was a Palestinian who did this to an Israeli. Every mainstream media outlet would cover it. It'd be all over the place.

You could, would not be able to escape it. You would know every, every detail of it in some additional that they invented. I mean, that and so, but when this happens with the palace, thank you to the New York Times for actually covering this. But, you know, the level of violence that is just currently, you know, consistently ongoing in the West Bank and which there has been a significant uptick since October 7th. I mean, you've had multiple deaths in the West Bank. People being murdered by settlers just in this year. I think it's the number is already up to seven or eight. Do you see that in the mainstream news coverage? I saw Chris Cuomo come out and be. and share one of these articles.

It might have even been this article and like WTF. It's like, dude, you are at CNN for how you call yourself a journalist and you're like shocked and surprised by this. This is the program. This is what they're doing all the time. And of course he's this big Zionist defender and now acting like he's so surprised and shocked

by this horror that is consistently ongoing. In my opinion, at this point, you have to be willfully ignorant. I think pre-October 7th, it's fair enough. You know, you don't know a ton. You're not paying attention. I was in a, I didn't pay it about. attention. It's kind of like, whatever. I know people care a lot about it, but, you know,

after this point, especially if you work in the news business, if you're a normal person, you're forgiven. But if you work in news, if you just read the Israeli press, which details some of this, and over and over again, we've got these rampaging settler attacks, the Jasper, Nathaniel, multiple incidents, the multiple American citizens who've been killed in the West Bank, the actions of the way that these people are treated and defended by the government. Didn't they arm them? They gave them guns. They protected them. They've been murder. They've been murders on camera, which we played for here on the show. Rape. Yeah, good luck to our YouTube mindset. Yeah, on this one. Whatever. Okay, we do the news because we have to.

By the way, in this attack where a Palestinian man was raped, you know, was raped, the activist there is an American who was also assaulted. By the way. Where is our state department? Where are the politicians? you know, whose constituent is she? Jasper obviously was menaced by a mob of settlers. His congressman is Dan Goldman, currently. Goldman is one of these who suddenly, you know, he's an arch-sionist. He suddenly put on a statement, oh, these settlers' attacks need to stop. It's like your literal constituent was attacked by these people,

and you had nothing to say, you did absolutely nothing. And you expect me to believe that now you're so sincerely concerned by it. But, I mean, the reason for him is that he has a primary challenge for him. Brad Lander. And so suddenly he's trying to, you know, trying to signal the, oh, no, no, I care about humanity. Sure, I do. So anyway, that's what's going on there. Great. All right, let's get to airports. You know, Roaldahl, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary,

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and if you're trying to keep up with everything happening on and off the court, we've got you covered on the podcast, flagrant and funny. You look at the top four number one seeds. What do you think UCLA is going to do? Break down that for me, my friend. I do think UCLA is going to do. has a really good chance of getting back to the final four. Obviously, UConn is the overwhelming favorite in this tournament,

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on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. I became a millionaire overnight but lost everything that actually mattered. Wait a minute, Sophia. Did you just say he lost everything?

That's right, it's inheriting too much drama week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, I just inherited a fortune after losing my mom, and now my girlfriend's entire family is coming out of nowhere with their hands out. One sibling wants me to fund their whole lifestyle. Another vanished for four years and suddenly reappeared, and my girlfriend is already giving my money away. Hold on, Sophia, so the girl he wants to marry is already sending money out the door. And that's just the beginning.

He makes a plan, sets up a trust, and finally thinks he has everything under control. Okay, so things work out then? Let's just say the people he trusted the most are the ones who ended up shocking him the most. So does the money end up being worth going through all that? To find out, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So in yesterday's show, we mentioned all of the chaos ongoing at American airports in part because of the DHS shutdown, which has meant all kinds of TSA workers calling out of work because they're not getting paid. We also had, though, this horrific collision that occurred.

Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So this was an Air Canada flight AC-8646 colliding with a port authority fire truck. This happened at LaGuardia Airport. Both the pilots were killed in this horrendous crash. You had a flight attendant who was actually ejected from the plane. You had dozens of passengers who were injured. You know, two on the truck were also injured miraculous, that they're, frankly, that they're alive. There was some audio that came out yesterday's saga or two.

I don't know if you saw of apparently what happened is you had air traffic controllers who are short staffed. You had an emergency with a different plane where they had, they suspected there was a fire on board. They were trying to send this fire truck over to that other airplane, gave it clearance to cross the runway at exactly the moment this air can. plane is landing. I also read a harrowing account of one of the passengers who survived the crash. It was on the plane. And they said that there was this, there was a bumpy landing on it was a lot of turbulence. And then when they hit the runway, they, you know, could hear this grinding screech of the brakes as the pilots tried to do everything they could to avoid this collision, which obviously there was nothing they could do and, you know, our hearts go out to their

families. It's so bad. Let's put E1B guys up on the screen. Shows the pilot and some of the damage. It's just, yeah, it's so heartbreaking. The pilot who died from Quebec, 30-year-old. And, yeah, I mean, I think the co-pilot also was very, very young. So it's just, I mean, it's not just tragic, but it shows, like, the precarity of a lot of commercial air travel right now. And I think all of these together, look, remember, there are millions of flights all around the world every day. You only hear about things like this when they go bad. But when you combine it, it just feels like things here are falling apart. You got airport closures. runway, you know, LaGuardia was closed all day yet.

I mean, you used to live in New York. You know, this is insanity. Oh, yeah. You're going to lose, close LaGuardia? Yeah. You know, you had a fire in Newark Liberty, Newark Liberty. Newark Liberty. I mean, it's a United Hub.

It's literally a gateway to the globe. You could fly direct to like Singapore and New Delhi from Newark. I mean, literally, like millions of people fly through that airport every single year. Then you've got the TSA situation. We got some of the VO. We could put some of this up here on the screen. It is mad. I thank God. I have a baby now. I don't fly very much anymore. Look at this. I feel so bad for these

people with little kids. Look at that kid in the stroller. 5.02 a.m. Hartsfield Jackson, where they told everyone yesterday to show up four hours early. Bush Interkite. I used to live, this is my own home airport, but IAAH, my old stomping grounds, New York City. Apparently, there's no pre-check, there's no clear, there's just one line, New Orleans, multiple hour lines. all the videos here, you got people. I mean, think about it. At one point, this is my personal nightmare. They're now doing live entertainment for the lines,

like people, like bands. Oh, no. Okay, right? Forced entertainment. It's like whenever the Southwest flight to Hawaii passed around ukuleleys, I'm like, you might as well take that ukulele and beat me over the head with it rather than have to listen to other people.

But, I mean, think about that. That's madness. I'd have to sit in some of these lines. I'm joking, but it's not funny. Like, it's absolute insanity. And yes, it's a result of the TSA, of the DHS shutdown. Yeah. Honestly, this is the irony, and we'll get to some of the political impacts.

If Iran was not happening, this would be the biggest story in the country. Yeah. Every day on CNN or on our show, we would have line updates like we were doing with gas prices. It was one hour and a half yesterday. So now it barely rates at the very end of the show. And for good reason, because we're literally in the middle of a goddamn war. But this is the problem for Trump. there was potential to try and have some national debate.

I think they would lose, but they could try. DHS, Democrats are holding us hostage. Now, nobody cares. It's literally like, you know, A5 in the New York Times or something, if you think about the old newspapers. And that is massively to the Democrats' benefit because this is like a polycrisis now for Trump. You have a war.

We have to spend the vast majority of his resources. Gas prices are going up. Everybody's very concerned. All of the pressure now with TSA breakdown, Americans have heard nothing about DHS or any of this other stuff about what the, you know, the contours of the debate are. They're like, I need this shit to end now, now. They're like, I don't care what you have to do. It needs to be over.

And so the political pressure on the White House is immense. It actually looks like this morning we might get some sort of deal. Chuck Schumer said that they're talking. The likelihood of that deal would basically be to carve ICE funding out of everything else and then fight about that later on. Kind of makes sense because ICE is already fully funded. That's part of the reason the agents are in the airports because they're the ones. who are getting paid. But yeah, I mean, politically, nightmarish for the White House.

Stuff like this always will fire back on the chief executive because he's the person who's in control. Of course. They have the House. They have the House. They have the Senate. They're in control of the White House. So especially on an issue where I do think that this kind of caught people off guard because it's not a full government shutdown. So you haven't had all this discourse about, okay, what are the contours of the debate and what are they asking for and what's the hold up, whatever?

People are just like, this sucks. I blame the president. And then the president went out of his way to go ahead and take on that blame because there was actually a deal that Democrats were willing to strike that John Thune was negotiating. And, you know, like Sager said, it would carve out ice separately. They would fund the rest of DHS. That means TSA agents would start getting paid. That's the crux of the issue is that TSA agents are not getting paid but are still expected to work. Well, there's going to be some certain percentage that it's like, I need to earn a paycheck.

I will not be at that job where you're forcing me to work for free. I will be at an actual job where I need to get paid because that is the reality of life. So you're having mass callouts of TSA agents, which is leading to these lines. So in any case, Trump came out and was like, no, no deal, because I want you to not only fund DHS, but I also want you to pass the Save America Act. We have E7. Yeah, put E7 up on the screen. This is just the Punch Bowl report. Trump to Thune, no deal.

He made it very clear. You had, actually, let's go ahead and play E3, Senator Kennedy, who is a Republican, talking about the dynamics here. And I believe this was over on Fox News, talking about, okay, well, Trump is the one who said he doesn't want a deal. Let's take a listen to that. Senator Cruz and I came up with a plan. We said, look, it's a two-step process. The Democrats have offered to open up everything but ICE. Ted and I said, okay, let's accept their offer.

And then at the same time, we would offer a bill for reconciliation where we don't need any Democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ICE. And that way we're out of the shutdown and DHS is back open. We submitted that, Senator Carthune submitted that to President Trump, as is his right. He said, no, no deals with the Democrats. It would have worked. We could have had TSA paid by the end of the week, but the president said no deal. It would have worked, but the president said no deal. Sure enough, but E8 up on the screen. This is the president directly saying no deal. I don't think we should make any deal with the

crazy country destroying radical left Democrats unless and until they vote with Republicans to pass the Save America Act. Far more important than anything else we are doing in the sun. That includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems, who are to blame for this mess, a $5 billion cut in ICE funding a deal, which even when disguised as something else, is unacceptable to me and the American people, unless it includes their approval of voter ID with picture, citizenship to vote, no mail in voting, with exceptions, all paper ballots, no men in women's boards, which just randomly got thrown into this thing, too. And no transgender mutilization, which is not a word, of our precious children, put it all together, and also let Leader Thune

clearly identify those few Republicans that are voting against America. They will never be elected again. in other words, lump everything together as one and vote. Killed a filibuster and stay in D.C. for Easter, if necessary, make America great. Again, I mean, obviously, like, he's clearly shouldering the blame for this. Chaos at American Airboards. It's happening during a time when many families are traveling for spring break. So it's going to impact more than just, you know, the business. It obviously would.

But right now is a time of year when you're going to have more just, like, ordinary, middle class, families who are planning their Florida trip or whatever for their kids spring break. and you also see the high priority he puts on this Save America Act, which he thinks is going to give him more power, and it will give him more power to mess with the midterms where he knows he is politically screwed.

If you look at it right now, I mean, the irony too is about the filibuster. You and I are like, yeah, do it. Kill it. Yeah, we're like, great, okay, sure, you can pass it now and then, you know, in the future other people who are in power can pass, whatever they want. So let's go. All right.

I'm ready, all right. Kill it. I'm happy to see it gone. You want to pass Dave America for two years? We can actually get some things that, you know, happen. I used to be somewhat of a defender like I understood, but at this point, it's just, it's too much. And I've even seen this restoration of, what is it called, the talking filibuster. I think it's reasonable type of deal.

That's too wonky. But the point is it actually would make it so that, yeah, the party in power would be able to do what they want. And if you don't like it, you can elect whoever you want in order to actually pass what they want. Same thing. What you were talking about, if the Democrats take the Senate, then, yeah, every piece of Trump legislation, ever will be dead for the entire president. There would be like a two-year-long government shutdown, basically, if they wanted it to under the administration. That's the point. It would actually make the government more responsive. But as of this morning, it actually does look like

there could be some deal. A bunch of senators huddled with Trump last night, potential breakthrough last night where Trump met with Senator Katie Britt and a few others. Chuck Schumer said both sides are talking in a serious way. Pressure's growing. It would probably come down to what we just said, passing funding for everything but ICE. And because ICE is already fully funded, it would push it out to the future. Under the potential deal, it would be restored under the HSI investigation team would apparently be restored, requiring them to have, what is it called, more investigatory actions and not reassigning the HSI agents to immigration enforcement on top of a few other deals. So there might be some contours around it. But like right now,

from what we can tell, it actually does look like this might be ending. And it's simply because of all of the chaos with TSA and in the airports. I also think Trump, I don't know what they're thinking with the ICE deployment. Because look, you know, you guys know my feelings about immigration. I've got my problems with ICE. But at the very least, like the one thing politically I would tell you not to do is to take the most politicized law enforcement agency in the country and then put it in front of all of the people who are flying.

You don't want to be seeing that, you know? You don't want that in front of your own eyes. Whenever you're, it's like, imagine if you could take the most, one of the more unpopular parts of your presidency, and then just remind everybody constantly that it exists. And that they're, like, you don't want that, all right? You kind of want it out in the shadows. Do we have the images?

Can we show everybody? Yeah, I mean, and, I mean, there's just, you know, it's an idiotic idea on every level. And it's also doing nothing to help the situation because they're not trained as TSA. All the images that I've seen of these guys are them just hanging around, doing absolutely nothing. Have you guys seen that meme of the guy who's like pushing, like trying to make it look like he's pushing his subway car? They're like, those are the, you know, the ICE agents.

We gotta get some highway. I'm just going to say it. We got to get some fucking weight requirements. Oh, yeah. Meal Team 6 has arrived at the airport. In any case, they're basically just standing around doing nothing except making people uncomfortable and angry, which, you know, they're already standing in a long ass line, feeling uncomfortable. and angry, so there you go. Steve Bannon says this should be a trial run

for sending them to the polling stations in November, which I certainly don't think is completely off the table. But I did see one person say, Sagar, that this made sense to them because they've often wanted to be shot in the face when they were waiting in a long airport line. Okay, do we have time for me to rant a little bit here? All right, can I just say this?

If you, where are you going that's so important to stand in line for four hours? I'm just gonna say it. I understand the spring break and all of that. Look, flight credit exists. You can cancel. If you bitch and moaned at a company enough, they will give you a refund. Stay home or drive.

I was telling you, there's somebody lady that tweeted this morning, she's like, my daughter waited in line for eight hours and Mr. Flight, sleeping in an airport. And just to make sure, where are you going at so on point? Like, outside of a family emergency, don't go. You know, just don't go. If you have to go for work, I guess, even then, like, can you not talk to your boss? You're like, yo, man, I'm not waiting in line for six and a half hours.

Yes, I know. That's a firm a point of privilege. I just, I feel like there's probably a way that is around. But imagine, okay, this is your one vacation. You have booked your stuff. It's not refundable. We'll go later. You can't get it back.

We're waiting for this. I told you, there's no such thing is not refundable. There's no such thing. There is, of course, the thing of non-refundable. It says it in the fight. If you call it up, call the credit card company, challenge a transaction. You book an Airbnb. They're not giving you your money back.

It's not happening. No, you can't figure. So if people have dropped a bunch of money, they're like, all right, well, I guess I'm going to suffer for a day so that I can get this vacation that I saved up all year. So I have some empathy. I will say Tim Dillon did a very funny bit on this.

What did you say? He was like, he was talking about Americans traveling abroad while we're like destroying the world. He's like, get your ass back. No one wants to see you right now.

Like you're gonna go on your, you know, you're gonna watch us drop a bomb on a school and then you're gonna go and enjoy like a vineyard in Italy. He's like, stay home. Do not go anywhere. No one wants to see your face. I mean,

I vacation, go to Florida. I feel conflict. Because, you know, I hate the Euros, too, and their snobbishness, you know, Iran. It's like, as if your bases aren't being used right now, your governments aren't sucking on the teat of the USA, and you don't need those tourist dollars to float your shitty economy. So I'm not going to give too much to them. The only thing that I will sympathize with the Euros is whenever they complain about how Americans will go to Europe,

like in the middle of the summer, and they'll wear, like, gym clothes while all the other Italians are wearing like. And you know what? They're right, right? It's gross. That would be the thing that you would have to say. Can you imagine sitting in a Tuscan shop and you're wearing an Italian linen cut fine suit? You're like 76 years old.

And then some guy walks in with an underarmor t-shirt that says, protect this house with a t-shirt and one of those sunglasses that like wraps around in the back and then mispronounces the word like latte and then fumbles with euro coins or something. That would disgust me too. All right? So I'm with them.

I'm with them all on that front. You got to be comfy when you're a tourist. No, no. No, no. No, no, no. Sorry. They walk up. What, they walk plenty in leather shoes. It's not hard, all right? You can buy some decent shoes.

They're made for that. We're not. Okay. All right. Let's get to the next guest. Brendan Stadhauser, standing by. You know Roll Dahl, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans And he was really good at it You probably won't believe it either Okay, I don't think that's true I'm telling you The guy was a spy Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's

Played poker with Harry Truman And had a long affair with a congresswoman And then he took his talents to Hollywood Where he worked alongside Walt Disney And Alfred Hitchcock Before writing a hit James Bond film How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever

and what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Marsh Madness is here, and if you're trying to keep up with everything happening on and off the court, we've got you covered on the podcast, flagrant, and funny. You look at the top four number one seeds. What do you think UCLA is going to do? Break down that for me, my friend.

I do think UCLA has a really good chance of getting back. to the final four. Obviously, Yukon is the overwhelming favorite in this tournament, but I'll be honest, I think people are kind of sleeping on Texas. Experts are suggesting that UCLA is the number one challenger

to Yukon and that right after that would be Texas. SEC is so deep and so thinking just about everything, it really is annoying. So it's UCLA, Texas, South Carolina, LSU. Only ones that could possibly upset Yukon. On Flagrant and Funny, we're giving our

unfiltered takes on the biggest moments the conversations everyone's having. So whether your bracket is busted or you just want the latest on the tournament, we got you. Listen to Flakrant and Funny with Carrie Champion and Jamel Hill on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. I became a millionaire overnight but lost everything that actually mattered. Wait a minute, Sophia. Did you just say he lost everything?

That's right. It's inheriting too much drama week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. The person writes, I just inherited a fortune after losing my mom, and now my girlfriend's entire family is coming out of nowhere with their hands out. One sibling wants me to fund their whole lifestyle. Another vanished for four years and suddenly reappeared. And my girlfriend is already giving my money away. Hold on, Sophia. So the girl he wants to marry is already sending money out the door.

And that's just the beginning. He makes a plan, sets up a trust, and finally thinks he has everything under control. Okay, so things work out then? Let's just say the people he trusted the most are the ones who ended up shocked. him the most. So does the money end up being worth going through all that? To find out, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we've covered here extensively the battle between Anthropic and the Pentagon. We've also talked about some of the ways AI may be deployed within the Iran War and previously and currently still in Gaza.

Joining us now to speak about those concerns and a lot more with regard to AI is Brendan Steinhauser. He's the CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI. Great to meet you, Brendan. to see you. Just see you. Yeah. So let's go ahead and put this element up on the screen. This is some reporting from Lever News that effectively what they're finding here is Trump is trying to push the requirements they were trying to force on Anthropic. They're trying to push this government-wide at this point. So the headline here is Trump contracting clause would override AI safeguards. I'm just going to read a little bit of this article so people get a sense of it. The Trump administration's

quietly advancing a sweeping new contracting clause that would empower federal officials to force AI companies to scrap safety protocols, eliminate privacy protections, and follow other Trump directives as a condition of doing business with the government, according to a draft text reviewed by the lever. What do you make of this? And what did you think was sort of the central fight or the importance of the battle between Anthropic and the Pentagon? I think the central fight was that Anthropic has certain principles and red lines as a company that it doesn't want to cross. And those include making sure there are safeguards on having a human in the loop on autonomous weapons. They don't want to see so-called killer robots just going around and striking targets

without a human being in control and making those decisions. And also they don't want their technology used for surveillance of the American people. They don't want to see a police state created in the United States of America, especially powered by Anthropics technology. And so that's where they drew their red lines. They've had those principles for a while. but the Department of War decided that they were going to basically bully and brawl beat the company into getting what they won. And ultimately, Anthropic was designated a company that was supposedly a threat to national security, a supply chain risk, which I think is pretty ridiculous.

And then Open AI came in and said, okay, well, we'll adhere to those rules essentially, even though we claim that we have the same red lines, they decided to make the deal. But I think it's a very concerning thing for all Americans who are concerned about our civil liberties and concern. about big tech getting too close to a government that has shown some, you know, quite authoritarian tendencies. Yeah, I mean, this is what I worry about right now. We're in a war. This is a literal wartime. And the very day that this was all happening, the next day we launched the operation against Iran. So what's your assessment now? Currently, we've already seen all of these, I mean, the very first day of the campaign, a girls' school is struck. We know that. We don't know yet whether AI was used in that, but it does highlight some of the problems with target packages.

And this is with alleged human oversight. So imagine if you're hallucinating answers, you can hallucinate targets in a situation like this. So does the fact that we're already in a war amplify your warnings and your analysis here? Absolutely. I think we rushed to integrate AI into the Pentagon into everything we're doing. Certainly there were reports of Claude, the tool that Anthropic has created, being used and the raid on Maduro and Venezuela, and by all accounts, that went quite well. But to your point, when you have a problem with control over AI, when we basically have acknowledged

we can't control it, there are times where it not only hallucinates, but it kind of does the opposite of what its owner is intending for it to do, that's a real problem. And so, yes, you can see things lead to targets, innocent civilians being targeted and killed. you could see eventually a situation where AI decides to kind of override its human overseered. We've already seen that in other arenas. There's no reason to think that it won't happen in the military. And so when you talk about losing control of the most powerful weapons, powered by the most powerful technology with artificial intelligence, we're entering some very scary territory.

And I think there have to be guardrails imposed by Congress. Brendan, can you tell people a little bit of your backgrounds just so that they understand the political perspective that you bring to this? You were an organizer with the Tea Party. You know, how did you come to this particular fight? Yeah, I have a long background in Republican politics as a strategist and the grassroots organizer. I also have a master's degree in statecraft and international affairs from the Institute of World Politics. I've always had an interest in international affairs.

And I kind of saw these worlds collide a little bit with the rise of artificial intelligence. I've been reading about the topic for some time. And then one of my good friends actually was in the Trump administration, the first admin at the pen, gone. And his job was at the Joint Intelligence Artificial Intelligence Center there. And so he's one of the people that recruited me into this space is he's telling me to read this and read that and talk to this person and talk to that person. And he has expressed a lot of these concerns publicly. And it really convinced me that I needed to get involved in this because it was going to be the fight of our time. Yeah, Brendan, so within that context, we have watched now a White House,

which effectively is joined at the hip with these AI companies. I think for a variety of reasons, First and foremost, though, really is valuation. I mean, after Liberation Day, the valuations of these AI companies and their financial engineering has been propping up American GDP, the data centers, our stock markets. But part of the issue that we see right now is that the Iran War may be threatening all of that. So let's put F1, for example, up here on the screen. The FT is reporting that even without energy shocks, there's a good chance that the closure of the Straits of Hormuz will pop the AI bubble and lead to a stock market crash.

This is from energy costs, high-tech valuations, a lot of the Gulf Arabs who are invested in these VC companies. So if we do see some sort of burst, what impact do you think that will have on this situation and the issues you care about? Well, I think it's very demonstrably true that AI has propped up the economy, that a lot of the numbers that we see that are often kind of bragged about might be somewhat artificial and driven by a lot of circular financing between these various companies. And so if there is an AI bubble and it burst, it could be very bad for the American people, very bad for the world economy, in fact. Look, the other thing that's happening right now is we're seeing job losses occurring and hiring freezes due to AI. In fact, we rolled out a website called jobloss.a.i to track those numbers. And we've already seen 100,000 jobs lost due to AI this year and going back into last year. And so it's a really concerning situation.

And yeah, if we have the Strait of Hormuz clothes or even contested and not fully open for some time, you could see energy prices continue to rise. You could see people paying more money at the pump. You could see supply chain risks, of course, related to not only oil and gas, but semiconductor chips because so much of the manufacturing relies upon some of these minerals that are coming out of the strait as well. So it could be a really dire situation economically. And my hope for the president, look, as a Republican, I mean, my hope for the president is that he sees,

all of this and gets ahead of it. And Republicans and Congress sort of wake up to what's going on and get ahead of it. I haven't seen a lot of signs on that so far. But we're starting to hear a few a few things here and there in Capitol Hill that do give us some hope that they will figure this out and get ahead of it. Can you talk a little bit more about, you said the website you run job loss. AI to track the, you know, direct job loss from artificial intelligence, which I imagine is a tricky challenge because I know a bunch of these companies have said, well, basically what we're going to do is just not hire more people and allow people to sort of naturally leave. That's something that Amazon has talked about in some internal memos, for example. But based on what you can see,

what are the industries where displacement is occurring at the fastest rate? Certainly a lot of the technology companies are utilizing AI themselves, and especially in a lot of this white-collar work, whether it's administration or sort of operations. You're seeing a lot of the white-collar jobs actually being some of the first to be automated. But the thing that the industry that got hit already, the hardest right now is kind of the software engineering side of things as well, because now something like 90% of coding is being done by AI. So we're seeing that happening. we're seeing white collar work getting hit. And a lot of these companies are saying openly, they think a lot of the consulting world, accounting,

even eventually paralegals and lawyers, especially young lawyers, are going to face hiring freezes. They're going to face a very difficult situation in terms of getting a job. And so I think a lot of entry-level work is at risk, and that's what we're seeing kind of now. But I think we're going to see massive job losses this year,

and it's going to be due mostly to AI. Some companies are hiding that fact. Other people are actually saying it openly, and it's very hard to track, but we have a methodology that attempts to get as close to the truth as we can on that. The last thing I wanted to ask you about is you've had, you know, a crazy amount of AI already destabilizing reality. All you need to do is go on Twitter and try to figure out what the hell is real and what the hell is false and try to program a show, by the way, and figure out, you know, sort-bathrim fiction. It has never been more difficult.

And you have, you know, probably the two biggest examples. of this is you had all the we put F2 up on the screen. All these rumors that Bibi Netanyahu had been killed, and everybody was analyzing this video in particular, but other ones as well. This was a video he put out explicitly to say, guys, I'm alive, here I am, getting coffee. And even with this, there were all sorts of like anomalies

where people looking at this and going, no, no, no, this is AI. You had Trump talking about how the new Ayatollah Mishabha that he's not sure he's not sure he's. he's alive and, you know, so far we haven't seen any images or video of him. There have just been statements that are put out. So there's a theory that, you know, and some of the images that have been put out of him have actually been AI enhanced. You know, the other theory is just that he is in hiding because he would be assassinated

likely if there was any ability to tell his location. But in any case, I just love for you to speak to that, you know, social impact of the way that already reality has been completely destabilized by this technology. And no one seems to be grappling. Our lawmakers do not seem to be grappling with what that means and how to get this under control so that we don't, you know, get into this like totally postmodern world where literally you can invent your own reality and believe whatever you want to believe. And it's a really big problem now.

It's going to get worse. You're going to see it more and more in political ads in the midterms this year. The, you know, the words disinformation and misinformation get thrown around a lot. They become very politicized. but they do have a real meaning and misinformation, you know, just things that are untrue that people are spreading, sometimes not by their own volition. They're just, it's information that's out there that someone heard or made up or, you know, maybe they made a funny video. They weren't intending to mislead anyone, but that's happening. And then there's disinformation coming from governments, coming from political actors, coming from political parties and figures.

And that's, you know, information that's knowingly false meant to mislead people. So lying about someone being dead, for example, and then creating a video or creating content to share to get people to spread that information. That's disinformation. Those are both big problems. They're going to get worse. And I think the best advice that I have to people is to really be skeptical and really check your sources and figure out who are the journalists and who are the thought leaders that you trust to tell you the truth. That's going to become more important than ever, you know, people that you know that have charactered integrity that will at least give you their. their best analysis and their best information that they have, that's what you're going to have to

rely on because looking at random accounts on the internet is going to get worse and worse in terms of trying to get good and accurate information. And so AI is just going to make this so much more difficult and state actors and non-state actors are participating it. So we have a lot to be worried about. Renan, thank you so much for joining us, man. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Great Wednesday show for everybody tomorrow. I think Ryan's going to detail his Cuban travels. Oh, my goodness. A lot to say about that.

Yeah, that's right. All right. They will see you all then. I became a millionaire overnight and lost everything that actually mattered. Hold on, Sophia. Did you just say they lost everything after becoming a millionaire? That's right. And it gets worse.

It's inheriting too much drama week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, I just inherited a fortune after losing my mom. And now my girlfriend's entire family is coming out of nowhere with her hands out. and my girlfriend is already giving my money away. So the girl he wants to marry is already sending money out the door. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bailey Taylor and this is It Girl. This podcast is all about going deeper with the women's shaping culture right now. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work behind it all. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity.

You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roll Doll. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either.

Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy. Listen to the secret world of Roll Doll on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.