Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/26/25: Signal Leak Meltdown, Dr Oz Shatters Medicare, Russiagate Unsealed, Snow White Flop & MORE!

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Ryan and Emily discuss Mike Waltz meltdown over Signal chat leaks, Dr Oz plot to destroy Medicare, Trump unseals Russiagate docs, Dem star calls Texas Gov 'Hot Wheels', College Dems call out cringe paid influencers, DropSite editor remembers Hossam Shabat, Hollywood blames pro-Palestine star for Snow White flop.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy.

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I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

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of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, you're welcome to CounterPoints. Emily, I've been hanging out in the studio all week long. I know, I was gonna say, here's some feminine energy for you. Half bro show. Yes, yes, yes. Although sometimes I think I'm more of a bro than Sagar.

No offense, Sagar, but yeah, he doesn't always bro out. He can't even drink beer. All right, so we've got a huge show today, Ryan. We have a lot to get through. And multiple guests on really interesting stuff. So looking forward to that. We have obviously more updates on Signalgate. One of the better gates, I'll say, Ryan. Some of these updates, some of these video clips Donald Trump weighed in yesterday. Michael Waltz was on Laura Ingraham. So we got a lot to talk about. We'll go through

all of that. Ryan has some reporting and dropsite on Dr. Oz, who sailed through his committee confirmation yesterday. We'll head to a full vote on the Senate floor. What does that mean for social security? I'm sorry, what does that mean for healthcare? What does that mean for Medicare? What does that mean for anyone who is on those plans and maybe in the near future? We have all kinds of stuff to get to on that. The FBI might not be super happy this morning. Donald Trump ordered the full declassification of everything related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. You may remember that as the code name for the investigation into whether Donald Trump colluded with Russia back in 2016. Jasmine Crockett had quite a moment yesterday going after Governor Greg Abbott of Texas.

So we will bring you that footage and the responses to it. Ryan, we have some guests from the College Democrats here. Yeah, there's a huge clash going on in Gen Z among two different camps of Democrats. There's the kind of cringe sellout influencer element that seems to always get elevated by the media as representative of Gen Z. And then the actual kind of young people who have, you know, very particular opinions about war and the economy and culture and the schools etc One gets all the attention The other doesn't and so we're gonna let these ones dunk on these ones

we're gonna have the president the college Dems and the VP on to talk about the problem of cringe in their generation cringe and cringe and Cashing out which by the way used to be almost solely owned by the right. Yes, you're right. The idea that you'd have authentic, earnest people in the College of Democrats who cared about making the world a better place is a foreign concept to me. Those were the cringe strivers and climbers back when I was coming up. Yeah. So lots to talk about there. And, Ryan, we have Sharif with us as well.

Yes. My colleague, Sharif Abdel-Kadous, who was Hossam Shabbat's editor over at Dropsite, he's going to talk about what it was like to work with Hossam, his life, his death. We'll also talk about some of the marches that were in Gaza yesterday and that are planned for again today. And we're going to talk about, on a much, much lighter note, Snow White and why it's bombing or maybe why, I don't know, we're going to get to the bottom of it, right, Ryan? My kids saw it. Oh, your kids saw it? Did they like it? It was fine. They're some of the few people in America who've seen the movie. It was a birthday party organized around it. That one's going to be for producer Griffin. Shout out to producer Griffin. So we'll, we'll, we do have some interesting, I mean, obviously

there's some pretty fascinating dynamics between Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot. There are interesting political dynamics between Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, but also just Rachel Zegler's position on Israel, Gal Gadot's position on Israel. So we'll go through how that may or may not be influencing the way business is treated in the movie and break it all down. So let's start with returning to Signalgate because there's a lot more to get to. Donald Trump yesterday defended Michael Waltz. I think it's fair to say the wagons are circling around him. The administration has made a conscious decision to defend Michael Waltz, even though, as you will see in just a moment, his own defense of himself is dubious at best. So let's listen to Donald Trump yesterday. This is A1. It's a question

I've been asked now and I've given a few answers and they've all been the same. We have an amazing group. Our national security now is stronger than it's ever been. We have had a very, very successful, numerous attacks on that area. These are people that shoot down ships, not only our ships, ships all over the world. They're shooting down right out of the water, exactly things like that. But I don't think it's something we're looking forward to using again. We may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety. And you may be forced to use it. But generally speaking, I think we probably won't be using it very much. Now, let's hear from Michael Waltz himself, who spoke at that meeting and later on Laura Ingram.

We're going to start here with A2 Waltz from that same meeting. The lesson is there's a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves, making up lies about this president, whether it's the Russia hoax or making up lies about Gold Star families. And this one in particular, I've never met, don't know, never communicated with. And we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room. But I'll tell you what, the world owes President Trump a favor. Under Biden, global shipping was shut down. Pinprick attacks, months between them, our destroyers being fired upon dozens of times. President Trump took decisive action with his national security team. Really important point to contrast with Walt's story and Goldberg's story. He says right there

he does not know Goldberg. He says he has never communicated or met him. And in Goldberg's story, he does say that they have communicated. So Asagar points out someone's lying here, right? Yeah. All right. So he was pushed even further last night on Laura Ingraham's show on Fox News. Let's take a look at this next clip. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything's coordinated. But how did the number, I mean, I don't mean to be pedantic here, but how did the number? Have you ever had somebody's contact that shows their name and then you have and then you have somebody else's number there?

Oh, I never make those mistakes. Right. You've got somebody else's number on someone else's contact. So, of course, I didn't see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we're trying to figure out. So you're a staffer did not put his contact information.

No, no, no. But how did it end up in your phone? Well, that's what we're trying to figure out. But that's a pretty big problem. That is what we've got the best technical minds, right? That's disturbing. And that's where, I mean, I'm sure everybody out there has had a contact where it was said one person and then a different phone number. But you've never talked to him before, so how's the number on your phone?

I mean, I'm not an expert on any of this, but it's just curious. How's the number on your phone? Well, if you have somebody else's contact and then somehow it gets sucked in. Oh, someone sent you that contact. It gets sucked in. Was there someone else supposed to be on the chat that wasn't on the chat that you thought was on the chat? So the person that I thought was on there was never on there. It was this guy.

Who was that person? Well, look, Laura, I take responsibility. I built the... Okay, so they're not answering the question about who that may have been. I think a lot of people agree it seems like it was probably Jameson Greer, U.S. trade representative, would make sense in the context of that conversation. Don't know that for sure, though.

It could very well be other people, but I think they don't want to bring another name into it unnecessarily. That would be my guess. Right. Okay, so I think I can undercut something he just said there. He's presenting the idea that he used to be friends with some other 202 number that got into his phone. I see what's up on your phone right now for what it's worth. And Goldberg then later got that number, and then that's how he snuck into the phone. So I have not talked to Jeffrey Goldberg, as far as I can remember, since 2017.

Okay. So I just checked Signal, and his same number came up. Okay. So that's eight years ago. Okay. So unless Michael Waltz met, and Goldberg threatened to sue us, actually, at HuffPost. Oh, really? Yeah.

Because we did a story about him being an IDF. Yeah, I was just going to ask if that's what it was. And beating a prisoner. And his argument was he was there and witnessed the beating but didn't participate in the beating. I didn't write the story. Anyway. So in any event, his number has not changed for eight years, at least according to my quick search of Signal. And he does show up as JG.

Yep. But also Jeffrey Goldberg because he's in my contacts. But if he didn't, he would show up as JG. Right. Right. And that's an important thing with Signal is that theoretically, there's an argument, and I don't think this makes it necessarily better for Waltz, if he's claiming they've never communicated. There are two possibilities here that would have been easy for him to explain away. First of all, maybe he called Goldberg at some point to push back on a story or to, this is like the charitable explanation from his point of view. Maybe he called Jeffrey Goldberg to push back on a story and say, you got something wrong. Something that principals do

sometimes, especially to an EIC. Some people have been saying, well, Jeffrey Goldberg hasn't reported anything in over a year. True. He's the editor in chief. He sends some of his tips to his reporters or he takes calls, fields calls from principals who are saying, man, you got the story really wrong. I don't want you to run the story, pressuring him. That could all be plausible, could have been acceptable. And then you would have him potentially pop up on your signal. But the other thing that could have happened is he could have been in a signal group with Jeffrey Goldberg and Goldberg isn't in his contacts, and then it shows up on Signal. Now, if they— He's doing it in a Signal group.

Right. So, none of this works for Michael Waltz, and that's why it's interesting— But we're all trying to figure out how this happened. It's feeling like Joy Reid level, as someone said. Yeah, that's what it's starting to feel like. It's starting to get rather shameless. Yeah, the time traveling hackers explanation. Joy Reid had all of these posts on her old blog that she no longer wanted to own, didn't really fit with her pro-LGBT brand and said someone must have time traveled and put them into the Wayback Machine somehow. We're at that level here

with Michael Waltz. Yeah. Which, come on, man. Like you fat thumbed it. You typed in JG to get, who was the USTR? Jameson Greer. It could have been someone else too, though. It would make sense that if they've got the treasury secretary, you know, war is a racket. Like we need all of our money guys. Right. Apparently in our war planning. Like, why is the Treasury Secretary there? And if you're going to have the Treasury Secretary, you might as well have the trade rep because it's all about trade. So in any event, he hits a JG and adds that JG. Right. Which, don't you work for like the intelligence community? You kind of should double check

before you just, JG are fairly common letters in the alphabet. He is the national security advisor. I mean, he is in no position to advise anyone on national security at this point. It's so embarrassing. So it's all the obviously this is not just touching Michael Waltz. Tulsi Gabbard was testifying and John Ratcliffe, CIA director, was testifying in front of the Intel Committee yesterday. So let's take a look at both of them, fielding some questions on this. Let's start with A4. This is Tulsi Gabbard. Contact the defense secretary or

others after this specific military planning was put out and say, hey, we should be doing this in a skiff. There was no classified material that was shared in that signal. So then if there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can't have it both ways. These are important jobs. This is our national security. Bobbing and weaving and trying to, you know, filibuster your answer. So please answer.

So here's CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who was also testifying on Capitol Hill yesterday. One final point. I'm out of time. Well, are you going to give me a chance? Is it appropriate? Did you know that the president's Middle East advisor was in Moscow on this thread while you were as director of the CIA participating in this thread? Were you aware of that? Are you aware of that today? I'm not aware of that today. This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable.

It's an embarrassment. Senator, you need to do better. You need to do better. I regret to do this. I regret to inform you. We have more. Take a look at A6. Your question was, have I participated in any other group chats sharing classified information?

To be clear, I haven't participated in any signal group messaging that relates to any classified information at all. Okay. Director Gabbard? Senator, I have the same answer. I have not participated in any signal group chat or any other chat on another app that contained any classified information. I don't know if you use signal messaging app. I do. I do.

Not for classified information. Not for targeting. Neither do I, Senator. Not for anything remote. Neither do I, Senator. Well, that's what your testimony is today. It absolutely is not, Senator. Were you not listening at the beginning when I said that I was using it as permitted,

it is permissible to use? I agree that's your testimony. Yeah. I agree that's your testimony. You asked me if I use it, and I said not for targeting, not for classified information. And I said I don't. That's obviously the Senate Intel Committee. I think I said House earlier.

They're testifying in front of the House Intel Committee today, actually. So this isn't going to end. But I have to say, Ryan, if we're giving out gold medals, I think probably John Ratcliffe gets one for handling it better than anyone else. But that's a low bar. I mean, I don't know. Like, he seemed to be kind of flagrantly lying there, too. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, in terms of his performance, not in terms of the merits of his response. Tulsi's, well, Tulsi seemed to be lying there at the end, too, because obviously there was classified information on this thing. The identity of the CIA agent who was representing Ratcliffe was on the thread. That by itself is classified information. say that the timing and the precise munitions to be used for an airstrike that hasn't happened yet,

that that's open, that it would be fine if a sailor took that information and posted it on TikTok or in a Discord? Come on. That's utterly insulting. I thought that Bennett, the Colorado senator there, had the best argument, and that is the Democrats' best argument, where he's saying, look, this is not theoretical here. Steve Witkoff was in Moscow. So there are still questions that we don't have the answers to yet. A key one being, did he have his phone with him? And we could actually go back and check the thread, see if he's responding, sending the emojis. You know, he's one of the ones that sent a whole bunch of emojis. He did send emojis, yeah. But was he already out of Moscow when he did? Well, if he

was out, then where'd he get his phone? So he must have taken his phone with him. Because often they will tell you, don't take your government phone to China, to Russia, et cetera, for obvious reasons, because they're going to get on it. They're going to jump on that phone. And then your end-to-end encryption doesn't mean anything if they're inside your phone. A second key point, this is an old man real estate developer. Like, does this sound like the kind of guy who probably has his phone locked down to the maximum extent possible. No, it's an old man real estate developer. Yeah.

And you're sending him, while he's in Moscow, the names of CIA agents and the precise timing and the precise kind of attack you're going to launch on an organization that is linked with Russia. Russia doesn't fund them, but they're in that same orbit. Iran backs the Houthis. Russia and Iran have relations. If Russia gets a hold of that information, they'd like nothing more than to make life difficult for the American service members who are then going to be carrying out that attack. By the way, the key thing from an actual substance perspective that came out of this hearing, this was supposed to be a hearing on global threats and the intelligence community's annual assessment of threats. And Republicans are saying they waited to the day before to spring this so that it would dominate this hearing. Probably true. Clever. If they did.

The key thing to me that emerged from this hearing and from these reports is that the intelligence community's assessment of Iran's nuclear ambitions is that Khamenei dispatched with their program in 2003 and has shown no interest since then in restarting it. That is our intelligence community now under the Trump administration. That's our intelligence community's assessment of Iran's nuclear ambitions, not doing it. He said there is some public pressure on him to do it. And then there's now more talk in Iran because for obvious reasons about kind of pushing him to do it. But as there's now more talk in Iran because, for obvious reasons, about kind of pushing him to do it. But as far as they can tell, he hasn't moved any closer to doing it. That's getting overshadowed by this idiot gate over here. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.

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

or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk

is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like

rap along now? Yeah, cause I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family?

It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the

Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower?

I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows.

Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox.

I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome I was dropped in 2020 working the drive-thru and here we are now we turn side eye into sermons pain into punchline and grief

we turn those into galaxies listen make sure you tell Beyonce I'm going right on the phone right now and call her listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app Apple Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Yeah, many such cases. That does seem to be the modus operandi of United States politics in the era of social media.

And everything has to come back to this, like, you've got to be kidding me level of irony. Yes, yes. We lived through 2015 and 2016 where we were told that Hillary Clinton sending, like, sort of classified information on her own personal email. Oh, yeah. Like, when she's going to have a meeting with the Bulgarian ambassador or whatever. Like, they classify everything in the government. So that would be, like, technically classified. There was some shit. Also, nobody cares when government, so that would be technically classified. Also, nobody cares when she's

meeting with the Bulgarian ambassador. But we were told that... Well, there were significant conversations she was having about foreign policy on there, but I don't know that they were on this level. I don't think it was like this. If they were on this level,

Comey would have charged her. Well, I don't think it was like this. If they were on this level, Comey would have charged her. Well, I don't know. I think there's no question that he would have charged her. So Elon Musk also is standing by Mike Waltz, despite Elon Musk being left off this very fun group chat, by the way. Yeah, if you've got Witkoff, you've got— Susie Wiles. Yeah. Yeah, so Lindsey Graham posts yesterday, I agree with President Trump that Mike Walz is an invaluable member of his national security team

and that he should continue to serve the president in our country. Not actually really doing Mike Walz any favors there to get the Lindsey Graham stamp of confidence, but Elon Musk quote tweeted that or quote X'd that, whatever, and said, same. So what's interesting about that, Ryan, is Trump, Musk, Lindsey Graham, everybody standing behind Mike Waltz. They're putting him on media, letting him speak to the press.

He's going on Laura Ingraham. He has this defense that is, I mean, laughably implausible and unpersuasive. They're not even sending him out there with some type of clever maneuvering. He's just going out there and saying, ah, like space aliens, basically Joy Reid level. Sorry, that was a little flippant. But essentially he's saying, you know, maybe somebody hacked into the into the phone, changed his contact. Something weird could have happened.

It's not a convincing explanation. So I think, Ryan, what's probably going to happen is he's going to realize he's lost the confidence of everybody around him. Even if Trump publicly is projecting confidence, Musk is publicly projecting confidence. This has been used, and I know you guys have talked about this, it's obviously been used by the people who already did not trust Mike Walts, who are already unhappy with Mike Walts because they see him as a holdover, sort of like a Pompeo type figure. And Pompeo is extremely controversial in the sort of hardcore MAGA circles, controversial with people like Don Jr. and Tucker Carlson, who will also look at someone

like Michael Waltz, even if they don't say it publicly, privately with skepticism and not complete and total trust. Like Waltz was signaling to the Ukrainians that he was going to, you know, push for more war support, you know, ahead of Besson and Vance and other people's trips to the region where they were pursuing Trump's policy of, no, we're going to end this war. So everywhere around the world, if there's a war on the table, Waltz is for it, whereas the others are kind of pushing back against it. So yeah, it's feeding into that internal fight. Right, and even for the people who agree with him ideologically, I think he's going to find out that it's very, very hard to take your boss seriously

or your peer seriously at the cabinet level when that's what's happening. Especially when he's doing interviews like that. Elsewhere he said, isn't it interesting that this, you know, terrible, horrible, devious reporter's information was, he was the one that happened to be sucked in to this. This loser. This loser. Like, as if there was some deep state conspiracy to, like, foist Jeffrey Goldberg onto this group chat. That it wasn't just Waltz who fat-thumbed him in there recklessly. Right.

Well, and there seems to be— And then added Witkoff for no reason. Like Witkoff, there's no insult to him. He's not on a need-to-know basis about the timing of the strikes on Yemen. He's Middle East envoy. Yeah, but he doesn't have any operational control over, like, what you're going to bomb in Yemen. I suppose it's possible that if he's in the middle of ceasefire negotiations, they would want to wrap him into that if he's communicating with— Right, but on this signal chat while he's in Moscow—

Well, I mean, no signal chat, let alone if he's in Moscow. He seemed to not know that he was in Moscow. He seemed to not know that he was in Moscow. He said he didn't know he was in Moscow. Yeah. It's a knowable thing. It's in the news. Yeah. He's also, again, the national security advisor.

He's not reading his briefings. Yeah. No, I mean, it's all completely ridiculous, but it's, I think, also probably going to turn out for Walt that my prediction is that he just resigns after a while. But that'll be a significant loss for the Lindsey Grahams of the world, which is probably why they're doubling down, because it's going to be hard to find another person that is sort of has the ideological leanings of Walt, but also the confidence of Trump and Trump world. That's actually why I think Lindsey Graham is plenty of people in who have those leanings of Waltz, but also the confidence of Trump and Trump world. That's actually why I think Lindsey Graham is- Right, there's plenty of people in who have those leanings, but Trump doesn't trust a lot of them. Yeah, I mean, even like a Robert O'Brien or a Mike Pompeo, those

people are not, you know, totally trusted by the Don Juniors, the Tucker Carlsons. So it's hard to find somebody who just gets, is even able to get along with that wing, gets along with Pete Hegseth, as we saw in the Signal chat. So, I mean, the story is wild. I guess two last points on our buddies Hegseth and Vance here. Seth, we were told that he had this come to Jesus moment around America first policy that he was no longer this strident war supporter. Around 2016, 17, he starts to come out and say he was wrong about the Iraq war and he's wrong he wants the US to be the policeman for the world, but he's just a little bit bitter about it that, because he doesn't like Europe. Like, that's, like, that's pretty weak. And then on Vance, like, it was nice to see him stand up and make an anti-war argument. But then immediately, he's like, well, never mind. If everybody wants to do it, then go

ahead and do it, which is like, well, then what's your point? Like, what's your role here? Like, and if you think that this war is inconsistent with Trump's vision for the world, which he said it was, and that we haven't sold it to the American public, you have Trump's number. Call the guy up. He may have. I mean, I don't know. I mean, on the thread, he just buckled. Yeah, he buckled. Well, I mean, the time gaps, probably the best way to say it, between—it's a little unclear to me.

Because I think at one point there was a full day that went by, right? Yeah, maybe he called him that night. It didn't seem like it, though. No idea. Yeah, no idea. But such is the life of a vice president. But, yeah, also he was trying to be persuasive, which is another interesting point of it. He's trying to be persuasive to Hegseth, trying to be persuasive.

I mean, it's interesting with Hegseth how he recommends that as Waltz is asking for points of contact, he recommends Dan Caldwell, who's someone very much from the skeptical, the world of skeptics of American imperial escapades. So there's interesting, there are genuinely interesting tensions in Trump world. And this was some interesting insight. Before we wrap though, Ryan, any of the conspiracy theories holding water with you, they aren't really with me that this was intentional. This was a planned leak. We saw, it's clear how it happened. He added him accidentally to the thing. Yeah. And then, yeah, did they have the story ready like four days ago and hold it so that it would have maximum impact right before these hearings? Sure. All right, we have a quick breaking update. We can put this

element up on the screen. So the question of what Pete Hegseth was sending has now been answered. We'll discuss this more on the program. I'll be on with Sagar tomorrow, but you can see it here. Pete Hegseth says, team update. Time now 1144 Eastern Time. Weather is favorable. Okay, that's not classified. Just confirmed with CENTCOM we are a go for mission launch. That sounds classified. 1215 ET. F-18's launch first strike package. Sounds classified. 1345 trigger-based F-18 first strike window starts. Target terrorist is at his known location, so should be on time. Okay, so if Russia sees this, you're now telling them at 1.45 Eastern time, you're going to target this particular terrorist. Also, and you know, so everybody can

just go hide. Anyway, 14.10, more F-18s launch second strike package. 14.15, strike drones on target. This is when the first drums will definitely drop pending earlier trigger-based targets. 1536 F-18 second strike starts. Also, first C-based Tomahawks launched. More to follow per timeline. We are currently clean on OPSEC, which of course you have to add any time your OPSEC is utterly filthy and lazy. Godspeed to our warriors. All right, so we'll have more on this unfolding idiot gate tomorrow. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch

and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack

of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it.

What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me, just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us.

To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something.

I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. Good way. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? Don't exist. Get a job. My podcast?

The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is.

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

and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Ryan, some really interesting and timely new reporting in Dropsite on Dr. Oz's plans for Medicare. Yes, Dr. Oz wants to privatize Medicare. Let's put up this

tear sheet from Alexander Zajic investigation that we published over at Dropsite. And we'll come back to this in a moment to explain the details of this privatization plan, which is not a harebrained scheme that has little chance of success. Our assessment is that he is quite likely to be able to actually pull this off if there's no resistance to it. But so if we put a B2, he cruised through his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday. It was one of these interesting situations where the hearing room was busy doing some Social Security stuff and couldn't meet there. So they met on the Senate floor. They kind of go off to the side of the Senate floor and they just kind of like hold a vote. And so he moves forward. And here is a bit from

previously when they did have the hearing room. So we can roll B3 here. Dr. Oz has years of experience as an acclaimed physician and public health advocate. His background makes him uniquely qualified to manage the intricacies of CMS. At his hearing, Dr. Oz discussed his vision to ensure CMS provides Americans with access to superb care, especially our most vulnerable patients. I look forward to working with him, if confirmed, to accomplish this goal. I was also encouraged to hear that he will focus on modernizing federal health care programs, work to fix our broken clinician payment system, and will partner with Congress to achieve pharmaceutical benefit manager reform. There is no doubt that Dr. Oz will work tirelessly

to deliver much-needed change at CMS. I will be voting in favor of his nomination, and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. Okay. So on the Medicare privatization scheme that Dr. Oz is pushing, and we can put up B1 again just for a few seconds so people can see this again. You can go read the full story to get all the details of it. And can I ask you, you just said is pushing. Yeah. Like currently. This is something that he right now believes in his capacity at this job. Yes. He can push. Yes. And he does not need legislation to do it. And so here's how. So if you're old or you know somebody old, you probably have heard of Medicare Advantage, which now roughly half of seniors on Medicare have what

are called Medicare Advantage plans. So these are administered by private companies, which are given a set amount of money by the government. And then if they can deliver care for the way they profit is by delivering care that costs less than that. The way they sell it to you is they say, we're going to do preventive stuff. We're going to make sure that you get your checkups. We're going to keep you healthy because to us, we profit if you don't use health care services. And in order to not use health care services, that means you're healthy. That's great. If that is how you keep health care costs down, that's what everybody wants.

People don't want necessarily cheap or affordable health care services. What they would like is no health care services. You don't want to be in the doctor's office or the hospital. What happens in practice, though, is that it's much easier to just deny people care because it's much harder to upfront make sure that people are staying healthier. Now, Medicare, actual regular Medicare, is not allowed to advertise. It's not allowed to go out and recruit people to its program. Medicare Advantage spends a lot of its money advertising its Medicare Advantage plans. And they say, join us because we'll give you dental and vision, and we'll deliver groceries to you. They have all these other little pluses

that when you're healthy, you're like, oh, that sounds great. And so they sign up for these privatized plans. And then they love it until they come to actually use the plan. You're like, oh, that's not in-network. The only in-network person is like 120 miles from here. That's not covered. And so you get the typical private insurance nightmares, but even in your public health care plan. And now you're stuck in this. now you're stuck in this situation. Dr. Oz has been a pitchman for Medicare Advantage for many, many years,

like on his programs. And because Medicare Advantage, there's so much profit in signing these old folks up to it, they would go out and they would hire these pitchmen all over the country. They'd say, look, you bring us somebody, we'll pay you. You get a finder's fee. Just the same way if you sign somebody up for Squarespace or whatever on your podcast and you get $10. Sign somebody up for Medicare Advantage who watched Dr. Oz's show, we'll give you $2,000 or whatever it is. There's an enormous amount of money in signing somebody up for Medicare Advantage. So he's been entangled with this for a very long time. He also, of course,

owns, I think he owns something like $600,000 in UnitedHealth stock, which he has said he would sell. They're a significant player in Medicare Advantage. Now, the irony is that Dr. Oz's ability to privatize Medicare comes from the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare set up these pilot programs that said, because one of the driving impulses of Obamacare was how do we deliver better health care for less? And so they said, we're going to set up a pilot program. And if this private company or this nonprofit can show that it actually is making people healthier, then we will expand access to that program. And so there are a number of pilot programs that are running through what's called CMMI, Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, I think it's called. And what almost all of them are finding is that Medicare Advantage delivers worse outcomes for more money, yet the private companies make decent, healthy profits off the top of it. That's what the pilot programs are showing.

All Dr. Oz will have to do is come in with a rubber stamp that says successful and rubber stamp those projects and it's a subjective decision that will be left to Dr. Oz to say, I find these to be successful. Right. And then boom, they are wide open to everyone in Medicare Advantage. And then the last thing they would have to do is just default every senior into Medicare Advantage and make them kind of actively move out of that into regular Medicare. And because Medicare has no capacity to advocate for itself, within a couple of years, you would go from 50% of people on Medicare Advantage to almost everybody on Medicare Advantage. And by then, once you're down to 20, 10, 20 percent of people on Medicare proper, it no longer is able, doesn't have the economies

of scale anymore, and it just completely collapses, and we're left with privatized Medicare. And so my personal perspective on this is why our health care system is the worst of both worlds. You end up with the worst of a market system or quote-unquote free market system and the worst of a bureaucratic system when you have these halfway measures. It's such a disaster. It's such a good example of why it's a disaster. But also, Ryan, you mentioned this doesn't have to go through Congress. Right, because the authority for it is vested in the Affordable Care Act, which already went through Congress. That's interesting.

So the ACA says if these pilot programs are successful, they can be then expanded by the head of CMS. And the head of CMS runs CMMI, which runs these pilot programs. And so Obama gave Dr. Oz the power to privatize Medicare. Why isn't Doge taking it away? That's actually a very good point. The Department of Justice is currently suing a bunch of Medicare Advantage scammers to the tune of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars. If Elon Musk and Doge, or whoever is running Doge, Doge, wanted to actually sniff out some real savings and some real waste, fraud, and abuse, Medicare Advantage is one of the first places anybody's serious about going after fraud would go. Instead, we're going to just expand it to what Dr. Oz calls

Medicare Advantage for all. So yes, if you're serious about waste, fraud, and abuse, this is the place to go. And yet, they're not. So draw your own conclusions. Trump's, the guy Trump picked to head up Social Security, his name is Frank Bisnano. He's CEO of Fiserv, actually, which is an interesting sort of personal point from. But anyway, meanwhile, this is just yesterday. He is saying that they will, you know, restore any customer service glitches, but they're not going to cut Social Security. Donald Trump has said, obviously, that's his red line. But you can see how the Oz plan is pitched as something a little bit different, right? That Donald Trump might not look at that and say, OK, this is cutting, right? Like,

it's actually something that you could see being pitched to him and him going along with. Yeah. And Trump is a pitch man. Like Dr. Oz. Yeah. The only reason that Trump hasn't sold Medicare Advantage plans and nobody got in front of him with the idea, maybe they did. We just don't know about it. But yeah, Trump would understand this. Oh, so we're going to offer them some surface level benefits. You know, we'll mail you a toothbrush and you can get groceries delivered and you get dental coverage. Good luck trying to use that dental coverage, by the way. But it looks good. It sounds good. And then we get to keep all the money by denying them care. It's like a classic scheme that a private equity

company can use because of this massive asymmetric warfare. On the one hand, you've got a private equity company with a bunch of McKinsey-level quant geeks who have these spreadsheets in front of them and figuring out how best to maximize their profits. And on the other hand, on the other side of the ledger, you have grandma and grandpa who are just going to get just annihilated in that competition. That's not a marketplace that's going to be fair. All right. Well, that's one to watch because he's headed to the full floor and it's likely to pass. Yeah. We'll see. Let's move on to the FBI, which is not too far from where we're filming this and I'm sure is not pleased with the news. Though it was certainly expected that everything related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, that was the FBI's investigation into whether or not Russia interfered with the 2016 election very specifically.

They would say it was broad. And Russia dided with the 2016 election very specifically. They would say it was broad, and Russia did interfere with the 2016 election, just not on the magnitude that they pitched to the press and then to the public over the course of years, but more specifically into whether Donald Trump colluded with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 election. We can go ahead and roll this clip of Donald Trump officially ordering the declassification of everything related to Crossfire Hurricane yesterday. hurricane investigation. This was obviously one of the instances of the weaponization of law enforcement, powers of prosecution against you and others. We believe that it's long past time for the American people to have a full and complete understanding of what exactly is in those files. Which gives the media the right to go in and go and check it. You probably won't bother because

you're not going to like what you see. But this was total weaponization. It's a disgrace. It never happened in this country. But now you'll be able to see for yourselves all declassified. Is that correct? Would you say all declassified? Yes, sir. Everything? The FBI filed with a there's a classified annex. But other than that, this will put everything in the public eye. So, Ryan, I think Russiagate is sort of like COVID at this point. There are people who are still, like myself, extremely interested in knowing what happened. But the general public has kind of tuned out of it. So I'm not sure that this is some sort of grave threat to the FBI because I don't know that it's going to generate major embarrassing news cycles, but surely it will generate some embarrassing information. This is from CNN. They write, this led to a behind the scenes scramble as Republican

aides and Trump officials worked to collect and redact a binder filled with highly classified material. Trump officially declassified that material on January 19th, 2021 during his last full day in office, but the documents were never made public. An unredacted copy of the binder ended up mysteriously disappearing as CNN first reported in 2023. Among the binder's contents were reams of information about the Russian investigation, including highly sensitive raw intelligence the U.S. and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents that informed the U.S. government's assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election. That material is likely to be redacted in the documents that are being released publicly. Interestingly enough,

Trump says keep those redactions. But CNN goes on to say the binder also included classified information about the FBI's problematic foreign intelligence surveillance warrants on Trump campaign advisor from 2017, interview notes with Christopher Steele and internal FBI and DOJ text messages and emails. And that's important because some of the most damning information to come out of any investigation into Crossfire Hurricane has been from the Peter Strzok, Lisa Page text messages where Strzok talked about the FBI having an insurance policy against Donald Trump winning the election. And the other thing, let's put this next element up on the screen. This is a tweet from Mike Davis, who if you watch Bannon and War Room, you've seen many times. He pointed out, and I didn't know this, I checked it afterwards, he pointed out that Judge Boasberg, who is now at the center of the entire fight over the deportation flights that he ordered turned around, he was on the FISA court and ignored the sentencing recommendation for imprisonment and actually gave an FBI attorney named Kevin Clinesmith, who again, people

who are very deep in the Russiagate hoax remember his name very, very much. They gave him probation instead of imprisonment. He forged an email to use as evidence to surveil Carter Page, an American citizen. And this judge is the one who went with probation over imprisonment on it. So such a crazy knot of different things going on here. That thread I was not familiar with at all. I did not realize Boesberg had any part in that. Yeah. Prosecutorial misconduct of that level needs some level of serious punishment. And that's like the left, left have been screaming about prosecutorial overreach,

you know, for, I mean, hundreds of years. It's partly how you get the radical Bill of Rights in there. But yeah, so to like completely let him off the hook with just probation is pretty good. So on the other hand, the guy's life was destroyed, I guess. But you can't do that. You cannot, you can't frame people up in this, in these secret courts to get the government spying on a campaign. It's outrageous. Yeah. But, you know, I don't, I don't know about you, but I just, like, I think it's great to classify it. Kind of interesting that Trump wants to keep some of the redactions that may be

embarrassing, that may be embarrassing, that may look like, you know, Putin was saying nice things about him or something like that. So that's interesting. But also, I just don't I don't know that this will have a massive political impact. Maybe it will, because the binder did mysteriously go missing and the documents were never made public during the course of the Biden administration. So maybe there's something maybe there are blockbusters in here, but I don't, and I suspect there's like genuinely very important information. I just don't think the public reacts to it in the same way that people like me do.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to anytime there's declassification. I'm good with it. And then we get to see what Kash Patel does with it. There you go. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.

She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch

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

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. proud when they hear my old tapes yeah now i'm curious do they like rap along now yeah because

i bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is and they're starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important. And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us.

To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X.

Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's do a show with all my exes. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like,

they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce.

I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Well, Representative Jasmine Crockett is apologizing for making this remark about Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Obviously, he's a Republican. Take a listen and then we'll show you the apology. We in these hot ass Texas streets, honey. Y'all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there. Come on now.

And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot ass mess, honey. So, yes. Governor Hot Wheels is kind of funny. I'm sorry. He's kind of funny. I think Greg Abbott should own it. He should roll with it. I did not mean to say that.

I genuinely did not mean to say that. But he actually should put like, he should start fundraising off of it. I'm sure he probably already is. He probably already is. It's funny. It's fine. Jasmine Crockett then apologized. We can put this up on the screen.

She was speaking there at a human rights campaign event. And this is what she posted yesterday. I wasn't thinking about the governor's condition. I was thinking about the planes, trains, and automobiles. This is such bullshit. He used to transfer migrants into communities led by black mayors, deliberately stoking tension and fear among the most vulnerable. Literally, the next line I said was that he was a hot-ass mess referencing his terrible policies. At no point did I mention or allude to his condition. So, I'm even more appalled that the very people who unequivocally support Trump, a man known for racially insensitive nicknames and mocking those with disabilities, are now

outraged. So Jasmine Crockett, who apologizes, kind of, not really. I don't know if we can call that an apology, actually. Now that I'm reading it in full, it was sort of taken as an apology by people because it's her. But what it actually is, is her denying that she said anything about it. And now she's saying she's offended by people who are pretending to be offended. So I guess if she's not retracting the statement, then good for Jasmine Crockett, because that was funny. At the end, she's saying that, why are you all offended when you say similar things about all kinds of marginalized people? Yet I wasn't saying that, which is a funny contradiction. It's a total, yeah, that's quite a contradiction.

I think she should have just leaned all the way into the last part of that. Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's like, who do you think you are to try to complain about me? 100%. The number one thing you're excited about from Trump winning is that you're now allowed to say retard. Right. So that's the kind of middle school level, like, cruelty that you're engaging in and you're upset that I said Hot Wheels. Elon Musk has been tweeting that word, like, constantly. Which, again, like, it's, she's, her point about people who are now pretending to be offended is entirely valid.

I mean, I personally can't stand Jasmine Crockett, but that's a perfectly legitimate point that she can make from a political perspective. Like, go for it. Now, I was offended as a consumer of comedy because I hate when people, their punchline is based on something that they manufactured one second earlier. Her punchline, he's a hot mess, is based on her brand new moniker, hot ass mess, her brand new moniker of him as Governor Hot Wheels. So you just made the Governor Hot Wheels moniker and then you're joking about it two seconds later. Your jokes are supposed to be about things other people say. So that's why I'm offended as a consumer of media. Because I think it's, you're manufacturing the ability to make that punchline.

And I think actually. She should apologize. She should apologize for that. But as always, she delivers it in an entertaining way. Yeah. On the other hand, comedy is as it's received by the audience the audience was laughing Therefore it's funny. I mean she never apologized for whatever I mean her being sort of Punted into the stratosphere was after the blonde butch built body whatever the hell that was which was also

hilarious by the way, and it's her tragic comic way, but She didn't apologize for that. So I get why people interpret this as an apology because she said, I wasn't thinking about the governor's condition. I was thinking about the planes, trains and automobiles he used to transfer money. Like I get why people interpret it that way because she was very obviously talking about his condition. So she's, she's clearly walking it back. But man, she should have definitely just owned this and said, like, hey, it was a joke. Yeah. Why are you so offended, Snowflakes? Right. And there's nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair. No, of course not. He should 100% be fundraising off of it. This is

her brand. But if you're going to be like brash, you should tell people if they can't take it, then they should stop dishing it out. And I also think, seriously, that Crockett needs more. She needs to break out of the... She's too wrapped up in pure culture. Yeah. And she's going to miss the moment. She's going to be able to like be a niche figure who's like very popular on MSNBC. But if she's constantly retreating to

like for instance, like did she have to like where did this shoehorning in of the thing where there are black mayors? Yeah. Like they're sending migrants to places with black mayors? Yeah. And they're sending migrants to places with black mayors. Yeah.

I just. And they also sent them to like what, Cape Cod or something? Yeah. Probably a white mayor. I'm going to guess. Like I haven't looked that up. The Martha's Vineyard mayor. Martha's Vineyard mayor.

I don't know. We could be wrong. We absolutely could be wrong. There was that stretch where you had, you know, upstate New York represented by three black members of Congress. So it's possible. But the point is, what is Crockett? Why does she have to do that? How does that help her?

And I think it's going to put a ceiling on her ability to kind of reach a broader audience. Yep. It's hard to disagree with that. Yeah, I mean, she's obviously charismatic, but she too often distracts from her own substance. I think that's a good, like, in the way that you're saying. There's actually a, you don't have to shoehorn identity politics into absolutely everything. If it fits, go for it. In fact, that's what I think Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are currently testing out or showing the example of is that you can make these arguments without shoehorning these other arguments in to show some type of fealty or to be signaling constantly like, hey, I'm on your team. I'm on

your team. You just make the argument. Talk to people where they are. If it was a white mayor, you'd be fine with it? Yeah. Like, what? It just ends up being confusing. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, Ryan, let's move on to our interview with the college Democrats. One thing that all Democrats seem to agree on is that they have a huge problem with young people nowadays. From my perspective, one of the problems they have is the kind of young people that they have representing them publicly. But who better to kind of try to walk us through the problem that they're having than the president and the vice president of the college Democrats, President Sunje Morlatharn and Vice President Sohali Vadula. Thank you both for joining us. And maybe we'll figure this problem out. What do you guys think? Sounds great to me. Thank you so much for having us.

All right. And so there's a special election down in Texas that we want to get into to replace Sheila Jackson Lee. And I guess that's the Houston area. And we'll talk about that because there is a particularly cringe duo or trio running in that race that is going to be fun to go through. But first, Harry Sisson is kind of blowing up through some utterly bizarre scandal. We can put this first New York Post element up on the screen. DNC's favorite TikToker, Harry Sisson, accused of lying to women to get them to send nudes. Another problem seems to be the existence of a Harry Sisson for Democrats.

Like, so let's talk about this. Like even before the scandal. Yeah, before the scandal. Let's talk about the problem of cringe and corruption among kind of the young influencer Dem class. Soon-Jae, like, why don't you start? Like, how do we wind up in a place that the types of cringe folks

that we see representing Gen Z have become kind of the face of the party in a way that I would suspect is probably a turnoff to most young people. And young men in particular. Yeah. I think, well, I want to briefly just set the scene, you know. So Holly and I, we oversee the College Democrats of America, which is effectively the largest Democratic-leaning youth organization in the country. Our members are kind of like the grassroots foot soldiers of the College Democrats of America, which is effectively the largest democratic-leaning youth organization in the country.

Our members are kind of like the grassroots foot soldiers of the party who are knocking on doors, you know, sending out texts, kind of doing the grunt work that no one else likes to do, commonly for free. And I think that since we're doing all this hard work, it's imperative that we get proper representation. And kind of as you mentioned, that simply is not the case. And I think the best way to contextualize this is that there's two major dominant camps within the influencer, like the youth influencer space. I would say one, which are the people who are the

problem, they're simply power crimes, right? The reason why these people are propped up is because they say not what young people believe, but what people in power want young people to believe, right? They'll follow whatever's politically expedient. They'll pretend to be Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden, if it means that, you know, they'll be able to improve their careers. And I'm thinking of people like, you know, Harry Sisson, as you mentioned, Olivia Giuliana, and Isaiah Martin, which we'll get into later. Then the latter camp is kind of the camp that I'm more favorable to, who are individuals who represent the interests of Gen Z, even when they're not politically exped camp that I'm more favorable to, who are individuals who represent the interests

of Gen Z, even when they're not politically expedient. I'm thinking of, you know, my good friend, DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, Jack Cochiarella, Hasan Piker are kind of the names that stick out. And what's really interesting is the latter three that I mentioned are actually more successful. You know, David Hogg is DNC Vice Chair at 24. And that's because he actually was willing to be unapologetic. Sometimes, you know, he might make mistakes here and there, but he actually cares about, you know, the cause at its root. Same with Jack Cocharella and Hassan Piker, who are both larger influencers who are growing, unlike the likes of Harry Sisson and Olivia Giuliana, who are both presently losing steam. And so, Holly, what does this propping up look like in practice? Like, have you seen it?

Like, have you, like, let's say you wanted to become like a... Well, there was that whole influencer room at the DNC. Remember, they had an influencer lounge. We weren't allowed into it. Right. But let's say you wanted to become a stooge for the DNC. How available is that to young people like yourself? And what do they ask you to say? And then we're going to get into Olivia Giuliana and Isaiah, because I think it ends up becoming kind of clear. I think popping up looks very similar to kind of how the establishment is given talking points and lines to parrot.

It's very similar to that. Olivia Giuliana, she went viral. She had a lot of followers, and the party decided to capitalize on that. And ever since then, she's viral. She had a lot of followers and the party decided to capitalize on that. And ever since then, she's not only been paid by the DNC, like according to FEC records, she's also been paid by the All Red campaign in Texas to be like a youth outreach spokesperson. And so I think people are just trying to capitalize on the following that they have. Harry Sisson was making TikToks long before the DNC hired him and they just wanted to capitalize on that momentum. But the problem is not just them propping these people up because obviously they should hire people with big

followings, right? But the issue is that once they do so, these influencers are going to be monetized. And so their opinions are like pretty much bought and paid for from that point forward. And so we don't really know what these people are truly like trying to say or what they truly believe because they're just not authentic anymore. And you can see that so clearly because four years ago, I was one of Olivia Giuliano's biggest fans because she was very progressive and she was unapologetically like outspoken about the things that she cared about. And, you know, lo and behold, fast forward a few years like now I don't really like her anymore, you know, because she does not stand for the same things that she did four years ago into back in 2020. She propped up Joe Biden when literally everyone and their mom was calling on him to step down.

It's pretty clear. Yeah. So let's roll. So Olivia Giuliana is now a campaign manager, whatever she is, for this other Gen Z, whatever you call them, candidate in this Texas race. So let's roll this Instagram clip that they posted to sort of get their campaign off the ground. Hey guys, I'm here with my best friend Isaiah Martin who's running for Congress and asked someone who is on the campaign team working day in and day out to make sure that he wins. I feel fantastic.

Josh, how do you feel? How are you feeling? Do you feel good? Yeah. Yep. I feel fantastic. Josh, how do you feel? How you feeling? You feeling good? Yeah, yep, yep. This is a people-focused, people-powered campaign. We want this to be the most accessible congressional race in the country. We're gonna be trying new digital and messaging strategies that no other campaign has done before. Isaiah doesn't feel entitled to your vote.

Just because he's a Democrat, just because he's young, you shouldn't have to support him for those things. We are going to be working to convince you and earn your trust and show you that he's not going to be a spectator in Congress. He's going to be a fighter because we need Democrats with the what, Isaiah? We're going to fight for you. He fucked it up. Try again. We need Democrats with the what? I'm fine. I just need to say for the life of me, I do not know how this happened because this is what Republican millennial influencers were doing when I was in college. It was the exact same level of cringe and Dems were laughing their asses off at the Republican influencers. We didn't call them influencers at the time, but it is just unfathomable how quickly this switched. The bottom has just completely fallen out.

And if anybody doesn't believe it after that, let's roll. This is the campaign. It's a piece of the campaign ad that Isaiah Martin launched to get his campaign off the ground. It's like the more formal one. Let's roll that. Donald Trump's done nothing for you. Not for your family, not for your paychecks, and not for your future. It wasn't so long ago that he promised you $0 income taxes, a dollar, and something for gas and $2 eggs. But since he's been in office, you've gotten none of that.

Prices are up and jobs are down. You're working harder than ever while Trump and his friends get richer than ever. It's left you asking yourself the question of who's fighting for me? I mean, seriously, who's fighting for you? It's certainly not Donald Trump. It's not the Republicans that shake your hand and ask for your vote, then do nothing for you. You see, they want you distracted. They want you angry at your neighbors so you don't pay attention to what they're really doing.

Because if you see them for what they are, you know that Trump's America doesn't work for you. Things are bad right now. You know that, and I know that. They're throwing everything at you. So now's the time to be bold and fight fire with fire. You see, I believe in a Democratic Party that has a spine. A party that stands for something. A party that fights back.

Because after all, we're the party that won World War II. We're the party that gave you Social Security. We're the party that's built the strongest economies in the history of mankind. Okay, so he's going to stand up for, he's going to fight fire with fire, he's the guy with the spine. He's fighting Nazis. What is the fire? Can you tell us what his campaign is articulating it will do in office? What are the policy positions that Isaiah Martin's campaign is running on? So, so many. You can see them all listed on his website where he has a whopping zero policy mentioned, which to me is just crazy. I don't think you can claim that you have a spine and then run a campaign with no policies. But I think the best way to

look at this is to see what information is public about Isaiah Mark, right? And to put it simply, you know, there's no policy of priorities on his website. But when you Google his name, you know, on FEC records, you can see that in this past congressional campaign, for those of you who don't know, he's run for the seat before. And I don't think you need to fly from one end of your district to the other end and spend thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars for it. So to me, what I think the priority of this campaign is, you know, kind of pretending to care about youth issues, kind of casting the same old age old playbook that doesn't work and sprinkling a youth veil on it, kind of representing Gen Z in a way that simply doesn't represent that. And I think to me, this, I mean, as someone who's like, you know, democratically elected by college students across the country, I think that when you say you have a spine, you have to back it up. You know, so Holly and I were part of the administration on College Democrats of America that spoke out against Biden's policies in Israel, because we felt that

it was going to hurt him in the election cycle. And that's what happened. And honestly, I hate to say it, but we were right. So I think that this, simply put, this is just regurgitation of the playbook of Schumer, Biden, and people in the past trying to pretend that it's new and novel with someone who happens to be a member of Gen Z. Yeah. And so, Holly, I've seen you criticize Isaiah Martin's campaign for, maybe he hasn't said in this campaign because he hasn't articulated any kind of policy ideas yet other than defending Social Security, but he has been pretty vocally supportive of Israel's assault. So what, like, where does that stand when it comes to a kind of a Gen Z,

an articulation of a Gen Z, uh, approach to politics? I think Gen Z just cares a lot more like about the world. And I think that when it comes to these human rights violations, we are outspoken about it. Like we're unapologetically going to say what we think and what we think as well, you know, while most of Gen Z is out on the streets protesting about these war crimes that our government is implicit in Isaiah Martin's out here villainizing like student protesters that are, for the most part, very peaceful. And I think that is just a huge turnoff because at the end of the day, like, you know, Gaza was a big issue. And the reason the Democrats lost so many voters in the election cycle, especially young people. And it's not because we voted for Trump. It's actually because

a lot of us stayed home. And if people don't realize that and don't learn from their mistakes, like we're not going to win. And Isaiah Martin is most definitely not going to be representing Gen Z very accurately if he's going to go by that playbook, because he's not Biden. He's not Schumer. Right. Like he's 27. Like he has a lot of potential. He could really use this moment to do a lot for young people if he did it right. But he's not. And if you look at his video, you can see that, like, there's no substance in there. He just said Trump bad the entire time. I don't really know what it means to have a spine for him. And speaking of Chuck Schumer, we've seen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tag along with Bernie Sanders in the aftermath of Chuck Schumer's decision not to shut down the government. We've seen Democrats flooding Republican districts and going to their town halls, I think, very effectively.

So I'm curious for both your perspectives as to whether that maybe feels like it's opening things up a little bit that, you know, Democrats nationally, the Democratic Party leadership is more open to at least maybe indulging the populist rhetoric and allowing people to, or maybe, I guess, let's put it this way, understanding the political value of the more populist rhetoric of sort of pushing back on the establishment. There was that poll, what was this, last week or the week before, Ryan, that found Democratic Party voters actually upset with the party at levels that have historically not been seen recently. So are you guys sensing, I mean, you guys would be in a position to sort of get a sense. Do you think that's opening things up? 100%. I think just to kind of contextualize, so Holly and I, as VP and President of

the House of Representatives of America, we are one of the 448 DNC members who, which has two major powers, one being superdelegates and two being able to cast a vote in officer elections. And I'm going to be honest, I'm very positive kind of about the where the direction of this officer team has taken us with, largely because it's a major shift from, I think, the kind of corporate-esque attitude that we're used to. You know, Ken Martin, who leads the DNC now, is someone who comes from a union background. He's from Minnesota, the state that produced Tim Walz. That is one of the most

progressive states in the country, despite having such a slim majority. But it's not just him. You also have DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, someone who's built a career off running young people for positions of power. You have State Assemblyman Malcolm Kenyatta, who was the person who primary John Fetterman. That guy is sitting in a DNC vice chair seat. You have Artie Blanco, who's a DNC vice chair, who's in charge of the political wing of the AFL-CIO, another union person. And Shosti Conrad sitting on an associate chair seat, who is one of the most progressive state chairs in the country.

So I think that this new board is very different from what we're used to. And kind of they're a lot more open to kind of indulging the ideas that kind of Sohali and I have of like, hey, what if in order to turn out Gen Z, you actually represent Gen Z? And I think that they understand that a lot better than the leadership that was in power prior to the time that I served as College of Democrats of America president. Well, soon, Jay, Sohali, you're fighting an uphill battle to make the Democratic Party a less awful institution. But we applaud your civic efforts. Thank you so much for joining us. Hopefully we've figured out this form over substance problem that Democrats seem to have with Gen Z now. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her, until they didn't.

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

or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes.

Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, Do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family?

It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network

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

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

X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now.

We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabbat was deliberately targeted and assassinated yesterday in northern Gaza. Sharif Abdel-Kadous was his editor at Dropsite News. He joins us now to talk about Hossam's life and his death. Sharif, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me.

So can you talk a little bit about who Hossam was? Yeah, Hossam was a young journalist, 23 years old, who grew up in Bid Hanun, which is on the northeastern edge of Gaza. He was a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher. And he quickly became the face on television for millions of people around the Arab world because he was one of the few journalists in Gaza who remained in the north throughout the 17 months of Israel's genocidal assault. There was, he received many threats, along with his colleagues, especially another Al Jazeera correspondent, Anas al-Sharif, directly from the Israeli military, telling them that

they had to displace to the south because in the north was where at certain periods where Israel really concentrated its extermination campaign especially in October of last year in the north of Gaza and it was only people like Hossein and other journalists that we really understood what was happening on the ground. And throughout these 17 months, Hossein, he witnessed the unimaginable. He had death and suffering almost every single day. He was displaced over 20 times. He said that he couldn't sleep. He was exhausted.

He was often very hungry, as Israel imposed forced starvation, especially in the north. And he buried many of his colleagues and his friends over this period. And despite that, he was determined to continue to cover the genocide of his own people and would file reports almost every single day. He was very active on social media as well. And in October, he was put on a list of six journalists, all in the north, all working for Al Jazeera, who, sorry, not all of them working for Al Jazeera, but six journalists. The Israeli military deemed them as militants and put out a list.

And it was essentially a hit list. And we saw the spokesperson for the Israeli military, spokesperson in Arabic, his name is Avishay Adrai, you know, posting videos of himself speaking, calling out Hossein, calling out Anas al-Sharif by name, and basically saying that, you know, you terrorists, we're going to get you. And this was in October, and Hossein was the first of the six to be killed. He was bombed while driving in his car in Beit Lahya. Just an hour earlier, Israel had killed another journalist

Mohamed Mansour of Palestine Today Hossam's last social media post was about Mohamed saying that another journalist had been martyred and then he was killed and it's a very tragic loss and his voice will be missed and Hossam, you know, he wrote a letter to be published in the event of his death.

He knew he was going to probably be killed. And it opens with him saying, if you're reading this, I most probably have been killed, most probably by the Israeli occupation forces. And his colleagues and friends published that letter yesterday. Do you have any favorite memories or stories that stand out just from editing him over the course of this impossible duty that he felt he had to cover the war? I mean, he was a very warm and kind person. You know, when I asked him his age at one point, I think for the second article I was editing and I was writing a preamble for him, he wrote, you know, ha ha ha, I'm 24. And then he said, actually, I haven't even turned 24. I'm 23. I'm really young, right? And I said, I told him, you know, you're young in age, but in experience, you have a lot of experience.

And but then he said, you i'm so tired i'm so tired but i'm going to keep doing this but you know like our last interaction uh which was a few hours before he was killed he reached out to me and he said habibi i miss you i checked in on him how are you doing in jabalia he said things are tough he filed his piece and then he asked me when is it going to come out i said said, Hossam, I still need to translate it. We need to edit it. I'll get it out for you tomorrow morning. This was Sunday night, New York time, which would have been like 5am his time. So he said, I want to get it out urgently. I'm going to publish, can I publish it in Arabic? I said, okay, Hossam, if you want to

publish parts of it in Arabic, that's fine. but leave us something for Dropsite that's extra. And then he was like, I'm joking, I'm joking, I'll give it all to you. So that was kind of his attitude, but he also was very, very determined. He did want to have his writing out. He was very enthusiastic about reporting for Dropsite, for having another outlet, for working in print, for having his work translated. And it was my honor to be a part of that. And yeah, he was killed hours later.

And it was very, very shocking because I was just in touch with him. And, you know, I woke up and I sent some more follow-up questions for the piece. And what haunts me is, I think, you know, was that message that I was sending, was this phone going off in his pocket as he was lying on the floor, dead or dying. These things haunt me. But, you know, I try to remember his work and his dedication and his contribution to the Palestinian cause. You've talked about how in December, I think it was in December where he was talking about hitting his limit almost, talking about how much he hated what he was doing and just banging his head against the wall and screaming into a void to a world that isn't listening. At the same time, like his final

letter to the world is, you know, don't give up. And to his, you know, dying day, he was continuing to fight, continuing to write, continuing to report. And I was also thinking about how Israel's decision to kill him, to assassinate him, in some ways undercuts the idea that what he was doing wasn't having an effect. Why would one of the most powerful militaries in the world feel the need to assassinate an unarmed journalist if the words he was writing and what he was sharing on social media actually didn't have any effect? Even though as we sit here, we see things getting worse and worse and worse. And let's talk in a moment about conditions on the ground there. At least from the perspective of the Israelis, that journalism does still remain to be a threat. How do you answer these questions as you go through a life that sometimes seems pointless, but clearly can't be if it's such a threat. Yeah, I mean, those comments in December, obviously, like anyone, he would swing between determination and despair. When I messaged him in December to check in on him, it was after

five journalists were killed in a single airstrike on their vehicle. I think it was Christmas Day. So I just checked in on him and he said, you know, I hate this world. No one is doing anything. Our job is only to die. When I speak with my colleagues now, we just speak about whose turn is it next. So I think there was deep frustration at the silence of the world. And we can talk about the silence of Western media institutions about people like Hossein and the more than 200 journalists who have been killed. There isn't a level of outrage that there should be. And people like Hossein would still be alive if there was. I truly do believe that.

But Hossein was effective. He was covering things where no one was. There was the first piece he filed for us was this searing account of the forced displacement of Bet Lahia during what was essentially an extermination campaign in the very north of Gaza in October, November of last year. And he was one of the very few people that was there seeing people coming out. He wasn't physically there because I don't think anyone could survive, but he was right on the outskirts seeing people come out and he filed, you know, the story. And so, yeah, I mean, the Israeli military very explicitly did not want journalists there. They kept telling them, threatening them, go to the South, stop, don't report from here. And then eventually put them on this list. And then yesterday, you know,

the IDF's official Twitter account celebrates the killing of Hossein, says he was not a journalist, he was a terrorist. Don't let the press vest fool you. And then Avicii Adraei, that despicable spokesperson in Arabic for the Israeli military, is celebrating his killing. He's put out a video of himself speaking, saying again, Hossein wasn't a journalist, he was a terrorist. Once again, posting these documents, they said that they discovered showing Hossein was actually a militant in the Beit Hanun battalion of Hamas. This is the same military and the same guy who, you know, have justified the killing of doctors, of UN workers, of children. They often release these documents purporting to

show that they have proof that these journalists are not journalists. In July of last year, the Israeli military killed Al Jazeera journalist Ismail Al Ghul, who was actually a very, very close friend of Hossein's, decapitated him in the airstrike. It also killed his cameraman, Rami Al-Rifi. Then the Israeli military released a document. It said it supported claims that Ismail received a military ranking from Hamas in 2007 when he was 10 years old. This is how ridiculous their alleged claims are. And it's shameful that both the United States and Western media institutions have not spoken out against the killing of over 200 journalists. We knew very, very early on that Israel was doing something different in targeting the press this

time. In the first 10 weeks of the war, more journalists were killed in Gaza than had been killed in any country over an entire year, according to CPJ. So we knew that there was something different happening here. And there was not the outrage that by legacy media institutions in this country around this, and this allows for this killing to continue. And it's not only continuing, it's getting worse. Before they would deny they killed the journalist or say it was collateral damage that they were trying to get a Hamas militant and the journalist was unfortunate consequence of the bombing. Or they would kill the journalists and then, like Ismail al Ghul, say afterwards that they

were a militant. And now they're openly just hunting them, saying, oh, these ones are journalists and we're going to — these ones are not journalists and we're going to kill them. This has been allowed to happen. And with the flimsiest of evidence, one of the documents that you referenced claims that he took part in some battalion training in 2019 when he would have been 16 or 17 years old, which even in a fantasy land where we just completely accept every document that they put forward, even if it were true that there was some high school training program,

nobody would argue that Barak Ravid or any other Israeli journalists who served time in the reserves years earlier should be killed while on camera. And the other point on the question of whether or not he was a journalist. He has been doing journalism every day since October 7th and before but since then and so every single day we have the evidence of what he is doing because he is doing it publicly What live streaming and when it when possible? posting to social media writing pieces at what point Did he manage to create this secret life like and it it's it's like it of course when you start to think about it at all it all completely

crumbles and the i the hope among the propagandists is that nobody will think about it because you're like this would you wouldn't be a terrorist and then just be on television all day. Like that would be completely... And I think also what's more saddening in a way is that no one's even paying attention. That it's not being discussed whether he was a journalist or a terrorist or a militant and whether the Israeli claims are true or not. It's just he's killed and it's just normal. It's normal state of affairs. The way it's been normalized that Israel, as it did a few days ago, can bomb a hospital, the biggest hospital, it's become normal.

That the way they can kill over 200 children in a matter of hours, and it isn't, you know, this massive outrage around the world. These things have become normalized and it's allowing the killing to continue. And for the audience who doesn't know, Sharif played a lead role in a documentary about the killing of Shirin Abu Akleh. And it's painful to think that things were better then when Israel was at least starting out by denying their role. And the world cared. The world wanted to find out what happened. Now, they're forecasting what they're going to do, doing it, and nobody cares. Sharif, we can roll this clip. It's a voiceover clip of Hossam's mother. People who are watching this can see it on the screen. But I imagine even as it feels as though people in the United States are sort of tuned out and maybe numb at best, this in Gaza, this is playing out very differently. I imagine the reaction on the ground

with people that you guys have talked to, your sources, is mourning and not shock because, you know, Hassan himself seemed to expect that this would happen at some point. But I'm sure it's hit people very hard. Oh, absolutely. You know, Hassan told me at one point, he said, you know, I haven't seen my family for well over a year because they all displaced to

the South. He was in January or early February. He was reunited with his mother for the first time in 492 days. He hadn't seen her. This is a very moving video of them hugging. Excuse me. Yeah. He has several siblings, you know know after a few hours after his

death I got a notification my phone from his whatsapp which was very shocking because that's the way I communicate with him and I was just trying to process that he died and I got a message saying God have mercy on him and I wrote back God have mercy on him. And I wrote back, God have mercy on him. Who's this? And he said, it's his brother, Hossein. And I sent him a long voice note saying how much Hossein meant to Dropsite News and to me and how important his work was. And, you know, the brother was very appreciative of that. But no, Hossein was, as many of these journalists are, they're kind of heroes in Gaza. At the beginning of the so-called ceasefire in

January, when the actual bombs stopped raining down and there was some kind of reprieve, many of them were hoisted onto the shoulders of people. There's video of Hossein being hoisted onto the shoulders of just people in the north celebrating him and his work. And we saw scenes of his funeral yesterday being carried with his press vest on him to honor his work. So yeah, I'm beside myself about it and angry as well. And since March 2nd, which predates the complete collapse of the ceasefire, the destruction of the ceasefire by Israel, Israel had reinstituted the complete siege. Nothing has been able to get in to Gaza since March 2nd.

There were protests. We can roll a little bit of that clip there yesterday, which Western media was seizing on some expressions of anti-Hamas sentiment at some of these protests. There may be some more scheduled today. You hear a lot of people saying end the siege and end the war. The signs talking about ending the occupation. What are you understanding? Are conditions now three weeks into the complete shutoff of supplies getting into nearly 2 million people? I mean, people are, this is reimposed forced starvation again.

As you know, one of our own contributors, Abu Bakr Abad, is suffering from malnutrition now. He's 22 years old. He messaged me the other day. His body's aching. He's in deep pain. He's exhausted. He can't get out of bed really well. He needs galvanized multivitamins and other things.

Speaking to doctors that we know, some American doctors and Palestinian doctors who are on the ground there, seeing if we can get them anything, and they hardly have any supplies. Two doctors, American doctors yesterday, said, who work at Nassar Hospital and were there when it was bombed by the Israelis a few days ago, said that the hospital is going to last another week, and without any more supplies, that they just really can't function. So it's on top of a very much escalated bombing campaign. The Ministry of Health this morning put out statistics on just since last week,

since last Tuesday, when this re-escalation of the aerial bombardment began, there's 830 people have been killed already. And among them is over 300 children, 320 children have been killed. So there's bombing happening. There's a complete siege. There's also forced evacuation or forced displacement orders happening all around. They happened first in Beit Hanun, where Hossein was originally from. They're happening in Beit Lahya, in parts of eastern Khan Yunis. Today, there was displacement orders for parts of Gaza City. And I think something like Anwar said, over the past week, 130,000 Palestinians have been re-displaced already. This seems like it's laying the groundwork for another massive ground incursion

by Israeli ground troops. So the situation is terrible. And there's also some sort of fatigue of people. I just don't feel the same kind of outrage of people here in this country around what's happening. There's a lot that they're dealing with, with Trump and Musk and people being deported. But I feel like the Israelis seem to have a green light now. They did their few weeks of a so-called ceasefire, and now they're just going to come in and finish off what they haven't. So it's very terrifying. And I can't even imagine, for example, the five other journalists that were put on that hit list, what they must be feeling

after Hossein was killed and they're celebrating his death. Can you imagine what it must be like? Right, especially drones, like drones constantly flying over top, knowing that the people who operate those drones have promised that they're going to kill you like what must it be like to drive around walk around not just for yourself you know hassam's best friend was killed alongside him you probably feel some radioactivity around others you go to visit your you go to visit your family you wonder if you're you wonder if you're putting your family at risk just by existing you know i was in touch with another dropside contributor yesterday, Rasha Abu-Jalal, who is in Gaza City. She went there, back there, after the ceasefire. She almost died last week when the Israelis bombed the house right next to her, bombed her neighbors.

And the wall collapsed on the room where she usually sleeps with her husband and five children. But they were in another room because it was warmer. So they miraculously survived. She's saying that people are being, all these people who are being displaced, they're mostly coming to that area of Gaza City that she's in. And there's literally nothing to, no shelter. So there's just rubble. They don't even have tents or makeshift tarps. They're just literally like on the rubble they don't even have tents or makeshift tarps they're just literally like on the rubble

she said people are starving to the degree that um she saw family go out to the beach and they caught a turtle and ate it um so you know and she it's just almost kind of unimaginable what what's happening and it's just escalating and escalating. And the world is just watching as it's happening. Yeah, yes, indeed. Sharif, thank you so much for joining us. Deeply appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

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

Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and we need to talk. It is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Yeah. Now I'm curious do they like rap along now? Yeah because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now

too so his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT. Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like that's what's really important.

And that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us.

To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison and I'm coming to you loud, loud, and in color from the outlaws Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. kryptonite don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X.

Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? This is gonna show all my exes. Ex marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now.

We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Shout out to producer Griffin because we are covering the Snow White story, not due to Maya and Ryan's deep devotion to Snow White and Disney.

But you know what? There's actually some interesting stuff going on here. So let's get into it. We can put G1 up on the screen. This is a post from Variety, which says, quote, after Rachel Ziegler hit the stage at Disney's D23 fan event to introduce the first official trailer of Snow White, she thanked supporters effusively. In an ex-post one minute later, she added an afterthought in the same thread, quote, and always remember, free Palestine. So that was what Ziegler posted. And Variety goes on to report, many inside the studio expressed shock that she would commingle the promotion of its $270 million tentpole with any kind of political statement. The film's producer flew to New York to speak with her, but Ziegler stood her ground, and the post remained. Now we can put G2 up on the screen

because it's going to get even more interesting if you haven't been following this. Quote, behind the scenes, this is from 60 Minutes, death threats towards Ziegler's co-star Gal Gadot, who is Israeli, spiked, and Disney had to pay for additional security for the mother of four. Quote, she didn't understand the repercussions

of her actions as far as what that meant for the film, for Gal, for anyone. So, sorry, that's not actually from 60 Minutes. That's also from the Variety piece. So that's, Variety has like a kind of TikTok of what was happening behind the scenes. Not surprising at all that this is what's happening behind the scenes of Disney. But before we get into it even more, Ryan, I just want to say the Semaphore newsletter had an interesting tidbit about this. They said, as many people know, this movie is not doing very well at the box office compared to the amount of money that was poured into it. Despite a soft weekend opening, Semaphore wrote in its newsletter a couple of days ago, the political backlash isn't what seemed to hurt the movie's performance because Snow White

overperformed in Republican-leaning areas and did well among Latino and Hispanic audiences. So, I mean, that doesn't quite rebut the point about whether all of this political fiasco had anything to do with why it had a, quote, soft weekend opening. It is getting absolutely trashed by critics, not like conservative critics. It is getting slammed across the board for being terrible. But it does, I mean, I think overperforming Republican-leaning areas kind of tells you that it's probably not the politics that's ultimately the biggest albatross for the Snow White film. Yeah, and I would hope that nobody would even think that.

It's like, come on. Her tweeting Free Palestine is not going to, months later, really damage, I think, the box office. Whether or not the movie is any good is really what's going to drive it in the end. We could put up G4 if we have a minute here. So this is Mark Platt. This is about the kind of pressure on people inside Hollywood not to kind of speak up on behalf of Palestine. Here's Mark Platt. This is him talking kind of about

the wicked cast. Several members of the wicked cast have been active, at least online, in their opposition to Israel, Artists for a Ceasefire. As someone who cares so much about your professional relationships and the product you're making on set, how do you navigate that? I talk to people, and I think people are told that something is about something in a very reductive way. And it feels like, who doesn't care about innocent tragedy? Innocent civilians, no decent human being wants any suffering in humanity from decent people. What happens in instances is individuals ascribe their names to something where they're not being completely informed and the messaging to them is they're suffering here right we have to speak out for suffering the message doesn't include there's also suffering over here or they're suffering that was prompted or instigated by an act of terror or an act of evil, or there's a terrorist group in place that wishes for the

annihilation of a whole group of people that gets left out of the conversation. And so my way of dealing is when the moment is right, is to have that conversation where it can be heard and where what I'm saying can be heard, not in the midst of anger, where it can be heard and processed and therefore understood and I feel good about those conversations that have been had right and so according to Variety uh Platt had made that same pitch right to her uh say hey you really don't understand that actually I guess you know they're all asking for it and And we can. And she did not. She declined to take it down. We could put G3 on the screen as well.

This is an interesting point. The writer of the article of the Variety piece, familiar byline to people who follow Hollywood news, is Tatiana Siegel. Also, as this user on X points out, made the hit pieces against Melissa Barrera and Amber Heard. So very inside Hollywood type of analysis there, but still fairly interesting because your point about the pressures from a company like Disney, massive corporation, which has millions and millions of dollars on the line with this movie, you know, this is one of the more interesting, I think, cauldrons of political pressures because Snow White, one of the reasons that it just, I mean, I haven't seen it. Your kids saw it, right? They like it?

Fine. It's fine, yeah. One of the reasons I think it's, and critics have pointed this out, one of the reasons it's struggling is that Disney had—they were sort of excited about this movie in an era before the quote-unquote vibe shift after Trump wins the election. And some of their movies that they had kind of intentionally framed to be—I don't want to say the word woke because I don't think that's right, but sort of signaling or gesturing at the progressive cultural worldview. They were really excited about those projects, put a lot of money into them, and they mostly haven't done well. They haven't been great products. And again, that's because you have a corporation attempting to latch on on to this progressive messaging and so it's

incredibly confused because they don't really buy the sort of progressive class critique but they can easily buy you've written about this they can easily buy the identity critique wear it as the skin suit and you know type of and start promoting these types of things. And so it ends up making for a really confused product at the end of the day. Like this one, they took the dwarves out. They literally edited the dwarves out of the Snow White's movie because Peter Dinklage and others complained in the era of, I guess people will call it like peak woke, capital P, capital W, that it was insensitive to cast actual people in that role. So they ended up

using CGI. And the effect of that on the movie has to be devastating, like just that in and of itself, to take the live action human beings out of it and replace them with CGI had to have been insane. And in a related scandal, and we can put this up in post. Yesterday, we covered the assault on Bilal Hamdan, the co-director of No Other Land by a group of settlers in Israel. So this is, you know, just weeks ago, he wins an Oscar, goes back to the West Bank where he gets assaulted. The Israeli security forces pick him up after this assault. Yuval Abraham, who was his co-director, a Jewish-Israeli journalist at 972, who also won an Oscar and appeared with him on the stage, posted this morning. He wrote, sadly, the U.S. Academy, which awarded us an Oscar three weeks ago, declined to publicly support Hamdan Bilal while he was beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

The European Academy voiced support, as did countless other award groups and festivals. Several U.S. Academy members, especially in the documentary branch, pushed for a statement, but it was ultimately refused. We were told that because other Palestinians were beaten up in the settler attack, it could be considered unrelated to the film, so they felt no need to respond. In other words, while Hamdan was clearly targeted for making no other land, parentheses, he recalled soldiers joking about the Oscar as they tortured him, he was also targeted for being Palestinian, like countless others every day who are disregarded. This, it seems, gave the Academy an excuse to remain silent when a filmmaker they honored, living under Israeli occupation, needed them the most. It's not too

late to change this stance. Even now, issuing a statement condemning the attack on Hamdan and the Masafaryata community would send a meaningful message and serve as a deterrent for the future. That's Yuval Abraham talking about the politics in the industry that we're talking about here. I have an optimistic take on this, which is that the public backlash to the era of what felt like sort of stifling, especially to a lot of people, even a lot of people who are on the left. We talked to people who work in the entertainment industry. Like, it seems like the public backlash to that may actually benefit everyone in just a much freer, more open environment in general. Like, I was at Yale last night doing a debate,

and it just was remarkable to me. I graduated from college only 10 years ago. The way that they talk about politics is so much more liberated than the way, especially people on the left, talked about politics when I was there. How so? What do you mean? They would ask questions. We did a dinner beforehand and they were asking questions to me and to the other speaker that people would have been like couching with, you know, if it were 2012, like, you know, some people think this and I'm not saying I necessarily agree with it, but like, it's just like everyone could speak freely for the most part. And, you know, nobody said anything like

offensive, obviously, but asking legitimate questions. I don't know if you've noticed this, actually. It would be interesting for an elephant in the Zoom follow-up. I feel like there's just generally people are taking a breath, and I feel like that's good for everyone. There's some elements that are still completely dug in. I believe so. Hasn't gotten there yet, but we'll see. Still fighting it out in some of these Pacific islands. Well, we'll see what happens. But anyway, Disney, what a company. What a time.

This was fun. We'll see the film and report back. No. Maybe I'll get my twins on and they can do a review. Actually, that's a great idea. So, Ryan, you're back here tomorrow. Back here tomorrow. And then. In that seat. In this seat. Oh, that's right. It's always, yeah. Crystal's out this week, so I don't know if we'll be here on Friday, but. Oh, that's right. We'll have to organize it

ourselves. Oh my gosh. We'll do that for you. Yes. Right? You're around Friday? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We'll do that for you. Cool. In honor of're around Friday? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We'll do that for you. Cool. In honor of Crystal. Cool. Maybe she'll be able to join. Maybe. Maybe you can bank up also complaints against Saga that you can sort of air your grievances on Friday after a week of Saga.

We can just do that. So far, so good. Many such cases. All right. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Yeah, we'll see you guys then. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcast. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures

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