Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/10/26: Trump Trashes Tucker, Mearsheimer Calls For Trump Surrender, Slotkin Lashes Out, Melania Epstein

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

The BP team looks at updates on the Iran ceasefire negotiations and destruction of Lebanon, Professor John Mearsheimer joins to demand Trump surrender to the Iranians and the global fallout especially in East Asia, Elissa Slotkin has a tense townhall with voters asking about AIPAC, Olivia Reingold causes a commotion at an Abdul El Sayed rally, and Melania gives a surprising speech distancing herself from Jeffrey Epstein.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Good morning, everyone. Happy Friday. How's everybody doing today? So far so good. All right. Well, let's keep it good. We've got a big show. We've got some war updates surrounding the ceasefire or non-seas. Fire in Lebanon, and then we'll be joined by Professor John Mearsheimer to get his take on this next phase of the war. We've also got Melania Trump coming out and talking about Jeffrey Epstein. We're going to be analyzing, theorizing why she chose this moment to talk about Epstein. And then finally, we've got a lot of updates around APEC, Democrats, Alyssa Slotkin, doing a town hall that got a little testy. and a little bit from our friends in the free press

who did a little bit of a reporting on Dr. Abdul-El-Said and Hassan Piker in Michigan. I'll call reporting. Crystal will call it something else. But first, let's get started with the latest Crystal. We've got some new Trump truths here that I'll pull up on screen. Let's start with this first one here about the straight. why don't you read this one out for us?

So we've got Trump here. It's been, I mean, as per usual, sort of crashing out on true social. But anyway, he says Iran is doing a very poor job. Dishonorable, some would say, of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have, President Donald J. Trump. This reminds me very much of when my son was three years old and he was playing Uno for the first time. And he had his whole plan of like how he was going to finish it out. And then someone screwed it up.

And he just completely crashed down and was like, that wasn't the problem. plan. It was not the agreement we had. Dishonorable. Same energy as my son when he was three years old. Anyway, the context here, of course, is that as part of the original sort of ceasefire understanding, the idea was Iran would allow some oil tankers through the straight. And, Ryan, you can speak to whether there was an understanding of, is a toll going to be charged, is it not going to be charged? It seems to me like those details were left sort of ambiguous.

Iran certainly thought we're going to keep charging this toll because, of course, we're going to going to. Meanwhile, what was very clear was the understanding from Iran and the U.S. and the Pakistani government, which helped to facilitate this whole ceasefire so that these talks could occur, that Lebanon was included in this deal. Well, Israel wanting to continue their mass murder and ethnic cleansing in Lebanon and also wanting to undermine any potential deal, not only continued their invasion and bombardment in Lebanon, but they escalated it. So Iran, understandably, said that was not part of the deal. We've been very clear from the start. The Lebanon would be included. And so as a consequence, we are not opening the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, there was more traffic

going through the straight prior to these talks than there is now. So that is the context here for Trump, you know, yelling over true social and thinking that, you know, berating the Iranians this time is going to effectuate some sort of an outcome rather than just being impotent as it has been the whole time. Yeah, and my understanding is they allowed two Iraqi flagged ships to move through the strait in the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire, but then Israel carried out a series of massacres in Lebanon and they closed the strait again. But yes, to your point, they were always clear, well, they were ambiguous but clear that they were going to charge a toll for the strait. What they were saying is that they were going to set up a legal mechanism in coordination with Oman to allow pass a.

of ships through the strait. Anybody with any sense reading that is like, oh, so they're saying they're in control of it, they're probably going to put a toll on it as it's going through since they were doing that already and they haven't said that they would lift the toll. But it's open like a lot of other waterways, like the Suez Canal, it's open. We've got to pay to get through. And they're like, like, that's how it's going to go for us. But yes, the Pakistan situation is just comical because the U.S.

asked Pakistan to be the mediators. The U.S. helped Pakistan craft the document. The document explicitly includes Lebanon. And then, according to the reporting that we have now, from CBS news, I think it is actually, it was a call from Netanyahu to Trump, where Trump was like, okay, go ahead, you can do Lebanon. So that's what happened. That doesn't change the deal. Like, they broke the deal. The deal, as Trump understood it, as Iran understood it, as it was explained publicly included Lebanon. Well, let's look at this report. As the tweet drafted by the Americans stated for the Pakistani prime minister, Lebanon has

included. Iran has always been very clear about that. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, look, it's yet another example of perplexing behavior from this president in particular of why are you going to potentially blow up? We have new reporting from the financial times this morning that Trump has been seeking a ceasefire for weeks at this point, been trying to. to back channel something to the Iranians. And the Iranians were very resistant. And in fact, even up to this point that they were having trouble getting the IRGC on board with this. And that was

part of the delay. And so they were finally able to kind of get the IRGC to go along with at least some sort of talks here. But in any case, Trump, you know, by letting Netanyahu continue to do whatever he wants to do in Lebanon, potentially from the jump, destroying his possibility of securing a deal. Now, I don't think that the possibilities are completely dead and gone. Obviously, there are diplomatic talks happening in Islamabad this weekend. We'll see what's coming out of that. What will come out of that. But it makes it much more difficult to envision them coming to some sort of terms in the near term. And I almost get tired of this, but Jeremy's reporting being validated again. That reporting that you're referring there, they're saying that, you know, in March, they were desperately

trying to reach out to get talks going to end this war, Jeremy reported March 16th, you know, that Whitkoff was relentlessly texting him. Right, and being left on red. Trying to get them back to the table. Yeah, being left on red. And that had been going on for several days before Jeremy reported it. There were these furious denials, if you remember. Axios reported that, in fact, according to Israeli-American sources,

it was the Iranians that were begging for the ceasefire. And that it was actually Witkoff that was not responding to them because, you know, we're winning. Now the reporting is crystal clear. That was a lie. The U.S. was begging for the ceasefire. Iran was ignoring them. Again, knowable things for bring point viewers and drop site readers, but apparently not to anybody else. And so, Emily, I'd like your reaction to this latest Netanyahu clip here where he talks about the ceasefire in Lebanon.

I want to tell you there is no ceasefire in Lebanon. We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with force, and we will not stop until we restore your security. He said there is no ceasefire in Lebanon. We will continue to strike Lebanon with maximum ferocity or somewhere like that. And he finishes, you know, until your security has been restored. Which is an interesting phrase, because he's speaking in Hebrew to the Israeli public.

What security? Like, what is the year during which he would point back since 1948 and say this is the security? Like, there has been war in occupation every day since 1948. So, like, it's even a fantasy that there's some restoration of security. But what he's saying is we're doing war. We're doing war. Don't worry about it. Like, we're not.

Yes, we hear Trump. We hear Iran. Islamabad talks. We're doing war. Well, it's actually sort of first. that it was a Hebrew language message because the English messages are the ones that should be more pro-Trump, obviously. And in this case, there was clearly disagreement. Then Trump was strong-armed once again into accepting the Netanyahu line about what was going to happen during the ceasefire period.

And I just think back to yesterday. Overnight, J.D. Vance was in Europe. He was in Hungary. And he called it – well, this wasn't yesterday. It must have been Tuesday. He called the ceasefire fragile. Like, it was first reaction basically we had from the administration because J.D. Vance wasn't hungry, and he referred to it as a fragile deal. And not only was it fragile, it was unclear. Like, it was fragile because nobody actually knew.

I can't think of a precedent for this. I was trying to think this morning, when this ever happened in modern history, where you have modern technology and we're not sending carrier pigeons back and forth to try to make deals. And I can't think of a precedent for this. Maybe some like saga out there is going to send me an obscure nerdy example. Well, actually, curiously or interestingly, the agreement with Hamas played out in a similar way. Like if you read what Hamas agreed to and you read the phase one, phase two, et cetera, and then you look at the way that Israel and the United States later described it and tried to implement it.

It's night and day. So this is actually. It's part for the course of Trump administration. And also you can look at Oslo where they're like, we're not going to do settlements and then immediately they're doing settlements. But the other difference. Instead, we wouldn't do settlements. Really? That's what everybody understood.

Oh, no, you're right. Like we didn't actually say we won't do settlements. It was kind of implied, but clearly you're going to just going to do them. The difference here, of course, versus the Hamas agreement is that Iran is vastly more powerful and has incredible leverage. I mean, I was talking to Mertaza yesterday, Ryan, and he was saying, you know, Because we were speculating about will Iran now race to a nuclear weapon? What is the logic there? And it's like, you know, in a sense, they've demonstrated they already have a nuclear weapon

with their ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, which I thought was a fantastic point. I totally agree with that. Yeah. We've that is their, you know, we think of nuclear weapon as like, okay, that will be deterrence. That is their deterrence that they have now established. And that is a game changer in terms of how every other country has to react to them. And basically, if there was some military. option for us to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, we would be doing it that didn't come at some

catastrophic level of cost. And even at a catastrophic level of cost, it's not clear to me that you're going to be able to take it and be able to hold it. So that is, you know, a new reality that Iran has now established that they go into these negotiations with. And so, you know, you have a really a landscape where everything for Trump is a terrible. terrible choice, which is why it's hard to predict exactly how this is going to go and what the timeline is. But I think we, I think just one, sorry, one final thought here, Emily. I think, though, that we are getting a glimpse of not when this will, war will come to a close, but what it will look like. Because we now have the outlines of the sorts of demands that Iran is able to make and able to

command. So it's possible Trump decides he wants to go back and have some more pain and cause oil prices to go up and disrupt the global economy and cause a global depression and risk more American service members. That is certainly possible. The timeline is unclear. But in terms of the outlines of what our resolution is going to have to look like, I think we're starting to get clarity on what that is and it involves a new status quo for the Strait of Formuz. I was actually just going to add exactly on that point that right now reportedly Trump is saying this 900 pounds of a rich enriched uranium, which he referred to as like the nuclear dust. That's what he wants to put on the table. Iranians now have the Strait of Hormuz.

And Trump wants that to be some type of joint venture. I mean, it is utterly unacceptable for Trump to end the war in a place where the Strait of Hormuz is not the status quo that it was before the war. And instead, you have the Iranians collecting tolls that allow them to rebuild their weapon supply, to race to a nuclear weapon, even if, I mean, to your point, to Mazz's point, even if they say they're not going to do that right now have you incentivized them of course to raise some of them to want to demand quicker development of nuclear weapons capacity and so none of the math like the bartering math makes sense for Trump none of it but continuing the war also doesn't make sense for Trump right and that's the you know that's the the bind that he got himself into by deciding to pursue this absolutely for the U.S. And speaking of bartering math, Mack, I wanted to throw this one to you. Apparently, the White House has warned their aides about betting on this war. This is, White House aides got an

email last month telling them not to place bets on prediction markets, multiple sources told CBS news. Press reports had raised concerns about government officials using non-public info to place wagers on colchie and polymarkets at the email. The warning reminded staff that a criminal offense and is also prohibited by government ethics regulations. All White House employees are reminded the misuse of non-public information by government employees for financial benefit is a very serious offense and will not be tolerated. So, Mack, do you have to shelve some of your bets, your insider in film? Yeah. Well, first, stolen valid. Wall Street Journal has this first. Oh, sorry. We got to go. We got to fill it. We got to give it up to Big Phil here.

Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's wild. Like the, the, the level. of just deep rot and corruption that have become baseline, especially when you're talking about like day trading on outcomes of war. This is something we saw not just with Iran. I'm like, oh, is the U.S. going to use ground troops? But we've seen this in Ukraine on like the specific lines on the territorial gains that Russia or Ukraine might make. Like it's a level of like disgust that I haven't felt in a long time. And these are, you know, not small wagers people are making. I'll see every couple of days an account has dropped like hundreds of thousands of dollars in bets on, you know, whether or not we're going to use ground troops or there will be a ceasefire or Israel's going to bomb Lebanon today or whatever else. So I don't know.

I mean, it's wild. But this is sort of the new normal that I feel like the Trump administration has set up for us. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark and in this podcast

we interview Canada's most inspiring women entrepreneurs artists athletes politicians and newsmakers all at different stages of their journey so if you're looking to connect then we hope you'll join us listen to the Honest Talk podcast

on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts Hey I'm Jay Shetty host of the On Purpose podcast My latest episode is with Noah Kahn The Singer Songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image,

and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick. Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life.

to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now, I need it more than ever.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles

to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leveh, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy,

really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the fan. That's so funny.

Share each day with me each night, each morning. Say you love me. You know I... So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Two of the negotiators, Wittkoff and Kushner, are deeply invested, like directly invested in the Middle East and stand to benefit from however, you know, this war is concluded and what that all looks like. And they're just, you know, that's just the norm. And Kushner's not

even part of the government technically. Is he has gotten like some special government employee? No, he's just like a private citizen relative of Trump who has massive investments and has gotten, you know, already effectively like bought off by the Saudis through their intervention into his fun. The amounts of money here, the level of corruption is just astonishing. So, I mean, in a sense, I look at this and they're sending this email out to like low level staff or to stop insider trading. You know, who's, so I guess only if you're at the very top, you get to do your Cushner who can do it. Yeah, your business deals in public and cash in on your position. So, I mean, the rot is just so thorough throughout this entire administration. Everything is a grift.

It's also wild just looking at like from an Iranian perspective, these are the guys who you were expected to negotiate before this war started. Like Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, these like corrupt real estate guys who know nothing about like the particulars of nuclear enrichment or any of the other technical details of what Iran was conceding on in the days leading up to this war. Like these are the two clowns who also, as you pointed out, Crystal, have billions and billions of dollars collectively tied up in the Gulf countries and they're both deeply, you know, proud Zionists and tied in with Israel as well. Like the fact that, we put these guys forward as some sort of serious negotiators is a joke.

Well, Ryan, I did want to just tackle one last thing going on in terms of all the money in the Middle East right now. There's a attack that dropsite reported on a Saudi Arabian pipeline. I don't know if you saw this, but let me throw this up on the screen here. Confirmed strike on Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline has knocked out, 700,000 barrels per day, about 10% of its 7 million BPD maximum capacity hitting the kingdom's only bypassed to the straight of Hormuz. Yeah, what is your reaction to this and what is Saudi Arabia's reaction been?

Panic. I mean, you can, you know, you can fix a pipeline. But the East-West pipeline is the vehicle that Saudi Arabia has been using to try to up its export capacity to make up for what can't get out through the Strait of Hormuz. And there's been, you know, there have been some oil analysts who have said, yeah, like, okay, this is, this is bad in general for Saudi Arabia in a lot of ways, but they're getting so much more per barrel that despite the fact that they're exporting less, they're actually coming out okay. That was before a lot of their infrastructure got wrecked and also before this 700,000

barrels were taken off, taken off line. So it depends on how quickly they can get this, you know, back up and moving. It also, you know, it also shows how kind of simple it is to sever these arteries. Right. I wanted to ask you, obviously, the last several diplomatic, alleged diplomatic efforts from the U.S. resulted in us using that diplomacy as a ruse to start wars and attack Iran. Is it possible that, that is the same game that's being played here as well, that it's another, that it's another ruse to sort of distract them while some other operation unfolds because, uh, they, they have continued to rush more military assets to the region. Obviously, the Iranians are concerned about this.

They had to have Pakistani fighter jets escort their diplomats to this meeting. That's how, uh, concerned they were about the possibility of either the U.S. or Israel assassinating them when they're en route. So do you think that that's a possibility here that needs to be contemplated as well? Yes. And what's new is that it is being very explicitly an out front contemplated by the Iranians. Like according to Jeremy's reporting, that is their running assumption. Like their baseline assumption is that this is a ruse and that they should not and cannot trust it. But that because they mentioned the 10 point plan that they proposed as the basis for negotiations,

they're willing to go through the motions and that if it turns out that the U.S. is serious, they're willing to reach a permanent deal. But their assumption is that it's a scam, it's a setup. They're going to try to kill the negotiators, kill the leadership, and then, you know, relaunch a war.

And I think some elements of the Iranian leadership I kind of hope that's wrong. I think other elements of it hope that that's correct because there's a significant faction within the IRGC, it appears, that wants this to continue because they think they haven't quite extracted enough pain to make this something that the West doesn't want to do again, you know, for decades. And I think Israel continuing to bomb Lebanon is kind of fortifying their position. Yeah. So look, obviously, we didn't, we didn't deter them from war in the future

because we didn't even deter them from doing war on Wednesday. And that will impact also what the negotiators, the Iranian negotiators, are able to agree to because they know they have to be able to justify it, not just to the IRGC, but to a population that is going to have a much more sort of hardline logic at this point as well, since they've been able to achieve more with, you know, through overt warfare, aggressive warfare than they ever were able to achieve through attempts at diplomatic negotiations. And that's just the sad reality. Yeah. Yeah. And to that same point, we had multiple Trump truth social statements over the last couple of days that were keeping troops in the region. He's literally said they're restocking, they're resupplying. So, you know, if they are going to start this back up again, it could be under that same sort of pretense that we've seen before. I'm also curious, Ryan, maybe you have some insight in terms of from Iran's perspective, like what would have been the incentive for them to enter into these conversations or to continue them right now? Because the first truth social that we got from Donald's. Trump said the 10-point plan that we received from Iran is going to be the basis for negotiations moving forward. Then the next day, we had Caroline Levitt come out and say, no, no, no, that plan was a complete joke. We threw it in the trash. So like, if you're Iran, are you viewing that as,

okay, this is maybe just Trump posturing? This is bluster. He wants to just look like he's succeeding and we know what we're actually negotiating behind the scenes or like, why even entertain these negotiations if the Trump administration is saying, no, no, no, the thing we based the entirety of this plan on, we actually threw in the trash. Yeah, what Jeremy sources were telling him was that it was his mentioning of the 10-point plan that got them to agree to it, and that they understand, as you said, that everything after that is just flailing. Because they also recognize that this is the most powerful country, maybe in the history of the world, negotiating its defeat against a modest power.

And that's going to require all sorts of gymnastics to kind of cover up the obvious humiliation of it. And so they, they're, you know, they're smart cats. Like, they understand that. They, they know that there's going to be contortions between now and, because, like, like, Trump's contortions are going to be more kind of, ridiculous than anybody else's. But think about it, like, you just can't message that white is black or black is white without looking ridiculous.

Right. And so it's going to be a challenge. Ryan saying smart cats as Crystal's cat. Right. As Salem makes an appearance. Dramatic entrance. Emily, we are about to get to professor. And a cat stands in for Iran and all these Chinese videos, too.

Maybe an appearance in the next Lego. video from Salem. But Emily, we have one last truth to get to before Professor John Mearsheimer here. I, of course, I'm speaking about Trump calling out Tucker, Megan Kelly, and Alex Jones. Candace. Sure. Yeah, the whole crew. This is way too long to read. So I'll just read a sender to here. But it says, I know why Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact, for years, especially by the fact that they think it's wonderful for Iran, the number one state sponsor of Karen, have a nuclear weapon, because they have one thing in common, low IQs, they're stupid people, they know it, their families know it,

and everyone else knows it too. Look at their past, look at their record, they don't have what it takes, and they never did. They've all been thrown off my television, lost their shows, and aren't even invited on TV because nobody cares about them. They're nut jobs, troublemakers, and will say anything necessary for some free and cheap publicity. Your reaction, M. It's so funny. You missed the funniest part of it, which is that he corrects Candace Owens on Brigitte Macron, not only being a woman, but being a very beautiful woman. A more beautiful woman than Candace. And Candace. Full Trump, Trumpful woke on this one. It's also so funny that his standard for

what counts as legitimacy is always television, like whether you are invited. on television, like, just fantastic. I do think, like, on a serious note, it should remind us that those are the obstacles, people who break with the administration over this ridiculous war find themselves up against. And, I mean, it's easy to laugh at it because this is exactly what you would expect from Donald Trump. But it's not just Trump. I'm sure it's like Trump allies.

I know it's Trump allies who, you know, privately, publicly, will try to shame anybody who breaks with them on this ridiculous war because they're insecure about. about it. They know it's unpopular. And the remixes have been absolute fire if you haven't heard of them. He's trolling, though. Who? Tim Poole? Yeah, he's trying to farm engagement. So he's like pretending to be critical of Trump right now, yeah.

Oh, he's not, though. No. You can't trust his Twitter feed. All he has left is Tim Poole who you cannot trust, who do anything other than just entertainment and like. And Mark Levin. Well, oh, I said this is trolling where he says that does it. I am done.

This is the last straw. I'm so angry. Yeah, because it's crass and seen that he's responding to. Yeah, he does this all the time. Yeah. So, um, Emily, like literally, though, other than Tim Poole, who, who, like, serious question, who does Trump have left? Fox News.

So he's Fox News, Shapiro. Shapiro. Shapiro. There's Newmacks, right? Fox News, I'm sure Newsmax has been pretty supportive of it. Oh, yeah. That's the thing. So Shapiro and Daily Wire.

What, Walsh. Walsh is out. No, yeah, Walsh is out. He's arguing with his Daily Wire homies. And then Shapiro is apparently bleeding tens of thousands of subscribers. So Shapiro, Fox News. Mm-hmm. And what purchases Fox News have left?

It's Trump and Trump. With the boomers, huge. Yeah. Still huge. So Trump and the boomers are now 75 plus. But I mean, look, Gen X is actually the most pro-Trump generation. Well, unfortunately for him, we don't have much power or we don't have many numbers either. That's the worst sign for him yet.

That's the last generation that's useful to you politically. Genetics. Is Professor John Mearsheimer? Is he Gen X or Boomer? He's a boomer. Well, then we'll see. Well, why don't we bring him in right now? We'll see where he lands with all this stuff.

Crystal, why don't you introduce the professor here when I bring him in? Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark, and in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

Listen to the Honest Talk podcast and IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit stick season. of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like,

your life must be so sick. Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck.

I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now, I need it more than ever. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl,

Lave, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning. Say you love me. You know I... So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to playing along on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. Great to see you against her. Glad to be here. So just off the top, you know, what is your expectations for what might come out of these diplomatic meanings in Islamabad this weekend? Well, I mean, it's important to realize that all we're trying to do at this point is get the ceasefire in place. And once that happens, then we'll have the serious negotiations. And the mere fact that we're having so much trouble getting the ceasefire in place makes one wonder where the negotiations.

negotiations are going to lead, even if they're going to get started. It seems clear to me that the Iranians will not engage in serious negotiations regarding the ceasefire. They may, you know, talk, but they're not going to engage in serious negotiations regarding the ceasefire until Iran, excuse me, until Israel stops striking at Hezbollah. It's just that simple. And Israel has, or at least it thinks it has, a vested interest in continuing to target Hezbollah, all for the purposes of undermining the ceasefire and, in turn, undermining negotiations. So I think the $64,000 question is whether the United States, which is desperate to end this war, will be so desperate that it will be willing to lean on, Netanyahu in a really big way and get him to stop attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon. But until that happens, this is going nowhere. Now, if the opposite happens and Netanyahu insists on continuing to attack Hezbollah,

and it brings the United States back into war, what are the consequences of that for the U.S. Israel relationship? And as somebody who's studied the Israel lobby longer than probably most of us have even been alive, like what would the, what would a breakup between the American people, the American public, and the idea of supporting Israel due to the U.S. Israel relationship? What is there, does that matter at all? Sure. I mean, huge damage has already been done because it's very clear.

In fact, it becomes clearer by the day that the Israel, Israelis bamboozled us into this war that they led Trump to decide to attack on February 28th. And it's clearly a failed war. I mean, this was a catastrophic blunder on our part. And the Israelis are responsible for that. So what Trump is now trying to do is shut the war down. And what are the Israelis doing? The Israelis are doing everything they can to prevent us from shutting the war down. and to make it go on. This is going to do further damage to Israel's reputation in the United States. And the problem that the Israelis face is that we have this alternative media sphere now.

And, of course, your show is a perfect example of that, where people talk about what Israel is up to and what the U.S.-Israeli relationship has resulted in. and so forth and so on in ways that do enormous damage to Israel and the U.S. Israeli relationship because people get to see the basic facts. That didn't used to be the case before we had this alternative media sphere. So this is doing enormous damage to Israel's reputation in the United States. It's making the lobby's job in the United States much more difficult than it ever was. As I like to say, when Steve and I wrote the original article on the lobby in 2006 and then we wrote the book in 2007, I don't think either one of us ever imagined that we would be at the point we are now at today. The lobby has been so badly wounded. The U.S.-Israeli relationship is really in tatters, at least in the public mind.

And I think moving forward, the situation only gets worse because Israel will behave in crazier and crazier ways. And more and more Americans will realize that. And they'll be well aware of what this escapade in Iran has led to. I'm curious. Sorry, Emily. I'm curious what you make of the landscape of leverage going into these talks that the U.S. administration has. Trump obviously claiming that Iran has been completely.

decimated, defeated, they have no military, et cetera. You know, Iran in the meantime still retains the capacity to strike at Israel, U.S. assets in the region, controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Who do you think has more leverage going into this? Where do you see these talks potentially going in terms of any sort of framework for a possible deal? Yeah, that is an enormously important question that you just asked. And my view has long been that Iran has a vested interest in prolonging the war. Or to put it in different terms, prolonging the closing of the strait. The fact is that what is happening here is that the situation in the international economy is getting worse and worse by the day. And as almost everybody knows, if you project out two or three

months where the straight remains closed, the damage to the world economy will be enormous. This means that the longer the straight is closed, the more leverage the Iranians have over Donald Trump. Trump, on the other hand, has a profound interest in ending this war as quickly as possible to make sure that the damage is limited. And just to go back to what happened on Monday with Trump's two tweets, the one in the morning where he threatened to wipe Iran off the face of the earth and make it so that Iran could never come back from the dead. I mean, this is a genocidal threat of the First Order.

As almost everybody knows, the idea that an American president was making a threat of that sort would have been unthinkable before the morning of April 6th. But anyway, that shows his desperation. Then what happens is at the end of the day, at the end of the working day, he issues another tweet and he says that we're going to not attack and we're going to start negotiations and there's going to be a ceasefire. And what's truly remarkable about the second tweet that night is he says that we accept the Iranians' 10-point plan. You remember, there are two plans on the table. One is the American plan, which is the 15-point plan, and that has all the maximalist demands of the United States and Israel. And then there's the 10-point plan, which is the

Iranian plan, which has their demands, which are maximalist Iranian demands. And he says that it is the 10-point plan. He says in the tweet that evening is a workable basis for negotiation, not the 15-point plan, the 10-point plan. This is remarkable. And then he says, furthermore, in the tweet, that almost all of the points of contention between the two sides, have been worked out. If you think about what he said that morning, that's desperation. And then if you think about what he said that evening, the concessions that he's willing to make are really quite remarkable. And what's going on here is that behind calls doors, they're in deep panic mode. They understand full well that the international economy might go off a cliff if they don't shut this

one down immediately and then begin to repair the damage and do everything possible to return to something approximating the status quo ante. They understand this. So we're desperate. But of course, if you flip back to the other side, the Iranians, this all tells you the Iranians are in the driver's seat and they have a vested interest in prolonging this. So if I were playing Iran's hand, I might sit down today in Islamabad, but I would say, listen, folks, We're not getting a ceasefire until Israel stops pounding Hezbollah. And it's up to you, the United States, to decide whether or not you want to take the international economy off a cliff or whether you want to appease Prime Minister Netanyahu. It's your choice.

Or whether you want to do ground troops because that's really the only other option. That's what I was going to ask, Professor, is Donald Trump now talking? talking about the nuclear dust, as he calls it, the hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium. And the Iranians have, as we were just discussing, leverage in the form of the Strait of Hormuz. So for Israel, as they pressure Trump over the negotiations, Iranians are reportedly considering whether to even show up as the Lebanon bombing continues. But let's say that happens. They do show up. What on earth would an off ramp for Trump look like that also would involve getting Netanyahu on board with it.

That doesn't involve either going back to war with ground troops or Iran operating a toll system in this trade of Hormuz and dealing with the enriched uranium, quote, nuclear dust that he's talking about. I mean, it just, I can't conceive of what that might look like. And I think this is what you're speaking to. But if they try to push on the hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium, what leverage exists possibly for them to barter? Well, first of all, they have no leverage.

We have no leverage. You raise the possibility of ground troops. We have 7,000 combat troops in the region. There's all this talk about 50,000 troops in the region. Almost all those troops are not combat troops, and you can't go to war on the ground against Iran with anything but combat troops. You've got 7,000 combat troops, 5,000 them are on giant ships that can't get close to the coast of Iran. How are you going to offload those troops?

And the 2,000 paratroopers and the 82nd Airborne up against a million-man army, this is not a serious option. There is no ground option. I mean, you want to think about where we are militarily in this situation. First of all, We have 13 bases, 13 major bases in the region. According to the New York Times, all 13 of those bases are either destroyed or badly damaged. We have a huge naval armada in the region. That naval armada cannot get close to the coast of Iran, much less the Strait of Hormuz. So it's parked way out in the ocean, far away from Iran.

Then there's the Air Force. In this rescue mission that just took place where they got the second pilot, we lost more aircraft that day than we have lost in any single day since the Vietnam War. This was just a rescue one down to pilot. We lost more aircraft that one day than we have lost any day since the Vietnam War. war. Then there's the whole business of our missile inventory. We're running out of defensive missiles. We're running out of high-end munitions. We have interests all around the world, especially in East Asia. And we're using up this rather small inventory of boutique weapons that we have. Where does that leave us? And then there's the question of our allies. We can't protect their allies. In fact, we've turned our allies there.

These are the GCC states, the Gulf states, into giant magnets for Iranian drones and Iranian ballistic missiles. Our military performance here has been abysmal. The idea that we have a military option. So this gets to your question, what's the off ramp here? There's only one off ramp here, and that's surrender. and what the actual terms of the surrender are have to be worked out. But this is what President Trump said in his tweet on Monday night. He said we accept the 10-point plan as a workable basis.

Go read the 10-point plan. It's all the maximalist demands. Furthermore, with regard to Netanyahu, Netanyahu doesn't want to let the ceasefire come into place. And he certainly doesn't want to see an end to the war because this will be a catastrophic defeat for Israel. As big a defeat as it will be for Donald Trump, he will be a far worse defeat for Israel and especially for Prime Minister Netanyahu. So he's working overtime to undermine the ceasefire and prevent negotiations. And the $64,000 question is whether or not Trump is willing to lean on Netanyahu to get a ceasefire.

And then he's going to have to lean on Netanyahu and he's going to have to work against the lobby to negotiate a settlement. You want to remember, look at all the trouble we're having getting a ceasefire. You can imagine how much difficulty Trump is going to have trying to negotiate a settlement that reflects the fact that we lost this war. But that's where we are. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart.

And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on Iheart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Kahn.

the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick. Man, you have no clue.

Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be on how, healthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now I need it more than ever.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Lave, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolfe, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.

You related to him. the phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning. Say you love me. You know I... So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to playing along on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I wanted to add one point real quickly to your observation about the dwindling missile, ballistic missile interceptors, because I had a piece yesterday with my colleague, Mertazu Hussein over at Dropsite yesterday. Oh, there it is. Griffin or whoever pulled that up. Can you scroll down a little bit?

Because there's a really inched mac. Yeah, there's a really interesting line in here that is relevant to the U.S.-Israeli relationship. So right there, right there. So the White House referred questions. So what we reported is that they are, according to a Trump administration official, the Israelis are down to double-digit ballistic missile interceptors

and are now relying almost exclusively on the Navy, U.S. Navy, to prevent ballistic missile attacks and are letting a lot more strikes go through just because they have to. But the White House referred questions about the dwindling stockpile to the Israeli military, quote, refer you to the IDF, said a White House spokesperson. Now, so I went to the IDF

and they said, we're looking into it, And they kept for hours, we're looking into, we're looking at like, like they were going to go count them and come back to me and give me a number. They eventually didn't have a fulsome comment. If they provide one, we'll add it to the article. But I thought that was such an interesting dynamic to go to the White House and say, you know, we're told by an official at the White House that the Israelis are almost out of ballistic missile interceptors. And they say, go ask the IDF about that. I don't know what to say. Yeah. It is just kind of hard to believe.

But you know, just a couple points, Ryan, and you know this issue better than I do. But the Israelis say in their press that 80% of the ballistic missiles coming from Iran are getting through. This is truly remarkable. 80% of the missiles are getting through. And they are running out of defensive missiles. And this is hardly surprising if we go back to last year. You remember the 12-day war? that war ended in good part because Netanyahu asked Trump to stop it because the Israelis there were running out of defensive missiles.

And this war has gone on, you know, well beyond 12 days. And it's hardly surprising that they're running out of defensive missiles. And by the way, we are as well. And to make matters worse, we have pulled THAAD missiles and Patriot missiles, as you well know, out of East Asia. In fact, that marine expeditionary unit, the first one to arrive in the Gulf, came out of Japan. What this means is that the United States, which has been trying to pivot to Asia to contain China, as a result of this war, is pivoting away from Asia. Just think about that. We are pivoting away from Asia. Think about what that means for our allies. Furthermore, just think about Trump's behavior. You know, since this war started on February 28th, I guess one could have.

argue his behavior even before the war started. But what is this signal to our allies in East Asia? If you're Taiwan, if you're South Korea, if you're Japan, can you depend on the United States anymore? I mean, it's not only the fact that they're pivoting away. It's just a basic judgment of the Trump administration. This looks like the gang that can't shoot straight. And that's not overstating the case. In fact, if anything, it's understating the case. It's just truly remarkable how incompetent these people are. And just to go back to Monday, here we are, Monday morning, you know, threatening genocide against Iran. And then at the end of the day, doing 180-degree turn and basically saying we'll accept most of Iran's demands.

Just it's remarkable where we are. Well, let's talk about the Asian allies for a second. I wanted to throw up from our other host who couldn't be here, Sauger, who had some thoughts on this. He says, meanwhile, actually important U.S. allies, Japan and Australia, warned of a security vacuum in the Indo-Pacific after the Iran War. And then more, South Korea is dispatching a special envoy to Iran immediately to negotiate passage through Hermuz, direct bilateral negotiations outside of U.S. channels, equals more. breakdown in the U.S. as guarantor of the Allied order. What is your reaction to that? And then more

specifically to the Taiwan question, does this sort of put the Taiwan question to bed? And are we going to see movement from China and Taiwan into some sort of reunification process as an outcome of this war? Well, just start with South Korea. I was on South Korean public television. the other day, and I spent a lot of time sort of preparing myself for that conversation. And if you look at the South Korean situation, in a very important way, the fact that we're pivoting away from East Asia matters less than the economic damage that is being done and might be done to South Korea if this war is not shut down. It's very clear that South Korea. It's very clear that South Korea is being hurt badly by this war.

A huge amount of its imported oil, which it's heavily dependent on, doesn't have oil of its own, comes through the Gulf. And they're in desperate straits and the agricultural consequences if there's just not to be underestimated. So countries like South Korea

and other countries in East Asia, India is another example, Indonesia is another example, the Philippines is another example. these are countries that feel like they're close to the precipice, not militarily, economically. And something has to be done to end this war. And again, this in part, maybe in good part, explains why President Trump is in deep panic mode because he understands this as well, because he's certainly hearing from these countries.

So let's just put aside the whole business of pivoting away from East Asia. The economic consequences of this are being felt in East Asia in a really profound way. And that's what explains the South Koreans talking to the Iranians about getting permission to send ships headed for South Korea through the strait. Then there's the military dimension, and this brings in places like Taiwan as well as South Korea and Japan. First of all, if you're South Korea and Japan, how do you think about getting nuclear weapons at this point in time? Isn't the main lesson of this whole war that you better have a nuclear deterrent of your own, whether you were Iran, South Korea or Japan?

Or at least a straight of Hormuz deterrent. Yeah. A waterway deterrent. Well, and I wanted to ask you, so you said earlier that effectively the only off ramp for Trump is surrender. And I agree with that. I don't see any other option. And so whether it's now or a month from now or two months from now or a year from now, we are very likely to end up with something like the Iranian 10 points becoming a new reality, including a new status quo with regard to the Strait of Hormuz. How does that change the world?

How does that change the U.S. is standing in the world? How does that change the Israeli standing in the world? China? Like what does the world look like if we end up with Iran as this now emerging fourth power, tremendously, frankly wealthy? from the tolls they'll be able to charge and having demonstrated this incredible deterrent ability through their control of the Strait of Hormuz. And I toss in Russia as well, Professor. Well, the Russians have obviously benefited enormously from this, at least in terms of the war in Ukraine.

I mean, the amount of weaponry that we can give to Ukraine is going to be much less of this war. And furthermore, Putin has benefited in the short term economically. I would say that I think from China's point of view and from Russia's point of view, the short-term effects of this war are all positive, for sure. But neither one of those countries has any interest whatsoever in seeing the international economy go off a cliff. And I believe that this is the principal reason that Chinese have been putting pressure on the Iranians to go to Islamabad and try to negotiate a settlement to this war. The Chinese do not want this war to go on and on, nor do the Russians, because it could crash

the international economy. We could have a worldwide depression that looks worse than what happened in the 1920s. That's what we're talking about here. So I think in the short term, this is good for the Russians, good for the Chinese, but they understand in the long term that's not the case. Now, what was your question, Crystal? I was asking about if we have a final settlement along the lines of the Iranian 10 points, including a new status quo in the Strait of Ramos, how does that change the world?

Well, let me just say one thing. You do not want to talk about Iran as if it's going to emerge as a new great power from this conflict. We did enormous damage to the Iranian economy before February. 28th, and we have done enormous damage to Iran to its infrastructure since February 28th, and it's going to take them many, many years and many billions of dollars to begin to recover. So this is a country that is in many ways in terrible shape. They have two great levers, though, that give them huge influence in the region and

in the world. One is they control the Strait of Hormuz, and number two, they have a huge inventory of ballistic missiles, both short range and long range. They have a huge inventory of cruise missiles and even bigger inventory of drones. And they can use those weapons very effectively. So there's no question that the Iranians are going to come out of this war having more leverage over politics in the region and around the world once the conflict ends. But it's very difficult to say at this point in time how the war will finally end. In other words, if you look at the 10-point plan and you look at the 10 demands that the Iranians have made, how many of those are the Americans going to accept?

For example, the Iranians demand that the United States leave the region, that we get out of the region with our military forces. Are we going to do that? If we don't do that, how do we think about those 13 bases? Do we go back to those 13 bases and rebuild them? Will the Gulf states that hosted those bases allow us to do that? These are all open questions, and they have huge consequences for what the architecture, the security architecture in the region looks like. So I think one thing it is clear is that Iran will be more powerful for sure after February 28th than it was before. I think it's also clear that relations between the GCC countries and the United States will never be the same. And we will not have a close alliance with them in the future the way we have had in the

past. And I think as far as Israel is concerned, this is just another major deal. defeat for Israel. One of the most interesting aspects of how the mainstream media reports Israel's actions in these various wars is that they're always portrayed as great victories. Israel is always seen as doing very well. Their situation is seen to be constantly improving and so forth and so on. They're remaking the Middle East. I think this is fundamentally wrong. First of all, with regard to Hezbollah, they have not defeated Hezbollah. Hezbollah has beaten them up badly in southern Lebanon. They were talking about going all the way up to the Latani River and controlling all of southern Lebanon up to the Latani River.

This is the Israelis. But the IDF has had a devil of a time fighting with Hezbollah, and Hezbollah has actually been winning, and the Israelis have retreated to a net. buffer zone on the northern border of Israel. And in terms of the bombing, they can bomb Beirut. They can bomb Tehran, but it doesn't ever lead to anything positive. And I believe the principal reason that the Israelis are interested in negotiations now with the Lebanese government is they want the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, because they can't. The Israelis, can't disarm Hezbollah. So in terms of the war against Hezbollah, they have not won against Iran. This is a colossal defeat for Israel. With regard to Gaza, they have not defeated Hamas.

Hamas still is there. It is still fighting. With regard to the Houthis, they're still there, and they'll grow more powerful over time. With regard to Iranian nuclear weapons or Iranian Iranian nuclear enrichment capability, that, you know, that's all still on the table. So the Israelis are in deep trouble. And furthermore, they've poisoned their relationship with the United States. Where this all ends up, as we were talking about at the beginning of the show, is hard to say. But there's no question that there has been a significant deterioration in U.S. Israeli relations. So I think that the idea that Israel, is going to come out of this as the dominant force in the region is simply wrong.

Israel has been badly damaged and it has no real strategy available for fixing the situation. So I don't know the specifics of how this plays itself out because I don't know what the end of the negotiation process will look like. But I think there's no question that our influence in the region is going to go down. Israel's influence is going to go down and Iran's is going to go up. But again, I don't think you want to overestimate the position that Iran is in simply because of the huge amount of damage that we've done to that country. Well, Professor, this has been illuminating. And I did just want to flag on your way out that the president in a recent truth seems to agree with you. Recent Truth posted this morning, World's Most Powerful Reset, President DJT.

So it seems like he agrees with the professor. I don't know whether I should be happy about that or not. Sign of the Times, I guess. Yeah, to sign of the Times. Well, thank you so much, Professor, for joining us. Any final words before you leave? No, I just hope we get a ceasefire. And then I hope they reach a quick conclusion to the negotiations so we can put this war behind us.

I mean, when I think about all the damage, that's being done around the world. Also, it would be really wonderful if somehow we could lean on the Israelis to stop running around the Middle East murdering people. It's truly amazing the number of people that the Israelis often in cahoots with us end up, you know, destroying huge chunks of countries like Lebanon and Iran and killing huge numbers of people. It would be really wonderful if we could put an end to all of this and create some sort of peace in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

All right. Well, on that note, thank you so much, Professor. I'm sure that we will be asking for more from you very soon. And until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend. Thank you. You too as well. And thank you very much for having me on the show. It's always our pleasure. Thanks, Professor. Canadian women are looking for more. word of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them.

And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast.

My latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick.

Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now I need it more than ever.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you get your podcasts. Lachlan, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning.

Say you love me. You know I... So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Welcome to the liberated second half of the Friday show that Ryan liberated. He stormed the Bastille and has set free the second half of the Friday show. Mm-hmm.

That's right. So I'm wonderful. So Ryan posted this clip. Also on Instagram, Ryan, which was impressive. Julian told me how to do that. Oh, good. Okay. Sager sounded like gritted teeth.

He was announcing this through gritted teeth. Enjoy your funny joke. Ryan runs this place now. Someone's got to make decisions around here. And you know, Sager, if you want to make decisions on the Friday show, you're welcome to join any time until that. You got the link. Yeah.

I just like how I hadn't even been like read in on that this was a possibility before Ryan just announced it on you guys' show. I didn't know this is It was floated on one of our production calls as a hypothetical And I was like, oh, Ryan already said that this morning So it's happening It's done

He's learned He is like Benjamin Nettajahoo He has learned a dangerous lesson About how to negotiate With Christon soccer On the ground It's a truth Yeah

You just create facts on the ground And then it is It is what it is But anyway, we're grateful to be able to Glad to be able to share The entire Friday show with the whole world. Absolutely.

And on that note, why don't we get to a little bit of Crystal's best friend, Alyssa Slotkin, who has been, you know, doing town halls, potentially gearing up for a 2028 run. And there has been a tense town hall between a few people and Alyssa. And I'm going to play both of these videos back to back to get the full experience and then Crystal's reaction. So why don't we start with the first one here? Going back to what was said over here, you have not taken money from APAC, but pro-Israel

lobbies and their donors have spent $4.5 million on your campaigns. But I do have a question unrelated to that. I just wanted to add that. So I'm curious why left-leaning media, well, I guess mainstream media and establishment Democrats are spending energy attacking. influencers like Hassan Piker, as has been in the news lately, and why the Democratic establishment is just like immune to criticizing Democratic leadership like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer,

who are some of the main drivers in the reason that the Democratic Party is that its lowest approval rating in history. Well, a couple of things. First, just to correct the record, I'm not sure what you're referring to on not APEC, but the Israel lobby. If you're equating Israel lobby to Jews, I got a problem with that. And that, just like you wouldn't say, you know, the Iranians, whatever happens, the Iranian government does is what Iranian Americans believe.

I think it's really important, especially now, to make a distinction between the Israeli government and the choices that they're making and the average Jew. You're the only one claiming there's not a distinction in that back in forth. So that is the, that's the first one. And now I'd like to present the follow-up. This was a second questioner that came right after that gentleman there. Let's take a listen. There was no indication that he was conflating those two. Just, no, not at all. Quite the opposite. First off, I wanted to say, I found your response to the gentleman in front of me, offensively bad faith to conflate support for Israel while they are committing genocide and while

they just had a terror attack on Lebanon yesterday, killing almost 300,000. people to complete that with the Jewish identity, that is what anti-Semitism looks like. But my question is, I am so tired of the Democratic Party villainizing the left, villainizing progressives, and we've seen it here where they've tried to push away progressive voices. How can we empower those progressive voices? Because you said you want to be a big tent. But right now, you're not growing the tent. You're moving the tent away from its base. Okay, let's start. I'll go round, or maybe I'll start with you and come back. So what I take issue with is someone saying that I took $4.5 million from the pro-Israel lobby that's not APEC. I don't know what that is, but if that's counting

Jewish donors and saying Jewish donors are somehow the same as pro-Israel lobby, I got a problem with that and not just as an elected official as a Jew. So I have no problem standing by that statement. In terms of the progressive wing of the party, look, I don't think there's anyone shoving anyone. Look at the election like in New York City. Wow. I mean, all I can say is good luck with your 2028 run lady. Like if you're already this fragile and lashing out like that at very basic and obvious questions where the Democratic base at this point is overwhelmingly anti-Israel, anti-A-PAC, they are going to be asking you about where you stand on these issues repeatedly. And if all you can do is immediately reach for insinuating that they're anti-Semites for even

asking about it, like, this is just, this is not going to work. This is not going to work for you whatsoever. And in the most like theatrical, sanctimonious way that doesn't even give off a like ounce of authenticity or sincerity that, like, it's, it's, just going to the old talking points without ever appearing to have engaged in the recent discussion, you would think after her breaking points appearance, the senator would have tried to like really understand in good faith where people were coming from on this. And it honestly, from that exchange, looks like she's not familiar with the discourse and has just reflexively retreated

to the old talking points. No, I think she's familiar with the discourse. I mean, what's interesting to me is When she asked, she wanted to come on breaking points, right? She reached out to us. We're like, great, let's have you on. And we had that whole exchange. My impression in that exchange is she had realized that her lockstep pro-Israel stance was now anathema to the base. And she was trying to workshop some sort of a middle ground thing. And effectively, there is no way to have either you are, you know, supporting arms to a country that's funding a genocide, that's committing a genocide or you're not.

There's really not a middle ground that you can sort of carve out there. And so what I get from it, Ryan, is that she's sort of realized that and has decided, well, I'm going to, I'm going to be more hardline pro-Zionist. And I don't know how these 2028 contenders are so incredibly delusional to think that there's a lane for that that exists within the Democratic base. But there's just not if you look at the numbers. And one other thing to add to this is there was a resolution being put forward at the DNC, to, you know, to go off directly go after A-PAC and condemn A-PAC and, you know, say we shouldn't take A-PAC money. And that got shut down.

Reportedly, there were two 20-28 contenders who intervened to make sure that that resolution was ultimately spiked. And as I went through the list of like, who could it be? It is shocking to me how many, it's basically like almost any of them with, you know, except for like Rokana and AOC that would be potential suspect. for getting involved to spike the anti-AAPC resolution at the DNC. So this figure seems to be coming from track A-PAC, and I've been going back and forth a bunch with track A-PAC about their methodology, because now that they're becoming, you know, a significant part of the conversation, I've been telling them,

like, you need to tighten up and be clear about what you're saying here, and they're telling me that they're actually, they're doing that, they're working on that. And so they delineated some of the money here. So she's 21, 22, 14,000. Now, California Jewish Democrats, this, they got dunked on because it's like, this is her exact point. And $250. Is that a typo?

But California Jewish Democrats, isn't this her point that you're flagging Jewish Democrats and calling them APAC? Turns out, no, this organization used to be called something like California Jewish Democrats for APAC or for Israel and just dropped the name. But they should be clear about this, knowing that. they're under fire here. DMFI 4K joint action committees. So J Street, 280,000. Pro Israel America is kind of to the right of APEC and NACPAC. I think they're kind of a little bit more to the right of APEC.

But that's only a few hundred thousand here. To get to the four million, you need this one down here, lobby donors, four million. So that's a key question. What do they mean by lobby donors? My understanding is they mean people who have donated. to J Street or A-PAC, which will include a lot of evangelical Christians, but can also slot into Slotkin's argument.

So, like, is it, if it's true that you're saying anybody who donated to J-Street at any point is then forever going to be considered Israel Lobby, like, you've got to be clear about that and let people decide whether or not they want to factor that in. That's, that's my view. Yeah. Well, in fairness, though, I mean, Ryan, you can tell me if I'm wrong about this. But one of the strategies that APAC has been using since they recognize they're so toxic now in Democratic primary races in particular is rather than having people donate through APAC, they have people donate separately individually who are known APAC donors. So, I mean, it is a tricky, it is tricky how to characterize that and how to get the right group here identified. And there's a, and there's a super PAC that has.

has been getting in to kind of fight against APAC. And what they've been trying to do is develop this algorithm to try to find those donors. And somebody might just give to J Street and not be part of like a big kind of APEC conspiracy. But you're right, APEC does do that. And so what they've been trying to do is say, okay, if on the same day and because of like basically AI and Claude and others, like it's easier to start figuring this stuff out. okay on the if if you in the same cycle gave to um like steve skelis alissa slok you know you know or like uh haley stevens or like any like these like these like clear people that like apac is directing money to it isn't actually slotkin but let's so let's say hey least you gave to haley stevens

some other apac candidate and then also scolice it's like and all of your donations are like all of these top apac people it's like okay we're tagging you as somebody who is clearly like part of this network because you're right APEC does this they have these private links where they will send out an email to like thousands of people saying here's a private link we're not endorsing this person publicly but we suggest that you do so you that you give them the max donation and for transparency you want the public to know that this that they're trying to evade public disclosure So you, so you now track A-PAC is like two people, three people or something.

They don't have, they don't have that put together yet. I mean, I think they can get there. But until they do, it's going to be, it's going to leave some kind of gray area, which then is going to allow Slotkin to be like, oh, you're just saying that I'm getting money from Jews. Right. Right. But, you know, for her to say, like if she was talking to the track A-PAC people and she had that response and disagreeing, with them on their methodology, it's one thing.

You have multiple, there were, I think, three different constituents here that asked her similar questions and to take them in the most bad faith and assume that they are intentionally lumping in every Jewish person who's ever donated to her and making this blanket statement. I mean, not only is it, it's so, it's really, really gross to throw around claims of bigotry that are unfounded. That is a very aggressive thing to do. And so you're insinuating that, you know, these people who want to know about where you stand and why you stand there to immediately hurl that accusation is just really gross. And also, you know, for her from a political standpoint, I think it's a very bad look because she just comes off super defensive and super fragile about, again, a question that she has to have anticipated receiving because she's a smart.

person. She's, you know, but I definitely came away from that with from my exchange with her. She's very intelligent person. And she knows where the polls are. She knows what kind of question she's going to get. And this is the best that you can come up with. You know, it's not, I don't think politically, it looks very good for her. And in track real quickly, yeah, totally agree with that. And in track APEC's defense, it is 100% true that APEC tries very hard to hide its involvement in supporting these candidates. Like, that is a fact. And so that if you want to expose their involvement,

then you have to go figuring out how they're moving their money through. And if they make one mistake on that, you can't say, oh, the entire thing is, you know, bigoted and can be dismissed. It's like APAC has set up this trap by being so secretive about its money. if APEC would just do what every other lobby does and say we support this person because they support our values and we're proud to endorse them.

If they would just do that, we wouldn't need any of this. Well, they do it after their candidate wins. Actually, this would be a decent place to talk about the polling if you want to do that here. I just want to make a quick point about smoking. I'll pull it up while you talk. There's somebody interesting in this

that she's trying to be this third way type candidate on culture war issues where she's trying to kind of reject the peak woke Democratic Party era. It's time to be normal. Yeah. Right. But what's so interesting about that is one of the big lessons, and like we talked about this during that time period, one of the big lessons is that it's very alienating and offensive when you use lump definition inflation terms of bigotry and assume that somebody who disagrees with you on a policy question is necessarily categorically. a bigot. That was a huge problem for Democrats during the like 2020 era. It did alienate a lot of

voters. Like there's polling on that. That's that was a real thing. And now to see her try to be someone who rejects that framework of the binary, you're either with us or you're a bigot, she's doing it to the, her own voters once again because they don't agree with her on a policy question. Well, and the Hassan thing fits in that with that too, because she would have been one of the, I don't know if she specifically said this, but she would be the type to be able to, Kamala should have gone on Rogan, we need to meet people where they're at, blah, blah, blah. And then it's like, okay, Hassan Piker, absolutely not. Yeah.

She said on Bill Maher, we need to be alpha again. We need male alpha energy again, but not Hassan. Yeah. Well, two quick things I'll add on that before we get to the polling. Number one, it's incredible to hear from somebody like Alyssa Slotkin, this, you know, attacking the conflation of the Jewish people with the state of Israel when the big perpetrator of that conflation has been the Israeli government and the U.S. government by extension of some of the most hardcore pro-Israel politicians in this country constantly conflating the actions

of the Israeli government with the Jewish people as, you know, in its entirety. So, you know, I think there has been some element of an increase in anti-Semitism because of this intentional effort to confuse people as to that. And ironically, it's the left. It is the most hardcore pro-Palestine people, the most hardcore Israel critics who are constantly making an experience. effort to draw that distinction and say, no, no, no, we're not talking about Jewish people as as a whole. We're talking about the Israeli government. So I found that to be incredible there. And then point number two that I think it's important for us to keep in mind is like the Israel lobby stuff is an important litmus test because I think people just get the feeling that if you're willing to

openly take this money, you're kind of just admitting this baseline level of corruption that you're going to be engaging in as an elected representative. But the more important, important thing to me, at least, is the policy. It's, are you going to cut off weapon shipments to Israel? Are you willing to sanction Israel? How do you view the U.S.-Israeli relationship moving forward? Because you may have some pro-Israel Democrats who say, oh, I'm not taking A-PAC money or I'm not taking any sort of pro-Israel money. And then their position on Israel is still horrendous from any, you know, left-wing perspective. So we've got to like be specific about exactly what they're actually running on. Canadian women are looking for more, more to themselves,

their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast and IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like,

your life must be so sick. Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me.

Right now I need it more than ever. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you get your podcasts. Lachlan, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny.

Share each day with me each night, each morning. Say you love me. You know I... So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Ryan, we've got your polling here that I'm going to pull up. Griffin, let me actually pull it up because I have a separate one that has the cross tabs with ages that I think you'll like. So to Max's point, we actually, so we actually polled this specific question.

So we, Zateo and DropSight went out into the field in Michigan with a poll. and we did the top lines. I think it was, we'll look at it. We can look at it exactly. But I think it was 22, 22, 21 at that, you know, between the three candidates and with El Sayed like one point behind the other two. Or it was 23, 23, 23, 22. Either way, it's like a dead heat. Wow.

But we asked some interesting questions as we do. We asked about Hassan Piper, but hold, hold that for one second. So to Max point. I asked this question because I wanted to get, I wanted to see where this is Democratic primary voters in Michigan. And I wanted to test Max proposition here. So we said, so do you agree or disagree with the following statement? If a candidate is not willing to stand up to APEC, I am less likely to trust them to stand up for Michiganers on other issues. And across the board, so if you look down here to agree at the bottom, across the board, the minimum is, kind of plus 40.

And that's moderates. So moderate Democrats, likely voters in the in the primary, by a 55 to 15 margin with the rest saying they don't know, say that yes, it is it is a proxy to them for whether they will stand up for other things. Obviously, under 45, people under 45, it's plus 54. overall, the top line, plus 49. So 62% of Democratic primary voters in Michigan say that how you stand up when it comes to APAC determines for them whether or not you're going to fight for them on other issues. And this is the, you know what's the most interesting. Sorry, real quick. The most interesting thing, though, from that crosstab to me, though, Ryan, is where you have, you ask people, okay, you know, if it's the El-Syad voter, how do they feel?

about it versus McMurrow versus Stevens. And I think people mostly know, but El Ceyed is the like Bernie left candidate. McMurro, you can kind of think of like Elizabeth Warren. She's trying to be the Goldilocks candidate. And then Stevens is like the Chuck Schumer picked, backed candidate. And, you know, McMurro has been trying to, again, find this middle ground on Israel and use language that signals she's with the base, but not totally go in there. And she has thrown in on the side of Hassan Piker is the line too far and kind of affiliated herself more with the Stevens Schumer side of the equation. And so if you look at these numbers here, you see for the El Sayad voters, 91, well, it's plus 91 for, yeah, no, if you are not going to stand up to

APEG, like I want nothing to do with you. And McMorrow and Stevens, interestingly, are at the same level of only plus 33. Right. So you can see that already McMorrow is being more associated by the electorate with the, you know, more pro-Israel, more pro-Zionist side, even though she's tried to kind of split the difference here. That's very interesting to see. Yeah. But one other thing I was just going to add on to that is I think it's, you know, incredible that people like, you know, Slotkin frame themselves as the moderates on this question when according to their own base of voters, they're actually the extremists on this question. They're in the minority when it comes to this.

Yeah. They're the fringe, absolutely. So here's a related question. Below are actions that a candidate could take for each, please say, if the action would make you more or less likely to support the candidate, receives political donations from APEC and other pro-Israel groups. And so you can just see the bloodbath at the bottom there with the more likely negative means they're less, you know, You see, so it's weird, like the way it phrases, but the negative means they don't like this. So, yeah, if you look at Stevens, people are 26% less likely to support, or 49% less likely, 26%.

49 to 23, you guys see it. People are less likely to support Stevens. Stevens voters by 49 to 23 if she takes APEC money. So that's Stephen's own voters. For McMorrow, it's 65 to 8. So if McMorow starts to be seen as the candidate who is taking AAPC money or is supported by APAC aligned, yeah. Now for SAAD is 86 to 1. I like the one.

I know exactly. Imagine being the person who's like, I love AAC and I'm voting for Abdul al-Sai. That person is not paying attention to the poll and is just like, Just going through it. Do you want, let's, without the Hassan, we got, we got some Hassan questions here. The, like, most people don't know who Hassan is. Like, that's, that's the, that's the takeaway from this. Now, when it comes to people under 45 years old, you've got only 18, here we go, under 45,

knew or we're like most familiar with him um obviously uh so the question you know they should should he do the event with hasan piker plus 10 is what it comes out to um 40 percent approve uh 30 percent disapproved the rest um don't know but when it comes to people under 45 it's a it's plus 18 uh the only people who really don't like it are stevens voters so he just they just they disapproved by 27 points. Moderate destiny viewers. Yeah, moderate destiny viewers. Moderates are 11 points underwater.

McMorro, interestingly, who kicked this off, her people approve of it by a plus three margin. Interesting. You guys will like this and we ask people where they get their news. And actually, people are still pretty heavily getting their news who are primary voters, like from like CNN and doesn't surprise me. MS now. But look at breaking points, Sateo dropsiteau. We said we asked them about independent news outlets like Sateo dropsite news and breaking points for people under 45.

Where is that one? 24%. So a quarter of. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. It's creeping up. So 13% overall of Democratic primary voters answered yes to independent news. Now.

And a third of El-Siyadh voters. Yeah, which makes sense. And 3% of Stevens voters are watching this show. Wow. I was Stevens. Hi, ladies. Sitting there, sleeping. But now if you add in YouTube, YouTube is 27%.

Interestingly tied with Facebook. And podcasts, 22%. Instagram 19. Blue sky, not doing so great down here at 7. 2%. Did you find that? Did you find El-Sahed voters? tended to be the youngest of the, you know, the three candidates.

Let's see. That would also correlate with the, you know, more independent media watchers. Yeah, let's see. Okay. Abdul al-Syad. So favorable or unfavorable. So under 45 plus 41. So certainly his highest favorability rating is among those.

Stevens is just plus four with people under 45. Wow. Let's see how McMurow's doing. Memorial is plus two with people under 45. Oh, here's Hassan Pike. Interesting. Here's Hassan Piker. Haven't heard enough to say.

Okay, yeah, here's the number. So for people under 45, 58% don't really have an opinion on Piker. So 42% do, which is the highest number. Overall, 80% of primary voters are just like, I don't know. So with all this focus on this. most people are basically like, I don't even know who you're talking about right now. Right. Yes. Even L.S.I.D. voters, 54% of L.Side voters are like, what are you talking about?

I don't know. So I think we can pull out of this, Ryan, but one final question that I had, I noticed on the far right with the initial undecideds on most of these questions, it seems like it's like very aggressively splitting in the I don't want to vote for somebody who takes Israel lobby money. You know, with the election being as close as it is, where do you think it's going to go into the future? Do you think that'll have a major impact or its side thing? Yeah, before I call it last thing. So, yeah, it's 22, 22. So Stevens 23, McMorro 22, El-Sahad 22 is what our polling is showing. But this is really interesting. And don't tell Schumer this.

But this is why Schumer is now signaling that he wants Stevens to drop out. That's how I'm perceiving the signals coming out of D.C. Who's your second choice? McMorough is the second choice of 38% of people. Whereas El-Syad is only the second choice, 13%. And Stevens is 22. And so a head-to-head against El-Side and McMorro, McMorough was up eight points over El-Syad.

And so you started to see Schumer, and Schumer's so unpopular that he can't even say this publicly. But there's been, there's been, like, reporting that Schumer is okay with McMorro now. McMorough. Recognizing that Stephen, The only way El-Syad can win is if Stephen stays in. That seems to be Schumer's view.

That's probably why McMorrow has decided to take this stance on Hassan Piker, et cetera, et cetera, to make herself palatable to the Chuck Schumers of the world. So, you know, sort of playing this game. She sees her path. She has to knock Stevens out. Yeah. Well, let's see a clip from this infamous Abdul El-Sayyad and Hassan Piker town hall meetup where one free press enterprising journalist known as Olivia Rheingold asked Abdul a question.

Let's take a listen. We're going to take two more questions. I'm sorry, we're going to have to move on to the next person. I'm sorry, Olivia. As a Jewish state. Olivia, we're going to have to move on. I'd love to take the question. I'd love to take a question.

Actually, what do you mean by your state? If you can't define their question, I'm not going to answer your question. We're going to move on to the next. All right. So that was the video. that went around the world. And then Olivia... And then Olivia...

It's like the most boring pity forever. Yes. But then Olivia went on to do a write-up of her experience there. She says, Abdul Al-Sayed, who is Muslim, walks a fine line on the Jewish state. On Tuesday night, he told the crowd, as he does often, that his problem is not with Jews. So then later that night,

in a makeshift spin room, assembled by the campaign, he rebuffed my question or whether he believes in Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. What do you mean by a Jewish state? He retorted, narrowing his eyes. If you can't answer that question, I'm not going to answer it.

For someone who often waves around his respect for Judaism, he seemed unaware of something elementary. Judaism is not only a religion, but a people with a longstanding connection to Israel that runs through its prayers, traditions, and histories. Which some people said was not the quote.

Well, okay, so first of all, it's not the quote. That's not what he said. I do think they ultimately, under pressure, corrected it to at least say the correct quote. But there were many zoom-ins of Abdul's eyes at that moment. And the eyes did not in fact narrow. I think he may have blinked, but we don't typically call that narrowing of the eyes. But anyway, narrowing of the eyes stayed in. And, I mean, can you imagine if someone.

wrote an article about Olivia Rinegold, or we started this segment. Olivia Rinegold, who is a Jew? Is she the blah, blah, blah? I don't think she's. No, she's an October 8th, she's in October 8th, yes. But did she actually convert or like, what's going on?

She's working on it. There's a lot of paperwork. You get my point. No one the paperwork's in. You know, like. So we can properly characterize your religions, and that's apparently an important part. She's written about her lament that her dad was Jewish and her mom isn't.

she's not Jewish. Like, that's her. Well, it's a bit. Some reform congregations would say she is. Whatever. Anyway. Yes. I believe she sees herself as Jewish and I would like to honor that.

But can you imagine the freak out if we started the segment by saying, you know, Olivia Rheingold, a Jew did X or Y or Z. It's very obviously racist. It's also weird. Imagine if someone talked about me and was like, Crystal Ball, who is agnostic says, et cetera, et cetera. Like, why do we do it? Why do we need to know that? A woman.

Right. I mean, it's very obvious what she's doing here. She wants to make him sound sinister. She wants to make him sound anti-Semitic, even though he did nothing wrong. And in fact, that question then he asked her, that's a great question. What do you mean by a Jewish state? And she fumbles around before he says, okay, well, if you can't define it, then I'm not going to answer the question. It's giving very much Tucker when he was interviewed by, I think, the lady at the economist.

And she said, do you, you know, do you believe Israel has a right to exist? And he said, well, what do you mean by that? And she couldn't answer the question of what she meant by that. And the problem for someone like Olivia, um, answering that question is that if you answer it honestly, what you're laying out is an ethno-supremicist apartheid state. And it clashes very obviously with liberal values. This is why Zoran's answer of I support Israel as a state with equal rights is so brilliant and devastating because it shows like how can you object to that? If you object to that, you're rejected. like the most obvious basic principles of liberalism. So that's why it was such an intelligent question on his part to say, okay, we'll clarify, what do you mean by a Jewish state? Because if you just mean a state where, you know, Jewish people have the same rights as Muslim people or anyone else, then sure, fine. But the problem is that's not what she means.

And she has never explained what she actually means by that. It's like if we were doing a segment on driving and identified critical. as a woman. Crystal Ball, a woman. No, but really, like, it's just like nobody. Yes. Yes. But no, I agree.

I think that her response in the piece to what appears to be not even the accurate quote is so patronizing. And it's patronizing to the point where it's out of touch with the reality that, again, if you engaged in good faith with Abdul Sayed, you would obviously not think that about him because he's, she even says in the piece, he like, what does she say, handwaves about how he understands Judaism and respects Judaism? Obviously, he understands all of that. So either you're not understanding his position or you're taking a cheap shot. Yeah. And Olivia also seems to be sort of like a Hassan. Piker stalker, which is weird. And I think, like, in a broader sense, like, they're making, and this goes for like Dana Bash on CNN and Jake Tapper and all these other people who have been

doing relentless segments on Hassan recently. It's like, as Griffin pointed out, Google searches for Hassan Piker are skyrocketing. He's probably gaining more subs now than he has in a long time. Like, they're making him to be a kingmaker when he really just like wasn't before. Like maybe some influence with, you know, some degree of young people around the fringes. But I think at the end of the day for a huge bulk of the Democratic Party that is critical of Israel, that is, you know, against the Israel lobby and whatever else, it's like you're kind of just showing them, oh, hey, look, here's a political commentator over here. Here's a candidate who agrees with you on these questions. So they're just going to end up like, it's going to backfire and they're just

going to end up pushing more and more people, you know, towards these spaces they want them to avoid. Yeah. And Olivia, like, if she is desperate to find people, running for office that are anti-Semitic. There's plenty of options for her to find those people. One that I actually just searched her Twitter for, James Fishback running in Florida. I did a quick search on Olivia's Twitter to see what she said about James Fishback. And I was only able to find a few positive replies to James Fishback,

including this one where she says December 31st, 2024. Oh, thank you for sharing. You're the incredible one. That's back before James Fishback had his transformation, which happened in like the last six months out of absolutely nowhere. He was a free press contributor, he was praising Barry. Yeah. Before he realized he was being fed goyslop. That's right.

Prior to that, him realizing that. Yes. So anyways, I'd love an update or like a follow up on the fishback campaign if we're rooting out. anti-Semitism and the candidates running. I promise you that that is almost certainly coming. All right. Well, we got a big final segment that we have to get to that crossed all of our desks late afternoon yesterday.

And of course, I'm speaking about Melania Trump, who came out to speak about Epstein. Why don't we take a listen? The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein, need to end today. The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility, and respect. I do not object to their ignorance,

but rather I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation. I never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach. To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. My email reply to Maxwell cannot be catarized as anything more than casual correspondence. My polite reply to her email doesn't amount to anything more than a tribal note.

I am not Epstein's victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband by chance at the New York City Party in 1998. This initial encounter with my husband is documented in a detail in my book, Melania. By the book, people. For which we all have signed copies of. Also referring to your husband as Donald Trump. Crystal's like

You can read about my initial meeting with my husband Kyle Kalinsky in my book Crystal Christa Yes I mean it's really It's literally the meme where it's like

No one Absolutely no one And then Melania I was not friends with Jeffrey Epstein I barely knew the guy It's like what is going on Can I see my theory? Yeah tell me

Okay because they're competing theories And I'm not like 100% sure of this But Trump told MS now that he did not know this was going to happen. So a debate whether or not that's true. My theory is that Melania Trump spent January and February seething over the allegations that she, because she is in emails with Galane Maxwell. She has this, what she characterized as a reply appears to actually have been an email

to Galane Maxwell, which I have pulled up here, where she says something like, looking forward to, yeah, here's the email. She says something to the extent of like, G, addresses her as G. It's almost certainly Galane Maxwell. It's a, someone based in New York, named Galane, says, nice story about J.E. in NYMAG. You look great on the picture. I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How is Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in NYU. Have a great time. Love Melania. And then Maxwell replies, sweet pee, thanks for your message. Actually, plans changed again. And now I'm on my way back to NYU. I leave again on Friday. So I still do not think I have time to see you. Sadly, I will try and call, though. The implication here is that they had a close enough relationship where Maxwell is referring to her sweet pee. She's referring to Galane as G. The dates do match that New York Mag story on Jeffrey Epstein. And they have a relationship where they call each other. So that's what was. revealed, I think Melania spent January and February being upset because her reputation is getting

dragged through the mud, but reasonably so, given these emails back and forth with Maxwell. And then her husband launched a war before she could launch a response to Epstein. She was told there's no way that you can address this when we're at war. But as soon as there's a ceasefire, you can. Literally, like the next day, she comes out out of nowhere and gets it done as quickly as possible in case the ceasefire falls apart. This is my theory. It's just so weird because no one was thinking about her.

The Epstein coverage was successfully buried by the war. And then you just come out. I'll show you what the sort of dominant internet theory is right now. So this requires a little bit of backstory, of course. Obviously, Melania is from Eastern Europe. She was brought to the U.S. She came as a model. And so, and this very close Trump friend,

who's a former modeling agent named Palo Zampoli, is the guy who helped her secure her visa to be able to come and stay in the U.S. Well, this guy is actually now in the administration. And he asked ICE to arrest his former Brazilian girlfriend, who also was, you know, a model and potentially also underage, potentially, when she was first in this whole network. But anyway, she's the father of their teenage son, and he asked ICE to arrest her. Well, she is now apparently, she's out on Twitter, like, I will destroy, I know everything about Donald and Melania. I'm going to spill. I'm going to ruin everything. I have nothing left to lose. And it just came out that she apparently recorded an interview with a Spanish language channel that is set to air this weekend. So maybe that's what is going on here. Because she certainly has been going out there and saying that she has the goods, that she's going to spill the tea, et cetera. Because of course, what people think when they see. to sing for Melani is like, what is she trying to get ahead of here? Because none of us were thinking about you or talking about you in this way at all, girl. So what is up with this? And, you know,

I mean, that's the most obvious explanation is that there's some story or some development that's about to happen that she wanted to get out there in front of. Possibly? I guess everyone agrees. It's just like, nobody knows because it's out of absolutely left field. I'm just loving this like circular like little spiral that we're in of. like distract from the Epstein files by going to war with Iran and then distract from the war with with by bringing back up the Epstein files. So we might, who knows, where are we going to go to war next? But we're back with Iran again. We'll be back with Iran. We'll be back with Iran. We'll be always get back in that one. Any second that could happen. That could be happening right now as we're speaking. So I don't know. I mean, it does

just remind, I guess, too, of what, I mean, the Trump administration is just a mess. Trump is truly, it's disaster on all fronts. because even, okay, let's say that he agrees to the Iranian surrender conditions. I mean, that is devastating. He's going to have a very hard time selling that as victory to anyone, including his own base, let alone the world. So you've got that mess. And then it frees everybody up, you know, Ryan and Co. to get back on the Epstein files reporting, which was already an utter disaster for him.

And we just had numbers that came out this morning, a very hot inflation reading. So prices going back up. Of course, gas prices are extremely high. the economy is very shaky. The AI bubble seems on the verge of collapse and, you know, midterm elections around the corner that are likely to deal a devastating blow. So a little reminder of just how bad the whole landscape is for this administration at this point. It's a golden age.

That's what it really feels like. Do we want to play that video you sent me, Crystal? It's a little long. I'm not really sure. That's okay. I think it was that guy, Palo, the modeling agent, saying that, you know, talking about that relationship and saying that he was the one who introduced Melania to Trump because, you know, I mean, that's not why I read in Melania.

Well, and here's the other thing is, that's right, exactly. And then the other thing is there's allegations that have been made by Michael Wolfe that Melania has threatened to sue him over, including that Epstein had had a relationship with Melania prior to Trump. and that Trump and Melania, this again is his allegations and she's threatened to suit over it. So I am not saying that this is what happened, but he claims that they had sex for the first time on his plane and that there was obviously like deep entanglement there. And this whole modeling world is so incredibly disgusting and was rampantly used for human trafficking. And that's well documented. And so the, you know, the Trump and Epstein and John Casablancus and this Palo guy, like all in that cesspool of a world is, you know, is obviously very noteworthy as well.

Yep. Well, on that note, it's been a jam-pack show, but I will not not do some AMA questions here at the end. Let's hit a few right off the bat. Rapid fire here to take us out on this Friday. This one is to Emily from Nelson. Oh, sorry, this is Emily from Sabas 101. For Emily, with the rise of Catholicism and younger generations and the growing dissatisfaction with the Iran War,

will Zionist evangelicals denominations decline in membership and power in politics? I mean, I think actually it's sort of the inverse in that what would be called dispensationalism, So this idea that biblical Israel and the modern nation state of Israel are interchangeable, that you have to read that into prophecies and scripture, I think that's actually just declining among evangelical voters who previously had been attached to that and a very particular political Zionism because of it. I think it's just like younger people, Gen Z evangelicals have.

I think really moved away from it. So it's not so much that the denominations are declining. Catholicism is actually continuing to decline. They're more younger Catholics. Like there's obviously something going on, but it's declining in the United States. So actually, I think what's really happening is it's not so much the denomination or it's not so much that the evangelical churches are losing members or anything like that so much as it is the members are less likely to be dispensationalists the younger they are. Gotcha. All right. This next one is for Crystal from Jacob RP 273. Crystal, do you think if Israel does deploy a nuclear bomb that Trump will have the guts to do anything about it? Do you think his need to protect himself from getting exposed will outweigh the ethical obligation to permanently restrain Israel? I don't see any evidence of Trump reining in Israel at this point. So not very hopeful in that regard. I mean, but look, his options, you know,

whether a nuclear weapon is deployed or not, are all impossible for him. So, you know, it's hard to see him standing up to Israel. It's also hard for to see him staying in a war that's destroying the entire economy and entire global economy. It's hard to see him accepting the Iranian surrender demands. It's just all of these things are going to be very painful for him. So, you know, your guess is as good as mine. Which of the extremely painful for Donald Trump options he's going to choose at this point?

All right. This next one is for Ryan. More of a statement, but you can still react to it. No. From Nick Strickland, you guys should start a new segment called Ryan's message to the White House, where Ryan directly addresses Trump plus his admin and maybe offers advice. We will all pretend like it doesn't have an effect. Stutt.

It's already working. I'm here to serve the country. Yeah. Very nice. Very nice. And I'll throw this one to Mac, the final one today. This is from Hamster Wheel. AMA question.

Are you aware, either through your own analysis or via told top down, when a news story seems to be a limited hangout? Could the fine BP crew speak to the concept of limited hangout? Do all breaking stories go through this process, or is it just Epstein? Usually when I see the byline Natasha Bertrand. Emily, you have takes on this.

Mack, do you have any? Yeah, go for it, Emily. No, no, no, I just often the byline and the sourcing, but that's probably what you were going to say, Mac. Yeah. I'm just an old next question. I mean, we got to tell people what the concept is if they don't know. Everyone's at a different stage of their life's journey. Limited hangout means you have an enormous amount of stuff that you're hiding and you put a tiny piece out of it to try to kind of settle the issue and get people to move on.

So like the Epstein file release is kind of the definition of a limited hangout. And we know that it is because there's some millions more. We don't even know how much files that are being hidden. But they're like, here, public. Here's a little drip. We release the files. Are we doing yet? Stop talking about it.

That is like definitionally limited hangout. But that's, you know, a common technique that's used like information, you know, operation kind of. And a feature of it is to put people in the wrong. direction. But you put a little bit of it out. That seems to implicate somebody over here when actually the real thing is over here. So you get some of the information, but you get everybody chasing the wrong laser. Or it's like, you know, you take a little bit of damage, but to avoid the more, you know, significant damage. Because you have something's going on. Yeah. Right. Right. And that gives credibility to the idea people have gotten the truth when really the thing

that would be more devastating is still being hit. Right. Trump's attempt to be like, yeah, this was actually all just Bill Clinton and Democrats is a good example. Like, all right, fine, you got me. I'll give you the information on Epstein. It was the Democrats. Okay. I want to share that, but you forced it out of me. Gotcha. All right, Mac, maybe this will be a one that you have something more to say about. Patrick Mulligan says, hello, everyone. It is good to be able to criticize friends and allies. In that spirit, what is your most serious criticism of Hassan? Do you have any Hassan? Don Piker criticisms. I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't think we're, like, perfectly in line on, on everything.

I don't know. I mean, nothing crazy. I feel like he can have some cringe take sometimes. I feel like he gets involved in some of the drama stuff and some of the sort of, like, slop stuff a lot more than I would personally. But, you know, maybe that's more his wheelhouse. Like, he has a lot of people who find him through those kinds of avenues. does a lot of content outside of just like strict news coverage or political commentary or whatever.

But, you know, when you stream for eight hours a day, you're probably going to say some things you regret. Yeah. And get into some delve into some drama. And yeah, you got a lot of time and not eight hours to explore all facets of our universe. We get in enough trouble in two hours. So I can't imagine eight. That's going to do it for us this Friday. Thank you, everyone.

Welcome to the new rang of the freedom. Freedom rings. Free Friday show. Comrade Ryan. Welcome to all the Haley Stevens voters who absolutely hated watching this, but did it anyway. We tip our hat to you. And, of course, if anything major breaking happens over the weekend, we will be unlike Abdul Tzai, keeping our eyes wide open for anything that occurs over the weekend. And if not, we'll see you on Monday.

Goodbye, everybody. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Sondland's, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian.

Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is love trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ready for a different take on Formula One?

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit stick season, and one of the biggest voices in music today. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. Getting to talk about this is not common.

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