Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/1/24: Obama Snaps At Biden Protestors, Congressman Says 'Nuke Gaza', Candace Owens Warpath, Diddy Investigation, Baltimore Bridge Update, Biden Reloads Israel's Weapons

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss NYC chaos as Obama snaps at Biden protestors over Gaza and Lizzo "quits" after her performance, a Congressman calls to 'Nuke Gaza' while Fetterman staffers abandon ship, Candace Owens goes on a warpath after leaked emails about her firing, the P Diddy investigation expands as J-Lo is implicated, 8 other bridges are at risk of a Baltimore Bridge style collapse, Biden secretly reloads Israel's deadliest weapons, massive Israeli protests rock the Bibi government, and the head of the ADL on MSNBC comparing Palestinian scarves to the Swastika. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Many things to get to this morning. So last week, there was a star-studded Biden fundraiser, three presidents there, lots of celebrities, and also a whole lot of protesters. So we will share that with you. We also have new audio of a congressman who literally suggested to his constituents that Gaza should be nuked. Definitely want to hear that.

We also have an exodus of John Fetterman communication staffers. So you can only guess why they may be leaving his office at this point. Some explosive leaks from the Daily Wire revealing the circumstances surrounding Candace Owens firing. A lot to say about that as Ben Shapiro has been doing the rounds, doing some interviews and pretending not to talk about this, but really also talking about it. So anyway, lots of breakdown there. We've got some new updates for you on that bridge collapse and whether other bridges around the country may also be at risk. The U.S. shipping more bunker buster bombs to Israel in the midst of all sorts of horrors unfolding there. And Morning Joe sitting quietly by as the

Keffiyeh scarf is compared to a swastika. So many things to say about all of this. Yes, that's right. Before we get to that, though, as a reminder, we have some major upgrades coming to our premium service, and there's going to be a lot of fun new features. So sign up at BreakingPoints.com. You're going to want to take advantage now so you can be the first to find out and you can get the rollout and all of that. So we've got the discount that continues, BreakingPoints.com, if you want to take advantage. But as we mentioned, there was a blockbuster event in the city of New York. Three presidents, current President Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, all appearing together at a major glitzy star-studded

fundraiser in New York City. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. A record-breaking fundraiser, they are calling it some $25 million for the Biden re-election campaign. And it was supposed to be, Crystal, it was supposed to be one of those really amazing events where the party comes together, they raise a ton of money. Stephen Colbert, who hosts a news program or an entertainment program, bizarrely is interviewing these gentlemen that are on the stage. But very, very quickly, things devolved and showed some of the major fractures within the Democratic Party, including President Obama, President Obama snapping back at protesters. We have some video from the event just so you can get a little bit taste

of what it looked like, if we can go ahead and play that, please. So you can see these three, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, all answering questions, probably hard quitting questions, of course, from Stephen Colbert. What they didn't want you to see, though, were the protesters that were interrupting the event, both inside the venue and outside the venue. President Obama, in particular, taking great exception to one of these people. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. They said that the fundraiser was interrupted multiple times by protesters, and Obama snapped at one of them. He says, Crystal, you can't just talk, that you have to listen. And these people don't really want to listen. And we saw some of that, in particular, outside of the venue with some of the protesters that were yelling at many of those who were coming in.

One in particular saying that they will never vote for Biden and they better enjoy Trump. Let's take a listen to that. How much money did you give Joe Biden? Drop bank for 10 babies. Enjoy Trump. We're never voting for Biden. So there you go, Crystal. It was supposed to be like a major event. And instead, Obama's freaking out. They got interrupted at least five to six times. Nobody actually knows.

There were multiple videos of people being let out in handcuffs. And they were screaming, prompting a good old-fashioned Obama scolding, something that we haven't seen in American politics in quite some time. And I think this just illustrates that you can try all you want. He can't even go to a college campus. But even at his own fundraiser, where people were buying, what, $1,000 tickets and all this crazy stuff with Stephen Colbert, they cannot control outbreak of outrage, in particular amongst a lot of the people who previously supported President Biden, a lot of this over the Israel policy right now. Yeah, well, you'll recall that they went to great lengths to try to make sure that protesters could

not get into this event. That included by lifting the price of admission, thinking that, oh, well, the protesters perhaps won't have the money to be able to get inside. There were reports that they were using a third party organization in an attempt to vet everyone who would be in the building. This is where the Democratic Party is right now. I think it was Dr. Trita Parsi and probably many others on Twitter who pointed out, listen, this is just a little taste of what the DNC is going to look like. Yes, that's a great point. Because you also had the police in New York who were going to great lengths to keep the protesters far away

from this happened at Radio City Music Hall. But there was some great footage, including the part that we just showed of these rich liberals walking out of these fundraisers. And, you know, I'm sure they think of themselves as very progressive, great humanitarians, etc. And having to be confronted with these protesters who are saying you're literally supporting someone who's aiding and abetting a genocide. How can you live with yourself? What about these kids who are being massacred by the thousands? What about them? And so to see them have to walk through this gauntlet of protesters, listen, does it in

the end make a difference? I have no idea. We know that this administration has felt enough pressure from the poll numbers and the protesters and the uncommitted vote, et cetera, to at least rhetorically change. It was a, you know, sort of watershed rhetorical shift when Chuck Schumer had to give that speech saying that the Netanyahu government is one of the key obstacles to peace and calling for a new government. And as Professor Norman Finkelstein points out as well, having to actually rebut and deal with the charge that Israel is itself a settler colonial state.

Now, previously, those kind of comments would just be dismissed as anti-Semitism. Now they're having to actually grapple with and address those sorts of questions. So there's no doubt there's been a huge Overton window shift. There's no doubt they have felt some sort of pressure. And it's incredibly heartening to me that they know they can't go anywhere without having to face these types of questions with regards to Obama and, as you put it, his scolding or his lecture to the protester that was there. There's an account on Twitter by the handle Dr. Hannah Ryan, who claims to have been this protester. She says, I was this protester, Obama. I'm listening to the UN, International Criminal Court testimony from the Palestinian

journalists and civilians inside Gaza enduring a genocide. The question is, why aren't you? And I think that's very well said. Or you could listen to the overwhelming majority of the Democratic base who is disgusted with what they see unfolding before their eyes. So when you contrast the images that came out of this fundraiser with all of these celebrities, we're going to show you a little bit of Lizzo and Stephen Colbert, which as a digression, how sad, how sad that Stephen Colbert, who once had the stones to stand next to George W. Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner and really give him hell right there, was now chosen, and again, from reporting before the event because he was seen as a quote unquote safe pick. And they were right, by the way, but how sad. But the contrast in those images of this star studded, glitzy fundraiser filled with all of these wealthy people who could

afford the very high ticket price and the images that are coming out of Gaza, of the slaughter that this administration has fully enabled and backed and continues to this day, I think that is truly going to be one of the sort of enduring images of this horrible thing that we have watched all unfold since October 7th. What's also interesting is just to see, as you said, visually what it looks like for these Biden individuals. Go play this please video of Karine Jean-Pierre, actually, we can play next, who was walking through the streets of New York, thought that she was about to come into contact with a fan, and then quickly had to do a little bit of an about face. Let's watch it. Having a rough time there in the city of New York. Why do you support genocide in Gaza? When will you vote for President Xi? You and his entire Biden administration. Having a rough time there in the city of New York. At the same time,

there was a fourth president who actually was also in the city. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is important, I think, just to demonstrate where the political, what some of the political fallout from this is looking like, because Trump was actually attending the wake of a slain New York City police officer calling for law and order, quote, to show contrast with Biden by attending that funeral. The side-by-side contrast crystal was supposed to be one designed by the Biden administration to show unity, to show them raising a bunch of money. And instead, they were interrupted pell-mell at their event. All of the headlines that came out of the event were not positive for Joe Biden. They were definitely negative.

And at the same time, you have here a Trump, I mean, who's now consolidated the Republican Party, not going to erase any of the problems that he has there on his own. But electorally, he's trying to show more of a consolidated party, return to some of the roots of the original 2016 campaign. And if you can exploit some of the divisions in the Democratic Party to some of the roots of the original 2016 campaign. And if you can exploit some of the divisions in the Democratic Party, some of the problems there on the other side, we do see how this is becoming a major general election story. The Biden team has clearly realized they have a problem with regard to the base of the party, especially with young

people when it comes to their, you know, the bear hug of Netanyahu approach. So they've tried to message their way out of it. It's not going to work. And we can already see the direction that they're going to move in, which is not to actually change the policy. You know, as we're going to talk about later, they just shipped more 2000 pound bunker buster bombs as they're out there claiming that they have issues with the way that this war is being prosecuted. They're out there claiming that they're upset about a potential invasion into RAFA, but there's zero change in terms of policy. So they're quickly going to realize that attempting to message their way out of this problem is

not going to work. And so we already see a shift towards what their plan B is, which is forget these young people, screw them. You know, we're going to smear and dismiss them like we usually do. And instead, we're going to try to court the Nikki Haley voter. We're going to try to peel off some of these, you know, remaining suburban Republicans. And I think that's going to be the game plan. Do I think it will work? Maybe. It's possible.

It's possible. You know, I do think that I do think Trump's got a lot of issues. I think the more that his legal troubles are in the news, I do think it's actually a problem for him. The more that he's in the news, right? He benefits from when the media actually doesn't cover him as much because people sort of look at the past era through rose-colored glasses and they forget some of the things that they really hated about him when he was president of the United States. You know, the more he's out, he was out there on Easter making these completely unhinged, you know, posts on Truth Social. I think he posted like 70 times. I mean, it was insanity, right? And the one that was actually like the happy Easter one was just all caps, complete derangement. The more people are reminded of that, the more of a chance that, hey, you know, screw the young people, we're just going to pick up the Nikki Haley

voters has a chance of success. But boy, do they run a major risk. And that's, you know, putting the obviously the morality and the ethics of all of this aside. Yeah, that's right. No, it's a major risk electorally. And I think for Trump, you know, if he can get more headlines like this for the contrast, I did see it covered, at least in some of the media and less about whatever his happy Easter, even to the haters that the judges, the I mean, it's like it's like a meme now at this point, even though it is real. This is capturing headlines also in many ways, in particular with some of the celebrity fallout. This is a particularly hilarious one.

We can go ahead and play some of the video of this Lizzo. Lizzo, despite being, what was it, accused of, let's just say misconduct, I think, with some of her dancers. There was a banana and female genitalia involved in the accusations. I'm just gonna leave it at that. And also fat shaming, which, you know,

kind of ironic given her positioning as a celebrity. That's right, so she was there, she was performing, she was going off the hook, but then afterwards put out the most narcissistic post of possible. Let's put this up there, please, on the screen. She just says, I am getting tired of putting up with being dragged by everyone in my life and on the internet all I want is to make music and make people happy and help the world be a better than how I found it but I'm starting to feel like

the world doesn't want me in it I'm constantly up against lies being told about me for clout and views being the butt of joke every single time because of how I look, my character being picked apart by people who don't know me and disrespecting my name. I didn't sign up for this shit. I quit. Actually, you did sign up for this, Lizzo. Thank you. That's exactly right. No, I mean, you did. Okay, there's one thing to be an artist. I think even then, when you reach the level of household name fame, yeah, you did sign up for this. But two, you're the one who chose to perform in a political fundraiser. Okay. That's, it's like, you know,

when people go into what Kid Rock or any, what are these people who, Ted Nugent, people who support Trump, fine. They got into the political game, their major household name. They know what they're doing. You helped raise money for Biden. No shit. You actually did sign up for this. 100%. You agreed to do it. You made yourself household name. You made yourself world famous and all that. So don't be surprised if people criticize you for performing at an event like this. And you just, you know, either didn't do the research or don't know enough to know that this is going to be controversial, even within the circles that she runs in. There's so much about this that just pisses me off. First of all, her trying to say, oh, I'm being picked apart because of the way I look.

This has nothing to do with the way you look and everything to do with number one, the allegations that we just mentioned. And number two, the fact that a majority of Biden voters think that this man is assisting in a genocide and there you are raising money for it. And you're supposed to be a little miss peace and love in the world. Give us all a break. Second of all, as you're pointing out, Sagar, it's not that just she, it's not just that she is a celebrity and, you know, set out to become a celebrity, but she intentionally positioned herself in this like provocative lane. That's right. So you don't get to go out there and, you know, be, look, fine, be who you are and whatever, but don't be shocked when people have something to say about it. You know, we don't go out there and when we get a mean tweet or whatever, like,

I didn't sign up for this. Actually, we did. Actually, we did, which is why we don't go around crying about it because it comes with the terrain. You know what? We're incredibly lucky to be here and have this platform. And if it comes with that, so be it. We all knew that going in as big boys and girls. So if you want to rage quit, go ahead, Lizzo. And then the other thing about this is the Democratic part. Like, what can you even say? You know, these people supposedly have all these principles. Like, how can you take them seriously about anything? And how do they not know that, you know, inviting this woman who at this point has all kinds of baggage and the biggest one being that the accusations are she's just a complete hypocrite. Yes, that's really what it is. All of her body positivity is bullshit, according to a number of her dancers.

She was fat shaming them, etc., which, again, just makes you the biggest hypocrite on the planet, creating a toxic work environment, to say the least. And I do encourage you to go back and read the specifics. We did a segment on it. We did. You can go watch it. And I don't want to relive all of that here. But, you know, you're going to invite this person in when you're supposedly, oh, I care so much about women. Give me a break, please. Just a perfect emblem of how out of touch and bizarre all of these individuals are. That's right. Culture of narcissism at its absolute finest.

So anyway, let's just say the event, it didn't go well for basically every single person that was involved. So anyway, I hope the money was worth it, Ms. Obama. And God bless these protesters who hound them everywhere they go. I hope they keep it up. That look on Karine Jean-Pierre's face when she went from the giant grin of, oh, I've been recognized by one of my fans, to realization, oh no, this is not a fan. This person has something to say to you. Like I said, is it making a difference? I have no idea, but I hope they keep it up. And as I said before, just a taste of, I think, what the DNC is going to look like,

where they're going to have much less control over who's there, who's in the room, who's outside of the room. There's going to be overwhelming media coverage. So great point. Yeah, no, DNC is going to be a lot of fun. By the way, stay tuned for that too, in terms of our coverage. We got some plans. That's going to be fun. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal.

It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself.

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Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's turn to some absolutely insane, outrageous, disgusting comments made by a Republican congressman. This is Michigan Representative Tim Wahlberg speaking to his constituents about what he would like to see done in Gaza. Let's take a listen. It's a joke, I agree. We need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. I don't think we should. I don't think any of our aid that goes to Israel to support our greatest ally,

arguably maybe in the world, to defeat Hamas and Iran and Russia, and probably North Korea's in there and China too, with them and helping Halas. We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. I agree. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Get it over quick. Calling directly for nuking Gaza and turning it into like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Now, the truth of the matter is already enough bombs have been exploded in Gaza to be the equivalent of more than two of the equivalent Nagasaki or Hiroshima style nukes. But to see a congressman speaking to his constituents and say that directly and think that that's acceptable to say, I mean, talk about genocidal. This is insane. Now, Sagar, he got some pushback in the local press and, you know, tried to, quote unquote, soften these. Oh, it was a metaphor, a metaphor for what? Complete annihilation. And I can't help but notice you'll recall Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was censured in the House for retweeting something that said free Palestine from the river to the sea. This was national media coverage. You

guys probably remember. Every Democrat got asked about these comments. We had a whole national conversation about this rally chant, et cetera, when she's calling for equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis. This man suggests nuking the place and crickets, effectively, from the mainstream media. Will he be censured by the House? Of course not. Of course not. By the way, Crystal, the full quote is actually even more deranged because it doesn't just call for wiping out people in Gaza. He says, get it over quick. The same should be in Ukraine. Defeat Putin quick. Instead of 80% of our funding for Ukraine being used for humanitarian purposes, it should be 80 to 100% to wipe out Russian forces if that's what

we want to do. So it also wants us to use nuclear weapons and give them to to 100% to wipe out Russian forces if that's what we want to do. So it also wants us to use nuclear weapons and give them to the Ukrainians to wipe out the Russians without thinking then of any of the attendant consequences, just to give people an idea of how psychotic this individual is. Did you want to hear his defense? Outrageous. That's pretty good too. Yeah, and let me just reflect on that for a minute. I mean, listen, at least when you're talking about the Russians,

at least you're talking about military combatants. Oh, like a peer-to-peer nation. That's a good point. You know, in Gaza, you're talking about 2.1 million people out of whom 30,000 were Hamas, right? And you're talking about nuking the place and, you know, wiping them out. There is no other word for this than, you know, a call for genocide. So that's the sort of thing that he thinks can just fly at a constituent town hall. I'm very curious whether anyone there said anything, whether what the reaction was in the crowd, because the, you know, the clip cuts off right

there. But it's the level of dehumanization that has become normalized in certain circles is just, it's honestly beyond belief. I would say, Crystal, I actually think the tide is turning. And I think that in the beginning, I mean, we see a lot of this in polling. You can see a lot, the whole like, get it over with, get it over quick. Like I said, September 12th, 2001, what's everybody saying? Nuke Afghanistan. Well, you know, now it's been, what, it's been almost six months since October 7th. Public opinion is dramatically, the Palestinian cause is a lot more sympathetic. People have watched the Israeli military campaign. There's not a lot of plausible deniability, you know, at this point. So I actually think that things are turning against us.

Now, I don't know where this, this was apparently in Dundee, Michigan, that this happened. But I also think it is noteworthy that he actually did have to walk it back. So he says, the people, no, sorry. He said, as a child who grew up in the Cold War era, the last thing I would advocate for would be the use of nuclear weapons. He says, I used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible without putting American troops in harm's way. And I think what he's, I mean, obviously, it was clear what he was calling for. But, I mean, recall, what was it, Brian Mast and those people says there's no such thing as an innocent child in Gaza. Recall some of these other Republican

congressmen who three, four months ago, they're receiving no pushback or even frankly, even a lot of media coverage outside of independent circles. This one, I mean, this got written up in the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press. Michigan is obviously a state with a lot of Arab American voters. I don't know anything about Dundee. I don't know if it's going to hurt his electoral chances or not. But I do think it was at least somewhat noteworthy to me that they were, or at least he felt the need to issue some sort of quote unquote clarification, even though it's a BS clarification. And what he said is crazy, like on every level. Yes. All right. Well, that's a good point that at least now he feels some shame. He's forced to feel a little bit of shame around this and receive a little bit of pushback, at least in the local press in particular.

There's some other political news we wanted to bring to you, which is Senator Fetterman, who has become the greatest cheerleader for Israel doing whatever the hell they want to do in the Gaza Strip and seeming to show absolutely no care and concern for the fate of Palestinian civilians. He is suffering a mass exodus at this point of communication staffers in particular. I can put this up on the screen. Top staffers for Democrat John Fetterman are leaving his office for more progressive jobs as the Pennsylvania senator moves more to the center, they say. I don't know if I'd call it the center. But anyway, on key issues, Joe Calvello, Fetterman's longtime communications director who helped him navigate a tumultuous Senate race working on the campaign, left to work with liberal Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson earlier this month. Quote from him, he says, Mayor Johnson is a true progressive who is committed to fighting for the working people and families of the city of Chicago. I'm deeply honored to join his administration.

We also have Nick Gavio, Fetterman's deputy communications director who started with this campaign, is going to head to the Working Families Party. And we have one more individual who is Emma Moustian. I'm going to go with I'm sorry, Emma, who served in Fetterman's office, who is going to work on the other Pennsylvania senator's campaign, Senator Bob Casey's reelection bid. You know, you can read into this. I think probably a lot of it has to do with his just devotion to Israel, his willingness to even he is way to the right of Biden rhetorically. Yeah, that's right. In terms of what he supports. And he's criticized Biden. He was doing this whole song and dance about like, how can you criticize Biden on Israel? Then you're just helping Trump. But then when it came to Biden, even rhetorically shifting with regard to Israel, he felt perfectly comfortable to attack him then. And apparently when he does it from the right,

it's not quote unquote helping Trump. Oh, that's funny. I didn't, I didn't even pick up on that. Yeah. There's a lot going on there, but you know, I, I think the big question with Betterman, we had Ryan Grimms reporting about how he originally sort of staked out this position on Israel very much looked like from Ryan's reporting that he hadn't really thought that much about the issue. And then in his campaign, when he was faced with a primary challenge in that Senate campaign against Conor Lamb, it was more of like a centrist figure. And Fetterman at that point was the more of the progressive figure. He just effectively asked Democratic majority for

Israel, like, what should my position be? They literally wrote it up for them, and he has sort of stuck with it ever since. And, you know, he's taken a lot of money from AIPAC. I'm sure that provides a hefty incentive to stay lockstep in support. But I think at this point, given the fact that he's not just doing the sort of like standard issue democratic support of Israel, that he's so vocal about it, so vociferous about it, it has to go beyond the money for him. Like, I think he has become completely ideologically locked into this position beyond any sort of reasonable understanding of the way money may have influenced him and the way that this may impact him electorally, etc. Because I could very much see him, you know, next time he has to face re-election, which granted is

a number of years from now, but I could see him facing a challenge from the left that could be quite potent. He is definitely risking his career with being such an overt cheerleader for the horrors that are unfolding. So, you know, for these staffers, apparently it just became too much to watch this man whose whole political brand. I know now he wants to run away from the progressive label. He was not running away from the progressive label when he was running. He was Medicare for all. He was originally a Bernie Sanders supporter. He's talking about lifting wages, supporting unions, et cetera. That was his positioning. And specifically his brand

as a former Rust Belt town mayor was, you know, I'm the one who's going to look after the forgotten people to then have zero, zero sense of the humanity of Palestinian civilians, I think for these staffers, it probably just became too much to bear. And it's no accident that they're all going to, you know, places that are more progressive and in a different place when it comes to Israel, Gaza. For me, I think it's just clear in these two things, something we try and tell people all the time, guys, people in the office, they're actually not that smart. If you watch the show or if you even read, you know, any other show or, you, people in the office, they're actually not that smart. If you watch the show or if you even read any other show or in general,

you're probably smarter than some of them. I mean, let's think back to the words of this, what was his name? The congressman or Wahlberg. Wahlberg. He was like, well, China and North Korea are probably in there too. I'm like, wait, what?

What are you talking about? Where do you even get this from? Same with Fetterman. I mean, a lot of these guys are either low information or they are highly selective information in terms of what they take in. They have no challenges. Their staff usually either afraid or, you know, just going to bubble up whatever they want. If you've ever been

in the Senate for people who, or even in Congress, like you can create your own little reality in that world, like once you've been elected. So this is just a good view into kind of the boomer brain and how it can work. And I guess in Fetterman's case too, about how if you want, you can create an entire, you know, information sphere that works exactly the way that you want. So anyway, it is interesting.

Yeah, apparently, apparently. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from personal it's political it's societal and at times it's far from what i originally intended it to be these days i'm interested in expanding what it means

to be voiceover to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships i'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed

system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it.

I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There's been some updates on the firing or I guess departure of Candace Owens. Ben Shapiro and Candace allegedly apparently agreed not to speak about it. And yet in some recent interviews, Shapiro has been shedding some light into his thinking as to why it was not hypocritical to fire or at least have Candace Owens depart his organization, The Daily Wire. Here's what he had to say in an interview with Dave Rubin. The difference between a publisher like The Daily Wire and a platform like Locals is obviously that a platform should have a very broad range of speech that it allows, including speech that maybe even the creators don't believe is inside what they

would consider to be the Overton window. It's a very different thing than direct subsidization of particular opinions. The Daily Wire would not have a host, would not pay a host who was staunchly pro-abortion, would have no obligation to pay a host who is staunchly pro-abortion. And so when it comes to the hosts on the Daily Wire, obviously everyone was able to say what they want. Nobody ever comes to me and says, you can't say X. Nobody ever says that to Walsh. And no one ever said that to Candace.

But the reality is that there is an Overton window at the Daily Wire. Obviously, there was a non-meeting of the minds. That's pretty much all I can say on this. And a lot of this has happened publicly. But to the extent that the Daily Wire is in fact not a platform and is a publisher, that means that there is no moral obligation for the Daily,

and there's no free speech problem with the Daily Wire saying we don't wish to pay a particular host or that host saying, I don't wish to work here anymore, because again, there's a parting of the ways that is not really open for discussion at this point. This week, NBC News deciding that Ronna McDaniel was too much for them.

Ronna McDaniel can't work at NBC News. The sacred halls of NBC News must not be sullied by the former head of the RNC. Jen Psaki, however, can have a show on MSNBC despite being the press secretary for the White House five seconds ago. The right's response to that is, I think, correct to say you guys have shut the Overton window too tight. But I think some elements of the right have basically said there is no Overton window. The Overton window should be completely exploded. So the defense that he just gave there is the exact defense of Facebook, Twitter, and Google, Crystal, every single time that they take somebody down. We are not a platform. We are a publisher, and publishers get to make editorial decisions.

And yet, when it was flipped around, we commonly understand that that is a form of censorship. It is obviously a term which is difficult to update to our modern laws, but we can at least understand that there are speech within Overton Window of which Shapiro has long advocated include him, but now is saying that she can't and shan't include others. It seems that with Candace, you know, the other thing is hypocritical too, when he was talking about abortion, is they hired her with full well knowledge of who she was, how she is, and of her MO, her willingness to say whatever they want. And they were happy with it for everything except whenever it came towards Israel. And that's the other thing too, is I believe Jeremy Boring, who is the CEO of the organization, The Daily Wire, had said, for example, he would never hire anybody

who said that, quote, there was a genocide that was happening in Gaza. So it's like you have two lines at the wire. You have abortion. I mean, that one's understandable to me, given the history of the organization. But now it's Israel. And it's like, oh, hold on a sec. I thought this was an organization that covered American politics and was talking about American free speech. But here, it's just a little bit too much for Mr. Shapiro. Well, I love how suddenly we're getting very nuanced. We're getting very Parsi about this whole free speech conversation. And the comments about Ronald McDaniel. I mean,

he's really got to work to try to justify that one because it's very plain to see. All right. Well, if you think it's justified to fire Candace because her views fall outside of your quote unquote Overton window, then don't complain when NBC News fires Ronna McDaniel. Don't complain when there's a backlash over a Tom Cotton op-ed in the New York Times. They're a publisher. Exactly. Perhaps this was outside of their Overton window, so it shouldn't be published. Don't complain. I mean, it's just so clear that the moment it came to this issue that is very core for him, suddenly everything he had said in the past is gone and he's got to find 15 different ways to try to justify it, nuance it, craft this response to try to hide the fact that he has done a 180 when it comes to free speech.

And just to pick up on what you were saying about they knew who Candace was, you know, she was fired for genuinely anti-Semitic comments, which I think some of her comments, you can say, were following the category of genuinely anti-Semitic, in my personal opinion, or whether it was over her position with regards to Israel. And I think it's very clear because prior to getting hired by The Daily Wire, she had said that thing about if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay, fine. That was no problem for the Daily Wire. She had defended Kanye, even if he's out there, literally saying, I love Hitler. That was fine. No problem. But the minute that she has a critique of Israel and is willing to say, we are watching a genocide unfold. No, that's the line. And there were a

couple other things that were really interesting as well, because Sagar, he said that thing, oh, we didn't tell anybody. They can't. We never told Candace she can't say anything. Yeah, well, most of these news organizations, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, they're not overtly telling their staff, you can't say this about Trump or you must say this about Trump. But everybody knows what that quote unquote Overton window is. Candace knew where the Overton window was. She just wasn't willing to abide by those rules and strictures. And so just like at CNN with Mark Lamont Hill or at MSNBC with Mehdi Hassan, when they went outside of where they knew the lines were, they're gone. So you're just like them.

That's the bottom line. You're just like them. Don't pretend like you're not. Yeah, exactly. And that's the other thing is you need to understand that if you are going to position yourself and make millions, not even millions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars as a free speech organization whose entire purpose, by the way, is to blow up the Overton window. And you know what? In a certain

sense, part of what I despise the most about that was he's like, well, we need to have some Overton window. I'm like, oh, now we need to have some Overton window? I'm like, by the way, I don't even believe in it. I think people should be able to say anything, even the craziest shit, because in general, that's how a lot of truth can emerge. You really have no idea in the actual moment. And I think that's actually very good for society. But now all of a sudden he does believe in, you know, where things should be. And it's like, well, you don't see the hypocrisy on how that's used against you on transgenderism or any race and all these other issues that these guys have made whole careers, you know, speaking out against

here. They are lockstep with Jonathan Greenblatt and all of them over at the ADL, who they have criticized a million times. So in the words of Glenn Greenwald, that is what makes me absolutely sick. There's also some evidence, too, about how this all went down behind the scenes. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This account censored men. Don't know who this gentleman or who this woman is, but been doing some great work. They have actually put out, this was the email sent to employees at the Daily Wire informing them of the impromptu town hall that Jeremy Boring had organized. Employees were told not to bring their cell phones to the meeting. Independent contractors would not be allowed to attend.

At the town hall, Daily Wire leadership attempted to smear Owens as an anti-Semite in front of their employees to justify their hiring. And you can see the evidence of that town hall, which is very clearly included there for the emails that were sent to their entire staff. Let's go to the next part here, please, because you can see too, Candace is saying, quote, Ben, we agreed not to talk about this, but you are very much going on a public tour right now, pretending not to talk about it while you were very much talking about it. Would you like me to do the same? Part of the reason Crystal at Candace is so dangerous is that her husband is a son of a billionaire. So let's just say she is not hurting for cash and she truly is. She has, if there is such a thing as FU money, she's got it. So good for her. I hope she continues. Yeah. I mean, it's a very revealing situation. And part of why it's so important is because

there's always been this incredible blind spot on the right, even at the peak of their supposed free speech commitment when it comes to Israel and Palestine. And the number of people, this is like the number one issue that will get you canceled. Careers ruined. You have this whole like warpath against students at Harvard led by Bill Ackman to try to destroy their career prospects for the entire rest of their lives for participating in protests and doing rally chants that he found to be objectionable. If you actually consistently care about free speech, you have to care about free speech, you have to care about free speech when it comes to this issue, no matter what you think about Israel and Gaza and Hamas and

what's happening right now, because it is about that principle of free speech. And so it is, you know, it's sort of perfect that it comes down to Candace stepping out of the line when it comes to Israel, that that's what it comes down to. And not out of the line when it comes to Israel, that that's what it comes down to. And not just Ben Shapiro, but so many others on the right, including Dave Rubin, really showing their ass

when it comes to their actual commitment to free speech, which only comes into play when it is people and speech that they find to be ideologically convenient for themselves.

And I actually want to recall the comments that Rogan made in the context of Candace getting fired. And, you know, you brought up abortion. Ben said, listen, you know, we would never hire someone who's pro-abortion here. Okay, fair enough. That is a moral position, a philosophical moral position on a political spectrum. Rogan's point was basically, you know, whether you want to use the term genocide or not, you have to be able to deal with the facts of what is happening here, which are not, that's not an opinion, right? That's facts and reality. So I would even put this issue outside of, you know, a sort of like political

sphere of debate, because clearly you aren't even at the Daily Wire, you know, a sort of like political sphere of debate. Because clearly, you aren't even at the Daily Wire, you aren't even allowed to really discuss the facts of what's unfolding. You're certainly not allowed to call it a genocide when you have, you know, UN Special Rapporteur, you have the ICJ saying it's plausible, you have numerous human rights organizations saying this. So if you can't even speak to just the facts and reality of what's happening, then you can't really call yourself a news organization. And no, I don't think that that's an appropriate, quote unquote, Overton window to have, where you, as a condition of working there, you have to deny reality that's unfolding in front of you. That's insane. And like

I said, you can't call yourself a news organization. You're just a propaganda outlet, and that's unfolding in front of you, that's insane. And like I said, you can't call yourself a news organization. You're just a propaganda outlet, and that's that. Yeah, and that's fine. Be honest about that. But don't be asking people, shilling, asking for hundreds of millions of dollars and buying Jeremy's razors and chocolates and all the other things that these people have done to position themselves as outside of this, specifically the job of trying to crack the so-called mainstream and to expand the Overton window correctly, in my opinion, include some of the viewpoints that they have over there and then experience and partake in the exact same censorship tactics that they did whenever you were speaking out. So I think that's really,

really disgusting. I also refer people to Glenn Greenwell's commentary on the subject. It was absolutely fantastic. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political.

It's societal. And at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times

where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it.

Listen to Boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who did make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of those who did make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage

from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first Black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go to the next part. This is another update on a story that we wanted to make sure that we included. Let's go put this, please, up on the screen. We brought everybody the news about how the feds had raided two of P. Digity's residences, both in Los Angeles and in Miami, allegedly over a sex trafficking investigation. It appears now from the New York Post, who definitely would have the scoop on something like this. They say the feds are set to widen the Diddy sex probe over claims that the rapper boasted about shooting people, bribing jurors, and using J-Lo as a gun mule. It says, quote, 25 years ago at 2.30 a.m. on a cold winter night,

three NYPD detectives were called into Midtown North Precinct. Rap impresario Sean Combs, then known as Puff Daddy with his girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, and his bodyguard as well as another rapper had been arrested following a shooting inside of a Times Square club that had wounded three bystanders. The cops then found J-Lo at that time, quote, cuffed in the cage. Combs was in the station house and his plans for spectacular celebration of the new millennium, man, this is really dated, for a few days later were temporarily on hold. It says, now the events of that night and the sensational trial which followed are back in the spotlight. Two law enforcement sources are telling the Post that

the infamous shooting and the trial would be reinvestigated as part of the sweeping probe into Sean Combs and specifically around the gun mule accusations as well as an alleged cover-up and bribing jurors that eventually got him off of one of the gun charges that we had listed and discussed here previously. Part of the reason that they swarmed and went into both of his residences, it appears, is into the sex trafficking investigation for which they were appearing to look for evidence. Obviously, transporting a minor across state lines for the purposes of sex is a federal crime of which there is a very, very lengthy jail sentence. And that's exactly what Mr. Combs is actually being accused of and was previously in some of these lawsuits. But it

does appear, I mean, this is a serious, serious problem for him. This is up there with R. Kelly and others. I do know, Chris, there's been a lot of conspiracy that this is like about covering up some of the people that he was involved with. And it will be interesting to see, are they going to tug on some of the threads here that include J-Lo or many of the other rappers and other famous people who are in his orbit? Or are they going to do what they did with Epstein, which is focused on two charges threads here that include J-Lo or many of the other rappers and other famous people who are in his orbit? Or are they going to do what they did with Epstein, which is focused on two charges from 20, 30 years ago or whatever that don't implicate anybody? Throw Ghislaine in jail and just be like, yeah, we're just going to forget that the entire thing happened. That's going to be a big question.

And the main character turns up dead. The Epstein vibes here are off the charts. Yeah, I agree. Because you have Diddy at the center of this entire ring of celebrities. I mean, he hosted these infamous white parties in the Hamptons. He had not just his, you know, it was not just the music industry. It was the fashion industry. He's this cultural figure with his hands in a lot of different pots. And so a lot of people catching strays right now with regards to the Diddy allegations. A lot of rumors flying about who

knew what when. Because the allegations against Diddy, I mean, they last decades. They are extensive. There is a consistent pattern that they appear to reveal. You know, there's a lot of just direct violence. There's a lot of psychological torture and manipulation. And then there's the allegations of sexual assault and, you know, across state lines, which leads it into sex trafficking. Diddy, of course, denies all of this. But if you were besties

with Diddy, didn't you probably know? A hundred percent. Some of these things that were going on, were you potentially involved in some of these things that were going on? And so that's why there's so much sort of connective tissue between him and Epstein because of these elite circles that they were living in, potential dirt that they have on other people who inhabited those circles. And so, yeah, are we going to learn how deep this went, how far it went beyond Diddy? Who was enabling? You can't do the things that he's accused of. You cannot do on your own without other people knowing and being involved. So who was the Ghislaine Maxwell? Who were the other wealthy celebrities who kept their mouths shut because they knew what you had on them? Those are the questions that make this story significant beyond this one man's apparent horrific depravity and

cruelty, et cetera. That's what makes this incredibly significant. And it really is wild to see the way that, especially in the entertainment industry, it seems like you come across these characters in every sphere because you have these power dynamics where so many people are desperate to get close to fame, close to money, get close to power, that they keep quiet, they enable the behavior, they watch the behavior, they potentially participate in the behavior, and that he was able to keep this under wraps for decades is astonishing. And credit to Cassie, who was the first to file a lawsuit. That really was the watershed moment that led to a lot of these revelations and very likely,

ultimately led to this criminal investigation. So again, he denies all the claims and the charges, the allegations, but we will see where this goes. Yeah, I mean, and this is exactly, you made a just good point here about you can't participate or pull something like this off without a ton of infrastructure that is underneath you. I mean, part of the thing that really came out about how it was so disgusting about Harvey Weinstein, it's not just Harvey Weinstein, it was all of his assistants and all these other people, his brother, all these studio executives. And all the people in Hollywood who were like, yeah, we knew. It's an open secret. It's like, what? How is this allowed to just continue happening over and over again? It's like, we need to know the names of a lot of those individuals and particularly here. I mean, again, as I understand it, this story is popping off

in pop culture in a way that I don't really think the mainstream media has grappled with just yet. The views, the level of interest is up there with Epstein, if not actually surpassing it, at least in some places. And if they participate in yet another cover-up in just a matter of years, people are really, really going to take notice of something like that and really learn how this so-called justice system and all of that really works whenever rich, powerful people are implicated in major sex trafficking investigations. So there we go. Okay, we're going to turn now to the situation in Baltimore where their cleanup crews remain trying to extract some debris, looking for bodies, and continuing to find out what the hell exactly happened in this horrific bridge collapse after that container ship struck it in the middle of the night. We have a little bit of a video from the scene. Let's take a listen. It's a huge bridge.

It's going to be in pieces and tangled. The water is murky, almost no visibility, and some current. So you combine all that, and very dangerous environment for divers to work. Picture a big heavy Jenga game, it gets precarious, and it can all come down at any moment. I think there's a lot of urgency to not only recover the deceased, but open that channel

and get the bottleneck of shipping flowing again. I would be guessing because I'm not there and I have not seen this myself, but I would say we're looking at, I would say, days, not weeks to move that ship and hopefully potentially clear the channel. It doesn't mean that the salvage will be over at that point. There will probably be debris and inspections and investigations going on for many weeks and months. Pretty crazy that the ship remains entangled within the debris, including the crew, by the way, who remain on the ship. There's still some major questions as to how something like this happens.

Let's put this up there. Our friends over at Lever News report this. Larry Hogan, the state's governor, now turned Senate candidate, has championed, quote, mega ships exactly like the one that destroyed the Baltimore Bridge. So this is a big question around regulation and specifically also around the safety procedures that are involved. Now, I do want to say some of the first responders and the people who were involved, they immediately closed the bridge. They definitely saved lives. They worked incredibly well. But this, I think, goes at a level much higher than the individuals who were involved just on the night of, from the captain to those involved. There are major regulatory questions around exactly around these container megaships, which have been increasing, increasing, increasing in size.

I personally have actually visited, and I'd recommend if you ever do too, go down to the Panama Canal and go see it for yourself. Specifically, the new part of the canal where these these mega ships can actually make their way through. It is really difficult to actually grapple with how gigantic these things are. And then the level of infrastructure, machinery, and others that are necessary for them in our current infrastructure as compared to some of the older ships of just 25, even 30 years ago. It's gone exponential. And a lot of our policy has not kept up to date with that, Crystal. Yeah, that's right. So this was the second major bridge that collapsed in similar circumstances. The Federal Guidelines to Protect Bridges were drafted following the 1980 collapse of the Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge. We can actually put this

article up on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. Yes, very good. Talking about, okay, so this was horrible. Is this a risk at other major bridges? And basically the answer is yes. They document these eight U.S. bridges are vulnerable to a repeat of the Baltimore crash. Modern spans must have safeguards, but even robust structures might not withstand a direct blow from giant ships. So there are a lot of questions here about what needs to be done, not just in rebuilding this particular bridge to enable these mega ships and to try to guard from this ever happening again, but also at these other spans around the country, what potential updates and upgrades and safety procedures can be put into place to make sure that we learn the lessons here and don't have a repeat of this horror. Yeah, no, it's really worth reading this entire thing because it demonstrates just, again, how the ships have become supersized, the vulnerability,

the lack of regulation around a lot of this. And this also highlights the same problem where the only reason that we had the updated law was specifically because of a bridge collapse in the future. And now, I mean, there's all these questions right now that have come to light around whether the federal government should pay for something like this. I also think it will be very instructive as to how well this is done. Apparently, inflation adjusted this bridge costs around $400 million to construct whenever it was built, inflation adjusted dollars. So then that's going to be a big question. It's like, well,

have we lowered the cost? Is it going to go exponential? Is it going to be billions of dollars? If the feds are going to pay for it, what will exactly be included in terms of the updated infrastructure for this, for not, and there's also obviously lots of corruption that we should be on the lookout for. We can put the next one, please, up there on the screen because this highlights exactly what I was talking about. You can see exactly the size, quote, of a new ship when the bridge was built, which is tiny, minuscule compared, quote, to the size of a new ship that exists today and even minuscule whenever you compare it to the cargo ship that crashed into the Baltimore Bridge.

Don't forget, this ship is relatively new. It was, you know, built in Korea by Hyundai and demonstrates that even, you know, since that time period, they continue to increase in size and in scale. Some of the graphics that they have in front of us are just literally stunning to behold. Just comparing a 2023 ship to a 2015 ship, this one, that crashed into the Baltimore Bridge. And it demonstrates, again, why we're going to have updated both infrastructure and thought and need for this. Because this is already impacting a ton of travel shipping and infrastructure in the entire DMV, the Baltimore metro area as well. It's becoming catastrophic. And as I already said,

it could turn into now a multi-billion dollar boondoggle whenever they're actually trying to fix it, which I really hope they do and they get it running as fast as possible. Yeah. So just for comparison's sake, the ship that crashed into the Baltimore Bridge has the capacity to carry 10,000 containers. The largest ships that exist now can carry 24,000. Now, Baltimore port was not equipped for that level of mega ship. So you would never see like a 24,000 container ship in that particular port. But this is the size that is now being enabled around the globe. So, you know, as you mentioned, Sagar, this is a huge blow to global shipping. It's a massive

blow to the city of Baltimore, which really didn't need this. I mean, in terms of the economic impact here is going to be extraordinary. There'll be a lot of workers, dock workers who are out of work and who are really struggling. You know, while this bridge is being constructed, all of the estimates I've seen, it's going to take years. It's going to take a long time. It's going to take years for this bridge to be rebuilt and for this port to be fully back up and functional. So huge impact there.

Huge impact, obviously, in fully back up and functional. So huge impact there. Huge impact, obviously, in terms of traffic and congestion. I mean, this corridor is one of the busiest and already one of the most congested in the entire country. So that's going to be an extraordinary impact as well. And, you know, a lot of questions here still about exactly, you know, it looks very clear there's some sort of like a technical failure. The electricity went out, impacted the steering, et cetera. I mean, the outlines of what happened, it seems like we know. But there are still a lot of questions that have been raised by our friends at Lever News about whether this type of ship really, you know, whether it was ever safe for this size

of ship to be navigating in those areas, whether those proper safety procedures were in place with regards to the shipping company, whether they were following procedures, whether safety regulations were, you know, appropriately followed, whether the ship was maintained properly. So there still are a lot of questions about exactly how this was, how this unfolded. That's right. We'll continue to stay on the story, keep everybody updated. It's, you know, it still remains one of the most important stories in the country. I think it really captured a lot of people's attention too. And, you know, just such a horrific situation, the idea of being on the bridge, the fallouts, bridges being something that we go along with all the time. And, you know,

there's something symbolic about too, this great American city already on the downswing, the bridge falls apart. Can the government actually reclaim some of its glory like it has in the past, rebuild something like this, possibly even better? And I think that story is going to be very important for us. Yeah. And the heartbreak of those six workers. Oh, yeah. It was horrible. Most, if not all of them, immigrants to this country were there on the bridge in the middle of the night, you know, fixing potholes and at great risk to themselves and ultimately losing their lives while trying to make people's

commutes a little bit easier. So our heart breaks for them and their families as well. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships.

I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room.

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family

that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it.

I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first Black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, let's go ahead and move on to the very latest with regards to our policy vis-a-vis Israel. Let's put this up on the screen. This really says it all about where we are in spite of all the rhetorical shifts from the Biden administration expressing their concern about Palestinian civilians, etc. Meanwhile, the U.S. has just signed off on more bombs and more warplanes for Israel. Subhead here, despite a widening rift with the Israeli government, the Biden administration continues to authorize the transfer of 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons. So specifically, in addition to 1,800 new 2,000-pound bombs, we've also got 500 500-pound bombs. They go on to say the 2,000-pound bombs, you guys probably recall this, have been linked to previous mass casualty events throughout Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

They are capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger and are almost never used anymore by Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties. But of course, Israel has used them extensively in Gaza. One, and perhaps most notably, in the bombing of Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp that was on October 31st, UN officials decried that strike, which killed more than 100 people as a disproportionate attack that could amount to war crimes. Israel defended the bombing, saying it resulted in the death of a single Hamas leader. 2,000-pound bunker buster bomb to, at best, kill one Hamas leader, again, according to Israel, at the cost of more than 100 Palestinian civilian lives. Sagar, we talked a lot about these 2,000-pound bombs at the time. In the beginning, yeah. Because exactly what they're laying out here, our military, which also had some issues, let's say, during the war on terror and in Iraq and in Afghanistan, et cetera, with regard to protecting civilian life.

They said in a dense urban environment, 2,000-pound bombs, no way. The absolute max they would use is 500-pound bombs. No way. The absolute max they would use is 500-pound bombs. Not to mention, here we are hearing all of this supposed concern about Rafah, where more than a million civilians are huddled, desperate, trying to seek safety. We're hearing these supposed concerns. And yet, what are they doing in reality? Shipping the very 2,000-pound bombs that could absolutely massacre these people. So don't believe them when they pretend like they care about Palestinian civilians. Like, this is the real policy, and this says it all about where we actually are vis-a-vis Israel. Well, it's very—honestly, I was shocked by it because first they tried to do it in secret as if it wasn't going to leak.

It's like, come on, guys. You really think that that's not going to get up? But really what kind of shocked me is that we are fulfilling their wish list almost to a T. These are the exact munitions that they need restocked, which they don't produce for themselves and they can't buy from everybody else. It also fits with, frankly, what has received less scrutiny, but is also very important. I read this with great interest yesterday. We can put it up there on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. It says, quote, U.S. and Israel's unprecedented intelligence sharing draws criticism. And it basically says that we have expanded intel sharing with Israel after the October 7th attack, quote, growing concerns in Washington about whether that information is contributing actually to civilian casualties.

The justification of the intelligence sharing was that this would allow them to use precision guided munitions. It appears actually that instead that the information either may be disregarded or used, let's say, in a very, very different way than it was passed on and it was originally intended. It first began with hostage sharing or hostage recovery because some of the hostages are American citizens, but quickly actually expanded very much into the similar role that we're seeing with the U.S. military play with Ukraine. But if you pair those two things together, I do think it is undeniable that their military campaign would not at least exist as it currently is without the United States and its support. Absolutely. That's the truth, right? And from that article, they say the U.S. shares what's known as raw intelligence,

such as live video feeds from intelligence-gathering drones over Gaza with Israeli security agencies. We had also apparently dramatically expanded our own surveillance of Gaza previously. So I guess we have a lot of these live video feeds that we can offer up to the Israelis. Sarah Yeager, who is Washington director of New York-based nonprofit Human Rights Watch, said the intelligence sharing arrangement has little in the way of rules and restrictions and, quote, essentially opens up the entire U.S. vault. So think about our involvement here, okay? Number one, as we just said, fulfilling the entire wish list. Whatever they want weapons-wise, we've shipped more than

100 different weapons shipments at this point. Even at this juncture, when the rhetorical concerns about Palestinian civilians have been elevated all the way up to Joe Biden himself. We are still shipping huge quantities of 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs that have been used to absolutely massacre civilians by Israelis. So fulfilling the entire weapons wish list. Okay. What's another key Israeli policy with regard to Gaza? Starvation and collective punishment, which was a complete siege announced at the beginning. They then allowed in a trickle of trucks. We have also done their bidding when it comes to starving and inflicting punishment across the entire civilian

population. Specifically, when they asked us to defund UNRWA, we did it. Number one aid organization on the ground, we said yes. Now we have codified into law that UNRWA is defunded at least through 2025. So we're doing their bidding there when it comes to another key policy, which is starving the population. And now we learn, which we probably could have guessed, but good to have the details here as well, that when it comes to the actual targeting and the intelligence sharing and the surveillance of Gaza working hand in glove, no restrictions, giving them absolutely everything they want and need. And we see Joe Biden himself described their bombing as indiscriminate. So it's not like he doesn't know that they're not precisely targeting Hamas in these pinpoint strikes. We can all see the Dresden-level devastation of the entire Gaza Strip. So in

every way imaginable, we are backing and aiding in the most horrifying atrocities that are unfolding before all of our eyes. And to add insult to injury, let's put this up on the screen from Haaretz. Buffer zone and control corridor, what the Israeli army's entrenchment in Gaza looks like. Under the radar, the IDF is creating a border buffer zone that occupies 16% of the Gaza Strip's territory and an east-west control corridor to monitor Palestinians moving north. This is what it looks like in satellite images. They go on to say, without providing many details, Israel is currently pursuing a massive project in the Gaza Strip, again, taking up to about 16% of the Gaza Strip's area for this buffer zone. They have demolished absolutely everything in

this area. They say the buffer zone will feature earth dikes and IDF forces will go in and out. There are no plans to set up any permanent military posts inside the zone. That area that has been thoroughly demolished, if you look at the satellite images used to comprise agricultural feeds, greenhouses, solar panels, and many residential structures, the IDF is now systematically demolishing these structures. Okay, so this matters for a variety of reasons. First of all, the, you know, one more instance of complete annihilation of Gaza's civilian life unfolding before our eyes, the intentional demolition of everything that is in this area, 16% of the landmass of the Gaza Strip.

Second of all, this goes directly against what the U.S. has long claimed is one of our policy red lines with regards to the quote-unquote day after in Gaza. Here's John Kirby speaking to exactly that. Attributed to some of these ministers at this event, irresponsible, reckless, incendiary, I'd go so far as to say, and certainly doesn't comport with our strong policy statement. What we have made clear, that there can be no reduction in Gaza territory. No reduction in Gaza territory. Well, it's happening right here before your eyes. The U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence apparatus certainly knows this even better than Haaretz is able to report. And is there any concern over this raised by the administration to the public? None whatsoever. Yeah, it's a bit laughable.

You know, the other thing I did realize, too, about the intelligence is that given that the Israelis are probably number one or two biggest counterintelligence threat to the U.S. intelligence community, Sharing them raw intelligence and just expecting them not to gleam and possibly steal basically whatever they want and sources, methods, et cetera, is also probably something that probably should be discussed and would have been privately, at least in the past, but obviously was overridden by the Biden administration. But anyway, I think what you can see very, very clearly is that at a policy level, as of what this was only a two day ago result that the weapons are continuing to flow, regardless of any violation of alleged U.S. policy,

which means that there is no such U.S. policy. I think that's at least the headline to me. That is the bottom line. At the same time, we wanted to pay a little bit of attention to what is unfolding in Israel domestically. Let's put this up on the screen. There have been huge protests. These are images out of Tel Aviv. These are from a few days ago, but these protests have continued and in fact are escalating as of today. Huge crowds here. For those of you who are just listening, you also see a very aggressive Israeli police response, which once again contrasts. You can see them being shot with water cannons here. Once again, contrast with the watermelon and cotton candy that is being enjoyed by the protesters who are there at Gaza blocking aid trucks from going in.

Very different treatment here when it comes to protesters who are against the Netanyahu government. There's a mix of issues that has brought people into the streets. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Hostage families and their advocates have really been at the center of a lot of the recent protests. You had a press conference from the families of hostages against Netanyahu who said, quote, Netanyahu is working against a hostage deal. His behavior regarding hostages is a crime. We have no choice but to say we understand that you're the one who's blocking the deal. We'll do whatever it takes to try and end your term as PM.

This is a new phase in our battle to bring our kids home. And again, this was from family members of hostages in a press conference. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. Some reporting on a four-day protest in Jerusalem that just launched. That protest movement against the Netanyahu government is expected to face its first significant challenge since the war with Hamas began. After leaders called on supporters to converge outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Sunday for a demonstration to set up a tent city that will remain in place for four days. They say members of the protest organization know that the civil awakening of the past few weeks is unlikely to bring down the government in the six days remaining before the Knesset spring recess. But a good turnout would allow the movement to begin the summer session on a high note. They hope to channel public anger that returned last week, mainly around the hostage deal or lack thereof, into getting Israelis back

on the streets in large numbers for the first time since the war began. Organizers targeted Jerusalem. Tel Aviv is also a compromise, a matter of habit. Families of victims have maintained a tent camp near the Knesset since the start of the war. So you have a combination of upset over the lack of a deal to free the hostages. This goes counter to the narrative that you hear from a lot of American Israel defenders about, hey, you know, just that the war has to continue to free the hostages. Well, these family members of the hostages are saying the exact opposite, that the way to free the hostages, which obviously we've seen as this war has unfolded, is to come to a

deal so that there can be a ceasefire and hostages can be released and Palestinian hostages being held by Israelis can also be released as part of that deal. So we know the only time there was a significant hostage release came as a result of one of these deals. Israel has killed some undetermined number of their own hostages with this onslaught in the Gaza Strip. So you can understand very logically how they came to the conclusion that your war is not rescuing our brothers, sisters, family members, etc. It is putting them at further grave risk. Well, one of the family members of the hostages spoke exactly to that. If we can go ahead and play that, please.

E8, let's take a listen. There's a lot of pressure coming from the cabinet ministers stating these thoughts. Okay, be quiet. Be quiet. Play along. Come with us to these delegations and then meet with the UN and put pressure on outside players. But don't say anything to contradict the official governmental line. And the Israeli public is being pumped with, together we will win, together we will win. And we're not winning, not winning at all.

So this charade should stop. We need some international intervention because the way things are going in Israel now, we're jumping straight, head down to the abyss. This rhetoric is part of what drives me so crazy about American politics, is they have more debate in their own country than we do. Why is this allowed? Why are they allowed to question their own leaders? He's directly calling for international intervention into his own country. If you called for that here in this country, I mean, imagine how they have smeared you. Look at the way that Netanyahu went after Chuck Schumer for calling for a new government. And yet in their country, they have widespread thousands of people protesting in the streets, disagreeing over the war policy, but that's allowed, you know, for them. But here

it makes you an anti-Semitic or pro-Hamas or whatever. It's just, it drives me nuts to see that for them, they're allowed to have rational bounds of discussion and whatever. And look, I'm not a, you know, a whole defender or whatever, but at the very least, they appear to have a much more robust debate within their own country, their media, than we are allowed in our own country. And that actually makes me really, really upset. To a point. Yeah. To a point. I mean, it also is true that there have been many people who have been arrested and harassed for posting pro-Palestinian sentiments on social media in Israel.

So I don't want to go too far. What's acceptable to do is you can criticize the Netanyahu government. You can criticize the hostage strategy. You know, you aren't allowed to say it's a genocide, right? You're not allowed to actually, you know, fully rebut or dissent from the desire to have this war to begin with. Like, there are very clear lines. You're really not allowed to, you know, fully express support for Palestinians, civilians, humanity, etc. And as I was saying, they have very draconian policies if you cross over those lines. And you can also see the aggressive response towards these protesters as well.

Yeah, that's true. But what this man was saying was very important because he's revealing that behind the scenes, the Netanyahu government is putting pressure on the hostage member families to keep quiet. And you can understand how that would be very powerful because the fate of your loved ones is in their hands. They're the ones who are negotiating who's going to be on the next list of release. Yeah, that's right. And so they really could, you know, they can prioritize your loved one or they cannot. And so when they're telling you, here's what you need to say,

and here's the things that you're not allowed to say, and here's where we want you to be, and here's how we want you to, you you to hush up with these other concerns. Yeah, that's going to be incredibly powerful when you are desperate to see your loved one returned home safe and sound. So it's actually very revelatory that he's indicating that that sort of pressure is coming directly from the Netanyahu government. There's another issue that is unfolding in Israeli society, which, you know, is, this is a big one for them. And this goes back, you know, there's a longtime debate and conflict over whether Israel is going to be an even somewhat nominally secular state or whether it is going to be sort of like an overtly religious state.

And this particular conflict cuts to the core of that question. Let's put this up on the screen. So a dramatic Israeli Supreme Court ruling that freezes funding to ultra-Orthodox seminaries unless their students serve in the military is forcing Netanyahu's government to contend with its survival, they say. The headline here is Netanyahu coalition in crisis over religious draft as war rages. Ultra-Orthodox parties in the ruling coalition had been assured that their decades-long immunity from conscription would be made permanent. And they were in a rage after the Supreme Court decision. They called the decision a, quote, mark of Cain.

They're threatening to exit the coalition. Those in the quote-unquote center who joined the war cabinet last October backed the court, citing the need for more military manpower as Israel faces threats not only from Hamas and Gaza, but also from Hezbollah and Lebanon. Since the war, they write, the burden of carrying the ultra-Orthodox has become unbearable for large majorities of Israelis who see their abstention from military service as unfair and a drain on the economy. Thursday's decision means hundreds of religious academies or yeshivas will lose a significant portion of their funding sum, up to 50%. And just to give you a little bit of the background here, which they write out well in this story, they say many Israelis have long resented this exemption

of the ultra-Orthodox because they don't share the security burden, but also because their yeshivas receive these huge government subsidies. So the men mostly just study religious texts and don't work. So you're not contributing to the economy. You're exempt from conscription into the military. And we're funding your schools and paying for all of this. This is the view of the more secular Israeli public. This portion of ultra-Orthodox religious Jews makes up about 13% of the Israeli population. They live, according to this article, cloistered life of poverty, prayer and study in large families. They believe religious study contributes more to Israel's safety than military service. And also fear their young men, if exposed to secular society, will leave the fold. That's probably kind of justified.

The problem is, in terms of the numbers, nearly half of ultra-Orthodox men are unemployed. Only 14% of university degrees. A quarter of children, four and younger though, are ultra-Orthodox, raising questions about how the society will support itself in the future. So you have this significant and rapidly growing part of Israeli society, which is also becoming increasingly politically powerful, that has been exempt from the draft and had, you know, their whole lifestyle of not working and just studying in their schools funded by the Israeli taxpayer. And that population is growing far faster than other Jewish demographic groups in Israel. So as I said, this is kind of coming to a head.

Now, in terms of whether the coalition is actually going to split over this, I find it doubtful because the thing that would happen if they don't have Netanyahu is you'd end up with someone like Benny Gantz, who is more secular. He's still hardline when it comes to the war in Gaza. I don't think the policy would be that different under Benny Gantz, although as we've discussed before, he may be more sympathetic to the hostage families and more aggressive in seeking some sort of a deal there. So it could be significant there, but certainly he's not going to be on their side when it comes to an issue like that. So I think they feel like Netanyahu is probably the lesser of two evils, to use some political phrasing from that we might be familiar with here in America. Yeah. I mean, these people

are, the whole situation is nuts because, Crystal, it's not only that they get their schools funded, they are also the biggest welfare queens on the planet. And they literally get paid by the state in order to study religion. To not work. To not work. They don't do anything. And they also have like 10 children. It's crazy. If anybody's ever been to Jerusalem or to Israel, you see them all over. The secular Israelis hate them with a passion specifically for this reason. And especially now, I mean, look, serving in the military is not fun. You have to give up two years of your entire life, rich and poor, everybody you like, except if you're

one of them. And they get paid, they get their exemptions, they have all these children, they get basically vassals of the state in order to just study religion all day. I mean, it's just outrageous, especially in an allegedly secular democracy. So anyway, I think in this particular case, though, if they are able to maintain their draft exemption, even in the biggest draft call-up in Israeli history, and as you've had massive blows to the economy, it does demonstrate their power. Part of the reason why some politicians don't want to get on the wrong side of them is because their population booms so much

that there's some projections that say some 50% of the country in 50 years is going to just be ultra-Orthodox. Yeah. Are going to be the Haritans. So they're like, well, demographics is kind of destiny at that point. Yeah.

And that will put very irreconcilable parts of Israeli society that really come up against each other. It's hard to even put in a U.S. context because we really can't understand just like how different they're both visions of the country, of the state, of what it's supposed to be and all of that actually are. And they somehow coexist in the same place, which is like barely the size of a U.S. state. Well, and their representatives would be more of the like Smotrich, Ben-Gavir. See, they have crazy beliefs. Some of them don't even believe that Israel is a real country. You know, some of them have been arrested by the secular military.

This is my other thing. Their biblical interpretations and all that are way all over the map. So even Smotrich, I don't know if he's 100 percent, you know, in line. And they have much more like socially conservative views on some things. They're not necessarily as pro-military in others. It's difficult, again, to wrap your head around them. It's a weird group. But just so people understand, this Supreme Court decision is already going into effect.

So the funding is being pulled. The draft lists are being created. This is going into action. Now, there could be some sort of a political compromise that makes its way through the Knesset. And my understanding is, you know, that's a possibility that you don't end up fully with, you know, all of them being drafted. Maybe there's some more limited exemptions, something of that nature and funding being restored. So this isn't a done deal yet. However, as of today, it is going into effect. They are taking action after this Supreme Court ruling. And, you know,

this is a massive, massive issue in Israeli domestic society. And it is one more thing that makes Netanyahu's coalition, you know, tenuous. You add to that then the secular protests against him in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, which are, by all accounts, you know, these are some of the most massive protests that they've seen since the war began. And you can see the pressure that he is certainly under himself. And as we have said a million times before, he thinks it's in his best interest to keep this war going as long as he possibly can because it allows him to forestall any questions about a new government saying, listen, we'll, you know, we'll look into the failures on October 7th, but it's got to be after the war. So then guess what? You want to keep the war going forever. And apparently the

U.S. is happy to back you in that endeavor. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.

It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast.

From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to some more shocking comments made on Joe Biden's favorite morning show program, Morning Joe. This is the head of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, comparing the keffiyeh scarf worn by Palestinian activists, Palestinians themselves, people who stand in solidarity with Palestinians, comparing that to the swastika. Take a listen. You have got to be concerned because these kids on these college campuses, guess where they're going?

To your boardrooms. They're going to editorial boards. They're going to the assignment desk of news networks. People who say, death to the Zionists. I wish for that and worse. And if you wouldn't tolerate it, if someone's wearing a swastika on their arm, I'm sorry, you shouldn't tolerate it if they're wearing a keffiyeh. All right. Calling death to anyone. All right. CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. God bless the poor internet connection there. But, you know, this is outrageous

to compare a keffiyeh to a swastika and smear all of the 50 percent of American Jews want to ceasefire. OK, to smear anybody who associates themselves with the Palestinian cause and basic Palestinian humanity as an anti-Semite and on the level of a Nazi is so disgusting. And that can be aired on the most mainstream of news programs. And it's not just that he says that. It's that not a single person on that, what were there, seven people up on the screen there sitting there listening to these comments. Not one of them objects. Not one. Now, imagine, let's put the shoe on the other foot.

Let's say that you had someone on the panel who equated an Israeli flag to, and displaying an Israeli flag to a swastika. Do you think they would just sit back quietly? That's a good point. And let that slide and calmly end the segment? Of course not. It would be a national news story. The entire panel would have completely melted down and freaked out.

And we know this. Remember when Nina Turner was on CNN? Yeah, that's right. On one of the primary election nights. And she just tried to bring up the facts about what was being done and why so many people were motivated to come out and vote uncommitted against Joe Biden. They all freaked out. They melted down. Anderson Cooper wouldn't even allow her to finish her comments.

Yet here, Keffiyeh compared to swastika, silence, not a word. It is funny, though, because at a certain point, if you're grasping for things now at that level, it's like, what are we even doing here? You just look like a complete clown. What's also ironic, I would just say, is that if you look into some of these so-called swastika instances on college campuses, nine out of 10 of them are complete bullshit, just so people know, and are either inside jobs for attention or not. I actually went to George Washington University, one of the original homes of the swastika hoax. So just going to put that out there. That's first and foremost. But second, in terms of comparing the keffiyeh, the political statement, the point that you just made is an excellent one. But it gets to the ADL philosophy of you justify censorship here at the

top, you build yourself as an organization, and then in the moment of crisis for their true purpose, which is to serve the state of Israel, allegedly through combating anti-Semitism, you narrow and use those levers to increasingly chip away at any public expression of support. It's fundamentally an anti-American. It is ridiculous. And it really is like hand in glove, both with censorship complex to try and normalize this type of rhetoric in American media. And that's why I think it is so dangerous. Because it has power. It really does have power. It does. It does.

And also this obsession with what college kids are saying on campus. Well, okay, we have a member of Congress calling for Gaza to be nuked. And that gets less attention than what some kid at Columbia or, you know, at Stanford University, where the Atlantic thought it appropriate to spend five months of journalistic resources digging into what those kids say. Yeah, I missed it. Powerless. Yeah, I wish we could have heard your commentary there.

Do people know whose son that is? Did you guys bring that up? Oh, yeah, Peter Bader's son. Yeah, I was going to say. And Susan Glasser. So he's a dual nepo baby there. Former Jerusalem correspondents, I would also say. Yeah, so the Atlantic and this dude, they find it so important.

And I'm not saying that the sentiments of college students don't matter at all. That's why we talk about what how young people view this conflict and how it's different from older Americans. But to spend five months digging into their every utterance and then allow things like, you know, this member of Congress who actually has power and influence, who is calling for Gaza to be nuked. And that's barely a blip on your radar screen. It's just insane. It's just pure insanity. Now, I think you're right, Sagar. Like, you can see from the polls, people are not really buying it. But the other thing that's disgusting about it, it so cheapens the term anti-Semitism. It makes it utterly meaningless. So when people hear this, you know,

lobbied against basically like half the population for their views on Israel-Gaza, then when it genuinely applies, and in many, in plenty of instances, there is genuine anti-Semitism. No one here is denying that that is a real and disgusting phenomenon. But when it genuinely applies, people are much more likely to dismiss it as, oh, you're just, you know, baselessly smearing this person. They, last week, I'm sure you saw this, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese releases a report saying there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israel is committing genocide. The response from her own State Department is to smear her as an anti-Semite, completely baselessly, based on comments that she made that, yes, were critical of Israel, but are not even colorably anti-Semitic. You just stripped the term of literally any meaning,

and that's part of why I find this so disgusting. Well, the next one is a perfect example of that, too. Lindsey Graham saying it's a blood libel to criticize Israeli humanitarian policy in Gaza. Let's take a listen. I'm here also to take on, and I will talk about this tomorrow, a form of blood libel in 2024. That the state of Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. That is bullshit. And I will tomorrow walk through the food that's coming into Gaza and what you're doing to make sure that people in Gaza do not starve. So Israel has got its back against the wall. We have your back. So that's another example of how the word blood libel is meaningless. It's a term that originates from the Middle Ages where they said

that Jews drink the blood of Christians. It is then resurrected and used by the Nazis in the Holocaust to continue to incur said blood libel against Jews. And I think all of us are able to intellectually understand the difference between what a genuine blood libel is and its rhetoric and what it, you know, actually lies then in truth or at least in complete ability to criticize humanitarian actions specifically taking place at the Israel border crossing. They are the ones who are destroying and cheapening their own rhetoric. And frankly, I mean, didn't you, I think you've said this, maybe Daryl Cooper said this too. He's like, if everything is anti-Semitic, you're actually setting the grounds for more anti-Semitism. I mean, I'm not sure, you know, for me too, at this point,

if someone's like, oh, that so-and-so is an anti-Semite, I'm like, oh yeah, what will he actually say? I'm going to have to judge it for myself before I believe you. Whereas previously, I'd be like, oh really? Wow. You know, maybe I won't look into it or won't be as skeptical. Nowadays, you know, if you hear these types of terms, any of them, honestly, I'm just like, well, maybe, let me, maybe make up my mind for myself. Yeah. Well, and just to prove the point, let's put this up on the screen. This is from that, you know, blood libeling left wing rag, the Washington Post, looking at exactly how much aid is going into Gaza in the massive deficit post-October 7th in what needs to go in versus what is actually going in. And you can see this huge and growing

deficit. And let's be totally clear, Israel controls this 100%. There are trucks and trucks and trucks lined up at the border, thousands of them ready to go in, including some of our own aid trucks. So apparently the allegation is we're trying to smuggle weapons into Hamas through these truckloads. And we also know that children have, and infants in particular, have literally starved to death. So again, their only defense to these things is to make it out of bounds to even speak the facts of what is happening here for fear of being branded and tarred as an anti-Semite. And also, again, another Daryl Cooper point is that the more you conflate all Jewish people around the world with the state of Israel and the explicit policy right now of the Netanyahu government, the more you are directly actually stoking anti-Semitism.

I reject the idea that you should conflate and demand that every Jew around the world be attached to this horrifying policy. And in fact, a majority of Jewish Americans here dissent from that policy, dissent from the Netanyahu government. In fact, it's actually white evangelical Christians that are the strongest supporter of the Netanyahu government here in the U.S. So I actually think it's really wrong to look at this through the lens of religion and this holy war. That actually isn't the core of what this is about at all. It's about the original displacement of Palestinians. It's about a long and ongoing land dispute.

And it's about the demonstrable atrocities that we're all watching unfolding in front of our eyes. And no, it is not anti-Semitic to just speak to the facts of what we all see. But as I said, it's kind of like, you know, at this point, I think they're desperate. All of the other talking points have kind of worn out. So the last ditch attempt is just to say, well, you can't say that. Even if it's happening, you can't say it because it's anti-Semitic. So that's kind of where we are. And I think you're right that people have really seen through this tactic and it just doesn't carry the weight that it once did. Oh, I definitely have. I mean, I said that at the swastika thing, swastika, they're like, if they claim a swastika shows up literally anywhere in America, I'm like, maybe,

maybe show me a camera of an actual white nationalist spraying it. And then I'll still be like, well, we'll see. Just because I know that there's so much cultural cachet to be had by the ADL and others to try and blow up these incidents. And in some cases, people are faking them because they want to invite and create the conditions for exactly this type of discussion and rhetoric. But unfortunately for them, people can see through it, at least for now, in the age of the internet. So there we go, guys. We have a great show for everybody today. Happy is today Easter or yesterday was Easter Really that non-religious

You're not a cultural Christian like Richard Dawkins apparently is yeah, you know We should talk about that because he's being very unfairly smeared for that as a Dawkins as a longtime Dawkins guy You think he's me weird? Well, maybe we should talk about that. Well, no, I think they're coming out against him. They're claiming that he's a hypocrite. It's something that he's been saying for actually quite a long time, which is why it actually annoys me. Well, my issue was more the Islamophobia

in the comments versus... We'll talk about it tomorrow. Yeah, we'll put it in the show because it sounds like maybe we have an interesting conversation there. Anyway, Sagar apparently not a cultural Christian or a real Christian. Not a cultural Christian.

Myself, probably. I mean, I celebrate Easter just with like the bunnies in the basket. Okay. So today is, apparently today is Easter Monday. It is a holiday. I guess it's a holiday in Europe. So anyway, we'll see you guys tomorrow. We digress. See you tomorrow. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself

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