Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/18/24: Billions To Ukraine & Israel After Tax Day, Bibi Preps Iran Response, Kari Lake Total Abortion Ban, US Caught Hiding Israel War Crimes, Boeing Whistleblower Describes Criminal Coverup, UAW Expands In The South, Bob Menendez Blames Wife For Corruption, Trump Juror Drops Out

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Congress sending billions to Ukraine and Israel, Israel vows response to Iran, Arizona Republicans block repeal of 1864 abortion ban, Blinken caught hiding State Dep report of Israeli violations of international law, Boeing whistleblower claims criminal coverup, UAW expanding in the South, Bob Menendez blames corruption on his wife, Trump jury information revealed.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

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I'm Michael Kasson, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Many things percolating here in Washington, D.C. We're going to start off by taking a look at this gigantic foreign aid package they are trying to

shove down all of our throats, the very latest, and what its prospects are for passage or failure. start off by taking a look at this gigantic foreign aid package they are trying to shove down all of our throats, the very latest, and what its prospects are for passage or failure. Just really great stuff there. We also have new developments in terms of the political fallout in Arizona specifically over that 1800s era abortion ban, how Republicans are reacting to it, the chances that that changes the Senate prospects, a lot going on there. We've got a new report that details torture of Palestinian detainees and how the US is responding to that. We also have some blockbuster testimony yesterday in two separate hearings from Boeing whistleblowers who are making some stunning and frankly terrifying allegations against that company. So we'll break that down for you.

We also have some big news at Volkswagen. Once again, workers are voting on whether or not they want to join the UAW. This could be a huge deal in terms of unionizing foreign automakers in the United States. And the UAW seems to feel pretty good about how it's going to go this time around. So we'll break that down for you. Stunning developments also with Bob Menendez. You remember he's been indicted for some pretty wild corruption allegations involving gold bars and many other things. We're getting a sneak peek at what his planned defense is. And basically, he's going to throw his own wife under the bus. Really just a stand-up guy there. Really, really great guy there.

Worse than the crime, honestly. Unbelievable. And we've got a first look at some of the Trump jurors who have been selected in that hush money trial up in New York City. And yeah, I mean, it's just interesting to think about how anyone in this country at this point could be unbiased about Donald Trump. I don't envy them this task that is set before them, but we'll take a look at who they are and what that may indicate about how this trial is gonna go for them. Yes, that's right. We will get into all of that. Before we get to that though, thank you to everybody who's been subscribing to the show. We finally got to show off our nice gold plaque, our one million plaque. So instead of the normal pitch, how about this? Why don't

you guys help us grow our YouTube channel and subscribe to the show? If you're listening to this on the podcast, one of the best things that you can do is give us a five-star review or send an episode, one of your favorite episodes, to a friend. That's one of the best, word of mouth, it's the best advertising that exists. We don't spend a dollar on that. Or if you can help us out, breakingpoints.com. And by the way, thanks to everybody who checked out Sagar's moderation on the big debate last night. I watched it. It was fun. Tried my best. You did a great job. It's not an easy task with so many people. First, that's a lot of people. It's a lot of people.

And all of them, big personalities and all. You did an excellent job being neutral and controlling things and keeping it more or less in the rails. We streamed it on our channel. It was a zero hedge debate on Israel. It was Dave Smith, Cenk Uygur versus Dennis Prager and Batya. I can never say her full name. Ungar Sargon. I'm going to go with Batya. Batya. Anyway, so you can watch it. We have it streamed on our channel. I think we may release it as a podcast maybe. Any reflections?

Well, I'll tell you what. It was interesting. I thought that the exchanges were, the real thing that I took away from it is that sometimes, even when we're quote unquote debating, is that even trying to define the clarity of the terms was very, very difficult because the resolution was about how Israel should respond after October 7th. And I actually thought one of the key differences was that Dave and Cenk, I mean, they're not defined just by October 7th. They were trying to go to the bigger picture where they were talking about occupation. They were talking about Gaza.

They were talking about the formation of Israel, about what the future needs to look like, peace deal, whereas the other two were not as engaged on that question necessarily. And so that is part of the problem with, quote, unquote, debating this and how much context you're even allowed to bring in. But it was two hours, which I still, I honestly didn't even think was long enough. It probably needed to go two or three hours. It flew by. I mean, especially with that number of people and all of them having a lot to say. But I thought everybody behaved themselves well. I mean, listen, obviously, I thought Dave and Cenk did fantastic. You're not going to be surprised to learn. But, you know, I enjoyed the exchanges and it's just interesting to see at this point, you know, I think it's difficult to defend the things that people are seeing on the ground. So how are some of the more equipped Israel

supporters going about mounting that defense at this point is always interesting. Take a look. Yeah. Watch it for yourself. You can hear it. I try my best. Let them all speak. So take a look. It's on our channel, and we'll release it sometime later. All right, let's go ahead and talk about foreign aid, which is very germane to the topic. Now I get to actually voice my opinion. That, for me, would have been the hardest.

There's no way I could have kept my mouth shut the way you did. I had to bite my tongue a couple of times, make sure that the camera wasn't on me, and I was like, wow, that's a wild thing to say. It's not me saying it. Let's go ahead and begin with Speaker Mike Johnson, who, in my opinion, is currently undertaking one of the greatest betrayals of his own caucus in quite a long time. And I will get into some of the historical context. This is a man who came into his job after the whole Speaker fracas when Kevin McCarthy is kicked out. The right flank says that they're okay with him. He starts getting wishy-washy on Ukraine aid. He's like, yeah, maybe. And then the hawks start to go after him. And then we start to see some signs, Crystal. We start to see a little bit of rhetoric about, oh, we got to stand up to Russia. And we're like, OK, well, what does that mean?

And then we see him flip-flop on FISA. And when he flip-flops, he says, well, if you hadn't gotten the classified briefing I'd gotten, then you would flip-flop too. That's how you always know. That's how you know that the IC, the intelligence community, they got the little knife in you and they're starting to twist. And the money starts coming in. Now you're responsible for fundraising. And now all of a sudden, this man who had a very different record on Ukraine whenever he was a normal congressman is starting to talk like he's Ronald Reagan in 1982. Perfect example. Actually, honestly, worse than 1982. The level of grandeur you have to have to say what he said,

which we're about to play for you, is insane. Let's take a listen. We're in unprecedented times, okay? We're in dangerous times, as has been articulated here, around the world, and here at home. We need steady leadership. We need steady hands at the wheel. Look, I regard myself as a wartime speaker. I mean, in a literal sense, we are. I knew that when I took the gavel. I didn't anticipate that this would be an easy path. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich posted a couple of days ago on his social media that this is the hardest challenge that's faced a speaker probably in the history of the country. In the moment we're in right now, he said arguably may be comparable to the Civil War, but maybe worse. Right. Maybe comparable to the Civil War. Yeah. Or maybe worse.

You're just like Skylar Koufax, my dude. That's exactly right. I mean, he's practically Abraham Lincoln, if we're being honest here. Yeah, definitely. Sam Reburn and all those other guys during the Great Depression and during the World War II, they never faced anything. Who do you think you are? Wartime speaker. America is not at war, except if you were one of these people. Now, apparently, we are. Now, oh, we're fighting in Ukraine. We're the ones who are fighting in Israel. That is one of the best views into the minds of these ghouls that I've ever seen. America, which is not at war, shouldn't be either involved in either of these conflicts. And look at the level of passion, the way that this man talks to, Crystal, about two

foreign nations and the way that he sees talks to, Crystal, about two foreign nations and the way that he sees his role in propping this up. And some of the details here on this package are, I mean, just outrageous. Let's go and put this up there, please, on the screen. And I'm just going to read you guys the top line numbers. The legislation that Speaker Johnson is pushing, $60 billion for Ukraine. We've gotten through this. This completely depletes U.S. military assets, U.S. military stockpiles. It is a gift to the military industrial complex. It will not change a single iota on the ground in Ukraine except allowing the government to kidnap more people who are mentally disabled and physically disabled and throw them at a

Russian bullet. Even with this, the Russians will still outproduce and outmatch the Ukrainians whenever it comes to ammunition. Two, $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza. Now, who wants to guess the ratio of military to civilian aid there, Crystal? Right? Okay. And then finally, quote unquote, $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific. As a realist, I'm so insulted by this because it's actually a stack of the least priority for American interest gets the most money. The middle priority for American interest gets the second most amount of money. And the region of the world, which matters the single most of the US economy, gets the least amount of money. And then that doesn't even belie the question of what the hell is all this money going

to do anyway? I mean, this is strategic insanity. Yeah, I mean, with the Israel piece, it's once again, you guys have probably seen these photos where there's literal bombs dropping on Gaza as these little piddly food packages are dropping as well. It just makes me sick. And it is so tired and cliche at this point, but I cannot help but note, they move heaven and freaking earth when it comes to making sure the military industrial complex is fed, making sure APAC is fed, making sure we keep these conflicts going endlessly because there is so much money at stake. They will come together in a bipartisan way, Joe Biden writing an op-ed backing the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson. They will do whatever they need to do from a

legislative perspective, using all these procedural tricks of the trade to try to steamroll this thing through when it comes to forever war, when it comes to healthcare, lifting the minimum wage, dealing with homelessness, any other domestic priority. We can't, sorry. It's not our priority. We tried, it's too hard, we're divided, et cetera, et cetera. It is disgusting. It's such an emblem of just how rotten and corrupt and out of touch and what a bubble these people are in and how misplaced their priorities are in the most corrupt way imaginable. That is very well said.

And look, this is sometimes a trite thing, but it's April 18th. How many of us are self-employed and just had to pay our taxes on April 15th, had to wire the IRS, had money taken out of our bank accounts? For what? And this is what it's going to. This is what we are paying for. Billions and billions of dollars, not a single change, iota of change on the ground in Ukraine, doing nothing. We are funding the deaths of not even young Ukrainian men at this point, middle-aged Ukrainians.

I hope we will enjoy the pictures of Ukrainian grandfathers who are missing their limbs and that the young men who are partying in Vienna and in Budapest and all across of Central Europe while we're the ones who are paying for the ammunition so the people who are too poor, too dumb to stay in the country and don't even want to fight are the ones who are thrown into this. On the Israel packages, what are we paying for exactly? So we are assuming all of the cost of Israel's military actions abroad and now they're about to go and strike Iran. Whose military do you think is going to be funding that bill?

And like I said too, Taiwan, Indo-Pacific, these are regions of the country, Japan and others, of the world, they matter. They actually matter. They're actually being shortchanged in terms of what would genuinely be militarily useful to them for these conflicts which mean nothing to all of us. And the craziest part is, this is a total uniparty takeover. Let's put this up there on the screen. Speaker Mike Johnson's plan relies entirely on Democrats. Let me be very clear here. This is a GOP and democratic plan to let this go through.

It's a little bit convoluted, so please stick with me. Basically, what Speaker Johnson has done is he's taking these four packages. It's going to be Ukraine, it's going to be Israel, Indo-Pacific, and there's a fourth bill, which is not yet out, which is some pay-fors, TikTok, et cetera. Okay, so let's just be very clear here. They're not together. They're going to pass them each individually. What he is doing is sending them to the House Rules Committee. The House Rules Committee, by tradition, decades of procedure, basically says that the ruling party is the one who is supposed to pass the rule to allow the advance of the vote, okay? Well, currently, the Rules Committee, one of the deals that was struck within the Republican Party, was that the Rules Committee would have powerful members of the Freedom Caucus and others who would nix the Ukraine aid,

even the Israel aid in some cases here, that would be of their makeup. What Johnson is doing is explicitly screwing over his own party members, working with Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries to advance this foreign aid to the floor and then allow votes where both parties, and this is another very key thing I want to make clear, what with Ukraine, for example, a sizable part of the GOP caucus is going to vote against Ukraine aid. A sizable part of the Democratic caucus is going to vote against Israel aid. What they're doing is a corrupt bargain where they both work for each other and then they allow majority votes to come together and then they throw a little Taiwan piddly thing on the third. There was an excellent scholar of congressional

procedure, Josh Huter, and he wrote this this morning. I'm going to read it to you. Quote, he says, rather than simply allow members to sign a discharge petition or vote for a parliamentary question or other maneuver, Johnson has raised the specter of forming a procedural coalition with Democrats to overrun GOP opposition, potentially the most grievous betrayal of partisan politics in the modern era. This is a step further than the sins of John Boehner and Paul Ryan, who were run out of office just for using Democrats to pass spending bills. Johnson will now work with Democrats to snuff out opposition from his GOP colleagues. Reverse that as well. Democrats do not bail out Republicans

when they don't have votes on the rule. They are doing it for this one instance, Crystal, so they can fund Ukraine and so they can fund Israel. We are basically, this is a color revolution. This is a uniparty war exception takeover of all of our governmental procedure so we can send $80 billion to foreign countries. That's right. Yeah. Your tax dollars going to put a gun in the hand of a mentally disabled Ukrainian who doesn't want to fight. Thank you. And to bomb babies. It really does make me very sympathetic to our libertarian brothers and sisters. I've never felt this way about taxes before when I sent in my tax check where, you know, normally I don't mind paying my taxes. I don't mind paying my fair

share whatsoever. But when it's so naked, this is going to fund more bombs to be dropped on a refugee camp or more bullets to massacre Gazans who are seeking aid, desperately trying to get flour. No, it's disgusting. And if the American people had a say in this, they would say no. But you have so much corrupting influence of money. You have the, yes, the deep state using all of their scare tactics to try to, you know, force some sort of unanimity. Whatever that they did to Mike Johnson got him to flip on a dime. think with him, part of it too, is he is so fervently ideologically and religiously committed to Israel that in order to get the Israel aid through, which is so important to him,

he was basically willing to do whatever else he needed to do. And this is what the whatever else looks like. So since you had him on Israel, it only took a little turn of the screw to get him on FISA, apparently, and to get him on Ukraine as well. And now, you know, this is where we are. Yeah, I mean, Dave Smith and Cenk both yesterday, Cenk in particular, he's like, if a single American goes to fight in this war, I'm going to stop paying taxes and I'm going to rally the people. By the way, Cenk, I will be in the streets with you. Dave made a joke as a libertarian. He's like, hey, why don't we all just start now? I agree with you. I am very rarely the online libertarian poster. I am so hopping mad about this one because once again, if we were sticking with the way that our government functions,

anytime, let's say, what are our services, Crystal, that you or I or any others, let's everybody just take a moment and think about a service in your life, let's say healthcare, maybe something like that, where you would like the federal government to move heaven and earth to make it easier for you. Maybe buying a house, your wage, how the working conditions, getting married, tax credits. I could go on forever. They are not doing any of that for you. They're doing it for a foreign country, and they're using our money to do it, and they won I could go on forever. They are not doing any of that for you. They're doing it for a foreign country and they're using our money to do it. And they won't even use our money to actually pay for anything inside of this country. It genuinely makes me sick.

I mean, Israel is a wealthy, advanced nation. They brag about it all the time. They have universal health care. We don't. They do. And we're sending billions to them. It's just, it's, so it's preposterous on that level. And then it's so outrageously immoral on the level of what we've seen unfold. And you hear the Biden administration worried about civilian life, etc., etc. You can't take them seriously when this is their number one priority. We can actually put up there. The other thing that's astonishing is some of the arguments that they're making in front of this. Put A5, this Wall Street Journal tear sheet up on the screen. This is the Biden op-ed that he published here. Moment of truth on Ukraine and Israel. Both countries urgently need U.S. aid

to defend themselves against brazen adversaries that seek their annihilation. One of the arguments that he makes here is directly about how this will help to fund and finance the American war machine military industrial complex. He says, if Congress passes military aid for Ukraine and Israel, we won't write blank checks. We'd send military equipment from our own stockpiles, then use the money authorized by Congress to replenish those stockpiles by buying from American suppliers. Oh, Boeing, Raytheon, they'll be so happy. That includes Patriot missiles made in Arizona, Javelin missiles made in Alabama, and artillery shells made in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas. It's just astonishing to me that they are affirmatively leaning into the pitch that, guess what, guys? This is going to go to our great military industrial complex suppliers. So it's not

like the money even leaves within 50 miles of where we sit right now. It's so naked, and it's so incredibly manipulative and disgusting. Yeah. By the way, a quote just came across my dad. I love this. From Mike Johnson. Here's why he decided to flip-flop. Listen to this quote. I really believe the intel and the briefings that we've gotten. I believe Xi, Vladimir Putin, and Iran are the axis of evil. Oh, Jesus Christ. They are in court.

Jesus Christ. What year are we in? What year? I feel the Jumanji meme. What year is it? What year is it? Is What year? What year? I feel the Jumanji meme. What year is it? What year is it? It's in 1972. This is madness. It's complete madness. We have a video here of some of the House Republicans who rightfully are furious about this. They were interviewed by CNN's Manu Raju. Let's take a listen.

For hours last night and proposed different paths for the speaker that would have avoided the abject surrender represented by his strategic choice here. There's no other way to describe it. It's surrender. It's disappointing. I won't support it. It's disappointing. It's completely detached from what our base wants, what our voters want. The strategy is not to try. I think the strategy is to fall on his sword. So when I asked Congressman Chip Roy about whether or not it was time for him to oust Mike Johnson from the speakership, he said that he went right up to the line, Dana, and didn't go across that line, perhaps because he needs to talk with the speaker, which is happening right now.

Now, the question is, will the numbers add up to oust him from the speakership? Because Democrats, as you mentioned, could step in to save him because of what he's doing here on Ukraine. So this is a different situation than the fall when Mario McCarthy was ousted from the speakership. But no doubt about it, Mike Johnson opening up a revolt on the far right with his conference, with this move here. So, yeah, I mean, screwing over your own party. It's just incredible. And finally, we have the word from Speaker Johnson himself, went on CNN's Jake Tapper show of all places to make the case for this. Just listen to his own words.

Look at the way that this man talks right now. And let's also not leave Trump out of this because as Ryan and I covered, he was singularly important in making sure that this happened. Let's take a listen. Look, we know what the timetable is. We know the urgency in Ukraine and in Israel.

And we are going to stand by Israel, our close ally and dear friend, and we're going to stand for freedom and make sure that Vladimir Putin doesn't march through Europe. These are important responsibilities. A strong America is good for the entire world. Since World War II, really, really, the responsibility for the free world has been shifted onto our shoulders. And we accept that role. We're an exceptional nation. We're the greatest nation on the planet, and we have to act like it. And we have to project to Putin and Xi and Iran and North Korea and anybody else that we will defend freedom.

It doesn't mean boots on the ground. We're not the world's policemen. But we're going to do the right thing. And I did tell the president the plan on all of this, and I think he clearly understands why we're running this play and why we need to do this. I think this sets up the next election, the next administration, the next president, and I believe he's going to win in a better position. So Trump endorsed the plan, spoke with Mike Johnson. He's an idiot. So when he hears from Lindsey Graham, it's a loan. Trump is like, I love loans, let's do it. And so now we're doing a fake loan to the most corrupt government on the

planet. The aid actually allows you to cancel the loan if you're the president. What do you think Biden's gonna do on day one after this thing passes? We're never getting paid back. Not that it matters. We would never get paid back, whether it's technically dead or alone or whatever. It's fake both ways. Of course, it's not going to happen. Yeah, I mean, listen, I never want to hear from a single soul ever again that Trump is some anti-war president. It's always been preposterous. If you looked at his record last time around, I mean, he was actually very hawkish towards Russia in spite of the rhetoric and the Russiagate phenomenon and obsession and derangement and whatever. It was actually in his policy, quite hawkish towards Russia. He was consistently rolled by the deep state, by the intel community,

in the same way that Mike Johnson is here and, you know, standing right beside Mike Johnson on the same thing. The last thing I want to make clear to people is there are really two reasons why this is happening right now, as far as I can see. Number one is Israel's provocation vis-a-vis Iran, bombing their embassy, and then the inevitable retaliation. That is part of what gave this thing momentum right now. So once again, Bibi playing us like a fiddle, getting his way, getting the A that has been hung up until now. So that's number one. And number two is what you just heard there, Donald Trump giving it the go ahead and putting his hands on this and saying basically, yes, this has my blessing. He's incredibly influential with the Republican caucus.

They basically follow his lead on many things. And so I think the fact that it had his buy-in was essential to creating this moment. Sagar, I had a question for you, which is, is this a fait accompli? Or is there any chance that Democrats don't want to go along, that they're nervous? Because I know there's some nervousness from some Democrats about, all right, if we pass the rule, that puts this in their hands. We don't know if we're going to get the humanitarian aid that we need to pretend like we care about civilians being massacred in Gaza. Do you think there's any chance that this gets blocked? There is. So there's several things. The vote is going to happen on Saturday night. It's a long time from now till Saturday. It's somehow shenanigans. It's possible that the

motion to vacate comes up. That would require the whole speakership thing. However, there's been some indications currently that the Democrats, at least some Democrats, would save Mike Johnson's speakership just to make sure that there is no more chaos in the House. Josh Gottheimer, in particular, wants to fund Israel. That's right, you guessed it. And that's one of the reasons why he's decided to do so. That guy Moskowitz too. Jared Moskowitz is his name. So these individuals, look, I mean, there is enough room here to work with where I would say it is likelier than not. This is based upon the sources that I've spoken to. Keep in mind, my sources, at least the people who talk to me, these are the people who don't want this stuff

to pass. So when they tell me, no, it's actually likely on this one, I believe them. Because their analysis of the situation and the coalitions and all that involved are that because you've got the Dems willing to work on Ukraine and the Republicans willing to work so hard on Israel, that it is allowing the corrupt bargain to go through without enough objection. You've also basically bought off the progressives with this piddly humanitarian aid and giving them enough, let's say the Congressional Progressive Caucus and others, a decent portion of them are going to vote for it because it does include humanitarian aid for Gaza. And also, that gives an out to the Senate Democrats whenever this moves over to the

Senate. Even the people like Chris Van Hollen and others, they've indicated they would vote for Israel aid. And one of the ways they can do it is, yeah, it sends weapons, but it sends humanitarian aid too, which is, there is something sick, right? About paying for the wounds of the people who are, people who are wounded by bombs that you're also selling. Yeah, you bomb and they send them a loaf of bread. The other thing is the problem in Gaza in terms of the humanitarian situation isn't a lack of availability of aid. There's hundreds of trucks that are still backed up at the borders. The problem is our great ally Israel blocking food and fuel and water from being able to come in. And there are a lot of indications that in spite of their claims that they're improving the humanitarian situation, that they're certainly not living up to the

pledges that they made. And what's getting in is still wildly insufficient. So the humanitarian aid is ass covering so that people like Chris Van Hollen, who has made a big show of saying some really important things with regard to Gaza, can point to that to justify shipping more bombs to massacre women, children. I mean, some of the reports coming out about this is the largest cohort of children who've had amputations that we've ever seen. We're going to be maimed for life, the trauma that they're going to experience. And you're going to ship more bombs to create more death, destruction, annihilation, trauma, et cetera. But don't worry, we'll send you a loaf of bread as well. That'll make it better. Yeah. Look, it's total chaos.

And it is certainly possible that this may not pass. But right now, I would bet on it passing. And honestly, I should have never gotten my hopes up. We only got a three-month reprieve. I should have known that they will—they always win in the end. Oh, they figure it out every time. The military-industrial complex, the neocons, no matter what you or I think, no matter the fact that the vast majority of the American people are not for any of this aid to Ukraine and to Israel, it doesn't matter. And it's just— And days after tax day,

just a little bit too on the nose. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country

begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator

to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice

to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus

on Apple Podcasts. Let's move on. Let's talk a little bit about Israel as we just talked about and where some of this money may be going and who's going to be funding and what exactly they're going to do about it. So here we have Benjamin Netanyahu who is speaking about striking Iran in retaliation.

We can go ahead and play it, and I'm going to read. They say they also have some objections. I appreciate it, but I want to clarify. He says that we will make our own decisions. He's talking here about the United States. He says the state of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself today. The cabinet will approve a plan

to rebuild the settlements of the Gaza Strip. We will invest a very large sum of shekels to make the settlements of Gaza available to generations. We will invest in housing, infrastructure, education, and employment. So he's talking there about two things. He's talking about striking Iran, the state of Israel, we will do whatever we want to do. And he's also talking about using money, U.S. money, presumably, right? Some of these shekels, where do you think exactly they're coming from? Shekel, by the way, is the currency of the state of Israel, in case people didn't know that. Using that to build settlements in the God's trap and complete contravention of U.S. policy. And we

will get to some of the changes in U.S. policy and all of that in a little bit. But this comes as the entire world, the Western world, is trying to descend upon Israel, begging them, please, please don't get us into a war with Iran. And yet they continue to walk away, being told straight to the face of their own benefactors that they are going to do it anyway. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from the Times of Israel. You can take it. You've got, after meeting with President Herzog of Israel, David Cameron, the UK foreign minister, says, quote, it is now clear that Israel will respond to the Iran attack. The British foreign minister, quote, hopes retaliation will not further escalate tensions, calls for the G7 to sanction Iran, and the visiting German foreign minister also says all parties must act prudently and responsibility. So you have Tony Blinken, who is pressuring them, President Biden.

Here you've got the freaking British foreign minister, a huge supporter of the state of Israel. You've got the German foreign minister, all of these people descending there. Apparently Prime Minister Netanyahu even put a call off for several hours with the prime minister of the UK, where the Prime Minister was like, hey, man, like, maybe just keep us out of this one, because it would just be easier for all of us if we didn't have to shoot down missiles for you. And yet, that's not what, this is a government acting in complete impunity. We've seen this many, many times. But again, let's just play it for the whole world, for all of us, since we're the ones who are funding this. And here's the thing.

Things were getting a little tougher in Netanyahu. There was a little bit of scrutiny about what was going on in Gaza. The Americans were getting increasingly uncomfortable. It was becoming increasingly untenable. How much has the horrific annihilation and humanitarian disaster, the famine in northern Gaza, how much has that fallen out of the news as everybody starts beating the war drums and getting all hyped up about this conflict with Iran? There were these reports, Agar, I don't know if you buy these or not, because it was from a not totally certain news source, that the US back-channeled Iran and was like,

how about you let Israel do a little bit of a retaliatory attack and just let it be? Can you imagine if we were directly attacked? Can you imagine if our embassy was attacked, how we would respond? Yesterday, Emily and I played this exchange with Matt Miller. I don't know if you saw Matt Lee pressing him on. All right, because their dodge is, well, we don't know if it was really a consulate building that Israel hit. We're investigating. We haven't really figured that out yet. That's their dodge to avoid condemning Israel for starting this whole terrifying chain of escalation that risks dragging us directly into conflict with Iran, even though I genuinely think that the Biden administration

actually wants to avoid this direct conflict. But they haven't done a single thing to try to forestall that eventuality. So yeah, Bibi and Israel, they act like toddlers who haven't been disciplined, who know they can get away with whatever the hell they wanna get away with, because they always do. Because we'll do things like, you know, pretend we're having an investigation into whether or not they really hit an embassy. Trust me, if they didn't hit an embassy or consulate building, we would have said it right away. The fact that we're on here pretending like we've got to do some months-long investigation to figure that out tells you everything you need to know about what actually unfolded here. But we will deny reality, we will lie, we will cover up,

and we will continue moving heaven and earth to ship them their bombs to continue doing whatever the hell they want to do. Our interest and the safety of our service members and our people, be damned. Yeah, this is America last, it's finest. Let's put this up there on the screen. Just I want to reiterate again, how many world leaders are, quote, urging restraint? You again have the war cabinet and the far right who are all saying that we need to have swift action. But then you have basically every leader of a G7 nation who is urging restraint, who is even rhetorically backing up Israel, but is reaching out and urging caution and not to have retaliation. It is just virtual certainty. This is going to lead for some sort of tit for tat escalation. The United States will be involved. We already know that because we already were

involved. We shot down the majority of the missiles. If there is more of an escalation, then we'll be even more involved in shooting that down. And Bibi has wanted this for so long. Bibi has wanted this. Decades. Urged us to do this for years. Yesterday on the Zero Hedge debate, we played a clip of him advocating for the overthrow of the Iranian regime in 2002, before Congress. This is on tape. It's literally right there, out in the open. He has urged every president from George W. Bush onward to overthrow the Iranian regime and to bomb Iran. He tried to get Trump to do it. He tried to get Obama to do it. There's a whole interesting Atlantic series. You guys can go read it if you want. Jeffrey Goldberg sat there and let Bibi spout his BS about why America should go to war. He came to our soil.

He against our own president of the United States and spoke against the Iran deal. He came to our soil. He, against our own president of the United States and spoke against the Iran deal. He tried to get, he tried to get George W. Bush, as I said, multiple times after Iraq. And he had many supporters in the cabinet. The only thing that saved us from going to war with Iran is that the Iraq war was such a disaster. Because if it had gone even remotely well, then he could have convinced Condoleezza Rice and all these other idiots to do that as well. Absolutely. So just keep in mind exactly who we're dealing with. He says all these things out in the opening until it feels totally comfortable.

Yeah. Any last things before we move on? Yeah. I mean, even though it's utterly psychotic, like I genuinely can't wrap my head around the psychopathy that it requires to just like casually flirt with this gigantic war. You can see why he did it, because now the frame of conversation isn't, oh my God, here's a baby who you're starving to death in Gaza. Now the frame of conversation is freaking Mike Johnson out there talking about the axis of evil. That's much stronger ground for Bibi Netanyahu with the political class here, certainly with the Democrats who are in power here. And frankly, it's just a much better

conversation for him to take the focus off the suffering of Palestinians at their hands and at our hands that completely shifts the frame in a way that is much more favorable for him. And also, by the way, it's not an accident that this is right at the moment when there was a Haaretz op-ed saying, listen, we got to face it. This has been a disaster. We have lost on every reasonable metric of success in Gaza. So he also has to shift the frame domestically to some other victory that he can chase after. So the logic of it is sick, but you can see exactly how he made this calculation and decided to thrust all of us into this incredible chaos. Over the past six years

of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibbillion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's move on to Arizona. This is very, very impactful in terms of the electoral news. So just yesterday, there was major breaking in terms of after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a Civil War era law, which banned abortion across the board in the entire state. There has been now an intra-GOP fight on whether to try and repeal that law or not. Well, let's put this up there on the screen.

Just yesterday, the state Senate introduced a bill to repeal that abortion ban. And by the way, by repeal, I just mean adding exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. But the House actually blocked the effort to do so, showing that the House Republican leadership, quote, shows no signs of relenting despite pressure from prominent Republicans, including Trump, to toss the ban that many voters, quote, view as extreme and archaic. I think that that's a reasonable way to put it. Well, the House Republican leader, the House speaker, the House legislature was controlled by the Republicans in Arizona. They just seemed content on throwing this entire election.

And it is astounding because this is a position that is not held by even a majority of the minority, I guess, of the people who are pro-life. And yet, that's the current law on the books in a critical battleground state. What's even more astounding to me is how the politicians there are navigating it. So Carrie Lake, somebody who's the Arizona Senate candidate, previously on tape saying she was completely fine with the ban. Then after the ban came out, she said, well, yeah, we should have some sort of repeal. We need to come sort of a consensus, but I support exceptions for the life and the mother. Well, here she is just yesterday in an interview in local Arizona media where now she's changing her tune a little bit.

She does support the ban. She says something else, which you'll listen out for, and we'll flag it after we listen. Let's take a listen. Can you explain your shift on abortion from civil war law to now no federal ban on abortion? Because I believe that truly that's something that people do want to hear from what we've heard this past week. Well, first of all, I've never shifted from the no federal ban. You know, if you're my age or older, you've been on this planet for more than 50 years. Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, even though both sides knew it was unconstitutional. And the Supreme Court struck that down and brought the decision back to the state. So we're going to have 50 different

state laws. So we need to find some common sense approach. I'm never going to apologize for wanting to save babies and being pro-life. But I also realize the world that we're living in, even if we have a restrictive law here, you can go three hours that way, three hours that way, and you're going to be able to have an abortion. We have to start working the minds and hearts of women. Yeah. One of the ways to win over the minds and hearts of women, Crystal, is to say, yeah, I know in our state, the state that you live in and that you pay taxes. I know I know that's really tough. And that's why it's OK that you have to get into a car and you can drive three hours that way or three hours that way. Also, depending on where you live in Arizona, it may be several hours. And also you may have to get on a plane. So it's actually

going to cost you some money as opposed to being able to pursue what you want to do in your own home state. That sounds really comforting to a lot of the voters who are concerned about this. Are they living in an alternative reality? What is happening here? Am I losing my mind here? Yeah, so the line is basically, oh, it's no big deal, because you can just go over state lines and still do the same thing. She's framing it in terms of like, that's a bad thing. But the subtext here is like, yeah, don't freak out because, you know, there are other states around that aren't using 1864 laws passed by settler pedophiles that you can avail yourself of the rights that you previously enjoyed in our state. You know, just to help people understand why the Republicans in the House

in Arizona may have made what seems on its face to be this sort of politically insane decision of making sure that this law stays as it is on the books. And it's because of the power of organized minority groups. And this is what has long driven abortion politics, really. And in particular, it is especially now a minority position to have this effectively absolute ban. But for people that vote on that issue in the Republican Party in particular, they are the ones who support such things. So if you're doing the calculus of like, I don't want to face a Republican primary next time around. If you have a lot of people who are organized that hold this fringe view in terms of the American people, that can end up being a real political threat to you. And, you know, the other thing is you're going to have to deal with the situation that Carrie Lake is dealing with of, wait a second, voters looking at you and going, wait a second.

Previously, you said you loved this band. Previously, you said you believed in, you know, heartbeat bills and fetal personhood and all this stuff. So why the change? Why suddenly is there this incredible moral flip-flop. And listen, to be fair to that position, if you are a person who genuinely believes that abortion is murder, if that's your principled position, then this like, leave it up to the states and it's cool if they have murder in California

and actually I want to allow a little bit more murder here in Arizona because I'm doing this political calculus and it doesn't look good to me. Like, I think it's fair for people who hold that moral position and believed you when you were all in with them when there were no consequences or disgusted with the flip-flop. No, you should be. Yeah. If you're very pro-life, you should be repulsed also by people who are basically willing to use you as a pawn. And if you're pro-choice, you should just look at this and be like, wow, this is freaking crazy. Yeah. Electorally,

we already know what's going to happen here. Lo and behold, let's put this up there on the screen. What do we got? A key change in the way that the Arizona Senate race is being rated in terms of which way it's going to go. It has now gone from toss-up to leans Democratic. And in terms of the House rating, same thing. In the Arizona 6th District, leans Republican to toss-up. So safe seat, easy seat, one that you're supposed to be a checkbox, leans Republican. It's Arizona, for God's sake, right? Nope, not anymore. And now, Carrie Lake, I mean, Carrie had all kinds of problems already, with Stop the Steal, with abortion, healthcare, it can all go on forever. So, her highlight reel was gonna be a problem for her no matter what, especially in a state

where we've had multiple races now, both presidential and statewide, where Democrats did better than expected. But this is just the gift to Democrats. This is the greatest gift you could ever get. You have one of the most extreme abortion laws in the whole country, and now you've got a lady who's used to support it, is on tape, and now is kind of wishy-washy on where things could go. Good luck. You know, Republicans, you know, you're taking some of the best headwinds in a presidential election and you're just throwing it away on an issue where you're not even going to win in the first place. I've seen somebody actually, I think it was Mike Cernovich who said this. He was like,

hey, pro-lifers, I'm not sure if you know this, but there's actually been a net increase in abortion in the United States since Roe versus Wade. So you guys are drawing your red lines and saying you won't vote for Trump and causing all these problems electorally. And not only are you gonna cause future electoral losses, you didn't even win the fight that you allegedly set out to do. So it's just ridiculous all the way around. Yeah, and just so you know, it's not an accident that these ratings changes come right now. The Cook Political actually pointed specifically to this 1864 abortion ban. And also the fact, by the way, remember, there's likely to be a ballot initiative on the ballot in November that will allow voters to repeal that ban, which is very

motivating, obviously, for people who are even remotely on the pro-choice side of the ledger. And also the fact, and this is something we'll have to cover another time, that Republican fundraising is dramatically lagging behind Democratic fundraising. And that's actually not just an Arizona phenomenon, that's almost across the board. And there could be a lot of reasons for that. I think Donald Trump is a big reason for it. He is like, just suck dry the Republican donor base. There's also a report that he's now demanding any Republican candidate that uses his name in a fundraising pitch, he's demanding that they give him a 5% kickback of whatever they raise off of it. So, I mean, he's sort of single-handedly undermining Republicans' ability to fundraise.

And I also think that abortion plays into the fundraising piece too here because it's a very motivating issue for Democratic-aligned individuals and specifically donors. And Republicans are kind of demoralized around the way that all of this has unfolded. Just to show you too, this Data for Progress poll demonstrating just how unpopular the Arizona abortion ban actually is. They asked the question. Let's put this up on the screen. So 66% of voters, two-thirds of the country, disapprove of the Arizona Supreme Court's near total ban on abortion. That includes 82% of Democrats, 66% of independents, and Republicans even.

Basically split 50-50. 49% of Republicans even disapprove of that ban. So just to give you a sense of just how toxic this particular iteration of abortion bans really is. And, you know, Republicans can't really run away from it at this point because they spent so many years establishing themselves in this very hard line position that you can't try to pull a Carrie Lake and just, you know, do a 180 and pretend like you didn't say the things that you said in the past because we can all roll the tape. You're exactly right, Crystal. And just by the way, you know, in terms of more messaging from Republicans, which is not exactly helpful, here we have Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, where she says that Griswold versus Connecticut is constitutionally unsound. Griswold, for those of you who don't know, is the one that legalized birth control. Let's take a listen. Constitutionally unsound rulings like Griswold versus Connecticut,

Kelo versus City of New London, and NFIB versus Sebelius confused Tennesseans and left Congress wondering who gave the court permission to bypass our system of checks and balances. Okay, good luck. Now we're against the case that legalized birth control. All right. Unless you guys are literally going to pass a law almost immediately after that gets repealed.

I don't even know. Yeah, and how's that gone with IVF? I know. You know, I mean, Republicans are blocking at the federal level. Yeah. There's at least a pro-life case

for IVF, right? Absolutely. More babies. This is the opposite. If your family values you want more babies, like IVF is an important part of that. So, yeah, you can see, you know, even when they recognize this is politically disastrous, like in Arizona, Kerry Lake trying to backtrack, Donald Trump like, oh, of course we support IVF, et cetera, et cetera. When it comes down to how they actually vote. They just can't do it because there's still so much influence

from the very organized pro-life crowd, which has been able over decades. I mean, listen, you have to give it to them in terms of their stick-to-itiveness, in terms of their determination, in terms of like the savvy tactics that they use, but to basically force a minority fringe position on the entire country. And the part that they failed on, though, was having any sort of plan for what happens next. So in that way, they really are the dog that caught the car with regards to Roe being overturned and the Dobbs decision. And it's wild, wild west out there. That's all I'll say.

Exactly right. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day.

The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.

If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. So we don't want to lose sight of some of the updates that are coming out of Israel, including a bombshell new report from UNRWA. Now, as we head into the segment, I just want you to keep in mind as a context that our government just officially certified that

they have no evidence Israel is violating international humanitarian law. Okay, keep that in mind as we move forward. Let's put this latest report from UNRWA on detainees, Palestinian detainees being held by Israel being tortured. This matches up, by the way, with a number of prior media accounts. But I want to give you some of the specifics here because they really matter. So first of all, let me read a little bit from this report. They say ill treatment of detainees was reported to have occurred primarily while in the barracks and to have intensified in advance of interrogation sessions. This included being subjected to beatings while made to lie on a thin mattress on top of rubble for hours without food, water, or access to a toilet with their legs and hands bound with plastic ties. As a side note, there are doctors who came out and said that amputations of limbs because of handcuffing procedures was commonplace in these facilities.

The report goes on to say several detainees reported being forced into cages and attacked by dogs. Some released detainees, including a child, had dog bite wounds on their body. Detainees were threatened with prolonged detention, injury, or the killing of family members if they did not provide requested information. One detainee said, and this is difficult to hear, so warning there, but this is their quote. They made me sit on something like a hot metal stick, and it felt like I have burns in the anus. The soldiers hit me with their shoes on my chest and used something like a metal stick that had a small nail on the side. They asked us to drink from the toilet and made the dogs attack us.

There were people who were detained and killed, maybe nine of them. One of them died after they put the electric stick up his anus. He got so sick, we saw worms coming out of his body, and then he died. That was an adult male detainee who was aged 41 years. There have been thousands of Palestinians that we know who have been detained by the Israelis since October 7th. In addition, and Sagar, this is very significant to the U.S. and our policy, because you'll recall, we led the charge in terms of defunding UNRWA, UNRWA being the number one aid organization on the ground in Gaza. That is part of what has contributed to these disastrous humanitarian

conditions, including mass epidemic of starvation and children literally starving to death. So we led the charge on that. Our Congress has now passed legislation that requires we continue the defunding of UNRWA through at least 2025. Well, and this was all based on these allegations that some UNRWA staff members participated in some way, some small number of UNRWA staff members, this was the allegation, participate in some way alongside Hamas on October 7th. Well, in addition, what this report says is that UNRWA staff members reported being interrogated about the work performed by UNRWA and the specific functions they perform on behalf of UNRWA. They also reported being subjected to threats and coercion while in detention and being pressured to make forced confessions against the agency, including that the agency has affiliations with Hamas and the UNRWA staff took part in the October 7th attacks against Israel. So what this report indicates is that those supposed confessions were obtained under

torture. This again, Sagar, is something that had been previously reported in the press, but confirmation here coming from a UN body of the outright torture being committed routinely against Palestinian detainees being held by Israel. We got some statement from the State Department of like, you know, we want answers from Israel. I'm sure we'll never get those. Yeah, that's the, it's ironic, right? And it's also one of those, an interesting point that Dave brought up last night at the Zero Hedge debate is he kept saying like, one of the reasons that we're able to have hostage swaps is he's like, because Israel has a bunch of hostages, excuse me, prisoners. And it was one of those things where I was thinking, I was like, yeah, you know what, that really doesn't get a lot more attention about who exactly some of these

prisoners are. And in terms of the way, not only that they're treated, but in terms of the way that they're like disparately viewed. And I think that that is part of the issue overall with US policy. We focus a lot on one group, we completely obscure the actions of another group. And the real issue from what I really, you know, what came home to me yesterday is that for the pro-Israel side, moral relativism itself is the enemy. And the enemy of that, and I understand that to a certain extent, but the issue is that whenever we're talking here specifically about the government, a third party actor, allegedly for the U.S. and our disparate treatment and the way that we view one group and not the

other group, I think that's where everything just completely falls apart because we're not even talking about our interests here. We're just like blindly supporting another group. Well, there's just a blanket assumption that if it's the actions of Israelis, if they do something wrong, which, you know, comes with a lot of, well, I don't know who said that and we need proof and whatever. And maybe it's just Hamas made this up or you're anti-Semitic. That's why you're saying this. But if they in some rare instance did something wrong, it was always with the best of intentions. Whereas if it was a Palestinian and certainly if it was Hamas that did something wrong,

well, the worst possible intentions are assumed. And so you can, you know, some of the comments that were made with a straight face about like, well, Israel doesn't intentionally target civilians. It's like, have you been watching the same war that we have where they literally announced a complete siege that definitionally targets literally every civilian in the Gaza Strip. Not to mention the revelations that just came out about this AI software, Where's Daddy, where they're intentionally waiting for militants to go home so that they are killed alongside their wives, children, other relatives, any other civilian who happens to be around.

There's something else that is very disturbing about the way the Israelis have talked about and conducted this assault, which is they've just made the blanket assumption that any man who is even approximately fighting age is a terrorist. And that's been sort of accepted by the media. And I get it in terms of when we're looking at how many people have been killed. You know for sure if it's a woman or a child, okay, they're a civilian. So we'll count them. And then you just sort of assume then that every man who's being slaughtered deserved to be killed or deserved to be detained and tortured and had a metal rod shoved up their ass.

There's like an actual war on men and assumption that they are inherently guilty if they happen to be of fighting age that I find to be very deeply, deeply disturbing. At the same time, we're getting another bombshell report about our own government, which again, remember the context of the segment, just certified so that we can continue to ship Israel weapons, that Israel is not violating international humanitarian law or committing war crimes. Okay, put this up on the screen. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is sitting on staff recommendations to sanction certain Israeli military units, which were linked to killings or rapes. This is a ProPublica report. Let me read you a little bit of this. A special State Department panel recommended months ago that Tony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police

units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations they committed serious human rights abuses. But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the face of growing international criticisms of the Israeli military's conduct in Gaza. The incidents under review mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before October 7th. They include reports of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli border police, an incident in which a battalion gagged, handcuffed, and left an elderly Palestinian American man for dead, and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. And part of that torture was attempting to obtain a confession from this teenager who they

allegedly raped with an object and tortured in a variety of other ways. So let me just underscore for you, number one, this was before October 7th. So this idea that everything was all hunky-dory and peaceful and there was a ceasefire and whatever before October 7th. Clearly nonsense. This was the West Bank. This wasn't even Gaza. So you can't do, you know, but Hamas with any of this. And second of all, when the State Department came out and said, we have no evidence that they've committed human rights abuses. It's a lie. It's just a lie. Your own, your own State Department panel told you they were committing human rights abuses. You have the report. It's sitting in your briefcase or in your desk or in your email file or wherever. You have it. So when you say we have no evidence of that, you are just directly bold-faced lying,

which isn't a surprise, but it's still important to have this direct confirmation from pro-publica. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the reason why it matters, I think, just to reiterate, is that if you find them officially in violation, then you can't give them any aid legally because of the Leahy Law. We have laws on the books that are designed specifically for this purpose. But I will also say they have always found a way. And like I said, one of the first stories that I chased hard here in Washington is that the U.S. government had direct evidence that the Afghan military, who we were funding, very similar cases, were raping little boys, straight up. And that our money was directly supporting the warlords

who were participating in this. And in fact, one of the sources that I had told me that in some cases, US military equipment, Humvees and others provided to the Afghans were actually being used to transport some of these children. And what ended up happening, all of this, by the way, is sitting in a vault. It's in Congress. They just won't let you and I see it. There's an unclassified version that was eventually, some of it was released, some of it was leaked to the Washington Post. But because if they released those findings, we would have to shut off the whole war in Afghanistan. And this was while we were still involved in that. So what do you think they did? They just classified the entire thing. And then they also started doing

all kinds of other things where certain casualty numbers and others ended up being released. That's when we could tell how badly the Afghan military was doing. So what they would do is they would just classify the number of dead for the first time in 19 years or whatever of our experience in Afghanistan. And this is textbook, the ways that you get around laws like this. And it is just, this is the real deep state right here. This is the deep state. You know, there have been a few State Department officials, employees who have resigned out of horror at the Biden administration's policy vis-a-vis Israel. And one of the things they point to is that Israel gets this special treatment.

You know, if it was another country, certainly anyone who was remotely adversarial, okay, we've got our process, we had our panel. This panel specifically exists to look at potential human rights abuses with regards to Israel specifically, like that's the whole point of the panel. Any other country has that panel, they make their recommendations, actions are generally taken, you're making a good point about how there are other exceptions as well. But that Israel is treated unlike other nation. And it really turns on the head, the thing that gets thrown at people who are especially trying to support Palestinian rights

or who are deeply concerned about this conflict or saying, hey, I'm gonna vote based on Joe Biden's facilitation of the slaughter of Palestinians here is, well, why are you singling out Israel? Why are you just picking on Israel? And it really turns that on its head because what you can see is actually the U.S. government singles out Israel time and time again for special treatment and allows our own, you know, our own government to flout laws put in place to constrain behavior and make sure that we aren't shipping the bombs that get dropped on refugee camps as one example. But when it comes to Israel, all of that gets buried. It gets pushed aside. There is a special procedure that's different from when it comes to

other countries. And so you see it very clearly in this instance. I'm curious to see how Matt Miller or whoever's at the podium today in the State Department briefing, if they have one, how they deal with this latest very inconvenient fact. It'll be some version of like- We're investigating. We are investigating. I haven't seen the report. We'll look into it. We'll get back to you. We take it seriously, of course. But they're always investigating and they're never coming to any conclusions when it comes to Israel. Yep, that's right. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still

somebody's mother. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes

the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's go ahead to another important issue that we did not want to miss, which is yesterday. There are actually two separate Senate hearings into what the hell is going on over at Boeing. There were two different Boeing whistleblowers who raised extraordinary concerns about what they reportedly

saw when they were in Boeing's employ. Here is a snippet of one of the whistleblowers. This is Ed Pearson, who says in no uncertain terms, Boeing is engaged in a criminal cover up with regard to safety violations. Let's take a listen. Boeing routinely states that their airplanes meet or exceed all safety standards. This is untrue and misrepresents the safety of the airplanes. The company illegally removed thousands of quality control inspections on individual airplanes without the FAA's knowledge and without the knowledge of the airlines. Although many of these inspections have been reinstated, hundreds of airplanes have left Boeing factories without those thousands of inspections. My last point is the Department of Justice and FBI relied on the slanted results of the first accident investigation to develop an illegal and unjust deferred

prosecution agreement. The NTSB chair reiterated to Congress last week that Boeing has said there are no records documenting the removal of the Alaska Airlines door. I'm not going to sugarcoat this. This is a criminal cover-up. Records do, in fact, exist. I know this because I've personally passed them to the FBI. Now, I want to underscore what he's saying right there, because these hearings are, of course, directly about that Alaska Airlines door plug, which came out mid-flight. Terrifying, thank God no one was injured. Really, by the grace of God, it could have been that everyone on board that aircraft was deceased. And in the context of that investigation, Boeing said, oh, some of these safety records, I don't know what happened to them. We misplaced them. Oops, oops, just an

honest mistake here. And he's saying very directly, no, no, no, you didn't misplace them. Those records existed. And I know, and I'm calling this a criminal cover-up directly because I handed those records to the federal government. So an extraordinary claim there, there was another whistleblower, Sam Salipour, a Boeing quality engineer, who testified to Josh Hawley their planes are not safe. And he claims he was threatened and silenced by the company as well. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say. Are these planes safe? Right now, I would not.

You know, it's like an earthquake. You know, the big earthquake is coming, but when that hits, the building that you know, let's say if you're talking of a building, have to be prepared to accommodate that type of, let's say, shake-up. You know, it has to be built properly. Right now, from what I've seen, the airplanes are not being built per spec and per requirement. So your testimony is the 787 line and the 777, the 777 line, you think are not? Well, they are doing stuff that increases the risk factors.

When you increase the risk factors, it's not just one. You are doing stress concentrations. Those stress concentrations, like breaking a paper clip, you know, you do it once or twice, it doesn't break, but it breaks at some time. As the plane gets older, you know, all of these things that, you know, you took, you know, you said it's not a safety issue, it becomes a safety issue. And the company's response to you was to threaten you? Threaten you, sideline you, you know, transfer you.

You raised concerns about the 787, and so they transferred you to the 7777, right? Well, yes. Initially, they just cut me off of all the meetings. They took my name out, and then so I was just doing nothing. I wasn't informed of what. Then they transferred me, and they do it pretty stealthy. Oh, a job over here we want you to go over there so they move you down there and you know I come from like 40 years of engineering background so when I see and I've taken a lot of stress class stress classes even though I'm not a specialist on that but when there's a problematic area that you see,

you can recognize. Wow. So another, let's put this last tear sheet up on the screen. He made an additional comment that really jumped out at me. I'm sure you'll find it noteworthy as well, Sagar. He said, quote, in regards to the retaliation, I was sidelined. I was told to shut up. I received physical threats. My boss said I would have killed someone who said what you said in that meeting. Senator Richard Blumenthal, in addition, asked about, hey, what about the FAA? What if we hired more inspectors? Would that help? And one of these individuals who was a former FAA engineer said, yeah, that would help. But the attitude right now at the FAA is that Boeing dictates to the FAA.

So, I mean, these are deep-seated problems here. And the consistent issue that comes up very clearly over and over again is it was about profits over safety. They were willing to cut corners. There are some horrifying examples about employees who were jumping on plane parts to try to bend them so they would fit in. And now you think you're going to be safe on that airplane? That they have completely lost their way. And the FAA has become really captured by this corporation and effectively has outsourced their own regulatory capabilities to the company itself. Yeah, he says that Boeing should ground every single 787 Dreamliner which is in the sky. He says 1,000 Boeing planes are currently in a danger

of structural failure because of premature fatigue. On the 787 specifically, he says that tiny gaps in plane parts have not yet been properly filled. According to him, they have not been properly addressed 98.7% of the time, and that debris is now lodged in of the stress testing which is happening, which is leaving catastrophic gaps of error. Combine that with the criminal cover-up safety documents that the other gentleman said that he's given to the FBI and it's like what more evidence do we need here? We need a complete national takeover of Boeing until we can figure out what the hell is going on. That's right.

Especially because we are the ones, you know, back to the tax situation. Yes, Boeing makes a lot of money in their private business. They also wouldn't survive without the U.S. government. We've bailed this company out a million times since its inception and recently in 2020. We fund huge portions of their business through the military-industrial complex. You know, it's not just passengers which are unsafe. It's our service members. And then look at the F-35 program, which was a complete nightmare.

Not Boeing, but still, it's a similar situation. My point is just that commercial aviation, there's 100 million Americans who step foot on a plane at some point in a year, on a yearly basis. That's one-third of the entire country. And there's a great shot that you year, on a yearly basis. That's one third of the entire country. And there's a great shot that you're stepping on a Boeing aircraft. I've been counting recently, seven out of the 10 last planes that I've been on were Boeing. And it's like in every single one of these, you just look at that and you're like, well, you know, hope it works out. And yes, commercial aviation is very safe statistically and all of that. But the catastrophic failures which we see today were not ever part of commercial aviation before.

And this is all a result of the pursuit of profit, the sacrifice of safety, lack of government regulation, and just a complete criminal cover-up now at this point because lives are not just at stake. Lives have been lost. Hundreds of people died as a result of Boeing's mistake not just that long ago. And now this is the second instance in just a matter of five years where people's lives directly put at risk as a result of a failure at this. And the number of safety instances that are stacking up at this point, I mean, it has been essential to the commercial airline industry that they have this pristine safety record. Because guess what? People feel a little nervous getting on an airplane and flying so high up there and thinking

about what could happen. And the only reason that prospect works is because you can look at it statistically and say, I'm actually more at risk when I get in my car. Well, what if that calculus starts to change? And then, you know, to your tax point, a modest proposal. How about you send our tax dollars, instead of going to bomb babies, then, you know, to your tax point, a modest proposal. How about you send our tax dollars, instead of going to bomb babies, how about you send our tax dollars to have a real FAA that has the capability to actually regulate and not just say, hey, Boeing, are you doing a good

job? Okay, great work. Keep it up. Because that's what we have right now. And by the way, this is a problem across the board with regulatory agencies. This was a whole sort of like neoliberal ideological project of we're effectively going to gut these agencies. They're not going to have the technical know-how to even, you know, credibly regulate these complex industries, let alone the manpower or the funding. So this is, that's part of why this story is so important. It's important on its own, just because of how significant this one company is and how entangled it is with the American taxpayer in all of our lives. But it's also important because it's so symbolic of a deeper rot that really exists in almost every industry that you care to dig into.

So extraordinarily significant testimony that we heard yesterday. And of course, we can't forget about the prior whistleblower who raised similar, very significant concerns about a lack of attention to detail, about taking parts that had been discarded as these are defective, pulling them out of the heap and putting them into airplanes. And then, lo and behold, while he's in the middle of testifying, he is, quote unquote, found dead. And at least some of his co-workers do not believe that he committed suicide. Still a lot of questions around what the hell happened there. So kudos to these two men who know that their safety

is at risk. There's no doubt about it. And as he said, he literally said to his boss that he would have killed somebody who said what he said. So I guess we should just state for the record, neither of these men are suicidal. And I hope that they have some records and all that ready and that their families and all of that are prepared for their safety as well. Yeah, indeed. We wanted to track a really important labor story. Of course, we covered extensively the United Auto Worker negotiations with the big three, which netted a significant contract improvement for all of the workers there. That seems to have sparked quite a bit of momentum in terms of unionizing more auto workers around the country, including at foreign automakers.

And the UAW's new president, Sean Fain, very aggressively going after these new organizing drives. And one of the big places where they are laying their claim is in a Tennessee Volkswagen plant, which has previously, they've previously attempted to unionize this workforce and it got voted down twice before, but they feel really good about their prospects this time around for a variety of reasons I'll get into. Put this up on the screen from Bloomberg. Headline here, how the UAW is winning over new plants, starting with Volkswagen. So this factory is actually voting right now on whether to become the only foreign commercial carmaker that is unionized in the United States, would also be the first plant to join the UAW since that strike last fall that we covered so extensively. One of the members of the organizing committee,

one of the workers there at the Tennessee factory says, quote, we're going to be the first domino to fall and encourage these other plants to get out there with us. As I referenced before, there were two prior attempts. Now, the South is notoriously difficult in terms of unionizing. They have right to work-work laws, quote-unquote, right-to-work laws, and a general anti-union climate. There was a lot of sort of political involvement from the governor at the time, effectively threatening these workers that if they do decide to unionize, then the plant is going to be shut down. Now, that is illegal to do, but there was, of course, no accountability. So this time around, they have gotten a super majority of workers to sign the card indicating they would like to unionize.

So that's significant. They really have made it a very local worker ground up movement to try to unionize this time. And I think the two other things I would point to here, why they feel so good about this, is that number one, you have, as opposed to 2019 under Trump, you have a much more pro-union president, much more pro-union NLRB. So you've got a friendlier climate in terms of some of the decisions that could come from the NLRB in terms of unionizing. But the big thing is this momentum from UAW. You look at what they were able to achieve, and these workers are saying, hey, I'm doing literally the same job, and I'm not getting nearly what they're getting. So that's an incredibly powerful motivator as well. You've got some Republican politicians in Tennessee and in other states that UAW also has

their eyes set on, really trying to trash this and undermine this effort. A Tennessee state senator said voting against the UAW is protecting Tennessee's values. In Alabama, the UAW is making inroads at a Hyundai plant. The governor there, Kay Ivey, has denounced the union as a threat from Detroit, warned that the Alabama model for economic success is under attack. And Sean Fain, the president of UAW, replied to that, she's damn right it is. It's under attack because workers are fed up with getting screwed. So yeah, interesting there. It is actually, especially because so much of what's going on in the South. One of the things I'm really watching is how politics are changing down in the South and in the Sun Belt. We've had a huge population influx.

The economies of these states are booming, manufacturing, but they're still controlled by older red state ideology, despite the fact that their voters have significantly changed. So, for example, this is happening in the state of Tennessee. Tennessee is not that many people. They have had a huge influx, specifically in the city of Nashville, the rich suburbs of Franklin, and others from California, from all over, New York, etc. The question now is that in the combination also with a lot of the economic growth, is are they going to stick to some of this right-to-work policy and other things that they traditionally have? Now, for right now, it does seem like that is the direction. But with the change in voters, but also what I think is going to be a change in their economy. I mean, no offense,

Georgia, you weren't exactly an economic powerhouse. But nowadays, like you really are becoming one. Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, there's a ton of manufacturing that is down there for BMW, Toyota, and all these other, you know, Volkswagen, et cetera. And they're going to have to grapple and kind of change with some of the new updates to their population and to their economies as well. So I think this is actually a preview of what I expect big, big fights in the Sun Belt are to come. It's a real test case of whether or not, you know, and it's very symbolic, too, since the vote failed here twice.

If they can pull it off, it really does show that it's a new day, that it's a new climate. The other factor I forgot to mention is just unions are way more popular than they used to be. Yeah, that's true. You know, they're sort of at a historic high in terms of popularity and receptivity. I saw this quote. I was trying to find it specifically from a worker, but who said, you know, they looked at the UAW contract and they said, I want my life to be more like what they've got. Yeah, that's right. Nothing could be more powerful than seeing that model of success. And that is a 180 from what has been happening our entire lives with regard to the

labor movement, where every contract is concessionary and they're having to take cuts and cuts and cuts. And so, yeah, rationally, if you're a worker, you look at that and you're like, eh, this is risky. And they're telling me they're going to shut down the plant and it's not even looking like they're getting that good of a deal over there. So why should I stick my neck out? Now that calculation has really flipped. UAW has their site on, as I said, this Hyundai plant in Alabama. They also are looking at Tesla. I mean, they really want to make a push kind of across the board. And there's no place that's more important or more difficult to organize than these auto plants in the South, which

specifically located in these states in part because of their anti-union politics. They want to get away with paying their workers less and giving them less benefits, etc. More Perfect Union has been doing a characteristic great job covering this union drive. They spoke to a worker there named Robert about why he thinks this time is going to be different and why some of the intimidation tactics are not going to work this time around. Let's listen to what he had to say. The loudest voices of the anti-union, they keep trying to press this notion that if we unionize, Volkswagen's going to shut us down. They're going to close their factory. They're not going to pull it out just because 4,000 employees out of 600,000 want to be organized. Not to mention the fact that all of their other factories

are organized. The U.S. is a huge market for any auto manufacturer. They all want in this place. Really it boils down to if you have a bad union, it's bad leadership. It has nothing to do with the philosophy of unions or what unions can gain as a whole. So there's really not really great meat to sink your teeth into when it comes to trying to tear the idea of a union apart. And so they use the old reliable, like it's going to shut your union down. The other thing to note here, Sagar, is Volkswagen, because they work with unions in other countries, I'm not going to say

that they've been like, you know, open arms. The union drive, I'm sure the organizers on the ground could point to some nefarious dealings, but they have not been as aggressively anti-union as some other, you know, like Starbucks and Amazon and other corporate giants have been. The last thing for this last element up on the screen, I referred to the anti-union climate and where this goes next. So after this vote, there's an organizing drive happening in that Alabama Hyundai plant. And lawmakers there are really trying to go after any companies that would even be like receptive to unions. So they are working on a bill that would bar any sort of state incentives to companies that voluntarily recognize unions. So what this means is, you know, theoretically, they used to work more like this. Once you have

a majority of workers in the bargaining unit who sign a card saying, theoretically, it used to work more like this. Once you have a majority of workers in the bargaining unit who sign a card saying, yeah, I want to unionize, employers can say, okay, great. We voluntarily recognize it. That's it. You have a union and not go through this draw now. Okay, now we have to vote, blah, blah, blah. And there's this battle going on at the workplace, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, we got a majority here. They want to be in the union there. It's a done deal. So companies have that option.

And Alabama lawmakers are effectively, not that a lot of companies avail themselves of that option, but Alabama lawmakers are trying to take that option off the table altogether. And you can imagine, Sagar, that at this point, if you do have a victory at Volkswagen after some of the other victors that we've seen, how companies may calculate that it's better for them to build goodwill for their employees if they see the writing on the wall that a union is definitely coming in, that the workers are almost definitely going to win, that they can avoid all of that, save the expense, and just voluntarily recognize the union move from there. Alabama trying to undermine that direction. The other thing about unionization is even if it's not successful, for example, Costco leadership put out the statement, which I thought was fantastic, where some Costco shop decided to unionize and the executives put out a statement. They said, hey, you guys voted to unionize. Clearly, we're doing something wrong. And I want to hear what you guys want. And I want to make sure that all my employees in this

entire country are so well taken care of. They don't feel like they have to do this now. I mean, obviously, he's got an incentive to do so. But the mere act of it was enough for them to be like, OK, I guess we got to pay people more. I guess we got to pay people a lot more. That's such an important point. It's such an important point because the rise of unionism doesn't just benefit those workers who happen to be in the union, which is still a piddly percentage of the American workforce. We've seen this in the auto industry. Other automakers, including Tesla, had to increase their wages because they could see the writing on the wall. Amazon, after the Amazon labor union had that historic success

organizing the Staten Island warehouse, they had to lift some of their wages. They felt the pressure that even though it was just this one warehouse, now you've got drives going on across the country. You've got not only ALU, you've got the Teamsters looking to organize Amazon as well. And so they're under pressure feeling, all right, we got to do something to try to make our employees happier so that they don't choose to unionize because we still want to have total top-down control

of what we've got going on here. So it isn't just the wages and benefits of union workers that are at stake here. It really does sort of set the pace for the entire industry and the entire economy. Yes, that's right. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care

to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman T kind of starts that a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King,

John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

All right, let's turn to our favorite politician, Senator Robert Menendez. You said scumbag could not be a better word to describe this individual. Okay, you'll recall he's under indictment for a variety of alleged corrupt dealings, including the notorious gold bars that were found in his closet. I mean, allegedly taking cash and other gifts and favors from foreign businessmen and then using that and doing favors for them in return and for their countries in return. Disgusting abuse of power, allegedly. All right, put this up on the screen. So as if that's not bad enough, now we got a little sneak peek at how he's going to approach this in court.

And according to court documents that his lawyers filed, he is planning to basically throw his wife under the bus and say that she kept the truth from him. She was the one getting the money. She was hiding what was really going on and misleading poor innocent Robert Menendez into thinking that the gold bars in his closet were there and it was all on the the up and up pretty extraordinary you can put this next piece up on the screen um the reason he's able to do this is because his legal team was able to successfully split his case from his wife's.

Apparently, she's having some sort of surgery and has some sort of medical issue. I don't really know the details of that. His trial is beginning in May. Her trial is beginning in July. So the thought is he can use this defense for himself, throw his wife under the bus, and not really impact the way her case is separately adjudicated since they were successful in splitting these two. But just the idea of you're going to blame your wife and the details of this, I don't know if you guys recall, the way

they describe it here, they say they were accused of accepting tens of thousands in cash and gold bars from three businessmen in what prosecutors described as a wide-ranging bribery scheme. In exchange, the senator stands accused of trying to help secure overseas business deals as well as interfere with separate criminal investigations related to two of the businessmen. There was also like a luxury car involved, all kinds of stuff like that. And if you think this man didn't know exactly what was going on and what he was doing, I've got a bridge to sell you. Well, we know it because gold and dollars were found in items of clothing bearing his name. How can you possibly claim that you didn't know that? It literally has his name ascribed on the jacket and money that is tucked in the same thing. I think my name is actually here on this suit. Imagine it.

You got gold bars in there? My name is right here, Sagar and Jetty. Okay, you can read it very clearly. And if there were $100 bills in here, but yeah, it was my wife who put that in. She's not touching your suits. What are you talking about? So look, this is totally ridiculous. And as I said to scum behavior, at this point, let's say if it wasn't true,

it's like, dude, if you're a real man, you would eat it yourself. You make sure your poor wife didn't have to go to jail. And instead, he's so power hungry. He's going to throw it. By the way, this is a new marriage. You know, they were just married in 2020. And some of the behavior actually happened before they were even officially married. And he was her fiance. So in this new marriage, you have so little dedication and love for your wife

that you're literally going to blame her publicly as an official, just so you can try and hang on to power, you know, in the United States Senate. You are the absolute scum of the earth. I don't think there is like, honestly, this is more shameful and worse than the corruption charges. To do something like this as a man, it's pathetic and it's disgusting. It is truly shameful. I can think of fewer things that would be less manly in the traditional sense than throwing your loved one, your wife under the bus for your corrupt dealings. Also, by the way, she's not the senator who can, you know, get them at interfering the criminal investigation and, you know, help them with their international business deals. She's not the one

who can do that. So I'm very curious to see how they attempt to spin this. You know, in terms of his political career, that is already over. The only thing he's hanging on to is like, you know, whatever the remainder of his term is, they already are, you know, filling his seat. They've already had the Democratic primary, New Jersey voters to their credit. He initially was kind of trying to ride the sound. And then they started taking polls, Democratic primary polls of him versus, you know, potential opponents. And he was at like 8%. I mean, just immediately people were like, you are disgusting and we do not want you representing us. So the good people of New Jersey not putting up with this corruption saga. I certainly hope so.

Going against type there in terms of New Jersey politics. This is just such scum behavior. It's also crazy. You know, his kids. His freaking son is a congressman. His daughter is an MSNBC anchor. It's like the nepotism that exists in this world is just so ridiculous. And of course, neither of them has a freaking comment about their disgusting father's behavior. So he's going to blame his wife? Okay. I mean, I hope he just, like, I really am praying that he gets convicted, but I still don't yet have faith because the previous case was so ironclad and he still somehow got away with it. Well, I'm glad you raised that also because the Supreme Court has made the bar of what is corruption so high that you almost literally have to be like taking the gold bar and saying, I will exchange, do these favors for you. So that's how

Bob McDonald got out of his problems. He was convicted in the Supreme Court and said, no, we don't think that this is actually corruption. And there was a similar thing of, he also kind of threw his wife under the bus there a little bit. It was sort of like, oh, she wants to live the high life. We couldn't afford it. Anyway, yeah. Anyway, the Supreme Court has made it very difficult to actually, you know, to secure these convictions and find them guilty. So we'll see how this all unfolds. But it's not a done deal. Maybe his little gambit here is going to work out disgustingly. All right. So we have a little bit of a look at who some of the Trump jurors are. And, you know,

I first of all, I want to make sure we're staying on top of these cases because I do think that they're very politically significant. Obviously, they're important to, you know, I first of all, I want to make sure we're staying on top of these cases, because I do think that they're very politically significant. Obviously, they're important to, you know, the American people, regardless of how you feel about them. And also because it's just wild to imagine trying to be unbiased with regard to Donald Trump, like literally anybody, because he has single handedly, you know, one of the things that he has done to this country, which is honestly terrible, he's made politics and culture like the same. So one of the things that I immediately noted, I lived in Kentucky at the time when he was elected, is the like swim team moms and soccer moms that I was around who used to never want to talk politics, where it was like, you know, if I even brought up I was doing anything in politics, they got kind of like quiet. Now, suddenly, this was what everybody wanted to talk about. And everybody had an opinion about Donald Trump, pro, con, whatever. So it's very difficult to imagine assembling an

actually unbiased jury. Although I do think people genuinely, you know, having, I served on a grand jury when I was actually lived in New York. It was an interesting experience. And my experience was that the people that were there were genuinely trying to take their civic duty seriously and do the best that they possibly could. So I do want to say that, but just to give you a sense of how difficult it is to find these individuals. The media interviewed a potential juror who had said, I think I could be unbiased. Now, she's not on the jury because of a scheduling conflict. But take a listen to how she described her feelings about Donald Trump. Can you share your opinion of the former

president and why you felt that you could be unbiased? I'm not a fan. During COVID-19, I lived with someone who was immunocompromised, and I think his handling of COVID-19 was abysmal. I also have a sister who was adopted from China, and the comments he made about China when he was running for president made her very anxious and therefore made me angry. There are policies he has supported that regard women and reproductive health that I do not agree with. And I think all of that needs to be addressed. So, you know, like she's clear with that opinion. People are dragging her. I don't know.

I mean, listen, you're not going to find, she's being honest. You're not going to find a single person. But she wasn't, she's honest on the camera. She's not honest in the ballot or wherever, in the jury, whatever it's called. You've been through this. I haven't been. Yeah. She said she was unbiased whenever she was asked by the

court. It's only after she's dismissed that she's like, no, I can't stand like 12 different things that he did. I mean, but listen, she could make the argument like, but that has nothing to do with the specific case, right? Because everyone is going to have something he did. They like, they don't like his personnel, whatever. Like every person who is on this jury that's claiming they're wholly and completely unbiased like there's no way there's no way you don't have some prior opinion about him the best you can do is try to put that aside and just look at the specifics of the case the other thing that was kind of funny that unfolded in the courtroom is to try you know the judge trying to get at like all right who is really

the most unbiased and what is your social media presence look like? They were reading all of these like posts that had been made by some of the prospective jurors about Trump. And here's one snippet of an exchange where we can put this up on the screen. So they're asking this perspective juror, you know, about his social media. What do you think? What do you do? And they say, well, how about you start to use any websites or any Facebook? And the prospective juror says, well, I'm a repost king.

I love that. So I'll see something that I thought was interesting and I'll repost it. I do the Google thing and YouTube. I can control what I watch and I can look at the thumbnails and decide if I'm going to watch it or not. And they reply, that makes sense. And then continue on. But there was a lot of this going on and digging and say, listen, this can't possibly be an unbiased jury. Although I will say on the other side of things, people were noting there were two lawyers who have already been picked. The jury hasn't been fully filled on. I think they have seven jurors. And by the way, they're in court today, again, trying to complete this jury selection process. They picked two lawyers. And there were some analysts who were saying that might actually

be a good thing for Trump because they are more skilled at like looking at the specifics of the case or considering these potential technicalities. So I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just telling you what some analysts were saying about some of these potential jurors. In any case, Jesse Waters was going through the list and not liking what he was finding about these individuals based on the characteristics that were described. Let's take a listen to a snippet of that. A nurse from the Upper East Side with a master's degree.

She's not married, has no kids and lives with her fiance who works in finance. She gets her news from the New York Times, Google and CNN. She said two things that really stuck out. One, quote, I don't really have an opinion of Trump. And, quote, no one is above the law. I'm not so sure about Jera number two. So apparently saying no one is above the law is disqualifying potentially Jesse Waters. It's one of those liberal shibboleths, right? So it's like one of those things when it's like when, you know, when people like chant Israel has a right to defend itself.

Yeah. It's not like bad per se. But whenever you hear someone say that, you're like, I do actually know a lot. It's liberal coded. Yeah, it's liberal coded. Like no one is above the law. It's like chanting that, you know, to the end of time. It's also funny that that would be something that becomes liberal coded.

Sure, yeah. You know, you're supposed to be the law and order people over there. I see it both ways. As I was showing you, one of the jurors actually just dropped out because she said, she was like, you know what, screw this. Publicly available details of her bio had apparently informed family and friends that she was on the jury. She said, I don't want to deal with this. I actually wonder if it was this person. I mean, it's very, you got, you know, one in seven chance and it's a woman that dropped out. So it's actually an even, you know, more

likely. So it is possible. And I was thinking about that. I mean, if you are on this jury, you are signing up to be a public figure, to be smeared, be attacked. I feel for them. It's not a job that you should sign up for lightly. We do have some of those details. Oh, it was the nurse, Crystal. It was her. Yeah, it just came out. It was the oncology nurse.

That was it. Wow. Wow, just got the news. Wow. Okay. Well, no one's above the law. I guess that's what did her in. So last, we've got this tear sheet of who

the first seven jurors, now six, were four male, three females, now two females. Some of the details here that I found interesting, just to give you a sense of who these people are, because I do think it's kind of interesting. You've got juror number one is a middle-aged salesman from Ireland. He's going to be the case's foreman, lives in West Harlem, said he normally gets his news from, listen to this list, New York Times, Daily Mail, Fox News, and MSNBC. Wow. That's a rare one. That's, yeah. That's a rare one. Well-rounded person. He says in his spare time he enjoys doing anything outdoorsy, once worked as a waiter but has worked in sales for the last three decades. When asked if he was aware of Trump's other criminal cases, he responded, I've heard of some of them.

And if you go down the list, you've got a mixed bag in terms of the news sources. And most of them are sort of claiming like, I don't really follow the news that closely. Some of them even express embarrassment that they don't know more of the details of the case, which I find believable. People are busy living their lives. You can certainly find some jurors who are just not following things closely. That's probably your best bet in terms of finding an actually,

like, quote unquote, unbiased jury. I was gonna say, if I'm Trump, you know who I want? I want people who don't read the news. I want people who are actually the least informed because they will not have preconceived opinions. I want people who watch TV, go to the game, care about sports, living their lives, and I want them to be able to come in with a relatively open sight.

So you could say, yeah, I think something about Trump, you know, based on whatever. Like, you know, I vote every once in a while. My uncle votes. He tells me. That's what I want. People who are hardcore ideological and almost, like, too informed to a certain extent, in a certain way, like you're going to have very, very well-founded opinions about this, which are you're not going to be able to be unbiased whenever you come to the jury box. So if I was Trump, I actually think

things are going in a direction which may be better for him. That's really his only prayer. Let me give you a little bit about juror number four, because I thought this one was interesting. He said he finds the former president to be, because I thought this one was interesting. He said he finds the former president to be, quote, fascinating and mysterious. True. He walks into a room. He sets people off one way or another, the juror said.

I find that really interesting. Really? This one guy can do all of this? Wow. That's what I think. He's originally from Puerto Rico. He's lived in the Lower East Side for the last four years. Self-employed IT consultant.

He's attended one year of college. Been married for a long time. Two grandkids. He says, quote, I have no spare time when answering the questionnaire. My hobby is my family. So previously served on a jury trial, but it was a long time ago, normally gets his news from Daily News, New York Times, and Google. A lot of them saying they get their news from Google. What does that mean? I think they mean Google News. That's my, like, that's got to be it, right? Like a Google News reader or something like that. Yeah. Listen, I don't know what that's really doing. They like automatically serve you. It's like that Apple News crap that you get on your phone. Apple News. I've deleted that a long time ago. I don't use any of that. But yeah, I think a lot of people use- The things that serve me are insulting sometimes.

Yeah, horrible. I don't even know. It's like pop culture crap or whatever. So in my experience, the way that a lot of normal people engage with the news is exactly like you said, Apple News, Newsreader, something like that. iPads are usually involved. Numbers love their iPads. I don't understand it. I will never understand the iPad thing, but they love to read news on their iPad, specifically in the Apple News app. So I guess they're being well-informed. Very true. But you know what?

Sometimes my mom will get one of those Apple News alerts and she'll bring up something to me that I had missed. So now that she's retired, she's been helping me with my news sources. I mean, that's good. So anyway,

good luck and Godspeed to these jurors because I don't envy them. This task and every word that they utter, everything they've done in their life is about to be scrutinized and used against them. I would absolutely not do it. But anyway. All right. We will see you guys later.

Thank you guys so much for watching. We had a guest, but unfortunately it didn't work out. We are working on rescheduling them. Really appreciate everybody who watched the show today, who supports us, who watched. Check out the debate. We'll post it later, maybe tomorrow or something like that, on our podcast feed. And if you can help us out, breakingpoints.com. We'll see you later. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time,

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