Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/23/24: ADL Says Military Should Break Columbia Protests, MSNBC Meltdown Over Gaza Protests, Trump Rages After Trial Day One, RFK Defeats Ballot Challenge, Biden Says Uncle Cannibalized In WW2, Mass Graves In Gaza, Former IDF Goes Berserk On Krystal In Piers Morgan Debate

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss the ADL calling for the National Guard to crackdown on Columbia protesters, media smears Gaza protests as antisemitic, David Pecker first witness in Trump trial, RFK Jr's family endorses Biden, Biden tells bizarre story of his uncle being cannibalized, Israel military intel chief resigns, mass graves uncovered in Gaza, no evidence for UNRWA allegations, Krystal debates college protests on Piers Morgan.   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. is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone

breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I also want to address the Tonys. On a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams, I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I? I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace, listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network 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 Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots to get to this morning. First of all, a nationwide freakout over campus protests. NYU going so far as to arrest their own faculty. We have those images for you. We also have the president making some somewhat confusing muddled comments, as is his want, so we'll play that for you as well. We also have a recap of the first day of the Trump trial, opening statements, plus a little bit from the prosecution's first witness that would be tabloid, what's the tabloid owner,

is that what we call him? David Pecker? Let's go with that. Anyway, National Enquirer dude, David Pecker, so interesting stuff to get into there. We also have new poll with some interesting data on RFK Jr. and who he may help, hurt, etc. This comes as he gains ballot access in a number of new states. So lots of updates for you there as well. We've got Biden sparking a genuine diplomatic crisis over his fake cannibalism claims. So break that down for you.

Got a new poll showing how young people feel about the country, about Joe Biden, et cetera, with a lot of interesting numbers as well. A new report suggests that Israel had planned a much larger attack on Iran. Is that true? Break that down for you. We also have new revelations, horrifying, of mass graves in communists with hundreds of bodies. I also went on Piers Morgan's show yesterday, and it was quite an experience. So I'll show you the highlights. We'll recap it. We'll recap it a little bit for what our people need to see. I just want to say I'm really grateful for this program. Really grateful to get to do this show every day. So we'll just, we'll save the rest of the commentary for that segment. Incredible. Okay. Before we get to any of that, as we teased, Ryan and Emily are going

to have a very big announcement soon. So if you want to hear first what it is and get access to whatever new content may be coming your way, breakingpoints.com, you can become a subscriber, support all of the work that we're doing here. We have a couple other things in the pipeline that I think everyone is going to be really excited about. So sign up, breakingpoints.com, become a premium subscriber today. Okay. So let's talk about these campus protests in particular. This is pro-Palestine, pro-ceasefire protests, which have broken down across the country. Columbia University has become a real focus for a variety of reasons. Their president testifying last week in front of that anti-Semitism panel on the Hill.

Then following that, she immediately called the NYPD in to arrest 100 students, kick them off of the university property. That sparked a massive backlash. We talked about that yesterday with Prem Thakur. And not only a backlash at Columbia University, we can go ahead and put this up on the screen because these are some scenes from Columbia University where you have a huge number of faculty joining the students in solidarity and in an attempt to protect them from further arrests or other disciplinary actions. But you can see that this movement has not only spread at Columbia, but really, truly nationwide. We have a sampling here of some of these schools.

You've got University of Michigan, NYU, MIT, Vanderbilt, USC, where they have also started not just protest movements, but specifically these Gaza solidarity encampments. There are more, actually. I kept seeing more and more reports of additional schools. I know University of Maryland near here is planning one as well. This is a map of where some of the actions have sprung up. These specifically are solidarity camps calling for their schools to divest from anything connected to Israel. Let's put the next piece up on the screen. This is a truly extraordinary scene. What you're looking at here is police who were called in to arrest faculty at New York University who had come in in solidarity again with their students and were, you know, standing

at a chain attempting to protect those students. So NYU calling the cops on their own faculty in that video, by the way, courtesy of Katie Smith, you could see that up there in the corner. I want to make sure to give credit there. Wild situation unfolding. Of course, the claim is that these protests are anti-Semitic, that they're violent. I would just reiterate something I said yesterday, which is that the NYPD themselves, when brought in to clear out and arrest the 100 students that they did the other day, even the NYPD said it was 100% nonviolent. So that's the reality of what's going on. Joe Biden was asked about this.

Of course, the White House has put out this statement condemning these protests as anti-Semitic. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. And the anti-Semitic protests on college campuses. I condemn the anti-Semitic protests. That's why I've set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians and how they're being- Should the Columbia University president resign? Right this way. I didn't know that. I'll have to find out more about it. Oh, sorry. What? What you've got there, it says, I condemn anything that's anti-Semitic. That's why we've set up a program to deal with that. I don't know what that is about. And then he says, I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians and how they've been.

And then he just sort of trails off. Some might call it a very fine people on both sides moment. I think it's amusing from Biden because I don't even really know what he's trying to get across. I don't either. It's like, okay, got it. Your White House put out a statement on this, other than that. I will reiterate what you said. It also is incredibly difficult, and this was a huge, deep frustration with the media. Somebody texted me yesterday, go, hey, what are these protests about?

And I said, you know what, let me get back to you because I wasn't 100% sure whether it was ceasefire or not. So I went back and I traced the entire thing from Columbia. Columbia University president is before Congress on Wednesday. The encampments start on Wednesday. The encampment demand is a BDS, specifically divestment of Columbia University endowment funds that are linked to Israel. Same now with many of these other encampments.

So there is a misconception going on as to what exactly sparked this and what the specific demand or whatever the protesters was. From that point forward, NYPD was called in. This is another key part. Columbia University is a private property. NYPD has to be invited onto campus by the university to clear out the encampment. Columbia University claimed that they were disrupting classes. So they come

in and they have NYPD arrest some 100 odd students. This sparks a huge backlash, not only of hundreds now students and others who have taken to the quad, that major area in Columbia University, and now faculty members that have also joined much of that as well, which has spread out much of this part of the BDS movement. So anyway, what I wanted to say was it's important to understand, as I have not been able to see, if you just read the news, quote-unquote, you won't actually see why any of this really began in the first place, and it is a step-by- step by step really of escalation.

Now, as I said as well previously, what you noted, are there quote unquote anti-Semitic incidents? There have been videos certainly that have been circulating. Again, I'm not necessarily some leftist Free Palestine, Kefia person. So I go and I look. And from what I have been able to find, the organizers and all themselves have been doing something that many blm people never did is they have been setting out lots of ground rules and they're like we are not violent we are not participating in violence we do not want any of this anti-semitism if you're chanting things like this making people feel unsafe don't don't join us there's a lot of internal enforcement going on inside some of these protests at least from what i've been able to see so far.

I think that's frankly a very wise decision on their part since they already know that the deck is generally stacked against them. But nonetheless, nonetheless, it has invited now a massive call for intervention on these campuses including calling in the National Guard far beyond much of the NYPD. I mean, you've seen large Columbia donors, and we're about to get to this, basically call for a mass expulsion of every single student and faculty that has participated in this protest. Donors are calling in.

So I have no expectations that Columbia will quote unquote hold the line because these people, it's a business, okay? And when you've got Robert Kraft, who's got his name on a building there, and you've got all these billionaire donors at NYU, who do you think is paying those bills? And those folks, they will stand for a lot. They will not stand for anything that has any criticism of Israel. So just to elaborate on some of what you said there, Sagar,

because there are a lot of things being conflated here. Listen, guys, it's no revelation that, number one, anti-Semitism is real. It exists. It's abhorrent. There's no excuse for it. It, you know, I'm not here to deny the reality of anti-Semitism. That's number one.

Number two, is it a surprise that there are some assholes associated with a protest movement? No, this is not a surprise, okay? If you were going to try to shut down every single protest that had an asshole associated with a protest. No, this is not a surprise. OK, if you were going to try to shut down every single protest that had an asshole associated with it, there would be no protest. OK, number three, many of the incidents, purported incidents that have gone viral have not even happened on a college campus, specifically with regards to Columbia actually used to live right by Columbia and Columbia's right in the middle of Northern Manhattan.

And, you know, you step off the campus and you're in New York City. And so literally every incident I've seen that could be colorably described as anti-Semitic or, you know, aggressive or violent in any fashion has happened off the campus. So to blame the student protesters who are there

peacefully and crack down on them and smear them all as anti-Semites, or as one of their professors did, and we're going to show you this in a minute, as terrorists, it's outrageous. It's frankly outrageous. And you know, it's a trick. Like we've seen this with various protest movements in the past. It's an easy thing to do. You find like the worst actor in the protest movement, you hold them up, the video goes viral, and you use that to try to delegitimize the entire thing. That's what's going on here. And then the other thing that's being conflated is the same discourse about the rally chants and whether, you know, from the river to the sea means genocide. And listen, I'm not here to tell you what you should or shouldn't be offended by. If you're offended by

that, okay, you can be offended by that. Now, I think if you talk to these students, they'll tell you, no, what we mean is equal rights for all, for Palestinians and Israelis. That's what our call is for. But listen, if you're offended, that's your right. But guess what? Free speech is also about protecting. In fact, it's primarily about protecting speech that could be offensive or uncomfortable. So, you know, the whole free speech crowd, all the free speech bros out there who were, you know, when it was the right and there was speech that was offensive coming from the right, they were all for it and they were all against the campus censorship, etc. Now I can't tell you how many times I've heard these words.

I'm all for free speech, but, oh, well, the but means you're not for free speech. That's what that means. So listen, some of the rally chants, like they wouldn't be what I would say. It wouldn't be what I would choose. I can understand why people may say, hey, I don't like that. But guess what? That is free speech. One more thing I'll say about this and then go on to the next part of the just absolutely unhinged reaction that is happening right now. And very intentionally so because, you know, the Israel no matter what side has like basically lost the debate. If you look at popular opinion, especially if you look at the Democratic Party, especially if you look at young people. So this is an attempt not only to delegitimize, but also to distract. But with regard to Columbia University itself, it is a private university.

They can make whatever rules they want to make. I'm not saying they can't do it. It's a question of what they should do. And the, you know, the claims about safety of Jewish students, et cetera, are really belied by the fact that there are, you know, uncomfortably for the people who want to smear this whole movement as anti-Semitic. There are many Jewish students who are at the core of these protests, who are organizing these protests, who are out there with signs that say Jews for Palestine. In fact, one of the groups that was blanket banned very quickly after October 7th from Columbia University was Jewish Voices for Peace. So why are you shutting down Jewish how is that not anti-Semitic if we're going to play that particular game? So let me move on to

some of the more unhinged reaction. Characteristically, you've got the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt weighing in, calling for the National Guard to come in and crack down on Columbia University students. Take a listen. Jewish students don't feel safe on campus because they are not. And we need President Shafiq to do three things. Number one, we need NYPD back on this campus or bring in the National Guard. Number two, no masks on campus. This isn't Fallujah. This is Morningside Heights. And number three, the students who behave in this way need to be suspended immediately.

So, by the way, many students have been suspended. Many students were arrested by the NYPD. And Sagar, obviously, I mean, listen, the calls from the National Guard are so deranged that I can't even wrap my head around it. They're peacefully protesting. OK, now you may talk about things happening off campus. That's a different story. It's a little messier. But in terms of the college campus protests,

you're talking about bringing in the national, what are you, inviting another Kent State? It's insane. Yeah, their allegation is this is some like Title IX violation of the civil rights of many of the Jewish students on campus. Now, look, again, you actually said something important. Columbia is a private university, and they can do whatever they want. I do think, though, at a core of this, and this is going to be difficult for those of us who haven't ever seen elite circles. I didn't go to an Ivy League school or anything. I know many people who do. They have

a religious attachment to these places, which is difficult for me to describe. And for them, this is personal because they're like, this is my space. This is the place that I control. This is the place where we have, you know, I spent so many of my fond memories. And this is where Robert Kraft has donated his thing. And there's the Hillel Center. And we've spent all this time on this. So for them, it drives them nuts that they don't have control over campus discourse in

a way that they haven't now in quite a long time. And I actually think the perfect example of this is a Columbia University professor who has gone very viral, I guess it's fair to say. He's made himself a main character. He has made himself a main character. Absolutely. Okay. So how do we say this gentleman's name? Because he's upset. Where are we going with? Shai Divadai. Shai Divadai. Okay. So Shai Divadai is a Jewish-Israeli professor, has been really making himself a main character on campus, filming protests, calling him a terrorist, saying that they're anti-Semitic. He joined an Israeli news outlet, I-24, recently,

specifically to say that the students themselves are terrorists. Not terrorists, even supporters, as many people will say, but actual terrorists themselves. Let's take a listen. This is an important topic. This is not just about Colombia. This is every U.S. college. They have said that they are going to bring down Colombia first, and then as a domino effect, we'll have all other universities. But I want to make clear one thing before I talk about my own actions. What we're seeing now at Columbia, and I don't use this word lightly, we're not seeing ideological war. We're not seeing support for terrorism. We are seeing terrorism. Last night, we had at Columbia a protester, one of the protesters in the student mob, holding a sign calling the Al-Qassam Brigade, the Hamas military wing, to kill Jewish students with an arrow pointing at the Jewish students that were standing there, right? We are seeing Hamas on campus. And this

makes President Minouche Shafiq a Hamas supporter. Every minute that she does not call, let in the NYPD, because she's not letting them in. That's why you see the NYPD outside and the terrorists inside. Well, Shai, I hate to break it to you. I know that in your country, Israel, that signs may be considered terrorism. In this country, the United States, that is not considered terrorism. That's actually free speech and it does not ever cross into the realm of violence. And this is very difficult to say, you know, and remain calm, but I cannot tell you how disgusting it is to me personally to see this person who is, as far as I know, not a US citizen.

And if he is, I know he calls himself a Jewish Israeli. So I'm just going to say that. Come to here, then try to police the speech of, and basically call in the National Guard, our military, to go after protesters who he doesn't like. Again, that's perfectly fine in your country, Israel. It is not fine over here. It doesn't cross into the line of violence. And this is part of the other problem that I have with all of this is that the escalation of rhetoric belies reality. It's like, listen, we're not in, what is it, July of 2020. There is not widespread looting and chaos in the streets. Again, in Columbia University, a private Ivy League, which that's part of the other thing. That's the only reason this thing is getting so

much attention. It's because all these media elites and all these other people live in New York City. And again, to them, this is like hallowed special ground. So it really, really bothers me and it drives me crazy to see some of the ratcheting up of this and the wholesale embrace of at least a segment of a lot of the American right who are just, you know, adopting all of the safe space language. I saw there's a woman named Campbell Brown. She used to work over at CNN. Then she was a Facebook executive and head of news partnerships there.

And she tweeted recently, she said, I am heading with my two sons to Israel where they will be safer than on the West side of New York. And I'm like, it's like a meme. It's like heading into an active war zone because on a university campus in a contained protest zone or whatever, some people are chanting things I don't like and I could be five blocks away and I wouldn't know anything about it. Like how stupid do you have to be to believe something like that? It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. Words are not literally violence. Yes, I agree. Yeah. Part of becoming a grownup is dealing with hearing things that you may find to be abhorrent, disgusting. Again,

that's your right. But to pretend like, and especially, I mean, this is part of why it's so disgusting. Like you can't take it out of the context that these students are protesting what they and a majority of young people and a majority of Biden voters and and the ICJ says it's plausible, and the U.S. again says there are reasonable grounds, say is a genocide. Okay? Look at the Gaza Strip. Look at the devastation. We're going to show you here in a couple minutes. Mass grave of hundreds of people, children starving to death under a collective punishment and a siege. Okay. You want to talk about safety in higher education? Every single university in the Gaza Strip has been systematically demolished. And I use that word very intentionally because at least one of them, they did a controlled detonation. They went in, they set the charges. It's not like this was in some battle with Hamas.

They intentionally set the charges and blew up a university. Okay. So to, to put that up against, like, I heard a rally chant that I don't like, get out. Like, what are we doing here? And that's why this conversation to me just makes me so incredibly insane. Now with with regard to Shai, again, it's a free country. He can say what he wants, right? But somehow the standard he holds of, I don't want to hear a rally chant, I don't like because, you know, these people are terrorists and they're violent, et cetera, et cetera, is not applied to him. I mean, for you to be a university professor, these are your students. They're in some ways in your care while they're there at that institution and you're smearing them as terrorists. I saw somebody who tweeted out like, can someone tell me what the body count is at Columbia? How many people have died? How many

casualties? And it's a joke because obviously the answer is zero. So you're rendering these words utterly meaningless. You're rendering the word anti-Semitic utterly meaningless. Now it just means like having a political view that you don't like. You're rendering the word now terrorist utterly meaningless because again, now it just applies to as somebody has an ideology that I don't like. And this man, this grown man pitched such a fit when some of the actions that he has celebrated and demanded more of when applied to students were also applied to him. He had his university access to one part of campus revoked and people caught it on camera. And I mean, the fit that he threw, he feels he should,

even as he's calling students terrorists, he feels he should be, you know, have full rights to campus, but not the people who he disagrees with. So it's so incredibly selective. And just to show you also, and this to me is so outrageous. So the official government of Israel Twitter account picked up and reiterated his charge that American students at Columbia University and other places are terrorists.

Put this up on the screen. This is outrageous. So he had tweeted out, this is what's happening at Columbia right now. I know it's confusing. So let me spell it out for you. A, terrorism is an ideology. B, they are openly supporting terror. C, they are terrorists.

Terrorists have taken over Columbia University. The government needs to take over Columbia. Now think about that in the context of the number of right-wingers who are celebrating a government takeover, demanding a government takeover of National Guard to come in to censor students. Okay, put that aside. This is important. Repost if you agree.

The government of Israel takes him up on that repost if you agree call and reiterates his terrorism as an ideology. They're openly supporting terror. They are terrorists. The government of Israel calling American students protesting on campus, exercising their First Amendment free speech rights, terrorists. It is so despicable. It is so disgusting. Yeah. And what it again illustrates is that Israel, a nation which just the other day, President Herzog, their president, came out and said, Americans should stay out of Israeli politics. I was like, yeah, I agree. I agree with you. That's why we shouldn't pay you at all. But why don't you stay out of ours? As they got their hand out for more weapons,

more billions. I will take that trade any day you guys want, but then you got to stay out of our politics. Oh, but on that one, it doesn't really matter as much. And it's like, that is what actually, again, just bugs the crap out of me about this. I mean, what they, the problem too, is what people never learn is that if you're going to, you know, try and put down the boot or that you better go all out because if you don't, you know what's going to happen. You're going to have a widespread reaction. And sure enough, it's already happening. Let's put this up there on the screen. Just yesterday, we saw Yale University students who were arrested at their protest, again, over a BDS investment in arms manufacturing.

You've got multiple other campuses now where you see similar things that are beginning to break out. And I actually, I will say this too, I think it's a very smart strategy on part of these students because here's the other thing, you know, these traffic people and all that, we've had our debate. I think it's idiotic, stupid, counterproductive, and obviously they're also just going to get arrested in the first place. But if you're on a university quad, there is no actual plausible way that you could say you're really affecting a lot of other people when you're on university, private property. Maybe public universities can be different because then you're, I think technically in terms of how the law and all that. But for Columbia University, for any of these other places, especially if you are, again, an active student there and you have certain privileges

of what you're allowed and allowed not to exercise, especially whenever it comes to First Amendment rights, it's going to be a lot more difficult for people to go after them. So anyways, I think what we are going to see is there's a couple of options, which is people could try and, quote unquote, de-escalate. I don't really see that as possibility. All of the money and institutional pressure is one way, which is on a crackdown. I think what is going to happen is that Columbia, no university can withstand its multi-billionaire donors and entire alumni base freaking out at them on a consistent basis. Look at how every single one of those Ivy League universities, you know, fired their presidents or whatever for saying that the genocide against,

calling for the genocide against Jews is not a violation of the student, whatever, harassment policy. They all caved, right? They actually created more speech codes on campus. So I believe that the net effect is that there will be a epic crackdown and it is going to come soon. I just don't see how it could possibly turn out otherwise. Well, and I think we've already seen the results of the first waves of crackdowns. I mean, we've now had arrests on multiple college campuses, including faculty members at NYU,

and it has only sparked a wider movement. I mean, it's poured gasoline on the fire because other students who, and by the way, sentiment on Columbia University, I saw some polling the other day, it's overwhelmingly in favor of what these protesters support. So this, the attempt to crack down the arrests, the media coverage, all of this has only allowed the movement to grow. So, you know, that's not the thing that's crazy to me is like they're acting like the Columbia University president is some great friend of these protesters and just like allowing them to run wild. She suspended a whole

bunch of them. She called in the NYPD, who again was like, these people are all 100 percent peaceful. The NYPD said that to arrest 100 of them. It's not like there's been kid gloves here. Okay. So and what happened when she attempted that, you know, hard fisted crackdown is a huge backlash that just spawned even greater protests, not only at Columbia, but even further. I'm not going to claim that this isn't going to have a negative impact on the movement because some people will see the clips on a contest, they'll see the media freak out, and they'll be persuaded that, you know, some number of these students or all of these students or whatever are motivated by hatred of Jews in spite of the fact, again, that there are so many

Jewish students who are involved with or actively organizing these protests. It just makes me absolutely crazy. But in terms of, you know, the size of the protest movement, I think we're only seeing it grow and expand the more that they try to arrest, crack down, suspend, etc. 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 think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes.

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

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

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Speaking of the media piece, we've got a little compilation for you of the way the media has bought into this, the protester anti-Semitic line, hook, line, and sinker.

Let's take a listen to a little bit of that. By the way, there are both professors and students within the university who say things that I think cross the line. And there should be accountability. I believe in free speech. Say whatever you want, but pay the consequences and don't have your face covered. I don't think that should be allowed. These are not protesters. These are violent hate mongers. The things that are coming out

of their mouth, burn down Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv genocide. October 7th, we did it once. We'll do it 10 times. We'll do it 100 times. We'll do it 1,000 times. We'll do it 10,000 times. This is an atrocity. And I'm going to say the quadruped out loud if there was any group spewing hate and violence against any other group asians blacks hispanics gays it would be shut down and this needs to be shut down immediately because and once again those groups are back those tents are back up and this cannot go unanswered it's very simple and you know there's a continuum of protesters there's a heinous anti-violent ones that spewing hatred, spewing death, if you will. And then there's the less malignant that say ceasefire.

But even ceasefire doesn't have the word peace in it. Never do you hear the word peace because this side doesn't want peace. It wants a jihad. And this is not pro-Palestinian. This is anti-Israel. And anti-Israel is a misnomer because it's really anti-Jew. And this is not pro-Palestinian. This is anti-Israel. And anti-Israel is a misnomer because it's really anti-Jew. And I'll even go further. It's not almost anti-Semitism. It is anti-Semitism. And this is something that is on display right now.

But the roots of this kind of devolving from A to B go back millennia. And this is something, the roots of anti-Semitism that pop up in societies that frankly tend to be a canary in the coal mine for a society and democracy in this case that is in a lot of trouble. I like to look at this and replace Jews with any other minority group here. And what would the entire country be doing? They would be outraged, rightly so. So obviously, as you note, protest is an important part of being an American. Free speech is an important part of being an American. Where is the line?

For example, I've seen video of somebody at the Gaza encampment at Columbia standing up and talking about how great October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel was and calling the Hamas terrorists, calling them freedom fighters. Is that hate speech or is that protected free speech? Where do you come down on that? And that is, believe it or not, as as vile as it could be, because Hamas should be destroyed from the actions they did on October 7th and other actions. But that does not fall into a crime. If someone makes a comment that they want to join a terrorist organization, that's going to come under investigation. But the commissioner of legal matters at the New York City Police Department is going to really break this down for New Yorkers. Oh, my God.

There's a lot going on there, isn't there? At least Eric Adams had to inform Jake Tapper like, yeah, that's actually not illegal. Well, what did he say? He said, like, it may not believe him. You may not believe it, but actually people can say things even that are offensive. Like, yeah, you're a journalist, Jake Tapper. You don't know the basics of the frickin First Amendment. Listen, even if you say something incredibly offensive, incredibly racist, like horrific.

I know the clip he's talking about too, which he mischaracterizes. But anyway, put that aside, even if it's as represented, it's not even a borderline case. It's not close. I just, listen, Donnie Deutsch in there, his was probably the worst. It's an atrocity, a rally chant that you don't like calling for ceasefire. It's an atrocity, he says, because it doesn't have the word peace in it. Are you? I just and the erasure, the erasure of all of the Jewish students who are involved here just makes me insane because they keep conflating. They accuse these protesters of doing it,

but they're the ones doing it. Conflating all Jewish people with the state of Israel and the government of Israel and their actions. That is actually anti-Semitic, okay? Especially when you have many, especially young Jewish Americans who are appalled by the actions of this government. And you want to associate them with a government that, again, is plausibly committing a genocide in Gaza Strip? And what impact do you think that's going to have if you force every Jewish person to be conflated with the state of Israel? That is not condoning, but predictably going to lead to a rise in anti-Semitism. It just makes me so insane.

And then Robert Kraft there at the beginning, you mentioned him before. That's probably the most consequential comments that we played. Here's a billionaire donor, very influential in Republican political circles in particular, but political circles in general. Very influential at Columbia University because he's given oodles of money, I don't know how much, to the school, saying he's pulling his donations. And he believes in free speech, but not when he disagrees with it. Then he doesn't believe in free speech. Part of what bugs me about a lot of this analysis is it presumes that it's also okay. I mean, look, maybe it's controversial, but even if white supremacists were on campus,

as long as they're not hurting anybody, it is free speech. I support it. I do too. Unite the right thing being, you know, permit being issued. It was very controversial. ACLU sort of like tore each other apart. But that is like, that is the foundation. It's even things that are blatantly wrong, racist, anti-Semitic, like even if they were, and that's a mischaracterization of what's going on here. That's when the first amendment actually becomes important. When it's things that people agree with and are comfortable with, then you don't need it. They're like, well, if they were saying the same thing about Jews or, or yeah, about Asians or blacks, I'm like, well, you know, I'm South Asian, right. Or Indian, I guess South Asian is a controversial term.

Here's a good example. If there was a, there's like Sikh separatists who are really big in America and this drives Indian people absolutely crazy, right? Especially the Indian government. And if there was a Sikh protest, whenever I was going to college, you know what I would do? I would walk past and I would go to the library and live my life because I'd be like, first of all, I'm born here. I'm not from India. Second of all, I don't give a shit about Sikh separatists. But that's, you know, I guess more personal to me. Let's like turn up the let's turn it up even more. Let's say that there is a anti what like there's a whole thing going on right now with a title nine or whatever with women's sports and trans and all that. And

there's even college athletes that have been speaking out against that. If there was a pro keep women and women's sports rally on campus, I'd be like, yeah, absolutely. You have to support it. And I have no doubt also that all of these other people would certainly also, they would call for a crackdown there and they would think that that is correct. So that's another thing where we have to not buy Dana Bash and a lot of the media framing here, which is like, imagine if, and RF RFK Jr said this too, whenever he was here, we were talking about the university presidents and he's like, imagine if they'd said that about blacks and be like, well, okay. I mean, it's free country, you know, don't necessarily agree with it, but Hey, like you

gotta be allowed to be able to say whatever you want. Let's not pretend like there aren't actual neo-Nazi protests that happen. They're like sort of pathetic. You know, there were some that happened like in Florida. They're pathetic and people find them disgusting. But the White House isn't putting on a statement on them. So I actually think it's not that should either. Yeah, no, I think it's the polar opposite. Actually, I think there's much more of a reaction to people, you know, calling for divestment and rally. Listen, again, if you don't like the rally chance, that's fine. You can be offended by the rally chance, but you're not.

It's not violence. It's not doesn't deserve the National Guard coming in and a crack. It's not an atrocity. You want to see an atrocity. Look at anything coming out of the Gaza Strip every single day if you want to know what an actual atrocity is. So since we aren't at Columbia, and neither are any of those idiots that we just showed you opining on what's happening there, thought we would bring you a thread of someone who actually was on the Columbia campus talking about what they witnessed. So we can sort a little bit of fact from fiction here on what's actually going on. Let's put this up on the screen. So this is Alejandra Ramos. She actually works for the Today Show. She says, listen, my usual TV beat is food, but I'm also a current Columbia student and I'm so sad and so frustrated

with the way student protests on our campus are being reported. This will be imperfect, but I can't watch things that are so contrary to what I've actually seen and stay silent. Go ahead to the next one. I'm concerned by the reports broadcasting from outside our campus gates with footage shot almost entirely off campus. Look closely at the videos. If there are stores, subway stops, closed gates in the background, et cetera,

this is not an on-campus protest. This context matters. Continuing to the next one. Campus access is limited to those of us with Columbia IDs. The protesters on sidewalks, peaceful or otherwise, are mostly those who are not allowed to enter. Vile agitators screaming at students from outside campus are not Columbia students, and this must be made clear in reports. Continue on. Reports that only show Zoom interviews with students sharing one perspective feel irresponsible to me. How can you report on protests without interviewing a single protester? Why are their voices being excluded when there are so many of them willing to speak?

And of course, we all know the answer to that saga of why their voices are excluded. By the way, Emily and Ryan have an interview set for tomorrow with one of the protest organizers at Columbia, who apparently when, you know, Ryan was in touch with her, she was busy buying the items that they need for their Passover Seder dinner. So, you know, there you go. Some real anti-Semitic stuff going on there. That is, yes, agreed. I think that we should hear it out. I've done a lot of research. You know, I'm not necessarily predisposed to be like loving these people everything I have not found You know anything I find like particularly all that objectionable And if you were to take a zoomed out view of this I would I would just say like like you said if you're offended by protest chance, that's fine, you know grow up

I don't know what to tell you I live in an area where I disagree with like 95% of my neighbors and it's annoying, you know walking by those dumbass signs They're like in this house. We believe annoying, you know, walking by those dumb ass signs that are like in this house, we believe race, you know, whatever science is real, et cetera. I'm a bit bombarded with George Floyd's face for the last four years, trans flags and all this other nonsense. Do I like it? No, but you know what? I just live. That's what you do. That's like, I, that's why I don't understand why it is so difficult to, you know, live in an area like that lady, the Campbell Brown saying that she literally thinks she's safer in Israel than in the West side. And, and you know,

my other response, if you believe that, then leave, just leave. Because honestly, if you think that a country where you've evacuated like 200,000 people of your population from freaking rocket attacks, and you're in the middle of a war and you just had Iranian drones come to your soil and where they had to be shot down out of the sky by the U.S. military. If you think that is safer than the United States of America, then you honestly, you shouldn't be here. That's my actual response to those. I mean, it's so preposterous. Do you know, I also used to live on the Upper West Side. I lived in all kinds of places in Manhattan. And do you know how many like happy, successful Jewish people there are? My daughter went to the JCC preschool there. Like, it's just it's so delusional. I don't even know what to say

about it. Like, it's honestly like the desire to like this shy, diva die character, like the desire to put himself in the center of this, the quest for this intense victimhood. Again, you cannot like what they're protesting. You can find it, that's all fine, but you're a grown man. Deal, you don't have anything else more important in your life than not liking the rally chant

of these students who you're there to teach? I don't know. I don't know what to say about it. Very stupid. 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 mother. 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 think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the

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

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

us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's move on to Donald Trump. His trial, opening statements, all that stuff happened yesterday. Let's put this up on the screen. We've got a little bit of some of the synopsis here. It's the New York Times opening statements in Trump's criminal trial, five

takeaways. Let me read you a little bit of their report. Remember, there are no TV cameras allowed in the courtroom, although they are releasing full transcripts after the fact, which is appreciated. Anyway, they write, the charges faced by Mr. Trump may sound bland. Falsifying business records doesn't really set the heart racing, but the prosecution made clear on Monday it plans on painting a much broader picture. Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor, laid out in his opening statement a tale that touched on tabloid journalism, tawdry affairs, covertly recorded phone calls. Jurors will likely be told about events inside fancy hotel rooms, Trump Tower, and even the Oval Office and the stakes, the presidency.

For the defense side, Mr. Trump's lead lawyer, Todd Blanch, used his opening statement to cast Mr. Trump's actions leading to this case as run-of-the-mill business. Said Mr. Trump is defending himself at trial just as any of us would do. He argued the use of a non-disclosure agreement, the document that Stormy Daniels signed after receiving the payment, was typical among the wealthy and famous and, quote, nothing illegal. He continued there was nothing wrong with trying to influence an election, adding it's called democracy. He also, and this was notable and predicted, but aggressively attacked Mr. Cohen, Michael Cohen, former lawyer and fixer for Mr. Trump, said Mr. Cohen, who ple, former lawyer and fixer for Mr. Trump,

said Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance crimes in 2018, was a criminal who can't be trusted. Added that Stormy Daniels was biased against Mr. Trump and made a living off her story about the sexual encounter and called the heart of the prosecution case just 34 pieces of paper that don't involve Mr. Trump. So you can see the, you know, they're both trying to tell a story, right? In one story, this is an elaborate, potentially election-defining cover-up, you know, a criminal conspiracy where there was a hush money payment

that was made in, you know, under illicit circumstances and the crime they can get them on is these falsifying of business records, basically lying about what the payments were for in an attempt to hide from the American public what was going on. The other side is saying, listen, this is standard business. It was. Yeah, I was trying to win an election. That's not illegal. It's not a crime.

It's just what politicians do. Nothing to see here. It's just, you know, 34 business records. No big deal. So and then also the trying to undermine some of the key witnesses is going to be a key part of this. And, Sagar, I mentioned this yesterday when we talked about this. There's an interaction in particular between Michael Cohen and Trump that Cohen claims occurred in the White House. And part of this is how much did Trump know, how involved was he in all of this? And that's a critical piece because if it's a he said, he said,

and they can really undermine the credibility of Michael Cohen, that's obviously going to be important for their case. And obviously a lot of this also comes down to the jurors and how unbiased they can be and how they feel about Donald Trump and all of that. Huge, yeah. Up to the jurors, also up to whether we believe Michael Cohen. We're going to get to Mr. Cohen here in a little bit in terms of his own credibility. And it also comes to the felony interpretation, right, about how business records classify under U.S. law or under New York law and whether this was an intentional, like, vast criminal conspiracy in addition to election interference.

We do have some video of Trump after the courtroom where he spoke to reporters. Let's take a listen. But the point here is that the judge had no idea what was happening. And this is the same judge that two months ago made a ruling that shook the world. It shook the world because everyone knows going to that trial, I did nothing wrong. And over here, I did nothing wrong also. This is a Biden witch hunt to keep me off the campaign trail. Now, when are they going to look at Pomerantz and what Pomerantz did?

Because that's bad stuff. And when are they going to look at all the lies that Cohen did in the last trial? He got caught lying in the last trial. So he got caught lying, pure lying. And when are they going to look at that? Okay. So that's what we've got. He's going after Michael Cohen. But Michael Cohen's not doing himself any favors. We're trying to remain unbiased, is he now? Well, yesterday we reported on some liberal fan fiction. Let's just put it that way. About Trump's flatulence is farting and passing out in court, according to the Libs. Now,

the sleeping part, I think, is pretty well documented. Oh, no, the sleeping thing is definitely true. That's real. Farting part, unconfirmed, we'll say. So anyway, Cohen getting in on the Lib train with the flatulence situation. Let's put this up on the screen. He tweeted, Hey, Von Schitzenpants, your attacks of me stink of desperation. We are all hoping that you take the stand in your defense. So there you go. That's the case.

Excuse me. And when you're trying to establish your credibility. I was going to say, you're trying to establish your credibility and you are convicted liar. This is the other thing that always drives me crazy with michael cohen michael cohen was one of the most craven trump sycophants for years until trump screwed him and refused to pay his legal bills right and then he gets convicted in court okay and then he turns into some resistance liberal he met with kanye west i remember at at some point. He's just been,

you know, writing books, just on the grift train ever since he had to sign, ever since he served in federal prison. And now, the reason he's acting this way is because his income and his life depend on it, especially in the future MSNBC appearances. Just so everybody knows, what's her name? Rachel Maddow was actually in the courtroom yesterday reporting live. That makes sense. Yeah, I mean, this is her Super Bowl. This is literally her Super Bowl. Did you see the Michael Avenatti? Of course. Yeah, of course. Now he's back on Trump's side. I mean, it is, we do have to comment though on the cast of characters that Donald Trump himself has surrounded himself with, including Michael Cohen, et cetera. So, okay, let's get to who they did actually call. There was a very brief amount of time. Apparently a juror had a medical issue they had to deal with.

So they called, the prosecution called their first witness, put up, what element is that? The third one. Yeah. Put up this tear sheet from the Washington Post. Who is David Packer? First witness in Trump New York hush money case. This is the guy who was the owner or is the owner of the National Enquirer. And he, you know, he's an interesting character, actually, just to hear what he has to say separate and apart from this case is kind of kind of interesting. He talked some of some of the sort of trade secrets of the tabloid business, talking about what he calls checkbook journalism, meaning you pay for stories saying, listen, anything over 10K, they had to get official approval from me. Also saying, listen, in this business, I know that the only thing that matters is the cover. It's the front page. That's it.

That's the only thing that matters. He testified for less than 30 minutes. But, you know, this is a man. He's a former publisher, by the way, of the National Enquirer, just to get his title straight. He has a lot to say about longtime interactions with Donald Trump. And this isn't really disputed. They use this method called, quote, unquote, quote, catch and kill, where he would buy up a story that's unflattering to Trump and then he would not run it. So he did that in two instances that we know of. One with the former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who, is that right? I got her name right. No, that's right. Karen McDougal, who claimed with some evidence that she had an affair with Trump. He bought that story, didn't run it. And then this less credible and I think not true story about a doorman at Trump Tower who claimed that someone Trump had an affair with who was a mistress had had an abortion. So both of those stories he killed. The allegations are that the Stormy Daniels came to him with this story and she was asking too much money.

So rather than the National Enquirer themselves doing the catch and kill, they sent this alerted Michael Cohen. He comes into play arranging these payments, figuring out how to do it in a way that's not going to be public. And that's sort of the backstory of this whole situation. So in any case, David Pecker is an interesting character and certainly has some compelling information with regard to this case. So it's not a huge surprise that he would be the first individual to take the stand on the prosecution's behalf. Yeah, I mean, it all comes back to the, quote unquote, catch and kill scheme where Pecker, what is it, American media? Man, I can't believe I still even remember all this stuff.

They go and they pay for the story and they keep it in their vault. And then it's a big question about election interference. As you said, it's a question also about whether this is legal, especially to the extent about the way that Trump paid him. If Trump had just paid Michael Cohen out of his own personal account, then none of this would have been a story. But, of course, they tried to write it off on some FEC thing as an election expense. That then goes back as to whether it was FEC fraud. That's eventually what Michael Cohen pleads guilty to. Now this case goes to the question, again, of falsifying business records in New York as a felony with a novel interpretation.

The jurors have to buy that. To buy the felony falsification, they have to buy the broader scheme that happened as well. And the campaign finance piece in particular, I think is what's required for it to be a felony. Right. So, and yeah, that is basically Alvin Bragg is charging under the theory that Trump committed a federal felony crime, even though that federal felony crime was never actually prosecuted

by the feds. This is, I believe, and as we saw a little bit in the Trump defense, this is going to also be a key part of creating reasonable doubt as to why they should not vote to acquit. And the more I've been thinking about it, especially with that one guy who said he admired Trump, I think the likelihood of a hung jury in this is a lot higher than people might have let on. Just because of the novel interpretation, the details, and you really only got to convince one person that you're just going a step too far, which is reasonable enough, in my opinion, that you don't get a conviction. So the more I've

been looking and thinking about it, I think Trump has a lot better shot here than people might have given him credit for. I think that's entirely possible. I, you know, who knows what the jury is going to find ultimately, but the campaign finance piece is an important part of that, because what the Trump team is likely to say is like, listen, this wasn't about hiding this from the American public. He didn't want his wife to know. Right. You know, there were other reasons. We just probably there are other reasons why he didn't want this story to come to light. And it had nothing to do with deceiving the American people. Now, you know, is there are there conversations that would test that would, you know, be a testament to a different interpretation? Are there, you know, conversations that he had where he's directly saying, like, we got to keep this from the American people and who cares what Melania thinks?

What sort of things are going to come to light? We don't know. We don't know how the jury is going to interpret any of this. So we shall see. Let's put this last piece up on the screen. One of the interesting things that David Packard, in his very brief testimony yesterday, he's expected to continue today, said that he had two email accounts, one for matters I didn't want my assistant to see, which again is just kind of a funny insight into the way that he ran his business and being a very interesting character at the heart of this. So there you go.

That's what we know thus far about the Trump trial. Keep everybody updated. I know it can be boring, but it's one of those where the details matter so much because of the implication. And who knows what wild twists and turns Mr. Von Schichtsen pants that we will get out of it. Yeah, nonetheless, we will at least get the diaper Don thing,

which I was not aware of. And now I'm deeply invested in, in terms of conspiracy theory. 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 Catherine 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 think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and we need to talk is tapping in.

I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT.

Like he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that i'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. At the same time, we don't want to take our eye off of RFK Jr. There's been some major developments and a major sign also that the Biden campaign certainly sees him as a threat. They trotted out all living Kennedy family relatives who were willing to come and endorse him. Let's take a listen. My name is Joe Kennedy. I'm Carrie Kennedy.

I'm Victoria Kennedy. I'm Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Chris Kennedy. And I'm here to proudly endorse Joe Biden. My name is Joe Kennedy. I'm Kerry Kennedy. I'm Rory Kennedy. I'm Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Chris Kennedy. And I'm here to proudly endorse Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Our future is on the ballot in a way in which we haven't seen in generations. The only way to win this election is for everybody to go out and vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

When I think of modern politicians in our country in this century, I think Joe Biden is the RFK of his generation. Believes in democracy, believes in human rights, believes in the freedoms. This is a president who embodies the Kennedy legacy. Oh my God, let me just say this. He believes in the freedom saga. Do you know how insulting it is to RFK, the real RFK, who is a great man and a great politician, to say that Joe Biden is the new RFK?

Whether his son is or not, that's up to him. He still has to prove that. But RFK himself, man, I think I used to at least have a – yeah, there we go. We got Robert Kennedy in his time. It's a great book. I wish people would pick it up. And that is just one of those which really bothers me. But what is ironic about this is that as the Biden campaign continues to see RFK Jr. as a threat, there's actually a lot of polling now

that has come out to show that he may not necessarily be just a problem for Joe Biden. Let's put this up here on the screen. This is some new data from NBC News. They say how the race shifts in a multi-way field compared to a binary choice. So what you guys can see in front of you is that with the two named candidates of Trump and Biden, that you have Joe Biden at 44, you have Trump at 46, and then you have 10% who are not sure, wouldn't vote, and other. For five named candidates, you have 39% for Biden, 13% for RFK Jr., 37% for Trump. So obviously, that is a huge drop for Trump from 46 to 37. Biden certainly does lose some, but it appears that he's gonna lose some of that four to 5% crystal

to Jill Stein and to Cornel West, and that RFK Jr. is actually pulling a decent chunk of votes away from the Trump campaign. It explains too why Trump has been attacking RFK Jr. recently. But this is evidence, I think that we, you know, this is the most evidence we've had so far as a very high quality poll,

just to demonstrate that this very much could make things a lot easier for Joe Biden to win reelection. If anything, we can think about it a little bit in the Ross Perot vein. Bill Clinton, yeah, he won 300 some electoral votes. He only won 42% of the popular vote. It was H.W. Bush and Perot that took the rest. H.W. Bush, for the rest of his life, basically refused to say Ross Perot's name. I think the closest he came is he was like,

he's like, I don't like to say his name. I think it cost me the election. And that was it. I mean, he was bitter to the very, very end. And I mean, maybe at a point, I'm not really sure. But my whole point is here is that just with 39% for Joe Biden, if RFK Jr. is able to take away, let's say even within the margin of error, let's say 10% away from Trump, that's a disaster for the Trump campaign. So here's the breakdown of the numbers specifically, if you take the Jill Stein and the Cornel West effect out of the, you know, instead of the five-way race, like what happens with just the RFK voters. So it's 15% of voters who originally picked Trump when it's just Trump versus Biden.

15% of them switch to Kennedy when you give them that option. With Biden, it's only 7% who originally picked Biden if it's just head-to-head Biden-Trump who switched to Kennedy. So 15% for Trump versus 7% for Biden. And then they underscore something that I've been saying for a little while here, which is that Republican voters just have a much higher favorability for RFK Jr. than Democratic voters do. So you've got among Republican voters, 40% positive and 15% negative. So really highly net positive for Kennedy among Republican voters. Democratic voters, it is polar opposite. Only 16% have a positive rating of him versus 53% who have a negative rating. Now, listen, other polls have shown the opposite effect.

So I think it's very unclear at this point because at the end of the day, he's still a Kennedy. And also the other dynamic is Trump supporters tend to be more enthusiastic and more locked in than Biden's supporters. So there may be more disaffected Biden voters for RFK Jr. to pick up than Trump voters. But it is, I mean, this is something I, originally when RFK got in, all of the theorizing was like, no, he's definitely going to hurt Trump. Then it sort of switched to now it's definitely going to hurt Biden. And I think it's unclear. But if I had to say today, I think this is more of a problem for Trump because you just can't deny that there's this overwhelming negative view of him among Democratic voters. And you also still have – think about the way our politics works. I mean, everything is so centered around Trump and how you feel about Trump and how Trump feels about you,

et cetera. And he's gone after RFK Jr. a bit, but more on policy. The vibes are like, yeah, I like him. I think he's better than Biden, he said. So he's getting the friendly treatment from Trump. He's getting the aggressively negative treatment from the Democratic Party. And I think that sends a signal to a lot of voters of like which side he's more aligned with. I mean, it shouldn't be that way, but that's just the reality. That's a good point. Negative polarization is one of the biggest driving forces in U.S. politics. Exactly. So in any case, it's interesting. I think it's still unsettled, but I am increasingly seeing there's a Wall Street Journal poll that also showed RFK Jr. taking more from Trump than from Biden, which

begs an interesting question of why it is then that the Biden campaign is like so much more freaked out about him, apparently, than the Trump campaign. Let's put this up there on the screen too for ballot access wise. We're seeing a big, big development for RFK Jr. A campaign announced on Thursday that they have gained ballot access in Michigan for the 2024 election. Obviously, Michigan, key battleground state there, both for Trump and for Biden. Trump won it by about 10,000 in 2016. In 2020, Biden won, but not by actually an overwhelming majority. There have been some issues there that we covered. Thankfully, we did an RFH in your focus group in Michigan. We showed you that there is some real support there on the ground. Obviously, there's also a big Arab American contingent of voters that are in Michigan. We showed you that there is some real support there on the ground. Obviously, there's also a big Arab American contingent of voters that are in Michigan. Are they going to

show up and are they going to vote for Biden? All of these are completely unknown questions. But the big picture is that he is gaining ballot access slowly but surely. Let's go to the next one, please, because this also demonstrates where because of some of the money that they've got now, they're able to at least contest some of these challenges from the courts to his ballot access. So, for example, Hawaii's state Democratic Party, think about that, has sought to disqualify the We the People Party, which was formed specifically to get RFK Jr. on the ballot. The state Democratic Party, according to the order from the Office of Elections late Friday in Hawaii, said that the Democratic Party failed to meet its burden of proof to boot the Kennedy Party from the ballot. So as they say here, too, while Hawaii's four electoral votes are not likely to be consequential,

this is this victory, first victory against challenges and assigns to that keeping the independent off the ballot will not be as easy as Democrats have been thinking that it would be. And as they plan to do this across the entire nation. So this was a trial balloon, but where they're really going to be gunning for him is Michigan. If he does get Pennsylvania, if he gets Georgia and California, any of these places where he could either eat into the popular vote or actually eat into the electoral college. It's sort of adorable, the account of how this went down, because they didn't the RFK Jr. team didn't actually have a lawyer who was involved in

these hearings. They just had like whoever they're ex, yes. The mom who's volunteering for their campaign on the ground in Hawaii was there. And in spite of the fact that the Democratic Party, they had their lawyers, whoever, well-paid, well-trained, et cetera. And she was still able to prevail in this court in spite of the fact the judge had to keep explaining how this works and when she could speak

and what sort of objections she could make, et cetera, et cetera. But ultimately, they found there was really no merit to the case that the Democratic Party was trying to pursue against RFK Jr. Again, I just find it I just find it really interesting that it's the Democrats who are so panicked about the idea of having RFK Jr. in the race when it's really unclear who he's going to take more from. And so it's like, OK, well, rather than fixating on trying to crush this person, kick him off the ballots, offer voters any sort of other choice, I feel like, you know, in many ways, I don't really feel like RFK Jr. is a choice because they're all the same on a number of topics. But I won't put that aside for a moment. But rather than actually appealing to voters, their instinct is always just to like

make it so that people can't have any choice. There was a really interesting I don't know if you guys saw this on Twitter yesterday. It was just so perfect. Did you see this Hillary Clinton tweet? No, I didn't. Oh, it's just too perfect. So she tweeted out this chart. It was about climate change.

And it showed under Trump, the CO2 emissions, under Biden, the CO2 emissions under Biden, the CO2 emissions. And then what the target level that Biden himself set, not even like the bigger, like European standards or whatever that Biden himself set. And it showed Biden wildly missing his own target that he met, but being slightly better than the Trump line. And she tweeted that out and was like, here's what's on the line. This is why you got to vote Democrat. And it's like, this is just too perfect. Like you tweeted out a chart showing that you're modestly a little bit better than Trump, but still not even coming close to actually dealing

with the issue. And it's just, it's such a perfect encapsulation. Do you have, what did she actually say? I have it here in front of me. Yeah, she says, what's at stake for our climate in this November's election? Absolutely everything. Absolutely everything. As a Trump line, the Biden line, the target. Absolutely everything. But he's still not gonna do enough

to actually like meet even the, you know. Okay, what's dumb about this too is that. Modest target that he himself said. But here's the thing, there was also a pandemic. You know, there was a massive drop in CO2 emissions. And some of this is also, so this doesn't even reflect of a policy. It doesn't make it.

This is, what a stupid graphic on so many levels. Yes. But isn't it, I just, it's such a just pitch perfect encapsulation of the way they think. If you care about the climate, then yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's like, oh, okay,

Biden's gonna be moderately better, but we're still gonna all, you know, die in the climate apocalypse because absolutely everything is on the line. Great. Good to know. Good to know. If you accept that framing, yes, I could see why exactly that would be a problem. There also, let's put this up there on the screen, some news from the Kennedy campaign. Nicole Shanahan donated, who is the VP candidate for R.K. Jr., donated $2 million to the campaign the day after that she was named to the ticket. So on March 27th in the state of Nevada, $2 million literally just on the

day that she was named the VP. And of course, she's probably got hundreds of millions of dollars at her disposal. This is going to finance both ballot access initiatives and court challenges in the future should they arise and is definitely going to be a major asset to the Kennedy campaign going forward. So I think things are looking up for RFK Jr.'s campaign right now in terms of the ballot access. I mean, Michigan alone, that's huge. Just a massive- Michigan is massive. That one state- Have it, right, exactly. That one state could decide the entire election. If he just gets Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, then that's it. You know, now we're truly in the ballgame. And I think some Democrats are starting to take notice.

You know, we've been watching some of the activists and others go after him. But I'm very interested to see how it all turns out. 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 think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop.

It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they starting to be like yo your dad's like really the goat like he's a

legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy. Or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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. Let's move on to the next part. This is a story I've been dying to cover now for quite a long time. And now Joe Biden has ignited an international incident after President Biden

has now been making the rounds recently telling a terrible tale. The tale is of his uncle and his uncle was on board a U.S. military aircraft. It was after D-Day. His uncle went down in Papua New Guinea while fighting in the Pacific campaign. His plane crashed in this terrible incident and he was eventually eaten by cannibals. This is the story according to Biden. And then we'll tell you what actually happened. And my uncle, they called him Ambrose, they called him Bozy.

My uncle Bozy was a hell of an athlete. They told me when he was a kid. And he became an Army Air Corps before the Air Force came along. He flew those single engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones. He got shot down in New Guinea, and they never found the body because there used to be a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea. Why is President Biden saying he was shot down? There's no evidence of that. And why is he saying that his uncle was eaten by cannibals? That's a bad way to go. He lost his life. It's not. Look, I'm not. We should not make jokes about this.

Wait, wait, wait. I mean, your last line is for a laugh. It's for a funny, a funny statement. And he takes this very seriously. His uncle who served and protected this country lost his life serving. And that should matter. Yeah, I agree. It should matter. And the details of that should matter, too. And let's put this up there on the screen. It turns out that basically none of that that Biden said was true. President Biden, it turns out, was talking about his uncle, Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr. Now, Finnegan, who was the brother of Biden's mother, according to Biden, got shot down over New Guinea. However, the U.S. government record of the crash,

it says, of the missing service members does not attribute Finnegan's death to hostile actions or even indicate cannibals were any factor. According to U.S. military records and the Pentagon's MIA accounting agency, he died on May 14th, 1944, while he was a passenger on an Army Air Force plane, quote, that for unknown reasons was forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea. Quote, both engines failed at low altitude. Aircraft nose hit the water hard. Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash, according to a survivor of the crash itself. The agency also said Finnegan was a passenger on that plane when it was lost.

Quote, he has not been associated with any remains ever recovered from the area after the war and is still accounted for. So again, he didn't go down on New Guinea. He went down near New Guinea, lost his life in a tragic accident, it appears, not due to hostile enemy actions. Doesn't erase the man's service at all. It took a lot of courage to fly on board some of these aircraft in the Second World War. If anybody wants to go watch Masters of the Air and see exactly what it was like up there, it was a total nightmare. So I'm not erasing this man's service at all. But I do think it's actually pretty despicable that you would invent some horrible death, you know, for political purposes of your uncle who tragically died in the Second World War.

And so this is either like a family tale gone awry, very possible, or it's just straight up Biden embellishment for the sake of embellishment. And the funny part is it has now caused an international incident. Let's put this up there on the screen. The leader of Papua New Guinea, quote, "'takes offense' after Biden implies that his

uncle was eaten by cannibals. The prime minister, quote, accused Joe Biden of disparaging the island by implying that the uncle was eaten by cannibals during World War II. Biden's comments now have offended a key strategic ally in the South Pacific. And the prime minister said in a statement that he appeared to imply his uncle was eaten by cannibals and his remarks may have been a slip of the tongue. However, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such. And you know what? He's right. Now, is it true that they're cannibals or whatever on Papua New Guinea? Yes, there have been some documented instances and all that. But in this particular instance, Biden is straight up wrong according to the US government itself. Yes. He goes on to say,

perhaps, he says the remains of World War II lie scattered all over PNG, including the plane that carried President Biden's uncle. Perhaps given President Biden's comments and the strong reaction from PNG and other parts of the world, it's time for the USA to find as many remains of World War II and PNG as possible, including those of servicemen who lost their lives, like Ambrose Finnegan. The theaters of war in PNG and Solomon Islands are many and littered with the remains of World War II, including human remains, plane wrecks, shipwrecks, tunnels, and bombs. Our people daily live with the fear of being killed by detonated bombs of World War II. So he really touched a nerve with these stupid, fake, cannibal comments. This is a corn pop level Joe Biden story.

Like, it really has it all. You've got the like, you know, old man, low key or even high key racism. The, you know, just like, why would you? There are so many stories that he makes up that you're like, why would you even make that up? What is going through your mind that you think that this somehow serves you in this moment? And then the fact that he just accidentally, through his verbal cannibal diarrhea, stumbles into some like international diplomatic conflict. This is just Joe Biden perfection. Absolute perfection here. By the way, for what it's worth, I looked into the whole cannibal situation. New Guinea at that time. And yes, you're right. Documented instances. But the way, for what it's worth, I looked into the whole cannibal situation, New Guinea at that time. And yes, you're right. Documented instances. But as scholars immediately reacted,

they're like, people weren't just eating random guys who fell from the sky. There was as part of a funeral ritual. There was some ritual panel in that context. It's not like everyone's just going around eating people all the time, just so people out there know what the reality is of what was going on. Thank you, Crystal. Yeah. What is it? Jared Diamond is a great expert on Papua New Guinea. If you ever want to go watch some of his videos on the subject, there are some interesting, there are some actually interesting survival tales of World War II planes that went down on Papua New Guinea, but it is certainly not involving any family members of Joseph Robinette Biden. There you go. Incredible. Now, we would be remiss, though, if we didn't at

least tie some politics into this. Let's put this up there on the screen. What do we find? That a Harvard poll of young voters says that Biden has a lead with Trump, but just 9% of these young voters think that the country is moving in the right direction. So despite the fact that everything is going down, Biden does have that lead over Donald Trump. This is according to registered voters with younger voters, showing Biden pulling a 50% support over 30 years or younger compared to Trump's 37%. But just 9% say that the country is, quote, generally headed in the wrong direction, and a full 60% say that the country is on the wrong track. There are some, though, troubling findings, though, Crystal, inside the poll for Biden on the topic of Israel.

Well, there's a number of interesting and difficult findings in this poll for Biden, including, yes, he has a lead over Trump, but it is not as large as his lead was last time, so that matters. There's also a tremendous gender gap. So his lead among young men is just six points. Among young women, his lead is 33 points. There's some graphs you should take a look at that show, you know, at the same time that young men, in terms of their political preferences, although not in terms of some of their issue support, but are becoming more conservative.

Young women are becoming more liberal, something we talked about before. That shows up in this poll, which is a very interesting phenomenon. His lead overall among 18 to 24 year olds, so if you're looking at the youngest part of this poll demographic, is 14 points. And among the 25 to 29 year olds, so the somewhat older ones, it's actually larger, 26 points. So younger Americans, the 18 to 24, actually, you know, I mean, they're still favoring him by 14 points. But the gap is a little more narrow, which is interesting as well. And contrary to previous trends and dynamics where young voters were getting like more and more and more Democratic, progressive, whatever. Huge gap in terms of college students and college graduates versus

the races even among young people who are not in college and who don't have a four-year degree. But you're right to the point about Israel. I mean, there's just like massive overwhelming support for a ceasefire, including among every demographic group that they test, including among young Republicans. So it was across the board, massive support for a ceasefire. And then if you dig into his approval rating by issue, the issue on which he gets the lowest approval rating of everything is what they describe as the Israel-Hamas war at just 18%. Wow.

So a lot of warning signs for him with regard to, you know, how young voters are feeling about him, what direction politically they're moving, what issues they're prioritizing, and certainly how they're viewing his unconditional support for Israel at this time. Yeah, I think that it's a key point. We have talked a lot about the gender divide and the breakup. I mean, I think that's the barstool phenomenon. I'm also very intrigued exactly by what you pointed out about the tie between people who didn't go to college. That is the education phenomenon, which is showing itself there.

So we continue to see where the, I mean, actually they're both bidirectional because whether you are a woman or not is highly determinative these days of whether you're going to college as opposed to if you're a man, their likelihood of you going to college is a lot lower today than it was in the past. We're getting to a two to one ratio very soon on some major

college campuses. So that will heavily inform our politics and the economy, which we'll get to. It's worth looking at the poll if you guys have time, because there's some interesting questions they asked to to try to get at like how young people feel about different gender dynamics. And they asked some questions like, you know, do you agree with the statement? These days, people are just too soft. Another one was, these days, women are too promiscuous. Most people disagree. I think the too soft one. Data tells us that women are not that promiscuous anymore. That's true. According to at least teenagers.

Well, and most people disagree with that statement, by the way. Republicans agreed with it the most. On the too soft one, I think Republicans overwhelmingly, young Republicans overwhelmingly agreed with that. So anyway, they had some interesting stuff that's worth digging into. I do agree people are too soft, but it's not a youth phenomenon. But that's a whole other story. I think some of these people complaining about college protesters are definitely too soft. How about that? I was going to say, that's exactly what I meant.

I think our elites are actually the ones who are softer than anybody else. Yeah. All right. Let's go ahead and move on to some very serious topics with regard to Israel. Put this first report up on the screen. So we're still trying to figure out, you know, what the hell happened with Iran, what's likely to happen in the future with Iran, how this all unfolded. New York Times has a report taken with a grain of salt because it's frankly very flattering to the Biden administration. So good to keep that in mind. But the headline here is Israel planned a bigger attack on Iran but scaled it back to avoid war. The strike on Iran on Friday was originally intended to be much broader in scope.

But after intense pressure from allies, Biden being one of the key people that they talk about here, Israeli leaders agreed to ratchet it down. The story they tell, for what it's worth, and Sagar, I'm interested to hear your read on this, is that basically, you know, the Israelis are trying to sell this line that they had no idea Iran would be so upset over us bombing your embassy and taking out your top military commanders. That's bullshit.

There is no way these people didn't know that this was a big deal and a massive escalation. Okay. So then the Iranian retaliatory attack, while it caused next to no damage because all of the, everything was effectively shot down with very few things that actually got through. It was in its breadth, much larger than originally anticipated, again, according to this article. And so immediately afterwards, the war cabinet had planned a much more aggressive response and one that they had planned to do like basically instantaneously. And then the report says Bibi talked to Biden and he was kind of talked down from immediately

doing that, put some time and then did the more limited strike, which allowed Iran to save enough face to sort of, it appears, back away from this conflict. Although, you know, we're taking some of the fallout here because our troops are now, once again, our service members in the region are now once again under fire from, you know, Iranian affiliated proxy groups. So in any case, this is the story that the New York Times has to tell that President Biden was the hero here and talked Israel out of making the situation, which was already incredibly dangerous, even worse than it already is. Yeah, what we can actually see also is that they talked about this, quote, huge offensive operation that was going to be carried out. Again, also if the Iranian strike had materialized, initially they actually believed somehow that Iran had planned to attack with a swarm of large drones, up to 10 ballistic missiles. Their Israeli and military leaders had all agreed on a massive counter-strike. Some of this was

eventually pared back by the U.S., but I would note a couple of things here. So it does turn out that we do have some influence with these folks whenever we want to use it, whenever it comes to Iran. But second, also, do not underestimate the warmongering-like nature of a lot of the people inside the military establishment and political establishment inside of Israel. They were ready basically to push the red button

and drag the entire world into a world war. It's only because America tried to push it back down a little bit and got them to do what they want to do that we have somewhat of a release valve. But don't be so sure that we'll be in control there in the future. This is a very, very dangerous situation. To me, this lends credence to the report we brought you yesterday that was from an Israeli TV outlet that Biden was basically like, all right, fine, you can do your Rafah invasion if you do a more limited attack on Iran. If this report is true, I think it fits together with, like, so what did Biden say in that conversation that really persuaded Bibi? And, you know, that

was, I guess, the leverage rather than withholding weapons or doing any of the things we would want him to do. Instead, he's like, how about I sacrifice the Palestinians in Rafah and, you know, make you feel good about that. And then you can do this more limited strike. So to me, that seems to be the picture that's that's coming into focus. So we covered yesterday. There have already been some strikes in Rafah, two strikes that killed 22 people, 18 children, three women and one man, including one of the women was pregnant. They had to cut the baby from her belly. Thank God they were actually able to save this premature infant. But that's the picture of what's going on there. We also have some

important Israeli domestic political news. Let's put this up on the screen. So the head of Israel's military intelligence has actually resigned over failures in anticipating and planning for the October 7th attack. He said Major General Heron Haliva said in his resignation letter that he took responsibility for the military intelligence failings that preceded Hamas's attack, which is widely regarded as a war security failure in the Jewish state's 76-year history. He also called for an official investigation to be carried out. And they say that this departure is, quote, widely expected to be followed by further resignations among Israel's military intelligence leadership, with several other senior officials having admitted failings in the run-up to Hamas's attack.

And it's also expected Sagar to increase some pressure on Netanyahu himself to admit some mistakes or launch this long-anticipated investigation into what the hell went wrong in anticipating October 7th. Because I don't know if you guys remember these details, but multiple confirmed reports at this point have come out saying, yeah, they saw them planning. They actually had the attack plans. And we're just like, eh, they're not going to do it. We don't think they're going to do anything. So and, you know, specifically with regard to Bibi and his coalition, they had moved some of the IDF units that were would have been in that nearby the Gaza Strip part of Israel to protect these, you know, settler maniacs in the West Bank to, you know, appease Ben-Gavir and his people. And so that's part of why not only they failed to

anticipate, but then the response was horrible. It took hours and hours for, you know, many of these people, innocents who were being slaughtered to have any official help. Yeah, it is especially ironic because this means now that Bibi Netanyahu is now the only member of the Israeli military establishment who was there on October 7th who has not taken responsibility for that. And instead is actually sailing to reestablishing his power. I mean, you have to in some ways just respect the cravenness of the man and how good of a politician he is. As you said, already polls are showing some people are like, yeah, you know, it was definitely bad, but he moved past it. And so, you know, we'll rescue him maybe. And the other side, they have a few points, but he's been working with them by and large.

And so maybe we'll keep him actually. And that's exactly what dragging yourself into a bigger war despite a massive disaster was meant to do in the first place, which is pretty astounding. And I do think it is genuinely disgusting that in their democratic society and all that, which they like to brag about all the time, the person at the top who was genuinely responsible at a very deep political level and military level has not had any accountability, while the underlings who, sure, they definitely have some, don't nearly as much as he does, have been allowed to take the fall. It's not right. The other thing is his whole thing was Mr. Security.

His whole thing was vote for me and I'll keep you safe. Like your core thesis about how to achieve that was completely wrong. And you were asleep at the switch. And you are out there on the record multiple times talking about how you need to support Hamas. And, you know, it's clear the ideology. We need to make sure we have this talking point of there's no partner for peace there.

We can't possibly work with Hamas. Need to keep the West Bank and the Gaza Strip divided. We can control the level of the flame, quote unquote. We can go in and, quote unquote, mow the grass from time to time. That ideology was a complete failure when it comes to his core promise to the electorate being a, you know, a security prime minister, keeping them safe. That was the core promise. And so the fact that he's, he keeps switching it off, and that's why the war for him politically had to continue, is because he said, listen, once this is over, then of course we're going to ask all the hard questions. There's going to be accountability.

We're going to look into this, et cetera. And so part of the motivation to keep this thing going is because you postpone indefinitely that reckoning, hope memories fade, hope people feel different, hope you can bring them some sort of, you know, quote unquote, victory that they find satisfactory, that they forgive and forget the failures leading up to October 7th. That's the game he's playing. And so far, frankly, he's played it with regards to his really domestic population very well and also played Joe Biden and the U.S. political class like a fiddle as well. Very true.

All right, let's get into the very latest atrocities discovered in the Gaza Strip. So you'll recall there was an all-out assault on the city of Khan Yunus. Now people are finally returning to that city and we're getting a sense of what the hell happened there. The devastation, annihilation is just, I mean, there are no words for it. And the latest discoveries are some of the most horrifying I've seen. You put this up on the screen. You've had multiple mass graves now, now uncovered by the Gaza Civil Defense Agency in Khan Yunis. They're saying, and, you know, mainstream media outlets are by and large not able to get in the Gaza Strip, but they're confirming the best way they can that you've had somewhere around 283 bodies, hundreds of bodies discovered decomposing in these mass graves. One of them was, one of the large ones was by Nasser Hospital. It's known that there was

intense fighting, shelling, bombing, all the rest in and around that hospital. So we're seeing the horrors here. Reports are this includes, you know, not just men, but women, elderly, wounded, young people with hospital tags still on their arms, children. Just an absolutely horrifying scene. CNN had a report. They had a stringer who was able to visit the scene on Sunday. They said that some people had buried their family members around the grounds of the hospital in January as a temporary measure. And then when they returned after the Israeli withdrawal, they found the bodies had been exhumed, apparently because the IDF was using DNA testing to determine whether any of the hostages held in Gaza were among the dead. And then they were dumped in these collective graves, is what they're saying.

So just an absolute horror here. And, you know, the other piece of this is there's like a little bit of mainstream discussion about this. But the New York Times in particular, how many stories did they do yesterday about like college protesters and whatever? Here we can see. This was nowhere to be found. I've got three in front of me right now, actually, on the front page. Front page. Ironically.

They just didn't even cover mass grave with hundreds of bodies not worthy of coverage. Let's put the next one up there on the screen, too, because it actually highlights another important thing that you were talking about. There was, if we all recall, a UN review where they say Israel has yet to provide evidence that the staffers are actually terror group members. This was important because this was why the US and several other nations ended up pulling funding from the organization, and it significantly disrupted a lot of the aid that was going into the Gaza Strip. But Crystal, now several months later, they have not been able to provide any evidence, both to the United States, to the UN, or to any other large body, with evidence that they had initially claimed in a so-called dossier to news organizations

that have been able to actually be backed up. The UN oversight body that did look into the allegations within there found, you know, what was it, like 12 instances or something like that, but the vast majority of their staff were not involved and the Israelis have been unable to provide widespread evidence in the organization itself. To my knowledge, there was no confirmation

even of those 12. That was what the Israelis had claimed. They still, this is months later, right? And this is after UNRWA was defunded by some 16 different countries. Now, many of those have come back in, but the U.S. has since passed legislation saying UNRWA is to be defunded at least until 2025, the number one aid organization on the ground as we pretend to care about Palestinians starving in the Gaza Strip. So no, they haven't provided any evidence about the 12. They certainly didn't provide. They made this much broader claim of like, oh, there's hundreds of Hamas affiliated people in UNRWA. They provided no evidence for any of this. The UNRWA investigation has been unable. And by the way, this was led by

a former French foreign minister, led this, what they call a neutrality review after Israel alleged that 12 UNRWA staff took part in October 7th. So it wasn't like, you know, an UNRWA staffer, which the Israelis have smeared as being like basically Hamas. It was this attempt to bring in an independent third party who could look at the allegations in a serious way. And you'll recall also, so UNRWA immediately fired the 12 people just based on these allegations, which frankly seems unfair at this point, given that there is a proof to back it up. And the U.S. immediately, just based on the allegations with no proof, and we saw the thing that was being shopped, the dossier that was being shopped, and that mainstream news outlets

like the Wall Street Journal just printed a press release, effectively, with no evidence. So in any case, the US immediately, this was right after the ICJ said it's plausible of committing genocide. On that very same day, we defund UNRWA, helping to further that plausible genocide. And now here we are months later. This report will barely be, it won't even be remarked upon by most of the American media or political class. It'll just, like the many other investigations that we're always waiting for the results of, you know, this will barely see the light of day. So that's where we are.

I wanted to update you all on something that's unfolding that I think could be very significant. There is an aid flotilla that is attempting to leave from Turkey. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink is among the individuals who is on that aid flotilla. They're attempting to break the blockade of Gaza. This isn't the first time that a similar flotilla of aid has attempted to reach the Gaza Strip. More on that in a moment. I actually interviewed Medea before she left

over on Crystal Cown Friends about their goals. Let's take a listen to that. I am going on a ship that we want to go to Gaza. I don't know if we're going to mention that. Well, I wasn't sure if it's public yet. Yes, we can talk about that, which is part of the Freedom Flotilla. And this is a tradition that in the beginning, when it first started, actually a couple of times the boats landed in Gaza. But then after that, the Israelis stopped the boats from going. And in 2010, they actually

landed by air on the boat and killed 10 of the people on board. I remember that. The Mavi Marmara. So this year, very soon, actually, we will be leaving very, very soon. And there are many hundreds of us. And we represent people from 30 different countries. And we will be bringing many, many tons of humanitarian goods to Gaza and trying to make it by ship. And of course, we hope that we will make it. We are prepared if we don't make it. I mean, we are totally nonviolent. We hope that the Israelis don't come on board and start shooting people. But we are determined to go because we have to show that a couple of things. One, the Israelis are not letting in humanitarian aid. And they should

not be the ones to inspect this aid. We've had other inspectors and they will come and inspect our boats, but not the Israelis because they use any excuse to stop the aid from going in and they don't have the legitimacy to be the ones to inspect that aid. And we want to show that Gaza should have the ability to use their ports, to use, they did have an airport, you know, until the Israelis bombed it, and to be able to come in and out by land. And that's why there is a siege on Gaza. And there was a siege on Gaza way before October 7th. And so we think it's important to try to break the siege of Gaza. So she refers to the fact that in 2010, the same group, Frida and Flotilla, is sort of a coalition of groups. They attempted a similar aid mission with a similar Flotilla, and the IDF raided the boat and killed 10 people.

Yeah, that was a big incident. Massive, massive diplomatic crisis. Let's put this up on the screen. From the Washington Post, a few details here. They say Gaza aid Flotilla plans to challenge Israeli blockade. The organizers say they say they're preparing to sail from Turkey in the coming days on a mission aimed at breaching Israel's naval blockade and highlighting the lack of aid reaching Palestinians in the besieged enclave. They go on to say the flotilla's well-traveled route. gain new relevance during the current conflict as governments and relief organizations alike turn to sea deliveries to circumvent what aid groups say is Israel's persistent obstruction of deliveries to Gaza over land. And Sagar, I was able to get in touch with Medea yesterday,

and she said I can share this publicly because I was asking, how are things going? What's the update? How are things looking? She says, it seems theS., Israel, and Germany are pressuring Turkey's Erdogan not to allow the ships to leave Istanbul. We hear the deputy director for counterterrorism from the State Department is here to talk about this. But there's a lot of grassroots pressure in the opposite direction, given that millions of people in Turkey donated money for this mission. We'll see what happens tomorrow as we're supposed to leave on Wednesday. So this could be potentially very significant because it could really put the U.S., if they're allowed to leave Turkey, which apparently is an if, could really put the U.S. in a very difficult spot here. Yeah, that's why we're flagging it

to everybody, just because we're aware of how crazy the last one went and it caused a major standoff. I remember that very vividly at the time. That was a huge news story and it took over a lot. It almost broke diplomatic relations to turn into a whole thing. So if this one is allowed to go through or, you know, which Erdogan, it certainly would be in his political interest to do so. It's not as if though the U.S. wouldn't be trying to pressure it behind the scenes to block it as well. But if they find their way over there, everybody tune in because that is going to be a standoff for, you know, for the ages. I certainly believe so. Yeah, absolutely.

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 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 think everything that might have dropped in 95, one four or five listen to hell and gone murder line on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts i think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop it's black music month and we need to talk is tapping in i'm nyla simone breaking down lyrics amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives my favorite line on there was my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now?

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

important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that i'm really happy or my family in general let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 multibillion-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. Let's move on. Final thing. Crystal appeared on the Piers, what is it called? Piers Morgan Uncensored? Is that what it is? Okay, Piers Morgan Uncensored. And there were some fiery exchanges. One gentleman in particular on the panel just wouldn't shut up. But we did cut some

of the highlight reels to the extent that we were able to pull some. Let's take a listen. I mean, I can, listen, I believe fundamentally in the right to free democratic protest. I mean, it's the bedrock of any free democratic country. But I don't believe in violent hate rhetoric. And if you're a Jewish student at one of these colleges, hearing some of these chants, which we're all hearing, it's pretty terrifying, isn't it? Well, here's what I would say. First of all, I echo Wajahat in saying I'm glad that both of our two co-panelists are okay. And I certainly support the call for justice for Yusuf. And I hope his assailant is in fact apprehended and accountability is meted out. I think it's disgusting and frankly a cheap trick to use

some isolated incidents to smear an entire protest movement. And I think it's very clear what's going on here. A majority of young people and a majority of college students, majority of Biden voters believe that Israel is committing a genocide and that American taxpayer dollars are going to assist in that genocide. They're outraged by that and they're protesting. And by the way, they've won. Hold on. I listened to you and I'm not finished. You are clearly lying again and again. I will not protect Arabs and Jews. Am I going to be allowed to speak here? Am I going to be allowed to speak here? Yes, you are.

Okay. So a majority of young people believe that Israel is committing a genocide and they are protesting that. And by the way, they've won the argument. If you look at now, it's 60-40 against sending military aid to Israel. It's a majority that disapprove in America of Israel's action with regards to the Gaza Strip. So it's a cheap trick as old as time. Use a few isolated incidents to try to smear an entire movement, which has the benefit, number one, of attempting to delegitimize it, and number two,

of distracting from the continued atrocities which are unfolding at the hands of the IDF in the Gaza Strip. So this is, listen, I condemn anti-Semitism. I certainly condemn violence. But let's be serious about who the villains are right now. Would you agree that Hamas are villains? The villains are the terrorist organization Hamas. Hang on, I'm asking a question. Would you agree that Hamas are villains?

Terrorists, and so is the Israeli government, given the number of civilians that they have intentionally targeted and killed, including targeting with a complete siege, which has triggered a famine. So first of all, intifada means uprising from the river to the sea. Somehow when it's Benjamin Netanyahu using that phraseology or holding up a map that literally shows Israel from the river to the sea with no Palestinians. Somehow that's fine. Can you please, dude, just for a second? What do you mean? Have you seen the second? You don't know anything. You are not from the Middle

East. So listen, there's a lot there. I don't really know. That man did not shut up the entire time. It was not just me. It was everyone, including Pierce. Pierce was trying to ask me a question. He wouldn't even shut up to let the host ask a question. It was such a waste of time, to be honest with you. Like, that that you saw there, it was a freaking 40-minute segment. That was the most I was able to

get in because this man was just ranting and raving the entire time. I was like, what are we doing here? What is the point of this? And the point is just a circus. That's it. Yeah. I mean, look, no, no shade peers, but I have feel like that is just continuing the, what we saw there is exactly the issue I've had with a lot of the clips that I've seen go viral from his show. And that's, I exactly even told all the people when I moderated that zero hedge debate, I was like, look guys, I think everyone there had been on peers or had participated in something similar. And I was like, we're not doing that here. I was like, we're not screaming over each other. And it does require, I mean, in the future,

what I would recommend to them is, and I wish I'd had this too, you should be able to cut people's mic if they're doing something like that. Because it's just a nightmare otherwise, and it just destroys the entire discussion. Absolutely. Yeah, it's super annoying.

It makes it difficult on your part. It makes it difficult, you know, even for the other people, Wajahat and others who participated. It's like, hey man, this takes time out of people's day. Like you got to make this actually worth, not just our while, but there is an actual audience that is out there.

They're the ones who this is supposed to be to their benefit. That is also lost in some of this, too. The other woman who was there said all kinds of things that I wildly disagreed with. But we could have easily had an exchange that was much more interesting than just this man like ranting incoherently right it was anyway like i said before it made me very grateful for uh this i mean i always ask myself when i get asked to do these things like you know go on pierre's short show or whatever i'm like you know do i not want to do it just because it's like i'm in my comfort zone it's gonna be confrontational and whatever like am i just being like a baby? And that's why I don't feel like doing it. Or is it like,

is there a legitimate reason? And this was a reminder that there are at least some legitimate reasons. Although I do blame myself in part because I made the very rookie move of agreeing before I knew who the other panelists were going to be. I knew the topic, but I didn't know who I was going to be on with. And next time, if there is a next time, I will not make that mistake again. Although the other thing they'll do is, you know, I don't know specifically on appears, but people will, they'll like switch out guests. And so there's no guarantees. Look, I had two hours to moderate Israel debate with four people and wasn't enough time.

You guys had what, 20 minutes, something like that? Yeah. It's just, it's not possible. In general, I feel like four people is too much. It is way too much. Get two people who are solid and can really, like, get into it. And to me, it's much more interesting because the minute you add all these voices, you're just asking for this chaos, circus, carnival atmosphere. And it becomes very difficult to drill down on a point

because if you are trying to do a good job moderating, make sure you spread the time around. Like, you know, by giving people equal time, it means that if you've got two people who are really going in on something, they're going to be cut short too. So anyway, whatever. It is what it is.

Thank you to Piers for having me on. I do appreciate the opportunity. I'm trying to be ungrateful here. And I, you know, there is an irony though to to the fact that his show, I guess it's called Pierce Morgan Uncensored and he's on there like, let's censor these college kids. Free speech does mean something very different in the UK, which Pierce- In fairness, very true. He definitely found that. I mean, so it's funny because to me, I will never forget Pierce because

of that whole gun control thing back in 2013, whenever his CNN show was canceled, because that is when his like UK conservatism mashed up against America and it did not work out. Well, and listen, he should give himself more credit because he has been one of the big platforms for pro-Palestinian activists that aren't allowed on a lot of other channels. And so he has genuinely had a platform that has been open to free speech. So, you know, don't get squeamish about it when it's, you know, things that make people uncomfortable. That's subject to right now, just a total like unhinged moral panic that is really disconnected. I think we've seen from reports on the ground,

from the reality of what's unfolding at these college campuses. Definitely true. What I would say. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. Become a premium member if you can. And look out for tomorrow. Ryan and Emily, you're going to have a great CounterPoint show.

We will see you all on Thursday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case.

If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like, that's what's really important, and that's what stands out, is that our music changes people's lives for the better.

Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I also want to address the Tonys. On a recent episode of Checking In with Michelle Williams,

I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards. Do I? I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes. To hear this and more on disappointment and protecting your peace, listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.