Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/8/24: Israel Pulls Out Of South Gaza, Pelosi Flips After Jose Andres Strike, Ecuador Storms Mexican Embassy, PBD Rips Shapiro After Candace Firing, Rogan Debates Coleman Hughes On Israel, Trump $50 Mill Fundraiser, Israel's AI Death Machine

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Israel pulling out of southern Gaza, Pelosi flips on Israel after Jose Andres aid strike, Ecuador storms Mexican Embassy, PBD And Andrew Shulz rip Ben Shapiro over Candace firing, Joe Rogan debates Coleman Hughes on Israel, Trump $50 mill fundraiser promising low taxes for billionaires, Israel's AI death machine.   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. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up,

so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John.

Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's You're Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, 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 Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. The Biden administration and many other liberals changing their tune a bit after that Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers for World Central Kitchen. We'll tell you about that. We also have some big news on the war front. Israel has withdrawn from southern Gaza. What does it mean? A lot of speculation, a lot of questions there, so we'll get into that.

We're also keeping an eye on how Iran will retaliate for that Israeli strike on their consular building in Syria and very dramatic escalations and questions there as well. Candace Owens has opened a rift in conservative media. It's a very interesting story. Obviously, ties in with her being fired from the Daily Wire and her commentary with regard to Israel and possible questions around anti-Semitism. So we'll break all of that down for you. Joe Rogan is debating Coleman Hughes on whether or not Israel is committing genocide. Very interesting exchange there that is worth parsing. Trump had a massive fundraiser, raising some $50 million in one day and making some quite noteworthy promises to the big donors in the room. I have a monologue breaking down that big report from Plus 972 Magazine that came out

last week about the way that Israel is using AI to supercharge their assault on the Gaza Strip. Really important journalistic piece. So I'm looking forward to spending some time with that one. Before we get to any of that, Sagar, we've been teasing this for a while, but we do have some big news that is coming up soon. I promise you. We promise. We promise. You know, logistics. Nobody ever said that doing this was easy. But if you do want to be the first to hear about it,

you can sign up at breakingpoints.com. It will be coming very soon. We promise you will eventually see it. It's going to be an upgrade to our premium service and also some extra content I think you guys are going to be very excited about. So if you can help us out, breakingpoints.com. All right, so we wanted to start with the Biden administration's reaction to that strike that killed seven aid workers for Jose Andres' organization, World Central Kitchen. For the first time, they're changing their tune a bit. And actually, reportedly, in a phone call, Biden didn't really change U.S. policy, but threatened to potentially change U.S. policy. And even just that threat has compelled some changes in behavior on

the Israeli side. Here is John Kirby, Pentagon spokesperson, talking about the possibility that military aid in the future could be conditioned if Israel does not change the way that they are conducting this war. Let's take a listen. Is the Biden administration position still that there should be zero conditions on aid, military aid to Israel? I'm not going to get ahead of the president or decisions he might or might not make going forward. He was very clear in his call with the prime minister that if we don't see some changes in their policies in Gaza and the way they're prosecuting operations, we're going to have to make some changes of our own.

You do think these are Israeli policies then to block aid? They have, they have, they get to decide how they prosecute this war. It's their operation. We just talked about them pulling troops out and what that means. They get to decide how they prosecute operations. We get to decide how we're going to react to that and how we're going to administer our own policy with respect to Gaza. We make those decisions. And the president was clear with the prime minister. If there's not changes, if things don't get better, then we're going to have to make changes of our own. If things don't get better, then we're going to have to make changes of our own, leaving it very vague. The president also asked about what all of this means in a short exchange

on the fly. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Did you threaten to stop military aid to Israel? I asked them to do what they're doing. Helpful there. I asked them to do what they're doing. All right, well, let's dig into a little bit of what they are doing. Let's put this up on the screen from Axios. So immediately after that phone call, Israel announced that they had agreed to increase humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza.

There's a number of actions that they're taking on this front. So they're opening the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. That would be the first time since October 7th. We also have a quote from Kamala Harris in this piece. She said, the president made clear we will make sure Israel isn't left without the ability to defend itself. At the same time, if there are no changes to their approach, we are likely to change our approach. So very similar to Kirby's comments. Let's go ahead and put up the fifth element on the screen here, guys, to show you the additional actions that were taken. So the UN says that Israel also approved the reopening of 20 bakeries

and a water pipeline in northern Gaza. There are also some additional logistical efforts that they are claiming that they're going to make in order to create a better functioning coordination so that more aid can enter the Strip. And in addition, according to the Israelis, yesterday saw 322 aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip. That is the highest daily number of aid trucks that has entered the enclave since October 7th. Again, this is according to Israeli officials, so take that for what it's worth, as reported by Barack Ravid. But there's a couple things that are noteworthy here, Sara. I mean, first of all, the Israelis have long been saying,

oh, we're not doing anything to blockade. We're doing everything we can to get aid in. Oh, really? Well, turns out that you could, at the snap of a finger, open new crossings, reinstate a pipeline, reopen 20 bakeries that have been shuttered, increase coordination, immediately surge the number of aid trucks coming through. So this line that they've been feeding you all for months now that, oh, we're doing everything, obviously complete and utter bullshit. Second really noteworthy point here is, you know, for the people are saying, oh, well, Israel is a sovereign country. We really don't have any say over what they do. The Biden administration did not even change policy. He made one phone call where he threatened to potentially in some amorphous way change policy in the future.

And that was sufficient to compel a change in behavior from the Israelis. Well, it validates a couple of points we've been talking a lot about here. Number one is that, yes, there is some certain personal sovereignty that Israel has, but there's also a client-state relationship here. This is the nation that has received more foreign aid than any other country in the entire history of the US, if you look at the overall dollar amount that we've given to Israel, the vast majority of that is military aid. On top of that, Biden administration has been a critical lifeline to the Israeli military whenever it comes to its weapons. And we've also seen a pretty major change in their battle strategy. Let's put this up

there on the screen. There's a lot to say about this. Nobody really quite knows because you could see either way. If we could please put, yes. IDF is ending, quote, its active ground invasion and completely withdrawing from southern Gaza. This is from the Jerusalem Post, which is more of a right-wing organization inside Israel. And they say that the decision comes less than two days after Israel opened the Erez Crossing and the Ashdod port to transfer humanitarian aid. I do want to spend some time on this because I saw actually some interesting analysis from, again, Israeli commentators, and one who in English put it this way. He says, these are two very concerning data points from

Gaza. One, after the multi-week campaign in and around al-Shifa, mortars are still being fired at the IDF from northern Gaza as troops are leaving the Gaza Strip. This shows that the enemy still has, quote, plenty of forces in the north, too. After months of battles now in Khan Yunis by the 98th Division and its commando brigade, four soldiers were just killed yesterday, announced by the IDF. This shows that the enemy still uses tunnels and has weapons despite months of being chased around. The problem with this strategy of clear and not hold is that it seems to inevitably mean Hamas returns. Now, he's writing it from a very pro-Israeli military perspective,

but the reason why it really struck out to me is that even the clear-eyed Israeli military analysts inside the country are like, hey, this entire military campaign did not actually achieve its so-called military end. We have rockets and military capability in northern Gaza and in Khan Yunis, both of which were promised as the justification. You can see majority from the U.S. commentators and even defenders of his military strategy is it's working. And yeah, there's a high civilian casualty, but what are you going to do? But this is actually evidence that the enemy both retains its military capacity, that they have not been able to destroy Hamas, and that even with all of their tactics, their effective free fire zone, etc., that it hasn't

worked, which is, I mean, frankly, predictable from the start with the way that they've decided to wage the war. It is not only predictable from the start, it was predicted from the start, including by people who are not deep military know, deep military experts such as ourselves. The idea that you were going to defeat Hamas and that was going to be the, you know, the actual goal of the strategy. I mean, it never made sense from day one, first of all, that you would even be able to do that or what that even means. Second of all, the tactics from the beginning, remember, we covered those comments from Jocko about this. That's right. The tactics were never consistent with that goal. The tactics were consistent with revenge. The tactics were consistent with annihilation. The tactics were consistent

with collective punishment of the entire civilian population, which is where, you know, the siege comes into play. And I've got a lot more on what how those tactics actually were decided on and how they were executed in the field in my monologue today. But the idea that this was some hunt for Hamas, and it was really this targeted military campaign directly at Hamas, that was preposterous from the jump. But now they're at a place where they can sort of no longer sustain the lie, even amongst their own supporters who want to sustain the lie, even amongst their own supporters who want to believe the lie, who want to believe that justification. It becomes too preposterous for anyone who is looking at this thing clearly to sustain. So what the Israeli

Defense Minister Yoav Galant is saying about their withdrawal from Khan Yunus from southern Gaza, leaving a very minimal number, honestly, of soldiers still remaining in the Gaza Strip. Basically, they are posted up along the corridor between north and south, this dividing line to prevent Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza. That is the bulk of where the troops remain in the Gaza Strip. Now, they claim, and U.S. intelligence has also put out a statement to the same effect, that the reason they are withdrawing from Khan Yunus and southern Gaza at this time is to rest up and prepare the operation for Rafah.

We know that Netanyahu has very aggressively asserted that there is no way he will be deterred from going into Rafah. That is still hanging out there. So what this actually means, I think it's very honestly difficult to say at this point and what it means for the future. The other thing that's hanging over this, you know, with a lot of question marks is there are ongoing negotiations occurring in Qatar for some sort of ceasefire. Don't know the length.

Don't know the contours of that. Don't know how likely that is to actually come to fruition. But one of the things Hamas has been insisting on is some sort of IDF withdrawal. So the other possibility, is this withdrawal a precursor to some sort of either temporary or more lasting ceasefire deal? We simply don't know at this point, but obviously the fact that there was such a significant withdrawal from southern Gaza is incredibly significant and something to really keep our eyes on. Now, in terms of Netanyahu and his domestic political situation, as we've said a million times and we're not the only ones, he has to keep this war going to hold on to his position

in power. Obviously, there have been huge questions about him leading up to October 7th. He is deeply unpopular in Israel, almost across the board. Once the war is over, there will be a clamoring for new elections and he will be in big trouble then. So I think he almost has to hold on to a potential Arafa invasion, as he asserts, as a certainty. He has to hold on to what's going on in northern Israel and their tit-for-tat escalations with Hezbollah. That still has the possibility of really flaring up and escalating. And then we're going to talk more in the next block about this additional front that he's opened up directly vis-a-vis Iran and what that could

mean for the future. Because again, his political fate depends on keeping this war going, which is why I'm a little bit skeptical that, you know, the withdrawal of troops from southern Gaza at this point really spells like, oh, they're actually winding things down and this is coming to some sort of a close. I think that they're trying to keep their options open. But I mean, again, the Israeli right wing is actually reading it as a defeat. So apparently I'm reading back here again from a translation, but the Israeli radio this morning, Reshet B, apparently a large radio organization, said this morning that basically Hamas is getting a lot of what it wanted and that the withdrawal of forces from Khan Yunus is basically, quote, a kind of ceasefire without it being official.

They also say that considering the narrative during the war that there won't be Hamas and military pressure is bringing the release of hostages, we are wondering now if those talking points will be quietly shelved. So I think they're in a holding pattern. I don't think they really know what they're doing. Of course they're going to try and save face and be like, no, no, no, no, we're going into Rafah. But international pressure and changes and wins here in the U.S. very clearly dramatically shifting after the strike on the world. Central Kitchen, don't get me wrong, I would not put it past them whatsoever. And if things change, if these things fail, or if something else happens that could influence events, very much could be possible. But

regardless, I think we're in an interesting kind of a flux situation right now that could go in two different directions. Yeah, absolutely. I think my personal assessment is that Bibi has to hold on to the Rafah invasion is coming. I think he said it so clearly and made that promise so clearly so many times. I really don't think he can back off of it without immediately jeopardizing his political position, which is his end all, be all. I mean, he's an ideological actor, but he's also, first and foremost, a political animal. There's a reason that he has held power so often and for so long in Israeli society. So I think he has to stick to that pledge. But perhaps there is, you know, responding to this tiniest bit of U.S. pressure that the Biden administration has put on of, you know, let's back off for a bit and let things cool down.

Let a little bit more of a trickle of aid flow into the strip in response to these concerns from the Americans. And again, just take note, take note, everyone. It did not even take an actual change in policy to compel some changes on the Israeli side. All it took was the threat of possible future undefined action. And we saw immediate response from the Israelis. So keep that in mind the next time they try to gaslight you into, oh, Biden's doing all he can. And oh, we just, you know, we're just impotent. We have no power in this situation. That is nonsense. That is utter and complete nonsense. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times it's far from what I originally intended it to be.

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

Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith.

Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal

chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The strike by the Israelis on the World Central Kitchen aid workers has had tremendous fallout, I would say, especially among American liberals, which is interesting for a variety of reasons. But Chef Jose Andres himself speaking out over the weekend and taking a very hard line against the Israelis here, really calling into question their quote-unquote investigation into what happened. Let's take a listen to a bit of what he had to say.

We could argue that the first one, let's say, was a mistake. The second, the third. Do you believe World Central Kitchen was targeted on purpose? My humanity tells me that obviously I don't want to believe that World Central Kitchen was targeted. And probably this was not the case. Because I'm sure they knew our movements. I'm sure they knew our movements. I'm sure they knew our teams. I'm sure they were in direct contact with the different people that coordinate in these situations. But obviously this seems keeps happening.

This breaking of communications keeps happening. You wrote a very emotional tweet this week about ZOMI saying, I wish I never founded your organization. You would be alive somewhere today, smiling and making somebody somewhere feel like they were the most beloved person in the world. You said you wish you'd never founded World Central Kitchen.

As you know, I will forever have to live with this, as well as the families and all the members of World Central Kitchen. I founded it with one very simple idea. Can we provide food and water quicker than anybody else? Obviously, something like this makes you think. We did what we did because there's a lot of people that are always forgotten. Many civilians, women, children, that the only thing they did was trying to get close by to somewhere that they were giving them flower of breath.

This is not anymore about the seven men and women of World Central Kitchen that perished on this unfortunate event. This is happening way for too long. It's been six months of targeting anything that seems moves. This doesn't seem a war against terror. This doesn't seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it's a war against humanity itself. So obviously some really striking comments there made by Chef Jose Andres saying this doesn't seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really at this point seems it's a war against humanity itself.

Remember, early on, he was a supporter of this war early on. So to hear that from him is quite striking. In addition, suggesting they were targeted directly, calling for an independent investigation, calling into question the results of the Israeli investigation that already occurred. Talking about it seems that they are targeting everything that moves, killing women and children whose only crime is seeking out a loaf of bread or a bag of flour. Let's go ahead and pull up this next piece, this IDF investigation that occurred and what they claim to have found. So they dismissed two officers over those deadly drone strikes on aid workers. Basically, they're sticking with this story that somebody spotted a supposed militant with a gun, not even a militant,

just a person with a gun, and that that was enough for a strike on this aid convoy to be authorized. And again, keep in mind, first of all, in a war zone, it is entirely appropriate to have someone with a gun escorting an aid convoy. Second of all, as Jose Andres himself indicated, and as you could see in that photo that was just up on the screen, all three of the vehicles had the World Central Kitchen logo on the top. They were coordinating directly with the IDF. They were traveling along a known deconfliction route. They were following protocol to a T. Every communication was made to try to ensure that the Israelis knew, hey, we are leaving our warehouse and we are heading out in these vehicles.

And they weren't struck once. They weren't struck twice. They were struck three times. And we're supposed to believe that, you know, it was, oh, it was just a mistake. It was just a misunderstanding. We couldn't see the World Central Kitchen logo in the ground, which even the theoretical potential presence at one point of someone with a gun was enough to justify the murder of seven aid workers using three different drone strikes. Yeah, I don't want to sound insensitive, but part of what has annoyed me about the turn on this or about to get to this is that it took the killing of these Western aid workers to prompt this. This has been self-evident since what the very day that they announced, what was it that they announced that they were doing a complete

siege into the Gaza Strip. Like we have known from day one, this was evident whenever three Israeli hostages came out of a building waving a white flag in Hebrew saying, we are hostages, and they shot them dead because the rules of engagement were. So it wasn't enough when they killed their own people. It wasn't enough whenever they killed people on camera. At this point, if you are living on the internet and you have watched videos of the IDF that's engaged in combat, you have known that this is what the rules of engagement were. Nobody was fired or held to account for that. They themselves were. Yeah, they put out. That's what I mean. In many instances, by the way. And so it was only when a member of DC royalty

was personally affected by this as everybody decided to like pearl clutch around it. I'm not erasing the lives of these aid workers. It's just such a self-interested portrait that I actually want people at home to take in. Jose Andres is royalty in this town. He owns a bunch of restaurants. You know, his World Central Kitchen stuff is always, that's like secondary. He is a social pillar of Washington, has been for at least 15, 20 years. All of the news anchors that we're about to show you who are now, quote, turning on Israel, they're all friends with him.

They have all dined in his restaurants. That's the only reason that they are changing their tune. So do not be mistaken that this has been some major change of consciousness. As usual in D.C., it's only whenever people are personally affected by something. I guess that's human nature. That is the only thing that can genuinely compel anything to change, which in my opinion is frankly outrageous if you're going to look at a situation on its merits or not. It's certainly the nature of these people. I don't think you could say it's human nature when you see the overwhelming bulk of public opinion, when you see the protesters in the street, most of whom don't have a personal stake in this conflict, don't know people who are dying and being starved to death in real time.

They were able to see the humanity of Palestinians and the horror of the situation before someone who they personally knew was impacted. But such is the narcissism and the bubble and the casual dehumanization that, you know, the elites in Washington swim in that it wasn't even, this is important too, to underscore your point, Sagar. It's not like these are the first even aid work, Western aid workers who have been killed. True. There's some 200 plus aid workers who've been killed in this conflict. We've had, you know, doctors who are killed. We've had professors who are killed. We've seen the utter destruction. I mean, this has been in front of our eyes

since the beginning. Truly, as you said, since they announced a complete siege, how can you sustain the concept that, oh, this is a targeted hunt for Hamas, when by definition, complete siege means you are holding the entire population hostage. So it wasn't when they were targeted attacks on journalists. It wasn't even, you know, that there was an American citizen here. It was that a personal friend of theirs was impacted. That's what it took. But it has apparently created a dramatic change in the way that some liberals are now viewing this conflict. You can almost see it, it too in the news coverage. We have covered so much,

the anesthetic, sanitized language that's used when it comes to Palestinians being killed versus Israelis being killed. You can even see in real time some of that language shift in terms of the news coverage. But put this next piece up on the screen. I never expected to see this headline. Nancy Pelosi, who just basically minutes ago was smearing any sort of ceasefire protesters as being paid by Russia or being paid by China, etc. She has now joined onto a letter calling to halt U.S. weapons transfers to Israel. Now, there are some caveats with regards to this letter. The language is a little squishy, right? Let me read you a little bit. It says, in part, in light of the recent strike against aid workers and the ever-worsening

humanitarian crisis, we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapons transfers. That letter, they go on to write in Axios, which was released after the IDF announced initial findings of its investigation into the attack, includes a call for an independent probe. If this strike, they write, is found to have violated U.S. or international law, we urge you to continue withholding these transfers until those responsible are held accountable. So again, the letter doesn't go so far as to say, just cut off the weapons transfers and that's that. They're saying we want an independent investigation. We say we want accountability. If you do those things, then you can continue transferring the weapons.

But the fact that Nancy Pelosi signed onto this at all with any sort of language in the direction of potentially, possibly conditioning arms transfers is pretty extraordinary. Maybe it's because just on January 31st, 2024, so three months ago, Nancy Pelosi nominated Jose Andres for the Nobel Peace Prize. And Nancy Pelosi has often lauded the work of Jose Andres, of whom which he has appeared before with several times. It's just, it's all the club. Like, it's all just a social club.

If anybody in the social club is effective, then something is changed. Otherwise, it doesn't even matter. This is actually a key insight, too, into why Ukraine mania has taken over Washington, because there's freaking Ukrainians all over this town. And because, for some reason, Ukrainians are the only human beings on planet Earth that are supposed to be, like, whatever. If they're being invaded, then it's a threat on democracy. Russia is the great enemy. Russiagate also played a good role. But, you know, pay very close attention as to who is granted personhood status and who is not. That's right. That's right. And listen, I'm glad that they're shifting their view. But it is, I saw someone say on Twitter, like, it is just too on the nose. Yeah. That

what it took is for their, like, wealthy liberal friend to be directly impacted before they could see what has been obvious to the overwhelming majority of the world since the very early days of this conflict. You referenced this before, but just to give you a sense of how the tone and approach to Israel has changed just like this, like flipped on a dime. We've got a little compilation here for you just to set it up. We've got Morning Joe really, you know, taking a task, an Israeli econ minister. Now, his choice of line of questioning is interesting. We can talk about it after the fact, but the aggressiveness of the tone is kind of what's noteworthy here. You have Jen Psaki, Biden's former press secretary, actually talking about possibly conditioning aid and criticizing directly the Biden administration

approach. I haven't personally heard her criticize the Biden administration on anything since she left that post. So that was very noteworthy. And then you have former CIA director Leon Panetta making some extraordinary claims about the way that the Israeli army operates in general. You definitely want to hear that. Take a listen to all of those. You're feeding that wolf and you're telling that wolf to feed the Nazis in Gaza. So explain to me, because I really want to know, why was Benjamin Netanyahu and his government funding? They were allies with Qatar in the funding of Hamas. Why? I think it's a mistake.

And it was uncovered October 7th. October 7th demonstrated that if you think you could buy quiet peace by funding Hamas, it's a huge mistake. And it's weird to me. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu, knowing that their charter said that they were to kill Jews and eradicate Israel? Why would any leader of Israel work to fund that organization to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Look, clearly the strategy that the United States is implementing at this point is not working to change the behavior of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is not working to end the war. So obviously something has to change. And I think it's pretty clear they're discussing that, I think, in the White House and I hope in the White House in the Situation Room at this point

in time. The question is what that will be. You have to be able to verify, to take time, to make sure that the information that you're getting is accurate with regards to targets. And I have to tell you that in the past, at least in my experience, the Israelis usually fire and then ask questions. The Israelis usually fire and then ask questions. What did you make of those various comments? The last one in particular, I was just telling you what was playing. Leon Panetta was a man who had the greenlit a huge portion of the Obama drone program. I mean, and if we were to take, at the worst, the civilian casualties under the Obama drone program was some 90-something percent.

At best, it was like maybe 45, 50 percent. Don't exactly want to hear it from Mr. Panetta, who did some of that behavior, but I mean, I guess it's one of those where you could take it from his word. At the very least, you could say this, the blob is shifting against them. Panetta, I should remind people, former Secretary of Defense, former CIA director, at one point advocated for literal war with Russia. We can roll the tape if anybody wants to go and check it. So for somebody like him to change his tune, I would say it's certainly noteworthy. The Morning Joe piece is just like, what are we doing here, dude? We were talking about this on October 8th. No, actually, I think our first show was October 9th. Okay, so October 9th, that was the very first time that you heard it here on the show. It was a legitimate point of view and conversation about how we got here and

what some of the background. About how Bibi bolstered Hamas to create a divide between the West Bank and Gaza and built them up and funded them and even made explicit comments about how if you want to block a two-state solution, you need to bolster Hamas. But yeah, that is the conversation now. So why is that the conversation now? What exactly are we doing here? Okay, I just want to return to this. One of their friends was personally affected by the situation. So now everybody's got a chance. It's like Jen Psaki. It would be difficult to count the number of times she's probably personally eaten at a Jose Andres establishment. And when you're in the White House,

he's there all the time. He was there, you know, this is like a bipartisan thing. Don't get me wrong. Under Trump, he was a celebrity here in Washington too. So for them, Israel's only real crime was hitting a staff member of somebody who is basically royalty here in Washington. But that was enough for people in the media to change. So I don't know. I'll just keep saying it over and over again. Just to comment on some of the specific comments. Part of what I thought was really noteworthy about Panetta's comments is they weren't confined specifically to this onslaught in Gaza. He said the Israelis usually fire and then ask questions. So it is extraordinary. It's quite noteworthy for a member in good standing of the blob to cast dispersions over Israeli military conduct across not just this war, but many previous conflicts and mowings of the grass previously and would have been unthinkable up till basically this moment and would have

probably gotten you tagged as an anti-Semite or whatever. And the line previously was always, oh, this is the most moral army on the planet, et cetera, et cetera. So that was noteworthy to me. The Psaki thing speaks for itself. The fact that she even feels compelled to critique the administration, it's a little bit of kid gloves or whatever, but that she says anything against them is noteworthy. In the morning, Joe won because the line of questioning is so strange at this moment. It's so not the point of what people are really concerned about right now when you have somewhere around 40,000 Palestinians who have been killed. You have the entire Gaza Strip completely decimated and in rubble. You have obviously the killing of these aid workers. You have this situation that could spiral out of control with regard to this attack on the Iran Consular Building. And you're going

back to almost attack Bibi from the right of you were supporting Hamas and you were bolstering Hamas and you were too supportive of Hamas. My read into it is that Joe Scarborough is smart enough to know that the moment has changed, that he can't have this Israeli government person on and just play patty cakes with him the way that he would have a week ago before this strike. But he doesn't actually really want to criticize what's happening in Gaza right now. I agree. So this was the line of questioning that he felt like was safe for all of his various constituent audiences, but could

sort of like bluster to the Morning Joe audience and the liberals who watch MSNBC that he was being tough on Israel, but not in a way that actually matters right now. For what it's worth, that's what I read into the Morning Joe exchange there. The last one we wanted to show you, which this is very striking, Senator Tim Kaine, who is, you know, the most kind of mainline, run-of-the-mill Democrat, with a few exceptions. He's kind of good on like surveillance, mass surveillance. He has a few things where he can, but typically he's just like the most run-of-the-mill mainstream Democrat. He has a few things where he can, but typically just like the most run-of-the-mill mainstream Democrat. He made a suggestion that our troops that are being sent to build this pier, which are coming from Virginia, so he has direct stake as their representative in the Senate,

that not only could they be in danger from Hamas and other militants, they could be in danger from the IDF themselves. Let's take a listen to that. Even this U.S. military operation, these are some troops that are deployed out of Virginia, Fort Eustis in Virginia, in charge of this Marine Pier operation. We knew when we announced it that they might be in harm's way from Hamas. But, you know, after the events of this week, anybody doing humanitarian aid is going to wonder if they're in harm's way from the IDF. So suggesting that U.S. troops could be in harm's way from the IDF, what did you make of that, Sagar? Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think it's very important. And what I think is, people, look, this has opened up a conversation.

We are allowed to talk now about conduct as it will affect foreigners who are in Gaza. This is basically how the expansion of the Overton window gets. Save the Overton window for the Candace Owens discussion. The point is, is that as this is changing and things are going to a point where they're trying to send a signal, basically they're trying to salvage their ability to be pro-Israel in the future by putting down some of these noteworthy comments and here with immense pressure, I think, to try and back up Biden and generally the other Western countries, including the European Union, which we often don't talk about. But they're very,

very different on this issue than even here. Even the pro-Israel nations are much more willing to criticize, to pressure, to try and recognize Palestinian statehood. I think things are very obviously going in a certain direction and they are kind of leading from behind in the old Obama speak. But I mean, I think it is true. I think it's what's really crazy to me to watch here with Biden is the vacillation, his hand, quote unquote, being forced only when a member of Washington royalty is personally affected, never actually leading with principle or with guidance. It's just the absence of leadership in this, both with his own personal ideology, stubbornness, and really the C-team of people he has with him is just so self-evident in the entire handling of this

discussion. Yeah, and I don't want to make too much of this shift because I think it's entirely possible that Israel does just enough of, you know, letting a little more A-trucks in, opening another crossing, doing enough to placate the Biden administration. And to go back to those original Biden comments that we played you, to me, that's what his comments are indicative of. He says, oh, I asked them to do what they're doing, indicating, oh, he's satisfied with the response. It's enough for him. And I think it is very possible, if not likely, that we still don't really see a change in U.S. policy, that the Biden administration goes back to basically lockstep support and points to these few little additional crumbs that were thrown out here from Israel as some big win,

big humanitarian win, and we go back to business as usual. I think that's probably the most likely outcome here. So again, I don't want to make too much of it. But between not just this strike on Jose Andres' humanitarian aid workers, but also the political writing is just so clear on the wall now. There's another piece in, I believe, Politico about how it's sunken to some of the president's campaign team, that the image that voters previously had of him as this like, yeah, I may not agree with everything, but he seems like a nice guy, dead and gone, done, done. And they can see the battleground polling. They can see the problem they have in Michigan. They can see the problem they have with young voters. More on that in a later block as well.

And so between those two things, they feel the need to aggressively tone shift and at least extract something they can point to from the Israelis to say, see, we care and we made them change. We did that. We forced their hand. And that's how, you know, that's the way that we conduct ourselves. And that's why we're way better than Trump, too, by the way, on this issue. But am I incredibly hopeful that we're going to see an entire, like, sea change in terms of U.S. policy? Not particularly. Yeah, I think you're right. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.

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

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.

But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go ahead and get to the potential fallout from that Israeli strike on a consular building of Iran in Syria, because, you know, it's easy to lose sight of this because so much of the conversation has been about those World Central Kitchen aid workers.

But at the very same time, you had that strike, which was a violation of Vienna conventions, quite an extraordinary provocation on the Israeli part. And now the question is, how is Iran going to respond? All of the actors involved seem quite convinced that there is almost as a necessity going to be some sort of Iranian reaction. So what is that going to look like? Let's put this up on the screen from CNN. Their headline is U.S. preparing for significant Iran attack on U.S. or Israeli assets in the region as soon as the headline says next week.

That would be this week. They write here, the U.S. is on high alert, actively preparing for a significant attack that could come as soon as within the next week by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday's Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN. U.S. officials believe that attack is inevitable. That view is reportedly shared by their Israeli counterparts. Two governments are furiously working to get in position ahead of what is to come as they anticipate that Iran's attack could unfold in a number of different ways and that both U.S. and Israeli assets and personnel are at risk of being targeted. A senior administration official

described the U.S. warning to Iran as, quote, don't think about coming after us. State Department spokesperson did not provide further information about how the US message was conveyed to Iran. But you will recall, Sagar, that immediately after the strike, the Iranians made it clear in no uncertain terms that they not only blamed Israel, they also blamed us. Now, we deny that we knew anything about it, which is, you know, there's no real good scenario here if we did know about it or we didn't know about it. Both of those things are a problem. But it's, you know, first of all, the question of what happens is important. And second of all, the realization that Israeli actions and our unconditional support of Israel have put our service members now in grave danger. Yeah. I mean, what is also actually shocking to me has not been the change. It wasn't the

actions itself, although, I mean, obviously a violation of the Vienna Convention. It was how quickly the Vienna Convention has begun to fall apart. And I've been watching this with great interest. Let's put this up there on the screen. This actually, by the way, is something that's happening in our hemisphere and might affect us. Mexico has completely severed diplomatic ties with Ecuador, where days after the Iranian strike, Ecuador's police stormed into the Mexican embassy to arrest their former vice president. This is an extraordinary breach of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. And I mean, for example, the head of the Mexican consular said in Quito, this is not possible. It cannot be. This is crazy. I am very worried. They could kill him. There is no basis to do this. This is totally outside of the norm.

I mean, for all time, people have dissidents and others. I don't even know much about the particular governments here involved. And I don't care because the reason why this is dangerous, this is all happening at the same time, is the collapse of consular relations, especially among sovereign nations. We're not talking here about protest groups or something like that, storming an embassy and holding people hostage is really a total breakdown in international norms and violations, which after they become normalized over and over again could lead to extraordinary things. I mean, for example, there were often CIA plans to assassinate Julian Assange inside of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Even the British, the US, and the CIA was like, no, we can't do it. Even there, no matter what, not possible. Even in the height of the Cold War, the United States never breached the Soviet embassy here in Washington. Now, we definitely dug tunnels

around said embassy and did some interesting things, and they did the same to us, but even they would never dare to enter our embassy. So to watch the breakdown of this happen in real time, this actually is what struck some real fear into me. Because this is the problem. And this has also been with the way that the U.S. has operated. Our military operates very differently. But then we have our freaking John Kirby spokesman for the White House. He's like, oh, Israel is the most moral army in the world. Like, they've even done things that we would never do.

I'm like, that's not true. That's actually not true at all. I know a lot of people who got their limbs blown off, you know, going door to door when it would have been a lot easier to just drop a bomb the way that the Israelis did. We never even considered it for a second, U.S. commanders at that level. So watching this all become normalized has actually been highly dangerous, I think, to the international system. There is no doubt about it. And again, now our consular facilities, now our embassies abroad are also at risk because there's no putting this toothpaste back in the tube. We didn't say boo about this Israeli strike in Damascus on Iran's consular building. We didn't say anything. We didn't object to it. We didn't say anything. We didn't object to it.

We didn't criticize it. We didn't say anything about it. So how are we going to then critique another country if they do the same thing? This is now on the table, period, end of story. And Dr. Trita Parsi making a point about how it's not just with regard to this violation, this flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention. Let's go ahead and put his tweet up on the screen here. He says, international norms being destroyed in front of our eyes. Israel ignores UN Security Council resolutions and ICJ rulings. The US, after voting for that one resolution, then immediately is, oh, it's not binding. Well, that is just not true. We're just making stuff up. Israel bombs the Iranian consulate in violation of the Vienna Convention.

Ecuador then attacks the Mexican embassy, violating also the Vienna Convention. And, you know, we've already seen the way this has unfolded, Sagar. Previously, remember all the moral language that the U.S. would use about Russia's actions in Ukraine? They really kind of had to drop that because what Russia has done in Ukraine, it's horrifying. It was a violation of international law. I opposed it from the beginning. I still oppose it today. It looks tame compared to what Israel has done in the Gaza Strip. When you look at the numbers, when you look at the destruction, when you look at the amount of civilian buildings targeting universities, just absolutely destroying the healthcare system, al-Shifa Hospital, desecrating cemeteries, schools, high-rise apartment buildings, et cetera. There's no going back from that. Those things are

now on the table, not just in Gaza, but everywhere around the world. Yeah, I mean, in April of 2022, Biden accused Putin of committing, quote, genocide in Ukraine. Like, it's like, really? Now, how could you possibly, this is, and by the way, this is why I oppose a lot of moralistic language, and we're going to get a guess here, is because then you get caught into little traps like this. It's like, well, what is the difference between Russia and Israel? It's like, well, oops. And you see exactly how now they have to drop it, and now we have no strategic rationale for, we got to support Ukraine. We got to make sure that we're on the front line of democracy. And now just watch. I don't, from what I understand, I haven't even

seen yet a response to the US about whatever the hell is going on here with Mexico and with Ecuador. And you may pretend, you know, that it doesn't matter, but Mexico and Ecuador is a hell of a lot closer than Gaza and Moscow or Kiev. These are places which really could affect us. Breakdown relations between the two of them. Vital U.S. trading partner, one of the largest trading partners in the world. And we just ignore it completely. A flagrant attack and violation here in the Western Hemisphere. So was it greenlit by America? That's another even more interesting discussion. Because if it was, then we've basically had quasi green lights of a breach of these things happen in a one-week period, which would have been extraordinary if they'd

happened in the last 50 years, even a couple of times. Really very underrated discussion, unfortunately. And I think that the strike on the Iranian embassy already we're seeing the result. Yeah, it is amazing how quick, because I mean, I'm sure Ecuadorians aren't stupid. They knew we can't say anything about it right now because we just let Israel know. So what are we going to say? Well, that wasn't great. But anyway, moving on, we can't say anything about it because of what we have allowed Israel to do. And this is what Israel does. They do a little trial balloon. They test something out. Hey, can I get away with, you know, attacking the hospital? Oh, we can.

Okay, we're going to destroy the entire health system. And we know you're not going to say anything about it. We know there's not going to be any accountability. We're going to drop 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs on a refugee camp, killing hundreds of people to maybe possibly get one Hamas baddie. You're going to say anything about it? You're going to do anything about it? No? Okay.

Well, this is going to be our modus operandi for the rest of the war. Oh, can we get away with massacring civilians who are just trying to grab a bag of flour so that they and their family don't starve to death? Can we get away with it? Oh, yeah, we can. Okay. What else can we get away with? And keep in mind, again, to go back to the original point made here, now this has put

our service members in grave danger because Iran is not stupid. They look at our very close relationship with Israel. They look at how dependent the Israelis are ultimately on the U.S. supply of weapons. And they don't see this as an attack just from Israel. They see this as an attack from the U.S. And think about all of the radicalization and all of the anti-U.S. hatred that is being stoked around the world that could have massive blowback consequences for our country and our service members for decades to come. That is what our policy in the Middle East has wrought for our country. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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

In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than

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

Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There has been a major fracture in the conservative media ecosystem over the departure of Candace Owens from the Daily Wire. Now, we're not just covering YouTube

drama for the sake of it. This has genuinely become a major ideological fissure. We've seen major figures in conservative media and conservative activists debate what this means, what should be allowed. We've played for everybody previously the comments by Ben Shapiro, where he justified the departure of Candace Owens, saying that the Daily Wire itself is a publisher, that it is not a platform, and thus has no obligation to employ somebody who doesn't agree with them. Very discontinent in the past with some of Ben's comments on cancel culture and on social media, for example. This has definitely been taken notice by some new entrants to the sphere. Patrick Bet-David in particular

and comedian Andrew Schultz as well. Here's what they had to say. CBN is what? What does CBN stand for? Christian Broadcasting Network. It's not, you know, a RBN, Religious Broadcasting Network. It's what?

Christian Broadcasting Network. Daily Wire can be Daily DJW. religious broadcasting network. It's what? Christian broadcasting network. Daily wire can be daily DJW, daily Jewish wire, or DIW, daily Israel wire. No problem. If that's your value, stick to that. We all live in America. It should be America first, not Iran first, not Armenia first, not Israel first. It should be America first. If you think it's Israel first, go to Israel. I agree. I agree with every word the man just said. You know, he actually, frankly,

he's probably more powerful than me because he's not even from here. He's, as he said, he's like, he's what I think Armenian Christian from Iran. He's like, if you're Israel first or if you're Armenian first or any of that, he's like, that's fine. He's like, but put it there in the title.

And I think what he's got, I wouldn't have said daily Jewish wire personally, daily Israel wire. I mean, listen, based upon the comments that they have made, you had the CEO, Jeremy Boring, who did a Twitter space, whatever it's called X spaces. Now at this point, he said, I would never hire somebody who said that there was a genocide happening in Gaza. And it's like, well, why, you know what I mean? Look, even if you disagree, why is that? What is your... I cannot imagine personally having any red line about any country. I'll give a perfect example. My family is Indian. Ryan is very critical of the Modi government and has done multiple segments about censorship, including, by the way,

which people in India got very upset at me about. You know what I said? I said, stick to your own business. In my country, this guy gets to do whatever he wants. Those are my editorial principles. Whether I agree or not, I don't care. I don't live there. I'm not an Indian citizen. Ben, though, for example, and actually the entire leadership of the Daily Wire, somehow think that it is okay to enforce foreign shibboleths on our soil as it relates to an American media company. And I think it's entirely legitimate to level the criticism that Patrick and others have now put into the sphere. Go ahead before I play Andrew. I just wanted to reiterate, we're going to talk more about Rogan and his comments, but I thought a very important point that he made when he initially said, hey, I think this is a genocide, which is, you know, talking about Israel's conduct in Gaza.

It's a little bit different than whatever your like philosophical view is on abortion or your philosophical view is on gay rights, for example, any sort of like, you know, culture war issue. You're talking about basically what Jeremy Boring and Ben Shapiro are saying is you are not allowed to acknowledge reality. You're not allowed to talk honestly about the atrocities that are unfolding in front of us that IDF soldiers themselves are posting on TikTok. If you talk honestly about those things, you don't have a place at this network. And so I think that's part of why this actually ends up being important because the whole facts versus feelings, Ben Shapiro, the facts are pretty undisputable. You may not want to say the word genocide, but war crimes, ethnic cleansing, I mean,

they have whole conferences there celebrating the idea of, hey, we're going to resettle Gaza, we're going to push everybody out. These things are undeniable. So is it facts or is it feelings? I think on this one issue, we have a very clear answer here. Yeah, absolutely. And look, like you just said about, look, again, I don't use moral language. I think these are all loaded terms. My point, though, is that when it comes to, how about this, critical behavior that has been at the very least has backfired against Israel. Can we talk about that? I haven't even heard him say that. Every time I check this man's feed, it's all retweeting the justification, including Israel PM's like military justification

of what's happening on the ground. I mean, why you're going to trust what they have to say. And this is coming from a person. I'm a patriotic American. I love this country. I don't trust the U.S. military. When the U.S. military is like, hey, here's what we did to this hospital in Kunduz. I'm like, well, maybe. And you know who I ask? I ask people who are actually in the military, not the people who are the spokesperson. And they're like, oh, yeah, they're lying. The brass is full of shit. And they're trying to paint you a different picture. Why do I have the wherewithal to do that in a country that I love? A country that I'm not even from or don't live in. Very

interesting, isn't it? Comedian Andrew Schultz also, I thought he put it really well in his discussion around censorship. One thing I love about comedians is that they're observational by nature and that whenever they see something, they don't come into it with the same preconceived rhetoric and all that you're supposed to. And they can just kind of say it as it is. Here's what he had to say. He makes the argument for censorship. He calls it something else. Yeah, I forgot the term I have in my phone. But I don't even think he's using the term right. But he's basically like, there's a window of ideas we accept. Yes. And we accept ideas between this, this, I guess this is if I get window, you're looking like this. So we accept. Yes. And we accept ideas between this, this, I guess this is, if I get window, you're looking like this. So we accept ideas between here and here.

And anything outside of that window, well, you're fireable. That's censorship. What? But he's acting as if this is like a justified reason for firing people when you built your identity and platform off of no censorship and freedom of speech. Facts don't care about your feelings and all this shit. It's also funny that that window happens to end where his beliefs end. Isn't that interesting? Not being pro-Israel, that's where the window ends.

That's also your specific personal belief. What? I just don't see. So you can't have an opinion on your platform that is not pro a country that is not ours? Yeah. Wait a minute. Crazy. So is the Daily Wire an American media platform

or is it an Israeli media platform? I'm just asking. This guy's cooking. He's just asking and he's asking the right question. I think that again is that, and this is also why I think it's hilarious, is that Israeli military defenders and Israel firsters in the US

have actually created their own worst nightmare, where their behavior is now so obvious and is so blatant in terms of flipping on a dime as regards to censorship, cancel culture, free speech, student protests, where, oh, we're supposed to be upset because kids are crying on campus, that it is now clear what their real and first objective is. They care more about Israel than they do even about concepts and principles that we hold dear here in this country. And that's why I think it's very important that this fight has broken out. I will not lie and say that I don't think that they are very much still remain in power, especially whenever it comes to the elected representatives.

But as all things, the online discussion is a precursor to possibly change 15, 20 years down the line. And that is where I at least see things going right now, because this decision in particular has opened up a lot of people's eyes. Yeah, well, they turned on a dime. I mean, it was very like, I'm a free speech absolutist and it's period, end of story. And you can't, if you're the New York Times, you know, you can't say the Tom Cotton op-ed is out of bounds. You can't fire the editor that greenlit this because that's cancel culture. There was no discussion of an Overton window when it came to that. Or, you know, even more recently when it came to Ronna McDaniels firing it over at NBC

News. That Overton window was apparently not acceptable. I mean, frankly, yeah, the sort of language Ben is using now sounds like a lot of what liberals were saying when they were justifying censorship, saying, no, at this outlet, these are the values. That's perfectly acceptable. People should lose their jobs for having views, having viewpoints, expressing opinions that are outside of what we consider to be acceptable discourse. That was the liberal justification. And now it's just very clear that you share that view. It just happens that you're fine with the views that they had problems with. You're fine with those on your platform. But there are other views, including most specifically on the issue of Israel,

that are out of bounds. And I don't know that that's the only way to mention abortion as well. That probably is another one that would be out of bounds for him if you had someone there who was saying, no, I think women should have the right to choose all the way through the third trimester that apparently also would be out of bounds and grounds for firing on Ben Shapiro's network as well. So just own up to it. Your views are different than what you said that they were. And you built an entire media platform and a lot of wealth on, you know, espousing that you were this free speech anti-cancel culture guy and you're not. Yeah. That's the bottom line here to me. That's actually probably what bugs me more than anything is because it would be, I'm trying to think of an example. Yeah. It would be like if we started

reading pharmaceutical ads, you know, here on the show, like that would be insane. Do we have raised money from well-meaning hard-earned people's money to fund our program? And then we're like, oh yeah, we're just going to start reading like Pfizer ads or something here on the show. People rightfully would be outraged and they should be because then why did we present years and years and years of building up a brand and trying to maintain integrity? I mean, and just so people know, we have turned down massive offers for such types of things here on the show, regardless of how much money it is, simply because we know it would be a betrayal. But, you know, if the real value is about something else, as we all start to learn here in this very revealing episode,

I think it does tell us quite a bit. Let's put up this as well because there has been now a gauntlet thrown by Candace. So Candace Owens challenging Ben Shapiro to a debate. There has been a lot of back and forth and I won't get into all the details. But she says, barring the insinuation that basically it was all this beef about whether she was traveling to London or not, Candace says that she does not want to participate in a debate with Ben Shapiro on the Daily Wire platform and that she wants it to be in person. She then says that I fully accept there will be no moderator. I will get in touch privately to get all of this set up. There has been a major win. But one of the problems, Crystal, if we look at some of the back and forth traffic, and that I think Candace is entirely correct correct about is she was like, okay, let's debate.

And Ben Shapiro was like, fine, come to my studio and debate me on my own show. And she said, well, why don't we pick Lex Friedman or Joe Rogan or any of those places? And Jeremy Boring was like, no, we won't accept that going after Patrick Def David. Ben just participated in a debate on Lex Friedman's podcast with freaking Destiny.

You know, it's like, so why can't you do it with Candace Owens? It's one of those where it's so weaselly, honestly, this idea that the moderator would put his foot on the gas in some sort of direction. It's just one of those where, look, I hope that it actually does happen. I genuinely do, even though both sides have now allegedly agreed. We'll see if the Daily Wire at this point does try to get out of it. But the lengths that they have gone to protect and to justify this decision over there as a business, I don't think we can ever say that this is a quote unquote free speech organization ever again, at the very least. Let me also say, I genuinely think that some of

Candace's comments, I mean, she's still on there defending Kanye West, who literally said, I love Hitler, okay? I do think that some of her comments are, credibly can be classified as anti-Semitic. But she was making those comments before you hired her here. Yeah, exactly. And so that's the thing to me, is like, it's very clear, that actually wasn't the line. That was fine. It was when you were very vociferously critical of the Israeli government. And even he brings up who's the other commentator who has more of a like, listen, I just think we shouldn't be involved in anything. He's like, that view was fine when it comes to Israel. But because he is, you know, very clear that he thinks Israel is a moral actor, that's also fine. That's acceptable. But if you're

actually directly critical of the Israeli government in a way that, you know, Ben finds it acceptable to be critical of the American government, but you can't be critical in that way of the Israeli government, that's where the line was. It wasn't the, you know, weird Hitler comments. It wasn't backing up Kanye West. It was when you were directly critical of the Israeli government. That was the line too far. And so I think it's really important because people may look at some of her comments and say, you know what, those are out of bounds and I see why they don't want that at that network. But that was not actually where the line was drawn. So keep that in mind.

Yeah. And look, let's also talk in terms of like popular opinion. It's perfectly acceptable at The Daily Wire to be against IVF. That's like a 3% position here in the United States. Okay. So, but that, but that's fine. But you know, it's not fine to be like, yeah, again, that's actually in a country, our country that affects us, our policy. And I think that should be allowed. I am actually a free speech absolutist. I'll pretty much hear anybody out, even if they're saying some absolutely crazy shit. But for them, for some reason, it's like that's within the bounds of the quote unquote Overton window, even though it's really not if you consider, you know, U.S. discourse. And here we're having a debate about a foreign country. And apparently that is completely out of bounds. So let's just hammer

that home. It's fine. You want to have an Overton? You are allowed to have whoever you want to have on your platter. That's fine. But I don't want to hear your criticism of other news outlets and other publishers, quote, unquote, Overton Window and the way they draw the lines. If they happen to be a little different from where you draw the lines, I don't want to hear that criticism anymore because you do not have grounds to stand on at this point. I could not agree with that more. There was also a really interesting – there's some other actors that have been entering the debate. Christopher Rufo, the CRT kind of campaigner who entered the fray with some analysis. Let's put this up on the screen. It's really worth reading. We have the full statement here. But basically, it comes down to this. He says,

it is not a violation of freedom of speech to let a multimillion-dollar contract expire, which is reportedly what happened. The Daily Wire is not obligated to subsidize Candace Owens, especially if she's deviating from the publication's editorial standard or causing problems. DW is not an open platform such as YouTube, Facebook, X. And the owners of the So that is definitely true. They say, Owens is a gifted speaker who has been unable to turn controversy into attention, a valuable capability, but she does not advance a serious politics. She is clearly traveling down an ugly but unfortunately well-trodden path. She is rationalizing, okay, blah, blah, blah, all this about Candace. There is an audience for such kind of material. Info Wars does a robust business in vitamins and emergency prep kits, but it's a political dead end.

Why does it matter? Because the right faces an inflection point. There are serious people who are trying to advance a serious political movement with a vision for governing. I consider the Daily Wire to be among them. And then there are serious people who are willing to sell kayfabe and conspiracy, leading us nowhere. I care about politics because I believe we have substantive work to do for the country. And this requires putting together a coalition capable of taking responsibility. The choice is ours. So interesting analysis there. Now, here's the other issue that I have with this. If you presume that the Daily Wire is a serious political

organization and all of that, well, this is a political vision for a incredibly unpopular GOP. I would venture, I mean, I would say with Candace at least, I'd much rather be with her in terms of where she's willing to go, especially with regards to Donald Trump and some more MAGA-style politics, which actually has a shot at electability, than with people who are out there sparking conversations about cutting Social Security, banning abortion, banning IVF. Which do you think is a more serious political movement and capable of moving things forward? But curious what you have to say, Crystal. That is a great point. You made the IVF point previously. The serious ones are the ones who

are in favor of banning IVF, something that almost literally no one supports. Okay. But you know what? I would dissent from you in one regard. I actually think his analysis here of Candace Owens is basically correct. Those are all reasons to have not hired Candace Owens in the first place. But it has nothing to do with the reason she was actually fired. So it's a little bit irrelevant. Like you might be happy she's gone for these other various reasons. You don't think she's a quote unquote serious person, which, okay, I mean, I kind of agree with you there. But again, that isn't really relevant to what happened here and the specific reasons, the specific context around why she was fired at this point in time. Yes, these would all have been good reasons for Ben Shapiro never to hire her and, you know, to have never indulged the supporting Kanye when he was

saying things that were really unsupportable. But all of those things were fine. So let's not pretend otherwise. Like I said, Christopher Roof, you may be glad she's gone for all those variety reasons. That's fine. But that really is kind of irrelevant. Well, it's also a misunderstanding, too, of what we're doing. The Daily Wire is not a political organization. It is an entertainment media company whose job is to make money. And that's why they hired Candace Owens in the first place. It's also why they have all these freaking cartoons and whatever their movies. Isn't that coming with Snow White? I think. Anyway, my point is that's not what serious political actors do. Lady Ballers. Yeah. Very serious. Very serious film saga. Lady Ballers.

Will not be checking out. I have not yet seen a quote unquote conservative movie out there that is in any way like actually good. You know, Griffin said it wasn't that bad. Okay, all right. It wasn't that bad. I believe him. He's a film buff. I don't know that I call it serious. My only point here would be exactly that you're right and that it's actually a misunderstanding.

That's why they hired Candace in the first place. Because of the ratings. They want ratings. They want the controversy. They want people to watch. They want people to subscribe. And that's fine. Just be honest, though, about what line of business you're in. So this is also a big misunderstanding, I think, both on the political level and also here in terms of like what they're actually trying to achieve. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian,

creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing

other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action.

And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Banik-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on now to Joe Rogan. There was a really interesting conversation between Joe Rogan and Coleman Hughes on their podcast around Israel. Coleman previously has been, I would say, I think it's fair to say a defender of Israeli military actions, but in general, he's a serious guy and he's willing to kind of hear things out and to debate. So him and Rogan kind of went at it around Israeli military conduct. Some revealing things here in the discussion. Let's take a listen. We'll react on the other side. There was one point where you were kind of saying it's almost as if the Jews are doing what was done to them, as if it's genocide. I'm saying that when you're killing 30,000 innocent civilians in response to something that killed 1,200 innocent civilians and you're continuing to bomb an area into oblivion,

which is what it looks like when you're looking at Gaza. There's many people that have made the argument that that is at least the steps of genocide or a form of genocide. You're destroying thousands and thousands of people's homes and killing them. So when you say 30,000 civilians, it's not 30,000 civilians that have been killed though. How many that have been killed, though. How many thousands have been killed? So according to Gaza Health Ministry, which is—it is run by Hamas, the number they have is 32,000, but they don't distinguish between Hamas and civilians. How many members of Hamas are there? 40,000, something like that.

I don't think the number is known, but it's tens of thousands. So Hamas says 32,000 people have been killed, something like that. I don't think the number is known, but it's tens of thousands. So Hamas says 32,000 people have been killed, civilians and soldiers. Israel says 13,000 soldiers have been killed by Israel. So if you just being, let's not doubt either number, they could both be inflated. But if both of those numbers are accurate, which they may or may not be, that would be 13,000 soldiers killed, 19,000 civilians killed, which for urban combat in the Middle East is a very normal ratio. I see what you're saying if you wanted to look at it cold and objectively. Yeah. But it's still –

I hope it doesn't come across cold because – But it's mostly women and children that are dying because they're in a place where these terrorists are, right? I mean this is – it's not – Because the terrorists on purpose embed themselves with the civilian population, which is a war crime. Which is a strategy that they have clearly employed when you see them. And when the IDF went into that hospital and found the Hamas. Just recently? Yes. Yeah.

So it's real. It's not just a conspiracy theory. We know that that's real. But it's still, you're still talking about 20,000, whatever it is, of innocent people getting bombed into the Stone Age.

That one I don't know. The accusation was that they were shooting people that were trying to get aid. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And you don't think that The accusation was that they were shooting people that were trying to get aid. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And you don't think that's the case?

I think it's very unlikely. Is it possible? Yeah, it's possible. Absolutely. My assumption is that there is going to be war crimes in this war. Right. Because, and I know Kurt would probably say I'm doing the tragedy of war thing, but it's actually a legitimate point in every single war, even the just ones.

There are war crimes by berserk soldiers, by the good guys. That doesn't mean it's genocide. And that doesn't mean it's not a just war. Interesting. Crystal? So there's a lot here. So first of all, with regard to the targeting of women and children, we actually just learned quite a bit. And I am going to lay all this out in my monologue, but there is an active Israeli government official policy which says,

hey, first of all, we're not just going to target the high-level Hamas commanders. We're going to target even just like random rank-and-file Hamas members. Okay, fine. But we're going to specifically do that using a program, I kid you not, called Where's Daddy, that allows us to target them when they are at home with their wives and children. Furthermore, we are going to generate our target list using AI, and we're not actually going to check whether these are Hamas militants. The only thing we're going to check is whether or not they are male. This speaks to the comments from reporter Barak Ravid about how basically the assumption from the Israeli government is that any fighting age male, including minors, by the way, is a Hamas militant. So when you see their numbers about how many Hamas members they've killed, they are not correct. No serious body believes the Israeli narrative of how many Hamas fighters they've

killed. Okay. So what is the civilian ratio here? Because, you know, he's saying, okay, you can't trust the Gaza health ministry because they're affiliated with Hamas. Well, previous research has shown that their numbers are actually quite correct. But let's put that aside. UN report says that 70% of those killed are women and children. Okay, so you don't have to take the Israeli government or the Gaza Health Ministry's word for it. 70% of those killed are women and children. So that's on the death toll. Then you talk about the destruction

of civilian infrastructure. And the way Coleman portrays it, it's like, oh, well, you know, one hospital maybe because there was a command and control center, which again, the Israelis never actually proved the allegation, the extraordinary allegations that they made about what was allegedly happening at al-Shifa hospital. But that was far from the only healthcare facility that was targeted. 301, according to Euromed Monitor, healthcare facilities have been targeted, including 29 hospitals, 69 clinics, 203 ambulances. So this was an all-out destruction, intentional destruction of the health care system.

You had universities that were destroyed through controlled demolition. They never even made an argument that, oh, Hamas is hiding here, blah, blah. No. They just decided to destroy the entirety of the university system in Gaza as well. Churches, mosques, 269,000 homes have been at least partially destroyed. 122,000 homes have been completely destroyed. The devastation is greater than Dresden. So to look at this and say, oh, it's this, you know, targeted, strategic, very disciplined operation. Yeah, maybe there may be an occasional war crime or two. It's just to really deny the actual reality of what's happening here and to frankly, dishonestly manipulate the facts that we know in order to try to support something that is

increasingly difficult to support. I respect Coleman. I think what he is missing here is that it's about intent. And I understand, you know, his point about like, I think war crimes are inevitable. I actually agree. I don't think it's possible for human civilizations to, you know, go into combat. For me, it is about the intent of the highest military authorities and the civilian leadership that are at hand is the intentional purpose that is then filtered down through the military and then through enforcement of rules to minimize that to as much as possible, or is it not? Now, we have not seen that behavior from the very beginning, from the Israeli military, from the Israeli government, and within, frankly, the Israeli the very beginning, from the Israeli military, from the

Israeli government, and within, frankly, the Israeli, you know, from the lowest level to the highest level. You have had zero, like, enforcement of actual reasonable rules of engagement. You've seen very little actual military strategy for accomplishing their alleged end. You've seen collective punishment. You have seen a, basically, a policy of indistinguishable, like, rules of engagement employed against civilians versus militants. That's where it all comes to, I think, a reasonable picture of what this is and why people who can be, quote-unquote, pro the ability to go to war or even in a just war can criticize Bessette policy in the age of precision guided munitions, in the age of counterinsurgency and more. It is one thing, you know, to talk about bombing civilian populations from B-29s on Tokyo when there was a limited amount of military,

you know, military capacity. There was, you know, very, very difficult options that were to be changed. It's another, when we were talking about non-peer-to-peer nations that are going to war with each other in the 21st century with the capacity to militarily occupy if they wanted, with the capacity to distinguish civilians from militants if they wanted, and then explicitly to not make that choice. That is what my biggest criticism, I would say, of him was. And I also think, you know, not really engaging too either with some of the aid workers that Rogan brings up there at the end. And that's why I think it is self-evidently available and obvious to people who are observers of this conflict that even if you

don't have a bias, and especially if you don't have a bias, just try to look at it, you know, one-to-one. And you're like, okay, look, we can be reasonable here. We can understand that some sort of response is justified, you know, and we can have compassion and feel the horror of October 7th and justify and understand the state of Israel and where they come from and all that, and still have very, very reasonable criticisms of that state, which is part of the why I like to look at the actual Israeli society where apparently they're allowed to have more dissent than we are, I guess, at least to a point. That's what I would say. I think a couple more points.

So just to me, when the government announces a complete siege and now we see children and babies literally starving to death. From that point on, from the announcement of the complete siege, it becomes preposterous to say they're not targeting civilians. Like, to me, that's game over. Obviously they are. They just announced it. They said these are human animals.

They're going to be treated as such. We're announcing a complete siege. How can you then argue, oh, they're not targeting civilians? It's preposterous. Also, they dropped indiscriminately 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs, which our own military said way too much in a urban fighting environment, on refugee camps to maybe possibly get one Hamas militant, and you're killing hundreds of civilians. This is not defensible. In no context is this defensible. And this wasn't a whoopsie, we actually thought it was a whole Hamas brigade there. No, they intentionally dropped 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs on refugee camps. Lastly, Joe brings up, I think he's

referring to the flower massacre that we covered extensively here, where you had over 100 Palestinians killed, where you had this aid convoy coming in and people who were waiting for it. This is in northern Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is the most dire and the highest levels of actual starvation. And some are saying now actually has tipped into famine. That's where we're talking about. And remember, the Israeli military, their story was, oh, well, they these Palestinians, they're just barbarians. They got out of control. They were stampeding each other. And then the truck may have even run some of them over. And we fired some warning shots. But that's it. That's all we did. The Palestinians said, and by the way, this isn't the only massacre that has happened in the context of Palestinians

seeking aid. They said, no, the Israelis fired on us using tanks and also using guns. And the people who were killed overwhelmingly, it was from gunshot wounds. Okay, save two competing claims. How do you figure out which one is correct? Well, were most of the deaths caused from stampede, you know, crushing injuries, or were they from gunshot wounds? The doctors and independent observers on the ground said, overwhelmingly, it was from gunshot wounds to the head, to the chest. This was not, oh, we're firing warning shots at their feet or whatever. So we do actually know what happened there. It is knowable because we have two competing stories and the facts and reality match up much more closely with what the Palestinians said happened.

So, and then again, to just sort of wave that one away as, oh, well, you know, war crimes, they're going to happen. Maybe that was a war crime. I don't know. And then to ignore all of the other aid massacres, all of the other assaults on civilian infrastructure, which are war crimes, to ignore the complete siege, to ignore everything else that's happened and just dismiss that as a one-off is to deny the reality of what has actually been a top-down systematic assault that is wildly in contravention at every turn with international law and is quite consistent according to the ICJ, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories is at least plausible and in the words of Francesca Albanese, reasonable grounds

to say that this is an ongoing genocide. So that's what I would say in response to some of what was laid out there. Anyway, I'm at least glad he's having people on there debating this. It's good. It's good for people. All right, let's go move on to the next one. Trump politics. We'll have some more politics in the show tomorrow. I promise. We're a mercy at the news here. But here's what we saw over the weekend. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Trump campaign says that it raised more than $50 million at a Saturday fundraiser. This was a huge announcement because it was one both where, according to his campaign aide, he pressed again for Joe Biden to debate him, but it was to debut the bundling organization

that they has created behind the scenes. They say, quote, Trump is pushing to close the massive fundraising disadvantage against Biden. Figures released by the two campaigns show that Biden ended March with $192 million on hand, more than twice as much as Donald Trump. Attendees at Saturday's evening's event were asked to donate as much as $814,000. So he was able to make a dent with that $192 million gap, close 25% of it in just a single night. And they say that Trump is actually set to hold another high dollar fundraiser on Wednesday in Atlanta. During the private remarks, they say Trump reiterated his call for Biden to debate him after refusing to participate in the Republican primary debates. Biden, of course, last month had

said that, you know, he said, well, of course he wants to debate me and he won't necessarily commit to it. Apparently, though, he also made some actual comments when it comes to policy that we wanted to make sure we covered. Put it up there, please, on the screen. They say he told them that he will keep their taxes low at the $50 million fundraiser. According to him, they say Trump spoke to the need to win back the White House so that we can turn our country around, focus on key issues, including unleashing energy production, securing our southern border, reducing inflation, extending the Trump tax cuts, eliminating the Biden electric vehicle mandate, protecting Israel, and avoiding global war,

in a roughly 45-minute speech. But attendees say that when the cameras were off, he certainly said that he would keep taxes low to some of the billionaires. So it would explain why so many of them are very willing to shell out. Frankly, I would say he has more institutional Republican support today than he has at any point in his entire career. Because post-January 6th, I mean, yeah, post-Trump tax cuts and all that, they were still happy, but there was so much culture war nonsense going on at the time. A lot of them wouldn't openly say it. But this really, to me, shows that he is not only in charge of the Republican Party, obvious for quite a long time, but he's got a

lot of the traditional business types too. Whoever is left in here, they're all in for Trump this time around. Yeah. I think Wall Street has gotten very comfy with the idea of another Trump term, not only because, yeah, he was good to them in terms of tax cuts, but also because Biden has been very, his administration has been good and aggressive on antitrust in a way that the business world absolutely hates. And just look at the Wall Street Journal and the like out and out jihad they have against Lena Khan, however many op-eds that they've written, whatever. And so because there's much more scrutiny of these big merger deals going through, that leads to a lot of Wall Street types who are getting their big bonuses at the end of the year. They hate that. Of course, the CEOs and executive class and the owner class, they hate the fact

that they're having to jump through these hoops and undergo scrutiny that they haven't faced in their entire lifetimes with regards to these massive transactions and the way that they're screwing consumers and workers alike. So they don't like those pieces. And I think the original fears with Trump were like, oh, chaos and uncertainty, and what's this going to mean for the business environment? But now that they've seen it once around, and they have these antitrust and pro-labor pieces from the Biden administration that they really hate, suddenly they're, you know, Jamie Dimon and the like even are much more comfy with a Trump second term. So the two things that I found most noteworthy there

in the list of issues that were important to him were extending the Trump tax cuts, which yes, means these billionaires will keep their brakes, and also protecting Israel, making sure to mention that. And he's, you know, he said some comments that could kind of be interpreted however you want to interpret them. But behind closed doors at this fundraiser, he's making it clear he's going to be lockstep support for Israel as he was as well in his first term. I would not count out, though, the impact of these dollars given the way that national trends are going and when we compare them. Let's go put the next one, please, up on the screen just to give an example. So if you look at the March fundraising numbers where Biden was significantly outpacing Trump, the Biden campaign, though, is raising $26 million, for example,

quote, in a single night with their star-studded event. And that included Obama and Bill Clinton. This is double that one. Now, let's be real. They might have lined things up to get the headline the Trump campaign did to make sure that they got 50 million. Almost certainly. Let's watch and see what comes out of Atlanta, though, because if they're able to put up 20-some million dollars in the same way that the Biden campaign can, and note, there ain't no protesters at Trump campaign events or Trump, you know, Trump, big Trump organization rallies. And that demonstrates that the unity of the coalition, a ton of money, and then the popularity that is going in the tide of Trump. One thing, as we always try and do here, is present the other side. Let's put this up there on the screen. Some polls now, what we're beginning to see is that polls are suggesting a shift in the electorate in a way that is very counter to recent history. Joe Biden, quote, is struggling with young voters, but is performing

better than most Democrats with older voters. Maybe they see a kinsman there in the White House. But from what we see, the quote unquote age inversion is, quote, a warning sign of a structural problem in 2024 election polling. One of the reasons that they are showing this is that if you break down things by crosstabs, Biden's strength amongst older voters may actually indicate an undercount because even if Trump does surge amongst young voters, Latinos and all those other people, that's great. But let's be real, they don't vote. And I'm talking statistically. Younger voters, minority voters too, very, very unlikely to actually vote in the same numbers as white boomers. The median voter in this country is a 55-year-old white man who is non-college educated.

If Biden is able to keep some strength with that person in the electorate, that will actually indicate that the polls right now could actually be overstating Trump support. Just something that we had to throw out there because it is interesting. And I mean, I guess it makes sense. He's an older man. He is like the embodiment of silent gen and boomerism, like in one. He's been around forever. Boomers love the whole like, we need a man with experience thing in the White House. He like checks all the boxes. And they love cable TV. And Biden is mostly beloved by MSNBC and CNN. So if you put those things together, it does actually attract me. Yeah, I'm a little mystified genuinely about the polls. I don't know what to make of any of

them at this point. Are they undercounting Biden? Are they undercounting Trump? I have no idea. I'm just throwing my hands up and taking all of it with a grain of salt. I find it hard to believe they cite a couple of polls here that has Trump actually ahead of Biden among millennial and Gen Z voters. I find that hard to believe. Biden taking a hit among those voters, and obviously younger voters are more open to third party candidates. Okay. But Trump actually beating Biden among those voters. It just, if you look at the ideological profile of them, it really doesn't add up. You know, when you think about their positioning on any number of issues across the board, it's hard for me to see that actually

playing out, but it's being found in multiple polls. But then that's the other thing is then you can find another poll that has it like the complete opposite direction. Biden continuing to have a 20 point lead ahead of Trump with voters under the age of 35. So I'm just throwing out there. I don't know what the hell is going on with these polls. I genuinely don't know. I find it very hard to believe Trump is actually winning with young voters. Is he eating into the lead? Is RFK Jr. posing a threat for Biden and causing him problems with these voters. Cornel West, Jill Stein. Sure. But I'm skeptical that the you know, that this massive like youth wave towards actually affirmatively towards Trump is actually happening. It depends on the gender balance, too.

If you told me he's winning amongst young men, I would believe it actually at the very least, like 50 some percent. If you include women in that, I do find it hard to believe. Ideologically, people, let's be honest, people are all over the map and have very, very divergent opinions whenever it comes to politics. So even just looking at that and mapping it out onto the current candidates is not usually one-to-one. I don't know. I would say if it is true that Biden is doing better amongst older voters, that is a major sign of strength for him. Yeah, true. And one that we should pay very, very close attention to. And that is one that I actually really do believe. Just given his politics, given the way that they like to see the country and the

things that they value, they're probably a lot less likely than us. I mean, this is where the media question comes in. They live in a different universe than the rest of us. They are literally not online unless it's their email or Facebook. That is not the same, but the way that we all consume media. And with that, you're going to see a lot less Biden fumbling. You're going to see a lot less emphasis on some of the things that we talk about. And Israel is not going to be, by and large, not a problem for older voters. They don't care. They own their own houses, you know, and to the extent that they're in debt or whatever, they're on Social Security. Like, they don't care as much. That's true, too. For them, the economy is good. Their economy is

good. Yeah. It's one of those where, because of the parallel universe that they live in, they're not feeling the same pressures that we are. And then you add media on top of that. I could believe it. Why he's doing better with older folks. Very interesting. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets.

Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.

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

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

Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.

But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, Israel and its defenders swear that the IDF has followed the rules of war in their assault on Gaza, that they aren't at war with civilians but laser-focused on Hamas, that any civilian deaths are the fault of Hamas for operating within the civilian population, or at the very worst,

regrettable mistakes, such as in the case of the seven World Central Aid kitchen workers who were killed in that series of three drone strikes. The IDF, Israel's defenders say, is the most moral army in the world. A new shocking report from Plus 972 magazine definitively disproves every single one of these claims. Of course, anyone paying attention was fully disabused of these notions long ago. The ratio of civilian to militant deaths alone is sufficient to prove that this war on humanity has been intentional. But PLUS972 once again has provided invaluable insight into the exact mechanisms of the horror. They reveal for the first time the details of how Israeli algorithmic targeting supercharged a slaughter, and critically,

how the very human decisions made in this assault and desire for total revenge have fueled annihilation and genocide. Now, I urge you to read the entirety of Yuval Abraham's collaboration with Local Call for 972 Magazine titled Lavender, the AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza. I'm going to summarize the most significant findings, but I believe this will be one of the defining journalistic pieces of this entire onslaught. Every detail of this report really matters, so please, if you have the time, take a look. So here are some of the top-line findings of that report. First of all, Israel has developed an AI targeting system called Lavender, which has been used

to generate some 37,000 targets in Gaza. Second, those human targets generated by the algorithm were imprecise, with a known error rate of about 10%. In spite of this high error rate, next to no human checking was performed before targeting individuals on the lavender list for assassination. IDF soldiers were to consider these faulty AI target lists of alleged militants to be orders. Minors were included on the list, along with civil service officers. Third, the IDF authorized extraordinary levels of collateral damage. Officially, 20 civilians per junior Hamas fighter and 100 civilians for higher-level commanders.

In practice, though, collateral damage ratios could be even higher. The motive, according to the sources, was not to eliminate Hamas. It was pure and simple revenge. Fourth, contrary to claims about avoiding civilian casualties, Israel intentionally targeted civilians through use of a software program called Where's Daddy, which was used to target the private homes of militants when they were at home with their families and surrounded by other civilians. Little was done to make sure the alleged militant was even actually killed and not just his family members. Now, those are the top line findings, but it is well worth digging into some of the stomach

turning details here. Gaza has become a testing ground for dystopian AI-driven military tech, which is plunging all of us into a new era of horrors and unchecked barbarism. 972 had previously reported on an AI system called the Gospel, which generates infrastructure targets with a focus on so-called power targets. These are large centers of civilian life, like high-rise apartment buildings, which were destroyed in order to demoralize and terrorize the civilian population. Drone-equipped robot docks are also increasingly wandering throughout the rubble in Gaza, thanks to new developments from the Pentagon and U.S. military contractors. And we can now add to this list of killer tech, Lavender, which generates tens of thousands

of human targets. And operating hand-in-glove with Lavender is Where's Daddy, software which targets those placed on the Lavender kill list for assassination while they are at their homes with their families. Where's Daddy? Get it? For the IDF, when daddy's home, it means it's time to murder every man, woman, and child who happens to be in the vicinity. Now, Lavender uses the data collected through mass surveillance of every Palestinian in Gaza to analyze the likelihood that they may be Hamas, based on a list of identified attributes. Every Gazan is given a rating of 1 to 100 as to how likely they are to be a militant. The algorithm is programmed with hundreds or thousands of attributes, which are considered to be suggestive of Hamas or other militant membership. Some attributes identified in the piece include being in the wrong WhatsApp

group or changing addresses too often. Now, if you are clocked with too many incriminating features as identified by Lavender, then you'll be placed on a kill list and marked for IDF assassination with next to no human verification. According to a 972 source, quote, a human being had to verify the target for just a few seconds, B said. At first, we did checks to ensure that the machine didn't get confused. But at some point, we relied on the automatic system and we only checked that the target was a man. That was enough. Doesn't take a long time to tell if someone has a male or female voice. This assumption that all men are Hamas,

has been backed up in recent days by the stunning reporting of Axios reporter Barak Ravid. Now, himself a former IDF soldier, Ravid told Anderson Cooper that on the ground, soldiers were simply told to murder every man. This incident shouldn't come as a surprise. You know, you remember that just a few weeks ago, three Israeli hostages that managed to escape their captors were killed by Israeli soldiers who fired at them, even though they were holding a white flag. OK. And, you know, I spoke to an Israeli reserve officer who was in the same unit of those soldiers who shot those hostages. And I remember him telling me that the orders are basically from the commanders on the ground is just shoot every man in fighting age. Those are the orders, but that's not the rules of engagement that is coming from the IDF leadership. But on the ground, that's what they're being told. The orders are shoot every man

of fighting age. So obviously, if you're a man in Gaza, whether or not your name is spat out by Lavender can quickly become a matter of life and death. And yet the generation of these kill lists was arbitrary based on entirely human judgments about what rating level was sufficient to justify conclusion that you are very likely Hamas. Is a 65 rating out of 100 in Lavender's AI determination of Hamas-like attributes sufficient to mark you out specifically for death? Does a 78 make you Hamas? A 92? The answer apparently differed at different times during the war. Parade 972's source, quote, the numbers changed all the time because it depends on where you set the bar of what a Hamas

operative is. There were times when a Hamas operative was defined more broadly, and then the machine started bringing us all kinds of civil defense personnel, police officers, on whom it would be a shame to waste bombs. They help the Hamas government, but they don't really endanger soldiers. Now, of course, you have to appreciate the concern here for the rationing of bombs, not for the human beings that are being killed. Let's put that aside. So once you've got your Lavender-created kill list, you've got to actually figure out how to get these guys. Finding Hamas in a battle space can be difficult and risky, but what's quick and easy is killing them at their known residences when they go back home to their wife and kids. Now, I want you to imagine for a second that a foreign military or terrorist group was targeting our soldiers en masse when they were at home in

their private residences, wantonly slaughtering mothers and children for the sake of taking out some anonymous army private. This is the equivalent of what the IDF is doing in Gaza. Per 972 sources, quote, we were not interested in killing Hamas operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in military activity. On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation as a first option. It's much easier to bomb a family's home. The system is built to look for them in these situations. Now, contrast this to the language we hear about how the IDF does not target civilians,

just Hamas with those darn human shields. Here we have confirmation that the IDF does in fact target civilians by choosing as their first resort to bomb private homes full of women and children. It didn't even particularly matter whether the alleged Lavender Kill List militant was there at the time because the IDF didn't verify that the target was home when the bomb dropped. In plenty of instances, the target had actually left and the IDF just murdered the family for no apparent reason. Because of this where's daddy strategy, entire families have been routinely annihilated, every name on every branch of the family tree killed. This embrace of civilian slaughter was not haphazard, it was systematized. In Gaza, the IDF authorized acceptable collateral damage levels

that were historically extraordinary. Any old low-level Hamas rank-and-filer could be killed along with 20 civilians. In practice, it could be even higher because the IDF used rule-of-thumb guesswork to determine how many people might be killed and because they prefer to use so-called dumb bombs to take out these low-level possible soldiers. The IDF did not want to waste expensive precision guided munitions on inconsequential Hamas peons. Dumb bombs may take out a few houses instead of one or collapse an entire apartment building instead of having the capability to just target a single floor. As one source told 972, quote, in practice, the principle of proportionality did not exist. When it came to senior commanders, official guidelines allowed for 100 civilians to be killed in

connection with their assassination. But here, too, the reality was that even higher civilian massacres were accepted. Per 972, in order to assassinate Ayman Nofal, the commander of Hamas's Central Gaza Brigade, a source said the army authorized the killing of approximately 300 civilians, destroying several buildings in airstrikes on Al-Buraj refugee camp on October 17th, based on an imprecise pinpointing of Nafal. Between 16 to 18 houses were wiped out in the attack. Amr al-Khatib, a resident of the camp, told 972 in local call, we couldn't tell one apartment from the other. They all got mixed up in the rubble and we found human body parts everywhere.

So for comparison here, the U.S. during the War on Terror typically operated at a noncombatant casualty value, or NCV, the official term for acceptable collateral damage, of zero. Even when targeting Osama bin Laden himself, the NCV was 30. In actual execution of the bin Laden raid, SEAL Team 6 killed three bin Laden sons and one woman. Now, I am not arguing the U.S. was a paragon of virtuous warfighting and avoided civilian casualties in the war on terror. But there is no comparison between Israel routinely dropping 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs on crowded refugee camps to maybe take out a single person and the high-risk operation which we use to kill

Osama bin Laden. So let's put the pieces together here. If you classify every military-aged man as a combatant and you classify every one of his family members as acceptable collateral damage, you have effectively turned an entire population into legitimate military targets. The tech is scary, but the humans making those decisions, driving the tech, they are terrifying. You can see the same logic in the official ID of explanation for why they targeted the World Central Kitchen aid convoy. Just as with Lavender, all it took was the possible presence of one fighting-age male with a gun for every one of those aid workers to be marked for assassination. There's a reason for this, though.

Multiple sources made it clear to 972 that in plenty of instances, the real goal was not hunting some Hamas commander or another. It was revenge. Per 972, quote, there was a completely permissive policy regarding the casualties of bombing operations, so permissive that in my opinion, it had an element of revenge, D, an intelligence source claimed. A also used the word revenge to describe the atmosphere inside the army after October 7th, quote, no one thought about what to do afterward when the war is over or how it would be possible

to live in Gaza and what they will do with it, A said, we were told, now we have to F up Hamas, no matter what the cost, whatever you can, you bomb. Whatever you can, you bomb. There's no turning back from these things. From the AI generated kill list based on mass surveillance, to the normalization of murdering whole families, to possibly get one rank and file soldier, to revenge fuelization of murdering whole families to possibly get one rank-and-file soldier, to the revenge-fueled destruction of every possible piece of civilian infrastructure. Israel's actions in Gaza have opened Pandora's box for new, previously unimaginable horrors. Unchecked brutality with unleashed and unaccountable tech. Sagar, the details here are really extraordinary.

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thanks for everybody for watching. We appreciate it. We'll have a great show for everybody tomorrow and we'll see you then.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. billionaires, to the bond market, to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to

everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.