Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/16/2025: "HELL" Gaza Ground Invasion, Peace Talks COLLAPSING, Comey INVESTIGATED for Trump Threat

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Krystal, Ryan, and Emily discuss the Israeli army's new onslaught on the trapped Gaza population, Putin ditches Ukraine peace talks, and James Comey being investigated after posting a bizarre image on social media.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you,

please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Morning, everybody. Happy Friday. Emily and Ryan, nice to see you guys. Great to see you guys.

How you doing? Doing good. Thanks, Emily, for jumping in for me yesterday. I appreciate it. Oh, no problem. No problem. And I guess we've had counterpoints this week, but we've decided it's not really counterpoints anymore.

So I just like that we work it out in front of everyone. Reality TV, we have our meetings right here. Yeah, it's transparent. So there's a lot going on. I want to get to this more. We'll see how much of this we get through. But we've got a massive ground invasion happening in Gaza and things not looking very good on the ceasefire front in general. We've got some other foreign policy things, some very interesting comments from General Stanley McChrystal that I want to get you guys reaction to, and also some discouraging movement or lack of movement in the Ukraine talks that are supposed to happen in Istanbul as well. So we get to that. See if we get to some of this Republican tax bill, the latest in terms of potential compromises and

roadblocks there. We've got some economic news. We've got some significant developments on the migration front. There was a hearing at the Supreme Court with regard to Trump's ending birthright executive order that has implications not only for that, but also for the ability of district judges to issue nationwide injunctions. So that is definitely worth digging into and wanted to tackle, wanted to dig a little bit into the abundance debate, Sam Seder and Ezra Klein, a lot of clips flying around. I know I watched the whole thing and I thought it was pretty interesting. I watched it too. You watched the whole thing too? I did. Awesome. Yeah. So I pulled a couple of whole thing and I thought it was pretty interesting. I watched it too. You watched the whole thing too? I did.

Awesome. Yeah. So I pulled a couple of time codes and we can just take a look at that as well. That part would probably be in the premium half. So if you guys want access to the full thing, make sure you subscribe at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you to everyone who has, who has made these Friday shows possible. Anything else you guys got on your mind before we jump in? Well, I was going to say Sagar did post yesterday, so we can acknowledge.

Oh, he did? Okay. He did. Yes, he posted. So Sagar is on the turn to leave. Yep. Hold on. Did he post a picture?

Yes, he did. He posted, I believe they call it a carousel. Let me. Let's pull this sucker up. Yeah, I'm looking for it. Hold on. I did not know. Sometimes I avoid Sagar's Twitter.

It's on Instagram. I saw it on Instagram. Oh, it's on Instagram. Okay for it. Hold on. I did not know. Sometimes I avoid Sagar's Twitter. It's on Instagram. I saw it on Instagram. Oh, it's on Instagram. Yeah, yeah. All right. Hold on. Hold on. Yeah.

You know, I always, I'm much more willing to share stuff on like Instagram than Twitter. Instagram is much kinder than Twitter. People are just assholes, you know? Yeah, like I don't need people on Twitter seeing my kids or anything like that. Yeah. It's just assholes, you know? Yeah, like, I don't need people on Twitter seeing my kids or anything like that. Yeah, it's just,

Instagram feels different. Oh, here we go. Okay, here we go. Here we go. Um, all right,

now it's making me log in. Oh my God. Guys, really? I would probably have to log into Instagram too. I'm like, never.

All right, well, anyway, go look at Sager's Instagram. A picture of him and Jillian. And the baby. Does he say the baby's name? Am I allowed to reveal that? I don't know.

Priya June. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. Very exciting for him. That is a very pretty name. Yeah. I love that.

Mixed between his heritage and her. It's very beautiful. And yeah, they were in the NICU for a little bit. So it was, I'm sure Sagar really appreciates. He mentioned that in the Instagram post and just had an outpouring of support from you guys. And I'm sure that he is incredibly grateful for it. And I'm looking forward to his monologue

after he gets the NICU bill. Those can put you into seven figures. True. He's going to be Luigi posting before we know it. He's been Luigi posting for years. All right. Let's go ahead and get to the news with regard to Gaza. Let me pull this up on the screen.

That's actually your reporting. Well, Jeremy's reporting technically from Dropsite saying that, you know, as these talks are going on right now, somewhat pessimistic that there's going to be any progress on a ceasefire. And I mean, Ryan, this always comes down to at the end of the day, like the U.S. could make this stop whenever we want to. Biden could have. Trump could. And there's this always learned helplessness of like, oh, well, they're a sovereign

nation and they can do what they want. But we know the reality is they can't do what they want without us backstopping what they want. Right. What does superpower mean if it doesn't mean you can have influence over your client states? A Haaretz reporter posted some news this morning that is kind of the mirror version of Jeremy's, where she writes, Israel's position is, this is a quote from an Israeli source, Israel's position is rigid. Hamas hasn't folded. The Americans have lost interest. Trump is on his way home and Witkoff is not currently dealing with this matter. He left it to us. The source added that Witkoff, quote, doesn't have a plan of his own and is waiting to hear what Israel wants, quote. And since we don't want anything, he has nothing left to do.

And so this marries neatly with Hamas's analysis, which is that they don't have confidence that Witkoff is going to be able to or going to be willing to pressure Israel enough to get them to a place they don't want to go to. What we've since learned about the release of Edan Alexander is that the private assurance that Hamas got in order to engage in that good faith transaction, getting really nothing in return on paper, was that the Americans would agree to kind of finally put some pressure on the Israelis. How the Americans interpret what it means to put pressure on them remains to be seen. Sort of like the facilitating the release. Yeah, yeah, right. And one of the fears among both, you know, Palestinians and the families of the hostages, captives who remain in Gaza, is that Witkoff and Bowler, having succeeded in freeing the last living American hostage captive, would move on, would kind of lose interest in it, and then would pivot to focusing on Iran

and other things and just let things just go to hell, go further to hell. And that appears to be a possibility. There are material constraints, though, that exist. Israel doesn't like to recognize such things because they've never had to because the warehouses just keep getting magically stocked by new flights of weapons from the United States. But their reservists aren't showing up in the rates that they want them to show up. They're exhausted. All of this is discussed openly in the Israeli media. So what actual capacity they have to continue to pursue this massive invasion that they're trying to launch from the north down remains to be seen. And if they start taking significant casualties, do they continue to push forward?

It seems like that's the only thing that's going to be holding them back at this point. Hamas is saying, we want an end to the war we will exchange all the hostages all the captives done end of the war israel withdraws war's over and a technocratic palestinian administration with whatever western relationships you want you know kind of takes control of gaza like that's what haas wants. Israel wants to keep the war going. Those are irreconcilable positions. Yeah. And so only, only the U S can reconcile them by insisting that the war end. And so far, the indications are that Witkoff's not going to do that. There was a piece in Haaretz. Let me get your reaction to all of this, Emily. Ryan was mentioning the hostage family concerns, and Haaretz was also writing about that.

They said they're concerned over – there's a massive ground invasion right now. I'll show you some of the images in just a minute. But hostage families are deeply concerned. They say the next hours are going to determine hostages' fate. And I was struck by this quote here. The families called on Netanyahu and President Trump to reach a breakthrough in negotiations in Doha, saying these are dramatic hours that will decide the fate of our loved ones and the future of Israeli society. They're absolutely right about that. I mean, they should be terrified right now. I think

everyone understands what's so terrifying about that at this moment, especially, I mean, the strategic approach or the, I guess, like, see, here's the huge problem for them over and over again, is what's the end at this point? What is the end goal? What is the, you know, what is the clear outcome that Netanyahu thinks that this can, is achievable at the end of this. And I don't think anybody agrees that it's to the satisfaction of the hostage families of the Israeli public. And that's because he's, of course, himself being torn in different directions and consistently giving more to the Israeli right. So it's it's an incredibly bleak situation for the hostage families right now i you know understand why they would feel terrified and so and just real quickly the reason i keep switching back and forth between hostages and captives because we we're always told hostages but we're now down to the down to a place where everybody who's being held was in combat like these are these are soldiers that's So that makes them captives. And the international laws of war

say you're not supposed to trade prisoners of war for military concessions, but you can trade them for other prisoners of war. And it's normal that you release them when the hostilities are over. This argument that Israel is making that they should release the prisoners of war and then immediately continue the war would be outside of this.

The like pattern of how that goes like that's no, no, no countries would do that. Yeah. And that language is important because the Israelis always refer to everyone they're holding as prisoners and everyone, regardless of whether they're IDF or not, held by Hamas as hostages. And that language is very intentional. And meanwhile, everyone is Hamas or a combatant. Correct. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, it's often echoed by the press. So that note is very important. And just to get to the invasion, you know, that we're seeing right now, we've got numerous accounts from the ground. These are, you know, we're all compiled. We're being eliminated. People saying it's hell tonight. Our families are in danger. Intense escalation. We're being eliminated now. We'll never forgive you.

The bombing never stops. They've gone crazy. You know, some people are reporting that these are some of the most intense bombings that they've experienced during this entire onslaught, which is hard to imagine. We also have some some images coming out here that you can see of, you know, the rubble being bombed. You know, there's there's nothing left here that's still standing, but yet it's still being bombed. We have this reporting, Ryan, from you guys over at Dropsite from yesterday evening, saying during the last 10 minutes, Israeli forces launched a new raid west of Beit Lahiyah, is that right, north of Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on the Shuja'i neighborhood east of Gaza City. The Israeli forces bombed a house in Bir al-Najah, west of Jabalia camp, north of Gaza. Injuries as a result of Israeli bombing of a house.

Martyrs and injuries as a result of the Israeli bombing of a home. So, you know, huge indications here that this is a quite large scale ground invasion. We also had this heavy reinforcements in the Gaza border tonight gearing up for what's expected to be a brutal slaughterhouse-like invasion. And, you know, we're already seeing some of the aftermath of that at this point. Right. The IDF soldiers keep posting their positions. It's an incredible lack of discipline. I think they got them. I think Hamas is finally about to be over forever. This will do it. Yeah, that was Yunus Tarawi, who's as soon as anybody in the IDF posts anything, he seems to be like immediately on it. And yet they're like giving away their positioning. And my things are more depressing than watching what should be the end stages of a conflict and seeing people die and seeing further destruction when there are potential negotiations on the table.

I mean, if you look at Ukraine right now, people feel similarly and they should. It's just it's the most bleak and upsetting thing to watch play out. And Ryan, what what is the significance of the timing here? It's not an accident. This invasion is happening. And this, you know, massive escalation in the the violence is happening and this, you know, massive escalation in the violence is happening as these talks are unfolding, as President Trump is wrapping up his trip to the Middle East? You know, what's the significance of this timing? Originally, what they were saying in Israel is that they were going to give the talks in Doha time to work themselves out and see if they could come to some type of resolution. And they would wait until Trump had left the region before they would launch their massive

assault, assuming that the talks failed. It now seems like they're pushing that ahead of schedule. It's kind of a slap in the face to Trump. Is it Iran related at all? I could, you could imagine that, you know, the, the, the,

the, the worst things get in Gaza than the more difficult Israel believes that becomes for the U S to strike a deal with Iran. That might not be the case. Like you're seeing, you're seeing, you saw Syria do this. You've seen,

you saw Yemen do that. The Houthis do this. You're seeing seeing, you're seeing, you saw Syria do this. You've seen, you saw Yemen do that. The Houthis do this. You're seeing people, you know, decouple agreements with the United States from agreements with Israel in a way that we haven't really seen in the past because I, a lot of these groups are encouraging the isolation of Israel. Uh, so it may, it may be a miscalculation you know the the kind of it's weird to call it a hope but the hope among people was that this was the kind of murderous death rattle of this conflict that that they were just going to you know do as much killing of of people that they were aiming for muhammad sinwar some others a lot of journalists have been killed in the last week because they think the window is closing for the killing. That may end up not being true. And we may just get this mass murder spree. Plus even the IDF is acknowledging this and even kind of creating tensions even inside the IDF. There was, Ryan, my understanding was Israel was pushing various humanitarian organizations to participate in basically creating a quote unquote aid program that would be used as a weapon of war. your war crimes. And Israel has now announced this partnership with the U.S. to implement this

quote-unquote humanitarian aid program that would require, you know, would have very few distribution points, would have very limited calories, would likely force civilians to have to traverse, you know, active war zones in order to, you know, get the nutrition they need to survive. What do we know about what's going on there? And even that hasn't been agreed to. And we could go back to this Haaretz reporter earlier who spoke with an Israeli source. So she adds, this is Liza Roskowski. She adds, Israel has not yet approved the entry of humanitarian aid via a U.S.-backed

relief fund, the source added. Even if it does, the aid would be symbolic, quote, maybe five trucks here, 10 there. Nothing meaningful for 2 million people, the source said. So even there, like even this carved up, you know, trimmed down, cynical, exploitative version of humanitarian aid they haven't even agreed to. And if they do, it'd be just for the images of a few trucks going in so that all of the pro-israel accounts can then post these images of these trucks and be like look say what are you complaining about right can you imagine any other nation sending food to their adversaries yeah

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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. Well, I think we all know who the real villain, though, is in all of this, guys, and that's Miss Rachel.

Let's all agree on that. Has something we can all unite behind, who has dared to actually care about the children who are being starved and murdered and maimed. Israeli kids, too, by the way. That's correct. That's part of what's extra ridiculous about this controversy. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so the New York Times wrote this piece, why taught celebrity Ms. Rachel waded into the Gaza debate. I mean, first of all, the framing of this is insane, right? Wading into the Gaza debate.

She is caring about children who are being starved and who have had their limbs blown off and are now amputees and whose families can't provide for them. In what world is there? I mean, unfortunately, it is a debate. But in what world is this properly framed as any sort of a debate? And then Mehdi is pointing out here, I'm embarrassed the New York Times, they published this piece on Ms. Rachel

in which they cite a ridiculous anonymous right-wing website stop anti-Semitism while indulging the mad, mad claim she may be funded by Hamas. The New York Times put this in their piece, the allegation that she was funded by Hamas. I mean, what can you even say about this? Yeah, it's an anonymous troll account makes a lurid, absurd claim, which is that's that's what trolls do, not blaming the trolls. And then the New York Times grabs that claim and slaps it into their article and makes her respond to it. She had to, like, issue a statement like, what in the world are you talking about?

She's not getting paid to do this. NBC News managed to have an even more absurd framing. Their headline was Ms. Rachel doubles down on support for children in Gaza. Doubles down is for anybody who's new to this idiom means you're in trouble and you're doing something deeply controversial and you're facing cancellation. And yet even in the face of all of this criticism of your reckless actions, you double down. That's right. Trump doubles down on the claim that Haitian migrants are eating the cats and dogs, right? Yeah. Ms. Rachel, maybe I can pull this up.

Ms. Rachel doubles down on support for children in Gaza. Yeah, here it is. Like, just in case you think I'm making this up. This is the headline. Oh, my God. You'll read her quote there. It, that's the only appropriate framing. So, yeah, OK, you can quote anti-Semitism, stop anti-Semitism account, trolling account as like example number one of the wild and insane and baseless claims that are being made about this and the way she's being demonized for supporting children. Here's the Fox News version.

Radical nursery rhymes. Ms. Rachel just went from nursery rhymes to Hamas-tied headlines. Headlines. See, that's interesting. It's a meta. They're using the meta framing. They're using the fact, yeah. The meta media framing to do guilt by association.

Yes. Defending Gaza stats on an anti-Israel platform. I presume they're talking about Zatea over there, right, with Mehdi. While skipping over October 7th, if you're a parent, will that change whether you allow your child to watch her? So yeah, they use the fact that the New York Times and NBC News and everybody else covered this to accuse her of being affiliated with Hamas-tied headlines. It's ridiculous. And when people think that they're being reasonable, they will say, but why is she singling out Israel's killing of all of these children? And to Emily's point, A, she doesn't.

She speaks up for children all over the world when they're suffering. Also particularly Israeli kids. And she'll speak up for Israeli kids. Absolutely. But B, there have been more than 17,000 children killed in a year and a half in Gaza. If you add up Sudan, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, other conflicts, they don't add up to that many children being killed. And not only that, right now, there are about a million children in Gaza, a million, who have very little to eat

and very little to drink and no medical care. Like, there is not a child in Gaza immediately, right as we speak, who's not suffering. So why wouldn't she speak out specifically for them? That's the part that, like, why do you single us out? Well, who's not suffering. So why wouldn't she speak out specifically for them? Yeah. That's the part of it. Like, why do you single us out? Well, it's singularly horrific. Yeah, it is singularly horrific and it's being done with our tax dollars also. And that too. As a U.S. citizen, done with our tax dollars. One more note on this. I don't have it pulled, but there was a student at NYU who in his speech mentioned the atrocities in Gaza. And they're pulling his diploma simply for one mention of this because they say, oh, well, you didn't tell us you were going to say that.

So we're stripping you of middle east and trump's um very friendly meeting with the new head of syria which is very interesting in and of itself he's very attractive very strong tough past yeah strong past very strong very strong past tough guy tough guy young attractive just unbelievable stanley mChrystal made some really interesting comments here that were clipped by Ken Klippenstein that I wanted to Emily. Emily, let me get your reaction to this, because I just think this is extraordinary. Hold on. I probably have this on 2.0. Let me change it. There we go. OK. our enemies often evolve into not being our enemies and people who were terrorists evolve into something else. Menachem Begin was a terrorist in his early days. Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist. And so many people who feel very strongly about something actually exhibit a

force of will, and then they can mature and evolve into, into being more. So, uh, what do you, what do you make of that? Sounds like someone who fought in the decades after the United States armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. And you guys were in media during the McChrystal period of the Afghanistan war. But holy smokes, is that some cope. Man. I mean,, is that some cope. Man. I mean, also, it's true. Let's get the no lies detected gif out for that one.

Of course. It's accurate. The mention of Began was interesting to me, too, because that never gets admitted. I don't think I've ever heard that mention on Western TV. They had to drag McChrystal out to talk to Caitlin Collins to get that out in the TV. They had to drag McChrystal out to talk to Caitlin Collins to get that out in the open. Yeah. Yeah. And for people like, uh, don't know that you can look,

look that up. This, this was, you know, one of the founders of the state of Israel and it was, it was founded, you know, by, you know, terrorist organizations who drove the British out with, um, bombings of civilian. Some of them self-described as terrorists. Yeah, absolutely. They were not, Yergoon and the others, they were not afraid of the label terrorist. Like they embraced it.

And yeah, Nelson Mandela, he was involved in violent resistance to apartheid before he was jailed. Like that's very true. And what's amazing, Jani or al-shar whatever you want to call him now has actually made this exact same point because when he was asked hey weren't you like in al-qaeda in the 2000s and and killing a bunch of americans and he was like look uh i was young and hot-headed and i thought the american invasion was an

atrocity you're like, okay, this is true. This is true. It was like, it was, it was really bad. And he's like, but, you know, some of our tactics, you know, I, I, I regret, um, but you know, I'm, I'm no longer young and hotheaded. And it's, this is true. People are different in their twenties and their forties. It's usually not an Al Qaeda or isis terrorist that we're hearing it from who's now shaking hands with macron and trump and and it's wild to hear mccrystal talk about terrorists it's like you know they're they're young they're idealistic they're really passionate about a particular cause and then but if we're serious about you know we want to win hearts and minds and de-radicalize, then, hey, what do you think it means? The other thing is it just exposes how fake and political the label terrorist is. And I don't think that's ever been probably more on display domestically

than it is right now when, you know, Miss Rachel is being labeled basically like a domestic terrorist. And the actual Al-Qaeda guy is cool. We're just shaking hands with Trump. And they still have, what, a $10 million bounty on his head, technically. They took that off, I think. Oh, they did take it off. OK, well, there you go. Recently had a $10 million bounty on his head.

I mean, Syria in general has just been the best example of that period. Like over the course of a decade, it's just been funding all sides. But then it's all terrorists. It was just a completely ridiculous situation that it was, I think it was Maz, Ryan, who posted, he's like, this is the perfect coda to the war on terror, watching the former Al-Qaeda, head of Al-Qaeda in Syria, shaking the hand of the United States president. Yeah. Yeah. What. Yeah.

What a summit. Incredible. And of course, you know, very nice for Israel that this guy is ready to just, you know, hand over the Golan Heights effectively. Ben Norton had a good summation here. Let me put this up on the screen. Read off his commentary about what unfolded here. The U.S. helped overthrow Syria's independent government. Now its unelected president is the former leader of al-Qaeda. Trump had a friendly meeting with

this al-Qaeda extremist and praised him as great. Trump said he's a young, attractive guy, tough guy, strong past, very strong past, fighter. Trump vowed to remove the suffocating U.S. sanctions, that's good, that collapsed the previous Syrian state. The rebranded al-Qaeda leader promised Syria will normalize relations with the colonial israeli regime while it is committing genocide against the palestinian people he also pledged to give u.s corporations control over syria's natural resources so i think ryan you said on a previous show you know the people who said this was all a cia plot don't know that it was um but you know it it would add up it would add up a little yes indeed but a little ridiculous there though just to say that uh al-shara is unelected but then to call asad quote independent yeah okay like

what election for sure what election did the dick did asad's dictator son you know when and how independent exactly was he and but yes like the people who said that this was just a giant you know deep state plot uh are looking pretty good right now i mean it's also the the new trump dichotomy it's not new but he crystallized it in his riad speech this week where he's talking about commerce versus chaos as though this is a dichotomy and commerce itself will head off chaos, which, again, sounds a lot like Tom Friedman. Yeah, McDonald's like, we'll spread our, you know, this is how we'll spread democracy around the world. Now it's like how, what, we'll spread our ability to conquest everywhere and, you know,

for on behalf of Elon Musk and other oligarchs everywhere. Well, and Jelani has apparently been pitching Trump and Trump's team openly on having Trump Tower Damascus. Like it's been an intentional part of the strategy that he's approached these negotiations with. And I mean, the sanctions are gone. So something worked. And it wouldn't surprise me if that was it

because it's worked in other Gulfs. It's worked in Gulf states where there's Trump construction happening all over the region. So this is it's not new, obviously, but I think Trump is this week has just said we are mirroring now the Trump family is like mirroring the way business is done in some of these Gulf states. And yeah, something that it actually ties in with this story ProPublica published about the Trump administration leaning on African countries. The goal will get business for Elon Musk. This is an expansion of the reporting that Jeff Stein had already done over the Washington Post about the

way the State Department is pushing countries to, you know, allow and Starlink and partner with Starlink and, you know, aggressively doing so. And they really went deep on some of the tactics, I mean, just like mob boss tactics that are used here and the tariffs fit into it. So you've got the stripping of USAID, you know, and so the basic dissolution of that agency and subsuming under the State Department means that Marco Rubio and the people who are under him can go directly to a country and say, we're going to take your funding if you don't partner with Starlink. The tariffs mean, like in the case of Lesotho, that you can go in and say, hey, we're going to smack you with these 50% tariffs and you're going to be economically dead if you don't take up a Starlink license.

This has worked in numerous cases where countries have basically folded and said, OK, fine. And so, you know, I was thinking, Ryan, about how with the destruction of USAID, you know, there the principle was, OK, we're going to give you some health care and we're going to be able to get things that are in U.S. interests, whether it's securing raw earth minerals or whatever it is, putting pressure on their government, whatever it is, with the idea this would be in, quote, U.S. imperial interests. Now the idea is we're going to use those same levers, except to the sort of like sole and exclusive benefit of Elon and the Trump family. And we're going to operate it directly from the State Department. We're going to couple it with this tariff regime so that we can truly go and get whatever we want for our personal business interests around the world.

Yeah, that's basically what's going on here. Elon has been very, very quiet lately, I've noticed. Yeah. And I'm not sure. Grok, not so much, but Elon, yes. Grok's been quite loud. Grok, not so much. I mean, Starlink is a good product, but... I just got mine yesterday. But Elon, yes. Grok's been quite loud. Grok, not so much.

I mean, Starlink is a good product, but... I just got mine yesterday. Did you? You got it set up yet? No, I'm doing that today. It's not too hard. And it is, I admit, it's a good product. Well, if I FaceTime you in the middle of the day, you'll know. It shouldn't need the hammer of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus to succeed, though.

Apparently, Bezos is launching a competitor product and other companies are as well. And so Elon feels under pressure to basically hurry up and lock in, create a lock in a sort of like global monopoly and especially interested in Africa because that's the fastest growing population in the world in order to secure Starlink's future. It's not just a residential product. It has massive commercial and defense business. Absolutely. So it's not just sort of like another Amazon device or even Tesla. It's such a significant defense. I mean, it's been completely part of the war and the conflict in Ukraine. That's right. The conflict been part of the conflict in Gaza. So it allows Elon to conduct his own foreign policy effectively. Yes, 100 percent. Yeah.

And we saw that with Ukraine, like regardless of how you feel about the decisions he made there. First, the providing of Starlink to Ukraine was very critical. And then he, you know, did not allow its use, I think, in Crimea. Like there were decisions that were made that were meant to coerce Zelensky and the Ukrainians in terms of the tactics that they were allowed to deploy. So he's using was using Starlink as a tool to, you know, coerce the Ukrainians. what Elon thought about those things or not, having that much power in one unelected billionaire to be able to conduct his own foreign policy and coerce nations as he sees fit is not something that I think any of us should be signing up for. Yeah. From a national security perspective, you would think the government would want competitors out there. If one guy controls the communication apparatus for your military. Yeah.

And he controls you. That's that is exactly right. I also wanted to just mention Ukraine. Let me play for you. So these negotiations are going down in Istanbul. And there's originally, I think, some decent hopes that there might be some progress made here between Ukraine and Russia. But then we learned Trump is not going and Putin is also not going. I think the expectations have been significantly diminished. Here's Trump getting asked about Putin not showing in Turkey. Take a listen. Oh, hold on. It helps if actually said, why would he go if I'm not going? Because I wasn't

going to go. I wasn't planning to. I would go, but I wasn't planning to go. And I said, I don't think he's going to go if I don't go. And that's turned out to be right. But we have people there. Marco, as you know, is doing a fantastic job. Marco's their secretary of state. And we have people there. But I don't I don't I didn't think it was possible for Putin to go if I'm not there, Jennifer. So he's saying, you know, I'm not disappointed. I didn't expect them to go. As I mentioned, I think Rubio and others have been downplaying expectations for what can be accomplished there. And for Zelensky, Emily, you know, he really wanted to have some sort of a ceasefire in place before these talks even unfolded. He was not able to achieve that.

And now I think what I read this morning is that he was on his way there. And then when it was revealed, OK, Putin's not going, he also sent a delegation instead of himself going. So that's kind of where we are there. Yeah, that sounds right. And it sounds like now Trump is leaving this big trip, actually not much closer to an end in Gaza or in Russia, Ukraine, in that conflict either. And he started the week, and I think Trump world had very high expectations for kind of moving by leaps and bounds over the course of the week and is now leaving. And it's interesting because we talked about this a good bit when we were discussing Israel earlier. But Witkoff did not seem to have the magic touch this week for some reason or another,

because it actually did feel like leading up to this week, the momentum in both directions was significant. They got the minerals deal with Ukraine. They had really started putting pressure on Netanyahu. And then over the course of the week, it all fizzled. I also, Ryan, is this rift with Netanyahu thing? How real how real is this? Or is this more Biden had very strong words, said very strong things to Netanyahu, leaks to the press? I just I can't really tell. We'll find out. And you're right, I think, to point to Biden's constant leaking to the press of how frustrated he was and what mean things he said to Netanyahu on the phone. And then the gap between that and what was happening in the real world showed his fecklessness. And I think that the exact same formula has to apply to Trump. And so whether Trump can get the ceasefire that he says he wants and whether he can get the Iran deal that he says he wants and get the regional stability that he claims is his goal will then determine whether or not this this split is real or not and i think that's the only way you can figure that out yeah it was obviously a heavy lift that he would come

out of this week with leaps and bounds and significant steps forward but so i i don't want to say like oh what a loss he didn't solve to like he didn't bring peace to the world um you know on the course of his middle east. But you think expectations were higher than what happened this week? Yeah, I just I also feel it seems like he still hasn't learned the lesson that should have been learned from decades, but specifically from his first administration, that there is no movie full moving forward and renewal in the Middle East without Palestinians having some sort of a just resolution. And, you know, the Abraham Accords were premised on the idea that we can just kind of like pretend Palestinians don't exist and create these relationships. And, you know, according to Jeremy's and others' discussions with leaders of Hamas and other, you know, Palestinian armed resistance factions, that sense that there was an attempt to move on without addressing some sort of

resolution for Palestinians is part of what sparked the planning and the execution of October 7th. So, you know, at the end of this trip, it seems to me very much like Trump still thinks that you can just go around the Middle East, get the deals that he can get for his own personal family, get his $400 million jet from Qatar and whatever. And, you know, if Israel is going to just keep genociding Palestinians, then, you know, maybe in the future he can get a real estate deal there as well, which seems to be his ultimate end goal. Commerce over chaos. Yeah, exactly. Those two never come at the same time, as we know. They're never intertwined. 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. 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 your 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. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. All right. Let's talk a little bit about the latest of the GOP tax bill. Emily, I wanted to hear your view from the right on how things are shaking down here. First of all, we got an estimate that the tax bill is on track to add more than $2 a half trillion dollars to the U.S. deficit. For people who, you know, this is from Jeff Stein, Republican tax proposal emerging in the House of Reps would add more than two and a half trillion to the federal budget deficit, according to nonpartisan experts. That fiscal hit has triggered criticism from House conservatives who have at times vowed to vote against legislation that adds the national debt, which is already over 36 trillion. House Speaker Mike Johnson may have trouble reducing the bill's price tag as that

would require either making fewer tax cuts or steeper spending cuts in ways unpalatable to his conference. What is your sense, Emily, of how important this number is and this no matter how you slice it, given the things they want to accomplish, specifically the giant tax cuts for the rich, like as long as that's in this bill bill it's going to be a giant budget buster um and you aren't going to be able to cut really enough even from the you know relatively significant cuts they want to make to medicaid in order to make up the difference so um on the other hand conservatives like to do this math like oh yes but the tax cuts will magically pay for themselves and this analysis surely doesn't take into account all of the economic glory that is going to be achieved by, you know, further cutting the taxes of the richest people and corporations in the country. So how's the right kind of reacting to this news? I would expect there to be significant fights with the Congressional Budget Office in the days ahead. And the Congressional

Budget Office does kind of suck in some respects. I mean, it's not like it has an easy job, but there's some funny math that gets done when you're trying to say how much stuff this will cost. So I think some of that will be cope. I think some of it will be legitimate. I think that number is extremely important. And I think it's why right now you have Chip Roy basically already laying the groundwork and preparing people for his internal resistance. And a lot of Freedom Caucus members are going to be with him. On the Senate side, Ron Johnson penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week saying basically that the bill is the Titanic and that it's going to be sunk because of the spending levels. On the other hand, you have the SALT conference whining that their SALT deduction

isn't quadrupled rather than merely tripled, if not more. They would, of course, go higher than that. So the number is just going to be a red line for people like Chip Roy. Tim Burchett is raising issues already now about increased Pentagon spending. So again, you can do this if you have a 30 vote margin and you can allow people to take their little comfortable protest votes and sprinkle some pork in to get other people on the side that you need them to be and you can do these deals. But the deals that they're going to have to get done to overcome this problem. And I would say, I mean, it's obvious in the House, but it'll also be a problem in the Senate because you now have people who have stuck their necks out for Doge.

You have people who have come out when it's extremely difficult. There are bureaucrats on the sidewalk with their cardboard boxes and the ferns and people have stuck their neck out and VA cuts, for example, and said, no, this is important. And then you're asking them to vote on a budget bill or a budget busting bill that they then have to go home and answer for blowing up the debt. And then while doing that, taxes for the rich and cuts to Medicaid. And this is MAGA. It's not the Republican Party. I mean, I would argue they didn't understand it quite well enough in 2009 either, but it's not the Republican Party of 1999. It is completely different. And so if you have to go home and you're Josh Hawley, who's also saying, no touching Medicaid, these are two MAGA Republicans, Josh Hawley and Ron Johnson. Josh Hawley is saying, don't

touch Medicaid. Ron Johnson is saying, this bill is not brave enough and is not making cuts that will make me support it. So this this problem imperils everything for them. So on the one hand, on the one hand, that makes it easier for them to pass, because if it's like, listen, the president is doing these tariffs no matter what. And, you know, your constituents are going to be screwed if the tariffs don't come with tax cuts and incentives for onshoring, then maybe you can. It's easier to muscle people on board. On the other hand, if you're spending more on the Pentagon and people have stuck their necks out on Pentagon cuts over the last 10, I mean, it's just completely it is it is more of a mess than people

realize. Rand Paul had had this to say to your point, Emily, about the Doge piece. He says it indicates this year the deficit will be over two trillion dollars, but it means they're anticipating close to three trillion for the next year. It's really a slap in the face at those of us who are excited about Elon Musk and Doge and all the cuts. Where are the cuts? If the cuts are real, why are we going to borrow five trillion? So what I proposed was this. He says he wanted to I put forward a proposal. We voted on it to raise the debt ceiling for three months. Why? Because I think we should vote on the debt ceiling every three or four months to see if they're doing their job. If they promise those cuts in spending, not just the administration. I'm talking about congressional leaders as well.

If the promises are real, a vote to raise it every three months. So I put forward that amendment. Unfortunately, I only got a handful of votes. But, you know, I mean, he's saying some version of what you said. First of all, the Doge cuts obviously are fake. They're actually costing the government more money than they're quote unquote saving. And real in some sense, because people have lost their jobs in different districts. Yes, that's exactly correct.

And causing all sorts of problems for states across the country. And then you're asking people to further explode. And this is something we've been saying from the beginning, like, you know, they're not serious about Doge and about being so worried about the debt and the deficit, because if they were, they wouldn't be also proposing this like four trillion dollar tax cut down the road. That's just several months away. You know, Ryan, early in the Trump administration, I Trump Trump has so much power within the Republican Party. I mean, really, that's unquestioned.

However, previously, what made him and Elon so able to just effectuate whatever result they wanted with congressional Republicans was that one-two punch. If you have Trump with the political power and you had Elon with the power of the purse, so to speak, where he was threatening everybody who would get crosswise with him with funding their primaries. I think both of their powers somewhat diminished now because Trump is less popular than he was at that time. And, you know, you're getting closer to midterms. Some of these Republicans have to face voters here shortly. And Elon was so embarrassed in that Supreme Court race that his political power obviously is vastly diminished. So even though I don't want to overstate the decline of Trump's influence or whatever, he still has a tremendous, unbelievable grip on the Republican Party. I don't think he quite has as much power with them as he did going in because he's also lost that, you know, the punch of Elon feeling like such a juggernaut as well.

Ryan, that was true, but I'll just say quickly, like Chip Roy, Donald Trump has already fought with Chip Roy and Chip Roy has prevailed. He has been fine. And that's like there are people right now when you have when you have a big margin, it doesn't matter. You have the Thomas Massys, you have the Chip Roy's who are going to make a big deal and say, I'm just not doing it. But there are so many of those people right now for Trump. I think Chip Roy would rather lose an election than vote for a bill that explodes the budget. And if he

doesn't feel like it's a reasonable compromise. And he's in that point right now because he was already posting this week saying there's going to be an enormous pressure campaign, pretty implicitly from the president, because the president was meanwhile tweeting, it's a great bill. So it's a huge it is such a mess for the economy. It is such a mess for the Republican Party. NBC News, Ryan's reporting that Republicans are floating this compromise of faster Medicaid cuts. So I guess, you know, effectuating the same amount of cuts, but in a quicker timeline and a larger salt deduction to try to strike some balance

between what they describe as blue state Republicans and conservative hardliners on this bill. And the reason they're pushing those faster Medicaid cuts is because they, you know, what the politicians in Washington always do is

anything that's difficult, politically difficult, they push that out into the back end of the 10-year window. And they'll say, look, over 10 years, this cuts $800 billion out of Medicaid. And then you look at the details and it cuts zero for the first eight years. And then it cuts 400 each year of the 9th and 10th. Now, that's not the exact structure of this one. It's a little bit closer in. But the idea then is that you tell your base you're doing a thing, and then you don't actually do it. Democrats have their own version of this.

This is how Republicans do it to their base. But fundamentally, Republicans are in a jam between their rhetoric and reality because they have been for years, you know, been telling their base that they can save trillions of dollars. Elon Musk said two trillion. Right. By basically cutting crazy research that funds, you know, transgender mice and finding and finding fraud, and abuse in the government. Yes. And my normie friends who were watching Doge go through the government were very hopeful. Awesome. We finally got somebody who's rich enough. He doesn't care. He's going to go in there.

He's going to find all the absurd spending, all the waste, fraud, and abuse, and we're going to get our government under control. And it's not going to hurt me. It's not going to hurt the economy. It's not going to make the government actually less effective. It'll make the government more effective. The problem is that this was always a lie. The government does have some inefficiencies, but it would take a serious collective effort to go in and reform those processes. You can't just go in with a wrecking ball and fire everybody on probation and find trillions of dollars in transgender mice research like that. That just doesn't exist.

There are two trillion dollars of woke to cut out of the federal budget. Exactly. And the fraud is is weapons makers, health insurance companies, it's health providers. It's like these private equity owned doctor facilities that are ripping off Medicare and Medicaid. Like those are the places that you're going to find the fraud. But guess what? They have power. They make contributions. So they're not going after those people. The other stuff is small ball compared to that. Exactly. That's what Elon found out that like you can you can rack up the Reuters subscription saying like Politico pro subscription. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Punchbowl. Yeah, they may say three hundred dollars on reporting. Yes. The White House can cut it, can make these agencies cut their punch bowl subscriptions or cut, you know, the dumb contracts that they have with maybe Rivian or Tesla or something like that. But well, between between Ryan saving the government that money for that fake Tesla contract for a million dollars or whatever, plus what we're saving the government for the punch bowl subscriptions. I mean, this is the real doge right here. That's right.

Grim efficiency. That's right. The Department of Grim Efficiency. Gotten way more done than Elon. Oh, my gosh. We didn't even have to hack the Social Security database to do it. Isn't that incredible? We didn't have to. No. It's almost as if he wanted all that data for something else. Yeah, maybe. Interesting. Very interesting. So that he can feed it to Grok so that Grok can tell us more about the kill the Boers song and white genocide. Last thought. Some of these Republicans know that they have to outlast Donald Trump. So like there are people in the Senate who are up after Donald Trump's presidential term is over. And if you're, that's not a Chip Roy, but again, like to keep using Chip Roy as an example, or Ron Johnson actually as an example, who was just reelected,

you know that you have political ambitions that are not just going to be whatever Trump says in, what, when is Trump's term? 20, after 2028. And so you're gonna have to answer to voters after Donald Trump is no longer president. And you don't know if Donald Trump is going to maintain his hold on the Republican Party. He probably will. But you have no idea what's going to happen. And if you're going to get hammered for being Mr. Doge, Mr. Balance Budget, and voting for a piece of garbage bill. So the incentives are not where Mike Johnson and Trump need them to be. I got to get you guys to weigh in on this James Comey situation. Seriously. What in the?

I don't know what's going on. I genuinely don't know what's going on here. So Comey posted this picture on Instagram. What a deeply weird person truly truly um it says 86 47 and he his his caption is cool shell formation on my beach walk um and then he you know people were like okay you're calling for the president to be killed is that what we're doing is that what's going on here and um you know they're apparently now like investigating him for this as well but anyway he posted this he deleted the post and he says i posted earlier a picture of some shells i saw today on a beach walk which i assumed were a political message i didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence never occurred to me but i oppose violence of any kind so i took the post down um he was the

u.s attorney for the Southern District of New York. And in addition to being the head of the FBI, he is damn. He damn sure knows that 86. He knows exactly what it means. And he knows exactly what he's doing when he juxtaposes it with 47. Such a bizarre person. I mean, as far as I know, this is the only place I know. This is from restaurants where you say, like, OK, we're we're out of.

We're out of something, you know, 86 chicken. We did once and I mean, everybody laughed. 86 chicken look like kind of manager. Are you how do we run out of chicken? So you just announce it to the staff. 86 chicken is off the menu. You can also impeach the president. Like that's the way to 86 the guy

also yeah like so it doesn't of course but it's a euphemism for like killing people is it has it become i mean i i don't honestly have a take i like i mean i guess my only take is i think republicans are very hypocritical melting down over this given like the level of the type of rhetoric that we hear from them all the time. And they'll suppose it like rejection of cancel culture, blah, blah, blah. But I don't know, guys, maybe I'm naive. And maybe it's just because I'm like, if I saw those shells, I'm not sure that I would really put it together or think that this was like a call for an assassination. I think he may be like boomer brained enough and whatever to just be like,

oh, this is kind of interesting. I don't know. He may be. I genuinely think that's a possibility. He absolutely may be. I don't think it's not a possibility. But yeah, he's the FBI. He's a former FBI director.

The idea that you're just tossing these shells up on social media, even if you just think it's like kind of interesting. It's idiotic. I've got some code to decode here. I don't know. That's kind of the vibe I got from it. It just seems on a character front because he's such a cautious person in a lot of ways. Remember when he was social media posting from the woods of Iowa? He's extremely weird. It's genuinely disturbing to me that that man had as much power as he did um over the course of so many years abused at first with martha stewart which was when we all should have

known we should have on the line there and and real ones did now uh but then james comey continued to ascend the ranks no surprise there and we know how his power was abused when he was uh overseeing trying to take shortcuts to get trump out of office. And so it's just like, what are you doing, bro? Like, just retire. You sold a bunch of books. Yeah, you're on the beach. Go back to the woods. Put the phone away.

You're already on the beach. Get off of fucking Pina Colada. Lord. Yeah, I guess that's it. It's a commentary on how even when you're at the beach, you still cannot resist, you know, posting in some way that's going to it's going to get you in trouble. That is so true. And the only thing I'm going to add to this is the fact that he deleted it and said he didn't know. It's also just like, dude, then why are you posting? Like, if this is truly innocent, leave it up.

Like, who cares? But what are you? He's just so he's a mess. Well, that's where the boomer mindset comes in is he didn't realize that the cardinal rule of social media is never delete, never apologize. Be like Miss Rachel and double down. There's nothing from Donald Trump or Miss Rachel, apparently. Yes. Yes. All right. I wanted to get to this abundance debate with Sam Seder and Ezra Klein.

And so we'll go ahead. This part, we're going to transition to the premium show for these reactions. And we have a couple other stories I want to get to as well, the migration hearing as well. So if you want to get the full show, just go and subscribe, BreakingPoints.com, for this bonus section that we're going to get to as well, the migration hearing as well. So if you want to get the full show, just go and subscribe BreakingPoints.com for this bonus section that we're going to get to here as well. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. 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. 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. 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. This is an iHeart Podcast.