Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/16/24: Biden And Trump Rig 2024 Debates, MSNBC Loses It Over Bad Biden Polls, Slovakia PM Assassination Plot, Red Lobster Endless Shrimp Fiasco, DOJ Boeing Investigation, Israel Gov In Collapse Over Gaza, Israelis Attack Palestinian Truck Driver

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Biden and Trump confirming 2024 debates, MSNBC loses it over bad Biden polls, Slovakia Prime Minister shot by assassin, Red Lobster shuts down restaurants after endless shrimp fiasco, Justice Department says Boeing violated prosecution deal, Israel Defense Minister presses Bibi on Gaza occupation, Israelis attack Palestinian believing he was delivering aid to Gaza.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. We have what I would describe as some actually kind of good news. Presidential debates are actually happening.

Biden threw down the gauntlet and Trump accepted, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, we'll get into all of that. RFK Jr. also trying to get on the stage, even though they are very much aggressively trying to block him. They're trying hard, yeah. So there's a lot to discuss there and why this is all happening. We also have some extreme levels of cope that are happening over on both CNN, but in particular over at Morning Joe over that New York Times-Siena poll that we covered earlier this week, which is an absolute train wreck for Joe Biden. So we will show you that. Also some bad and also interesting news from overseas. The Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. He was shot in an attempted assassination effort. He is now appears to be recovering and on his way hopefully to, you know, full recovery,

but extraordinary circumstances and a lot of indications about what might have been behind the motive for that attack. We'll get into that. Red Lobster is going bankrupt because Americans take all you can eat a little too seriously, guys, out there. When it came to shrimp, we were all in, and Red Lobster was apparently not ready for that. We went too far, folks. America's never been greater than it is today. R.I.P. Red Lobster. We also have some additional, perhaps more significant corporate news, which is that Boeing could actually be facing criminal prosecution now after the government officially said, a judge officially said that they had violated the

consent decree that they had with the federal government. That opens them up to all sorts of charges in particular over those crashes that caused hundreds of fatalities a few years back. So we'll get into that and what that could mean. A lot of news coming out of Israel. Israel's defense minister, Yoav Galant, really throwing down with Bibi Netanyahu. We'll take you inside what that is all about and what it potentially means. By the way, the U.S. siding with Yoav Galant. We also have some horrifying images of how settlers beat a Palestinian truck driver because they suspected he might be bringing aid to Gaza. We also have an update on the pier, guys. Looks like the long

anticipated and much vaunted pier for humanitarian aid is actually complete. So what does that mean and what is that going to look like going forward? Break that down for you as well. Yes, that's right. Okay, before we get to that, we have two important things. First and foremost, CounterPoints had an amazing interview with Beto O'Rourke, a former presidential candidate. Beto, formerly best known, I think, for standing on large services. Emily, Ryan, and him had an amazing discussion. So if you want to check that out, it's dropping to our premium subscribers early. And then this is a special message to our premium subscribers. I'm going to reiterate this, and I'm going to ask that you pay attention. We have a major announcement coming. As we have said, you need to check your email on Sunday. All right. So Sunday, please check your

email. And, you know, usually you guys are used to getting your AMA email. There's going to be something special inside of that. So that's for our premium subscribers only. Please take a listen. We will be sending you reminders and all that. But if you hear this, just put that up in your head, put it on your calendar and mark the date because something is coming. Make sure you check out that email. There will be some small action required from you, but I think you're going to be really excited about what you find there as well. And also with regards to counterpoints and Beto, we haven't watched this one yet. Apparently, Emily and Beto really got into it on immigration. Yes, yes. So I'm very, very interested to see how that all went down.

Absolutely. Last one passed. Let's get to the debates, as Crystal said. So yesterday was kind of a flurry of debate news. Clearly, it was prearranged, at least some. So President Joe Biden releasing a video from his campaign account, taunting Donald Trump to a debate, but in different circumstances than you may have expected. Here's what he had to say. Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hadn't shown up for debate. Now he's acting like he wants to debate me again.

Well, make my day, pal. I'll even do it twice. So let's pick the dates, Donald. I hear you're free on Wednesdays. All right, I hear you're free on Wednesdays. He's taunting him. The Biden malarkey energy is back. The push-ups. What was it? Look fat. Look fat. He's taunting him. The Biden malarkey energy is back. The pushups. What was it? Look fat.

Look fat. That's it. Frankly, best moments, I think. So what does all this mean? Now, I'm actually particularly excited about it because what this means actually, and what you didn't hear there, were some of the details. Let's put this up there on the screen. This was actually a letter that was sent at the very same time the release of that video from the Biden campaign to the Commission on Presidential Debates. Now, in this letter, President Biden and the campaign informs the CPD they will not be participating in the Commission on Presidential Debates preset schedule. This is the organization which has run presidential debates since the, I think, 1980, after the League of Women Voters

dropped out, after they accused campaigns of coordinating with each other. In my opinion, it's always been a travesty. The Commission on Presidential Debates is basically run by the RNC and the DNC. It's totally rigged. It has establishment politicians. It has all of these major Fortune 500 donors, and they have rigged the process to keep people out. And this basically shakes things up and makes a negotiation between the two campaigns as to how this is going to work. Now, there are some downsides to this, as we will get to with RFK Jr. But some of the reasoning that they give here is that they believe that the commission's schedule has the debates begin after the American people have their first chance to cast votes early. That is true, especially because the third debate is well into late October. Second,

this is interesting. I really want to hear what you have to say, Crystal. They say that the commission's model of building huge spectacles with large audiences at great expense is not necessary or conducive to good debates. And in it, they say they don't want donors or a live audience. So they want it to take place purely in a studio a la the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate, or in modern times, I guess the last one that we've seen anything like this was the March of 2020 Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders debate that took place in the CNN studio with no live audience. So the third and the final one is that they're still very upset with the commission over COVID and handling of COVID.

It's basically saying that they allowed Trump to attend the first debate while he attended COVID. That's true. And I think that's fair. It's probably true. He could have very easily killed Joe Biden at that point. I'll take it because now the commission is dead. This is a terrible, antiquated tradition. The two campaigns now have agreed to two dates.

Let's put that up there on the screen. The first and foremost was from CNN. This will be the very first presidential debate, June 27th at 9 p.m. No audience. The moderators have now been announced. It's Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, and it will live stream on CNN and I guess on HBO Max. So that's going to be a great Israel conversation that they lead there. Yeah, that's right. Well, we'll separate the moderator stuff.

But I'm curious what you think specifically about the audience thing and why Biden is insisting on that. OK, so on the audience thing, I do actually think it's better not to have the audience in the room because, I mean, it does just sort of like stack the deck depending on, and oftentimes as a sort of indicated there, who you'll have in the audience is like the big donors for the campaigns. They have a very different agenda than the rest of America. That came out a lot actually in 2016, remember in the Republican debate? And Trump would like directly call out like, oh yeah, well, those are gemstoners basically in the audience. That's why they think that way. So I think it's better just not to have the audience so that people at home have more of an opportunity just to judge for themselves without cheering, booing, et cetera. And an audience that may be clearly slanted one way or another. So on the audience thing, I think that's right.

I guess I'm a little more ambivalent about the destruction of the presidential debate commission because now it's like, okay, well, instead of them rigging it, it's the two candidates themselves colluding to rig it. So is that really better? I don't really know if it's better or worse or whatever, but I'm just glad that they're agreeing to some debates because there was a massive question. I mean, there is still a lot of logic to Joe Biden not doing these debates. I think he's doing it because basically he's down. He saw that after his State of the Union performance, it was good enough that he appeared to get a little bit of a temporary bump in the polls. And so I think he realizes that, you know, if he has an opportunity, actually performs well and exceeds expectations. And again, we're not talking about him being like, you know,

the best debater of all time, but the expectations for him are so low that if he can surpass those very minimal on-the-floor expectations, that may inure to his benefit. But the speculation is that the timing of the debates is also very intentional on his part because it's on the one hand, okay, get the opportunity to show I'm not going to just literally collapse and die on the stage and I can formulate at least like half coherent sentences. On the other hand, if it doesn't go well, there's a lot of time between these debates and when the bulk of the people will actually vote so that I can hopefully recover from any potential disasters from the debate performance. That's kind of the theory that's out there. I think Nate Silver and others were floating that. I basically buy into that. I think that makes some logical, straightforward sense.

It makes some sense. I mean, I went back and I re-reviewed all of the political science. I mean, there's just basically no evidence that these debates matter. And what's actually even more interesting is that whatever moments the media decides are the game-changing moments, even back to the 80s in the monoculture moment, they're like, those have no impact on the media. They usually have a temporary impact on the polls, and then it sort of reverts to the 80s in the monoculture moment, they're like, those have no impact on them. They usually have a temporary impact on the polls and then it sort of reverts. And then it reverts right back to where it is. And it turns out it all comes back to

fundamentals. And especially in a more partisan age, like where we are right now, there are very few undecided voters. And a lot of the data on undecided voters is that they don't particularly make up their minds on debates. Like I said, I still think debates are very important. Absolutely. And they're important not just because of what they mean for the horse race, but part of why Joe Biden has felt pressure, for example, to at least do something on student loan debt is because he had to make those promises on a stage in the debates. I mean, there is other political science that shows as much as these people break promises left and right, they are more likely to actually follow up and do something if they've

promised it on the campaign trail, if they've promised it on a debate stage. So it doesn't just matter for who's up or who's down or how do voters feel about these candidates. It can actually matter more for governance, which is even more important, and not to mention transparency. And I just want to offer the counter case for why it could be different this time and the debates could actually be more significant and meaningful, which is we have a very unique circumstances, circumstance, which is one of the primary concerns about Joe Biden among voters is, is this man even capable of doing the job? So it's, you know, there are also obviously problems with him on policy, economics, Israel, etc. But one of the core concerns is just like, can he do it? And so because that is in a very unique way, a central issue and concern in this campaign,

I think perhaps the debates could be more impactful and more meaningful than they have been other times because the circumstances are so, you know, distinct and so unusual. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Let's put the next one up there on the screen in terms of what the other debate is going to be. Trump says it is my great honor to accept the CNN debate. He says, likewise, I accept ABC News debate against Crooked Joe on September 10th. Thank you, Donald Trump. So there we have it, June 27th and September 10th. Now, Trump seemed like he was trying to push for another third debate on Fox News. Do you know what's going on with that? So there is a third debate that was proposed by Fox and by Trump.

Trump obviously wants to do as many debates as possible. Last time around, he actually wanted to add a fourth debate, even because he had to skip the second one over COVID. This time around, he wants to do, actually, as far as I know and understand, he wants to do literally as many as Biden is up for, which is kind of interesting in terms of the challenge that is being thrown down. Now, as you said, Biden has not committed to that Fox debate. It's very, very unlikely that he will do so. He said in that video, I will only do two debates. Both of those, the justification for the campaign is there before early voting actually starts in all of them. So the September 27th debate, likely to be the most consequential of any if it is so. The ABC News debate will also stream live on all platforms

and will be available to others while CNN in peak CNN form is keeping it confined to the CNN universe. They won't allow others to stream it or any of that. So there will be more widely available. We'll see exactly what happens. Now, we would be remiss if we didn't talk here about RFK Jr. Let's put this up there on the screen. There's some confusion right now. So RFK Jr.'s initial response is that President Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head matchup. 70% of people say they do not want. They're trying to exclude me from their debate because they're afraid that I would win. Keeping viable candidates off the stage undermines democracy. 43% of Americans identify independence. By excluding me from the stage, President Biden

and Trump seek to avoid discussion of their eight years of mutual failure, including deficits, wars, lockdowns, chronic disease, and inflation. But here's the thing. Late last night, he then puts out a tweet where he says, I am happy to report I will meet the criteria to participate in a CNN debate before the June 20th deadline. I look forward to holding President Biden and Trump accountable for their records in Atlanta on June 27th to give Americans the debate that they deserve. So this brings us back to what the CNN debate qualifications actually are. Can we put A3, please, back on the screen so that I can explain a little bit of this? So CNN's announcement says that to qualify for participation, candidates must fulfill outline in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.

They must file a statement of candidacy with the FEC. A candidate's name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency. And they must agree to accept the rules in the format. And they must receive 15% in four separate national polls or of registered or likely voters that meet CNN standards of reporting. Now, the 15% threshold is not going to be difficult for RFK Jr. It's the 270 ballot access initiative that matters the most. But the big question, Crystal, is if RFK Jr. does qualify, are they going to rig the rules? Is Biden going to pull out? Is Trump going to pull out? Because both Trump and Biden have made it very clear they do not want him there on the stage. And so I foresee some chicanery somewhere. If I had to guess, it'll be that he has enough ballots to qualify for the ballot. But like, let's say maybe he hasn't officially, you know, the state secretary of state hasn't signed it. So they'll use that as a pretext. But I mean, he's got California and Texas already. That's like 100 electoral votes right there. You don't need a lot more. You just got to get on in the big states, New York,

you know, Ohio, a few others, and you're there. You're at 270. Yeah. I mean, he should be on the stage. Like, that's the bottom line. Obviously. It's incredibly consequential. He could be determinative in terms of this election. He has demonstrated, you know, significant levels of support, especially for a third-party candidate. He absolutely, in the interest of democracy, should be on the stage. Will he be on the stage? Highly doubt it. I doubt it. Because they thought they were rigging these rules to preclude him from having any chance of making it on. Apparently not that good at math, right?

And listen, I think he still has, I think it's still a reach for him to get there by June 20th, even, you know, by those standards. And that's because the two parties have also colluded to make it very difficult to get ballot access in these states. In New York, Jill Stein, Dr. Jill Stein was telling us that New York actually just passed a law to make it even more difficult in New York to get on the ballot there. Obviously, that's a massive electoral prize in terms of the number of delegates that you get there. So yeah, the two parties have colluded to make it very, very difficult to get on these ballots. And then they use that collusion to also collude with CNN

to try to block any third-party candidates from being on the stage. Because, listen, it shouldn't just be Cornel West. I mean, it shouldn't just be RFK Jr. on the stage. I think Jill Stein should be there. And I think if Cornel West is able to get on a significant number of ballots, I think he should be there as well in the interest of, you know, having a wide range of who's out there and people really having a choice and feeling like they're able to evaluate different positions from these different candidates. You know, on an issue like Israel,

RFK, Trump and Biden are all like basically the same. So it'd be nice to have another candidate there to offer a different vision. And they're going to be aligned with CNN, too, by the way, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. So in any case, the more democracy, the better. That's why I'm a little ambivalent about like the end of the presidential debate commission, because, listen, I mean, they would probably do the same thing. They probably also don't really want RFK Jr. up on the stage. But there'd be a little bit more of a sense of like, these are the rules. We've laid them down. Everyone has to follow them, et cetera, et cetera, versus this is just two campaigns negotiating for their own benefit.

So, like you said, there's tradeoffs. I agree. My main thing is that it's structural. So, for example, the Commission on Presidential Debates officially has as its two members the RNC and the DNC. That's nuts to me. You can't literally allow the two parties to be the only ones to negotiate. Now, again, this is why I celebrated when the RNC pulled out of the commission. And not to mention that the commercials and the sponsors for it are like, they're like all these Fortune 500 companies. It's grotesque

to look at it. I mean, you know, to this day, Crystal, they're like all these Fortune 500 companies. It's grotesque to look at it. I mean, you know, to this day, Crystal, they have millions and millions of dollars of unspent money in their coffers. What do you think they're using that for? And that's where I think the Biden people are correct. In a certain sense, it's like a self-perpetuating machine where you donate to the commission, then you get to attend the commission on presidential debates. And that's why you have all these big donors and billionaires. And I mean, who, who can't forget like all of the spectacles of the famous people who are in the audience. So yeah, the more that we just get rid of it. And if we have more debates now, I agree in the short term, it's not great, right? Like what do campaigns do? The reason the league of women voters stopped sponsoring the events or the campaigns debates

was because the two campaigns, I think do cop. I forget exactly who it was. Uh, it was. They were found to be colluding with each other. And the league was like, we're not going to deal with that. They're like, we have debates where we get to ask the best questions. And if you go back and you watch them, they were so much better. So all I'm saying is this just make things a lot more interesting and possible. The other thing is that the mainstream media should be freaking out about this because they basically had a collusion with the CPD where you get to live cast everything on their networks. And obviously they could sell ad time and all these other things.

And their anchors were the ones who were always considered. So this shake things up to basically allow and not disqualify the future candidates from participating in whatever forms that they want. So it's going to be a lot more like the 1970s and 80s where people can just do anything. And in general, I think that's a good thing. Maybe. I mean, it seems to me like we need to have just like major reform of the presidential debate commission where it's truly independent, where it's not just, you know, a tool of the RNC and the DNC and big donors, where there's legislation that compels these candidates to have to debate. Because I think in the interest of democracy and all of us being able to evaluate our choices, I think that that should be mandatory,

not just at the presidential level, but at all levels. If you're seeking office, a very minimal that you should have to do is like present yourself to the voters and debate your opponent and like take seriously the democratic process. But, we're a long way from that. So is this an improvement? I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how it all shakes out. Yeah.

I mean, in general, I'm excited. I'm glad that they're actually going to do it. That I'm glad about. Yeah. The one last thing that I'll say in terms of how this will go, because, I mean, the obvious assumption is that Trump is going to be a better debater than Joe Biden. I think that's a very fair assumption. But let's just remember that last time around, that was also the assumption.

And Trump was such an asshole in the first debate. It wasn't because Joe Biden did well. But Trump was such a, like, I think he must have been taking something for COVID. I don't know. It was very odd. He was such a jerk and so, like, you know, just constantly cutting Joe Biden off, et cetera, et cetera, that he really ruined his own prospects there and was widely seen, I think accurately so, as having lost that debate. So it's not a foregone conclusion that this is going to be better for

Trump. I saw someone say, we are going to see Manhattan Project levels of presidential stimulants for both of these candidates. Oh, yeah. They're already working on the cocktail. I was going to say, whatever that cocktail is, let me know because I want to take it. All right. Like fire me up, put it in both of the veins and I'll take it before we start. On Trump's side, whatever they gave him before that debate, they need to dial back about 80% because it was way too much. You got to jack that up, man. I would love to be in the, in the, in the room. It's going to be like modafinil, Adderall, like all the chemists, the chemists are going wild. They're going to, they're going to be like modafinil, Adderall, like who even knows.

The chemists are going wild. They're going to have like little drip beakers and things. So it's going to be interesting. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running

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Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. So we have additional campaign news as we covered earlier this week. New York Times Siena poll, which came out, which is, I mean, this is considered one of the sort of like gold standard polls. And it was an utter and complete disaster for Joe Biden. He was losing in almost every battleground state.

He was losing by double digits in Nevada. What was it, 13 points? Yes, 13. That he was losing by in Nevada when you drilled in. It was because young people, African-Americans, Latinos were all fleeing his campaign. Just, I mean, there was no way to spit in this thing as remotely positive for him. But Morning Joe decided they would go ahead and try. Let's listen to what Joe Scarborough had to say in his incredible cope with regards to this poll.

Where are the polls talking as directionally about the race? I understand there is a difference, though, with the New York Times Siena poll. And you know this. I am. It's given disproportionate impact. I understand. This year, this cycle, it is skewed wildly in Donald Trump's direction. Hold on.

And the New York Times feasts on it with clickbait stories like a dozen at a time. And what I'm trying to focus on is what I think people should pay attention to. But what I'm trying to focus on is the New York Times right now is actively shaping the election cycles where this poll comes out on a Sunday and on Monday people go, oh, and I heard it. And I'm sitting there going, oh, don't be so stupid. That's why we're doing this. So we're not. No, hold on a second. Hold on. What I hear is after these Siena polls come out every time, New York Times poll is, oh, well, everything that Joe Biden's done since the since the the State of the Union address, all of these all this money that he's put out, all of the campaigning is for not. No, it's not. No, it's not.

There's one poll that's wildly skewed every time after every New York Times, CNN poll comes out. It completely changes the political battlefield out there for about a week, week and a half. It distorts the questions that are asked of the a half. It distorts the questions that are asked of the White House. It distorts the questions that are asked of Donald Trump. It distorts all of the opinion. It distorts everything. And that keeps happening every month when this comes out. And then finally, about two weeks later, after the residue of the New York Times-Siena poll leaves, people go, oh, I think Joe Biden's on a winning streak. And then two weeks later, it comes out again, and it's garbage. Speaking of drugs that people are taking,

I would like to take that. I actually love that. Imagine living in that fantasy world. Imagine, okay, the allegation here is that the New York Times is actively cooking the books in favor of Donald Trump and putting out what Joe Scarborough describes as clickbait articles to shape the cut. Imagine thinking the New York Times is in the tank for Donald Trump. It's completely insane. And then just factually, he's asserting, oh, we know that this is gone. We know it's wildly skewed. No, last time in 2020, it was skewed in the other direction. It wildly overstated Joe Biden's support versus Donald Trump. Maybe things have changed.

We don't know. Other polls have gone another way. Possible. But to just dismiss this like, oh, don't be ridiculous. And here's the other thing, Sagar, is he's pretending like these are outliers. That's the problem. This is not an outlier. Now, some of the national polling has been okay for Joe Biden.

Some have even had him up by a few points. Some have had it tied. Some have had him down by, you know, a little bit, but within the margin of error. But every single battleground poll that I've seen recently, maybe there's some out there that I haven't seen, but the battleground polls have consistently been bad for Joe Biden. And to just like dismiss that is incredible. But that's the White House is apparently in this delusional state as well, where they don't believe the polls. They're in like hashtag unskew the polls mode. They don't think these accurately reflect his support. And so even though, you know, everyone looking at this objectively would be like,

you're not in a good position right now. They're just staying the course. They think it's all well and good. Yeah, that's right. So I'm looking, for example, at the battlegrounds and the RCP polling average in every single battleground state has Trump leading. His lowest margin is in the state of Wisconsin at 0.6. In Arizona, the average is 5.2 for his lead. In Georgia, the is 4.6 in Michigan, 0.8 in Pennsylvania, two points in North Carolina, five and in Nevada, 6.2. So that's the thing. It's not about the New York Times. Now, again, as you just said, and this would be a more accurate freak out. Hey, guys, in 2022, they were totally wrong. And so, you know what? We're just going to keep doing what we're doing and we're going to hope for abortion and we're going to show a little bit more vigor.

You know, he should be happy that Biden is doing the debate. He's like, yeah, there you go. Like, that's the Joe that we need. And, you know, that's not a terrible case. I could make that case. I think there's roughly 50% chance that that could be true. You know, I have enough—I'm humble enough to have been here in our studio on the midterms and just seeing things so shockingly wrong that you can't state anything with any confidence. Now, though, as Heilman was trying to say, he's like, look, we're just trying to get indicators about the way things are going. And in general, I would not be comfortable with where they are. But the problem is, is that Scarborough and Biden are actually comfortable where they are. And what kind of politician is that? Maybe it will work out for you, but that's not how you achieve victory. Well, I think if I had to say, Biden, I think, actually believes because they

gained this perspective in 2020 that like everyone online is wrong and we know better and it's all fine and good. And even after they got their butts kicked in Iowa and got their butts kicked in New Hampshire, they still were like, no, no, no, it's going to be it's going to be OK. And it turned out to be correct because, you know, at the end of the day, like there was no other candidate in the sort of like, you know, centrist mainstream lane who had any appeal with diverse voters. And, you know, the whole party coalesced behind Joe and they're able to stamp out the Bernie Sanders move and it worked out for him. So they took that as an indication of like, no, everything is always going to be fine.

Like the freakouts and the online chatter and what the media class has to say, like none of this has any veracity ever whatsoever. We're just going to assume that it's 2020 and it's the Democratic primary all over again and we're just fine and they don't get it and we get it and they're freaking out and they're panicking, but really everything's fine. I think they overlearned that lesson. And so now, even as more and more data points come in that clearly indicate, like, you're down 13 points in Nevada and you're like, it's all cool and good. Even if you have, even if the poll is off by half, like you're still getting your butt kicked in a state that you won pretty easily last time around. So you're just going to dismiss all of that and pretend like that's all fine.

So I think the Biden people, Joe Biden himself, because we'll get to this Axios report in a minute, but there are some people in his camp who are like, oh, we're kind of nervous and worried. Maybe we should do something. But he himself and the other top brass are like, no, we're good. It's all fine. Like, I think they actually live in that delusional world. I think Scarborough is just saying what his audience wants to hear and also what Joe Biden wants to hear, because he wants to maintain

his position as Joe Biden's like favorite MSNBC anchor and stay in good graces with the White House. I guarantee you he had a call with someone in Biden world who was pushing exactly this line of messaging and he's just parroting it because it feels good to the MSNBC audience and it feels good to his audience of one, a term we used to use in the Trump years all the time. Biden is his own audience of one for Joe Scarborough. And so I think he's getting this directly from the White House and putting it out to an audience that is incredibly – who is desperate to hear this kind of nonsense analysis and fantasy world prognostication. Right. So I have here in front of me the results from Nevada.

Joe Biden won 50 percent of the vote and Donald Trump got 47 percent. So he won it by roughly three. The polls at that time back in 2020, even when they understated Trump's support on the eve of the election, had Joe Biden winning approximately by four to 5%. So there you go. I mean, we should be pretty comfortable here. There's another guy, John Ralston, who I know you know, Crystal, kind of the Nevada political guru. He did a whole write-up of this and he said, I think these are bad results for Joe Biden. And he even warned that the same New York Times poll that found Jackie Rosen leading in the Senate race, he goes, there's no way. The split ticket phenomenon that we've seen in the past just simply does not match

up with this. And if I was Rosen, I would be freaking out too. And that's the other thing we're learning is that Biden is actually dragging Democrats down on the ticket. That's exactly right. If you take him out of the equation, they're actually doing pretty well. Yeah. It's the opposite of the Obama phenomenon. Right. Because so they want to take these results seriously from the New York Times when it comes to the Senate candidates. Yeah, exactly. Because the Democratic Senate candidates all did well in these polls. But when it comes to Joe Biden, oh, well, that's a different matter. Now we need to hashtag unskew the polls. Yeah, good luck with that. I mean, good luck with just staying the course and hoping that works out for you because it certainly doesn't look very good right now.

And if you were counting on Trump's legal troubles to save you at some point, like, that's not happening. It's not happening. Even if he's found guilty in the soul-storming Daniels situation, very unlikely, I think it's unlikely he faces prison time over that. And public really isn't tuned into it. Like they're sort of, it hasn't changed his poll numbers. Like it's happening right now. The damning testimony from Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels and whoever, David Pecker, it's happening right now. And his polls are not moving or they're even edging even, you know, more in his direction. So hope you're not counting on that to save the day. CNN did their own somewhat more mild version of this. It's not quite as

extraordinary as Joe Scarborough. But suddenly when a really bad result comes in from Joe Biden, suddenly CNN learns like, oh, well, the polls, who can even say? Who can even say whether these polls are right whatsoever? Let's take a listen to Harry Enten's analysis here. Polls are a snapshot in time, all right? So I went back since 1972. How far are the polls off at this point? On average, they're off, get this, by six points. They've been off by as large as 15 points. Michael Dukakis was ahead of George H.W. Bush at this point in 1988 by high single digits. It was actually George H.W. Bush at this point in 1988 by high single digits. It was actually George H.W. Bush who won by high single digits. And keep in mind, Trump's only up by a point at this particular junction. So the fact is the polls can shift a lot. Yes,

Joe Biden is in trouble, but we'll see where we are a month, two months, three months, five months, six months down the road. And when it comes to battleground polls in general, how accurate are they? Yeah. So this is looking at the national polls at this point in time. What if we looked at the battleground polls on the day of the election? All right. So go back again since 1972. They're off by an average of four points. They're off by an average of four points. In 2020, they were a little larger. The error was a little larger. It was five points. And of course, most of those polls underestimated Donald Trump. The key thing to keep in mind here, in those pivotal battleground states in the Great Lakes, Michigan, Pennsylvania,

Wisconsin, Donald Trump is ahead, but only by between one and two points. So yeah, you would consider him favored. But if there's one lesson we've learned over the last few cycles, John, it's do not take polls to the bank, especially when the margins are as close as they are right now. And who do the polls tend to be wrong for? Right. So one of the chief complaints that Biden and the Democrats have is in 2022, the polls underestimated Democrats, right?

In 2020, it was Republicans. In 2022, Joe Biden, the Democrats like to argue that the polls underestimated Democrats, right? In 2020, it was Republicans. In 2022, Joe Biden, the Democrats, like to argue that the polls underestimated Democrats. Now, that was true in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, those major races. The polls, on average, underestimated the Democratic candidates

by about five points. But if you look nationally, look at the national House vote, the polls actually underestimated Republicans by about two points. So I'm not necessarily sure you could look at 2022 and argue that the polls actually underestimated Republicans by about two points. So I'm not necessarily sure you could look at 2022 and argue that the polls will somehow this time underestimate Joe Biden. The fact is the poll errors, John, go back and forth. They go back and forth within a

cycle and they go back and forth when you compare over a bunch of years. So listen, that's all that's all accurate. I'm not saying it's just a therapy session. Well, that's it Is imagine this poll had come out in the other direction and it showed Joe Biden up in all these battleground states. Do you think they would be doing the segment of like the polls if they really, really can't read into this? They I genuinely think it comes from a place of they live in a bubble where they really don't know any Trump supporters. You know, occasionally they'll run into one in the green room that they have to fight against or whatever, but they don't really know any. And so to look at the results and see that Donald Trump may be leading in all these battleground states, they're like, that can't possibly be true. That just doesn't match my experience of the world and my experience of the people around me and how they think about Donald Trump and how they think about Joe Biden. And so they've got to come up with some reason why this poll doesn't match up with their experience

of life in America. And I think this is their attempt to do it. Last thing we have for you is that Axios report I referenced earlier where, you know, I think Joe Biden himself genuinely does believe the polls are wrong, genuinely does believe his support is understated. Biden's polling denial, why he doesn't believe he's behind. And listen, again, I don't rule it out. It is possible, but you can't be certain. Like you cannot be certain. In fact, history would indicate you should probably lean in the other direction because when we have had, we had a previous Biden-Trump race. And in that previous Biden-Trump race, which is obviously the most analogous thing to this circumstance, it really overestimated Joe Biden. It really underestimated Donald Trump.

So a midterm election is not quite as analogous. And even as CNN points out, even that was a mixed bag. Even that wasn't clearly consistently skewed in Democrats' direction. So in any case, they have this quote here from Biden, who has talked to donors about how he thinks the poll numbers are wrong. He even said to CNN in that interview that he thought that the polling numbers are wrong. He said, quote, the polling data has been wrong all along. How many, you guys do a poll at CNN, how many folks do you have to call to get one response? So he's basically saying like polling methodology has collapsed. Again, could be true. Would you 100% feel

confident in that? There's no way you could. You're just denying like possible reality here. This is to me the problem with Biden himself. And look, this is what being freaking 80 whatever years old that he is. They're just tired. Very set in his ways. Yeah, they're set in their ways. And they don't have any urgency. I don't know. I mean, every book you ever read about victory is that the people who achieve it always massively underestimated their chance of success. They never slept on it.

I was just reading this book called The Supreme Commander by Stephen Ambrose. It's a history of Eisenhower and World War II. I mean, even though he had overwhelming odds on his side, manpower, the agony that this man lived with and thinking over every single minute details to try and achieve victory, because also understanding that even if one thing went wrong,

it could possibly screw the entire operation. Like, that's what I want in a president. You know, that's what most people would want in a president. If you really believe, Biden says all the time, democracy is at stake and all that. It's like, okay, man, you should probably act like it. You know, you should fight for everything and leave it all out on the field. But when you're this old, I mean, this is probably as good as it can get. Well, and I think that gets to something really key here, which is, listen, one thing he could do that would probably help his fortunes with young people in particular, and this was also borne out in the New York Times poll, is he could actually change his policy vis-a-vis Israel. He clearly ideologically is

just totally unwilling to do that. And then the other thing he could do is literally be a different person. Truly. Truly. Because part of the core problem here is you yourself and your age and the lack of comfort with that among the American people. So it's like, all right, well, you either recognize that you are the wrong person to be running and you drop out and, you know, elevate someone else who is more equipped for the challenge or you live in dreamland and you, you know, stick with your denial. And so I think that's where they are is because if they actually acknowledge like Joe Biden is a uniquely weak Democratic candidate underperforming every single Democratic Senate candidate in the entire country, then the only logical conclusion of that is not like, oh, we need to do some more rallies or more get out the vote. It's you have to step aside because you're not getting any younger. You're not getting any more coherent. The American people aren't getting any more comfortable with you personally. So I think that's why they have to, in a sense, live in this dream land. Yeah, I think you're absolutely 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. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions

that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Helen Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's turn now to foreign affairs. There was some shocking news yesterday. on Apple Podcasts. Any very disturbing images, but in general, this is very chaotic. So let's go and put this up there on the screen. You can see the prime minister walking there to greet some members of the public. We froze it right there where a lone bystander pulled out a gun, pointed it down, and began shooting. You can see his security detail immediately grab him up under the arms, throw him into his armored vehicle, and immediately they sped off to the hospital.

The news yesterday was that he was in a life-threatening condition, although it appears now that he is no longer suffering. He did have underwent emergency surgery. His condition has been downgraded to serious, but they're no longer life-threatening. So that's where things stand right now, Crystal. There were a lot of questions swirling around this because Robert Fico, we covered him here previously in the past. He is a very interesting figure. He was elected in Slovakia, which is a member of NATO, almost explicitly on an anti-Ukraine aid position. He's a fascinating kind of populist figure, which we'll get to in a little bit. But you read a lot about the assailant, Crystal. So what do we know?

Yeah, well, I mean, we know who this individual was, more or less. He's a 71-year-old from a small Western town. Apparently, he works as a security guard. You know, the weapon reportedly was his own. The only thing we know about his politics is, according to a local Slovakian TV station, they pulled a video where he complains. He says, I don't agree with the government's policies. Why are the media being targeted?

Why is RTVS, which is their public broadcasting, under attack? Why was Mazak dismissed from his position? That's a reference to an individual. So apparently, Fito is a very divisive figure for a whole lot of reasons. Ukraine aid is, his position on Ukraine is one of those reasons. But he's also launched this, you know, full-throated attack against public broadcasting that's been incredibly divisive in the subject of current protests in the country. And then there's also been a lot of investigations of him in the past because he then there's also been a lot of investigations of him in the past because he was in government before and then his government collapsed over

allegations regarding actually a targeted murder. And so the people that investigated him and his party over those allegations, over corruption allegations, he has fired a bunch of those. So this is one of those individuals who was fired. So according to at least what we know of this individual, it seems like he had a lot of problems with the direction of the government under Robert Fico. So that's what we know at this point. That's what we know so far. It did not stop, though, some international observers, especially in the UK. They hate his guts. Basically, all of the West does because he doesn't agree with them on Ukraine. It's him and it's Viktor Orban. We had a Sky News report almost immediately after, which just look at the way that they basically try and justify this assassination attempt. Take a listen.

We don't know his condition yet, but he's being treated. But it's worth thinking about who this individual is, as I said, described in reporting as a populist, as a nationalist. Yeah, well, that would make sense. I mean, Slovakia is a very conflicted place at the moment. I mean, Fico himself, I mean, he established this smear party, SMER, which is a social democracy party back in 1999. And he's been, I think, as you were just saying, prime minister three times. And so he's a well-known figure. But he's become very pro-Russian over the years. And one wonders why and how, but maybe that's his conviction. And he's, I mean, like Viktor Orban in Hungary, I mean, he's set his teeth against going along with sanctions,

with EU sanctions, against common procurement. I mean, Slovakia is very, it's a small country. I mean, in the sense that it's, you know, Czechoslovakia as was. The Czech Republic is the bigger bit. Slovakia is the smaller bit, although it was the more industrial in the old days. So it's not negligible. But Slovakia is not a major player within the EU,

but a bit like Hungary, which is also a bigger country, but it's not a very big player in the EU economically. They dig their toes in against aid to Ukraine or against any sort of sympathy with Kiev. And they keep saying, look, we want the war to finish. And by that, they mean they want the Russians to succeed. And then the war will be over if Ukraine would just surrender and give up territory. And so that's the view he takes.

Now, that's very divisive in Slovakia. It's divisive within the EU. So it's not surprising that this sort of event might take place because it's a very unhappy country at the moment, Slovakia. Not just on this basis, but on the basis of how the country is going in general towards a more authoritarian future. Not surprising. Not at all. And it's like rapid speculation. And it's not even true. Whenever it turns out what we know about the assailant, it turns out Slovakia is its own country with its own problems. We think everything's about us. Right. Or Ukraine.

It's like, hey, yeah, actually, maybe people in Slovakia aren't thinking all that much about Ukraine. But to them, oh, it's fine. Imagine if it was a flip and it was somebody who was a pro-Ukraine leader, let's say in Estonia or something like that, another very insignificant, tiny country in Eastern Europe. And there was speculation in the interim that they would be losing it here in Washington. But because he has the wrong views on Ukraine, basically, it's fine, whatever happened to him. We actually have a video just to give you an idea. What does this man actually think?

Let's play some of it, okay? I'll read from the subtitles. A couple years ago, he says, I believe the war in Ukraine began earlier in 2014 when Ukrainian fascists killed citizens of Russian nationality in Ukraine. So then he continues, I have a different opinion on this matter. I still believe the Americans are fighting Russia with Ukrainian soldiers. In 2014, Russia launched an offensive against the Donbass. It all started with the murder or murders of citizens of Russian nationality by Ukrainian fascists. And please do not again

distort all the data that exists here. So what do we learn from this? Now, he clearly has a longer view of the situation, and he believes that it's a proxy war. That is the same position held by Viktor Orban of Hungary. And even though those two gentlemen are members of NATO, prime ministers duly elected and very popular in their own hometowns, because they have different dissonant and different views, you know, you have Sky News here and the seat of the UK and in Europe just being like, oh, it's okay. You know, it's totally fine. It's crazy. I mean, they really walk like right up to the door of just outright justifying. Yeah, it's understandable. Someone would target and attempt to assassinate the prime minister of Slovakia. Right. And I mean, in some ways, to me, the most revealing part is just how they immediately fixate on his position on Ukraine. Now, maybe that played into the motivations of this. We don't know

and you didn't know. And in fact, the only political commentary we have from the alleged shooter doesn't say anything about Ukraine. So there's also a level of chauvinism here of just assuming that the reason that this broadcaster is upset with Fico must be the same reason that the shooter was upset with him. And by the way, it's kind of understandable, really, when you think about it, isn't it? So just an incredible, like, revealing moment that they would spend so much time in that instant digging into what his position is, Ukraine versus Russia, when there was no indication that that actually had

anything to do with this targeted assassination. They just jumped right to the conclusion that, like, this must be about us, right? Because everything's about us. What they're also saying is, like, he's asking for it. He was asking for it. Yeah, that's pretty much the way it is. According to your own press, Brits, how is it going in Ukraine? Oh, shocking. Let's put this up there on the screen. You're not going to see this on the front page of the New York Times. President Zelensky, who's been traipsing all over the world with his handout asking for weapons, has now canceled all upcoming foreign trips as Russia advances, quote, in the Kharkiv region. So as the news that we brought you on, yeah,

what was it, on Tuesday in our show, things are going terribly for the Ukrainians on the battlefield. Bad enough that Zelensky no longer feels comfortable even leaving the country, and their generals are in a full-blown panic. But of course, they're not going to lead with that one. They're going to continue painting everybody with false visions of victory. It's a sad situation all around. Yeah, it truly is. 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. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder.

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

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

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you

Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really,

really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's get to another deeply sad situation. Although, you know, somewhat amusing,

I guess, in this case. Red Lobster. This is one I fought for in the show. I've been laughing about this for two days, and I think a lot of people would like to know the details. Let's put this up there on the screen. Dozens of Red Lobster locations suddenly were ended overnight and just shut down. Why? Because the company is on the verge of total bankruptcy, saying that they are going to have to auction off equipment of 50 different locations. All had to close for, quote, footprint rationalization. Now, what spawned the sudden closure of all of these store crystals? It appears to be a potential Chapter 11 filing on the heels of all-you-can-eat shrimp, endless shrimp, as it was called. It turns out that Red Lobster, which was already on the face of financial brinksmanship, their CEOs or their executives of a new team came up with this idea. They're like,

all right, we got to get butts back in the seats. Inflation is killing us. These chain restaurants continue to lose customers because that's one of the main ones where lower income and middle class diners usually were consistent customers. Well, what we're going to do is we're going to bring them in here with an endless shrimp, all you can eat promotion. But it turns out that they massively underestimated the American public's appetite for endless shrimp. And they lost millions of dollars in the span of just a year or so on the so-called endless shrimp deal. So much so that their Thai suppliers of shrimp were shocked at the amount that they were going through. And they were running massive losses because customers were so taking advantage of, quote, all you can eat, endless shrimp at the table.

So your reaction? Yeah, I mean, they said all you can eat and Americans were like, challenge accepted. You're of, quote, all you can eat, endless shrimp at the table. So your reaction? Yeah, I mean, they said all you can eat and Americans were like, challenge accepted. You're like, okay, cool. Challenge accepted. You know, for me, it's deeply personally sad. I have like a deep emotional connection to Red Lobster. First of all, I still eat their cheddar biscuits all the time. You can buy the mix.

They sell it, I think, at Costco. They still sell it. And my mom makes them particularly well. She adds even extra butter and they're so freaking delicious. She literally made them for me like two nights ago and they're amazing. And if that goes away, I'm going to be really sad. I'm going to be really sad because those cheddar biscuits are an important contribution to the culinary landscape of America, in my personal opinion. That's number one. Number two, when I was a kid, we really, we very rarely went out to eat. You know, we'd occasionally do like McDonald's.

Like after a swim meet, we'd go to McDonald's. Or if it was like a really important occasion, like a Mother's Day kind of a thing, we might go to Red Lobster. And so I have very fond memories of going to Red Lobster. It was always a big deal and very special when we went there. So I still have a, you know, deep sentimental connection to Red Lobster. I have to say I must be part of their decline because I haven't actually eaten in the restaurant in many years. I think the landscape was sliding against them for quite a while now. I do wonder if they were in better financial position, though, if this endless shrimp thing might have worked out for them in the end. It's certainly possible. It could be that, okay, you take the loss.

I mean, businesses do this all the time where you take a short-term loss and you sort of underprice your item to get people at Walmart. This is part of how Walmart grew in the early days. You underprice something to bring people in. And then once you get them there and get them, then they remember like,

oh, that was a great experience. Let's go back. Let's do it again, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe in the end, it wouldn't have been a bad decision. But yeah, you never underestimate Americans' ability to eat endless amounts of whatever. Americans are like, what did you think endless meant, bro? It's like, we're going to take advantage. America's always been great. Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, it's also kind of sad whenever you consider it.

But the business dynamics behind it are still not one that we should celebrate. I mean, it is largely, according to their own customer research, it's the casual dining spend with customers of incomes of $50,000 or less that have had to dramatically reduce visits and order fewer items when eating out and more likely to take advantage of endless shrimp because they don't have any money. And inflation is just murdering them. And that's the other thing, too. Again, I, like you, have not been in a Red Lobster in many years. We don't even have many

around us, but some entrees are going for like 30, 40 bucks a person, which is wild. I mean, when you consider that at a chain restaurant, it's like, well, what's even the point? I might as well go to somewhere nice. We're going to pay 40 or 50 bucks. Apparently there have been similar bankruptcies in the last several months with similar types of chains. So the Tex-Mex chain, the Wall Street Journal notes is the Tijuana flat, New York based sticky fingers joint filed for chapter 11. And then there was a famous one, one that hit me particularly hard, Foxtrot markets, which just suddenly overnight just collapsed. What was that? It's kind of,

they were very, they're urban. So we had one in my neighborhood. Oh, this is the one you're talking about. It's like a high-end pharmacy or something? It's not a pharmacy. It was like,

I don't know, they build themselves like a high-end corner store. It's like a place you can get coffee and upscale goods or whatever. It's just convenient

because it's like a CVS, but they have nicer goods. But fancy. This is the way I would put it. Okay, gotcha. I'm surprised that concept didn't work actually because that clientele has money. Yeah, but they do, but I don't think they had enough because they were billing all these like delivery things. They opened massive amounts of stores and then it turned out they just closed completely overnight. I actually got a message. I posted about this on Instagram. One of the people who worked at a Red Lobster, they said that they worked at one of the top 10 Red Lobsters in revenue just last year.

And then overnight, just lose their job. You know, it's like a server there. And then overnight, they were just like, yeah, actually, every single one of you is fired. So it's devastating, actually, you know, for a lot of the people who like the restaurant. Both my sisters used to work at the Red Lobster. How were the tips?

Yeah, I think they were pretty good, actually. I think they liked working there. They enjoyed that experience. Yeah. I think your point about the structure of the economy is the most important one, which is the audience they're catering to is like a working class audience. And those are the people who have been hit hardest by inflation. Those are the people who have been hit hardest by high interest rates. So the fact that this would be the moment when it's like, first of all, if you're giving me a deal on shrimp that I can't refuse, like I'm getting I'm getting in there, I'm taking advantage of it. And second of all, yeah, but that's going to be it. Like I I can't be in Red Lobster every week. That's not going to work for me. My budget is like nowhere near flush enough to take advantage of that. So I'm sure they took a hit during COVID as well. So a lot of these

chains were probably like struggling. COVID hits them, struggling more. This was like a last ditch effort. And now here we are. Let's go ahead and skip ahead, guys, to D3 here and talk about Boeing, because this is very important. The Justice Department says that Boeing has violated the deal that would avoid prosecution after the 737 MAX crash. So for those who don't remember, the 737 MAX had the software update system for guidance, which they did not tell the pilots or properly train them about. This led to the deaths of several hundred people in two separate crashes, 2018 and 2019. Boeing then reached not only a settlement with the Department of Justice where they would pay some $2.5 billion, but one which would have them avoid prosecution on any charges of fraud, misleading federal regulators who approved the plane. They blamed basically deception on two low-level employees, fired them, and they avoided prosecution for themselves and for the chief pilot, even though a lot of evidence at that time pointed both towards the company high-level culpability.

Yeah, they scapegoated these two people, for sure. It was BS. The head of the Justice Department's criminal fraud division says that Boeing actually has violated the terms of that settlement by, quote, failing to make promised changes to detect and prevent violations of federal anti-fraud laws. So what that means is not only can they be prosecuted for previous actions, but they can also be prosecuted for any federal criminal violation of which the U.S. has knowledge, which includes the current investigation into what happened with the doorowers suddenly dying in the midst of this investigation. But the reason it's so, so significant is that this opens up, Crystal, prosecution at the highest levels of the company and further fines after they really did get away scot-free last time around.

I mean, 2.5 billion is nothing for them when you consider even how much of their own stock they bought back, which is like 10 to 12 billion. Yeah, that's right. And I mean, we don't know whether they are going to face any sort of federal charges. This doesn't guarantee that that will actually happen, but it really opens the door for it. And Asagra was just alluding to, including that original charge of fraud, because they lied to the government about what happened with those 737 Maxes that crashed, killing hundreds of people. They lied about that and covered it up. They got caught. And the way they got out of charges that first time is bought through this, it's called a consent decree, through this consent decree that required them to pay some

amount of money to victims, this $2.5 billion, et cetera, which I know $2.5 billion sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of Boeing and in the grand scheme of executives actually facing criminal charges and potential prison time, it's a drop in the bucket. So now that situation that they thought they had sort of wrapped up with a bow and put behind them and were able to move forward, now totally 100% back on the table. Of course, this comes as there are more and more whistleblowers coming out about the culture at Boeing and how sloppy it is and how profits rule over safety every single time. We've now had two of those whistleblowers, quote unquote, end up dead. Apparently, they need to get rid of a few more whistleblowers if they're going to get

themselves out of this trouble, it looks like, because a picture has already been painted of incredibly sloppy and negligent practices with absolutely disastrous results. We are so lucky that with that door plug situation, that that wasn't yet another mass casualty event. Because if they were a little higher, if you'd had, you know, people happen to be wearing their seatbelts, thank God, and didn't get sucked out of the spaces created there. I mean, we are so, that was such a narrow miss. But really, you know, shine a light once again on how they basically haven't changed since causing, since killing these hundreds of people previously. So floodgates are open and Boeing is, I think, has to feel like they're in big trouble at this point.

I would hope so. We'll see. Let's return to that DOJ release that came out previously. Let's put this up there on the screen just to show everybody. This was the original one that was announced in January of 2021. So this was actually under the Trump and Biden administration here, where they were charged with the max fraud conspiracy and agreed to pay the fine. They basically avoided all criminal prosecution. And it's just in a matter of three years, rematerialized. Don't forget this too. Boeing got a massive bailout from the federal government back in 2020 during the COVID bailouts in March of 2020. And they've been a major recipient of

taxpayer dollars on top of all of the government contracts that they get. This is a very vital company to the US. So for all of this to happen and for this, basically the government had the chance to actually do something about this and let them for this, basically the government, you know, had the chance to actually do something about this and let them get away with it. Again, that's a major story of corporate corruption. So we're going to stay on top of it because we know how important it is. And we'll give everybody updates when the time comes. 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. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

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

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

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let's go ahead and turn to the very latest on of Israel, some really extraordinary, very noteworthy developments from the domestic politics there. Let's go and put this up on the screen.

So Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galat is calling directly, called a press conference and called on Netanyahu directly to reject military rule in Gaza. Let me go ahead and read you a little bit of his comments here. He said that he wanted to, he challenged him to promote an alternative governing body to Hamas's rule. He goes on to say, as early as October 7th, the military establishment said it was necessary to work towards finding an alternative to Hamas, emphasizing that the end of the military campaign is a political decision. The day after, Hamas will only be achieved by actors who replace Hamas. This is first and

foremost an Israeli interest. Gallant said the military's plan was not flagged for discussion, and worse, no alternative was brought in its place. Military rule in Gaza is a bad and dangerous alternative for the state of Israel. According to him, such a decision would be paid for, quote, in blood and victims, and it will come at a heavy economic cost. Netanyahu responded to this, saying, after the terrible massacre, I ordered the destruction of Hamas. IDF fighters and security forces are fighting for this. As long as Hamas remains, no other actor will run Gaza and certainly not the Palestinian Authority. Psycho, Bezalel Smotrich, who's the finance minister, said, quote, Defense Minister Gallant effectively announced today his support for the establishment of a Palestinian terrorist state as a reward to terrorism and Hamas for the worst massacre to have

been carried out against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Such a defense minister must be replaced in order to achieve the war's goals. That was Ben-Gavir who said that last part. So basically now, even the Israeli defense minister, Sagar, is Hamas, is pro-Hamas. That's the level of discourse that we're at. I mean, listen, Yoav Galant has been in favor of total war and annihilation from the beginning. So now to at this point be like, oh, wait, you don't have a plan for the day after is preposterous because we're just YouTubers. And we've been talking about this since day one. It was very clear there was never any plan. The only plan was devastation and destruction that has been abundantly evident. So you're just now noticing that.

But still, the fact that he very publicly called Bibi to the carpet. This comes on the heels of the generals also briefing in a very similar manner against Bibi. Benny Gantz also took the side of Yoav Gallant here, siding on the side of like, hey, you need to come up with some sort of plan of what's gonna happen next. And of course, the Smotrich and the Ben-Gavirs of the world, they have a plan. And this is not speculation. They're out there talking about, we need to push Palestinians out. We need to fully resettle Gaza. That's their plan.

Bibi has just sort of pushed this all off because to agree with them is to blow up the coalition on the more, quote unquote, moderate side and to agree with the quote-unquote moderates and whatever their plan is, which isn't even really clear either, would be to blow up the coalition on the other side. So all of these people are complicit in the utter destruction and devastation and utter stupidity from an Israeli national interest perspective of the situation. But now they're starting to play the blame game and try to throw each other under the bus. I told you it was going to happen. And by the way, but now they're starting to play the blame game and try to throw each other under the bus. I told you it was going to happen. And by the way, I went back and I found the full quote. And some of these are just amazing because they're saying it in academic speak, but you can read between the lines. So here's one from Colonel Peter Mansour. He wrote a book

on the search. I highly recommend it. It's like an actual military history. He was chief of staff to David Petraeus back in 2007. Here's a direct quote that he says to the Washington Post. The Israelis in Gaza are committing the same primary mistake of the Americans in Afghanistan in Iraq, seeking a primary military solution to fundamentally a political issue. By pursuing the destruction of Hamas and ignoring the root causes of the conflict, the Israelis by their actions are creating more future combatants than they are eliminating. Inevitably, Hamas 2.0 will rise from the ashes of of the conflict. The Israelis, by their actions, are creating more future combatants than they are eliminating. Inevitably, Hamas 2.0 will rise from the ashes of the current fighting. And they already have.

No, I know. That's why they're playing the blame game now because now they're like, ooh, this actually turns out it's really not working and that our JV military is not particularly good at what it does. I mean, just today, I see the news, five Israelis, what is it, were killed by friendly fire. They fired on their own.

And a number of others injured. Yeah, they murdered their own soldiers. They murdered their own soldiers. They murdered their own hostages. Not a single hostage has been rescued. I mean, which Palestinian is going to govern this place in the future? You know, the only thing too is he's trying to get out of a military occupation. I'm like, no, no, no. Yeah, I want you to do it because it's like you're the ones now. You got to eat and reap and what you have sown from the future. And that's why the Palestinian Authority, the U.S. and the Arabs, nobody should bail them out of their own problem. They got to eat the cost of what they've done.

I mean, it's just it's just that there is no answer other than horrifying ones from this point forward. Nothing that's actually on the table. I mean, ideally, Palestinians would be able to govern themselves and have their own state, et cetera, et cetera. But clearly that's not in the cards. I saw even the Arab states at this point are just like, we need some sort of a statement. They are committed to a two-state solution for us to, like, cooperate with you whatsoever. Even that is not even possible because Netanyahu is adamantly opposed to even pretending that that is something that he's interested in. He is dead set against it, has been his entire career, brags about it, has staked his entire political power and career on being the guy that is going to forever block a two-state solution. So yeah, every answer is a horrifying one and has been from the beginning, which is why I have, you know, I have no sympathy for the Yoav Galant of the world or these generals or whatever.

The military is the one who, they're the ones who came up with this plan for total war and all out annihilation. What did you think it was going to look like the day after? What did you think that was going to lead to? Who did you think you were dealing with here in terms of Netanyahu and Smotrich and Ben-Gavir? But it is incredible that you now have Smotrich basically accusing the defense minister of being pro-Hamas, which just shows you the utter insanity of the situation. For what it's worth, the US came out and backed up Yoav Galan and said, we agree with him, there needs to be a plan, blah, blah, blah. It's sort of an utterly ridiculous conversation because it's been so obvious from the beginning that Hamas cannot be, quote unquote, defeated in the way that they portrayed from the

beginning. The plan that they were, you know, enacting this total annihilation, which is devastating, devastating to the civilian population and civilian life in Gaza, was not a plan designed even to achieve that objective. It was a plan designed to achieve revenge and destruction. That's what it was, to satiate the anger and the outrage, understandable outrage, after October 7th. But it was never about anything other than we are going to destroy. We're going to have massive devastation. And now, I mean, this is interesting. So there's starting to be all these acknowledgements from a bunch of American officials and even a bunch of Israeli officials that, you know, you're not going to actually defeat Hamas. And latest version of this in the Wall

Street Journal, it's both true and interesting that this is being put out there now. Put this up on the screen. So they're saying Hamas shift to guerrilla tactics raises specter of forever war for Israel. The Islamist militant group is using hit and run tactics and smaller groups of fighters to show it can fight for months, if not years. They go into some interesting details here about how Hamas has continued to be able to effectively hit the IDF and how, you know, they were able to use their tunnel system more effectively than anticipated. They still haven't been able to get Senwar, et cetera, et cetera. These are all things we've been talking about. But I think it's funny how they frame this saga, that their shift to guerrilla tactics, as if Hamas was ever like a regular fighting force. You know, I mean, this was always a

guerrilla insurgency, even as they were technically the government of the Gaza Strip. And so I also read it as a bit of Kobe of like, oh, well, the reason we won't be able to defeat them is because they've shifted to these guerrilla tactics. This is no different than from the beginning. This was very obvious and very apparent. And by the way, you have given Hamas and Islamic Jihad and whoever else so much recruiting material that, you know, as a social movement and as an appealing form of resistance to Palestinian people, like who do you think these orphans or these, you know, kids who watch their brother or sister killed and their home destroyed or who themselves were shot and

injured, who do you think that they're going to support? What sort of political ideology do you think that they're going to have? So in any case, the framing now is like, oh, well, gosh. The quote here is actually interesting from the head of the Middle East and North Africa program at International Crisis Group says, quote, Hamas is everywhere in Gaza. Hamas is far from defeated. So that's where we are. Even as they have gone into Rafah now, remember Rafah was supposed, oh, this is the last stand and this is how we'll really defeat Hamas. Well, at the same time, they've had to go back into northern Gaza, Gaza City, Jabali refugee camp, because guess what? When you left and there was just nothing

but a vacuum, yeah, who else is going to come back into power than Hamas? Yeah. And I think that actually another way to look at Galolan's comments is trying to bail out himself from the future. Absolutely. Because what the future will look, again, you know, said all of this, what their military took in terms of casualties is child's play compared to what will come from actual military occupation. Look no further than U.S. military casualties in Iraq. If you're actually responsible for governing this place, you better gear up. You better have the best suicide bomb. You better have the best practices that you possibly can. And even then, hundreds,

possibly thousands of your troops are going to get killed. And this was inevitable from the beginning. This is not the way that they should have fought the war, but I really want them to reap what they have sown because they need to bear the cost. And a lot of this also is I think that they're trying to get the U.S. and the Arab states to basically bail them out of whatever it will look like in the future. But I don't support that at all because they're the ones – and I don't know if you noted this too. It's not just the military. He's like, the economic cost of this will be terrible. I'm like, you blew the shit out of this place. You're paying for it. But, of course, knowing us, we'll probably bail them out just the military. He's like, the economic cost of this will be terrible. I'm like, you blew the shit out of this place. You're paying for it.

But of course, knowing us, we'll probably bail them out in the end. I just want a just resolution. I just want people to not be starving to death. I want kids to stop getting massacred. And I don't know when that is ever going to come. I mean, it just feels like there's no end in sight. 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. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Is it still somebody's daughter? Is it still somebody's sister? There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for.

If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future

where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad it's really really really bad listen to new episodes of absolute season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts binge episodes one two and three on may 21st and episodes four five and six on june 4th episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Adding to the horror we showed you earlier this week, the way that these right-wing activists have been upping their attacks on aid convoys,

you have a dire humanitarian situation there. I really encourage you, Ryan and Emily did a gut-wrenching interview with an American nurse who was trapped in a hospital in Khan Yunis and talking about the situation for her and her colleagues and for regular Palestinians. It's just, it's unimaginable. And you have these psychos who are protesting by blocking the little bit of aid, trying to block whatever aid is actually managing to make its way into the Gaza Strip, furthering what are already in portions of the Gaza Strip deemed to be famine conditions. The U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan actually responded to some of the latest

settler attacks, the ones that we showed you on the show earlier this week. Let's take a listen to what Jake Sullivan had to say. Since Israel took the Rafah crossing, we have seen difficulty getting aid through either Rafah or Karim Shalom, and this is a matter of great concern to us. This is something we're working, not just with the Israeli government,

but the Egyptian government and the United Nations, because it will take all three of them working together to make this happen. This is an urgent and critical situation. We have got to get those crossings open to get more aid in. That has been an issue of the past three days since these military operations, and it's something we are working through with all the relevant parties. It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys

coming from Jordan, going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance. We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this. And we are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government. And it's something that we make no bones about. This is completely and utterly unacceptable. So some tutting there over the settlers. Yeah, tough words. I'm sure they're having difficult conversations behind the scenes.

Sagar, they've raised this with the highest levels of government. And since they're not willing to actually do anything and even their little like, you know, slight pause on a weapon shipment was immediately overcome. Ryan and Emily covered. Now they're shipping another billion dollars in weapons. So their willingness to actually do anything about these things. Obviously, we're not going to hold our breath. We got some more details from Haaretz. This was actually written up in Times of Israel. The reporting is from Haaretz about who these people are, who these right-wing activists are that are blocking these aid convoys.

And in particular, we have direct reporting about collaboration with the Israeli government, which is no surprise because their official government policy has been a complete siege and have only allowed in a minimal amount of aid under pressure. Let's put this up on the screen. So first of all, the noteworthy thing from the convoy attacks and from these protests that we've been pointing to is oftentimes the police and military are standing by and doing absolutely nothing. So in the wake of this, after this cause, this international upset, which is the focus of the

headline here, Israeli police and the IDF, they traded blame. One said, the police said the army was supposed to be guarding the trucks. The army said the incident fell under the police's jurisdiction. But the reality is they spoke to a senior security establishment official. That individual told Haaretz that, quote, police are turning a blind eye to the rioting of law breakers who loot and burn the aid and also alleged they were receiving inside information regarding the movement of the trucks. So not only is a blind eye being turned, they're also getting information about where the trucks are going from government sources so that they can attack those aid convoys, loot and burn them, and assault the drivers, too, by the way. The official went on to say some members of the police force avoid cracking down on the activists while others only reluctantly agree to tackle the issue, quote, there is a feeling they're trying to please someone specific

in the government, the official added, referring to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Kavir, whose office oversees the police. So they're turning a blind eye, they're feeding them non-public information so that they can go and assault these aid convoys. And it's all because this is official Israeli government policy. I saw another report, another independent analysis. You know, we talked about the flower massacre, the idea of firing on Palestinians who were trying to get aid off of a truck and killing 100 of them. There have been 80-some Israeli Defense Force attacks on aid shipments, 80-some. So that was not an isolated incident. That is part of a pattern, which you have to assume is an intentional policy from the Israeli government, because

otherwise it wouldn't be happening some 80 times. They wouldn't be feeding this secret information. And then the last thing I'll show you here is there was another attack on a Palestinian driver. We can put this up on the screen. This is very disturbing. You can see him there on the ground suffering. By the way, no one helping him. No one caring. There are soldiers right there doing nothing for him. You can see these settlers with giant weapons. And the reason they attacked this man who happens to be a truck driver, a senior official says, oh, well, they beat him because they thought he was delivering aid.

Think of the sickness of those. They almost use it as an excuse. Well, you know, it was understandable that they aggressively assaulted this Palestinian truck driver because they thought he might be trying to feed starving people. Just grotesque.

Yeah, the whole thing is nuts and it just shows you how little control that they are not. OK, they either have control of the situation or they don't have control of the situation. Both are terrifying. We also wanted to give everybody an update on the pier, the military pier. Let's put this up there. Ken Klippenstein, friend of the show, can exclusively report the Pentagon expects to have the Gaza Pier in place as soon as the next 24 hours. That has now been confirmed by the U.S. military. But then the question is, how much aid is actually going to go in this? What's happening? It will, quote,

soon flow to Israel. So soon flow. Remember, there's several questions here. Are Israeli troops going to pre-screen the aid that's going in? Are we going to make sure that our troops aren't attacked? The bill for this is some known $350 million while there's perfectly good trucks sitting at the Rafa Crossing, which we don't even have to pay for, and is waiting to go in. Our own producer, Mac, was flagging the possibility that they may then just shut all aid off that's coming in through a much more inefficient pier. It to also happens to be that we have to pay for it and facilitate. Yeah. So the whole thing is a boondoggle where, you know, for instead of exerting diplomatic pressure for them, just let aid that's already coming in. Our troops are in harm's way. We're eating the cost. I cannot think of a better example of our policy towards

Israel. Complete insanity. Yeah. At the very best, this is a virtue signal. At the very best, it's an ass covering bullshit, expensive, dangerous virtue signal. At worst, it's much more nefarious because remember, Bibi said, hey, maybe we can use this peer to help ship some of these Palestinians on here and achieve his goal of quote unquote, fitting out the population. So at worst, we end up being complicit in the ethnic cleansing, not just complicit, but actively aiding and abetting the ethnic cleansing, not just complicit, but actively aiding and abetting the ethnic cleansing. Biden announced this in a State of the Union act. Oh, it's his idea because he's some great humanitarian. Well, reporting comes on after the fact. Oh, actually, this was Bibi's idea. This was Bibi's idea. So tell me what his intentions are for it.

That's number one. Number two, the U.S. has defunded and refuses to work with UNRWA, the number one aid organization organization actually on the ground. And even though it has now turned out that the allegations about UNRWA having Hamas terrorists, whatever, total and complete bullshit. The Israelis never provided a shred of evidence to back up those claims which were used to defund this critical agency at a time when Palestinians are literally starving to death. So we're not working with UNRWA. So how is the aid getting distributed? No one has answered that. No one knows how to answer that. There's very little in the way of planning. And then third, to the point about this being very dangerous, Gaza is an active war zone, in case you don't know. And yeah, Hamas is still out there,

and I don't think they love us too much right now. And by the way, while they were constructing this pier, there were actually attempted attacks in the area and directly aimed at our people that are constructing this pier. So total insanity comes at a time when the Rafah crossing, which has been the key entry point for aid, has been closed because of the Israeli invasion into Rafah. Another crossing was also closed. You have an increasingly dire situation in the northern Gaza Strip, was the place that was under the most duress and where, you know, UN officials had said officially famine had set in.

Now the southern Gaza Strip is also approaching those level of conditions. We don't really know exactly the dire circumstances that they are facing there, but based on the report from the nurse on the ground and other things we are anecdotally getting out, it's a very bad situation because some of the key crossings have already been closed. So dire situation and our solution is this utter and complete dangerous, stupid, expensive nonsense. Yep. There you go. Just too perfect. There is no, there's no, it's bottomless, just what we will suffer. The foolishness.

The foolishness and humiliation on behalf of Israel. I do want to send a quick shout out to Ken. He just went independent. Yeah, that's right. He's got his new newsletter. You guys should be a member. Go subscribe, support him. He's a fantastic reporter.

I mean, think about it. Here he is, independent journalist. This is a big scoop. No, it's huge. And he got it before New York Times. Watch out for any of these people. Axios, CNN, he beat them to this big scoop, even as an independent journalist. He's got fantastic sources, really good, just an excellent job. So please give him a follow if you're able to. There you go. All right. Hey, everybody, thank you so much for watching. As we said, premium subscribers. What day? Sunday.

Check your email. Big subscriber that is coming. Big announcement that is coming to all of you. We love you. We have a lot of work that's going on behind the scenes. It's a big announcement exclusively for you. And we will see you all on Monday. You experienced dad guilt?

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