Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/22/24: Thomas Massie Stomps AIPAC In Key Election, Israel Seizes AP Equipment, Israel Caught Tipping Off Gaza Aid Attackers, Bill Maher Spars With The View On Wokeness

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Ryan and Emily discuss key elections including Thomas Massie overcoming massive AIPAC spending, Israel seizes AP equipment, Israel caught tipping off aid convoy attackers, Bill Maher spars with The View on wokeness and Israel.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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With the magic touch. Bro show yesterday. Yes, but welcome to CounterPoints on that note. We have a great show. We actually have Gabriel Shipton coming in here in just a bit, Julian Assange's brother, because we're going to talk about the big updates in the Assange case. We're going to start today with elections around the country. It's obviously an election year, which means primary results continue to trickle in on Tuesdays, some really interesting ones last night. We'll have updates from Israel,

the Associated Press saga that played out yesterday with AP cameras. Bill Maher was on The View for some reason. Of course, that's great. We're going to talk about that. Yeah, love that for him, love that for them. A really interesting poll on generational differences on some really key things from Gen Z and the baby boomers. We're going to dive into all of that. We're going to talk about ScarJo, the Scarlett Johansson open AI debacle, basically. And then we'll close with Gabriel, who we're excited to have in studio. And I'll tell my story of partying with Scarlett Johansson back when I worked at the Huffington Post and used to be cool.

I didn't want to bring it up because I didn't know how off the record it was, but stay tuned for this because it actually is a good story. All right, but let's start with elections. A1 up on the screen in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District last night, Thomas Massey. Let's just call him a friend of the show because I feel like there aren't many Republican congressmen that we can say that about, but here at the Breaking Points Universe. He actually reached out from his universe and said he wants to come on the show. So of course, come on. Good. We admire Thomas Massey. If we admire Thomas Massey for one particular thing, it's his courage and standing up against political correctness, frankly,

even when it's inconvenient for a Republican. So there was some to do made about Thomas Massey in his reelection bid. He cleaned up last night about 76 percent of the vote. You can see that on the screen here from The New York Times as of right now with 95 percent of the votes. And I looked it up. He got 65 percent of the vote back in 2022. So he actually did better, better this go around, despite, as you've reported,PAC targeting members of Congress, including him, because he's pushed back on some of the very broad language in bills that have been sort of symbolic bills, ones that, you know, people on both sides have said are important symbolic bills on both

sides of these bills, but about Israel and anti-Zionism versus anti-Semitism. And Massey's been one of the few Republican voices of reason. And you can tell how much they must hate Thomas Massey if they're willing to spend money to support a Scotch-Irish guy, McGuinness, down there. Although it's probably pretty hard to find a candidate in Kentucky who's not Scotch-Irish, right? Yeah, that would be a real challenge. Yeah,sey was standing nowhere near the amount of AIPAC money that they're spending against squad members and squad-aligned members, but well into the six figures. Nothing to sneeze at. And a little Republican primary. Right.

And one extraordinarily convincingly. So that should send a message in kind of Trump districts that, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars of AIPAC money is not going to knock you off. Take us up to Portlandia, Ryan, really, to a very, could be a Portlandia sketch this election. A couple million dollars can knock you off in Portland. Yes. All right, so we can put this element up. So we've been following this for the last couple of weeks. And the climax here, Maxine Dexter, the APAC-backed candidate in Portland's race, ended up beating Sushila Jayapal and Eddie Morales in kind of a three-way race in a fairly convincing fashion. They're still counting the

votes. It's mail-in ballots. But the last I checked, Dexter was over 50%, almost beating Jayapal by two to one. Jayapal was considered, if you're just checking in on this race now, to be the front runner in this race a month ago. And then a month ago, millions of dollars of dark money started being spent through two super PACs, one called 314 Action Fund, which says it's a pro science super PAC. And the other one called Americans for Responsive Government or Voters for Responsive Government, which a brand new super PAC never existed before. It was launched on April 1st, which meant that it didn't have to disclose its donors until May 20th. It started spending, collectively, they spent millions of dollars against Jayapal and for Dexter. And the entire time, Dexter was saying she had absolutely no idea where this money could possibly be coming from.

And I've talked to people close to her, talked to people inside 314. They all say everybody knew where this money was coming from. It was AIPAC. We then know that from FEC records that she herself got hundreds of thousands of dollars from AIPAC donors. But yesterday, I guess, no, two days ago, on May 20th, the day before the election was held, voters for responsive government was finally required to file with the FEC. And this was when we expected that we would learn about their donors. And if you can put up this element here, here it is. They filed an FEC report. Emily, take a look at that. Look. Oh, yeah. You ever seen anything like that? No. Just zeros. I've

never seen anything like it. When you tweeted that, I was like, oh, cash on hands. Zero. Yeah. Yeah. This, you know, zero, zero, zero, zero. And so what what they're what they're clearly saying there is that whoever we got this money from would be too toxic, even with one day before the race to to disclose publicly. Now, explain to people how they get away with that. Yeah, so what they're basically going to do is they're going to file an amended return with the FEC, which will disclose who their donors are and say,

whoops, who could have seen, how did this happen? Interns. We turned in the wrong paper. This one was under the couch. This is our fault. FEC will then fine them. And they will then peel off from their stack of bills, hand the FEC the money, and even probably throw a little tip at the regulator while they're

at it. Because they can. Because who cares? It's not criminal. Right. It's not falsifying business records. Well, and for campaign-related purposes, can you imagine? Right. Now, if there's a porn star involved somewhere, then maybe the New York Attorney General will find a way to have some type of jurisdiction over that. Yeah. So, yeah, basically, they're just going to pay the fine and not tell you where the money came from until after the election. I don't think you can even just be clear enough about what you've reported here over the last couple of weeks. When you have somebody who is, this was a really close race, it was like tightly packed. Even,

you know, I'm reading Oregon media and from Oregon Public Broadcasting, they're like, the policy differences were not, you know, obvious between any of these people. All progressive Democrats. Right. Dexter announced later than everyone else. It just is crazy how the money swept in. It doesn't always happen this way, but when it does, it's so obvious. It's so clear exactly what happened. And that's what happened here. Yeah. And what AIPAC discovered in a couple of other races, Summer Lees in particular, was that because AIPAC is primarily

funded, not exclusively, but primarily funded by Republicans who also give money to Republicans, Trump, McCarthy, whoever, that it's not necessarily the pro-Israel money that hurts them in the Democratic primary among kind of normie Democratic voters, although I think it is in a place like Portland right now that is a problem given what Israel is doing in Gaza. But in general, what Summer Lee hit her opponent for was not taking pro-Israel money, was not taking AIPAC money, but was for taking mega money. Yeah, yeah. Because it fits into the hyper-polarized kind of partisan nature. And because it's a Democratic primary.

Right. But the people voting inarized kind of partisan nature. Because it's a Democratic primary. Right. The people voting in Democratic primaries are hardcore Democrats. I was going to say, speaking of which, this is a really deep blue district. So if you're wondering why this particular primary is a big deal, it's because that's basically who just won the general election. This is the race to replace Earl Blumenauer in that district. You could imagine if it were reversed and, let's say, George Soros and a bunch of other like, let's say Harvey Weinstein's not in jail. And they are supporting a super PAC that is then playing in Republican primaries, spending millions of dollars against one Republican to pick up another one.

You would imagine the other Republican would be like, this is just a bunch of Democrat money. Yeah, absolutely. Hollywood money. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And on that note, let's move over to California's 20th district. That's Kevin McCarthy's old district. We'll come back to Portland in a second because there was an interesting one. Yes. Well, we're doing congressional districts. Our last stop on this tour of American elections last night would be California's 20th district, where there's a huge spending advantage to Vince Fong, who was kind of handpicked by Kevin McCarthy. People refer to him as a Kevin McCarthy protege to take that seat in California's Central Valley. It's a pretty interesting, heavily agricultural district. Bakersfield.

Bakersfield. Pretty dusty, yeah. Yeah, that's right. And so he won handily 60% of the vote. He was endorsed by Donald Trump. People say there's really no daylight between Kevin McCarthy and him on most main issues. But what's interesting is his opponent, I think he's a sheriff and also a long time fixture in the area. He interestingly enough was endorsed by Trump-like figures. So Rick Grinnell,

who served in the Trump administration. But Fong had McCarthy's backing. He had all the money and he had Trump's backing. So that's where that ended up in California's Central Valley in the 20th. I would think in that district, if you've got McCarthy and Trump, Rick Grinnell's not going to push you over the top. Yeah, it's not going to be Rick Grinnell. But But all this to say, it's not like he was some crazy fringe figure. He did bring other endorsements into the game. It was close-ish, right? He got over 30%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is impressive enough for a primary. But Ryan, we've got to get back to Portland. We've got to get back to Portland because that DA race. Yeah, so the other key race in Portland, and because it's a Democratic primary, this is basically it, pitted the incumbent progressive district attorney named Mike Schmidt, not to be confused with the Hall of Fame third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. Well, do you know the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia bit about Mike Schmidt? I don't think I've seen that. You don't know who Mike Schmidt is? You'll have to watch it. I'll

send it to you. Oh, I think I have seen this. Mike Schmidt was my, when I was a kid, absolute hero. Like, worshipped. Absolutely worshipped Mike Schmidt. So it's very hard for me to see what happened to this other Mike Schmidt out in Portland, Oregon. We might have just ruined it for you. So basically, he was challenged from the right by another prosecutor who was a Republican right up until Trump was elected. And he switched parties and became a Democrat.

He's, you know, I over incarceration in Multnomah County, and which a lot of people in Multnomah County blame for not actually moving people into treatment and instead just kind of creating kind of open-air drug markets and drug dens basically all over Portland. People were also very upset at policing. The police just not responding anymore. Police strikes. Plus, you know, protests continuing to this day. Like the George Floyd protests basically in Portland have never stopped. You've got a hardcore group of people out there that are like, just their pastime is like smashing up the Bank of America.

Yeah. And at some point people are like, okay, we'll get it. We'll get it with the Bank of America. Yeah. And at some point, people are like, okay, we'll get it. We'll get it with the Bank of America. We need to go to the ATM. And so this guy Vasquez ran against it. We can put this next element up here. This was Jonathan Martin kind of foreshadowing this race. He went out to do a little fly-in to Portland and correctly called that the political winds in Portland are blowing to

the right. Yes. And there was some backlash brewing here. Well, to the center, I guess, maybe. Well, to the right of where they are. Yeah. Yes. They're certainly not going to the right yet in Portland.

And so it looks like Mike Schmidt is going to lose. Yes. I don't know if it's been absolutely called yet, but it's basically over. Down by 14,000 votes as of early this morning. It's going to be very tough for him to make that up. And he gave a sort of concession last night. Let's roll a little bit of Schmidt's explanation for why he thinks he lost this race. Well, I think, you know, I talked to a lot of voters and I've heard a lot of frustration about

long 911 wait times, about police officers not showing up, about when they see a case dismissed for lack of a public defense attorney. And I think if you're a community member, you just see things not working. And so I think that's probably what we've seen so far in the early results and we'll still see more to come out. But what we've seen so far in the early results, and we'll still see more to come out, but what we've seen so far in the early results is probably a manifestation of that frustration. Well, I think what we saw was a rollout of Measure 110 that didn't really hit the mark. You know, I think when people voted, myself included, we wanted treatment to be there and available to people. That's why we wanted to

do that. And obviously, at the same time, a pandemic hit our community and fentanyl came on our streets and the treatment wasn't there. And so I think people lost patience with that type of approach. But, you know, I'm hopeful that we stay with our focus on helping people who are addicted get treatment. I think that's the key and that's how we're actually going to make progress on this fight. You know, there's so many things that I look back and proud of rebuilding the office, you know, bringing up the staffing. I'm very proud of that. Helping rebuild the infrastructure, but also a lot of the disparity work with the Justice Integrity Unit. We've doubled more than doubled the number of wrongful convictions found in Multnomah County.

We've corrected those. You know, we're helping people get their records expunged so they can get jobs. They can get into housing. They can go to their kids basketball practice, you know, and those are the folks that have earned those expungements so their records can be cleared. So I'm very proud of a lot of the work that we've done in the DA's office. So this ties into the Jayapal race in the sense that Jayapal was herself, she retired, resigned from the Multnomah County Commission in order to run for Congress. And when the AIPAC-backed super PACs came in, the thing that they attacked her for was being on the Multnomah County board and not solving the homelessness

crisis. And the homelessness crisis was a proxy for everything else going on in Portland. And what we learned in Summer Lee's race, for instance, is not only was she able to hammer her opponent for taking MAGA money, she was just utterly squeaky clean. Like there was nothing that they could hit her on. Like no stray comment that it could even be taken out of context. They just had to basically use old like racist tropes to try to go after her. They had nothing. And so all the money in the world has a harder time breaking through if you don't have anything to cling on to. And with Jayapal, they basically tied the entire county commission around her. And they said, you don't like, the ads were basically, you don't like

that the county commission didn't fix homelessness. Don't reward Jayapal with an elevation to Congress. And if people really loved what the county commission was doing, the ads wouldn't have worked quite as well as they did, even though they were filled with lies and saying like, they literally said that she was abusing puppies and cats. It was crazy over the top stuff. Sort of like Kristi Noem behavior. Yeah, but it fit, yes, exactly. But it fit into a feeling among Portlanders that things were not going well after the passage of this measure 110. And speaking of that connection, Blumenauer himself even criticized it as malpractice. That's quoted in the implementation of the referendum.

And the Jonathan Martin piece ties this into the big national story, which is you've had Kim Foxx didn't run again in the Chicago area where there have been all kinds of issues with crime since the pandemic and drugs and, you know, just typical from what a lot of big cities, even right here, have dealt with in different ways, especially since 2020 and obviously for a long time, but especially acute in the years after the pandemic and the pandemic itself. Jonathan Martin also mentioned George Gascon, who's facing a challenge in November. Chesa Boudin obviously was recalled. The other person I would mention in all of this is London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, who did a similar seesaw to what you're seeing in some places in Portland, where it's like, we can run on this, experiment with this. And then when the public is unhappy with the results,

you have to sometimes take an L. London Breed definitely took the L. Where I disagree with Jonathan on that is that, and also Breed was the right-wing candidate in that runoff in San Francisco. And so anything that she- Although she's a Democrat. Yes, all Democrats out there, unless they're green. So anything that she did, it was only because she was pressured to do it, and then she backed off the very second she could. When she had a chance to appoint people as supervisors, she appointed literally the spokesperson for the cops. That's who she put on the board of supervisors when she had an opportunity. If you look at Dallas, Houston, you look at a ton of other even small-town DA races, they're doing really well. Chase Abudin is like the outlier,

which, and they were trying to, this is the San Francisco, they were trying to, they were trying to yank him out of office before he was even sworn in and spent millions to do it. And things have now gotten better. Like they, they're like, it's all Chase's fault. Well. And Karen Bass won. Not so much. Yeah. She defeated a centrist. So a bunch of progressive DAs have hung on. I think there's, I wouldn't overread too much about what's going on in Portland.

Portland, I don't think anybody would disagree, is a unique city. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. And what defenders of the policy will say is that, and this sounds like, you know, true communism has never been tried, was that they didn't actually ever implement a policy. Oh, yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, they talked about implementing a policy. Right. And they passed half the laws. But then the Multnomah County Commission, and they deserve blame for this, this is not COPE, just devolved into infighting. Yeah. And left money unspent and engaged in these little petty turf wars. And so never actually came up with a coherent policy of what does the post-George Floyd and post-drug policy

reform world look like. Instead, they just kind of ended what they had been doing before, combined with a police strike, and then didn't put anything in its place. And people are like, you know what, we'll just go back to the old thing. At least that was an ethos. It's a safer option. Yes, at least that was something. And we're going to, this, on our Counterpoints Friday is going to be drug policy debate, you know, focusing mostly on, you know, marijuana rescheduling. Yeah. So we can talk about this more later on that show. I'm sure Kevin

Savitt, who's going to be our anti-guy in this debate, is going to be extraordinarily excited about Mike Schmidt losing. Final thought just on this block would be going back to the point you made on London Breed, which is there was, and I think your book even speaks to this, there was an enthusiasm about the public's response to some progressive, like, fantasy bucket list items that started to surge at a different time. And then after the pandemic, the political winds have blown in another direction. And you've seen certain Democrats respond to that in different ways. And I feel like this election season will have some stuff that kind of shows us how different parts of the country are dealing with that. Excellent plug for the book. I owe you one for that. And meanwhile, crime is way down around the country. Like the kind of pandemic crime surge that we saw, we're seeing that come down. It depends on where, it depends on what kind of pandemic crime surge that we saw, seeing that come down. It depends on where, it depends on what kind of crime.

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

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

Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, My father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son

instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up, so what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time.

Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, well, we can actually go ahead and put this first headline from CNN up on the screen. It just says, Israel reverses on seizure of AP camera feed after intense backlash.

And, you know, Ryan, that pretty much sums it up, just reading from the lead of the CNN story. In a sharp reversal, Israel said Tuesday it would return camera and broadcast equipment it had seized from the Associated Press in the southern Israeli city of, how do I say that, Darat? Sederat. Sederat on Tuesday after the action prompted swift backlash from U.S. officials and press groups. Swift backlash might be an understatement. What did you make, actually, of how the U.S. responded to those? Their pretext for seizing the AP camera was that Al Jazeera, which they have banned from operating in the occupied territories or in Israel, has a subscription to the AP, as do most news organizations. And therefore, that the AP is just the same as Al Jazeera and needs to be rolled up just like them. The White House expressed its concern. And it was a rare case of the White House expressing concern.

I love Kenny Clips every time he makes fun of the White House for expressing concern. Ken Clippenstein, Substack or Ken Clippenstein. You can subscribe, actually, to Ken Clippenstein. There you go. So if you're just listening on the podcast, it's a Barack Reveal tweet that says, breaking White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the Biden administration is concerned by reports that the Israeli government confiscated equipment of the AP. She said journalists need to have the right and the ability to do their job. She can't add it's breaking the White House is concerned. But not only was the White House concerned, reporters throughout Israel were concerned and across the world were concerned. And so it was a rare moment where Israel basically acknowledged an overstep. Like,

okay, our bad. And so they returned the equipment, backing down a tiny bit. I was just going to read actually the statement from the Israeli communications minister who said he has ordered the equipment be returned to the AP news agency because the Israeli Ministry of Defense requested to re-examine the matter of broadcast from sensitive locations and their effect on the risk of our forces. So what Israel is saying there, obviously the implicit reason for seizing the AP cameras is that this is putting, your journalism is putting the military at risk. And actually there absolutely are times when that's a real concern that journalists have to grapple with and that governments have to grapple with.

But the rapid reversal here and saying from the statement just, well, we've decided to reconsider the entire matter of our approach. Right, because it felt like it was a bit of a kind of fabricated rationale, like post hoc, once they were coming under fire

for cracking down the AP because it has a relationship with Al Jazeera, which is, that's what the AP does. They sell their feed. Their wire service. a wire service. They're a wire service. Like, they're an association of the press. And Al Jazeera's part of the press, whether Israel likes it or not. They have already banned basically any

Western journalists from getting into Gaza. What they would be claiming now is that getting anywhere near Gaza is also something that they're not going to allow, but it seems they did at least backtrack on this. Yeah, quickly. Yeah, and speaking of press freedoms, we can talk about this real quickly. At least seven Palestinians were killed in a raid in Jenin recently. Jenin has been the subject of intense IDF raids for years now. And it was actually where Shireen Abu Akhla was killed. I was just going to was riding his bicycle. There are a lot of videos that you can find on social media of just absolutely indiscriminate shooting from IDF forces. IDF says it is going to investigate itself to see if any of this indiscriminate shooting did kill people that they allegedly did not intend to kill.

We'll see. Now, on the other side of this, talking about humanitarian concerns and potential famine and food shortages, let's put this element from Haaretz up on the screen that begins with the quote, spill it onto the road. And the headline proceeds to say how right-wing Israeli activists are organizing to block aid trucks to Gaza. This is an investigation, an overview of some of the organized efforts to block some of these aid trucks.

The next element here is from The Guardian. It suggests, their reporting suggests that Israeli soldiers and police are tipping off some of those groups. So again, like the organization here I think is important. The coordination, Ryan, I think is important because some people may say, well, this is just sort of organic gatherings of, you know, people who are still raging from the enraging, you know, happenings on October 7th, the tragedy, the killings, the slaughter on October 7th. But I think it's important here also to mention that this is an organized effort when it comes to the aid trucks, absolutely. And that's what the Guardian reporting suggests and I think kind of confirms from the perspective of how Israeli law enforcement's handling it.

Yeah, all the way to the top, we can put up this next element from Itamir Ben-Gavir, national security minister, who was raging. He said, quote, why are my cops here? Because what you've seen, and basically what he's saying is, why on earth are Israeli authorities defending the aid convoys that are going to Gaza from these protesters. He wants to support the protesters rather than the aid convoys. What you're seeing here is the same thing that happened with the AP camera. The world opinion is just so overwhelmingly against this idea that you're going to allow and organize with right-wing protesters to block flour and other aid from getting into Gaza, that there has been some suppression of that internally. One of the lead organizations, this happened last week, one of the lead organizations that was organizing these protests announced that it was going to pause them. Said it's not a good time to do these.

Now, there's still some, obviously, people who are still continuing to do it. But the kind of viral videos of them smashing flower bags and destroying things, right after Biden just had a temper tantrum in the United States about how breaking a window at Columbia is property violence and like the greatest crime that you could possibly imagine. You've got all this property violenceation against the state of Israel that it is starving, deliberately starving this population. That's absolutely critical, by the way. The Guardian report that we had up on the screen about whether Israeli police are tipping off some of the activists who are blocking the aid trucks, not really protesting the aid trucks, but actively trying to block the aid trucks. That goes to whether

this is a deliberate effort on behalf of the government itself, as opposed to, again, just some protests that they're working to contain, just some activists that they're working to contain. That's critical to the question that the ICC is considering. And I think, Ryan, that's probably why we're seeing more about it in the media right now, because this has become a football in both sides of that battle. And, I mean, it's a tough thing for them to get around when you have Ben-Gavir to the point that you just made, the quotes from Ben-Gavir. You have the statements and the way that he's approached all of this and other people as well. I think that's why this is becoming such a—I mean, it's obvious. You don't even need my speculation.

That's why this is becoming such a major conversation about how this is actually happening, what organization is behind this, what coordination is behind this. That's critical to the ICC proving that there's something deliberate happening on behalf of the Israeli government. And since, you know, glimmers of hope are so few in this, we should mention that a very cool organization in Israel called Standing Together, which is kind of a coexistence organization with both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians as members of it, as kind of co-leaders of it. They've been now going down to these protests and standing together against the protesters and kind of defending the trucks that are trying to get in. Most of what they do nowadays is basically criminal under Israeli law. And so we'll see what the reaction is to this organization being willing to stand up for these

trucks. Meanwhile, from what I'm hearing from people on the ground at the crossings, the number of trucks getting through yesterday and the day before is dangerously close to approaching single digits. Israel had been bragging about, say, 200 getting in a day, where the UN was saying, no, you need a thousand or more on a daily basis. Getting down into double digits or single digits is bringing it to a place where distribution is stopping. Like the UN has announced a lot of aid distribution has just stopped. The cupboards are bare, running out of fuel, because fuel is obviously essential for distributing the aid. You don't have fuel, you can't distribute the aid. And so all of this is happening in the context of real things on the ground.

And the real things on the ground are aid getting choked to a point of almost zero. The RAFA is still not open. You've got Egypt refusing on its side to cooperate with Israel. Israel refusing to allow anything but fuel, but Egypt not letting anything in. And then everything having to go through Karim Shalom, but just an absolute trickle getting through there. And they're not wrong that the difficulties of having a de facto Hamas government in these places makes it difficult in a war zone. That's

not going to be a non-issue anywhere that there's aid being distributed in a war zone. But to say that we are providing adequate aid is different than saying, no, we're just outright starving everyone. And Israel is saying, despite all of these challenges, there is no starvation, there is no famine. We are providing adequate aid. They're not a party to the ICC. Obviously, that's another issue entirely, but they are saying one thing. And that's- The reality on the ground is different. Yeah. And I think everyone understands that there are real challenges, even in the best case scenario. There are real challenges here.

But the difference between what's being publicly said and what's actually happening, I think, is what's being sussed out in some of this reporting. Speaking of Rafa, Ryan, we put this next element up on the screen. This is a tweet from Just Foreign Policy. This is kind of it was I don't want to say buried, but it was in a David Ignatius report in the Washington Post. Biden no longer opposing Israel's plan for final assault on Rafah is how just foreign policy phrased it. But it was in this David Ignatius column, he writes, Israeli leaders have reached a consensus about a final assault on Hamas's four remaining battalions in Rafah. Instead of the heavy attack with two divisions that Israel contemplated several weeks ago, government and military leaders foresee a more

limited assault that U.S. officials think will result in fewer civilian casualties. And for that reason, Biden won't oppose. Sort of a buried lead, I don't know, right? Biden won't oppose this, quote, limited assault, even though he was opposed to the Rafah incursion. Here, and you get this very friendly to the national security state, David Ignatius, a report saying, well, Biden won't oppose a, quote, more limited assault. The White House would never put out a statement to that effect, but I guess they will leak it through David Ignatius. Right. Ignatius D. is the CIA.

Yes. Like, that's the go-to source for them. He briefed the CIA, Yes. Like that's the go-to source for them. They briefed the CIA, in fact. Yeah. And so for anybody who believed the Biden insistence over the months that Rafa was a red line, it just makes a mockery of that naivete because here he's saying, oh, you know what? Actually, the way you're doing it, that's okay. There's four battalions. We thought it was going to be much worse than this, but this seems fine. Meanwhile, the reports from the ground are of an absolute bloodbath in Rafah, plus 800,000 people so far migrating elsewhere in Gaza to places that have no sanitation, no hygiene, no water.

The entire condition was Israel had to have some plan where they were going to move people. They didn't come up with a plan. Their plan basically was, we're going to make it so violent when we invade that they're either going to die or they're going to just find somewhere to run to elsewhere. And Biden responds to that by saying, okay, this is fine. So let's put this next element up. This is from Prem Thakur, who's responding to Antony Blinken's testimony in front of Congress yesterday. So he said he's happy to work with Congress on, quote, inappropriate response, this is Blinken, to the ICC prosecutor issuing warrants to Israeli leaders. Now, Prem then, quote, tweeted that original tweet and said, minutes later, Senators Graham, Cardin,

Blumenthal, Shaheen, Fetterman, Risch, Britt, Thune, so that's a bipartisan coalition, declare they'll work in, quote, a bipartisan manner to strenuously object to the ICC's actions against our ally Israel and take appropriate steps to help Israel and protect Americans from ICC action. Ren, that just brings us back to basically why these conversations and the reporting from the Guardian that we mentioned earlier is critical, because the U.S. now has this huge issue on its hands when it comes to the ICC, when it comes to the US's funding of what's happening in Israel, the US's sort of sanctioning of what the Israeli military does to the extent that that happens, the central question of deliberate aid blocking, deliberate activism against aid blocking,

that question becomes key in even what the U.S. response to all of this is, how far the U.S. goes to defend what's happening. This bipartisan coalition obviously was eager to jump on that. And one thing I forgot to put in the rundown, but I think it's worth mentioning before we move on to what? We got Bill Maher. We got Bill Maher coming right up. Don't worry, we'll get to Bill Maher. Coming in hot. On Monday at the State Department, I asked about this deal that Hamas had agreed to and asked the State Department, what role did Director William Burns play, CIA Director William Burns play in this role?

Because there's reporting that he signed off on the thing. And Miller's answer was kind of interesting because it was like, there's been some good reporting on this, some not. But he didn't just say, no, Burns did not sign off on that. It was a much kind of more open-ended answer. And then there was this fascinating report in CNN yesterday, which I'm not sure if you saw it, that said that an Egyptian intelligence officer, so take all this with a grain of salt, but it's interesting that it's being reported. And it might also be true. An Egyptian intelligence officer tweaked the proposal after the U.S., Qatar, Egypt, Israel had all agreed to it before sending it

to Hamas. Last week. Last week. And then Hamas agreed to the one that they had been delivered. So what we were being told was that Hamas changed it. Yes. And then agreed to it and was trying to get one over on everybody and fake agreeing to a ceasefire. What we're now being told is that they agreed to the exact deal that they were offered and were told that the Israelis were supportive of because the tweaks were minor. By an Egyptian intelligence. So one of the quotes in the article, Hamas was telling their people, we will have a deal in place tomorrow. In other words, that this was not a gimmick. Hamas was not just playing PR and expecting a rough invasion. They thought that they had agreed to the deal. They even named the intern who made the changes. Oh, my gosh.

He's not an intern, but this is how CNN reports it. The three sources familiar with the matter told CNN that a senior Egyptian intelligence official named Ahmed Abdel-Khalek was responsible for making the changes. Abdel-Khalek is a senior deputy to the Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, who has been Bern's counterpart in leading Egypt's mediation in the ceasefire talks. One source familiar with the negotiations said Kalik told the Israelis one thing and Hamas another. More of Hamas's demands were inserted into the original framework that Israel had tacitly agreed to in order to secure Hamas's approval, the source said. So one source is saying that Israel actually did agreely agreed to in order to secure Hamas's approval, the source said. So one source is saying that Israel actually did agree to most of this.

But the other mediators were not informed, nor critically were the Israelis. So giant mess, and it's like they're trying to say it was this guy, Calic, who tweaked the thing at the last minute. Which, like I said, there's something happened here. Yeah. And the fact that it's leaking out to CNN here suggests that there's some cleanup going on on the part of the West and that it does appear from this reporting that Hamas was earnestly agreeing to a peace deal. It's pretty interesting that's in CNN.

Yeah. Jeremy Diamond is one of the reporters there. He's a very, very strong reporter. He's done some really good work out of there. So it goes like, you know, CNN contains multitudes, to put it generously. That's one way to put it. And Jeremy Diamond's done a lot of very good reporting. So, Ryan, I just wanted to say before we move on, that was maybe we were approaching peak Ryan Grim when you said, I forgot to put it in the rundown, but it reminds me, I was talking to the State Department this week about the CIA director. But I'm glad you remembered it because it was quite relevant.

Yeah, well, it becomes extra relevant when the CNN report came out later. It's like, whatever, it's an interesting answer, but not sure what's going on here. But then when you pair it with the CNN clip, I mean, the CNN report, it's kind of interesting. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. 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.

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listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on to Bill Maher's appearance on The View where he talked about, in fact, the conflict in the Middle East and how it has roiled American college campuses. If you're wondering, why do I need to hear what Bill Maher said on The View, I understand, but it's a pretty interesting, fiery exchange that I think leaves a lot to be discussed. So

with that setup, please enjoy Bill Maher getting into a little bit of a fight with Sonny Hostin, a little left on left violence here over quote wokeness on The View. Well, I had a different question, but it struck me that in the first segment you used the term woke and you said that woke is what was sort of ruining everything and I know that you're no I didn't say ruining everything I said that's why Trump could get re-elected that's why Trump could get re-elected so I just the term woke has been in my view co-opted by the right and weaponized and bastardized and so I was surprised to hear you use the term because historically as you know because I think you're brilliant, that woke is a word used by the black community to note that we must be aware

of social injustices. But words migrate. And so why is that a bad thing? It's not a bad thing and originally that was absolutely a great thing, alert to injustice. Who's not for that? But words do migrate. Now I'll use any term you want. Okay. Because maybe that is a word that's triggering, and so let's not use that word.

I don't know. Want to call it the super far left? But don't tell me the left has— Or maybe the super far right. Well, he's talking about the left. Well, then I don't— Okay, but we talked about that. I mean, I think we agree about the danger of the super far right, and I can't say it enough.

I think they're the bigger threat. But don't tell me that the left hasn't changed. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when it was the conservatives who hated the Jews. Yeah. Okay. That was a joke. Too dark, too dark.

Well, maybe it is, but it's true. I mean, if I had any doubt that I was right about the change that's happened in the left, watching people protest for. But I think a lot of us were disturbed to see terrorist flags being waved on American college campuses and seeing this, a generation that may, some I think genuinely care about the play of the Palestinians. I think most Americans do, but some who seem to be embracing a terrorist organization over the nation of Israel. What do you make of this moment? What do you think it's a result of? How do we fix it? Well, I mean, it's just astounding to me that they can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. I mean, just morally. I mean, let me tell you, if you're for Hamas, just live in Gaza for a day. And I'm not talking about while the war is on. I mean, before the war. Trust me, you would go

running and screaming and begging to live in Tel Aviv, a place that has your values. I mean before the war trust me you would go running and screaming and begging to live in Tel Aviv a Place that has your values. I mean women have no I mean this is show Watched by a lot of women women have no rights right in this place and a lot of majority Muslim countries around the world I mean there is no equal rights as far as speech dress opportunities for education. Nothing. Reproductive rights, freedom from sexual violence, freedom from sexual harassment. The LGBTQ community as well.

Yes. That too. But you throw around the term apartheid. There is a gender apartheid in a lot of the world where where women are second-class citizens, at best. Are you at all concerned about the innocent civilians that have been collectively punished and murdered, largely children and women? Of course. And are you at all concerned about the fact that the International Criminal Court just today issued a subpoena for Bibi Netanyahu?

Well, that's ridiculous, but it's a war. It's a war. Because it's a war, and they were attacked, and they're defending themselves. Okay. Well. Where to start there? I will say, exceptionally substantive discussion for The View, and I mean that in the literal sense, exception. It was an exception to how those conversations normally go. We could start with his claim that if you lived in Gaza before October 7th, you would go running and screaming to say, let me out of here, and I want to go live in Tel Aviv. Yeah. Isn't that what everybody in Gaza was doing?

I mean— That so strips all of the context out of the situation. Yes, it does. It forgets the fact that nobody in Gaza could leave. Yeah. And it's not... They weren't trapped in Gaza because of Hamas.

He's like, if you lived in Gaza, you'd want to leave. Okay. So do a lot of people in Gaza for, to go visit their families in the West Bank, to visit their families elsewhere in the world, to get medical appointments, to do business. Yeah. But they are not allowed to leave by Israel. Like that, that is a kind of a relevant detail. But this is this whole question when he's saying good guys and bad guys. But that's where this becomes a cycle because he would say, you know, in part, of course, yes,

they are being stopped from that by Hamas because Hamas is the de facto government. And there's this like... What about before Hamas? And that's what I was just going to say that this, that conversation, I think it loses its worth when you're trying to have a broad discussion with no context for why there is extremism in Hamas, of course in Hamas, but in Gaza and among so many people. And that's a reaction, obviously, to years and years of conflict that has put people in living conditions that you wouldn't wish on your own family. And so when you aren't talking about that, it's obviously an issue. Yeah. And Bill Maher is just flat out Islamophobic. And I wonder at this point if he would even like quibble with that claim. And you're seeing an expression of it there. But even on Bill Maher's own terms, the Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian political structure, you know, back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, up into the 2000s,

was much more secular. Yeah, it's changed. Until, yeah, until this kind of militant armed resistance element grew up because the Palestinian people believed that the Oslo Accords and the negotiating process with Likud in power, insisting that there would be no two states ever, was a dead end. And you needed a more militant direction to change the equation. As we talked about in that debate with Destiny and Omar, any time that peace was on the horizon, support for Hamas would plummet. Any time that that was taken off the table wants to strip Hamas and the Islamist elements that kind of course through it, the way to do it would be supporting actual peace efforts, not just tightening the occupation and then complaining about the resistance to the occupation. And this is probably the rub for me, and I think some people on the right, not a lot of other people on the right, but that conversation about militant extreme Islamism I think is an important one. I don't know if we've ever even talked about that, but we probably disagree on some points of it. But I also probably share some of Bill Maher's concerns in that respect. But if you are doubling down on the current strategy to quell extreme

militant Islamism, if that's your strategy at this point is to double down on the strategy that has failed for decades and in fact arguably even by their own argument has exacerbated the conditions, you're not making anybody safer at this point. It's just clearly not working. You know, it doesn't excuse violence. You know, I'm sure there are some people that will make that argument, but it doesn't. It does help explain it. It does help explain why nothing is changing. Right. And also Ben-Gavir and the rest of them, when it comes to women's rights and women's place in society, that entire growing massive faction of Israeli society is not far from Hamas and the other Islamists when it comes to the religious fundamentalism. Bill Maher has this blind spot when it comes to that. I mean, I'd rather live in Israel any day as a woman than in…

For now, on the current trajectory, let's check in again in 20 years. You know, there are intense forces within Israel's political space that are trying to make sure that that's not the case in 10, 20, 30 years. The conversations about this are so hamstrung by the aperture, you know, like just not being able to zoom out. I agree. I think not being able to zoom out and honestly appraise what's happening in the sort of from the 30,000 foot view is a really, really one of the biggest challenges I think we've had like in the media since October 7th. And I also think people have turned a blind eye, like sort of willfully ignored a lot of the long-term problems here because they've been told over and over again by American intelligence and the Pentagon that there's one thing happening. And they trusted that for a long time and don't have as much trust in that anymore.

Actually, that's what we're about to talk about, honestly, in the polling block. Yeah. Let's move to that in a second. I can't find the essay now, but there's a really good essay that I read recently making the case that basically there are two Israels right now. There's the calling one Judean Samaria and the other Israel. One, one kind of secular, but ethno, obviously ethno-religious, but more the Tel Aviv, high-tech, like cosmopolitan, and the other, the kind of fundamentalist orthodox element that is increasingly powerful within the Netanyahu coalition and that and that those

two israels basically can't can't coexist uh and and they're locked in a in a death struggle with each other i think a lot of that poured into the streets when the judicial reform um which i think we actually disagreed on at the time but when that was up you saw that it's kind of a culture clash i mean it absolutely is a culture clash um and so it's obviously going to be a huge, whatever happens militarily, this is a huge front and center, like maybe the biggest political thing happening in Israel right now is increasingly that divine. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy,

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Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You experienced dad guilt? I hate it. She understands understands but she's still pissed she's like happy father's day the show may be called good mom's bad choices but this show isn't just for moms we keep it real about relationships and everything in between and yes men are more than welcome to listen in i knew nothing about brunch she was a terrible girlfriend but she put me on to brunch. To hear this and more, open your free iHeart app, search Good Moms, Bad Choices, and listen now.

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