Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/22/26: Trump Floats Being Israeli PM, DNC Autopsy, Fetterman Israel Handler & MORE!

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Krystal, Ryan, Emily and Mac discuss the US burning thru stockpiles to protect Israel, DNC autopsy revealed as humiliating disaster, Fetterman's secret Israel handler exposed, AI bubble could decimate economy, Fox guest wearing face mask conspiracy.Rohit Chopra: https://x.com/ChopraUSADarializa Avila Chevalier: https://www.darializaforcongress.com/Mac: https://www.youtube.com/GoodPoliticGuy To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the ice.

Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 Podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA.

Listen to the 1021 podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Breaking Points Friday edition. We got Ryan, Emily, and Crystal. Joining me on this show, we got a lot of good stuff that we're going to cover for you guys today. We got some updates on Iran with a new report saying that the U.S. basically spent a huge portion of our missile stockpile or our defense interceptor missiles defending Israel. We got the DNC autopsy that just released, and it's a complete pile of garbage. We got an explosive new report on John Federman and his apparent, I don't know, what would you guys call him, like Israel Handler or something?

Best friend. I would say best friend. Brain damage plus Israel Handler. Israel Handler for a brain damaged man. And then we got Hunter Biden on Candice Owens with some pretty intense claims there. And if we get to it later, we may have a little conspiracy that we want to get to with. an appearance on Fox News that was interesting to say the least. And then we're also going to be joined by Rohit Chopra to discuss the Fed.

So welcome everybody to the show. You guys excited. How do we feel? I'm excited. Mack has been doing some groundbreaking reporting on this mask situation over Fox News. So if we rush through the topics to get to that, you'll understand why. All right. Let's go ahead and jump in with Iran here. So if I put this up on the screen, we have a new report on apparently,

how the U.S. wasted a huge portion of our missile stockpile here from the Washington Post on defending Israel. They say here from the Washington Post, U.S. bears the brunt of Israel's missile defense. Pentagon assessment shows amid hostilities with Iran,

the American military expended far more advanced interceptors to protect Israel than Israeli forces did themselves according to the Defense Department. What do you guys make of this? Well, it also reminds me of the fact that you had some of the Gulf allies seemingly upset over the fact that we were spending a lot more effort and equipment defending Israel than defending them. They felt comparatively exposed. But Ryan, I'm curious

how this dovetails with the reporting that you all did, that Israel was down to double-digit interceptors. I mean, is this just a case where the U.S. had a lot more to work with than Israel did to begin with? And, of course, we're always going to ride to their rescue. Yes. And, I'll send this piece to Mac. Yeah, it was several weeks ago. What was it? Oh, look, early April I reported with Maz over at DropSight that, yeah, that sources in the administration were telling us that they were down to double-ditch. The Israelis were down to double-digit ballistic missile interceptors.

And that's key because Patriot, you know, there are a lot of Patriot missile systems that are still there. But those are really designed more for like rockets from Hamas or has. below. Those are not ballistic missile interceptors. They can be used for it, but it's not what they're made for and they're not very effective at it. So when the war ended yet, the Israelis were down to double digits, which helps to explain

why the U.S. was so rapidly exhausting its own supplies. You know, if the numbers are, to be believed, Iran fired something like a thousand ballistic missiles during this 40 days.

Plus, don't forget, during the 12-day war, you know, they fired a number of ballistic missiles then, and it takes years to replenish. So there's just a massive asymmetry in the timeline and the scale of what it takes to deploy these things and what it takes to replenish them, whereas it's, you know, it feels like Iran under normal conditions can produce ballistic missiles at a much faster rate than our kind of, you know, sclerotic industrial base can produce the ballistic missile interceptors. And also, we shoot off many per ballistic missile. You fire one ballistic missile.

We might send 10 or 12 interceptors at it. Millions and millions of dollars worth of interceptors at one. And they're sending their oldest ballistic missiles and the cheapest and the ones that have the closest expiration date first, obviously. So the ones that they have remaining are going to be the ones that were produced more recently and be higher tech. So if the Israelis are down to double digits and the U.S. has fired off a significant portion of what it has, then what is another round of fighting going to look like? It's like, guys. Yeah, I mean, anybody there thinking this through? Well, Ryan, this is why we need that $1.5 trillion defense budget.

Which means that in 10 years, we'll be ready for another one of these. But like, I think he wants to do it this weekend. Yeah, I mean, this is why I think people have been saying Trump has no military options. Like he can threaten to, you know, wipe out Iranian infrastructure. The other aspect of this beyond just the shortages that we're facing is that in a lot of these conversations, whether it's from like Lindsey Graham or from the push from Benjamin Netanyahu to get us back into a war right now, it's like they never include in that Iran has escalatory options themselves, that they could blow up a bunch of infrastructure in, you know, the U.S.

UAE or the rest of the Gulf countries. You know, they've obviously had reference to the internet cables, the undersea internet cables. You know, they could, if it really becomes existential, blow up desalination plans, you know, lots of different things that they could target. They could close down the Red Sea if they wanted to work with the Houthis on that. So, like, there is no real, viable military option for Trump that's on the table here. Well, and to the point that Crystal was just making, there's a massive increase being asked for at the Pentagon right now, we're a year away from Doge, which you'll be shocked to remember,

would not, as Bannon said, cross the river and go over to the Pentagon. And here we are. It's like you're in a situation where you're almost held hostage. Because if you think of something happening in Taiwan, which I don't know. I mean, experts say it's still years out, but that would truly be as close to a hot war on American soil. It's not on American soil. I'm not on American soil. obviously, but it would affect all of us immediately in a way that what's happening in the Middle East, short of nuclear escalation, is not. If we think gas prices now are bad, what would happen if there was an invasion of Taiwan and suddenly all of our chips manufacturing was cut off? That has not been resured or nearshored. That is still primarily coming out of Taiwan, our ability to just

like function and the complete basic tasks as a society. would be severely hampered. And so now you're like, well, guess we spent all of that in Ukraine and Israel, we're going to need to spend even more money asking these defense contractors getting rich off of everything to protect us. You're like, they put you in like a hostage situation, essentially, if that were to happen. And I'm not like, you know, agitating for conflict in Taiwan. It's just the way the system is set up right now that we would actually suffer enormously if there was action in Taiwan. So it's like, again, being held hostage by defense contractors. Yeah, it's an extreme vulnerability because of the way that we've made ourselves completely reliant on this one

particular company based in Taiwan. I mean, the truth of the matter is, like, look at what has happened with Iran. The idea we're going to fight a war against China. I mean, that's an idiotic idea to begin with, incredibly destructive. Even Trump has indicated like, I don't think that's going to work out. The only option with China is basically like cooperation. and coexistence. That's the only option that is on the table at this point. And, you know, I hope that the Iran War has made that perfectly clear that our best bet is to build up our own domestic manufacturing. That's obviously not happening. We're going in reverse since Trump has come into office. But that would be the ideal and, you know, find ways to live with and do deals

with China. That would be something that you would think that Trump would have an interest in doing. But Ryan, you mentioned you think that military hostilities that we may restart aggressive, offensive military hostilities this weekend. I've been seeing all kinds of like, you know, nonsensical bullshit report. Oh, they're about to have a deal. We're going to announce deal in hours, you know, different leaks that are coming out from various outlets. Of course, we've both seen the U.S. position. We've seen the Iranian position. They are not in the same galaxy.

There seem to be no points, really, where they have come to anything appropriate. approximating an agreement, so that seems highly unlikely to me. What are you all hearing from your sources and what makes you think it's a possibility that we see military action this weekend? Well, he's got a three-day weekend. He loves to, you know, he loves to go to war. Mark gets a little extra time. Yeah, I think he's got a little extra time. All of the reports in Axios suggesting that a deal is close are kind of a leading indicator that a deal is not close.

and we're getting culture to war. The Iranians, for their part, seem to be assuming an attack is coming and bracing for it. And if you're the Iranian leadership, you're probably only going to be in a better position after the U.S. exhausts itself once again, depending on how long, you know, they carry it on. Now, the personal risk for Iranian leadership

is that they personally may be killed again, You know, the U.S. and Israel are both actually very good at assassinating, you know, the upper echelons of organizations. I don't, they haven't yet, you know, demonstrated how that's an effective kind of military or political strategy because new people kind of fill in. And sometimes those new people are more effective and competent than the previous people. Sometimes they're a little less. But just kind of killing someone and having them be replaced by someone else. as far as I can tell in any of their complex, not actually done anything other than satisfy

whatever urge is satisfied by doing that. So, you know, they have their offer on the table, the Iranians, and it's kind of up to Trump to either take it or go back to war. Yeah. Hard to imagine him holding the L, but he seems to be kind of stalling as much as you can. Maybe he goes to war with Cuba instead, and so we forget about Iran.

Yeah. My theory is that he's trying right now to wait out. He knows he's in a bad situation where he can either try and make a deal that his side is not going to accept. His Mark Levine, Mark Tessen, Netanyahu side is not going to accept. Or he can escalate, which he knows is going to make his poll numbers worse. It's going to be even worse for inflation and gas prices heading into the heating up of the midterm season. And so he's hoping that something happens internally. there are always rumors that the government is just on the precipice,

but I think he is hoping that the government will be, the regime will finally face a real threat. And it sounds like pie in this guy to us, of course. But again, I'm just trying to say why I think he's been, he doesn't have any good option when we understand that. But I think that's where he's in this holding pattern is he's just hoping that there's some type of Black Swan event or that the government falls, which is something you still hear from Iran Hawks,

that it's possible. And he's just, he's holding out until something changes or his hand is absolutely forced. But yeah, that's, that's his strategies. That's my best guess at the president of the United States strategy. And I just wanted to put up this chart of Pentagon, this is the Pentagon budget since 1948. You'll just notice something. You have to look really hard to see it, but basically it always goes up. Yeah. That one downturn, wasn't that from, what was it, a sequestration? under the Obama administration. Yeah. Is that what that is, right?

What's crazy about this graph is, I mean, the $1.5 trillion, I mean, it would be almost, you know, double. Right. You know, what the graph is right here. Right. And this is from the- These are in, inflation adjusted to 2021 is what it looks like. But still, yes. Yeah.

Ryan, the point you made about the Axios reports being a leading indicator, it brings to mind. I'm reading Ender's game with my son right now. And there's a line in there where he says, sometimes the lies are more dependable than the truth. You can tell more based on the reliable lies than you can based on the supposed truth. And that may well be the case here. But Mack, while Trump's political prospects here in the U.S.

seem to be faltering or basically dead, he has identified another potential political opportunity for himself that I think does make some sense. Do you want to go ahead and play this for us? He's a great guy. To me, he's a great guy. don't forget he was a wartime prime minister and he's not treated right in Israel in my opinion I'm right now at 99% in Israel

I could run for prime minister so maybe after I do this I'll go to Israel run for prime minister Look he's had worse ideas I think he should do it There's a logic to it It's kind of making the unofficial official at this point They should just officially swap places now

You know how he used to always share like cat turned Twitter polls This is the new version of the cat-turned Twitter poll. Like, well, everybody hates me here, but you should see how popular I am in. I'm at 99% in Israel. Well, to be fair, I mean, his approval rating in Israel has to be significantly higher than it is in the U.S. Oh, no doubt about it. They do love him there.

Well, they have the Trump Heights. He could go, didn't they rename part of the Golan Heights, the Trump Heights? I think they've renamed streets after him. It's his fantasy. Yeah, he'd be closer to all his friends in Dubai and Doha and Riyadh and Riyadh. Yeah. He has the same aesthetic sensibility as those friends in those places. So it's a perfect fit, really.

I mean, I think he should really pursue this sooner rather than later, to be honest with you. Yeah, and it can be, yeah, it can be like a regal dynasty. You know, Donald Trump Jr. can take over. Maybe barren. They can battle it out. I'm not sure that Trump would choose Don Jr. to succeed him. I think he would make them fights with getting his way. Do we have that?

We have that. We have that. We really planning on attending his son's wedding this weekend, apparently. Should we throw up this clip here real quick? Donald Trump asked whether or not he's going to be attending his own son's wedding. Here was his passionate and inspired response. Look at the guy behind him, too. He'd like me to go, but it's going to be just a small little private affair.

And I'm going to try and make it. I'm in the midst. I said, you know, this is. Not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things. That's one I can't win on. If I do attend, I get killed. If I don't attend, I get killed.

By the fake news, of course, I'm talking about. Okay. So, I mean, just amazing stuff there. What about the, he's somebody I've known a very long time or something? I think he was talking about the fiancé, but it is hard to tell. It does sound like he's saying. What's amazing about it is that the couple of known very long time. What's amazing about it is that the cope that I saw was like, oh, well, the guest list is like, you know, really small, just like immediate family and friends.

And if Trump came, that it would become this whole, like, public media affair. But then in Trump's explanation of why he's not going, he's kind of like, I'm just kind of busy. Like, I got, I got shit going on. Don's been married before. The concept that anyone would criticize him for going to his own son's wedding, like, dude, you golf like every other day. You're seemingly never doing any or you're like touring the ballroom and obsessing over the details there. The idea that like, you know, we would pick on you for going to your son's wedding. I don't think that's the biggest reputational risk that you suffer.

Do we all remember though what what Trump was doing as he was being born? Is Don was being born? Oh, no. Don, never mind, yeah. Oh, was it Barron? Yes. Oh. Well, I was just going to say.

Stormy Daniels, is that what you're referring to? To Crystal's point, the Chiron while he was making this comment about getting killed by the fake news if he goes to Don's wedding, was about his arch. He was talking about his arch. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark.

And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast and IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. First people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special.

So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this.

We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast. we could call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, NL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He's got to stay focused, Emily. He's a little busy right now. It's not a great time.

Sorry, Don Jr. Next wedding. I got you, buddy. The drapes are coming in for the ballroom. I'm in just swamped here, guys. If you have the wrong drapes, it doesn't really bring the place together in the same way. It's very important. You can't.

That's not the kind of thing you can outsource. You know, you've got a certain vision. You've got an eye for it. He's got to be there to evaluate the samples that are being brought in. So maybe next wedding, Don Jr. sorry. There'll be another. All right. Should we move on to the DNC autopsy here, guys?

Yes. Okay. So I'll go ahead and put up this Politico report on the screen if it will let me. here. The report is so stupid. The DNC. 2024 autopsy is roiling Democrats. So this has been kind of an amazing saga. They tried to cover up this report and there was lots of speculation for months as to why they weren't releasing it. Some people thought, you know, maybe it was not going to touch on certain things. Some people thought it was just a bad report. Turns out that this thing, number one, may have been semi-AI generated. It doesn't talk about it. It doesn't talk

about like probably like three out of the five major issues going in to this election. I mean, it was a complete and total pile of garbage from top to bottom. What do you guys make of this report? I like to call it the DNC slop topsy. See what I did there. Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's funny because there actually were some rumors floating around of people saying that like, you know, actually the reason they didn't put it out is just because it was really embarrassingly poorly done. I kind of thought that was cope. I was like, eh, it's probably, they probably just are embarrassed by some of the things in it. Ryan's theory, which I thought was good, was that it would expose the way that all of these

various high-praced consultants completely failed at their jobs, might name names there in a way that will keep them from getting further lucrative contracts. But actually, it was just really that embarrassingly bad. You get to the bottom and it's like, insert conclusion here. Like, they didn't even, you know, they didn't even get to the ending. It's definitely AI generated. Some of the quotes are the most, you know, AI slot. And I think it was like, it seems like an older version of AI too that doesn't even more poorly veiled, you know, where it's so obvious that this wasn't a human and it's just a bunch of consultants be gobbledygook. But to your point, doesn't even mention the word Gaza or genocide, doesn't talk about inflation, doesn't talk about inflation, doesn't

talk about Biden's advanced age. Like, these are kind of, you know, these were big things that are swirling around. So apparently, you know, the head of the DNC, Ken Martin, who's under a justifiably under a lot of fire right now. Although I don't know, he seems like a pretty good emblem of the current Democratic parties that's currently constituted, in my opinion. But in any case, apparently hired some guy who's like a friend of his, he did it, you know, using. And he only just got fired, right, from the DNC, the guy that he hired. He was like still within the DNC operating until a couple days ago, right? And so they, and then the way that they handled this whole thing, though, was, first of all, obviously you didn't take seriously that you needed to learn lessons from this devastating electoral loss insane that you decided to do this as this like side project for one of your incompetent friends insane to begin with.

Then this, the original promise was, of course, we're going to release this because why else would you do it if you're not going to release it? then suddenly we start getting this like, well, we just need to look forward. We're not going to talk about this anymore. That, of course, creates a strizing effect where everyone's like, all right, well, what is in this report? So you draw more attention to it. And then at the end of the day, you put out this thing that is just complete embarrassment to everybody involved. So it is a pretty stunning indictment of you've got the disastrous PR, you've got the thorough incompetence, and you have an avoidance of any of the stickier or more difficult issues from, you know, the current Democratic Party and from the past election.

So it is kind of a perfect symbol of all the ways that they fail. Well, we do have some counterpoints here from the same Politico piece that I thought were kind of amazing. Here we get a quote from the centrist welcome pack saying Ken Martin's autopsy of the autopsy was excellent. after spending a decade accepting all edits from every progressive interest group, better to just delete all DNC strategy docs and admit we need to start from scratch. Admitting incompetence is much better than denial. So we have praise of Ken Martin's autopsy of the autopsy. We also have third way, Jonathan Cohen here, the president of the group saying,

I think it's clear why this report was buried because as it says in the opening, it calls for Democrats to return to the vital center. Now I understand why a lot of very Twitter-friendly, super liberal DNC staff didn't want this to come out. So we have all of these centrist, you know, organizations coming out and saying the report, of course, proves all of their priors. Yeah. And for people, I would suggest if people have time that we can just, just to look at it for fun, there's just, it has these, as somebody mentioned it has all these little red boxes that are like added by like the DNC afterwards, partly I think sometimes for like defamation reasons.

or it's like, we don't stand by this. Like, for instance, for the 2022 cycle, the guy writes, Democrats netted two seats in the House, flipping 10 seats from the Republicans while losing eight. And then there's a red box that says, data appears to be inaccurate and contradict public reporting. They didn't even accurately convey the number of seats that were won and lost. Yes.

On the other hand. Basic facts, like, I think they got wrong, like when John Boehner left. I mean, there were all kinds of things that were just. flat out wrong that no one bothered to check. But I wanted to give an example. I pulled up one of the examples of the sort of like AI slob slash consultant speak writing here. It's hard to tell the difference between AI and consultant speak.

That is true. That is fair. I think AI is like trained on consultant speak basically. But anyway, building to win requires new thinking. And building to last requires thinking about more than the next election. It requires finding the best way to connect with the right voters in the right places. And if 2024 has proven anything, There is enough money to do it all the right way.

That's good. Insightful. There wasn't enough money. This was, I thought, the most interesting part was Martin in his substack post where he dropped this report into a PDF. He said that no source material was provided because of that. Fixing it would have meant starting over from the beginning. Every conversation, every interview, every data set.

And you just hear a sentence. like that and you think, okay, then do it. You're the DNC. You're supposed to be, you have vast resources. You're supposed to be figuring out what the hell went wrong. And you're saying, oh, well, we just couldn't restart the process that my friend, who I'm throwing under the bus, apparently botched. We just had to shelve it. And then everyone went crazy. My mistake, but we simply could not have produced an autopsy. It would have been too labor intensive. Like, What an insane excuse to put into your sub-sac post unveiling this autopsy, presumably language that was looked at by other people at the DNC,

and they were like, yes, go with that. This is the best possible excuse. The DNC simply lacked the resources to do a real autopsy. Well, and it also, I mean, obviously the whole thing is a disaster top to bottom, and the way it was handled was a complete disaster. If the product was initially not good and that was the truth of the matter, he could have been candid about that from the beginning of like, we, you know, we were not satisfied with the initial product.

That would probably also have created a lot of conspiracies of like, oh, you didn't like the answers you got. That's certainly what I would have thought initially if they were hiding the initial product. But he could have said, look, we got an initial product. It wasn't good enough. You know, we're going back and recircle. It's going to take a little bit more time, but we're going to put on something that we, you know, can stand behind because it contained basic factual errors,

lacked the sourcing documentation, blah, blah, blah. Still not ideal, right? Ideally, you just hire someone competent and transparent and spend the money and the time to actually learn something useful out of all of this. But what a complete circus. What an absolute shit show at this point. No lessons learned.

Well, let's just add on just sort of a news basis quickly. There are now people calling understandably. Like, I've seen the Pod Save guys teeing off on Ken Martin. It's entirely possible that he loses. his job over the, some of the speculation is that they were actually floating in playbook this morning, John Tester. They called John Tester and he said something like, are you on illegal substances? John Tester does not want this job from Montana, apparently, but they're already looking to get Martin out. Some people are, at least, but others are defending him and saying he did

the best that he could with what he was, the hand that he was dealt, he dealt this hand. Yeah. And all this, though, really is a side show because the DM. is kind of a useless institution beyond setting the calendar dates and choosing the states that are going to lay out the next presidential election. That's essential. And the kind of party insiders who want to keep out like the Bernie wing, they want to, you know, keep it to places like Iowa and South Carolina that aren't competitive in the... Canadian women are looking for more.

More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast and IHart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.

And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created a podcast. our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it.

We just contributed to a... We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember.

I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast,

where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. General election and are not right places for left candidates. to win, whereas a more national like Super Tuesday approach is better probably for progressive candidates. So that, and Ken Martin actually seems to be kind of good on that. So we'll see. I don't know. But he clearly, what a disaster.

Just a complete cluster on every single level. Incredible. All right. So now we move on to the epic of John Federman and his apparent alleged, Israel handler behind the scenes. So I'm going to go ahead and throw up this write-up here from New York Mag, isn't it? Right. Their headline is, the man who explains Israel to John Fetterman, how a little-known writer became one of these senators' closest confidants. So this is genuinely one of the most insane stories that I've read, basically it outlines how, like,

and obviously John Fetterman had the stroke, and we all saw like this drastic political change after that, but it's gotten to the point where Israel is basically all that he talks about. It's all that he cares about. And apparently, this guy, David Safier, is his closest confidant, has set up calls with Benjamin Netanyahu, went with him on his trip to Israel, and is sort of guiding his immorality on this topic in a deeply thorough way to the point where the rest of the staffers on John Federman's staff are just like confused and blown away and disturbed by the relationship.

He also has in sort of an unidentified background, this guy, Safir, I'll just read a little bit from the article. He describes himself publicly only as a, quote, business professional and his employers and occupations on political donation forms have been ambiguous, including n-slash-a, consultant, self-employed,

David has never really been forthcoming about what he does, a person close to Federman says. It's always like, I'm in wealth management or something. So what is going on here, guys? Well, and the family has a lot of, his grandfather was very influential, like, pro-Israel lobbyist. And obviously the family is. Throughout like the 80s and the 90s. Appears to be very well connected. I want to, let me read a piece here just about the relationship so people can really get a sense of what we're talking.

talking about. And of course, the context here is that Fetterman has completely changed politically from when he got elected. You know, it seems like the stroke genuinely did not only damage his brain, changed his personality. And this is based on some other reporting, by the way, from New York Magazine, changed his political positions. Now he's obsessed with defending Israel constantly, loves going on Fox News or whatever their issue dojoys and taking their side and being like the self-hating Democrat. In any case, he's lost a ton of his staffers. You know, they've all basically abandoned ship. He just lost his chief of staff in the past week or so.

So who's filled in the gaps that leaves this huge vacuum for apparently this character to come in and fill in the gaps. So it says here, Sefir, a writer of Jewish history and fundraiser for Orthodox causes has no public background in government or counseling politicians on Capitol Hill. He is not an official staff or paid outside advisor. A few years ago, he quote, just kind of appeared. in the senator's orbit. One former Federman staffer remembers. And then suddenly he seemed to be everywhere. Staffers would walk into Federman's office only to find Sefir sitting in the room. When the senator went to Israel in 2025, Sefeer joined him on the trip. When Federman filmed real time with Bill Maher, Seferer met up with him in L.A. The two are constantly texting and talking, according to multiple former Federman staffers, and Sefier has unofficially operated as a top campaign fundraiser and senior advisor. He has even set up an attended sensitive. meetings with foreign officials. He has, in some cases, he is the only person staffing those meetings,

I've been told. They give an example here in September 2025. Federman and some of his senior staffers gathered at the senator's office for a meeting with the Ahil later, the Israeli ambassador to the United States. According to one of the staffers and attendance, Sefir was inexplicably in the room, too. Far from a public event, during the meeting, Federman tested on a proposal to force every senator to vote on whether they think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. support that actually. They should go ahead and do that. Anyway, it says they they gossip freely. And Sefir has been on these calls with foreign leaders, on the calls with Netanyahu, going to Israel with him. He is de facto one of Federman's closest advisors, even though he is, you know, not an official advisor.

We don't know where he came from. He apparently just suddenly appeared in the orbit. And then I also wanted to share this other part because this ties together with, you know, what Federman's mental capacity is. at this point. Some of the Federman staffers were sharing with New York Magazine, the former staffers, some of the text exchanges and the ways that Federman was constantly siding with Republicans. Here's one of the examples that they give here, word for word. By early this year, many on Federman staff were incredulous and exhausted. In private, their boss was acting like a Republican, they say. In January 2026, Fetterman sent to a group chat with staffers a screenshot of an article headline about how the average working family spends nearly $4,000 annually on health care. He texted, quote, how should it cost, question mark, free question mark?

He complained in the text, which I obtained, quote, I don't understand what affordability it is. So we've got this a brain damaged man who doesn't understand what affordability it is, who is now enthralled to this Israel-connected, you know, obsessed Zionist who's turning up, just appeared from nowhere and is turning up at all these meetings and everything. Like, what the hell is going on here? He also apparently texted a different staffer that Epstein was a nothing burger. The worst picks that I've seen were from Clinton, L.O.L. It doesn't.

Listen, the media was so complicit in pretending that Federman was fine until I think it was like an NBC interview towards the end of the race. That's how bad of a candidate, Mehmet Oz was for Pennsylvania Senate, just to be clear that John Federman, after his stroke, still beat Dr. Oz in that center race. We had that debate, remember? Yes.

It was so bad. It's painful. And the debate was after early voting had started. It was a complete disaster. He is, he should not be in the Senate. He is not well enough to be in the Senate. And part of the reason why we're now seeing is that people are taking advantage of him. You're taking advantage of his disability. It seems it's a very uncomfortable thing to say,

but it seems very clear that he's been going through these depressive episodes. He's been open about that. And people who are kind to him in his like vulnerable state are getting a ton of credibility on political advisory questions with the senator. I think it's a like I don't think that's a Freudian read. I think it's a pretty clear read of what's been happening that people are insinuating themselves into his circle because he's sort of vulnerable. easily manipulated. He is not operating at full capacity. You should not be in the U.S. Senate that is completely obvious. And anyway, he continues to get a pass now from the right. I think I agree with you to some extent, Emily, that he's being taken advantage of. He clearly mentally is not there. He needs

to be removed from the Senate. But at the same time, I don't want to take away like all accountability from Federman because, you know, if you're going through these mental health struggles and stuff, like it doesn't really help to make your sole focus in the Senate defending a genocidal rogue state and making that your entire personality and making sure that you're flipping on all these previous progressive positions and the entire party now despises you. I mean, it's like you could help yourself out a little bit on that front. Certainly. Yeah, he seems to have a kind of visceral contempt for his party at this point, which shows up in those text messages too. Um, And there was, you know, as Crystal mentioned, his chief of staff, his third chief of staff just quit.

Holly Otter being the Axios reporter who broke that story, had reached out to Federman for comment. He didn't get back initially. And then afterwards, after publication, as she writes this story, he wrote back, you know, so much for the turnover argument clicks and, like, sent her like a screenshot of like, you know, that Josh Gottheimer and some other people have, like, higher turnover. It's like, yeah, okay. You're not like the worst of 535, but like it's really bad. Godheimer is worse. Oh, Godheimer is like consistently number one for staff turnover. I thought it was Clobuchar.

It was Clobuchar. It was Kamala Harris for a while. She had a lot. Nobody goes through staff faster than Godheimer, I don't think. I appreciate him breaking that stereotype that it's the female senators who have the high turnover. Thank you, sir. Yes, good of hers.

Because like women, he is also mentally ill. Okay, sorry. There was one more piece of this that I wanted to read real quick. So they say in the piece that when he's on Capitol Hill, this guy, Sefer, will hang out and sit in Federman's office all day or walk with him to the Senate floor, according to a former staffer. After their conversations, Federman would appear far more radicalized, me as saying specifically on Israel. Fetterman has largely sidetracked other legislative matters according to the staffer and is now spending most of his time focusing on Israel. A few people working for Fetterman have begun to joke that he is the senator from Tel Aviv

and call Safir the chief, because he's apparently more powerful than the actual chief of staff. So maybe Fetterman has a future there. Although it's probably true that his approval rating in Tel Aviv is probably higher than Philadelphia. or certainly. He won't go to Philadelphia. He's going to love Ed Gal Ryan. McCormick, actually, the Republican senator from Pennsylvania recently went to Philadelphia as kind of just a try,

just a taunt Federman. Republicans usually don't bother going to Philadelphia because there are no votes there for them. But he went there, he hung out with the mayor, he had cheese steak, he put out a video about it. Partly it was to taunt Federman who just refuses to go to Philadelphia, the biggest city in the state.

I thought that McCormick and Federman were buddies, though. I thought he and Katie, but one of the reports was that he and Katie Britt were basically like cultivating fetterman, again, taking advantage of his like declined mental state, hoping that he'll switch to the Republican side. Now, this article, and I kind of buy this as they don't think that he'll switch to being a Republican because he relishes being like the, you know, pissing in the punch bowl of the Democrats basically. And if they take control of the Senate, then he can play the role of a mansion or a cinema, only perhaps even more malevolently and certainly less, you know, with less savvy. But where they all have to come and, oh, what do you need John Fetterman to vote for this bill or that bill, et cetera, in order for Democrats to get anything through. Now, come 2028 when his term is up, like, I can't see any political, he is definitely going

to lose a Democratic primary. I think he'd lose a Republican primary because it's one thing. when you're the Democrat who's like saying the thing that Republicans won. But once you're actually a Republican, then it's like, okay, but you have all these other positions that don't square with the party and we want our own like, you know, ideological MAGA person to represent us. So I don't know that that's a viable path for him. Hard to imagine him holding up in any sort of debate or public forum, certainly. So I don't know. I don't see much political future for him, but just in another sign of how how his brain,

his complete mush at this point, according to these former staffers, he's thinking of running for president in 2028. And he thinks that maybe the right path is somebody will put him on their ticket, Democratic ticket, as the vice presidential candidate. Incredible. Like, dude, everybody hates you. Like, you've destroyed your political brand. There's no chance. Not to mention, how are you not self-aware about your limitations at this point? So just really, really wild stuff. It's great. Like, this is what people are chirping in his ear and puffing him up because he's detached from reality. He clearly is like, and that's common in the Senate, actually. But he, I think, lacks the capacity to fully grasp what's happening around him.

And that's really sad. His story to me is very, very sad. The things that he's talked about with his marriage and his depression, let alone how difficult it has been to just function neurologically. it's very, very sad, and the people of Pennsylvania deserve better. Yeah, well, I admire your ability to have that compassion. I do not feel that in my heart, but I could if he were to resign his seat and say, I'm going to go get help and treatment for my current condition and not subject to the rest of us to his absolute insanity.

And, yeah. We're excited to be joined once again by Rohit Chopra, who is the incoming secretary of business and consumer in California. We have a new Fed chair being sworn in today, Kevin Warsh, and we're excited to have you here for some analysis. Thanks for coming back on the show. Thanks for having me. Well, let's start by waiting into this debate about how independent the Fed actually is, because that was really the debate swirling around Warsh, not just at his confirmation hearing, but ahead of his confirmation hearing. Trump ended up dropping the investigation into Jay Powell over the control. at the treasury, and it's just been this example of Trump trying to exert his sort of personal

touch in a way that obviously smacks of corruption to, like, exert his influence in another area that has long been held up in D.C. circles as independent and so precious, its independence is so precious. But I think you can probably help us understand the extent to which that was actually true, not from a perspective of saying, hey, Donald Trump, he's got the right idea here, but just it's another one of those cases where he's kind of putting the lie to something that probably needed to have some debunking anyway. Well, look, we should not have any one person have full and complete control of the money supply to determine who they can reward friends and punish enemies with.

But I do think you hear a lot about Fed. independence and there's going to be all sorts of people in Washington and Wall Street clutching their pearls that Kevin Warsh is being sworn in at the White House rather than, you know, somewhere else that seemed more cordoned off from politics. But I think there's lots of people who wonder, who has the Fed been independent from? And many questions, was the Fed ever really independent from Wall Street and other owners of big financial assets. And just like everyone understands the Supreme Court is a group of nine people that is hyper political, there's real talk about whether the seven people on the Fed are really just like them. And I think that does help

explain a lot of why the president is drooling to take control and be able to call the shot. here. Yeah, so you're moving from a situation where the Fed is very independent from the certainly democratic whims of the people will continue to be independent from the democratic whims of the people, but rather than being, I guess, beholden directly to Wall Street, it's more to Trump and his Silicon Valley oligarchic allies is the way I say. And you can tell me if you think that's correct. And obviously, Trump has been pushing aggressively for interest rate cuts. I mean, that's something that for me for a while has made sense, but maybe less so now with the combination of the tariffs and then certainly with the Iran war putting upward

pressure on prices. I wonder how you see the policy landscape that faces Kevin Warsh as he takes his job. Well, this past week, you have seen a real global sell-off in the bond market, including of U.S. treasuries. That is going to make it much more expensive for farms and businesses. And frankly, people who are just dying to figure out how to make the math work to buy a home. Interest rates are going up by normal market forces because they are seeing the price of oil and they are seeing real problems in the global economy. So I don't know if the Fed is really going to be able to fix this. Here's what I do know, though.

Wall Street is pricing in that somehow they will pull a rabbit out of a hat because the stock market keeps going up and up and up. So at some point, you've got to wonder, when is reality going to set in, especially about the truth of some of these policies that are obviously pushing prices higher and really making a lot more people struggle and go deeper into debt?

Well, you know, what's going on in the bond market? Tuesday, you had these 30-year treasury notes hit a high of 5.18 or 5.19. You've got the 10-year note closing it on 4.7, which is just absolutely massive. So Trump wants to control the Fed, but the Fed is still kind of hooked into the global economy. And as Crystal was saying, kind of constrained by reality as well. So what is this bond market? What is it doing?

Like, why does it seem to be recognizing that there's more chaos in the world than the stock market is recognizing? And what will that do to Trump's wish to get more rate cuts? Yeah, I think let's just be open with everyone. All of this can sound like Wall Street gibberish about what bond yields are. And this is really what this is about. People don't believe that the U.S. is going to be able to pay. back in real terms, the same level it used to. In other words, people are assuming inflation is going to go up,

and you are seeing signs across all parts of the globe that they are moving away from, they want to decouple a little bit from the U.S. They want to move away from owning U.S. treasuries. Now, there are some people who actually want that to occur, and there's some arguments for it. it. But I think the result, Ryan, is that when it comes to things that we want to happen in our country, people being able to buy a home, people being able to borrow to start a business, all of that is going to go up and up. Because as you said, the bond market is looking at some

reality here. They are seeing the Strait of Hormuz being closed until June and maybe pricing in that it could go much later. They are seeing a huge giveaway to wealthy people to the tune of trillions of dollars in deficit even as ordinary people are struggling. So it's hard to know exactly how this plays out. What I talk to people about, they think there's a few things.

If gas prices are over five bucks, if a pound of chicken breast is above five, And if the 10-year treasury note is above 5%, that spells real political and I believe also economic trouble. Beef prices just hit a record, too? Yeah, you're seeing now for just a pound of ground beef, it is now an average more than the federal minimum wage. It has gone up since COVID, about 75%. There's also real worry that this is not just, this is not just about tariffs. Is this also about price fixing and price gouging?

And frankly, a government that has a lot of talk about doing something, but nothing is really happening. You look at some of the sales numbers in big retailers. People are pulling back in so many ways. And that Memorial Day barbecue is going to cost way more than it does. last year. And why then are stock markets thriving? Why does the market keep going up? You're talking about the Wall Street gibberish. I mean, the average American looks at everything that you just laid out and says, okay, everything happening in the bond market. These are all the struggles of the average American. So why is a stock market continuing to go up, up up? You know what's funny? I think a lot of people

have now been saying for years, the stock market does not really represent how the economy is going. And you have seen it go up and up and up, even as cost of living. And frankly, people just being on a treadmill of trying to get by. If you look into the weeds of the stock market,

it is really being driven by a handful of companies, mostly those that are big tech or AI, hyperscalers. And the numbers keep going up and you got to wonder if that speculation about AI's profits doesn't come true, you could really see a major correction. And we know that this economy is really running right now on wealthy people buying a lot of stuff. And if that starts reversing, we're really talking about broad, broad pain. We have, of course, upcoming talk about open AI, anthropic, SpaceX, you know, filing for IPOs. We really still are looking at all those numbers that they're putting out, and many of them are running big losses.

So these big stock market valuations, more and more people are admitting, this is a problem if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if the optimistic results don't come true. Well, and the stock market has never been a perfect indicator of the well-being of the average American. But Rohit, it seems to me that increasingly it's a counter indicator because companies are so richly rewarded by investors for laying off workers and replacing them with automation, with robots effectively. Of course, looming over that is the possibility that you're laying out here that we could

be looking at a giant bubble and that this whole thing could come crashing down, which would be catastrophic for everyone, whether you're at the top or the middle or the bottom, but mostly for the bottom, they're always the ones that suffer the most. But I wonder if you see it the same way that the stock market has become kind of a reverse indicator of the well-being of the American people. Yeah, you know, I really, and you might remember this, after the 2008 crash and after COVID, the Fed really started essentially buying up a lot of financial assets, printing a lot of money, and intervening in ways that were really helping people

who already owned these types of assets. And again, I think there's lots of people on Wall Street who just are pricing in that that's going to continue. That even if there is, some sort of, you know, correction or major dislocation in the capital markets that someone will step in to help because that's what happened after 2008. That's what happened after COVID. And they also saw after Liberation Day last April that President Trump seems pretty sensitive to the stock market going down and backing off, which of course coins the whole taco trade.

And are they right about that, though, Rojo? Because obviously, So much of our economy is just a giant bet on AI and the build-down of these data centers. Are those companies and those bets effectively too big to fail at this point? Yeah, I mean, to me, we have a lot of eggs in one basket. You asked about the layoffs. You're seeing some people speculate that if the numbers aren't going to work out for some of these firms, that maybe they have to trim right now in order to keep. justify the valuations or adjust their accounting numbers. We've seen things about depreciation

of chips. I don't know how this is going to play out, but I hope that those who made big money during this, that they are not rescued even as the rest of the country really ends up suffering in these downturns. That's my hope. And I think I'm advising everyone, let's be on alert for a bailout of those who already have money and power and let's instead figure out, what are we going to do if the proverbial downturn hurts everyone? What are we going to do to safeguard them? And I think that is a question where people of every single political belief know is a big risk. So you seem to feel pretty strongly that AI is a bubble that these companies don't, you know, their valuations aren't justified and we could be headed to, you know,

some sort of a collapse. Well, I don't know. I think the question I have is there seems to be no one who wants the music to stop. There is really, because we have so much riding on it, it almost feels like the investor class knows there's no other option than to keep pushing this up. Yeah. So you start worrying about is that grounded in reality? You know, the finance person in me thinks if there is not cash flows that are going to come to

justify these valuations, in other words, is it mostly vibes and hype? Often it's true at the early onset vibes and hype are really, you know, it's a big part. Lots of companies start off not making and then they make it really big. Here, though, we have to see something in order to justify these trillion-dollar-plus valuations. So I guess, Crystal, what I'd say is, I don't know if it's a big bubble, but if it does pop, I hope those who made enormous amounts of money

are not the first to be rescued. Yeah. And I'm sure you guys saw that Trump was contemplating an executive order on AI, which was, I mean, relatively limited, just, hey, we're going to take a look at these models before they get released to the public. seems like the very least that we could possibly do. And David Sachs came in over the top, no, no, no, no, you can't do this.

It's going to screw up our competition with China. We've got to be, you know, just off to the races with absolutely no safeguards in place whatsoever. So you can see who's in control and whose voice has sway within the administration on this stuff. Yeah, and I think you're going to keep seeing fights about this. We saw how there was an attempt by the Trump administration to hit delete on every single state, law that was trying to do even modest protections and safeguards on AI. And of course, that led to an eruption in Congress. This is going to be key.

I think that we now know, and of course, Anthropics release or not released, that the availability of mythos really was put on pause because I think there were big questions, is this going to be able to get through the cyber. security of almost every major utility bank, is it going to create the type of chaos that is simply not worth it? We are talking about certain types of technologies that maybe can get past the biggest cyber defenses we've seen. And so, Crystal, I think they may know that any type of regulatory intervention, if that leads to any pullback in stock market valuations, other dominoes may fall. Now, I don't agree with how they're doing it, but maybe that is how they are justifying that the stock market is the only thing keeping this

economy going. Well, unfortunately, I wish I could say Dodd-Frank was making me feel safer right now. You're, of course, out of the CFPB. Sadly, former Senator Barney Frank passed away this week, But I wish I could say that the legacy of Dodd-Frank were that we had more protections right now. I guess my last question, I don't know if anybody else has something, but it's just why are we still looking at this problem even after we were putting in safeguards, what, 10 plus years ago, 15 years ago? Yeah, I think this is part of the unresolved issues from 2008, a true sense of no one being held accountable, a true sense that the core issues of who is pulling the strings

is still the same, and that in fact now together with others have even more power and control over the economy, that is really, I think, what is fundamental and until some of that almost monopolistic control over the system is until that grip is loosened, people are still going to have really deep suspicions about whether there is any rule of law

when it comes to our economy. We saw it in 2008, we saw it in opioids, we saw it over and over again. And I think that is really where there's a jump ball, you know, for political leaders to really seize the moment right now when there is so much anxiety about the future of the economy. Well, thank you so much for Tamara Hootropra's incoming secretary of business and consumer in California. We really appreciate you helping us make sense of all of this as Kevin Warsh is signed in,

sworn in, I should say, today, much appreciated. Thanks so much. So last little segment here that we got before we pitched to Ryan's interview that he recorded yesterday. I'm going full conspiracy theorist on this. I fully bought into the plot. I don't know what the plot is, but I'm going to tee this up and show you guys what came across my Twitter feed yesterday.

I ended up posting about it and it was like my most viral tweet that I've had in probably a couple of years. It got like 200,000 likes on it. But here we have a allegedly retired vice admiral Robert Hayward appearing on Fox News. I'm going to play this clip here for you guys. I want you to focus on the bottom here, where you can see what looks to be somewhat of a disconnect,

a sharp, jagged line at his neck that, in my opinion, at least, when I'm looking at this slowly, zoomed in here, it looks like it's completely disconnected from whatever's underneath what could be, allegedly, hypothetically, a full-on sophisticated face mask that he's wearing on Fox News. face and neck face and neck mask I think you're out to lunch on this I think that's just a shadow nothing to see here

I think it's just a shadow like have you ever been in a studio and seen studio lighting it can change your face a lot what possible justification could you have for owning that yeah what is going on

I don't want to know I don't know what you're talking about this is just my face that was smooth crystal that was smooth Oh, my God. I was on a different screen. I came back, didn't even see that.

Ryan, what do you have there? Do you have something, Ryan? This is my mask. That's your mask there? That one's hyper-realistic there. So, anyways, so this set off like a massive firestorm. I had people debating me on this.

I had people trying to gaslight me. Here was one of the pictures that somebody drew. They said, oh, look, you just don't understand. how studio lighting works. Oh, I like this diagram. Coming from the top and then there's a light coming from the side. And this red part down here is allegedly where the mask disconnect is happening. I think that I have a better theory, which is given the content of what he was talking about in that clip.

He was like pushing for war, right? praising Donald Trump's handling of Iran saying patriots are fully in control. We just maybe got a bomb him one more time and everything will be fine. And so my alternative theory to the other ones that people have been trying to explain this with is this. Who's underneath that mass? It is Benjamin Netanyahu. This is the only reasonable conclusion that I think we could come to in this moment. I genuinely, I mean, I've tried to look back at it.

I tried to zoom in. I did cross comparisons. Maybe I can put this one up, a comparison of him making an appearance on Fox News at a different time. and I just like, I can't get around it. There's nothing in my mind that tells me that this looks the same. Like, okay, maybe to some extent there's a lighting difference, but like the details on the neck, you know, versus the details on the neck in this one,

the way that he was talking, wearing the same outfit. Well, I think it's a little bit different. Maybe it is the same exact outfit. But it looks like there's a T-shirt on, a black T-shirt on, under the masked outfit. He's a lot shinier. He's a lot smoother. the face, the head shapes are set back.

The eyes are set back. I'm telling you guys, I'm telling you. I have no other... What would be the point of wearing a mask to look exactly like yourself? No, the idea, Ryan, is that he's been swapped out because maybe he wasn't towing the line. They wanted him to tow anymore.

So now they have brought in this masked impersonator, I don't know. They really needed this guy. Like, they can't bring on some other guys. to just parrot the exact same talking points. I don't know. That's weird as hell. That's where it loses me. I have no explanation as to what would have motivated a fake, sophisticated mask to be worn in this context.

Who's this guy? By the way. He's an allegedly retired former vice admiral. Allegedly, if you believe the mainstream media. If you believe the fake news media. To be clear, there is nothing in that video to suggest. it is an accident of the lighting. There is something weird going on.

I have no idea if it's a mask, but there's something weird going on. And, Mack, I applaud your persistence. I'm doubling. I'm tripling down. I'm not backing down for my position. There's got to be the lighting. Or it's been, yeah, I don't know.

Ryan's been bought off. It's definitely one of those two things. Those are the only explanations. All right. Well, that's all that I got on this. I got no other explanations. Well, Mack, you pointed out, at least they've upgraded from, what was it their like Antifa Super Soldier that they used in multiple, who was also like a Mexican gang leader in a different segment? You got that one? I don't know how you doubt this, Crystal, but here we have on the bottom, Ramon Mundo Mendoza, Mexican Mafia Encyclopedia author. And then on the top, we have a former Antifa member. And clearly, clearly different guys here giving a, you know, sophisticated testimony on both of these subjects. Should Lyle come back on?

Maybe Lyle was? We may need to get Lyle back on for another appearance to evaluate the new masked masked man allegations. I preferred Crystal with the dog mask or whatever that was. Yeah, I don't know what that was. See if I can get in touch. This mask never fails to amuse. It is a great math. There you go.

Yeah. And it's really realistic. It's a poodle. It's a poodle. Kids Halloween from, I don't know, like four years ago has really come in handy here. That's an intense mask. It's a lot. You could be somebody's like sleep paralysis demon with that.

All right. Well, that's all that we got on this one. I don't know. You guys let us know in the comments what the hell's going on here. Yep. And Ryan, you want to pitch to your interview here with Dari Elisa? Yes. One major piece of news, the U.S. immigration service just announced that if you're applying for a green card, you have to first leave the country, which is a

radical and fundamental change in our immigration policy. Completely. It seems almost intended to basically block the ability of anybody to get a green card. Wow, that's crazy. That's a lot of people who get green cards. I mean, a lot of that is, you know, people have married American citizens. And so that has a huge impact on, you know, obviously immigrants who want to be on the pathway to citizenship, but also to constraining the choices of Americans who, you know, fall in love,

want to get married and want their, you know, spouse to be able to reside here with them and be citizens and participate in civic life. Right. And there's always, there's been this talking point that, oh, you know, we want you to do it the right way, get in line, follow the rules. And we do support legal immigration. This is just absolutely trying to blow up the rules and make legal immigration impossible. It's just anti-immigration, period. I was going to say we should also mention We tease at the top of the Hunter Biden, Candace Owens interview. He does claim, I'll give you the, I'll just say the timestamp. So if you're curious, you can go into it.

It really starts around the one hour, 10 minute mark. One hour, 16 minute mark, he claims that there was an Israeli plot to kind of take him and his dad down. He claims that his dad was never part of the Epstein class, which was probably roughly true for like maybe the first 10 years of his career or something like that. But obviously changed any time you're going to be the Senate, senator from from Delaware. aware. But he mentioned... Not a part of the Epstein class, just supporting Israel's genocidal activities for the love of the game. But Crystal, Israel actually was so mad at Joe Biden for being a maverick, according to Hunter Biden. He was really under threat. So anyway, if people are interested... Barack Ravid said that it told me the same thing, so... Yes, I heard that from Barack. So go start

around the... If you're curious of that part, start around the 110 mark of their conversation. But anyway, so yes, yesterday I interviewed Daria Liza Avila Chavallier, who's a community organizer in Harlem, who's running against Adriano S. Espayat, the kind of longtime Harlem machine politician who replaced Charlie Rangel. And she does not yet have the backing of Mayor of Zornam Dani. She's hoping to get it. But apparently, Hassan Piker is going to head out there. So the Piker bump is headed to her campaign pretty soon. And if she has any luck, Third Way will come in and condemn him and her and that she'll get the same result then that El Cyan and Chris Rab got when Third Way came after him and them.

Hassan really is the Dem Tea Party's Glenn Beck. That's right. He needs a chalkboard. He needs a chalkboard. All right, joining us today discussed her congressional race in a Harlem district against incumbent Adrian Espayat

is Darya Elisa Chevalier, a community organizer, union member, and challenging an incumbent in New York City. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me. All right, so I wanted to actually start

by getting you to respond some pretty interesting comments from Fran Lievitz about the kind of tax policy and tax conversation that is rocking New York City, I think, in actually a good way, because I think they need to be a little bit uncomfortable over there. Some of the folks there do. So let me play Liebowitz and then get your take here.

Every time someone suggests this, they say, I'm moving, go. You know, they add nothing to New York. You know, in the olden days, in the 19th century, those robber barons, they employed people at least. Okay? They employed thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. All this money magic, employees no one. It is no product.

It has no, goodbye, go. We're moving to Florida. Go. We don't need you. I mean, I know that guy, I mean, I don't know him, but I think you're talking about a guy named Ken Griffin, right? He has a $103 million apartment. First of all, what does it even mean?

How can an apartment be $103 million? And when you have apartments that cost that much, it makes every apartment more expensive. So the $103 million apartment in the 57th Street makes the studio apartment in the Bronx more expensive than his street. be. So I think it's a very good idea. Yeah, so Mayor Baumdani famously put Ken Griffin in his ad about this pieter tax where, you know, if you don't live in your apartment, and it's worth X amount of dollars, you don't have to pay a little tiny portion extra. Curious for, you know, how it's playing in Harlem and, you know, like, what did you think of kind of Fran's analysis there?

Yeah, I mean, I think she's right. Ad always says New York is New York, and to mean that, you know, folks don't stay in New York because they, you know, pay lower taxes. They come to New York because they love the city. And so people, you know, I think it's a bluff, right? They're asking us to call them on their bluff. And we should tax them. We should, you know, show that, you know, when folks who make this amount of wealth are taxed, we can actually use those resources to reinvest in our community and make our communities thrive. and it's going to benefit everybody. You know, the fact that we are, you know, defunding our schools, that we're defunding our public sector, that has an impact on every single person in this community. And we are not giving our communities to opportunities for small businesses to thrive, right?

When we have these corporations that, to France Point, aren't actually even employing the New Yorkers that live here and who need, you know, who need jobs to be. able to pay the rent that continues to rise, to be able to pay the groceries that costs are rising for. And so, you know, I think so many of my friends, so many of my family and my neighbors are moving away because these costs are just unbearable. And the fact that our public sector on top of that is being stripped of the resources that it needs to be able to function, it is a recipe for disaster. And so, you know, Harlem has a, you know, has a, you know,

of history of having members of Congress who are there forever. You know, there was the legendary 20th century Congress on Adam Clayton, Powell Jr. You had Charlie Rangel, who, you know, I had the privilege to cover when he was in Congress, and I say privileged because he was, you know, larger than life kind of character. Adrian Espiot has seemed, he seems more in line with life, not exactly a larger than life figure. But I'm curious kind of how the kind of Harlem establishment has evolved over the years and whether you think that it has kind of weakened to a position where a challenge like this, which in the past would have kind of been unthinkable, is actually possible.

Yeah, I mean, I would, well, first of all, I think the fact that we are dealing with a different machine right now and in the seat. We're dealing with what Adriano Espayaaiaa calls his squadriano. It's one that is much weaker than folks assume. I think there is a lot of momentum on the ground, a lot of hunger for something very different. And to be clear, this district covers Harlem, Washington Heights, inward parts of the West Bronx,

including Kingsbridge and Bedford Park. And so, you know, this is a community that has been represented over the last nine years by someone who has not shown up for various parts of this community, including Harlem, including East Harlem, and Barrio, including parts of the Bronx, and, you know, other parts of the district. And so, you know, for me, as somebody who has been organizing here for my entire adult life, who has tried to reach out to his office, to support on the issues that matter to people here. I've felt that absence. I've felt the lack of leadership on the issues that really matter to folks here. And that's why I'm running, because, you know, when folks say, okay, well, he's the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on these things,

my experience has been that the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been absent in our community. My experience has been that he has repeatedly funded ICE, repeatedly voted to send arms to Israel and not invested in our communities. My experience is that when my friend's, my friend was kidnapped off the streets of this district by ICE, you know, he turned our friends and his family away. And so what this district deserves and needs is someone who understands the issues that are affecting every single one of our neighbors and is actually willing to fight. This is an issue of a lack of leadership, a lack of vision for what our district. needs and deserves and a willingness to fight for that vision.

And so you've been endorsed by Justice Democrats, which is fresh off their victory in Philadelphia with the election of Democratic Socialist Chris, Chris Rab. Has that, have you sensed that producing any momentum since then? Like, are you hearing from more groups who are like, you know what? you know, maybe this is like a ripe, right moment here. Yeah, I mean, I've made the argument from the moment we launched this campaign that this is an opportunity for the left to build the coalition necessary to take on right-wing corporations and packs, right, that have been having an outsized influence on our politics.

This is an opportunity for the left to really push back on a politic that has really done a number on our democracy and to actually take our democracy back for the working people of this country. We know that this is a race that we can win if we get voters out. And so that's been our goal is to make sure that we are telling folks that there is a primary on June 23rd and getting them to come out to the polls because for too long, we've had leadership that is more than happy to allow people to stay home on election day. instead of engaging people to come out and be part of their electoral process and part of their government, you know, we have decided that we're going to run a completely different campaign

and make sure that we are building the coalition necessary so that we can actually engage voters and the people of this district in their government, not just on election day, but beyond that, so that we can have those relationships, that coalition once in office to actually make sure that we're governing for and with our community. And Democratic Socialists of America, of course, that's also endorsed your campaign and was, you know, behind the campaign of Mayor Mamdani. You know, he famously dissuaded a primary challenge against Hakeem Jeffries. Has he, has he dissuaded you at all from running? And do you think that it's possible that he may actually kind of intervene and endorse here against an incumbent? Because, you know, they're very difficult kind of coalitional and, and, and, you know, and, you know,

delegation politics at play here. On the other hand, he's trying to build power for a ESA-based kind of working class movement. What are you hearing from the kind of Mamdani orbit? Yeah, I mean, the mayor is a very busy man. He hasn't dissuaded me from running. I think a lot of what we've built our campaign around is actually the momentum that we built last year. I started canvassing in February for him and his campaign. And I spent almost a year hearing out the doors about how hungry people were for a different type of politics, making sure that we are actually delivering

for working class people here in this city. And I'm running for Congress because I understand that it's going to take leadership at all levels of government to be able to actually deliver for all of the working people of New York City. And I'm just deeply grateful to all the members of our coalition to every volunteer, every person that has come out to support our campaign, because it's because of them that we've been able to build the momentum that we have. And, you know,

I'm really excited about what we're building because I think that for so many people, this is an opportunity to show that last year wasn't a fluke, that these politics not only are popular, but that they work, and that we can build government for working class people. And for a lot of people watching, they'd be like, well, maybe not this program, but most programs, they'd say, you know, what's the difference? It's a Democratic district. You know, you're going to vote on most bills similarly to how Adano Espayat. There may be some differences on the edges, but it's not that big of a deal. So what would be the fundamental difference if the district sent you to Washington rather than Espiat? Yeah, you know, I think we're in a really critical point in our country's history. And it matters in November, not only that we send Democrats to Congress, but the type of Democrats that we send to Congress. Do we have Democrats who say they're progressive, but then vote to

send about $8 billion to ICE? Do we have Democrats who are voting to send more arms to Israel as it engages in a genocide? Do we have Democrats who are supporting the privatization of our public schools and expanding charter schools, while, you know, many of our public schools lack air conditioner in their gymnasiums. Do we want a representative who, when constituents go to their office, are told that they can't support them in some of the hardest days of their lives? And I'm an organizer. That has been what I've been doing. My entire adult life is being with people on some of the hardest days of their lives, whether it was helping to get them out of detention or are supporting them through an instance of police brutality or whatever the case,

right? Those are the context that I have been showing up in for my community. And those are also skills that you developed over the course of organizing that we hope to bring to Congress, to halls of power, to make sure that we're organizing inside and outside to actually deliver for our people here. And so, you know, I think if we're serious about winning in November and making sure that we're taking back the House, it matters what kind of Democrats we're electing in the primaries. It matters that we're making sure that they are people who are fighting for working class people across the country. And if you were elected, and Hakeem Jeffries runs for leader, as he said he would, would you support him? Yeah, I mean, I guess we have to,

take it one step at a time, because I'm very focused on my primary right now. And in order for that to even be a question we get to, I have to first win this primary and then also we have to win in November. And again, I think we can get to those questions as a community, right? But we can't do that if we don't come out on June 23rd. So you started door knocking last February. So that means, you know, for the last year and a half almost, you've been talking directly to voters about their political concerns. And I'm curious if you've seen any evolution in what rises to the surface over that time, because obviously a lot has changed since the Trump, well, I guess, you know, the Trump administration has been in power that entire time, but they've really, you know,

executed on their agenda in a much, in a very aggressive way. So I'm curious how, what you've heard about that from people, but just in general, like, what are you hearing from, from regular people about how they're feeling about the state of the city and the country. Yeah, no, I think what we've heard at the doors is more or less consistent with what I was hearing at the doors in February of last year. And that's because, you know, we've had leadership in this position, but across the country that is the very same establishment politics that has gotten us to this moment. where our rents keep rising, where our children are hungry. We have over 100,000 New York City public school kids who are homeless, right?

And we continue to disinvest from our public infrastructure, making the lives of New Yorkers so much harder every single day. And again, it can't just be, elect one person and hope for the best. It needs to be a new wave of representatives on all levels of government. that can actually bring forth the vision of New York City that works for working class people.

What we're seeing at the doors is that people care about housing. That's why we're running for housing for all to make sure that it is affordable and a fixture of this. Affordable housing is a fixture of the city and this country to make sure that we are abolishing ICE and creating pathways to citizenship because in a district with so many immigrant families, we need to be making sure that we're protecting our communities.

And, you know, overall, we're fighting to invest in our babies, because all the things that our children need are the things that make our communities thrive. And one of the things that breaks my heart most is the way that a lot of my friends have moved out of the city because they want kids and they can't afford to have them in the city because our schools are so defunded because, you know, our libraries are struggling. And so making sure that we're actually investing in our kids and expanding the child tax credit and funding schools, public schools from grader to college, all of those things are the things that will really push us to make sure that we have a community here in New York City,

not just people who are isolated workers to the benefit of corporations instead of the benefit of our communities here. And the playgrounds. I'm a big pro-playground guy. How are the playgrounds in your district? Because sometimes you've got a playground, but it's not usable or safe for kids. Equipment's not kept up. There's garbage, whatever.

Or like, how are, you know, what's the situation in the district playground-wise as a parent? That's my, you know, overarching concerns sometimes. In some of the public parks, you know, my read on them is that, you know, there are many that are maintained well, but there are not that many parks per se, right? And so a lot of the playgrounds that exist in this district are actually in NYCHA communities. And NYCHA has been so deeply disinvested from that, you know, many of these buildings are in complete disrepair and just really undignified conditions. And so many of the children in our community, those are the conditions that they have to live in. And the conditions of their playground reflect that. We need to invest in NYCHA, not only because we owe it to the over 500,000 New Yorkers who live there to actually make their homes.

dignified homes, but also because it is, you know, it is one of the largest, this district has one of the largest concentration of public housing units in the country. And that's an opportunity for us to introduce a green new deal for public housing to make sure that we are creating good union jobs for people and preserving the legacy of what nature was supposed to be, which was supposed to be a pathway to the middle class, not a stepping stone into market rate housing, but but a fixture of the city's affordable housing programs. And so, you know, there are so many ways that we could be investing in our kids here in the city. But right now, as it stands, we have representatives who would rather send our tax dollars towards war and ice

instead of reinvesting back in our communities to make sure that we have the resources to lead dignified lives. Well, Darya Lisa, Avila Chavalee. I think we've got to learn more Darya Lisa for Congress.com. Thank you so much for joining us again. The primary is June 23rd. Really appreciate you being here. Thanks so much for having me. Take care.

You got it. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called,

Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick.

tired and sick listen to hey jonas on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast just listen we don't care where you hear it another podcast from some s nl late night comedy guy not quite unhumor me with robert smigle and friends me and hilarious guests from bob odenkirk to david leterman help make you funnier this week my guest s n l's mikey day and head writer streeter sidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter where does your group perform we do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Why are we all so obsessed with romance? On the radio 831 podcast, join us, Sanjana Basker and Tyler McCall, as we unpack all the trending tropes, fuzzy adaptations, book talk drama, and celebrity love stories with hot takes and sharp guests. Each episode digs into what these stories reveal about desire, fantasy, identity, and how we love now. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.