Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/29/24: US Weapons Used In Rafah, Israel Caught Threatening ICC, Dem Freakout Over 2024, Seinfeld Whines To Bari Weiss Over Protests, Argentina Currency Collapse, Trump Floats Assange Pardon

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Ryan and Emily discuss US weapons being used in the deadly Rafah strike, US pier halts aid shipments, Israel caught hacking and threatening ICC prosecutors, US hypocrisy on foreign lobbying, Dems full blown freakout over 2024 polling, Jerry Seinfeld whines to Bari Weiss about Gaza protests, cops flip on Milei as Argentina currency collapses, Trump floats Assange pardon.    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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week

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problem about two seconds before air. Yeah, we don't want people feeling off-balance watching the show. Well, we kind of do. A little bit, that's true. All right, so we're going to get into the fallout from the Rafah massacre, followed by a second Rafah massacre, followed by the White House twisting itself into knots to try to figure out whether or not Israel has launched an invasion, sort of like the kind of dystopian version of angels dancing on a pin,

like how many IDF soldiers and tanks can dance in the center of Rafahian version of angels dancing on a pin, like how many IDF soldiers and tanks can like dance in the center of Rafah before it's an invasion, you know, bring all the philosophers out to try to figure this one out. Meanwhile, Mexico has joined the ICJ case that South Africa has brought. And Algeria is now saying that it's going to bring the ICC case before the Security Council. They're circulating a petition. They're circulating a resolution, which means that that could be voted on in the next five or ten days. We're going to talk about all the politics around that. We've got Democrats absolutely freaking out, finally waking up and discovering that their nominee is Joe Biden.

Yes. If they watched CounterPoints or Breaking Points regularly, we could have told them that was going to be your nominee. Like it was headed that direction. Yes. He's not popular. No, we knew that. But apparently this is news to them and it's causing a full blown panic in Washington.

The real news to them is that the economy is actually not great. That's what they're learning. People are not terribly happy about that. There was a poll showing that people think unemployment is the highest in like 40 years when actually it's kind of the lowest in 40 years. Very, very weird times we're living in. Meanwhile, Donald Trump about to get convicted, it seems like. Yeah. I mean, jury, we'll talk about this, but the jury is quite literally out today. So a verdict could basically come at any time. Secret services like scoping out the jail. Yeah. That's a CBS News report we can get into.

They buried that way down at the bottom of their story. If you're seeing 2024 on the screen, in addition to Biden, also Robert De Niro is out in the streets talking about how great New York is and how Donald Trump wants to destroy New York. We've got some really interesting footage from Manhattan yesterday. Jerry and Barry, not a new band. Actually, Jerry Seinfeld and Barry Wise sat down for an interview. Harvard, at the same time, came out with this idea that they're now going to adhere to institutional neutrality. So we have some news on the campus front. And Ryan's friend, Javier Mille, a little plunge in the peso down in Argentina. So we'll talk about that. Yeah, and then Donald Trump, some new comments about whether or not he's going to pardon Assange.

And if you're looking at that little ICC banner under there, under that we're also, I forget where we're going to talk about this. We're also going to talk about the new Georgia law that was passed to basically make foreign NGOs register as foreign agents, which has the State Department absolutely freaking out, and which has a lot of interesting implications for the Russia-Ukraine war and the kind of geopolitics around that region. And one thing I want to add just before we get into the news of the day out of Israel, 20 deaths, actually 25 as of a few hours ago, 25 tornado deaths just across Memorial Day weekend from tornadoes that ripped through seven states. So a lot of international news, a lot of domestic news. It's an election year. But my goodness, that's a horrible situation in so many communities throughout what some folks would consider flyover country.

It's just tough. Yeah, indeed. Meanwhile, we can put up a zero here. News is emerging that it was actually Boeing that produced the bomb that created the fire. The GBU-39. That led to dozens of Palestinians being incinerated in what they had expected to be a safe zone. We can put up A1 here, the reverberations of this kind of continue throughout the world, even as Netanyahu accepted responsibility, said it was a quote, tragic mistake, I think was his framing.

Israel pledged it's going to investigate itself. There were renewed strikes on the same area. And actually, I think just reading from the first paragraph of this Associated Press article that we just put up gives you a sense of how the world is covering this and thinking about this at the moment. They write, Israeli shelling and airstrikes killed at least 37 people, most of them sheltering in tents outside the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight and on Tuesday, pummeling the same area where strikes triggered a deadly fire days earlier in a camp for displaced Palestinians, according to witnesses, emergency workers, and hospital officials. Hard to think of a more devastating paragraph that a neutral news organization like the Associated Press could put together about anything going on in the world. People getting incinerated

in tents just days after they were incinerated. Other people were incinerated in tents. And so this has left the State Department and the White House to scramble for answers. Let's take a look at how Matt Miller over the State Department handled this yesterday. When it comes to the continuation of Israel using precision-guided munitions in Rafah, at this point, the U.S. still supports that. We have made no change to our policy. So just, is it a yes or no? We made no change to our policy. We have made clear that if there was a full-scale military operation, there would be some change. But as of yet, it's not a change. We do support, as we always have, their ability to go after legitimate Hamas terrorists. And that, of course,

includes using American-provided weapons. But we expect them to do so in a way that minimizes civilian harm. And then just the last question. With regard to the reports of the Israeli tanks that are in central Rafah right now, I know you said you haven't verified those reports. Has the U.S. asked Israel about those reports and an explanation for why those tanks might be in central Rafah? So we are in constant dialogue with them about their military operations and potential military operations in Rafah. I'm not going to get into any specific conversations, but we are constantly interrogating them about what they're doing and what they're planning.

So it's safe to say you've interrogated them. It's not going to go beyond that. The IDF response, meanwhile, or I don't even know if this was the IDF or some kind of clowns associated with them, was to release what they said was audio of two Gazans talking in Raf. If we can put this up on the screen. People immediately flagged a bunch of problems with this. A, they tried this exact thing months ago, and it was very quickly called out to be a fake conversation. Some of it just sounds fake in the way that people are so clearly and explicitly identifying themselves and exonerating the IDF. But also, if you notice, any audio or any phone calls you hear

from Gaza since, actually before October 7th, but accelerated since then, you hear drone footage. I mean, you hear drones in the background. It is just the ever-present sound of Gaza now. Somehow, the Israelis who were doing a lot of surveillance forgot to add in the drone Sound in the background to add a little bit of kind of authenticity to that clip basically what the clip was trying to say is that It was a it was a Jeep that was filled with explosives that was owned by Hamas And that's why that's why it blew up that was one of multiple different theories that has that have one of multiple different theories that have been thrown around since then. And you can put up a—actually, we'll move to that in a second. Emily, what's your thought on the kind of Israeli response so far?

Well, I think it's interesting that Netanyahu came out and said that this was, quote, a tragic mistake, because I think that really is reflective of how much pressure he understands that he's under now. Because their argument is essentially that they have the best civilian to military ratio of any modern army. of that is, yeah, a lot of civilians are dying, but it's at a rate that is in some way as just as can possibly be done. And to an extent, there's been a sort of owning, right? An owning up to, and just sort of coldly owning up to the ratio, the deaths of civilians. And at this point, now that Netanyahu is caught between a rock and a hard place with the Biden administration, I do think it's interesting that he came out and said that this was a tragic mistake. When we're going to get to this in just a minute, it doesn't look like, if this was just a mistake, it is reflective of deep incompetence and I think a lack of, let's say a lack of judgment, discernment as to what was possibly going to happen in that case.

And also just truly, I cannot imagine, let me just put it this way. I don't even care that, you know, they say they were trying to hit a different part of this area. It was obviously endangering the lives of civilians. I mean, it was so obviously endangering the lives of civilians and many civilians and people, by the way, this makes it harder down the road for Israel to do evacuations of civilians because they don't trust it. They're in areas that they're supposed to be safe. So why leave their homes and their families if the place that they're trekking to is going to be unsafe if they're just gonna get killed in Another part of Gaza their children are just going to get killed in another part of Gaza

so, I mean I think Netanyahu is trying to balance all of the international pressures here, but this is such a Blatant if it's a mistake that in and of itself is Reflective of something horrible if we even take the right their word of that, you, and it didn't seem like it led to much reflection because we can put up A5 here. Al Jazeera, by the way, has been banned in Israel. And so, their reporters have been yanked. There was that incident where they even took an AP camera from near Gaza because Al Jazeera had it and they gave it back because Al Jazeera had it, and then they gave it back because Al Jazeera had a, you know, was using AP as a wire service. But so instead they have Hind Qadri, who's a freelance journalist in Gaza. Here she is reporting from one of the areas that is supposed to be a designated

safe zone. To Emily's point, let's play this interview with Hind. It went back just right now to the last leaflet that Israelis dropped on Rafah and the place that was targeted right now was block 2360. In this leaflet, the Israeli forces mentioned that they're calling people to evacuate to all the areas, the humanitarian areas, to Deir el-Balah, Khan Yunis, and Al-Mawasi area. And one of these areas that was mentioned is Block 2360, which has been targeted right now. So yes, this place was designated as safe. This place was designated as a humanitarian area, according to the last leaflet that was dropped by the Israeli forces on people in Rafah. And the other key point, if we can put up A6 here, is that no matter what you think about

which leaflets, which ones are included in the safe zone, which aren't, as you're launching these missiles, as you're dropping these bombs, a drone is able to see what's below. And here's some images of what you see below. You can tell that you're dropping them basically onto a tent city. Yes, obviously. Just like setting all the complications aside. So if you're listening to this, there's a map up on the screen where you see the just complete proximity to what Israel says it was targeting to red tents and to the area that ended up being hit. And it is, I mean, words can't do justice. It's just so close. You should look up the map because this is by their own sort of admission. This is their own explanation for what happened. And they say that in the,

this was their words, the precision attack in Northwest Rafah, they killed the chief of staff of Hamas. They killed a senior Hamas official, two deaths. That's according to the IDF. Now, I think if the ultimate goal is eliminating Hamas, even this precision strike apparently that killed two Hamas officials, according to the IDF again, when people are seeing everything else on their screens and they see and they think through the likelihood of Hamas being fully eliminated, it doesn't feel right. The calculations don't feel right to people. Right. And it's fine to criticize Hamas for having its officials within civilian populations. Absolutely. That's great. But that is the case. It's the reality. All guerrilla armies from the American Revolutionary Army up until the Viet Cong through Hamas,

that's what they do. The question is, what does their their adversary do and does the adversary respect international? Humanitarian law or laws of war if you have a couple of Hamas figures Surrounded by civilians and tents that doesn't that two wrongs don't make a right doesn't mean you drop a bomb and blow up all the tents There and incinerate people within them. Well, especially when the ultimate goal of eliminating Hamas, right? That is not an attainable goal. Right, right. Exactly. Set aside the morality of it. Getting rid of two senior officials who can be replaced by other mid-level officials. And will. And then creating enormous global backlash against yourself and leading to the recruitment of, you can only, I would imagine that Hamas has more people trying to enlist, you know, from Gaza than it has the

capacity to kind of arm and structure into an organization at this point. Like you could kill, they start out with 30,000, they could kill all 30,000. But if you're living through that, you're probably just going to be like, sign me up. Why not? I think there's a really serious argument that none of this is making Israeli safer in the long run.

That's the counter-terror argument that people like David Petraeus always made, that you can't kind of kill your way out of it. The old, every terrorist you kill creates two or three.

Do we take that seriously or not? No. And so Nikki Haley certainly doesn't. One of the more psychotic things that I've seen in this war, and it's not unique to this one, but it does, you know, social media puts it in our face a lot more, is this phenomenon of tourists going over to Israel and signing, putting messages on bombs. So Nikki Haley, boasting here, she writes, finish them. Like she's signing a yearbook. She writes, America, hearts, Israel. Yes.

Always Nikki Haley. It is like a yearbook. That's exactly what it looks like in her loopy cursive. America, hearts, Israel, always Nikki H Haley finished them. You know, Ryan, she should have signed the GBU 39, the Boeing. It's from South Carolina, right? I mean, Boeing's main headquarters is in her, like she was on the board, right? She was on the board of Boeing until she ran for president. And that GBU 39 is what was used, as we mentioned earlier. The element is A0, if we put it back up in the screen. That's the one that was used by Israel

in the tent city attack in Rafah, as Jordan points out here. So really, Nikki Haley should have been signing that old GBU-39. Yes. And Nikki Haley saw her wealth explode after being governor of South Carolina, largely by joining Boeing and using her political power to make sure that they can sell more weapons to the United States, which weapons that were then sent to Israel, weapons that were then dropped on this Rafah tent encampment that then incinerated a lot of women and children while she was there signing other bombs. I bet she didn't anticipate that, by the way. I tried to pin down the exact timing.

It's hard to know when the picture was actually taken because when it was posted and taken is different. I actually did try to chase down the bottom of when that was happening. It was pretty difficult to know for sure what the timing was on that. But certainly, I mean, it reminds me actually of a lot of what happened during the Cold War where my fellow conservatives were sort of doing something very similar and reveling in the brazenness of, you know, like the Contras, a good example of the Contras. And, you know, because they ultimately believed this was a just war, that this was Manichean, good versus evil. And I actually respect the position of completely owning it and being honest. And so to some extent, respect to you, Nikki Haley, for putting it all on display, all on display. Kids are being burned in a tent camp. And I mean, it's clarity, if anything. Yeah, politically. It's not like she's actually putting herself at risk.

But it's, yes. But yes, absolutely. But yeah, but she's actually like totally aware of the scene on the international stage, aware of all the social media images of children, of women, of the just utter destruction. And she's saying, I don't give an F, basically. Finish them. 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,

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we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.

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

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

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, 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. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it.

I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty.

You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. apparently doesn't give much of an F about building things. If you want a metaphor for the entire policy,

you can put this element up from CNN. The US pier constructed off Gaza has broken apart. Images that were floating around the internet, Halal Flow had one of it just sinking. And people filming it just like kind of laughing at, oh my God, like just the dark comedy of it all. Looks like Mac was saying an x-ray of a broken pinky there. I was told by sources there that A, now the US military is contracting tugboats at massive expense to try to fix a bunch of this. There were workers stranded on the beach, basically, with not even sleeping bags. I mean, all suffering is relative, but workers who signed up to build this pier did not sign up to sleep overnight in Gaza on the beach with no tent, no sleeping bag, no real certainty of what was going to happen next because there's

this huge fear among American policymakers that they can't ever have an American soldier boot on the ground. So they have to try to figure out how they're going to not build this or build this without that potentially happening. So the workers end up taking the lumps. And the $320 million, but that's only what's been spent so far. Now fixing this. Two months, by the way. People remember he kind of caught the Pentagon off guard by announcing this very politically in his State of the Union speech. So that's March. It's operational by, I think the date was May 17th. So $320 million. $320 million for 1,000 metric tons of aid that got into Gaza. Now, whether that was actually distributed is another question.

No evidence has even been distributed. That's right. But Sabrina Singh, yes, said 1,000 metric tons. That's our government's own explanation for it. That's their own number for how much was brought in in a two-month $320 million project that saw people being fired at, that broke apart, that had just the most embarrassing saga. It's the most embarrassing life arc and was damaged by rough seas, as the New York Times put in a headline this morning. Right. They claim rough seas. What I was told is that it was basically high tide. Like, it's not even, like, there were

no real rough seas. Like there are rough seas in the Mediterranean. Who could have seen it coming? But apparently this was just basically high tide. It was just the high tide. Yeah. There's some very gentle spring breezes, which it just couldn't, couldn't stand up. So, and all of this, just because Israel wouldn't let in sufficient amounts of aid through just over land. Like, why are we building up here? Aren't there, isn't it connected by land to Israel and Egypt? Like, we could just move aid in through trucks. Yes, and aren't you still going to have a distribution problem when the aid gets to the land?

And the other idiotic thing was, they're like, oh, well, they won't let aid in through these choke points here. So we'll build a we'll build a pier over here and then that will move things faster. Instead, the IDF sent all of its inspectors over to Cyprus and just blocked everything at Cyprus. So it couldn't even get on the ships and get over to the pier. Mm-hmm. It's like your problem was not a lack of entry points into Gaza. It was a $320 million public relations effort. Right. Well, a lot of people thought it was like this was the beginning of like the U.S. occupation of Gaza. So I guess at least the upside is no. Yeah, that's true. You can't even

get it to like keep floating. In fairness, I mean, there were people fired on. And had someone gotten, had an American, whether a contractor or troops, gotten actually severely hurt, killed, which easily could have happened, easily could have happened. So to some extent, it's just luck, sheer dumb luck, even in this ridiculous arc of the pier, that it didn't become something bigger. Yeah. And we did want to take a minute to talk about this incredible story over at Plus 972 Magazine that they wrote in coordination with Israeli news organization Local Call and The Guardian, if we can put up this first element of the B block here. Surveillance and interference, Israel's covert war on the ICC exposed.

Just incredible reporting here, showing the way that the Israeli government has done exactly that, spent the last 10 years basically surveilling top prosecutors at the ICC, monitoring their communications, following whoever it is that they're talking with, and also directly threatening them and their families in the most kind of over-the-top mob-like kind of way. Most odd tracking people, yeah. Well, Ryan, another part of this story, it reminds me what we talked about earlier in the show about this sort of difficult position from a PR standpoint. And I don't want to talk about this just as PR. I'm explaining PR to get to the moral question. If you're Netanyahu, if you're sort of hawks or your coalition depends on hawks in the Israeli government,

you have a hard time not just owning that ultimately you have contempt for this concept of international law. And I do think to some extent it has been weaponized against Israel by partisans, anti-Israel partisans over the years. And that's built up this resentment and content towards the concept itself, which was obviously developed after World War II. Well, not just developed after World War II, but codified in a lot of ways after World War II. And I think ultimately what this story shows is that this is where they are. Yeah. And it's just hard to be morally, the answer to this is just to say, we don't respect internationalists. It's like the Biden administration suddenly respecting the ICC on Ukraine. But well, we're not a party to it.

When it comes to Israel, nobody has a consistent position on international law, except perhaps Israel under the surface. Right. Yes, indeed. It's quite clear. I just would encourage people to go read that story. Great, great piece of great piece of journalism. And relatedly, Algeria is now circulating a resolution, if we can put up this this next element, basically trying to push the Security Council to enforce the ICJ's most recent order, decides that Israel, quote, shall immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in Rafah, demands an immediate ceasefire, demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relations to all persons they detain. If we have the Algerian ambassador to the United Nations here,

grabbed by some reporters yesterday if we put up B3. The resolution we hear that has been circulated that might happen tomorrow. For sure. For sure. Algeria will circulate

this afternoon draft resolution on Rafa. And what's it going to say? What's the moving? What do you want? A short text, a decisive text to stop the killing in Rafa. Will you invoke the ICJ decision? For sure. Short, decisive text will invoke the ICJ decision? Short, decisive texts will invoke the ICJ decision.

Not only did Mexico join in South Africa's case, you had France, a member of the Security Council, come out and support this. Here's the French. Always love to hear from the French. There is no safe zone for Palestinian civilians in Rafah. President Macron has expressed his indignation at the Israeli strikes, which have claimed many victims among the displaced persons in Rafah yesterday.

Another strike against a camp killed civilians this morning as well. These Israeli operations must stop immediately as requested by the International Court of Justice. As Emily was pointing out, it's impressive to kind of reunite Algeria and France in a question of international law and order. Okay, well done. That's a good point, actually. I asked Trita Parsi for a sense of his timeline on this, and he thinks there could be a vote before the Security Council in five to ten days. The vote will obviously be overwhelming in favor, but the United States has a veto. And so, will the US veto it?

Certainly. They didn't veto the last thing, because the calculation last time was that it's a question of what's more embarrassing. On the one hand, vetoing something the entire world wants to happen. On the other hand, letting something go through over their kind of objections and then just slow walking it, not letting anything actually happen. And further showing that the UN doesn't actually have much enforcement mechanism. Unless somebody like France is going to take it upon themselves to go enforce it. Like, you know, as Andrew Jackson said about the Supreme Court, you know, they made their decision. Now let them enforce it. I also think the, so like all eyes on RAFA has been going viral this week.

I think there are different pressures just because of the incursion into RAFA that are going to weigh on Biden. But that's also pressures from people who are digging their heels in and continue, like Nikki Haley going over there and signing shells, finish them, referring to Hamas. That's, I mean, I think it's a, you're right, I shouldn't have been so quick to say that they'll almost certainly veto it. We'll have to see what Biden decides. I mean, certainly that's the smart money that they would veto it for sure. All of this is happening while there are renewed peace negotiations underway or negotiations towards some type of a ceasefire. And so we talked last week about Egypt getting blamed for scuttling them.

We've got kind of an update on that. But you can put up this Middle East Eye article. So basically, on Friday, Burns, CIA Director Burns, met with Qatar and Israel to try to hash out some terms. Then on Monday, Israel submitted what it said was its counteroffer back to Hamas, saying that they would be flexible on the number of hostages that they would take in the first phase, and they would be more willing to entertain Hamas's idea of what Hamas is calling a sustainable calm because Israel doesn't want to agree to a permanent ceasefire. And Hamas is saying they'll only talk if there is something

close to a permanent ceasefire. Netanyahu's advisors have been telling him, look, because Netanyahu says, I don't want to agree to anything that ends the war. And they keep telling him, look, Hamas is going to do something. They'll shoot off a rocket or something. They'll give you a pretense to start the war again. Just take the pause, take the hostages that you can while the deal is on the table. Netanyahu is not willing to go for that. Because Hamas is also demanding that there be some type of plan for the day after. They have been sending signals. They understand it's not going to be Hamas that's going to be in control at the very end of this. But they also don't want to be the Palestinian Authority. So how are you going to organize this? And Hamas is saying they want

Israel out of Rafah and off the Rafah crossing and the previous administration, Hamas, for now to be put back in charge of the Rafah crossing and they've said as that headline said they're not negotiating until Israel ends its Slaughter in Gaza and withdraws its tanks and stops bombing like that. That's that's the precondition for negotiations to get going because and Analysts are saying well because of the way that Israel is continuing to draw so much global condemnation for its actions that that Hamas is willing to let Israel continue down this path which is just hurt which is hurting them hurting Palestinian civilians

but also hurting Israel on the global stage when in, in the peace process. If there's to be a resolution, that's in the interest of the safety of Israelis. You know, we talked about this earlier, but that's what really, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what Israel's interests are to its own civilians and their safety. And so it doesn't, I mean, I'm pretty skeptical that the way this war is prosecuted

is ultimately even in the interest of the Israeli, the safety of Israeli citizens. And the Middle East side has some good sources inside the Middle East, as you can imagine. And they follow up on this reporting. If you didn't watch the show last week, what we're reporting on is the way that Hamas had accepted this deal, which Israel then said, no, Hamas changed the terms of the deal. So we don't accept Hamas's acceptance of the deal. There was reporting that the US had signed off on what Hamas had agreed to, that Hamas believed that it was signing off on the actual offer. That was followed by blaming an

individual member of Egyptian intelligence that they even named in CNN as responsible for tweaking the deal and blowing the whole thing up. According to the new reporting, that was just, and as we suggested last week, that that was just pure scapegoating right uh that everybody had actually signed off on it uh but then israel did not accept the kind of acceptance in response um as middle east i writes the source added that egypt was scapegoated for a breakdown of talks even though the americans had quote agreed to the two amendments by hamas and then because they were unable to oblige nanyahu they they accused Egypt. So it's not that Israel had signed off on the two tweaks that Hamas made, it's that the U.S. did. And Hamas understandably believes that if the U.S. is good with it, the U.S. can get Israel to go along with

it. And it is a shameful dereliction of leadership on the part of Biden that the director of the CIA, William Burns, can get to a peace deal with Hamas that he believes is acceptable to the United States, that is acceptable to the United States, and they can't get Israel, a country of like seven million people just dependent on American weapons, to accept the peace deal? Yeah. What are you doing if you can't do that? Yeah. What else could they be doing poorly is a great question. How much worse could they be at this?

Good Lord. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame Thank you. outgoing 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. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable,

showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first Black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice.

These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yesterday's State Department briefing was fascinating. This was their first briefing since the massacre in Rafah. But I want you to notice what they started out with, which is an indication of what they consider to be the thing that they care most about in the moment. I'm going to start with comments on a couple of things before going to your questions.

First of all, as it relates to Georgia, earlier today the Georgian parliament voted to override the Georgian president's veto of an anti-democratic foreign influence bill that fails to conform to European norms, effectively turning the bill into law. The United States condemns this action. In passing this law, the ruling Georgian Dream Party moved the country farther away from the European integration path and ignored the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of the Georgian people, who have taken to the streets for weeks to oppose this law. The Georgian Dream has disregarded the Council of Europe's Venice Commission legal assessment and that of Georgia's closest partners, who made clear their concerns that the law would stigmatize civil society and media and limit fundamental freedoms. The ruling party's actions and anti-Western rhetoric threatened Georgia's democratic trajectory, future economic security, EU membership, and also put the U.S.-Georgia relationship at risk. Last week, Secretary Blinken announced that anyone who undermines democratic

processes or institutions in Georgia, as well as their immediate family members, may be found ineligible for U.S. visas under a newly announced policy precluding travel to the United States. The United States has also launched a comprehensive review of bilateral cooperation between the United States and Georgia. As Secretary Blinken said last week, we will take Georgia Dream's actions into account as we decide our own. The United States continues to stand by the Georgian people as they work for a democratic and Western future. It is unfortunate that Georgia's leaders are choosing to forego the steps needed to advance Georgia in the Western direction that its people want.

And then he says, turning to Gaza. That is the State Department angry. Yeah. And so let's unpack what the heck is going on here. So Georgia Dream is a kind of hard to define political party, which is basically the governing party in Georgia. And they're hard to define because they were built in opposition to the neoliberal party that had been dominant in Georgia before and so because they were kind of a popular front Against a thing that that brought together a bunch of disparate Entities sort of like the way that here on this network. Mm-hmm. We all hate neoliberalism

So imagine we put together a political party that was like me crystal you and Sagar Because we hate the neoliberals and we and we get them out of power Then we've got the problem of we got to govern. Yeah, and there's gonna be some things we disagree on What are we gonna do about the pronoun? Yeah, we agreed that we did not like the Georgia neoliberals but yes now now we got a government so Some of what the Georgia dream has done is really cool, like lots of social welfare stuff, universal health care, also some progressive social stuff, certainly relative to the area. At the same time, they've got some Victor Orban allied elements as well. There's some, you know, some far right elements that are kind of—

You're saying they're pro-women and family. There you go. But they're, yeah, exactly. So they're hostile to, hostile to neoliberalism from the far right. And so it's the power inside that coalition kind of seesaws. So setting that aside, all of those elements are ones that the State Department doesn't like. Separately, they're considered to be friendlier to Russia and relatedly than the neoliberals were. The neoliberals were very lockstep with the EU. It's not as if Georgia Dream is radically pro-Russia. But for instance, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Georgia supported Ukraine. They said, we think this is appalling. But they refused to take part in the sanctions against Russia. They refused to arm Ukraine. And Ukraine kept pushing Georgia to, quote unquote,

open up a second front against Russia, because the neoliberals, when they were running Georgia, lost South Ossetia and some other pieces of Georgia to Russia, if you remember that war 15 years ago or whatever. And the world still says that's Georgian territory, but Russians control it. So the argument was, hey, pick a fight with Russia over on this border over here. Don't they deserve it? They stole your land, fight them. And that will also help Ukraine because now Russia will have to be fighting on multiple fronts. And the Georgia Dream Party was like, no, we're not doing that. Yes, we understand that would help you. We understand that we're mad that Russia did this to us. But we would get absolutely annihilated. And it would destroy

Georgia. So we're not, no, we're not going to do that. That really ticked off the US. That ticked off the EU. They start riling up, you know, protests in the streets. And so then they come forward, this actually breakaway kind of socialist faction of Georgia Dream comes forward with this plan that now the State Department's really angry about, which is saying, look, if you're an NGO or a media organization and you get more than 20% of your money from foreign sources, then you have to register basically as a foreign agent. Georgia legislature says, look, we're just modeling this after FARA, which the U.S. has. We say, no, no, no, you're modeling it after Russia's law, which Russia has genuinely

used to crack down on dissent. And so the response from the State Department, pretty wild, like this, you can say whatever you want about it. They're passing it democratically through their own legislature. A hundred percent, yes. And it's not, unless I'm missing something, it's not a terribly unreasonably, even if it is aimed at cracking down on dissent from some organizations and media outlets that they don't like. It's kind of George's business if they want to do this, isn't it? But you see, Brian, democracy is on the line around the world, which is actually what we're going to talk about in just a minute in the next block.

And it's the Biden administration's line. I forget who posted this recently. It's not a new line, but basically that every time they say democracy, what they really mean, like substitute the word oligarchy, when every time the sort of neoliberal Leadership refers to the need to save democracy just substitute oligarchy and everything They're saying makes way more sense and there's oligarchs everywhere because the Georgia dream is literally a product of an oligarch In Georgia like a flight and one of these kind of flamboyant cult of personality oligarch types

But they which is interesting because it's like this idea that we're going to fight oligarchy with oligarchy, right? So if you want to make the argument that Donald Trump is an oligarch, and then you're just like the party of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and actual oligarchy, if your answer is to say, we are so, America needs to purge oligarchy, we need to fight back against the blah, blah, blah. And your answer is Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Well done. And it was pretty incredible to see them saying that they're going to take, they're basically going to sanction people involved with this, going to strip their visas. After covering Pakistan, where Pakistan just completely changes the numbers of their

election. Right. Like one party wins, the military goes in and literally changes the numbers so that a different party wins. And the State Department, you know, doesn't do anything remotely close to what they're doing here for a piece of legislation being passed through their kind of constitutional normal process as the president under pressure from the EU vetoed it. Then the legislature overrode the veto yesterday. That's, you know, I mean, you don't like that. Go out and, I don't know.

Pour some money into Georgia elections. Get out the vote. People are going to have to register, but. Register and vote if you don't like it. Go vote in the Georgia elections if you like. It's just so weird. By the way, the way Farrow works is such a good, and we're gonna be talking about this kind of on the Friday show, I assume. But it's such an example of American oligarchy and that oligarchs like Tony Podesta just

thought they didn't have to register. Well, they knew they didn't have to register until by some crazy circumstance, Donald Trump, the host of Celebrity Apprentice, gets elected president. Paul Manafort goes to the chopping block, and this drags Tony Podesta into a scandal that ends the Podesta group. He's still lobbying, but really just never registered as a lobbyist on behalf of Ukraine, even though people were talking to CNN at the time being like, he was obviously having these meetings on the Hill as on behalf of Ukraine, even though, you know, there are people who were talking to CNN at the time being like, he was obviously having these meetings on the Hill as a representative of Ukraine, not the shell organization he set up to disguise it.

So even if you have democratically passed legislation like Farah that requires registration, oligarchs will still find a way to poke holes in it. Yeah. And it just feels like a real who do we think we are kind of moment. Yes. I mean, Georgia should just do whatever Georgia holes in it. Yeah. It just feels like a real who do we think we are kind of moment. Yes. I mean, Georgia should just

do whatever Georgia wants to do. Yeah. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies

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

It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be.

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

Listen to Boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of

Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about Joe Biden. Let's talk about 2024, Donald Trump. Actually, just a lot of updates from New York City yesterday, Ryan. There was so much stuff going on in the streets of New York.

So we will start with this. First, it's important, this is C1, this is an article from Politico about how Democrats are in full-blown, quote, freak out over Biden. Now, the subhead of the story is also an interesting part of the scoop. It says, one advisor to major Democratic donors keeps a running list of reasons Biden could lose. Someone pointed an interesting fact out to me yesterday, which is that the debate on June 27th is suspiciously early, meaning, do Democrats want a two-month cushion if Biden absolutely bombs between then and the convention in Chicago in mid-August. I think that's actually an interesting question. There are contingencies, contingency measures that could be put in place,

although they're really, really difficult. And there's no consensus candidate other than like their fantasy of Michelle Obama that they could replace Joe Biden with at this point. Kamala Harris's favorability is not great. I know a lot of people wanted Gretchen Whitmer or maybe even Gavin Newsom. It's unclear if those are answers to the problem because it seems right now, at least, like it would just be a very difficult replacement effort. Although it is possible. There's like some Charlie Kelly math that you can do on a chalkboard to figure it out.

The funny thing is, if they would listen to me, not that they ever would, I could end this problem for them immediately. And with Biden still as president, you make Obama his vice president. People still love Obama. People do love Obama. They absolutely love him. The Constitution says that you can't serve more than 10 years. Yeah. And you cannot be elected more than twice. He is eligible to be elected as vice president. If Biden died, he would be eligible to elevate from vice president to president. Go ahead, go Google the Constitution, read it yourself. Google the Constitution. It's right in there. He could do it. He would then have to resign within two years. Mm-hmm. So let's say Biden dies in March of 2025, then Obama could only serve until March of

2027. Sure. But so then whoever he would name a vice president, just like Nixon named Ford as his vice president, and then Obama would have to resign. Yeah. Within two years. Yeah. And then that person would become the president for the rest of the term.

I think if you had Obama as Biden's VP, that people would be like, you know what? Okay. Like tons of Democrats would be like, I like Obama. We know him. And then you've got the nostalgia voters who are like, things were good then and things were good under Trump. This is a good example of why I think there's intentionally a two-month cushion, because there are all kinds of solutions like this that people can get on board with. Now, I wouldn't be so worried about Biden's performance at the debate, because whatever they do to Joe Biden- Drug test him.

Whatever they do before those debates seems to work. He's good for an hour and a half, and then it starts to go downhill. But I wouldn't be too worried about the debate in particular. I'd be much more worried- What if Obama just showed up instead? Yeah, Obama just, he's like, I'm pinch hitting. Yeah. But I would be much more worried about the campaign strategy, which has been, I think, clearly focused on the question we were just discussing, democracy, civility, norms, all on the line, very, very similar to the 2020 campaign. This is what was on full display yesterday in New York. So while Democratic insiders are freaking

out in, quote, freak out mode to Politico. So these are people that probably aren't running the day-to-day campaign, but presumably are big donors, are strategists. While they're talking to Politico, here's what the Biden campaign was doing yesterday. The Biden campaign, not some PAC or not some like special interest group, not a media thing. This was the Biden campaign. They actually put Robert De Niro out in, this was timed with Donald Trump's trial and the hush money case with Harry Dunn and I think Michael Fanone, two January 6th Capitol police officers who've been high profile opponents of Trump since January 6th. Robert De Niro, take a look at some of these clips from Manhattan yesterday.

This city is pretty accommodating. We make room for clowns. We have them all over the city. People who do crazy things in the street, Make room for clowns. We have them all over the city. People who do crazy things in the street, we tolerate it. It's part of the city, it's part of the culture. But not a person like Trump who will eventually run the country. That does not work and we all know that. Anyway, we make room for clowns to each his own.

But no one takes him or took him really seriously. They take him seriously now, of course. Democrats, you are gangsters. You are gangsters. You are gangsters. Fuck you. You fucking do you know? You're a new punk.

You're a softie. You're a nobody. Your movies suck. You're trash. You're trash. You're done. You're done after this. You're done after this. You're done after this. You're done after this. You're done nobody. Your movie sucked. You're trash. You're trash. You're done. You're done. So, Ryan, this was just like peak New York. You had Robert De Niro talking about how great New

York is because we have clowns in the street as those clowns in the street, all due respect, are shouting at him. And like in the background of the first clip, that was a little bit more quiet. There were still people shouting at him. And in the second clip, he was being escorted away from a mob. And the guy in a MAGA hat saying, you're nobody, your movies are trash, like just classic New York behavior. Which is nonsense. You hate his politics. His movies are great. Well, it depends on which movies you're talking about. Some of the movies are trash. If you do enough movies, I guess some are going to be trash. Well, actually, this particular Trump voter might want to take another look at Taxi Driver. There you go.

It was just a perfect New York scene. But I think also, Ryan, just this strategy we have seen since literally 2016 of taking celebrities out to talk about how horrible Donald Trump is. And this was outside the trial, which Joe Biden is, again, this was leaked to media. He's ready, he's prepared to address it at the White House so that whatever the verdict is, he will finally address this trial when the verdict comes out, whatever it is. But he's gonna do it from the White House so that it doesn't look political. That's an actual contention. As opposed to a rally?

Yes. Does he do rallies? I mean, I think he's campaigning in Philadelphia today. Okay, there we go. That's something. Something like that. But because, again, the verdict could come at any moment. The jury is quite literally out today. So we could have a verdict in, you know, could be days, could be today. I suspect it'll probably take a little bit of time. But they got to do 34 votes, right?

34 charges. Yeah. And so, yeah, it could take a while. So the Biden administration is saying, you know, we don't we don't see this as political. This is just about democracy and decency. And then they're trotting out Robert De Niro in the streets of New York, like outside the courthouse where we saw all kinds of Republicans doing the political speeches last week too. It just, you know, I think their campaign strategy really sucks,

to be honest. But there's an argument that it could, you know, it's the thing that gets the suburban housewives to turn out. I don't know if Robert De Niro is the answer to that, but. One of the top quotes from that Politico article was, quote, you don't want to be that guy who is on the record saying we're doomed or the campaign's bad or Biden's making mistakes. Nobody wants to be that guy, said a Democratic operative in close touch with the White House and granted anonymity to speak freely. But Biden's stubbornly poor polling and the stakes of the election, quote, are creating the freak out, he said. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a bunch of quotes like that from people who are freaking out. But it's hard to take the freaking out seriously when all of these people had a year plus

to publicly freak out and then actually change the reality and have an actual open primary by putting pressure on Biden to not run for election. But none of them wanted to do so because all of them would pay some little tiny cost. So collectively, they all just decided to let the party make a catastrophic decision with, according to them, the fate of the free world at stake. And so it's hard to take them seriously when they say that they really believe the fate of the free world is at stake. If they're not willing to take a little tiny risk to defend it. Yeah, and especially, I mean, it really does ring hollow when you have a Hollywood

multimillionaire actor being trotted out in New York outside a courthouse for a case that is not political, but about democracy and decency. And yet there's an extremely strong argument, even from people on the left, that is a trumped up political case that Alvin Bragg did some, attended to do some, intended to do some novel legal maneuvering to make it a felony and a campaign finance violation because the statute of limitations had elapsed on the financial, what's the best way to describe the crime that's alleged to have been? The sanctity of business records must be upheld. Yeah, in New York, yes. The sanctity of business records must be upheld in New York, which, by the way, I'm on board with if it's going to be applied in a truly non-oligarchical partisan manner.

But when you have Robert De Niro, and your strategy is bringing out Harry Dunn, who just lost, and Robert De Niro to talk about this outside a courtroom while you are pretending to take the high road, it's a ridiculous strategy, I think. And it's approaching 10 years of Democrats talking about nothing serious to voters. I mean, obviously they do sometimes. I'm speaking in somewhat hyperbole here, but it's like 10 years of Democrats fixating on these ridiculous arguments against Donald Trump himself instead of policies. And there are problems, like there are actual substantive problems with Donald Trump. I get it with the style of somebody who's tweeting about Mika

Brzezinski's facelift as president. I get it. I think there are substantive questions about the style, but it's been their fixation for approaching a decade. And it's clearly a crutch. It's clearly become a crutch for Democrats because they're uncertain of how to win the argument. They're unwilling to, I think, even try to win the argument. They're unwilling to, I think, even try to win the argument with some of those Obama-Trump voters in the Rust Belt. Even, you know, black voters who are moving towards Trump, not just away from Biden, but towards Trump, and not in overwhelming numbers, but in historic numbers, according to some polling, it's much easier for Democrats to try to juice turnout with educated suburban voters through stuff like this

Instead of you know Trying to win on the merits of policy substance for people who feel like this economy sucks for them And I still think Trump could lose. Oh, absolutely the part I can't quite figure out and maybe you can help me with this is is how So the end of democracy argument would require Trump to then get a third term. Right. In order for Trump to get a third term, he would need either the support of the Supreme Court to do that or the military. I understand, I guess, why Democrats think the Supreme Court would support him in that because he appointed a bunch of them and it's a right-wing Supreme Court. But a closer understanding of this Supreme Court does not have them in this.

They have them in coalition together, but not in a sense that they want Trump to kind of be some permanent dictator. Like, John Roberts would prefer the Reagan-era type of Republican. Mitt Romney or somebody. The same with Neil Gorsuch, same with Amy Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh. There's your votes there. You can maybe make an argument about Alito and Thomas, but the others are- Yes. Oh, yeah. I think Alito and Thomas would be there for the revolution. Perhaps. But that's two votes. Perhaps, yeah.

I think you can legitimately worry about them. Absolutely. From the left, yeah. Definitely. The military, though, that's a very pro-democracy institution. Very anti-Trump institution. Very anti-Trump institution. Very pro-civilian control of the government institution.

I don't think there's enough people. There aren't enough sergeants that you could make four star generals to take over the military in four years. Senate's not going to let you do that. I don't, I just don't, I don't see the path. Yeah. I think the freak out over American institutions somehow being, you know, easily swayed by Donald Trump is absurd because if anything, our institutions have hardened

themselves against Donald Trump, even if the Pentagon, for example, supported Trump era policies that felt very neoconservative to some people because he had John Bolton's of the world in his administration. Even then, the style substance of Donald Trump is abhorrent to a lot of top brass in the military and over at the Pentagon. I don't think there's enough time to get rid of all that top brass and put in, because the path to that type of dominance would be replacing the entire leadership of the DOJ and the military with nothing but Trump loyalists. Yeah, it's not something you can do with Schedule F. Well, I'll try to get rid of that. But even that's not...

I just think physically they don't have the bodies. Yeah. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Democrats will have the last laugh when I'm up against the wall after Trump's revolution.

We'll see. That was a really dark turn. It's a shame. Yeah. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer

in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia

that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. 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. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable,

showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who did make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast.

From Robert Blake, the first Black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's move on to some news actually out of Harvard

that we wanted to pair with the interview Barry Weiss conducted with Jerry Seinfeld over at the Free Press yesterday. So just to contextualize this, we're going to be talking about Harvard starting to say we are going to have a policy of institutional neutrality along the lines of something like the University of Chicago. Although important observers or observers have pointed out something important, which is that we don't know how Harvard will interpret this yet. But obviously, Harvard has been reeling since the Claudine Gay testimony after October 7th, then the encampments, and it's been a hell of a year for Harvard. Now, in his interview with Barry Weiss, Jerry Seinfeld, who just gave a majorly viral commencement address at Duke University, addressed some of what he sees among young people.

Let's roll this clip. And so you yourself have become politicized in a way. Little bit, yeah. Do you feel that? I do. You comfortable with it? It's so dumb. It's so dumb. In fact, when we get protesters occasionally, I love to say to the audience, you know, I love that these young people,

they're trying to get engaged with politics. We have to just correct their aim a little bit. You know, they don't seem to be understand that as comedians, we really don't control anything. Right. Right. Right. No one's really. No, you're pulling the strings over the war in Gaza. Yeah. That's how I think. Yeah. Yeah. You were in Israel. Yes. Since the war started. How was that trip? The most powerful experience of my life. Really? I'm sure. Yeah. Why? You know, you just... You know. That clip was shared by Israel's official Twitter account.

Yes. And then the conversation went on from there. We could roll this next clip from it. A huge part of the way you think about comedy is how the audience never lies. Mm-hmm. Right. But what happens if a lot of people are wrong? In other words, there is a—I don't think Jews do well in an age of mobs. And I feel that right now in our culture, it's really easy to form mobs.

Yes, really easy. And what's the difference between the audience never lying, but when does the audience kind of tip into the mob? Do you see where I'm going with that? I do. I do. There's something... They, yeah. But I really have been wanting to ask you about, like, for someone that relies on the truth telling of the audience to tell you whether or not something is funny. Mm-hmm.

What, does that same principle apply to a mass of people? You see what I mean? Mm. Well, you can't act like we don't see this every day in many realms. Let's just talk politically, left and right. You're watching mobs. They're mobs. They're mobs believing their own crap, right?

Yeah. That's what a political party is. We're going to make up a bunch of nonsense and we'll all agree to it, right? Right. Okay, let's print up some bumper stickers and get out there, kids. That's politics. So we're tribal animals. We're social creatures.

We look for agreement and consensus. We're driven by agreement and consensus and mob rule. Gives us comfort, gives us certainty. It's all BS. You know, I can actually say to the point about Seinfeld explaining that his trip to Israel after October 7th was the most powerful experience of his life. I can imagine

that's true, basically no matter who you are. I mean, humanitarian tragedy, catastrophe that unfolded after October 7th. Your point about Israel sharing the clip, the Israeli government sharing the clip on X, I think is really interesting as well. But, you know, the second part of that is what you added that to the show. You wanted to hear what he said about mob rule. There was a walkout in his speech at Duke, actually.

People just walked out of it, which it seemed like he was alluding to. What stood out to you in that argument about mob rule? Yeah, and my view on the whole Seinfeld thing was that I think it was, like, so the reason that the pro-Palestine protesters started going after Seinfeld is that his, well, A, he was kind of outspoken in support of the Israeli war effort, but also his wife was directly funding the campus counter protests. And those counter protests like actually genuinely got violent and weren't quite vile in their kind of Islamophobic rhetoric and sometimes anti-Semitic rhetoric. So to protest against, like, you know, you're putting yourself in the arena if you're financing counter protests. Yes.

But my view on it was people. As a billionaire, by the way. I'm sure, yeah. She's got that Seinfeld money. Yep. But my view of it was people don't really know that. And they're're just gonna think you're just protesting Seinfeld cuz he's Jewish. Mm-hmm, which Isn't what you know isn't what people were doing because they had these organized a specific reason for it I was gonna I thought would blow up in their face if they if they went forward with it

And and then I thought it was interesting to hear a kind of Seinfeld zone kind of political analysis just to show how vacuous it is mmm like to say that that all political parties and and the political formations are Just mere tribal associations of people organizing together just to make themselves feel good and get that sense of camaraderie, ignores everything we don't know about, like, political movements and political parties.

Like, there are actual agendas, and there are things that people are fighting for, materially spiritually And so to like ignore that just shows like it kind of makes his point in some ways that That he really is not anybody who's like really deeply You know thought about politics ever so it's like yeah, he is kind of he but thought about politics ever. But so many comedians, of course, are very political.

Comedy is very often political. If there's any comedian who's been apolitical, it has been Seinfeld. Just talking about how it sucks to fly on airplanes. It's not so much apolitical, it's transpolitical in that it's transpartisan, I guess. You know, it sort of reminds me of the Johnny Carson approach, which was really popular in the era of mass media. Like that's the example when I talk to students about this that I always use is like Johnny Carson was constantly political, just it wasn't partisan humor. It wasn't like Stephen Colbert, who is now the number one host at late night, like in the Johnny Carson slot because we're not in the era of mass media anymore.

I feel like Seinfeld is really struggling with the new reality that people in these niches, you know, maybe they represent 20 or 30 percent of the country, now have abolished a lot of gatekeeping and are ascendant. And, you know And when people walk out of his Duke commencement speech, that gets a lot of headlines because a lot of the gatekeepers are gone and new media can write about it. We can talk about it here. And I think it's a really new world for him.

In fact, he said in the Duke speech, the slightly uncomfortable feeling of awkward humor is okay. It's not something you need to fix. I totally admire the ambitions of your generation to create a more just and inclusive society. I think it is also wonderful that you care so much about not hurting other people's feelings and the million and one ways we all do that every second of every day. It's lovely to want to fix those things, but all caps. But what I need to tell you as a comedian, do not lose your sense of humor. You have no idea at this point in your life how much you're going to need it to get

through. Not enough of life makes Sense for you to be able to survive it without humor. I think you and I both agree with those sentiments exactly, but it's it's not arguing Against the point that his opponents are making which is that there's there's just nothing funny about like that That was what they're arguing is they're talking about genocide And they walked out of a speech because of genocide they opposed the speech because of what they see as genocide And so coming back at that by saying hey Just let your hair down Yeah, and I don't even know I don't really even think his show was trans

partisan in the sense that Like he take him at his word like he was saying it was a show about nothing. And in the 90s, the country really was ready for a show about nothing. But he didn't. There was political. He would make jokes about political things. It wasn't in your face, but there were jokes about history and politics. I guess, but it's just completely shorn of any meaning whatsoever. That's absolutely true. And I think that's what's interesting. As Larry David has continued the theme of like, just a completely trivial show, but he dives into political issues. Yes. Because he, I think because you have to now, because of the polarized political climate we're in. And Seinfeld is on this belated kind of anti-woke theme now.

Although he was there early, like I think in 2015, 2015 or 2016, he came out and said, I'm not doing campuses anymore. I think it was like Seinfeld and Chris Rock said that in 2015. Because Seinfeld was getting canceled. Like what was Seinfeld saying? I think he was saying people didn't have a good sense of humor. So I feel like he's been on that, but he's not realizing that maybe they do have a sense of humor. I mean, I could probably, there are some people I think probably do need a sense of humor. But it's just, or a better sense of humor. But it's just that the things that he wants to talk about, people aren't seeing the humor in those particular things.

Post-Seinfeld stand-up was, like, I'm not saying anything controversial, it just hasn't been that good. Like, it's not, like, he hasn't been that, like, great. And it's made a lot of people say, wait a minute, was it really Larry David? The whole time. That was the genius behind that show the whole time? You know, I've never been a huge Seinfeld person.

I love Curb. Never been a huge Seinfeld person. I love Curb. Never been a huge Seinfeld person. But I think you can, he's obviously very smart. And I think I agree with you that. Something's thought through some of this stuff, but yeah. Maybe where we agree on this

is that he's, I really think he's struggling to deal with the new reality of the country. Like it's not the country of the 1990s when his show was extraordinarily popular. And Seinfeld is still popular.

Barry made that point in the Free Press post. It's still extremely popular, but we're so nichefied that it's not the same thing as people all sitting down at 9 p.m. and tuning into Seinfeld and talking about it at the water cooler the next day. He really has to grapple with the lack of gatekeeping and what that means for a culture that's going in a million different

directions. It's not like, hey, we can all have a good laugh about this joke in regard to silly, crazy conservatives. It's more like, people are on wildly different pages. And he's got to grapple with not having Larry David. Yeah, that's probably the real handicap. That's really struggling. Yeah, probably the real handicap there. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes

of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times,

it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me,

but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day.

It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the

nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's move on to Argentina, where I sent this to our producers earlier, where you had a headline from Bloomberg, April 25th, 2024. Javier Millet fuels wild rally that makes peso number one in world. With a headline recently from the Financial Times just in the last week, Argentina's peso plunges in warning light for Millet. We could put the first element up on the screen here. Question, Ryan, is what's closer to the truth? So, Milley actually swapped a cabinet chief in what Reuters referred to as a major government

shakeup. There's sort of a wild ride down in Argentina right now. He's been cavorting with Sam Altman and talking about the importance of artificial intelligence. And if you take Milley at his word, he will say, and any libertarian engaged in an experiment like this, a lab experiment like this, really trying to come back from Peronism, as he says, would say that it's going to, you're going to have your ups and downs. Necessarily, you're going to hit some obstacles just when you're doing things like trying to fix an economy that was stagnant if not worse for years and years and years So what do you think is closer to the truth on this Ryan? Is this an amazing recovery? Or is this the peso plunging and Millet being thrust into chaos in his own cabinet? I Mean Argentina is like a giant mess. It's fun. It's maybe we can have fun at Millet's expense. It's, you know, 300% inflation.

And that's not his fault. The country's political structures make it almost ungovernable. Like, it's very hard for anybody to get elected in Argentina and then actually implement an agenda because of the way that different power centers are able to stop anything from happening. And I think one reason Argentine voters elected him is because they thought, well, maybe this will shake. They didn't necessarily think he was the answer But it was like a trump Flight 93 kind of thing where it's like maybe this will shake things up so much That something something has to give um

And so you can put up this um first vo here uh basically now he's trying to Slash university university spending is what's going on. So in 300% inflation, he's trying to hold university subsidies flat. And he has slashed a lot of government. Yeah, he's already slashed a lot of government. First five months here. So that means you're facing what, a 300% cut basically because because now uh the the you know it costs three times as much as it used to and you're getting just the same kind of subsidy towards

it as you were getting before um his his argument is that this would bring uh inflation finally uh under control you know clearly the markets don't necessarily agree with that the police are now joining in with the student protesters. The university said that 800,000 people were in the streets protesting. Millet said it was 150,000 people. That's still a lot of people. Either way, right. 150,000 people.

And so, yeah, they're just kind of locked in the standoff we knew would be coming. We also know where this heads is towards violence. And so the question then becomes, do the police, do the libertarians bidding and crack down on these protests? Or do the police end up siding with the protesters? And then you're kind of back to square one of people being able to protect some of the subsidies that they have, but not being able to then actually enact anything rational more broadly. Mm-hmm. Well, and on the other side of this, the argument is going to be that his big reforms that you were just talking about are stalled. And that could potentially be affecting

the market. I'm sure that is affecting the market, that his package that he wants to get through to address this nearly 300% inflation has been stalled. And maybe that's why his cabinet chief is being switched up, again, within the first five months here. So I mean, I do genuinely think that it's hard to judge what happens under Millet by the first five months here based on if you're comparing it to what his claimed vision is. You don't really know unless the economic reform package, he can take all of the things that he can do by himself as an executive. And if he doesn't have them pass through Congress, if he doesn't have additional things pass

through Congress, then you're just band-aiding things in an effort to bring down 300% inflation and potentially hurting people along the way. Now, if his economic reforms go through and you see an adaptation in the private sector, all of this is like really wishful thinking on behalf of libertarians. And I mean, you still have fairly sophisticated economists in disagreement about the effect of the Reagan tax cuts versus defense spending and all of that. And we can get into those arguments about Liz Truss and all of that good stuff about whether true libertarianism has ever been tried. My particular opinion on that as a conservative is that these true libertarian experiments really never work in the real world because you're not in

a sort of perfect petri dish environment where there's a way to say, yeah, we'll just slash the government and things will be great. It'll bring inflation down. But it seems possible to me that a course correction could be in a good direction when all is said and done. But I don't know that that's what we're seeing actually play out. Although I would say that from my perspective, at least, it's too early to have a conclusion on what will happen. You can put up the third element of this article from Reuters, economic activity down 8.4% year over year in March. And if you dig into it, the biggest collapse was in construction, a 30% decline in economic activity. And so that's not inflation, that's 30% less construction getting going.

Although Millet retweeted someone who said everything within expectations about these numbers. He said everything within expectations after a strong initial devaluation. So again, this idea that we're on the, it's almost like a material, a dialectical materialism, like a gale, and like we're on, the plan is proceeding apace. There you go. And it's manufacturing down 20%. Argentina's a mess. But he's a rock star, right? So yeah, you got to check this out. The real reason we wanted to cover this is so that we could play this clip of President Millet up on stage. There's incredible passion. There you go. Leaving it all in the field. There you go. What more do you want?

Okay, well, while we're on international topics, let's talk about Julian Assange, because Donald Trump here at home, actually, on the sidelines, actually, speaking of libertarians, on the sidelines of the Libertarian Party Convention this last weekend here in Washington, D.C. Dave Smith talked a little bit about it on Breaking Points yesterday. But on the sidelines, Tim Pool interviewed Donald Trump and asked him about Julian Assange. Now, viewers will remember we had Gabriel Shipton, Julian Assange's brother, on the show last week. And he fleshed out a bit about how the Assange case is becoming a real wedge issue in geopolitical negotiations between

the United States and Australia, which is an important alliance if the U.S. is to be worried about Taiwan and what people see as the China threat. So all that is to say, Donald Trump's comments to Tim Pool are pretty interesting and I think of some serious, some real consequence. Here's what Donald Trump told Tim Pool about whether or not he would pardon Julian Assange. Will you pardon Julian Assange? Well, I'm going to talk about that today and we're going to give it very serious consideration and we're going to have a couple of other things to say in this speech that I think you're going to love. I've heard some rumors. And you've gotten so much out of me, I should leave a little bit for the speech, don't you think? Mr. President,

it is an honor and a privilege. I really do appreciate you sitting down with me. And you're very respected, I have to say, when I did a little research. And some of my guys said, and I've met you before, but they said just a very respected guy. It's my honor. Tim Pool also relayed to Donald Trump

that he recently said he had a nice face. That Tim Pool has a nice face? Yeah, that he said that Tim Pool, Donald Trump said that to Tim Pool, that he has a nice face. Does he have a nice face uh it's a face so i think all faces are nice yeah there you go there you go uh now to unpack trump's thoughts on assad and also edward snowden he was asked about this also by candace owens and see if you can almost kind of see the trembling in his voice as he talks about this. It's like the deep state is really in his head.

Jared. Here's this back and forth he had with Candace Owens. A name that comes to mind in the news recently is Julian Assange. He was exposing this corruption early on. He's had his life ruined because of it. It's a really sad story. Edward Snowden, I mean, think about that bravery for me. I was quite young when that was going on. But, I mean, the idea of saying, hey, whistleblowing, actually, we've got some corruption going on. They're not being honest with the American people.

You could have had a chance to pardon these individuals. Why decide not to in that moment? You have two sides of it. In one case, you have, like, sort of a spy deal going on. And in another case, you have somebody that's exposing real corruption. I feel a little bit, I won't say which one, but I feel a little bit more strongly about one than the other. But, and you probably understand that. But I could have done it, but I will say you have people on both sides of that issue, good people on both sides, and you have some bad people on one side. But I decided to let that one ride, let the courts work it out.

I love that one of the biggest controversies of his presidency was the good people on both sides moment, which I still take issue with a lot of the reporting on that. And he's just still going with it. Very good people on both sides, totally unfazed. But you did see him get a little fazed in that, not to be a hacky cable news body language expert, but you really don't see Donald Trump cross his arms and get uncomfortable like that very often. But you're right, Ryan, I think to read discomfort into that question with Candace Owens. And which one is he talking about here? So it seems like so Snowden. I don't think he knows what he's talking about. I think he's just talking.

It sounded like, yeah, to me it sounded like he was not thinking about commuting or pardoning Snowden. Yeah. Who is in exile in Russia. Because he said this thing about, wow, there's secrets and if you're going to have a country, you've got to be able to keep your secrets. Which is really the fascinating thing that people should absorb. Because if Donald Trump is like okay with the things that the NSA was doing and that Snowden exposed and he thinks it's wrong for Snowden to expose those, that really cuts against this whole idea that Trump is actually going to do anything to take on the military intelligence establishment. Which I think is a debate we should have on the Friday show this summer. Is Donald Trump the guy to actually— Yeah, we should do that.

Because it's a fascinating question. I asked his NSA—one of his NSAs, Keith Kellogg, about how he saw Assange. This was a couple of years ago. And Keith Kellogg told me that he felt like Donald Trump saw a little bit of himself in Assange. And that from an NSA and a very torn administration, a John Bolton, Mike Pompeo administration, the administration that actually ended up bringing charges against Assange. I just find that super interesting that he would even go so far as to say that from a Republican president, let alone a Republican president, again, like staffed by the likes of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. Genuinely interesting. And I don't know that Trump would necessarily go through

with this. Biden has talked about whether he would maybe just drop the case. And that's all it would take, by the way, just drop the case. And there may be some geopolitical advantage to assuaging the concerns of people in Australia and internationally, especially at a time when the United States is under fire internationally. We're talking about potential Security Council veto coming up. So there may be some advantage to Biden politically in dropping the case. I could see Donald Trump actually dropping the case because you see the duality of Donald Trump every once in a while. He knows that he's been targeted by the same people who targeted Snowden and Assange. But at the same time, he revels in the respect. You know, he filled his cabinet initially and he staffed his cabinet initially with military people. It's just he's never picked a lane.

Yeah, right. And Obama initially contemplated charging Assange, decided not to because it would be an encroachment on freedom of the press. Right. Trump, urged by Pompeo, did so. Biden has continued it and is pushing to have him extradited. Now both of them are saying they're thinking about dropping the charges. It's kind of a ridiculous situation. Both of them are probably too cowardly to do it. Yeah. And I mean, you'd love to, it's a question you'd love to have Trump talk about in private

because I don't know if he's team Pompeo or if have Trump talk about in private because I don't know if he's team Pompeo or if he's team Assange. I really don't know. I'm honestly curious. Good people on both sides. Yeah, well, exactly. I wonder if he is himself split on that. I wonder if Obama himself, like how he thinks about it now.

I think he's still probably very anti Assange But it's you know The case is so absurd that I think it presents some real questions For these leaders to to grapple with especially if you're Donald Trump and you came in to clean house And then he also at the libertarian convention said he was said he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. Yes Who is a cause celeb on the libertarian convention say he was said he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. Yes Who is a cause celeb on the libertarian? In the libertarian world for it was a Silk Road. Yeah founder. Yeah, I know there was a lot of pressure on him from people close to him

While he was president and there was hope that he would do that then he never did it. Mm-hmm Does does Ross? president and there was hope that he would do that then he never did it um it does does ross uh it does seem like she should like like it seems like ross got the book thrown at him for the same thing that like a lot of websites do like they have illegal activity on them um he was probably a little bit more okay with it than others. But is that a cause on the right beyond the libertarian movement? Not at all, no. Just the libertarians? I think Trump has the power to elevate it beyond libertarians.

But it's such a, I think it is genuinely a more complicated case than the Assange one is. It's a little bit less clear cut than the Assange one. There's some weird stuff. The Trumped up hacking stuff with Assange is just so blatant. Well, yeah, it's not a free press thing, really. It's just a more like Justice Department overreach. And Thomas Massey has said that it's the greatest affront to the Eighth Amendment that he's aware of, basically. So I think there is a pretty... The Ross case?

Yeah, the Ulbricht case. And I think there's a pretty big... There are huge, glaring questions about the Ulbricht case. And I think there's a pretty big, there are huge glaring questions about the length of the sentence. I think we're talking, it's like, I mean, he has a crazy, crazy sentence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I think he's 40 years old around there and this all happened. He's 40 now, yeah. It's just, it is genuinely ridiculous. And some of the charges I think are ridiculous too, but it's just more complicated than the Assange one. So if Donald Trump really takes it up, I was actually surprised he even dropped it at the Libertarian Convention just because I don't, I actually think if you explained

it to Donald Trump, he would be like, you know, I feel like someone just wrote that into the speech. But yeah, who knows? I think he was in the Candace Owens interview sort of talking to avoid the question a little bit. And I don't know that I take what he said super seriously, but I could see him potentially pardoning Assange if he felt like he was getting a good deal with Australia. I don't think he has a strong sort of neoconservative position like Pompeo does on Assange. I think he could be persuaded to sort of use it as a bargaining chip in a way that, you know, a lot of Republican presidents, Nikki Haley, for example, certainly wouldn't. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Let's preview the Friday show a little bit. Yeah, I'm really excited about this one. We were going to have

Mehdi Hassan debating Ben Shapiro. Mehdi agreed, could not get Ben. I don't know that we heard back. And then we went to find somebody else and basically could find nobody who was willing to debate Manny. I was going to say, in fairness, I don't even know that Ben got, we emailed him, but I don't know that he actually got it. So if you check your email, yes, we'd love to host that. Um, but well, yeah, he'll, he'll, he'll come back whenever we had a really hard time. Yeah. It was a really hard time putting nobody wanted to go toe to toe with MadI, which I don't blame them for. I wouldn't argue that the world is round in a debate with METI.

Producer, yeah, that's true. Producer Mack, Producer Griffin, put in a lot of hours the last week. You and I were like pinging people and DMs and email. And it was even a week's time, which is like a lifetime in the world of news. It was hard to stitch that one together. But we're still holding out hope that we can get someone to debate on the ICC specifically. But this Friday's show, we actually are putting together a reporter, a friend of Ryan's, a

reporter who wrote just a fantastic new book on a deep dive into the world of lobbying, sort of secret shadowy world of lobbying that has changed a lot in recent years. And that's the point of the book. It's called The Wolves of K Street. You have until Friday to read it. Yes. Oh, good luck. It's a long book with a top lobbyist, one of the top lobbyist spenders, I think in 2018, Sam Godaldi, who's been on the show before. This is going to be fantastic. I'm really excited about it. Yeah, this will be fun. And we hope you come out of it knowing more about lobbying than basically anybody else. We want to pull the curtain back. And I don't think any other shows that I can imagine in elite media spaces would do that or would get people to be able to come

to a place where they felt comfortable having that discussion publicly. So it's pretty exciting. Yeah, so I guess come back on Friday for that. Come back on Friday or Thursday night if you're a premium subscriber. If you're having any troubles, again, you can email support at locals.com and copy breakingpointspremium at gmail.com. That pings producer Griffin, who is here to help.

No breakers left behind. The YouTube and Spotify links will be in the episode description and in your daily email. Again, you get the show early, the Friday show early on Thursdays, the full CounterPoint show without any edits, just early to your inbox right away on Wednesdays. So we will see you back here next week. See you then. 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. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships.

It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.