Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/29/26: Bessent Threatens Kinetic Action, Jill Biden Gaslights, Spencer Pratt Surges, Dr. Adam Hamawy

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

The BP Friday crew take a look at Scott Bessent claiming Iran must not be allowed to toll the Strait, Jill Biden's new memoir on the disastrous Biden debate where she questions if he was drugged, Spencer Pratt rising in polls for LA mayoral race, and New Jersey House Candidate Dr. Adam Hamawy responds to attacks from Jewish Insider about being linked to Al-Qaeda, his time serving as a doctor in war ravaged countries, and rescuing 9/11 survivors from the rubble. Dr. Adam Hamawy: https://hamawyfornj.com/ Ryan: https://x.com/ryangrim Emily: https://x.com/emilyjashinsky Griffin: https://www.instagram.com/griffinpdavis/   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Hello, everybody. It is Friday, May 29th for another Breaking Points Friday show. Griffin here, of course, joined by Emily Jachisinski. I totally slaughtered your last name. I never do that. It's fine. It's anti-Russian bias, but... It is.

And Ryan Grum, I'll get you both wrong today. Big show. I just wanted to say at the top, thank you all. Memberships for your patience. We are working on getting everyone of the last stragglers into Supercast. If you are having trouble,

connecting to Spotify, logging into your membership, support at supercast.com. We are working. extensively with the customer service team over at Supercast to get you all in. And by next week, we should be all done and dusted. We thank you for your patience. And we're excited to release some new exciting stuff that we've been working on behind

the scenes in the coming weeks. But with that, we've got a big show. We've got some Iran updates with Scott Besson coming out to make some new clarifications on the deal. We have Jill Biden coming out to talk about. that infamous debate finally beat Medicare and so on. And we have a much requested topic here at breaking points. One Spencer Pratt running for Los Angeles mayor. We are going to break down the latest as the June 2nd primary for Los Angeles mayor is right on the horizon. Then we are

joined by Ryan. Our guest this week is who? Adam Hamaway, who has been on the show before. He people may remember him from when he was serving a volunteer tour in Gaza as a as a surgeon there. He's now, he's also kind of famous for being the combat surgeon in Iraq who saved Tammy Duckworth's life. She actually credits him also for, he had just learned this new technique, some vascular technique that allowed him, allowed her not to be a triple amputee. he is the leading candidate in a New Jersey congressional race now and Jewish insider is running a campaign to call him Al-Qaeda and they're teaming up with none other than Josh Godheimer so we can talk to him about that as the race goes into its final few days.

All right, an exciting jam-packed show, but why don't we get to the topic that continues to be the main topic of all of our lives, the Iran War, Scott Bessent, coming out to give some clarifications on the tolling system here. I'll read it for everyone. Scott Besson says, the United States government will not tolerate any effort to impose a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz. Oman in particular should know that the U.S. Treasury will aggressively target any actors involved

directly or indirectly in facilitating tolls for the straight and any willing partners will be penalized. All nations should reject outright any efforts by Iran to disrupt the free flow of commerce, Tehran's days of terrorizing the regime and the world are over. Ryan, what is your reaction? The funny thing, of course, is that Trump himself suggested that he would partner with Iran in overseeing a tolling system. So Trump is obviously not opposed to tolls in principle. Oman also recently reached a bunch of new kind of agreements with Iran, with Iran, which was seen by a lot of people as

Oman and other countries kind of preparing for a post kind of post-US hegemonic role in the region. The, you know, I think we can expect to have more clarity on whether or not there is an agreement when the market's closed tonight. So I think, I think Iran in particular is quite nervous. They have said very publicly that they are,

they do not trust President Trump they particularly don't trust his word during the hours that the markets are open. They've said that they've said that repeatedly. And so, you know, Ghalibov has said today, let me see if I can find his remarks, but effectively he was saying, you know, we'll believe it when we see it. Iran is, you know, prepared to lock in the gains that they made in the war through the negotiating table. But we are, but we continue to be prepared for the resumption of war. but he said, we will not shoot first.

Like, as long as the U.S. doesn't attack us, we're not attacking them. Iran insists on getting economic relief as a result, you know, in this deal. Trump is trying to figure out how he can release Iranian funds. And again, they're Iranian funds that we have frozen, how he can release those without it being totally humiliating. So they're trying to find circuitous routes that the Iranian. and money can take that eventually gets to Iran, but by the time it gets there,

Trump can say, I had nothing to do with this money getting there. You can't fool Mark Levin. Yes. Can't fool Mark. Can't full Mark Levin, no. And so allowing, quote unquote, allowing some tolling also gives Iran some of the economic, you know, relief that they want out of these negotiations.

I put allowing in quotes because how are we not going to allow it? Like, what are we going, what is the U.S. going to do to stop it? Like, Besson can put out a tweet, but if Iran reaches an agreement with a ship, and the ship sends Iran money and then goes through the strait, we have shown that we don't have a military answer to that. Are we then going to stop that ship and double find them or something? I suppose we could do that. But, like, that kind of defeats the purpose of opening the strait, which is what?

which is what Trump really needs. You know, fuel inventories across the world are approaching, you know, the bottom of the barrel. The strategic reserves have largely been emptied. We are approaching genuine shortage, gas line, and crisis territory. So Trump really doesn't have the room to be like, hey, did you charge that guy at a toll or not? It's like, for the first time since, like, World War II, it's like, it's not up to the United

States. We can have an opinion. That's all it is. Well, I mean, it's up to us if we want to escalate dramatically. Right. We can do that. Right. But we clearly have decided that we've clearly decided that that's not in our interests.

Because that doesn't stop them from, like more war doesn't open the straight. More war closes the straight. The fucking straight. You crazy bastards. So Scott Pesson, well, Carolyn Levitt's on maternity leave. It started with obviously Marco Rubio doing a briefing. then J.D. Vance did a briefing the Vice President of the United States. And now we had Scott Bessett, Treasury Secretary, doing a briefing yesterday. And Griffin, he was peppered with all kinds of questions

about what the heck is actually happening with this deal. And Oman, now being at the center of the Strait of Hormuz conversation, we have a little bit here of Bessent getting pressed on that. Let's take a listen. I came up yesterday also at the cabinet meeting. President Trump said, Oman will behave just like everybody else where we will have to blow them up. Are you guys back there in the West Wing making plans for a new war with Oman? Again, I think the president wanted to punctuate freedom of navigation in the street. I had a call with the Omani ambassador this morning, and he assured me that there were no plans for tolling the strait. As he said, our countries have had 200 years of good relations.

He wants to have another 200 more. And I told him that this was a non-starter, and he did not want to run. risk, either the Omani individuals or Omani financial institutions, they're getting sanctioned. Now, question for both of you, there's a lot of talk about removing Iran's nuclear dust and that being the top priority, but it almost seems to me like control of the straight is an even bigger card for Iran that they wouldn't want to give up. Yeah, I think so. I think there's been, you know, they've spent decades with their kind of nuclear program. being at the center of their

kind of national identity and the middle of these negotiations. Like this was always, they always saw this as their ticket, something that they would trade away to get the kind of Iranian revolution kind of recognized as a part of the kind of world order. Like they just,

they wanted to be treated like any other country. And they thought, and some people, some people within Iran thought, build this program and then we'll trade it away in order to get recognized. But you're right. that what what the U.S. has allowed to be to happen is something that they couldn't really have

done without a U.S. attack. Because if they just all of a sudden, belligerently and offensively took military control of the Strait of Hermuz, like the world would lose its mind. And you'd have an actual like coalition of the willing that would include like China, Russia. Like everybody would be like, no, no, no, no, no. You're not doing this. And so it was only them getting attacked, they kind of enabled them to make that move. But now that they have that bird in hand, I think you're correct that it's actually more powerful in a lot of ways than a nuclear threat because it's a threat you can actually follow through on.

Like Russia's got nukes. They'd love to be nuking Europe right now. But they can't because it's just uncivilized. And also there's wind. You can't do that. And they might get nuked themselves. So like, but Iran can do this to the strait. And so, yeah, I think you're right.

I think it gives them a lot more leeway. Now, I think it might be hard for them to get to the place of recognizing that it's not an issue of pride anymore. You can move away from that and move to this. What do you think? Well, I was just going to say, I mean, they might get nuked themselves as the real key, because the same thing with, the same thing goes with Israel. The civility question, I think, is out the window. It's actually what we see is these different countries doing everything up to the brink,

basically of re-shattering the nuclear taboo. And that results in these, you know, I'm the opposite of somebody who believes in nuclear proliferation. So that's not what I'm arguing for here. But that is the, that's why I think we see so many of these protracted conflicts in, and many of them proxy conflicts, in the last 80 years of human history,

is that it's just barbarism, protracted barbarism because of the nuclear shadow that hangs over everyone. No. And Emily, you also put this other one in from the Axios reported deal here. Is that what you wanted to get to next? Yeah. And yeah, let's talk about this a little bit because there was another Axios deal meltdown yesterday. And Ryan and Dropside was following this really closely. This is a New York Post reporter saying the Axis reported deal Trump is considering is basically the same in Iranian media yesterday. The White House denied just dressed up in different clothes. I'm told each side has to sell it to their own people. And the international. audience gets caught in the middle, then Bessent came in, once again, from this White House briefing. And I think we can pull this sought up as well, Griffin, of him commenting on the deal. I love Ryan's market hours framework.

It's a lot of sense. But I'm also curious what you made of this Ryan yesterday as DropSit was covering it closely. Let's take a listen to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the deal. With the Iranian government, we did not have regime change, but we changed the regime. As President Trump said at the cabinet meeting, as we've said other times, the first layer of leadership was eliminated, the second layer, and we're now at the third layer. And the eliminated. But it is the Iranian government, such as it is three pillars. It is the elected government.

It is the IRGC, and it is the clerics. And they are having trouble communicating. So we are being patient. we do not have unlimited patience. President Trump always prefers a peace deal. So everything we have done thus far has been defensive. And at present, that is what we will continue doing. But if President Trump doesn't think he can get a peace deal, then Connecticut is back.

All right, Kinetic is back. So we make it that. Yeah, Brian, is this a, he's sort of trying to put the onus on Iranian communication failures for the deal. being maybe confusing or muddled or hard to reach. Yeah, and what's interesting is that Jeremy Scaeho last Friday reported on what Iran had offered in response to the MOU, and the Iranian media then confirmed that several days later. And, you know, according to Axios,

the current kind of deal as it's coming together is very similar to that. So we're now a week into, and very little has changed back and forth. It's hard to watch these negotiations unfold and come away with the idea that it's the Iranians who are disorganized. In Trump's press conference yesterday, no, he said on the one hand, we have a deal. On the other hand, he doesn't care if we have a deal. And on the third hand, actually, maybe he'll just go back to war. And then also he's going to bomb Oman. So, like from the Iranian perspective, it's like,

We're not the confused ones here. So I do think that there's a chance that something, you know, comes together later, but Trump has zero credibility with his kind of interlocutors here on the other side. This is also a guy. Remember, what is the art of the deal fundamentally? What he argues in art of the deal and what he has practiced throughout his life is that the way that you reach a deal is you give significant concessions to the other side that you have no

intention of ever following following through on and then you you break your word and you don't pay your contractor at the last 20 30 percent you don't like you don't do the thing you said you're going to do but you pocket the concessions from the other side like that is trump's actual theory of how to do negotiations that he has articulated and that he has effectuated and the iranians have understand that that's who he is. So they're only going to take things that they can pocket. As they've repeatedly said, words don't matter at this point. Like only like serious commitments matter.

So, but I think we'll know more later today. And Emily, you know, one thing that does seem to strike true from what Besson said there is that we don't have unlimited patience. It does read to me like Trump just does not have the attention span and has grown, tired and weary of even thinking about this. I mean, he's a little more focused on building the UFC fight on the lawn of the White House right now and seems like he'd much rather be talking and focusing on that. So it seems like Besson's out here trying to play cleanup, trying to keep some sort of like message standard about what we're doing here while Trump is sort of MIA. What is your read on that right now? And does Trump want to get a deal before he has his

big 250 UFC bash. I'm sure he does want to get a deal. I think what is interesting now, Trump has relied on cheerleaders, including Mark Levin, and others in that same vein, to make, to do a lot of cleanup on the war in the media. And it's, if you imagine, just dream with me here, you're Donald Trump. right now. And those same people that you have been really relying on as this war gets even less popular, it's never been a popular war, but as it gets less and less popular, those are the same people that are saying absolutely no to any deal that would include like what we have in this next

element, Griffin, this investment fund. I think we can toss this one up on the screen. Yes. This is, I mean, he wants to, he badly wants to, so he says, this is a New York Times report, a post-war investment fund for Iran. Perhaps the most surprising and apparently recent addition to the agreement is a reference to an investment fund for Iran. The Iranian official in one diplomat put it at $300 billion, but other officials involved in mediation would not confirm the amount Iranian official, and Iranian official described it as a reconstruction program that would be promised to Iran. in the event, a final agreement was signed. Earlier in the negotiations, Tehran had demanded reparations from bombardment damage

that's somewhere on the officials estimate at $300 billion to $1 trillion. So the people who have been helping Trump sell this war most, as the war gets even less popular, as midterms, which Trump says he doesn't care about, that quote, I promise he was pinging around, like, Republican consultant circles all week after Trump said that he doesn't really care about the men terms. But in some respect, he does care about his legacy. And Griffin, to your point, the amount of money that is being poured into, I mean, if you're in D.C. right now, Ryan, you've probably noticed it. I don't at all object to the beautification in honor of the 250th anniversary, but it is like nothing I have ever seen here. I've been here

for a while. It's an all-out effort to make D.C. look amazing and to now we have reported. It's actually not report. It's Bessick confirmed that there's a plan to try and get a $250 bill with Donald Trump's face on it. So obviously he is trying to do some legacy shaping here. And the people who are preventing that from happening, Netanyahu, Mark Levin, are the people who were the ones that convinced him to go into the war and have been the only people really selling the war on its merits in the public for a long time. So that dynamic, I can imagine, has left, I mean, it's his own fault to put himself in that situation. But obviously that dynamic would probably exhaust anyone if every time you inch closer to some type of peace agreement that would get this albatross off his neck as he sees it at least. I don't know that it really would. But it's being blocked every effort to try and come to terms with it. This is like literally the escalation trap.

I mean, it does have to be enormously. frustrating for him. Yeah, and it's ironic that Trump, on the one hand, tried to block D.C. from spending, like, what, $1.1 billion of its own locally raised tax revenue through a congressional restriction. There was eventually able to get a deal and a workaround on that. While then he's also using this National Park Service money from around the country to then beautify D.C. And yet, like the Malcolm X, we have this, we have a part. called Malcolm X Park here. It's like 16th Street down by the U Street corridor.

The fountains are flowing. There's water running like it's beautiful. Nobody's ever seen it before. Like it's an, I need to hear Trump talk about Malcolm X. He'll call it Meridian Hill. He'll call it Meridian Hill. He beautified Malcolm X Park. It's incredible. Looks great. But yes, what else is we like, where is he stealing it from? How much of that is he using for the, the, the ballroom as well. I was talking to a source at the National Park Service, and actually the Washington Post reported this too, that we're looking at something like a 45-minute firework display, like hundreds of thousands of pieces of artillery, which God only knows what the like environmental and safety repercussions will be of that. Straight to the like your fireworks. Like fireworks are amazing, but after like 10 minutes, right? Okay, I get it.

You imagine sitting through 45 minutes of fireworks? Your kids are going to want to. Like, I don't know. My kids would be done after like 15. Like, it's like more of like explosion. It's like. I do love this $250 bill thing too. This would be the first still alive president to be put on, on money.

If I'm correct. Is he legal? It's not allowed. Yeah, it's not allowed. But that's what, that's the kind of. of stuff we wish Trump was working on, right? That's that stuff. I also, Sauger sent this that apparently in, uh, in China, the number 250 is a, is a joke slang for idiot or something like that, which, which they're, which they're finding really funny that it's like, it's some sort of slang

that they, that they, so they're loving the 250. That's their six seven. That's eventually, yeah, that's China's six seven apparently. Um, and, and, and, you know, maybe this is how we fix the, the tolling problem is that Iran can toll the straight, but they have to use the $250 Trump bill to do it. And then we get to world peace. That's a lot of Trump bills, but sure. All right, if that's the deal, fine. I'm feeling optimistic about it.

It's just all, but to that point, I mean, I think he probably does want to have this behind him by the time that happens because it's like everything, this second term has been building, to the 250. And it just, every time you get close, it gets blocked because there's no way to release any funds without Netanyahu and Mark Levine losing their minds. And I'm just using them as stand-ins, but like kind of also leaders of that movement

to create more escalation. Sending a spicy picture to your work chat instead of your significant other? That's so embarrassing. You know what's not? Debt? Consolidate your debt with a loan from FIG. No hassle, no judgment. Borrow Better with FIG. Visit fig.ca.

Number one hits, millions of records sold, sold out tours. You think that Jonas Brothers are satisfied? Nope, it's podcast time. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Hey, Jonas is available now, and their first guest is a big one. Paul Rudd. You know, Steve Carell is a great singer. Can you tell you not to audition at the office or something?

I told him. Whoa. We were filming Anchorman. Clearly, I was the idiot. Thank God he didn't listen to me, right? Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Humor Me with Robert Smygo and Friends, we help make you funnier on this episode. My guest's Bob Oden Kirk and Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCullough try and help the Kazoo Kid and Tazan Day be famous again. What if there's an alternate universe show where you guys are incredibly popular?

Well, and they could travel up the land doing meet and greets. They're constantly needed at malls. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygling Friends on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Emily, we have one Dr. Jill Biden here, who now is chatting about her time in the post debate of Biden. Is there anything that you would like to set up here before we listen to Jill? Yeah, well, again, let's set this. She has a memoir coming out. This woman had the audacity to write a memoir because I think the Biden family, this is my like Freudian read, if I put them on the analyst couch for a moment, has always wanted to play with the lobbyists and the consultants that if you're a politician, you run with. And it's true, Biden was, had one of the lowest networks in Congress for a really long time. But I think they want to get paid. And so Joe Biden, or Jill Biden, I should say, as her husband is per Hunter Biden, dealing with some tough cancer. We all know that. It was diagnosed I think stage four, but Hunter Biden was on soft white underbelly recently talking about how it makes

him have a hard time sleeping and there are all kinds of issues with that Jill Biden is out on a media tour to promote her memoir and had the audacity, Griffin, to say this in a preview of an interview that's going to drop this Sunday on CBS Sunday morning. So this is Jill Biden's explanation for what happened on the debate stage. When we were all sitting in the studio, watching the debate with fried chicken or whatever you ordered, Griffin, that night. And this is what Jill Biden, people can go back and watch the clip of, like, Crystal and Sagar's jaw dropping during the Trump Biden debate that made Biden drop out. This is what Jill Biden said she thought. Ever see signs that he was falling into cognitive decline?

No. No. No. Truly. No. I mean, people were saying he wasn't the same Joe Biden. Well, I don't think that's true. He was the same, the essence of the same Joe Biden.

But, yeah, he was going down. The concept of the plan of Joe Biden. I mean, we all observe that. You know, it's a very intense job. I think it ages you quickly. Then we got one more here. We'll play these back to back here. because that was not enough for my taste.

Let's take a list of again. It gets better. Were you horrified as you saw it unfold? I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had never, ever seen Joe like that. The COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally. I hate watching this.

Thank you, President Biden. Before or since. Never. Or since. Yes. You've never seen you like that. No. What happened?

I don't know what happened. I mean, as I watched it, I thought, oh, my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death. Joe, you did such a great job. This is after the debate. This is after the debate. You have the answer. Joe, you graduated kindergarten.

What did you? Trump do? Why? No, lie. I mean, she was so hype for that moment after an hour before. Apparently, she thought her husband was having a stroke on stage. These are the lies that Jill Biden is peddling to sell a memoir. And I heard the Podsafe guys making an interesting point about how they were reacting to Zedgelani,

who posted on X that people underestimate how much there's a trust problem in the Democratic Party, because so many top Democrats and pundits that are Democratic-leaning or outright Democrats spent months saying that Joe Biden was fine. And then even some after the debate, someone was circulating the New York Times' scoring of the debate. And I think it was, there were a couple of people who had rated it a draw. And again, there were some people spinning after the debate that it was fine. And that's a serious problem for Democrats, not in the narrow sense that people are going to go pull the lever one way or the other as I think it was John Favreau was making this point, because they were lied to about Joe Biden. No, that's not what was happening. It's that Democrats

are digging out of a deep trust deficit, specifically in some ways because of this. And so then to have Jill Biden going out, I mean, all of the sources to Alex Thompson and others are coming out of the woodwork now, still not by name, and saying this is not true. Like, she did not, like, none of this, that, none of what she is saying is true. And people, Ryan, I'm curious what you're hearing in Dem circles, if anything, about how this is just incredibly unhelpful for Democrats in the middle of a midterm cycle. Ryan, let's get your reaction to this. A former senior Biden campaign advisor tells me Jill Biden's comments, our revisionist history.

She and a handful of other close advisors around President Biden. kept gaslighting us, telling those of us on the campaign, we were the ones who were wrong, and then he just had a bad night. I think she saw the reputational harm this caused her and is therefore taking a new position. What do you make about that? Reminds me of how Hoover,

President Hoover, former President Hoover, appeared at every Republican convention for like decades after he was out of office because he was former president. He's like, I want to speak at the Republican convention. And people are like, Hoover again. Jesus. And I think things move much faster now.

But I think people are like, oh, no more Biden. No more Jill Biden. No more Joe Biden. We need to just move this back into the past. Let the river of time, you know, wash this out. Doesn't help that like, because it's like, yeah, sure, she has her own motivations. But also, like, no, there's nobody left. kind of in the party establishment that has any motivation to help her with this project.

It's fine if she wants to do a project of restoring herself image. And if a publishing house thinks that they can move some books based on it, I was wrong about the Kamala Harris book. I didn't think that would sell. It sold a ton. Maybe this will move. But nobody in the party, including in the party elite, you know, has any real interest or motivation to play along.

I think a difference with the Kamala Harris book is that she's still has people in the party elite who were willing to do bulk book buys for events and that type of thing. That's my impression of how that book, because she went on a tour to sell it. Like she actually went and did all of these live events. And when you do that, you get bulk sales. And there are people who are willing to sit down with her, like very prominent people who did these interviews on her book tour. I don't think there's anybody like that with Jill Biden remaining, especially after now saying she thought he was having a stroke and you have this juxtaposition that everyone remembers really viscerally. It just seems, and the Biden family.

This is another, I mean, it's kind of sad and tragic in the way that the Biden family is tragic, but they can't give anything to anyone anymore. Whereas if Kamala Harris one day runs for president again, who knows what happens, whatever, she may be in a position to scratch other people's backs. So they have incentive to scratch her back. The Biden family doesn't have that anymore at all. Yes. And to Ryan's point about Democrats desperately wanting to leave this in the past, but we are living in the current present of the wreckage of both of their decisions, Jill and Joe Biden, to stay in this race for so long to not have a primary. And we're all living in the reality that occurred from that to this day.

And I guess it's like with Trump, you know, he wants to be in office to do all these deals, to enrich himself, all this corruption. But like, what did Jill get out of still wanting to stay in the White House longer? Is it just like ego? Like, you know, like, it's not like she was cashing in a ton at all. What is she, so she could rearrange the floral arrangements at the White House. Yeah. Oh, no.

I think you're totally underestimating the potency of just being in the White House. It's the most powerful position in the world. And if he's only working from 10 to 4 or whatever, somebody's got to be, you know, fielding, fielding requests and calls. And, like, she was, she was becoming an, you know, an increasingly central part of that administration, and that would have only increased in a second term. So, yeah, that I don't think any mystery there.

And there's this like refrain that she keeps saying that this was the only moment, that this was just like a snafu. In fact, some of the reporting from the Atlantic says that Jill thought that he was drugged, that someone had drugged him before was another claim that she made. But I mean, just to... Yeah, McKay Coppens got an early copy of a memoir and wrote a piece based on it. And apparently that is actually part of Joe Biden's claim.

And she thought, wow, maybe he was drugged. Maybe he had like cough syrup or something is what... Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, maybe he was drugged for years because, I mean, there was clip after clip before this debate even happened. And I would like to play just my favorite one, the classic, we all know, as Earth Rider. Here, blue here, it is used to make the brew beer in this.

You're fine. Oh, Earthrider. Thanks for the Great Lake. Oh, Earthrider. That's with the Great Lake. I mean, this is in the 2020 election. First of all, in the 2020 primary, people didn't want to say this.

Other Democrats that were running against him really didn't want to say this. It kind of harkens back a little bit to Bernie and Hillary on some of Hillary's obvious vulnerabilities that Trump took advantage of in 2016. But people did not want to talk about the fact that Joe Biden seemed senile then. And they didn't want to, media didn't give it a lot of coverage in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. People just didn't want to talk about it, though I think it was pretty clear. I mean, some of these clips were going very viral at the time. And what we watched was over the course of his first year in office, then his second, third, fourth.

It was getting so much worse in front of everybody's eyes. and it became really hard to deny. But if you're Jill Biden, you still have Joe Scarborough coming out on one of the most watched news shows in D.C. And saying, this is the best Joe Biden I've ever seen. Talking to Joe Biden, then going out on a media platform

and saying that is the best Joe Biden I've ever seen. And so if you're Jill Biden, that stuff is meaningful because it shows that people are buying it. They're still kissing the throne. They're sucking up to power. And, I mean, it's just you can see how as Ryan said, how intoxicating that is if you're Jill Biden in this situation.

Yeah. What I wonder is how did Medicare get beat by that guy? Well, the Dem Civil War broke out on his watch. So because he was, he was not capable of being the leader of the Democratic Party, despite being the Democratic president of the United States. He couldn't lead the party. And he couldn't understand what was happening internally. with the backlash to his Israel policy. He just couldn't, he was not capable of understanding that. And the party is in disarray, as is the Republican Party, of course. But that's in no small part, thanks to Joe Biden being a poor steward of the position that he was in as the leader of the party. Well, I think we can all say we're so sick of talking about these people. So why don't we move on?

Emily, let's move our lens, our perspective, over to, to the sunny city of Los Angeles, where there is an L.A. mayoral and gubernatorial race occurring June 2nd primary in just a few days. Emily, from an outsider perspective, break it down first for a second. What are you seeing over here in L.A.? Well, first, if you haven't watched Griffin's interview with Tom Starr, he did a fantastic job. It was a great interview. So go and check that out. But a Berkeley poll came out yesterday. A lot of people remember when Michael Schellenberger, as sort of an online phenomenon launched a bid for governor. I forgot how many years ago that was. And he was getting a ton of attention on the internet,

but people were curious how that would actually materialize, if it would materialize, into votes. And it didn't. I mean, he got a very, very, very minor percentage of the vote at the end of the day. But there's a Berkeley poll that came out yesterday that had Bass at 26%. Nithu Rahman at 25% and Spencer Pratt at 22%. And that was of likely voters in the city of Los Angeles.

Pratt responded as Griffin has up on the screen. As a Trojan, I would never go off a UC Berkeley poll fight on. My strong guess, I'd have to go look at the margin of error, but I would guess that they're all clustered. I mean, that between Bass and Rahman, that's almost certainly margin of error territory. And Pratt is probably close to margin of error territory. But all this is to say, we can see he's not purely an online phenomenon.

We can see that he's not just at what, like 1%, 2%, 3%, 3% for, yeah, he's not to sound like Dr. Seuss, but he's actually at 22%. So we now see this is a serious candidacy as the election is on Tuesday, right, Griffin? And Griffin's in Griffin's based in L.A. And Griffin, you're also, what, DSA adjacent or full DSA in L.A. So you've been following this as close as anyone. That's coming up in just a couple of days. So this poll is a little bit of a wake-up call, probably.

Well, I identify as a political podcaster that calls balls and strikes, and I'll be doing that on this segment as well. And this segment I do think is designed to make, I think no matter what you say about the L.A. race, someone's going to get really mad at you. So I will try to take this from a neutral, what's going on in the race perspective. But yeah, I mean,

it is really surprising to see someone that a lot of people view as MAGA coded, like Spencer Pratt, rising so much in the polls. And it does seem like there might be a silent Pratt voter that maybe doesn't say they're voting for Pratt, but is going to. And you do say,

you said he's not just an online sensation, but it is quite an honest. online sensation what he's been doing. Some people are making fun of his AI slop ads. Some of them are created by fans of the campaign. Some of them are billboards that he puts up around town, which people think is very funny to put up AI slop in a city of creatives that are about to all lose their jobs to AI slop.

But regardless of that, he's also really making actually a lot of compelling videos of him all over Los Angeles, you know, grabbing a lot of attention in a very Trump 2016 way against a unpopular, Democratic incumbent. So, you know, I think that he is probably going to get into the top two of the primary or it might be likely. But for those who don't really know the stupid California system we have here, it is a jungle primary. So essentially Republicans. Which sounds fun. Which sounds fun. Yeah. It sounds fun as hell.

it was designed apparently originally to try to create a system that would create more moderate candidates, but essentially what occurs is Democrats and Republicans all run together. There's not a Democratic and Republican primary. They all run together. And then whoever gets the top two goes on to a general. Now, often in California, that means it could be two Democrats running against each other. Or it could be, you know, it could be in the governor's race two Republicans running against each other, which seems unlikely now, but there was a moment where we thought Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco might be the top two for California governor. That doesn't look likely anymore. But yeah, here we are here. And Ryan, what is your perspective? You know, we covered the Zoron race in New York for a long time.

And Zoron's videos really did put him almost on a national stage in a way that Spencer Pratt seems to as well. What is your, what do you make of all that? Yeah, I mean, he was already a national figure from his reality TV days, right? You know, if the videos at the kind of pop culture linkages kind of line up with your politics, then it works together. And I think that's the case with Pratt. Like he's going for this like, what, upper middle class, every man kind of kind of vibe. I don't know. Like what?

I don't know. I guess I think that's how he's like himself. But I also feel in Griffin, actually, you too, Ryan. Like, there's something I would imagine that people missed with Trump and like working class Hispanics, where if you are hitting on the biggest vulnerabilities of Karen Bass and some of these Democratic candidates and just talking about cleaning up the city, helping people who are homeless, recover from their addictions, like it just seems as though he's perfectly positioned to take on those. very serious grave vulnerabilities, not just with the upper middle class, you know, like Democrats

who are sick of, you know, paying so much in taxes and then walking in, walking over needles, but also the kind of like every man who's like, whoa, why was the mayor gone during the fire? Like, what the hell's going on? It's certainly the kind of candidacy that you can imagine appealing to people who were just like kind of at the end of their rope and just very frustrated at how things are. You're like, let's, this is totally crazy. Let's just try this. Yeah.

So, yeah, it certainly seems plausible. I saw that Nithy was trying to get another left-wing candidate to drop out. Like, if enough, if Democrats were really kind of strategic about who was in the final race, Griffin, would they be able to box him out? Is it really the kind of like candidates who are gobbling up like 20% of the vote? vote all among them that is kind of giving him the shot at squeaking through. And then once he's in, then he has a one-on-one shot. Yeah.

So right now it's a tight three-way race between the incumbent Democrat mayor, Karen Bass, who I would describe as kind of like a center-right liberal-ish kind of. Former Cuban terrorist, right? With Spencer talks about all the time that she was training terrorist tactics in Cuba, which is great. She says she wasn't. Oh, okay. Well, maybe she should admit to it.

It might help. But maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not. And then we have Nithya Raman who is technically DSA coded, but the DSA did not endorse Nithia for like a medley of reasons, including sort of her work on the L.A. counsel where they found her to be a little lackluster. So there was a little bit of drama about not endorsing anyone for the primary.

But Spencer does seem to be really into coding all of the problems of LA on the DSA. And I think maybe that's because Zoron has made the DSA more of a national topic. So now more people know what that was. I don't think this would have worked even a couple of years ago. but let's take a listen to a recent video of Spencer calling out both Karen and Nithya Raman. I'm Spencer Bratt. We're here at the 6th Street Bridge in downtown Los Angeles. It is beautiful.

If only you could see it. But all the lights have been allowed to be stolen from our taxpayer money because Mayor Basura and Nithia Rahman or DSA City Council let criminals run the streets. But don't worry, Mayor Basura. is planning to take $200 more million of our tax money to get solar power lights. Oh, because the criminals won't steal those. But don't worry, Nithiaraman has suggested putting cages around the lights. That's right, cages. That'll stop them.

So if you're sick of your tax money getting burned by these criminals, you better vote for Mayor Pratt. The balance drop May Ford. All right. So, yes, he loves to call her Karen Basura, which people find very funny. It's very Trumpian in coming up with these nicknames, if you will. And I do think that to Ryan's question of if the Democrats could consolidate around someone,

but unfortunately, I think that Nitha Raman has stumbled during these debates. Nitya has not been able to cut videos that are, in my opinion, very charismatic and engaging and hasn't been able to really own the media environment, which has led the Democratic. Democrats to be in this kind of standstill where they're like, well, people really hate Karen Bass. I mean, she has an insanely low approval rating. But Nithya really isn't getting out there and grabbing the moment and doing mic drops and capturing people's attention either. So it's this area where, you know, these people want to run for these positions like L.A. Mayor and stuff. But we're in a new realm where if you can't cut a vertical, if you can't talk to the camera and make constant,

interesting 60-second videos that grab people's attention, you really, you can't be, you can't win as mayor. I mean, maybe she still will. But I do think we're in this new era now where you have to be able to be a confident media content creator to really grab people's attention. Well, I was going to say two things on that. First of all, I don't think anybody wants to be in this era where you have the reality television stars who can master media, uh, being able to kind of,

dominate conversations because institutional trust is so low, but we are in that moment. I'm sorry, but there are a whole lot of people in this country who are just going to say, or in our cities, who are just going to say, screw it. Karen Bass, you're telling me, like, you're appealing to my institutional trust in what you've done as mayor, or at Nitna Rahman, who I think was tasked with on the city council, the homelessness issue, Griffin, correct me if I'm wrong, that's a huge, huge vulnerability for both of them and you can't just appeal to expertise or authority when people think your expertise and authority is failing. So we are in that era and I don't know anybody who particularly

likes it or loves it, but it's what we're in. And secondly, that does become a really big problem because Mamdani was very clever about how he dealt with his past on criminal justice reform, right? Like, it's been pretty interesting to watch him navigate that. And I think he's done it just about as well as anybody could. But that's a real problem for Nithia Rahman and Karen ass because people want a new, especially I think working class people, if you look at polling, want a new approach that isn't just the progressive criminal justice reform experiments that played out in some of our cities. Even in California, what did they, they recalled a couple people who were, like it was San Francisco. I'm trying to remember exactly who it was.

Yeah. Ryan, his name is escaping me. Middle terrorist. Yes, Chesa Boudin. Yes, yes. Yeah. That's, yeah, very bad timing for him. And I'm joking about terrorists, but his parents were in the weather underground. That's what I mean. But yeah, I think that's a problem. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are serious issues with Los Angeles. And yeah, people don't really care about this experience line that both Nithia and Karen are touting as the reason that you should vote for them. Spencer's been really smart, I think, about saying, oh, if this is their experience, that's no good.

also think that, I mean, listen, this is like a very long shot thing. This is liberal L.A. So even if Spencer makes it through the primary, it's unlikely that he would win in the general just because the odds are simply stacked against him. But he was doing this really smart thing early on of saying, I'm not Democrat. I'm not Republican. I just care about the city, which I thought was really smart. But in the recent weeks, he's like going on Gutfeld. He's going on Fox News. And it's like, brother. That's not going to help you. Yeah, he was in New York clearly the last couple days on a meeting. He needs to be going on Pod Save. He needs to be going on Alana Glazer.

Like, he needs to be going on those. And maybe they wouldn't have him. But honestly, I do think there is a certain charm to him. I mean, I personally find him to be a little bit of a reality TV show Huckster, much like Donald Trump. But, you know, there's a charm to him. And I do think that he would win over some of these liberals if he went on. and talked about the things he's going to do.

Trump kind of did a soft endorsement. Erica Kirk did an endorsement. It's like, guys, you are not helping him. And I know we got, I think we got to move to Dr. Hamaway in a second, but one other federal-related point is that assuming he does get into the general election, that's actually very good then for Republican House turnout in the Los Angeles area. A lot of these California races are often decided by, you know, 5,000, votes are less. And so if there are two Democrats on the gubernatorial ballot and two Democrats

on the mayoral ballot, then Republican turnout in the general election just plummets. Because Republicans are like, why bother? And then the House candidates deeply suffer as a result, the Republican House candidates. But if there's Pratt and it gives Republicans a reason to come to the polls, while they're there, they're also going to vote for the Republican House candidate, which could actually, you know, which could potentially matter in some of the further out, depending on how the districts are drawn races. He's running a good campaign and his opponents are running bad campaigns. That's my assessment of it.

Like a really good campaign, I suppose, with a couple really bad campaigns. So. Yes. And he's already plotting a reality TV show that is following him around for the race. I don't know if that would start in the general, but it was leaked that it could potentially continue rolling if he'd be. comes mayor. That'd be cool.

So, yeah, there's that as well. And yeah, I guess it's just kind of an example of a very deeply Democrat city, not really having strong Democratic candidates or a zoron of their own. And in some ways, just structurally and aesthetically, but not politically, Spencer probably is the closest to the zoron of L.A. in terms of his ability to create media and videos that people are reacting to, regardless of politics. And that happens every once in a while in these deep one-party areas. I think it's partially what happened in Texas in the Senate primary.

Like you end up with two really bad candidates of the party that has such dominance in a particular state or city. So there's a little bit of that probably happening too. A little too relaxed during yoga? That's embarrassing. You know what's not? Debt. consolidate your debt with a loan from FIG. No early repayment fees and low interest rates

so you can pay off your debt faster. Borrow better with FIG. Visit fig.ca. Number one hits, millions of records sold, sold out tours. You think that Jonas Brothers are satisfied? Nope, it's podcast time. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Hey, Jonas is available now,

and their first guest is a big one, Paul Rudd. You know, Steve Carell is a great singer. Can you tell you not to audition for the office or something? I told him. Whoa. We were filming Anchorman. Clearly, I was the idiot. Thank God he didn't listen to me, right?

Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Humor Me with Robert Smygo and Friends, we help make you funnier on this episode. My guest's Bob Oden Kirk and Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCullough try and help the Kazoo Kid and Tazan Day be famous again. What if there's an alternate universe show where you guys are incredibly popular? Well, and they could travel up the land doing meet and greets. They're constantly needed at malls. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygling Friends on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And with that note, why don't we bring on our guest?

Ryan, will you introduce Adam Hamawi? Joining us this morning is Dr. Adam Hamaway, a plastic surgeon from New Jersey, who is running in New Jersey's. Dr. is it the 11th district? 12th district. New Jersey's, New Jersey's 12th district, kind of a crowded field, replacing the outgoing progressive congresswoman, Bonnie Watson Coleman. People might remember Dr. Hamaway was on this program, maybe a year plus ago, when you were a guest of Representative Watson Coleman for the State of the Union, she brought you because you had volunteered in multiple war zones throughout decades,

but most recently had done a rotation through Gaza. Actually, during this war, have you been there multiple times? Yeah, I've been to Gaza twice and to the West Bank twice in the last two years. Got, got it. Now, so you also kind of came to prominence in Congress. They're like, oh, wait, this is the guy who actually operated on Tammy Duckworth when her helicopter was downed. You were an Army combat surgeon. Can you talk a little bit about when you joined the military and what your experience was like?

Because that also, I think, then flows into the attacks that you're getting recently for some of the volunteer work that you did while you were enlisted. Sure, yeah. I enlisted in the New Jersey National Guard in I guess it was 1989. I was like right when I just got into college. And then I later got a ROTC scholarship and was commissioned as an officer and served in the regular army active duty for eight years. After, you know, I got an educational delay, was an individual registry reserve for a while. And then after completing my medical training came in on active duty and served in the Iraq War as a combat trauma surgeon in 2004 and five and for several years after that. Got it.

And so that leads to one of the more kind of shocking articles I've seen written by a news outlet in all of the time that I've been kind of covering politics. And this was published by Jewish Insider. Let me share this here. Leading New Jersey Dem congressional candidate, Adam Hamaway, volunteered with Al-Qaeda-tide group in Bosnia. You read that headline, you're like, what on earth is going on here? So can you give us a little background about what this Bosnia volunteer effort was that the Jewish insider is now turning into allegations that you're linked to al-Qaeda? Yeah, I mean, things are getting more absurd as we get closer to elections. I've been volunteering now for almost 30 years with medical missions around the world.

and that was one of my earlier ones. I was a medical student between my second and third year. And the genocide in Bosnia was happening at that time. I reached out to the Boston mission and said, listen, I got a summer and I'd like to volunteer. And they directed me to the UN who directed me to one of the organizations working with them. And I spent the summer delivering medical supplies with the countryside.

And that was it. And apparently now, like they're grasping Strauss and we got crazy allegations because they have nothing else to talk about. Yeah, and Emily or Griffin, if you have a follow-up question? So about a decade after you were there, one of the organizations that the UN directed you to was raided and accused of or found to be operating as a front for al-Qaeda, which I think in 1994 probably a lot of people may not even have heard of except for maybe this CIA.

And so I guess you would have had a time machine to know that this was going to happen a decade later. And can you talk a little bit about what you saw while you were in Bosnia and what the situation was like? And I'll just build on. So sorry, I was just going to build on Ryan's question of it because John Schindler, the National Security Journalist, built on the Jewish Insider Report and said that at the time you were in the Zeneca area, it was crawling with foreign jihadists. many of them followers of bin Laden, including the infamous al-Mujahid battalion, which B.A.F. Benevolous International Foundation supported with funds and logistics. Those terrorists committed numerous

crimes against Christian civilians and prisoners of war, including decapitations on film. Many notables in the global Salafi jihad movement, including Osama bin Laden himself, spent time in Bosnia during that troubled period. What was the good doctor really doing in Bosnia? Shindler writes in 1994 as a guest of BIF and bin Laden. So just I wanted to add that to Ryan's question, doctor as well. It's almost laughable just kind of like hearing you talk about this. I've been talking about my mission to Boston, you know, since I was a medical student and when I came back, I mean, it was one of the things that, you know, highlighted my time in medical school that I was able to volunteer. And what I saw as initially when I was in Sarajevo is, you know, snipers shooting people in the street. And then to different clinics and hospitals throughout the countryside that were short on medical supplies.

I flew in on a chartered UNHC United Nations flight into Sarajevo, got into an armored personnel vehicle that a Ukrainian force that was there, UN force picked me and the workers up from the airport and took us downtown. And every day we go to a warehouse that, again, run by the United Nations and we would deliver supplies around the countryside. And that's what I did for the summer. And that really what's prompted me to do many of the missions that I've been doing since then. That's the extent of it.

Yeah, and something that, and I've been kind of fighting back and forth with the reporter on this Jewish insider piece, because while the reporter linked to a federal document that included, what I felt was like something that should have been included, he did not reference that thing. And that is that an envoy to President Bill Clinton, the same year that you were working with this organization, visited a separate office and, quote, appraised BIF and its efforts to provide humanitarian relief. So this is kind of a UN-recognized organization

where the special envoy to the White House visits and finds to be doing impressive work. and they're somehow raising questions about a medical student that a medical student should have known more than the United Nations or the White House at the time. And so I'm curious, just from my personal level, you know, as somebody who has spent so much time kind of serving the country, you know, eight years active duty

and a lot more IRR and National Guard, and, you know, spent your life doing volunteer missions around the world, what's been like to get into this partisan politics and have even your democratic future colleague Josh Gottheimer, you know, raising questions about kind of your loyalty to the country. I just, I can't imagine what that must be like after 30 years of a life of service. It's not, this is not new for, for Muslim candidates. Jumping in on day one, I knew that I was going in as someone who was a witness to the genocide in Gaza and that I would be facing a lot of resistance.

I've been, you know, facing criticism for several years now since I came back and I've been speaking up to my practice, to my person, you know, we've been getting attacked and I've been getting attacked now, and it's just increased. It's not a new narrative. You know, calling a Muslim terrorist has been a go-to, you know, backstory for years. I've been called the anti-Apaq candidate since they want,

the last person in Congress that they want. is someone who's actually been there and has been speaking up boldly and is not afraid. And so to have these attacks come in the last, you know, a few days is just showing their desperation. They have nothing else to talk about. You know, my service to the country is clear. I've been, you know, I've served in uniform. I've taken care of hundreds of American, you know, men and women in combat and battle. I took care of a U.S. sitting senator. I was at 9-11. on ground zero on that day, you know, helping first responders and actually climbed on the rubble to help someone that was trapped there.

So, you know, they have nothing to say except grasp, but straws now and start making up stories and connecting dots that really don't even exist. So that's the only thing they got to say. And again, let's look at the narrative in what I'm talking about. I'm talking about let's stop war, let's stop atrocities that we're funding, you know, let's save lives. and what they are pushing is increased funding to a foreign country that is breaking international human rights law,

that is breaking U.S. law by us supporting them, that we want to continue a genocide and killing children, innocent civilians that is continuing on to this day despite a ceasefire, and they're calling me the terrorist. So, you know, I think it's very clear for anyone who looks past the sensational headlines about where the truth is. Yeah, and it does seem like a tactic that has been used for many years, especially right now during the Gaza genocide, you know, labeling human rights workers or aid workers at the Red Cross or World Central Kitchen as Hamas. And I don't think that stuff really is gaining a lot of traction anymore or we hope it's not. But we solve that because that stuff seems ultimately a distraction from your campaign. So could you tell us a little bit about the core tenants of your campaign, what you want to do in New Jersey, and a little bit about the opponent you're running against? So I'm running in a crowded field.

So there's multiple opponents. And I've been running on basically as a doctor, as a physician who works here every day in New Jersey and has seen war, you know, working in uniform and also as a volunteer around the world, that we should be funding health care and not bonds. We have a health care system that's falling apart. We have insurance companies that are really pressing our patients every day, denying surgeries, denying tests, and at the same time making a profit off it. And we're told that we can't have Medicare for all because we can't afford it. And yet we could see all the wars that we've been funding over the decades and the one continuing to go on right now. I've been saying that we need to abolish ICE because they've been terrorizing our communities.

And it was just at Delaney Hall a couple days ago as, again, they're gassing, senators and representatives and the people are being like attacked and kidnapped by like, you know, mass stormtroopers, which is, you know, really strange to see in my own country right now. And that we need to unrig this economy that's being run by corporations, billionaires, and corrupt special interests and really make it work for working people. That's been my message since day one. And apparently that makes me, you know, a radical because I'm saying that. And you said you were an anti-Apaq candidate.

Have you noticed A-PAC get into this race at all yet? Surprisingly, no. I mean, they've been working through, again, their right-wing media and, you know, obviously Jewish insider has been putting out an article on me every other day attacking me. But I think they've been busy around the country. We just saw their $32 million race against Massey and Kentucky. And, you know, they're fighting a battle on multiple fronts. Maybe they didn't see me as big a threat as what they're beginning to notice right now.

But I'm happy they didn't jump in. And it's a few more days to go. It's not over yet. And as we see, the attacks are continuing. And I'm going to keep pushing and giving my message till the last day. And what's people have different visions for what it would look like to abolish ICE and, you know, do immigration enforcement in particular cases. What do you think, you know, immigration?

enforcement would look like without ice? Well, there was life before ice. You know, we had the INS before, and what we need is an orderly system that respects human rights, that respects civil liberties, that allows people to enter this kind of country legally and, you know, bring their talents and abilities that have really made this country what it is with, you know, generations of immigrants coming in here. And, you know, it's not like we have to reinvent the wheel. This exists in other countries.

And we have to, you know, look at like just around us. We are surrounded by immigrants that are neighbors that, you know, have, you know, pay taxes and really provide services that we really need here. So let's go back and stop pointing fingers because both parties have dropped the ball about this. It's not just Republicans. There's Republicans and Democrats. And we need to, you know, get this system so that. that we don't have these long lines waiting for a lottery system or, you know, I have, you know, neighbors that have been waiting like over a decade to be, to have family members

join them because our process is so broken. So it doesn't mean that we need to have this rogue, you know, force that is going and terrorizing communities and kidnapping people and drop broad daylight. You know, even in district Trenton, you know, they've been, there have been over like 30 abductions in the streets and broad. daylight. Trenton is not the southern border. They're not protecting anyone here. What they're doing is attacking black and brown people. And, you know, we are every day moving towards a fascist country and losing our democracy. And we need to, like, get our heads on straight about, you know, which direction we are heading for and what we want this country to look like for our children.

And last question for me, you know, without kind of APEC coming in and spending, millions of dollars, articles like the ones that have been, you know, targeting you, I don't think reach, you know, can reach people in the same way. But I'm curious, has, like, as you've been out on the doors or at campaign stops, has anybody come up to you and said,

wait, I read somewhere that you're Al-Qaeda? Not yet. Not yet. So, you know, I've most, I've been knocking on doors, you know, greeting people at train stations, standing at coffee shops, and I'm getting a lot of positive feedback.

So I don't think, you know, people have heard it. And I know they've heard more words of support saying, I've seen that garbage that they're saying about you and it's ridiculous. So people, I'm happy I live in a district that is as diverse as we live in here and is as intelligence where people could see through the garbage and know that what we need in this country is bold new leaders and not those beholden to APEC. that funds their campaigns and have put them in office and keeping them in office. It struck me that you mentioned earlier that you were at 9-11 rescuing people.

And of course, there was a mass explosion of Islamophobia post-9-11. Tell me more about that day, your experience trying to rescue people, and the weeks and months after. Well, that's a day I will never forget. I was a resident at New York Presbyterian in the Upper East Side. And, you know, in the morning, we all reported to the emergency room. We had a rush of patients that came in from the initial collapse. And after, I think, 11 o'clock, everything stopped. And the NYPD asked for some volunteers.

And some of the doctors and nurses, like myself, jumped on a bus. and under police escort went all the way down to ground zero. We set up a field hospital in Stuyvesant High School, which was down there at the time, and worked through the night, you know, taking care of mostly first responders who were, you know, getting injured and had like smoke inhalation as well and eye injuries.

And then it was around midnight. They said that there was someone trapped on the rubble. They needed some surgeons up because they were thinking that We might have to amputate to extract him. Thank God we didn't have to do that, but we did climb up onto the rubble to help and we were finally able to get him up and down. So that's a crazy night. At the same time, my wife was in our apartment and I called her and it was hard to reach because the signals were all down that day, told her to stay in her in the apartment and she didn't leave the apartment for about two weeks because of the

the anti-Muslim hate that was around that time. Even I, on that day, got, you know, yelled at and screamed out by some of my doctor colleagues telling me it was my fault, even though I was physically there and healthy. Other doctors. Other doctors, yeah. I would say doctor. It was one doctor who wasn't all my colleagues. And living in New York was tough after that. You know, we lived in the city, walking through the streets, you know, people spit up me.

my wife and called us names and would shove and push us in the street. That's the environment that we lived in. And unfortunately, some of that still exists today. Most of it is gone, but you could see that some of the attacks right now are trying to pull on that fear and pull on that hatred that, you know, is really a right-wing tactic of about, you know, whether it's fear of immigrants, it's fear of Muslims, whether it's fear of some foreign threat that's going to, you know, that we need to go into another war. That's how they work. And when all else fails, that's what they're falling back to.

Yeah, I think for people, no. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Yeah, I think for people who didn't kind of live through that period, those first weeks and those months and those first years, it's very, very difficult to probably put your, put yourself, put yourself there. But it was, there was a profound shift in that moment. And, yeah, I'm sorry that you, you know, experienced that from other New Yorkers,

but it's not surprising given what the, what the mood was like at the time. But I also wonder if, if in a way, you're, the field experience that you had at that point, doing volunteer work, not just in the Balkans, but around the world, at that by then, prepared you in a way that maybe some other American doctors weren't, prepared because we hadn't had, you know, an attack on continental U.S., you know, since, unless you count some dock attacks in World War II, you know, since, you know, for 200 years or so. So in order for an American doctor to have experience with a field hospital and a crisis situation like that, you would actually have to go overseas.

It's going overseas and working with mass casualties, you know, a mass casualty currently in the United States is usually, you know, a car or a bus accident that happens, you know, thank God, very rarely. And to actually have, like, more injuries, which include a combination of blast, burn, you know, penetrating injuries on a mass scale and to be able to triage it, besides field exercises where you're simulating, it's an experience that most people, thank God, don't have. And that's, again, one of the reasons that I keep going is because I feel I have this experience. And even though, for example, in Gaza, we've had several hundred doctors from the United States now volunteer. For most of them, it's the first time.

And going there with a team and being able to lend a hand and give my perspective about this is how you triage in a situation where you have very, little resources and you have to like, you know, move a lot of people through. I think it's important. And I think those hundreds of doctors that have been there now and have come back and are working now all over the countries and ERs and hospitals and cities and rural settings, you know, they're a huge asset now to the United States because of the experience that they've had over the last few years. And I was just going to ask, I mean, the, you've, you've,

been getting tons of questions for years, not before the campaign, about obviously Omar Abdal Rahman, known as the Blind Cheek. And I was in the Midwest on 9-11. And after 9-11, of course, I can't imagine what it was like to be there in the area in the days and weeks and years after 9-11, how sensitive people were, what it was like to be Muslim in the area, what it was like to feel like you were in danger in the area. And I wanted to ask just how you sort of have dealt with some of those, what I imagine are difficult conversations. One quote recently, as you said, he did speak about violent things. This is in reference to the blind cheek, even though you say that I think most people disagree with and most people condemn, including myself, but it wasn't the only thing

he spoke about. And I imagine that you've had conversations about your association with him over many years with many different people and just trying to kind of get along with your fellow Americans. What has what has that been like in this campaign and before this campaign? Well, you know, at that time, there was very few, you know, religious figures for Muslims in New Jersey, New York area at the time. And he was a well-known figure that was basically everywhere. I mean, you know, he went to different mosques and different, you know, locations. and people, you know, saw him because he was just around. And when I first met him at that time, again, I was, you know, just, you know, I was already in the military.

I was already serving, and he was in the area. What I was called to testify on is there was a last-minute carpool. I joined not just him, but it was several community members and other religious figures at that time. And what I was called to testify on is a particular time, what I saw and what I had. heard. It was not as a character witness. It was not anything, you know, I've been condemning the violence for years. I've been condemning what he said and any violent actions. And the reason I was called as a witness is because I had nothing to do with it. I was never accused of anything at the time before or after. It was a small 15, 20 minute testimony in a very long trial. I went and gave

my testimony and left, and really no one said anything about it at the time because it was so insignificant. Again, it's one of those things about grasping at straws and trying to make something out of nothing because they have no other story to talk about. All right. Well, Adam, where can people learn more about your campaign, race, follow you, will put a link in the description. Well, the race is almost over, so it's crunch time right now. The second is just four days away now. You can learn out of at Hamoee for NJ.com, H-A-M-A-W-Y-F-O-R-N-J. And you could volunteer.

We need canvassers. We've been knocking on doors every day now, and we have phone banking all across the country. So whether you're in California or all the way to New Jersey, we could put you to work. And in New Jersey, if you're in the district, the polls are open. So early voting is happening right now until Sunday.

And please, if you haven't, filled out mail-in ballots, fill them out, put them in the mail. it's not doing any good on the kitchen table. All right, election is Tuesday. If you live in New Jersey's, well, wherever you live in New Jersey, elections are on Tuesday, go out and do your civic duty. We'll stay in touch and talk to you soon, Dr. Hanwit. Thank you very much for having me.

It wouldn't be a Friday show without some questions from our audience. Now on supercast.com. So let's see what we've got here from the people who have put on our new thread. at the top and it will also be a link in the description if anyone ever wants to submit a written question here i'm just scrolling through some of them right now sauger can you make another i will eat my sock prediction listen you got you got to save these for the live stream because that's the only one that saugger does uh all right this one from walter zikinowski why do you think aOC avoids alternative news shows slash podcasts like breaking points

Ryan. I think she doesn't see the upside and only sees a downside. That's my kind of sense of it. She does do, you know, she answers questions fairly, very openly on Capitol Hill, you know, for anybody who comes up with a camera, whether it's mainstream or dropside or anybody else. Yeah, she talks to Julian all the time. Yeah, and she'll talk to, you know, Pablo.

And she'll talk to literally anybody on Capitol Hill. Trolls, anybody else. And she'll do what, you know, cable hits that are shorter. You know, the independent media hits, I think they generally significantly longer, more room for something to be like clipped and caused problems. But I don't know. It's a good question. You know, she's always had this like,

I'm going to, I'm going to create my own audience. And she's got, what, 12 million Twitter followers or millions on Instagram. It's a good point. So she has this ability. She does these Instagram lives, where she's, you know, creating an intimate, direct parisocial connection to that audience.

Selfishly, I think that independent media is a good place for all politicians. And it's a good place to hone the ability to have longer conversations. But yeah, that's my sense. And to build trust with those audiences. But yeah, it's odd. It is interesting.

I hadn't thought about the fact that she, if you come up to her with a camera and a mic, doesn't matter for the daily call or a drop site. Like, she will talk to on Capitol Hill. So the risk aversion, I get it. Like, actually, I do understand that you're going to get a really tough interview on independent media of people who are like maybe more connected to the grassroots where there have been,

there has been like a lot of fighting about some of this stuff and best tactics and the like. But it is kind of interesting that she takes the Capitol Hill question. I've changed my mind a little bit since the last time we all talked on a Friday show about this because, you know, getting, I don't know if you get tougher questions on independent media. I think there's only like three places that do confrontational interviews, like adversarial interviews. Like us, maybe Medi Hassan, but like, you know, like we, but like, you know, people are like, oh, well, Trump went on all the podcasts, but those podcasts were not adversarial. They were they were meat writing Trump on all of us. of them. Like, none of them were adversarial. Well, she did a lot of glazer, and that's not going to be adversarial. Right. Like, it wasn't at all. Yeah, exactly. So I think there's this confusion where it's like, oh, you need to go on independent media and you need to go on podcast to have these adversarial conversations, but that doesn't really exist in the independent media sphere either.

Like, if, like, if AOC goes on Pod Save America, it's, it's not going to be adversarial. They've been doing some decent internecine. It's not going to be adversarial, though. But I think that I assume this question. was about us and yeah like medes ito but I but we are unique in the independent media space that we ask hard questions to even people that we may be politically inclined to support and I think that makes us like unique and different and kind of makes sense why people don't want to have an Alyssa Slotkin moment or something like that but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're not

going to go on podcasts because I think most podcasts are not going to be like us I don't know. My assumption is Alyssa Slokin probably saw that as a success. I think we've talked about this before, but just being in front of the audience and looking like you can do it. Yeah. I just think that there's like, honestly, in the independent media landscape or in the podcast landscape, you might get tougher questions on CNN.

But sometimes, like. Bullshit. I think that, wait, what's her face? Who's the main? It depends on if we're talking about like podcasts, like Alana Glazer or podcasts, breaking points. Well, look at like, even like the question, obviously like Sean Hannity glazes Trump all the time, but like Sean Hannity is going to ask real questions that the Nelk boys are not going to ask, right? Like, I feel like. I don't know. I mean, sometimes Trump's best interviews are the ones that aren't adversarial because he just starts riffing and he's had some of his best like moments on Hannity actually because he's so comfortable with him. But sometimes then the Nalk boys because the Nalk boys are Rogan, maybe it would be an Alana Glazer, but because they don't really know what they're talking about, they also don't know what the third rails they aren't supposed to touch are.

So sometimes they stumble into those conversations that they don't mean to be happy. So I don't know. I think it could go both ways. But I also think, like, the good indie shows, I agree with you, are very distinct from the bad indie shows. And the bad indie shows, it is possible they may be worse than cable. That's probably true. That's always my view on it. Okay, next one from Kevin Nijedley.

Ryan, if Rokano wins presidency in 2028 and wants you to be his secretary of state, okay, two crazy things have to happen there for this to work. Would you do it? I hope this is not just fantasy world, it is. I think you'd be great choice for Secretary of State. Only if I'm also a national security advisor, head of UFOEI, and also head of the Pentagon. They're not giving you clearance. Uh, Roe could give the clearance.

He can wave it right through. What else? I mean, I want no rivals, you know, unchecked. Yeah, right, right. I would definitely put you in charge of the National Archives. We would know immediately what happened to JFK. Oh, DEA.

I want DEA, too. Some heads are going to roll in there. All right. So he will be the every man, Marco Rubio, of the Rokana administration. and our final question comes from Nicholas. El Salvador. Oh. I'm going to be a vice roy of El Salvador.

All right. Rokana, get to work. So from Nicholas Jurista, not a supporter of the Iran Wardall, but you guys used to do an amazing job on having multiple viewpoints. Now it appears to me one-sided. Again, I don't agree with the war at all,

but it would be nice to have others on that have a difference of opinions. Truly appreciate all that you guys. guys do. Now, I have asked before, should we get some, some pro-Iran war people on the show? But, you know, that will just turn kind of like a, like a shouting debate, right? I don't know. I think that's good. And we were also talking about, you know, internally, you know, booking. the proactive booking takes you know,

takes time to set aside time to think like, okay, three days from now, because it takes a little bit if you want Mark Dubowitz, you got to reach out and schedule him and he's not going to come on the day necessarily. But I think it's a fair point, actually. Yeah. Now, the show's premise has been

not a both sides show. It's like the views from regular people who disagree on some things but are just regular people. It doesn't mean you have to then carve out space for the donor class to get their say. And in the Iran war, like, there's not a whole lot of grassroots public support for it. So that segment of the population is not really being ignored. The population that's being ignored is the donor class that loves the neocon class that loves the world. We never really promised to give them a voice. Well, I like what you just said about how it's not a both-site show, because the show is really bad is what we all share.

The foundation that we all build the show off of is that the establishment is corrupt and broken. And so our job is not to do what everybody else in the quote-unquote mainstream media does, which is take them credibly and seriously. obviously, but we from the left and from the right, approach everything through the lens of that the political establishment is corrupt and broken and the system isn't working. So sometimes that means on the tax code, for example, I'm going to say that we should have a flat tax and you guys are going to say, no, we need a taxation to be more progressive. But what we're not going to do is be like, actually we need more corporate carve-outs for the sake of GDP.

And that then applies to, if you apply that to foreign policy, it means we're really not going to have the type of pundits on and treat them credibly, unless it's really adversarial in a debate that they don't buy into the premise of our establishment being corrupt and broken and the like. But I actually agree with the viewer who submitted this question that it's not a bad idea to have debates when it makes sense. And so there is, there are people in MAGA because I do a serious exemption where I take calls every day from, right-leaning people. And there are people in MAGA who make arguments that we really disagree with, but they feel like it's actually the corrupt elite who hasn't pushed back against Iran since 1979.

I don't agree with that viewpoint, but they feel like the foreign policy establishment has actually been cowardly when it comes to Iran. And so that's a viewpoint that I think might be worth debating because none of us agree with it. But that's the type of thing that we probably could set up with someone. So we'll have to think about it. I think that's great. That's more work. Okay, well, it's a fair criticism. And now I am booking Mark Levin for Monday. So everybody will get excited for that. I would love to hear his reaction, although we can get it Saturday night on five.

Ryan Graham! Ryan Grim! All right. Well, that's going to do it first this Friday. Again, for those who are still dealing with struggles connecting their Spotify account to their new supercast, trying to get into supercast, trying to get your daily show e-exam. and it's not showing up. There's a few reasons that might be happening.

It might be going to your promo or spam folder. You may have notifications turned off in your settings. But regardless, we are here to help support at supercast.com. I'm working very closely with all those people. And I know it's annoying. I'm so sorry that you're going through any technical inconveniences for the membership and your hard-earned money that you give us to support the show. We really support, we really thank you and are grateful.

for your support. And honestly, it's stressful getting so many emails saying things aren't working, but it's also nice to see people really care about the show and care about getting the show every morning. It means that you guys care a lot. So I am going to spend the rest of this weekend making sure as many people as possible get access and support at supercast.com is there as well to help you. And by next week, this whole ship should be smooth, sailing.

And again, we're working on something behind the scenes that I think all of you are going to like that we're going to announce sometime next week or the week after. And yeah, big stuff in store. We're going to continue to book big people, maybe some Iran war debates in the future. And if anything breaks over the weekend, someone will be here to inform you of what happened. And we hope you all enjoy your weekend. Bye, bye. Hey, guys, it's us and the Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe.

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