Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/30/24: Trump Trial Verdict Imminent, Trump Promises Tax Cuts To Donors, DNC Moved Online, Israel Says Gaza Forever War, Biden Ally Flips Over Israel, GenZ Says US Dying Empire, P Diddy Grand Jury

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Krystal and Emily discuss Trump's Stormy Daniel trial coming to a close, Trump promises tax cuts to wealth donors, Biden plans online DNC convention, Israel says war in Gaza to last through end of year, close Biden allies criticize handling of Gaza, young people say US is dying empire run by bad people, P Diddy faces grand jury.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show.

Good morning. We have a girl's show. Welcome to Breaking Points. Crystal, how are you doing this morning? Doing good. Always a pleasure to be here with you, Emily. I love your vibe. The way you start is so different from Sagar. Because I don't scream. Is it because it's good for your ears? It just feels like a vibe. You just sort of ease into the show. I like it. I'm just now realizing that producer Mac gave us specific mugs for each show. I have the counterpoints mug, but he gave you the breaking points mug.

Yeah, the Indeed We Do one. It's just perfect. We're just absolutely going full Steve Ahead this morning. Big show. Yes. Great guests coming up in the A Block, by the way, to break down this huge news about the Trump trial. The jury is quite literally out right now.

Yeah, that's right. So this is the one Trump trial that actually is likely to happen before Election Day, and the jury is deliberating. So we've got right. So this is the one Trump trial that actually is likely to happen before election day and the jury is deliberating. So we've got Bradley Moss coming back on the show to tell us what he made of the cases that were made on both sides and what he reads into the jury did come back and ask for a few things. So we'll get all of that for you as we await a verdict. We also have a bunch of 2024 news on both sides of the aisle. So Trump just like shamelessly courting billionaires and promising them whatever they want to give him money for his campaign, sort of pushing the boundaries of campaign finance laws.

At the same time, Democrats have just bailed on doing a live actual nomination process. They have announced they're going to do it online. So get into that and why that is. No surprise. They're afraid of protesters, et cetera. Got a bunch of big news coming out of Israel. They're basically announcing forever war. They've also announced they've taken control of that Rafah area border crossing with Egypt. So a lot that's significant there. You also have Hollywood coming out against the war in a way that they haven't yet. So it's kind of interesting to get into. And even Simone Sanders, former White

House person, operative, is turning on the White House in certain specific ways. We've got some really fascinating polling about how young people feel about the country. Basically, they believe that they are living in a dying empire run by bad people and who could really disagree with them at this point. And some breaking news with regards to, it's a lot of legal stuff in the show today. Diddy's legal trouble appears to be escalating. They're preparing for some witnesses to go in front of grand jury. We asked Bradley Moss if he would speak to that as well. And he said, quote, hard pass. Hard pass. You know, and the one point we'll, I know we'll talk about it in the block, but this is a billion dollar empire, really. I mean, Diddy is a business.

It's not just about Diddy. It's about how powerful businesses were involved in this over the course of years. So we'll break all that down. I mean, it is about this culture of complicity. I mean, how many people knew what was going on? Because we're now up to potentially a dozen different victims. It really is far reaching. and you have to imagine that there were many people who knew and just turned a blind eye. So once again, the powerful protected,

at least for some significant period of time. Before we jump into the show, thank you guys so much for hanging with us as we switch to locals. I think it has been overall very smooth, but there have been a few bumps as these things go. So if you are still having any issue whatsoever, email support at Locals.com and cc breakingpointspremium at gmail.com. Producer Griffin is all over it. He's spending a lot of time trying to make sure everybody has a smooth transition. So again, support at Locals.com, breakingpointspremium at gmail.com. Email both of those addresses and we will figure out whatever is going for you. I promise. In addition, for those of you who still want to watch the show on Spotify and YouTube, remember, it is still going

to be on all the platforms where it has always been. Easiest place to find those links right now because we're having this little issue with Spotify Legal. It'll get worked out. But in the meantime, look in your email, premium subscribers, you will have the Spotify link and also the YouTube premium link as well. So those, I think, are all of the things that we need to talk about this morning. I wanted to give out producer Griffin's phone number, but I was told that was a bridge too far. I was ready to give out the address so you could go protest outside his house if you want, if you're not happy with the experience. But we'll keep it at the email for now.

All right, let's go ahead and turn to the Trump trial and what is going on there. So we are very fortunate to be joined by legal expert Bradley Moss. He is here to break down what we know of the Trump hush money trial. Great to see you as always, Bradley. Absolutely. Always happy to join. So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. We've got a tarot sheet here talking about what could happen if Trump is, in fact, convicted, found guilty here. He would go and be reviewed by New York City's Department of Probation. He, of course, could appeal.

So unlikely that he would be sent to prison in the near term. But Bradley, I really wanted to get your assessment to start with here of the case that the prosecution made, how strong you thought it was, and how good of a job you felt the defense did in poking holes and creating that reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case here. Sure. So the prosecution, I think, did more or less the best they could with what is ultimately a circumstantial case. They built sort of a wall, a foundation of various pieces of evidence and testimony to surround the only key eyewitness who can talk about the connection of Donald Trump to these falsification of the records and the underlying intent. And that person, of course, is Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen has his own issues when it comes to credibility and ethics. We saw some of that in the civil trial with Lena Haba cross-examining him. And we

certainly saw it during the criminal trial when he was cross-examined over the course of about a day and a half. He's not the greatest witness on the planet, which is why the entirety of the prosecution's case came first to surround him, to reinforce him, so that if for any reason there were concerns in the jury regarding some of the credibility of his testimony, they had corroboration that could reassure them. That was the prosecution's burden. That was their job to do. I think they did a pretty decent job at it, certainly enough to likely convict. When it came to the defense's case, and I have to assume some of this was client driven as opposed to what the lawyers truly wanted. Remember, one of the lawyers left before the trial even began, most likely because of the client's preferred strategy. But it was all based on the idea that this was all a lie. Not that, yes, it happened, but here's why it's not a crime. Or yes, it happened, but here's why it was all about

personal embarrassment. It was the affair never happened. This was all just extortion. And Trump knew nothing about anything. That was their approach. I don't think that was necessarily the strongest approach to take. I thought there was a lot of holes they could have punched in the government's case in terms of the idea of whether or not Trump truly had any knowledge here, especially could have brought in some more witnesses. But that was the approach they took. I don't think they expect an acquittal. They might be looking for a hung jury, though. Oh, interesting. And yeah, there was, I saw you actually tweeting about this yesterday. There was all kinds of controversy about the jury notes that were requested, about the jury instructions. The jury is continuously deliberating today. What did you

make of the, you know, it was sort of like skirmishes on Twitter over what was true and what was false about what was happening with the jury yesterday. But what did you make of everything that transpired after the jury was sent out for deliberations and we kept getting some indications about what they might be thinking? Yeah, so far, you know, we're just trying to read tea leaves here. We're trying to get into the minds of jurors, and none of us truly know what's happening in that room. But from what we saw from the notes, the information they were requesting, it was largely focused on the testimony of David Pecker from the National Enquirer and his conversations both with Trump and with Cohen dating back to 2015.

That speaks more to that intent element, that secondary part that bumps it up to a felony. That speaks to the idea of whether or not this was done with the intent to commit another crime, potentially a campaign finance issue. That doesn't speak to the falsification. So if you are trying to infer where the jury's looking at this right now, they might buy that there was falsification of the business records, at least the misdemeanor. What they're not certain yet on is whether or not there was enough evidence to bump it up to the felony, if they can reach a unanimous decision that there was an intent to commit another crime,

and then they can decide which of those other crimes they're allowed to select from they believe was the intended crime to commit. That's where we're looking right now. We still got to see. We got a whole day today of deliberations. We'll see if they have a verdict today or if it goes into tomorrow. Yeah, what is your, I mean, obviously none of us can really know, but do you have a guess of how long it may take for them to deliberate, especially given the fact that already yesterday we were getting these notes and requests and they were clearly dealing with some of the core substance of the case? So it'd be interesting to see. One, well, you know, as the jury comes back in this morning and they have some of this readback and this extra information they were requesting from the judge, it'd be interesting to see how long that takes to go through. But if you're Donald Trump right now, you want lengthy, lengthy deliberations. The longer this

takes, the more this gets into Friday, the more this gets into Monday of next week, the more likely it is that there is one or two holdouts that are preventing a verdict or more or less likely a guilty verdict. And that's good for Donald Trump. We hear about a verdict today. My expectation is that's a guilty verdict. Interesting. And I want to ask about this analysis that conservative attorney, although fairly anti-Trump attorney, Andy McCarthy wrote in National Review. He said, listening to the presentation of evidence in the prosecutor's marathon summation, the jurors were undoubtedly convinced that prosecutors do not have to prove the FICA violation to find Trump guilty. Rather, the judge and prosecutors have led jurors to believe that

the violation of FICA is an established fact in the case. Almost as if Merchan has taken judicial notice of it. It's as if the jury need not concern itself with FICA. Brag prosecutors aided and abetted by Merchan pulled this off by telling the jury again and again and again that Cohen pled guilty to two FICA felonies and that Pecker entered, David Pecker, entered a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department because he feared prosecution not to beat a dead horse. Yet again, McCarthy continues, but this evidence is utterly inadmissible against Trump. Yet Marchand has allowed prosecutors to tell the jury about the pleas and non-prosecution agreement dozens of times. So if Donald Trump is convicted, that argument is going to be amplified, obviously, on the right

and by a lot of Trump voters. What do you make of it? I mean, I know that's sort of a can of worms, but this question of how Mershon, who Republicans have pointed out his daughter is a fairly high profile Democratic consultant, and there are all kinds of issues that people have raised with him. Is there something—is there there there to what Andy McCarthy is saying in the sense that this could really inflame a lot of Trump supporters if a conviction comes down? I mean, it will either way, but will there be sort of substance to those complaints? Yeah, so let's be honest here. They're going to be in flame no matter what, if there's a conviction. It didn't matter how clean or perfect the case was put on.

What Andy has gotten into here is an issue of legal nuance that is part of the realities of a lot of the pretrial fights that were done between the parties before Judge Marchand and how it was outlined that the case would proceed. You know, when it comes to trial litigation, I kind of view it as the way people always say, don't watch how the sausage is made because you'll gross you out. You'll never want to consider eating it. Don't watch how trial litigation happens and the nitty gritty details if you ever want to have faith in the criminal justice system because it's not pretty. But what has to be done here for the prosecution to get a guilty verdict, and this needs to be very clear because there was a lot of confusion yesterday with the jury

instructions, there needs to be a unanimous verdict by the jury that Trump falsified or caused the falsification of the business records. There needs to be a unanimous verdict that he did it with the intent to commit another crime. Those parts have to be unanimous. Where there is room for some discretion with the jury is what the other crime was. They don't have to decide as a unanimous group. They can, but they don't have to decide as a unanimous group that it was the FICA violation, that it was state tax law or state campaign finance issue. That is a sort of a unique but viable feature of this New York law that's in place. The law has been on the books since the 80s.

It's been upheld in the appellate courts in New York multiple times. Supreme Court's never ruled on it, obviously. That may be an issue for appeal. That would be fascinating. But Donald Trump here is ultimately a victim of the very kind of laws he always trumpeted in New York as, you know, combating crime. He just doesn't like it because it's being used against him.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you basically think an acquittal is likely off the table because of the defense that the Trump team chose to present. Is that correct? Which is what McCarthy thinks, too, by the way. Correct. Yeah. I mean, anything's possible. Juries are completely unpredictable. We never truly know. That's the beauty of the jury system. But I don't think anybody realistically believes at this point that you're going to see a unanimous verdict of acquittal. It's all about can they get a unanimous verdict for guilty or will there be one or two people who just can't put enough faith in Michael Cohen because of his credibility issues, that they just can't get there on the idea that Trump was actually involved in the discussions or had reason to believe this was

going to be transpiring in terms of the falsification, and they just won't go along with it. It's entirely possible. That's why we put our faith in these 12 jurors. They're ordinary citizens. That's their obligation and duty today. And so can you walk us through, since you think an acquittal is more or less off the table, barring some you-never-know kind of a circumstance, can you walk us through, okay, if he's found guilty, here's what happens next and what that process looks like. And if there's a hung jury and a mistrial declared, what does that process look like? Sure. So if there's a hung jury, there's two issues. One, there's a hung jury and a mistrial declared, what does that process look like? Sure. So if there's a hung jury, there's two issues. One, there's the political ramifications,

which is he'll declare victory. Anything short of conviction, Donald Trump will declare victory, say, look, they couldn't even get a jury of 12 Trump-hating, evil liberal communists to convict me. Clearly, these charges are garbage. If he is convicted, to be very clear, he is not going to get hauled off and sent off to Rikers that day. It's not happening. There will be a hearing set for a sentencing. There will be a pre-sentencing report. There will be any number of documentations and briefs submitted by both parties to the judge based off of New York state law in terms of what the sentence, if any, should be. Almost certainly the prosecution is going to request some jail time. He's not going to get the maximum. He's not going to get, I think it's four years is what he could get under the law.

He's not getting that. If he gets something, it'll be three to six months at most. That is where the issue of this past criminal contempt, what we saw with the gag order violations. That's where that may come into play is whether or not Judge Marchand considers that as an aggravating factor saying I was considering probation, but forget it now, I'm putting you on three to six months in prison. And then we've got a whole logistical problem

of where do you put a former president? Well, and that was just gonna be my last question is based on what we've seen from Judge Marchand, what can we expect about how he'll handle that question? I think from what we've seen in his past analyses, it's going to be a very thorough discussion. You know, I understand it's the thing right now amongst conservative pundits to trash him left and right because of what his daughter does or because of how he's ruled on some of these pretrial issues. And that's fine. It's First Amendment. People can say what they want. I think he's been a pretty decent jurist. He's cut back a lot on what I thought the prosecution wanted to do in their presentation that ultimately ended up favoring Trump a little bit, narrowed the scope of the government's presentation. I don't expect anything draconian, even with the aggravating

factor. Again, I don't see anything more than a, even with the aggravating factor. Again, I don't see anything more than a few months if he sentences him to prison time at all. There's no chance that it happens in the sense of Trump being sent to prison before the election. And if he is convicted, if he is found guilty, I presume he can avail himself of an appeals process. What does that look like? How does that play out? Yeah, he can almost certainly and also, of course, will immediately file an appeal that will wind its way through the New York appellate courts. That doesn't necessarily put a hold on his sentence. His lawyer certainly could ask for a stay of the sentence pending resolution of appeals. That would be up to New York appellate courts. But a lot of this becomes ultimately irrelevant post-November.

Because if Trump wins, there's no chance he's going to jail anyways at that point as a sitting president. If he loses, he's got those other three criminal cases that are still on tap to come to trial one day eventually, maybe in 2029. He'll almost certainly start cutting deals to minimize jail time so he doesn't spend the rest of his life in jail at that point. All right. Last question, which I know you're not going to want to answer, but what do you think are the odds of conviction versus hung jury? People keep asking me this. If I'm sitting at the table in Vegas and I absolutely have to place a bet, right now I'm leaning towards conviction. Everything indicates the jury's questions are leaning along those lines. But you know what? Juries are unpredictable,

and we won't know until we know. Bradley, so grateful for you taking the time with us this morning. Thank you so much for your analysis. Absolutely. Have a good one. 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.

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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. So great to hear Bradley Moss's assessment there. I mean, honestly, watching it, Emily, I've had no clue which way things are going to go, and I'm not the legal expert.

So good to hear his analysis there. And even, you know, just he's like, you know, resistance pro Joe Biden guy. But we found his analysis to be pretty even handed when it comes down to it. The other thing we wanted to get into is, you know, the big question is, does this matter politically? CNN's Harry Anton actually did a whole analysis that found in terms of the trial, there has been basically no movement from in the polls from the beginning of the trial to now, like literally none. So it hasn't mattered from that perspective. The number of people who think he's guilty or not guilty, according to CNN, their polling has found that hasn't really shifted either. But I will say put a five up on the

screen. You do have a majority of Americans, 56%, who say he's definitely or probably guilty of a crime in the case. And this is, of course, falsifying business records to hide a quote-unquote hush money payment. So you've got 37% who say he's definitely guilty, 19% who say he's probably guilty, 21% who say probably not guilty, and 23% who say definitely not guilty. It was interesting to hear from Bradley that the defense didn't really present a definitely not guilty case. They presented, well, actually, sorry, the converse. They did present a, like, he did nothing wrong, it was the perfect phone call kind of a defense, which he felt that the jurors, and I think most

people would find kind of unbelievable, the idea he did nothing wrong. There were probably stronger avenues for them to pursue in terms of just, like, you know, casting doubt on whether it was solely for campaign reasons and casting doubt on Michael Cohen, et cetera. Yeah, and it's funny that CBS questioned, because NPR attested this as well, but, like, the question of is somebody, is Trump specifically guilty of a crime? If I were taking that poll and not listening closely, I might be like, oh, he's probably guilty. Because in my mind, I'm thinking probably guilty, yes, of paying the hush money to Stormy Daniels and having an affair with Stormy Daniels while Melania Trump was pregnant. Do I think he's

definitely or probably guilty of that? Yes. Of the crime? That's such an interesting question because even whether what he did is a crime is part of what's being contested. And Andy McCarthy, I was glad to get Bradley to respond to that because what Andy McCarthy is saying is that Mershon has allowed Bragg to get away with trumping this up to a felony charge as an election thing because it's only a felony to commit this crime of falsifying records if it's in the service of a federal violation, so election law in this case. And the Trump prosecution just wanted to do the Trump campaign strategy without conceding an inch. And that's at least McCarthy, and it sounds like

Bradley, think was their sort of fatal mistake here. But in the defense of the Trump prosecution, they would probably say he's probably going to be convicted anyway. Either way, this Manhattan jury is probably going to convict Donald Trump. Hard to say. Like, I still have no idea what's going to ultimately happen here. You know, on the political front, I think that most normie-type voters aren't really getting into the nitty-gritty of, like, some of the legal arguments you're raising. And, like, the specifics of how this was this novel legal interpreted and required this other crime to make this one a felony etc etc totally most of it is viewed through the uh typical lens of how do you feel about donald trump like do you think he's a criminal or not and most of that is going to come down to partisan affiliation now i do think that there is on the

margin some like you know people feel and I think rightly feel that like the documents case it's kind of it's kind of open and shut like it's kind of hard to deny that there were you know some real problems with the way he handled that whole situation obstructing justice and whatever even if the original keeping of the documents was an innocent mistake the fact that you went to these great lengths to cover it up I think most people look at that like like, okay, yeah, there's something wrong there. And also they know the way that other people who have mishandled classified documents have been treated. But in general, when you look at the polling, there actually isn't all that much difference between how people view these different cases. It's mostly just filtered through the lens of do you think Donald Trump is a criminal do you not

think he's a criminal and that's why there hasn't been a lot of polling shift over the course of this trial this case first of all there's a lot of other things going in the world I don't think people have dug into this that much I just don't think that they're paying that much attention they already know how they feel about Donald Trump so the only question that remains is like okay if he's actually convicted of a felony does that hit in a different way than just thinking that he's guilty of a felony? And I don't really think so. I don't really think this is going to move the needle really one way or another, probably, but I can say with 100% certainty. Yeah, I think that's the right take. I mean, when a former president is actually sentenced, I mean, this is not something

that we've seen. Like Nixon was pardoned and people were upset about it at the time, although people look back on it now as like a noble decision by Gerald Ford. We haven't seen a former president get sentenced to four years, potentially, as Bradley was just talking to us about. And I don't think we know how we're going to react to that yet. I agree with you that if I had to put money down, I would say probably this doesn't move the needle a lot. If anything, the NPR poll I mentioned earlier found like 15% of Republicans said that this makes them more likely to support Donald Trump. And to the extent that the Bragg case has mattered at all in the election, people forget that the Ron DeSantis bump that he had going into the primary disappeared when Alvin Bragg, like that's when his numbers started going down is when Bragg brought this case or the news that Bragg was

going to bring this case. As that happened, Trump's numbers went up, DeSantis' numbers went down. So I think it did really have an effect in that sense. But I agree, I think it's probably people are hard in their positions in like the general election at this point. It's not if anything, it makes Donald Trump getting sentenced to four years in prison. I think it could hurt undecided independent support for him. But I think it could help his turnout. And that's going to be pretty critical. I think it's very unlikely he's sentenced to a significant prison term. But even if it's three months. Yeah, it's

prison. You know, you're thinking about when we did the Republican focus group and, you know, you had a room full of people who were real Republicans, not rhinos, and even some of the people who were Trump first in the Republican primary context when it was like, OK, well, what if he's facing prison time? They're like, I just, that's too much. Yeah. But I think you made the most important point, which is like, I think people are very bad at anticipating how they're going to react to certain things until they happen. And so I've been really skeptical of all these polls that have said like, oh, well, if he's convicted and if he's facing prison time, then, you know, 50% of voters say that they're out and they're not going to vote for him. I just, I don't think people know before they see it for themselves. So again, I don't put

out of the realm of possibility that it could have some sort of significant electoral impact, but if Democrats are betting the farm on this one, I think they better find a different farm or whatever. Which is why they ended up bringing all of the other cases and now all of the other cases are just not going to, I mean, probably one of the, one of the most important things to say here is that a lot of these other cases are not going to be tried before the election. And that was Democrats really intentionally basically were throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick legally. And it's not hard to find, you know, questionable legal decisions by Donald Trump, who, as we're going to talk about, we even have video from 2016 and 2015 in the next block of Donald Trump being like, I know the system.

I alone can fix it because I am part of the corrupt system of American business and politics. It's not that hard to see what sticks, and that was their strategy, and this is the only one they're probably going to have before November. Yep. All right. So we'll see how it all plays out, and Let's go ahead and get to that news about 2024. Well, there's a really interesting new Washington Post report out by Josh Dossi. We can put this

headline up on the screen about the campaign strategy that Donald Trump is using behind closed doors in fundraisers. I think one key part of this report, Crystal, is Trump is allegedly telling a lot of these billionaire donors, basically, I'm not happy with two to three million. I think he says he's, quote, not very happy if they only give two to three million. He wants more like twenty five million dollars from some of his top donors. And as he's making those asks, he's also unsurprisingly mentioning that his tax cuts will expire in seven months and that Joe Biden won't renew them. The Post makes an interesting point, Crystal, that because of the Bob McDonald case, you're a Virginian, so you probably remember this question of the quid pro quo, that unless Donald Trump is explicit and saying, if you give me $25 million, I will cut

your taxes, it's legally permissible, which is somewhat amusing as a reality because we all know what he means when he says that. In fact, he has been pretty open about making that pitch to wealthy individuals. I think Kyle, did Kyle flag this next thought? We're going to roll into it in just one second. Just that's a little teaser. Stay with us because it goes back to 2016. Actually, it goes back to 2015. This is another report from Washington Post. We can go ahead, put B2 up on the screen. He's also telling people that he is telling donors he is going to crush pro-Palestinian protests. He's going to deport demonstrators. We know that that's actually a big priority of some new big donors that have flocked to the Republican Party since October 7th. We've seen, you know, people sort of in the mold of Bill Ackman become curious about giving

more money to Republicans than they had in the past. Some of them very openly because of what they saw on college campuses after October 7th. And, you know, if you're looking for someone to give money to, Donald Trump might be your guy. Because as he's going to explain in this hilarious mashup flagged by Kyle, people know exactly what they're going to get from him. Take a look. And just remember, and it's very important, all of this money that I was talking about a little while ago, all of that money comes from my friends, guys that I know.

I used to be one of them. I know the system better than anybody. All of that money that's going to Hillary and Jeb and Scott and Marco and all of them. The people that are putting up that money are, it's like puppets. Bing, bing. You saw that. They had it on Jimmy Fallon. I better not do it anymore.

The bing, bing, bang, bang, boom. I was imitating puppets and I said, maybe I shouldn't do that anymore. But it's true. They're totally controlled, totally controlled by special interests, lobbyists and donors. They're totally. When a guy gives a million dollars and much more than that, you know, some give much more. But do you think they're talking about, like, nothing? They're talking turkey. They're talking lots of different things. And with me, I don't need anybody's money. I don't want anybody's money.

So, a lot of times, a lot of times, that's all of his donors and special interests out there. So, that's what it is. And by the way, let me just tell you, we needed tickets. You can't get them. You know who has the tickets? I'm talking about to the television audience. Donors, special interests, the people that are putting up the money.

Who it is. The RNC told us we have all donors in the audience. And the reason they're not loving me, the reason they're not, excuse me, the reason they're not loving me is I don't want their money. I'm going to do the right thing for the American public. I don't want their money. I don't need their money. And I'm the only one up here that can say that. So that was obviously a mashup from the 2016 Republican primary. You heard Donald Trump in a debate. You heard him also on a campaign stop in New Hampshire. And Crystal, it's actually a pretty interesting about face for Donald Trump with these two reports from

the Washington Post. Yeah. And I say about face, but it's, you know, it's always been his point that I alone can fix it. I know the system and I alone can fix it. The quote that was just played there. I know the system better than anybody because Donald Trump said, I've played this system for years. The same time as he was saying that, he said in that video, I don't need anybody's money. And the cool thing about that clip, it just reminded me of how huge a part of that pitch it was about his attraction for voters. If you talk to voters back in 2015, 2016, they loved that Donald Trump, they felt like he was not beholden to any special interests. Now that he's been in this position of power, he defeated whatever you

think about him, defeated the establishment in these presidential primaries in 2016, defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. He is now begging for donor cash because he does need their money. Well, I mean, he's just dropped the pretense. And it was always a pretense. But I think people forget what a powerful part of his pitch in 2016 this was. This was during the swamp, right? Listen, I've been there. I know these people. I know what they think they're getting with that money. And I'm not part of that. I can fund myself. Now, he never actually did that to any significant extent. So it was always a lie. Although he had way less money. He spent less than Hillary Clinton did. But one of the things there's a few things that are different now. Number one, at that point, he actually had to try to appeal to people.

Now it's sort of like locked in. His supporters on the Republican side, they are 100 percent locked in. And in a sort of reverse effect of what the Democrats are doing, in a certain sense, he's running against how bad Joe Biden is in the same way Joe Biden is running against how bad Donald Trump is. So the pretense of being any sort of anti-establishment populist figure is gone. It's also very difficult to sustain when your primary accomplishment as president was giving tax cuts to a bunch of rich people. So the brazen nature with which he's going out and courting these billionaires is, I mean, it's really something. And listen, Joe Biden is out courting billionaires, too. Both parties definitely out there courting billionaires, especially these two candidates, because Joe Biden has never had a grassroots fundraising base to tap.

Donald Trump used to, but his is also greatly, greatly diminished to the extent that he has been really dramatically out-fundraised by Joe Biden, plus a bunch of his money is going to legal bills. So there are a few ways in which this pushes the limits of campaign finance law. One is like Emily was saying, I mean, he goes in a room full of rich people and he's like, give me money, I'm gonna make sure you get your tax cuts. He goes in a room full of oil industry executives and says, literally, raise me a billion dollars

and I'll cut all the regulations that you want and trust me, your money will be more than made up for under my administration. Goes in a room full of New York donors who are very interested in crushing these pro-Palestinian protests and say, hey, I'm going to set that movement back 30 years if you give money to me. So it's these very direct promises. But also, you're actually not allowed to ask directly for those sums of money. Because listen, the system is very Byzantine and bizarre. But the candidate into the direct candidate campaign, you can't raise millions of dollars. So you can do a

fundraising event for your PAC that can raise millions of dollars, but you can't directly make the ask. So that's how these pushing. do I expect there to be any consequences for that? No, because as you were pointing out, Emily, the Supreme Court has just basically decided like there is no such thing as corruption. Bob Menendez is testing that out right now. If you literally are getting gold bars in exchange for like business deals, does that, you know, does that meet the bar of corruption, the standard that's been set by the Supreme Court? Possibly yes on that one. He's a trailblazer. He's blazing that trail for other oligarchs. To make sure that they can get those gold bars when and how they want to.

God bless Bob Menendez. That's really the bottom line. Out there doing the Lord's work, hustling. But I also think, you know, there's something to the fact that now he's just letting it all hang out. He needs the money. There's a level of desperation to it. So it is it is something to behold the, as you put it, about face, because he just he doesn't talk at all like he used to in 2016. 2016, there were some things rhetorically that, you know, you could say, OK, that's a populist position rhetorically and people that was a big part of his appeal. That at this point is all gone. But you said something so interesting, too, which is that people's positions on Trump and Biden are

so polarized that they're basically locked in, even that Donald Trump is talking in a way that's so different from how he campaigned in 2016 on an issue exactly like this, which I do think, just thinking back to then, it's very interesting to remember how average voters were attracted to Trump because, in so many many cases people would say, listen, he's not beholden to the special interests. He was talking in the debate video about the special interests. And it's just a, I mean, it's a billionaire arms race. We forget how kind of unique 2016 was and that Donald Trump spent a good chunk of change less than Hillary Clinton, which is extremely rare in a big presidential race. It's basically always tied, even if there's some marginal differences.

But he really was outspent by Hillary Clinton in part because people like the billionaires, a lot of the billionaires, were just not comfortable with him. They didn't know what to expect from him. Yeah. And now he's like, I got you the tax cut. Well, that's the other piece. I did it. Is the billionaire class is more comfortable with him now. Now, he always had a certain number of billionaires supporting him.

But now we've even seen people like Jamie Dimon signal, like, yeah, I'd be okay with another Trump administration. I think a few things happened. Number one, those tax cuts. Number two, that set really hates the Biden administration's position on antitrust. And, I mean, you just only have to look at the Wall Street Journal, how many editorials Matt Stoller keeps count. Have they run against Lena Kahn or like a whole project to try to take it? It is insane the number of editorials that they've written about Lena Kahn specifically because they hate that there is any obstacle

to this, you know, giant proliferation of monopolies that has taken over our entire economy. And so on that and also on labor, these are major, major rubs with the billionaire class. And Trump was incredibly friendly to them. And, you know, oil industry executives know they're going to get what they want from a Donald Trump administration. Your average run of the mill billionaire knows they're going to get their tax cuts. Whatever oligarchs want to see their monopolies continue to grow and flourish, they're going to get that under a Trump administration versus a Biden administration. So, you know, I think that's part of why there's such a just overt comfort with him this time around, where last time they just weren't sure, right? There was at least enough

of a populist pitch that they're like, I don't know, and uncertainty and chaos is bad for business. Now it's like, no, we know what we got last time and it was great for us. It worked out perfectly well for us. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that's right. I'm sure there's a pretty obvious argument from Trump's behalf that he ideologically agrees with tax cuts and he ideologically agrees with oil executives. So he'd be interested in, you know, giving them their leases and all that stuff anyway. But it's another thing to make that clear at the donor meetings. You're like, yeah, you know, you know where I am on oil, right, Mr. Oil Executive? Well, you know where Joe Biden is on oil, right? I mean, it does get into Bob

McDonald territory. Yeah. But they all do it. They really do all do it. Absolutely. No doubt about it. 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. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead,

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

Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back, or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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. All right, so let's move on to another Washington Post story. Just reading lots of the Washington Post yesterday, Crystal. This is about Joe Biden. The DNC, just actually look at this headline. It's kind of funny. It made me laugh. DNC prepares to nominate Biden via, quote, virtual roll call before convention. This is the lead of the story. The DNC is preparing to nominate President Biden as the party's presidential nominee through a virtual roll call ahead of its August convention in Chicago, an unusual step to ensure that Biden can meet a deadline to appear on the ballot in

Ohio. The move comes despite a special legislative session in Ohio this week that Governor Mike DeWine, who is a Republican, said would resolve the issue. Democrats are not optimistic about the special session, given that DeWine has added an unrelated proposal on campaign finance to the agenda that Republicans want considered alongside legislation that will allow Biden on the ballot. Though the Washington Post notes it's not the first time Democrats finalized their presidential nominee, virtually pointing back to 2020. But of course, it's not 2020. It's 2024. We're not in the middle of a pandemic. And this speaks to perhaps what we can take a look at in this next tear sheet. This is polling results from Rasmussen, polling results from Ras Moussin, that has 54% of Democrats now approving of taking Biden off the ticket. They think it's okay for the Democratic Party to replace Joe Biden before

the election in November, including, by the way, 24% of those voters who, quote, strongly approve with that. And only, I think this is also interesting, Crystal, only 37% who disapprove, only 23% who strongly disapprove. Those are dark numbers for Joe Biden that kind of match what he's seeing on the campaign trail. As Stephen Nelson of the New York Post tweeted yesterday, these are images from a Biden campaign stop in Philadelphia, Philadelphia rally, as Stephen puts it. It's about half full. Look at all of that empty space. If you're listening to this, it's a gymnasium and half full, I think, is actually charitable. That's very generous. Yeah, half full. That's one way

to put it. And finally, even in the state of Virginia, a lot of Washington Post and Virginia coverage this morning, a Roanoke College poll found that Biden and Trump are tied in Virginia. And that's at 42-42. These numbers are atrocious. That's a state that I think Biden won by close to 10 points. I think that's right. Close to 10 points. Tied right now. The conversation after last election in Virginia was like, oh, Virginia is just a blue state now.

Like, it's over. And then you get Glenn Youngkin that wins and that starts to like, oh, maybe it's more of a purple state still. But if Joe Biden is tied in Virginia, if this is anywhere close to accurate, I mean, it's just, it's a wrap. And Virginia, you know, being a native Virginian and having a good sense of the politics there, as the Northern Virginia suburbs have grown, they have really become the dominant political force in the state. And those are exactly the like suburban, mostly white, affluent, college educated voters that Democrats are supposed to be flourishing with at this time. So if you're tied in Virginia, I don't know what the rest of the landscape is

dire. Now, this is all the caveats. It's early. It could be wrong, et cetera, et cetera. We'll see. But it is yet another warning sign and yet another reason why now a majority of Democrats are like, maybe we should switch the candidates still. That's not happening. Don't get your hopes up. But, you know, it's astonishing sign of weakness that with it, this is an incumbent president. Like it should be a no brainer that this is your guy going forward. But it is actually a no brainer that he is incredibly weak when you compare him to literally every Democratic Senate candidate is outperforming him in the states where they're running. You know, the online convention situation, their excuse is this Ohio situation that gave them a good excuse to do this online. But we had

already seen these rumblings of maybe we're going to move a bunch of the convention online because we're nervous about what the protests are going to do. Like, we don't want those disruptions. You know, we're concerned about that. They're terrified of going out and even doing campaign rallies. They're terrified of speaking on college campuses because of the protest movement. And so Ohio gave them a convenient excuse. The Ohio governor is like, we're doing a special session. We're going to fix the problem so that you can be on the ballot. But they're pretending like there's some sort of a poison pill and this is a trick and they're not going to leave it up to the Ohio Republicans. The thing, by the way, Emily, that they're considering this campaign finance change,

that they're considering to be a quote-unquote poison pill in the Ohio special legislative session, is like to ban foreign funding of elections, which I think you might be on board with. Anyway, you know, the party that's been all concerned about Russian collusion and interference, whatever, might be on board with that. And democracy. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, so that's the direction they're going. And they're so terrified of their own voters that they're doing their nominating convention online. It's really something. They're afraid of, and maybe we can add this in post, one of my favorite things from the DNC back

in 2016, they're afraid of Susan Sarandon. You remember the pictures of Susan Sarandon in the crowd looking furious as the Bernie protesters actually stormed the DNC. And they know that there's more of that coming, especially with the way that Biden and other Biden surrogates, Kamala Harris, have been greeted on college campuses recently. They know that that's what awaits them over the course of the summer when Biden's out campaigning, especially at major events like a nomination thing. So, you know. And you've got a number of uncommitted delegates, you know, and the uncommitted vote did well enough that there is, I can't, I think dozens of uncommitted delegates who are going to be there on the floor. So they want to be able to tightly control that. The mayor of Chicago, who's relatively new

and the DNC is going to be held in Chicago, the mayor has been very, you know, comparatively, compared to Joe Biden, quite friendly towards the protest movement. He is himself, came from, you know, a labor background and a sort of like activist background. So they feel very comfy with the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker. They feel like he'll do, you know, call in the riot cops and do whatever it takes to crush the protests. But they're less confident that the Chicago mayor will just like, you know, put the boot down the way that they want him to. So I think that's part

also of the calculation here of why they're moving the nominating portion online. Now, they say there's still going to be like a symbolic roll call in there and there's still going to be stuff that's in person, at least at this point. But it's a measure of how scared they are of their own people that, you know, they're going in this direction. Yeah, absolutely. And in the polling results bear that out when you have likely voters that Roanoke College poll was of likely voters. So that's not just all adults. These are people who are actually likely to vote. You know, turnout is going to be a huge problem for them in a place like Virginia. If you have affluent voters who are just less motivated to go out there and pull the lever for Biden, maybe because they're on one side of the Israel war or another.

You know, Biden hasn't really made either side happy throughout the course of the last half year or so on that. So it's got a real problem. I think the key thing, looking in that Virginia polling, they asked people whether they saw the Trump years as mostly good for the country or mostly bad. And he got much better numbers on that question than Biden did. 44% said they viewed the Trump years as mostly good and 33% said mostly bad. The Biden years, only 25% said mostly good and 47% said mostly bad. So listen, I think there's, you know, some rose colored glasses. In fact, I've been questioning whether our typical view, historic view of incumbency has sort of flipped on its head, where now, because people are just so dissatisfied with where the country is in general, being an incumbent is a disadvantage in a sense, because people feel what they feel right now,

and they directly blame the president for it, just like, you know, with Trump, and there was blame to be had for his handling of COVID. But I think part of the reason why he was defeated last time was because the power of incumbency was sort of flipped on its head, where it was like, actually, it's a downside that you're in office right now. And I do think that's part of what's going on with Joe Biden and Donald Trump right now. But I also think that there's a reality. We've showed a lot of the charts on this show, people's net worth, you know, not declining, the social safety net from COVID being completely dismantled in the Trump, in the Biden era, the child tax credit, things that really bolstered people, all of that going away at the same time you have inflation

spiking and, you know, us getting involved in foreign wars and people, however they feel about those wars, feeling like you're more focused on that than you are on me. Those things are legitimate. So there's So there are legitimate reasons why people feel like, you know what, it was better for me back then. However they feel about the personality or the capabilities of either of these men. Trump promising billionaires, tax cuts and oil leases, Biden hobbling from campaign stop to campaign stop. We are so lucky. Just the glories of democracy. Incredible. Such a choice we've got here. What a wonderful year. What a time to be alive. Well, inspiring.

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. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance.

Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions

back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the

explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Speaking of those foreign conflicts, Crystal, let's move on to Israel. Yeah, so we've got a lot to update you on here. Let's put this first piece up on the screen, which is probably the most significant. Israel's national security advisor just announced he expects Israel's military operations in Gaza to continue through at least the end of the year. Appearing to dismiss, the New York Times writes, the idea that the war could come to an end after the military offensive against Hamas in Rafah,

quote, we expect another seven months of combat in order to shore up our achievement and realize what we define as the destruction of Hamas and Islamic Jihad's military and governing capabilities. Emily, there's been a lot of discussion about how Netanyahu has every incentive to keep this war going, zero incentive to end the war. He himself has benefited politically. His numbers are still not great, but they're actually sort of coming back up,

ticking back up post-October 7th because some of the outrage and the horror at the fact that October 7th happened on his watch, in spite of him being Mr. Security, some of that has faded away. And there's been a bit of a rally around the flag effect. So his numbers have started to tick back up. And he also has continued corruption charges hanging over his head that he's going to have to reckon with, too, whenever this war ends. So a lot has justifiably been made of how he has every incentive to keep this thing going. But many others do as well. Anyone who was in any position of power on October 7th has an incentive to, you know, keep it going

so there's no reckoning with the failures that occurred in the security and intelligence establishment in Israel on that day. And anyone who's had a hand in the horrific prosecution of this war has an incentive to keep it going because in spite of them talking here, Emily, about, you know, we need to shore up our achievement, our victory, whatever, there has been really no achievement. There has been no victory unless you just define that as total and complete annihilation. Hamas is being able to reconstitute. They're being able to recruit thousands of new fighters. There's still something like 60% of the tunnel network that is still operable. You have hostages who are still being held, who are being killed, by the way, by the IDF, the longer that this goes on.

So in terms of providing security for Israelis, in terms of the purported goal of, quote-unquote, destroying Hamas, which was always impossible, they've basically gotten nowhere over these many months. And so everyone who's been involved in this war has every incentive in the world to keep it going, to avoid a reckoning with what an incredible failure this has been, even from an Israeli point of view. Yeah, I mean, talk about the potential for a quagmire. I mean, what's happening right now, just bulldozing, turning into a parking lot, the swath of land creating so many refugees, the humanitarian crisis as a response from a kind of realist foreign policy perspective. And I know you and Sagar have talked about this. I mean, it doesn't even, Ryan and I talked about this yesterday. Does it make the Israeli people safer? No. In the long term? No. Because if this goal is the unattainable ambition

of, quote, annihilating Hamas and the way the war has been prosecuted so far, if you take those two things and have your primary benefactor, the United States of America, say they support a two-state solution and your own Prime Minister Netanyahu saying, absolutely not, we support a one-state solution, these are not compatible partners for a war, even though the United States continues to be a partner or try to be a partner to Netanyahu. None of it makes sense. None of it makes sense for any, like, peace resolution imminently that would stop death and destruction that would make the people of Israel safer. And, you know, I guess I feel like it's kind of a luxury personally to be over here and not over there and, you know, get to sort of analyze it. I understand where Israelis are

coming from. It's a horrible situation, but this is not making anybody safer in the long term. It's just obviously not making anybody safer. Yeah. Anyone who I think is looking at this objectively has to say that from the beginning. I mean, it's not to justify any sort of extremism, but your mother, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, whoever that you love and close to murdered in a horrific way, babies incinerated in tents. How do you think that's going to, you know, stoke your heart for peace and love towards the Israelis? Of course not. Of course not. And so that's why we even have U.S. intelligence officials saying, hey, Hamas has been able to recruit thousands of people just in the past several months, even under conditions of war. So, you know, just a dramatic failure, even from an Israeli perspective, putting aside, obviously, the, you know, horror and the immorality and the fact, too, that Israel at this point is almost completely isolated in the world.

The U.S. is increasingly isolated in the world. Now we're better able to withstand it because we are still a superpower. Although, you know, multipolarity is increasingly the reality in the world. We're accelerating that shift to multipolarity with the, you know, obvious hypocrisy that we've displayed in disregard for our purported concern for humanitarianism and international law, et cetera. But, you know, for Israel, there will be some sort of reckoning. And for this government, there will be some sort of reckoning at some point. We just don't know when. At the same time, it's becoming more and more difficult to defend things like, again, babies being incinerated inside of tents where they've

been displaced to in a purported, in a place that they thought was a safe zone. But Joe Scarborough is doing his best. He's having to go back and rewrite history and, you know, claim that actually we won the Vietnam and the Iraq wars in order to somehow defend the Israeli actions here. Let's take a listen to what he had to say recently. What is Israel to do? Are they supposed to just sit there while conditions in Rafi get worse, while the possibility of famine spreads, and while Hamas regroups? I mean, let's just state the obvious. The United States would never do this. We didn't do this in Mosul. We didn't do this in Afghanistan.

We didn't do this in Iraq. We didn't do this in Vietnam. We didn't do this in World War II. If we were struck, we struck back until we won the war. So I guess what confuses me is, is it in the United States or Israel's best interest that Israel just sits outside of Rafah and this suffering continues indefinitely? Or do they go in and kill Hamas terrorists?

There is so much about that that drives me insane. I mean, first of all, oh, they just sit back and let people suffer. No, they are causing the suffering. The starvation isn't just happening. They're blocking the aid. And aid has dropped something like 60% since they invaded Rafah, by the way. And you already had people who were starving to death. That's number one. Obviously, the claim that we won in Iraq and Vietnam or that our approach there was great for us or great for the world is utterly preposterous. But, you know, that's where we are now, that they have to try to rewrite history.

And also, there's been this weird thing, Emily, I'm sure you've probably tracked this as well, of people who are saying, like, well, actually, compared to the horrors and war crimes we did, Israel is great. It's like, first of all, is that really your standard? And second of all, compared, listen, I was a huge and am a huge Iraq war critic. The number of civilians that we slaughtered in Iraq and Afghanistan, horrific, unacceptable. No one should be losing using that as their standard. However, compared to the civilian death rate in Gaza right now, we look like angels. We look like the most moral army on the planet compared to what's going on there. And even in Mosul, which he brings up, I looked at it. Again, massive indefensible slaughter in Mosul, 10,000 civilians

killed to get roughly 4,000 ISIS fighters. That is a ratio of 70% killed worse civilians. Again, I think that is wholly unacceptable. The ratio in Gaza is worse. Now, we don't know the exact figures, but even with a generous reading, it's roughly 80% civilians who've been killed and many more, 35,000, 36,000, 46,000 when you count those buried under the rubble, probably many more when you count starvation, illness, disease, etc., who've been killed in a very short time period. So it's just layers of outrageous absurdity, rewriting history, etc. Well, rewriting history, and I'm chuckling while we're talking about this horrible, tragic situation because Mika Brzezinski's father is obviously one of the most famous key Cold Warriors. So when you have Joe Scarborough mentioning Mosul, mentioning Vietnam, he's sitting next to the daughter of, again, like one of the

most notorious Cold Warriors. And I would say not in a good way. I mean, he bragged about being the sort of brains behind the idea in the Carter administration to start funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. I mean, this goes back decades. And I think it speaks to how entrenched the foreign policy establishment is in defending 50 years of failed policy. Have you seen any of the clips, though, of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mika's dad, lecturing Joe on Israel? I have not. Oh. Should I? I'm going to send you some things. Because there are, there's at least one interview where he just goes in on Joe. He's like, honestly, your understanding of this conflict is embarrassing.

And because Joe has all the basically like the Hillary Clinton version of events in terms of the peace negotiations that it was like all, you know, in Oslo that it was all one side. It was all the Palestinians walking away. And anyway, Mika's dad really puts him in his place in a way that is quite remarkable. So I highly recommend you check out those clips because they are quite enjoyable. I just referenced something that's worth digging into more. Again, we really don't know exactly what the death toll is in Gaza, but there's a lot of talk about because it's the health ministry, which is Hamas-controlled, quote-unquote, that perhaps the death toll is being overstated. There are increasing numbers of experts who are saying it's much more likely that it's actually being understated. Let's put this up on the screen. This is from Haaretz, again, Israeli newspaper. This is an opinion piece from a number of experts that we, three different experts that we, or two different experts that we have

here. They say why Gaza's death toll is probably higher than reported, the scope of the killing, as well as the incidence of illness and deaths due to lack of basic sanitary conditions, food, medical care, demand, and urgent public debate in Israel. They go on to write here, the fatality numbers in Gaza over the past seven months are appalling. According to the UN, over 34,000 people have been killed, over 77,000 wounded, another 11,000 trapped under the rubble considered missing. This is just part of the picture. We believe the morbidity and fatality numbers in Gaza are actually higher. Our conclusion is based on comparisons with the public health challenges in refugee camps immediately after the 1948 war and familiarity with epidemiological data in general. We believe that the scope of the killing, as well as the incidence of illness and deaths due to a lack of basic sanitary conditions, food and medical care demand an urgent public debate in Israel. Some of the things that

they note here is that according, again, to the UN, around 31% of kids under two in northern Gaza and around 10% in Rafah suffering from severe malnourishment. And we've had yet another massive aid cut with the failure of the freaking pier, but also more significantly with the closure of the Rafah Crossing. Numbers of dead due to starvation, they say, are not yet known. Clear many people are suffering irreversible damage. People who subsist on weeds and livestock feed for months will not survive long. And Emily, they compare it to the response to the Nakba in 1948 and the was also a horror. And we know that there were huge numbers of deaths that resulted from those unsanitary conditions at the time. So one can only imagine what is happening right now.

Yeah. And that's, I think, an important point in and of itself that we actually really don't know. We really, like the full extent, the scope of what's happening. Someone mentioned this the other day. We actually didn't have a death count out of Dresden, like an official death count out of Dresden until, I don't know, like 30 years ago, 20 years ago, something crazy like that. It took years to get a final figure

that people were comfortable with. And so that can go in both directions. And so because we don't know, you hear a lot of people who are supportive of the incursion into Arafa saying, well, we don't know what the death toll has been so far. You know, we, the IDF says it's doing everything to minimize civilian casualties, et cetera, et cetera. But actually there's a lot of, I think, significant reason to believe that we are missing deaths, that people are under the rubble, that, you know, there's, that there's so much destruction that we're missing the full

extent of it. So for all the conversations about potentially overcounting, really, even as, again, someone who's generally been, not necessarily since October 7th, but before that, generally pro-Israel, look at this. I think people are really missing a big part of the picture. Because you asked the question, too, I mean, even people who have chronic illnesses and they, you know, can't get their insulin or, you know, early on in the conflict, we had numbers coming out about huge spike. I think it was like by 100 times the number of kids who were suffering from severe diarrhea, which is one of the leading causes of death for children around the world. So that's not some little thing.

You have a hospital and health care system that is just decimated. I mean, it really doesn't even hardly function at this point. It's unbelievable what these doctors and nurses are able to do. There's one hospital in Rafa right now. They've closed other hospitals. There's one hospital in Rafah right now. They've closed other hospitals. There's one remaining hospital functioning right now. So in that context, how would you even have any idea who is sick, who is dying, what it's a result from? And are people who are, say, dying from starvation or dying from a lack of the medicine they need for chronic long-term conditions? Or there are no cancer hospitals operative in Gaza anymore.

Who's maimed for life, right? That's right. Who will never be the same because they lost a leg, they lost an arm, they lost an eye. I don't think anyone in Gaza will ever be the same. Certainly. In a certain sense, I don't think anyone will ever be the same. So in any case, this will be one of the long-term reckonings of this war is exactly what was the death toll, because I don't think we have any idea right now. There's one other

significant piece of military news. This is something to track really closely. Put this up on the screen. The IDF has announced that they've taken control of that border with Egypt, the Gaza-Egypt border right there near Rafah. You know, this is a very fraught situation. We brought you earlier this week, Sagar and I covered that at least one Egyptian soldier had been killed in an exchange of fire with the IDF. You have the Egyptian government, which, you know, in spite of whatever rhetoric they might use, is, you know, very pro-Israel. They get tons of money from us and they do what we want. That's basically the bottom line ever since Camp David with regards to Egypt. Population, on the other hand, feels a very different way, very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

And so you have these Egyptian soldiers right there on the border who are seeing, you know, the horrors that are being inflicted in Rafah right now. And also interesting, Emily, that the, according to Ken Klippenstein, the Israeli government won't talk at all about what happened in that exchange of fire that led to one Egyptian soldier being killed. So this is, you know, part of why the dealings with Egypt are incredibly fraught and, you know, really significant to track. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. The peer, the death of the Egyptians, I mean, this week has been a rolling disaster for the Biden administration and their position on the conflict, their attempt to publicly walk a fine line for the politics of the conflict. It almost defies believability, like how bad this last week has been specifically. Well, that's a good transition to the next piece here because you've had a real sort of breaking of the dam in terms of, I mentioned before,

it's becoming increasingly difficult to defend Israeli actions, even from people who've been very sympathetic. Piers Morgan, for example, really coming out strongly condemning the attack on Rafa and the, you know, dozens of Palestinians who were murdered inside of tents. This one I didn't see coming. So put this up on the screen. Simone Sanders, who, you know, was on the Biden campaign and then she was in the Biden White House as an aide to Kamala Harris, now at MSNBCBC and typically very much towing still the administration line as if she, you know, I mean, basically like a Biden administration mouthpiece over at MSNBC. So for her to tweet out any criticism is really noteworthy. And I give her

credit, huge credit for that. She says the statements from some administration officials about not being able to verify what's happening in Gaza are absurd. We can all see the pictures. It's horrific. And she was referring, I think, specifically to Matt Miller playing dumb of like, oh, well, we don't know what really is going on in Rafah. To really say whether this has crossed our red line, who can really even know when you've got every major outlet saying they've moved tanks into Rafah. There's, you know, huge strikes here.

This is a major invasion, but they're still pretending like they have no idea. But similarly, you had Tony Blinken once again pretending like, oh, we really don't know what's happening here. We're going to talk to the Israelis and try to figure it out. Because as you and Ryan covered, we now know that the bomb that was responsible for incinerating all of those displaced Palestinians in their tents was an American bomb. It was made by Boeing. You, again, have multiple outlets who are reporting this. And yet Tony Blinken, he doesn't really know. Who can really say. Let's take a listen. What weapons were used or how they were used. All of that needs to be the product of a deliberate but also fast investigation.

And this is what they do every time, Emily, that something happens that they can't really defend. Well, we don't know. There's going to be an investigation. We're going to look into it. The Israelis are going to look into it. We'll get back to you. And they, of course, never do. You're right. That has actually been the direct playbook every time that this has happened. Or, I mean, they've been dealing with it all week with the red line thing. It actually reminds me of that almost exactly and how they change, like they move the goalposts every time. It's like, well, if you consider it this way or if you consider it that way, if you look at it from this direction, we don't really know or it doesn't really count.

I mean, it's just, it's a joke. Yeah, it's very obvious at this point. You also have another State Department official who has resigned. Let's put this up on the screen. This was a career State Department official who was specifically involved in the Biden administration's debates over Israel's conduct in Gaza, citing disagreements with a recently published U.S. government report that claimed Israel was not impeding humanitarian assistance to Gaza. That outgoing official is named Stacey Gilbert, served in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Gilbert sent an email to staff Tuesday explaining her view. The State Department was wrong to conclude Israel had not obstructed humanitarian aid to Gaza officials who read the letter said. You've had a number of other Biden administration officials who have resigned for very similar

reasons. This letter in particular, I'm sure you guys probably remember this. We covered this in the buildup to this. The U.S. has laws in place that say you can't legally, the Leahy Act, you can't ship weapons to a country that is using them to commit war crimes or that is blocking humanitarian aid. And so Congress put pressure on the administration, we need you to produce a report looking into whether you can legally ship these weapons to Israel. So State Department

dragged their feet for a while. They postponed the report. Ultimately, they dropped the report at like, you know, in the evening on Friday, typical like trying to bury the news. And they said, well, there's some problems here and we're concerned, but ultimately, no, we think it's all fine and good. Now, every independent organization that has looked at the aid situation specifically has said Israel is blocking aid. You have people starving to death. Like, you've got trucks lined up for miles and miles and miles at the border. It's very clear what's going on here, but still they, you know, weaseled their way into some sort of, you know, finding that, oh, we trust the Israelis when they say that they're doing the best that they can. And so she left specifically over a dispute with this report saying effectively, like,

this is outrageous. Of course, they're blocking aid. I can't stay in this position if you're going to pretend otherwise. Well, and this is, yeah, I think this is a huge, a huge, like, ongoing theme is all the ICC conversation, for example, is that Israel and the United States, this is not a new thing, but when humanitarian aid or international law is something that is beneficial to their foreign policy for public relations or political purposes, it becomes very important. And on the other hand, you have people in the Israeli government or, you know, their supporters around the world saying, like, well, this is a war. You know, what do you think war is? This is what war looks like. And those are inconsistent positions.

Now, it's true you can wage a war and, you know, necessarily even if it's the most just war in the history of mankind, there will still likely be civilian casualties. That's the tragedy of war, there will still likely be civilian casualties. That's the tragedy of war, even of just war. But these two positions are not compatible to say, on the one hand, international law is extremely important in Ukraine and in Russia. And when it comes to Israel, well, they're not a party to the ICC, doing the best that they can. It's one or the other for broad purposes. And that's a really, really frustrating thing. Again, like I said earlier, generally before October 7th of Ben-Pro Israel, I think they had to respond to October 7th. I think we agree on that.

They had to respond to October 7th in some way or another. But since then, all of this in the service of a cause that's impossible, which is annihilating Hamas, like the actual ambition, impossible, technically impossible at this point in time, unless you are okay with mass civilian casualties. And I think that's what a lot of people don't want to say aloud. And here's the thing is, I think they always knew that that goal was impossible. I don't think that, you know, we're telling them anything they didn't realize from the beginning. There were comments made from our own defense officials, you know, at the beginning of this war saying this is basically impossible. If you were going to even try to do it the way they went about it was the total polar opposite of what you would do.

If you actually were going to strategically go in and directly target Hamas, you need to work with the population. You need to give them some other path that is more appealing than what Hamas has to offer. And so the goal has always been annihilation. I think Professor Mearsheimer is correct when he says, you know, the long-term goal and certainly the accelerated goal here was originally ethnic cleansing. They basically failed in being able to push everybody out of the Gaza Strip. So it just turned to annihilation and genocide. And, you know, that's where that's effectively where we are, which is why it's increasingly difficult for their defenders to see the images that are coming out and stick with this line that, oh, they're doing everything they can

to protect civilian life. Like, we can all see what is happening. And so there was a bit of a dam breaking, as I said, in Hollywood, too, this week. This was kind of interesting. We put this up on the screen. We've got a bunch of different Hollywood figures. This is Aaron Paul, a Breaking Bad actor, played Jesse Pinkman. Here you have Dua Lipa, pop star. You also have Ariana Grande, obviously another top, top pop star, and Billy Eichner as well. And that first image, put the next one up on the screen, the next element we have. So for some reason, this particular image really went viral. It says, All Eyes on Rafa, And it has what appears to be an AI-generated image of, can't really tell what. I think people are assuming they're tense, but I don't think they're actually tense.

This also doesn't appear to be Rafa at all. I don't know what to tell you. For some reason, this is the image that went viral, which was kind of strange. But here we are. But more interesting to me is the fact that you now are at a point where Hollywood, which was kind of strange, but here we are. But more interesting to me is the fact that you now are at a point where Hollywood, which was very reluctant, you remember in the early days, there were huge recriminations over anyone in Hollywood who said anything that was remotely pro-Palestinian, remotely critical of Israel, massive career

consequences, et cetera. You're now at a point where people apparently feel safe enough to post these sorts of things. And also, I think where just, you know, the images that came out this week were so indefensible that there was a sense of like, all right, we got to say something even if it's, you know, doing the minimum of like posting this AI generated image. Now, I'm not in Generation Z, but I will say the all eyes on Rafa meme, that picture that we just showed on the screen. And if you're listening, it's probably what you all saw on your Instagrams. That was the most viral, at least political thing, but probably a cultural thing, period, that I've seen on Instagram since the BLM squares, the black squares. Oh, really? Yeah. I haven't seen anything go that viral since then. So it speaks to, we're going to talk about this later, how I think especially young people

feel about the conflict, which is diametrically opposed to how a lot of people in older generations, just on average, feel about the conflict. So my take on it is it went viral because there was a simplicity to it. It felt like it wasn't taking a side, you know what I mean? Like that all eyes on RAFA is so simple and general. Sort of vague. It's easy for people. Yeah, it's an easy, I guess, slogan for people to get behind. I'm not begrudging people who posted it, but I think that probably explains why it was used more than other pro-Palestine memes have been.

Yeah, it was just, I mean, who knows why things go viral, why a particular thing takes off, you know, was it because of the size of the account that initially posted it? I have no idea, but it is, it was weird because there were so many actual horrifying images coming out of Rafa that the one that went viral was this AI not even looking like Rafa. Shipping container, boat, car. Whatever it was, but anyway. It looked like a used car lot. I don't know. I saw someone say this is like shipping containers

in Argentina or something. I don't know what it was. It wasn't Rafa. I don't think it was real at all, but in any case, I think some of these pop stars who rely for their stardom, too, on young people are feeling more and more pressure.

You also see Macklemore, who kind of, you know, pop stars who rely for their stardom too on young people are feeling more and more pressure you also see um mclemore who kind of you know was like relatively irrelevant to the cultural scene came out with his pro-palestinian hit and has had huge you know was like had a career high in terms of a number of the billboard charts and um so i think there was a sense of with the kids and the the tents and the horror of those burned bodies and the actual decapitated, I mean, just horrible things. I think there was a buildup of pressure of like, all right, well, we got to say something. And to your point, this was maybe kind of like the safest thing that they felt like they felt comfortable putting their name to. I agree.

And of course, yeah, I should say it wasn't just because it was simple that it went viral. It was because it was something simple that happened or that went viral after the mistake. What did Netanyahu call it? A tragic mistake. So even when you have Israel conceding that those images were real and a quote tragic mistake, that's actually different than some of the other tragedies that we've seen unfold world central kitchen uh etc well that they actually did ultimately use similar language with world central kitchen but after a while right after they've exhausted every other and it was the same here you know first the idf was crowing about the oh we got these two hamas bad guys which maybe they did maybe they didn't we don't actually have proof but that was their original was like, yay, we're awesome. Look at how great

we did. And then once there was massive international condemnation, including some weak concerns expressed from the U.S., that's when you get the, oh, it's a tragic mistake. And, you know, we're very sorry for the civilian loss of life, et cetera, et cetera. But. It seems to me like that happened like that turnaround was faster this time. It was, yeah. Because the pressure was really, really high from the U.S. and, well, from people in the U.S. and pressuring their own politicians and all of that.

But, you know, ironically, I saw Ryan sharing this. So Bibi describes it as a tragic mistake, which seems to indicate some regret for the loss of Palestinian civilian life. There is a Palestinian-Israeli who posted similar concern for the loss of Palestinian civilian life in Rafah, who was arrested for posting that on social media in Israel. Fantastic democracy. Only democracy in the Middle East. Yes, the bullet. Yes. 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.

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two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. All right, so we move on to our own country and how people are feeling about things over here. In other news, the American empire is dying according to an entire generation of people. It's really what we have in front of us. We can put this first tear sheet up on the screen. A dying empire led by bad people. That's just the headline.

Poll finds young voters despairing over US politics. Actually a very accurate encapsulation of this poll, which is from Blueprint. Young voters overwhelmingly believe that almost all politicians are corrupt, amen, and that the country will end up worse off than when they were born. Blueprint is a Democratic firm, we should note. Semaphore got this polling exclusively, so it was an online poll of 18 to 30-year-old registered voters, which is actually interesting, Crystal, because a lot of people who probably have even more cynical impressions of the country and the country's future are simply not registered to vote. So if anything, this is probably undercounting the way people feel about the country, because if you're not registered to

vote, you probably already lack, I think, hope in a lot of cases. Not everyone who's not registered to vote. Some people just aren't really into politics and don't want to vote, which is perfectly understandable. But for a lot of people, they're just like, well, I'm not going to vote. Why am I going to vote? What do you want me to choose from, this corrupt politician or the other corrupt politician, which was what we were talking about, in fact, earlier in the show? So of 943 18 and 30-year-old registered voters, Blueprint, this Dem firm, asked them to respond to a series of questions about the American political system. 49% agreed to some extent that elections in the country don't represent people like them. 51% agreed to some extent that

the political system in the U.S., quote, doesn't work for people like me. And 64% backed the statement that, quote, America is in decline. A whopping 65% agreed either strongly or somewhat that, quote, nearly all politicians are corrupt and make money from their political power. Now, I will say also only 7% disagree. I want to know who those 7% are. Those are the 7% of voters of the people that will actually go for Biden, like the youth for Biden. Like, it's just of them. The seven percent of voters are the people that will actually go for Biden, like the youth for Biden. Like it's just all them. It's just Harry Sisson. Yes. But it's also worth noting that that wording is so funny to me because it says you're either somewhat agreeing that nearly all politicians are corrupt. Like, it's so, like,

the way that it's worded is so, like, hedging. You know what I mean? You somewhat agree that nearly all politicians are corrupt. That's just, I mean, how could anyone disagree with that? Who are the 7% of these people? Well, the same before continues. Well, 45% of people polled said their own lives would be either a lot or a little bit better than their parents. The same wasn't true for how they felt America as a whole is doing. 54% believed the country is going downhill. I feel like, Crystal, maybe there are a lot of breaking points viewers in here. we can start to put some of these numbers up on the screen. This is D2. D2 is America's jaded youth vote. This is doesn't matter who wins elections, nothing changes. Strongly agree, 20%. Some would agree, 28%. Some would disagree and strongly

disagree. Those are only at 13% respectively. So that's only 26% of 18 to 30 year olds who disagree. Who say that elections may somewhat matter. Exactly. I mean, it's just... And then, Emily, think about the pitch that Biden is making to young voters. That it is, your life is literally on the line in this election. That's how much it matters. And then you look at these numbers, they just don't agree with you. They just don't agree with you. And he needs, I mean, he desperately needs young voters, desperately needs young voters, because we've seen not just young voters falling away from Joe Biden, but some polling fines

on the margins where it's really going to matter for Joe Biden in a state like Wisconsin where those college towns are super influential. And that's, you know, swing states all over. Those college towns are very influential in the swing states. People are actually moving to Trump from Biden. And Trump is making a similarly existential pitch. So it's not as though Trump is out here being like, ah, you know, make America or like keep America great, which was his pitch in 2020. Oh, that was rough as an incumbent. Yeah. Even he didn't like that one. Never really leaned into it. No. Yeah. I mean, I love a dying empire led by bad people. I feel like that should be the name of our election coverage. Nailed it pretty well, I would say.

We should put that on a mug. A dying empire led by bad people. Again, who could disagree? I mean, honestly, I know they only focus on 18 to 30-year-olds, but I think you would find a lot of similar sentiments, especially in the next age group up, like millennial slash Gen X. I think you would see a lot of similar sentiments. And then as you got older, you would find people who were a little bit more positive and a little more hopeful about the electoral system and felt like more was on the line with regard to this election. That's why older voters have stuck with Joe Biden. People who voted for Joe Biden last

time around, the one cohort that is really sticking with him very strongly is older voters. And so, you know, again, it speaks to how not compelling their pitch is to this demographic that they desperately need and why all of the voter shaming that you see around, especially the, you know, unconditional support for Israel, is also not effective. It's just like, oh, how dare you say anything critical of Joe Biden? Don't you know you're helping Trump? And, you know, for young people who, like me, see this as a genocide and see it as a stark moral line, that's just not going to be a compelling pitch. You have to change the policy, and there is no sign that they have

any intention of changing the policy. So, yeah, it's pretty dire numbers. It's huge trouble for Joe Biden. The fact it's a Democratic polling firm actually is significant because it means they would, you know, kind of be inclined towards showing some more favorable numbers towards Joe Biden. But it's also just a dire statement about how decrepit and, you know, how in decline the state of our democracy is when you have this many people in, you know, younger generations, which are supposed to be the most idealistic, the most hopeful about the future saying, no, I don't have that hope. I don't think things are getting better. I don't think there's an inevitability of progress. I think we're backsliding and going in the wrong direction. I mean, those are dire warning signs for the country as a whole. Imagine trying to do those old school rock the vote campaigns with this generation. Seriously. And that brings me to

the next thing we wanted to talk about, which is super fascinating data here from the Washington Post. When America was great, according to data, we can start to put some of these next charts up on the screen, but just reading from the Post's analysis. Okay, so for haters, there's no time like the present. That's what the Post found. That's how they phrased what they found. And if you're listening to this, what you're seeing on your screen is huge spikes starting around the late 2010s on questions of this is the time with the most political division, the least reliable news reporting, the least close-knit communities, and the least moral society. You have a pretty consistent number in all cases on those questions from the 1930s until about, I would say most of those start to slightly go up around 2000, if you're looking at it. But then after 2015, 2010, just an insane spike.

Like I can't even- Maybe a little bit of recency bias here, I'd say. Yeah, and it looks- Maybe a little bit. It looks exactly like a backwards L. I guess, I mean, it's not quite a J because that line is so flat for all of them and then goes up so starkly.

It really does look like a backwards L here. Yeah. And as we keep going through these charts, because there's more interesting stuff here, most crime, least happy families. The most crime is a funny one because that's actually measurable. Yes. And then 80s and 90s. Other things are an opinion, the least happy family, even the worst economy. The only one, even the worst economy, people have now rated worse than the 1930s.

That one looks more like a U. Yeah, that's the only one where it comes close. Yes, because it's also very high in the 1930s and then pretty consistent throughout the mid-century. Well, throughout the whole century, actually, between 1930 and, again, like 2010, roughly. So that's an interesting one. But, again, the rest of these look like backwards L's. We keep moving through the data here. Worst radio programming? This is good. Worst music. It's not quite as severe a spike as the political ones, but you still see a decent spike around 2010.

Worst television looks similar to worst music. Worst radio programming goes up around, I don't know, 2010 as well. And worst movies also goes up around maybe like 2000 on that one. So basically across the board, what you're seeing is an increase in, let's say, this is the best way to put it, across the board, you're seeing steep increases in, let's say, like dissatisfaction with American culture. You know what's funny, though, is they also asked the opposite question. They asked, like, when was the best radio programming and the best sporting events and the best television? And there was a lot of recency bias there, too, where there were a lot of people who were picking now in terms of the best. Now, it wasn't as like clear cut as those

just, you know, backwards L-shaped graphs that Emily was describing. But like for the best television, you have very clearly, you know, the current moment winning out the best sporting events, the current moment, the best cuisine. It was like off the charts, the current moment, best work-life balance was the current moment one out over other decades. So you just have, you know, people who are feeling like, you know, whether it's the best or the worst, they feel very strongly about the present, I guess. It is recency bias. I think the worst one, I think it just speaks to this deep sense, similar to the semaphore polling about the sense that it's, you know, a dying empire led by bad people of decline, you know, of things are degrading and

things are chaotic and things are going off the rails. And, you know, I'm just, I'm like expressing that in all of these different venues, even in things like the best radio programming or the worst radio programming, the worst news reporting, etc.? Well, and starting in 1930, you're between the two world wars. And so the 20th century, despite two horrific world wars, there was just a lot of hope in the West. The West was a very hopeful place after sort of enduring those two incredible tribulations. And people came out of them with a lot of hope. And it's just very interesting that the hope is what's, I think, being sucked out. And you see that in some of these numbers. I think we have a couple more numbers. We have more elements in this

block just to run through. Yeah. Worst fashion, most war, shortest life expectancy. Oh my goodness. Worst sporting events. Actually, the shortest life expectancy. Oh, my goodness. Worst sporting events. Actually, the shortest life expectancy one is interesting because it did start to decrease. American life expectancy did start to decrease right around where people start picking up on that in the graph. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And obviously— We have a lot of war, too.

Yes. And you see that spike in the roughly looks like the 1940s, which makes sense. But then during the Cold War period where there were wars all over the place, it wasn't really that cold of a war because we were fighting and or aiding people in hot wars all around the country or around the world. That was different. And do we have one more element here? Fewest scientific breakthroughs. That's a loss of hope, too, it feels like. You see an increase there. That's Ross Douthat's book on decadence. I highly recommend reading that one.

Least racial equality starts to spike. It was higher in the 1930s. Least gender equality, higher in the 1930s, but starts to spike again around the 2010s. A lot of this, Crystal, I also see some fascinating studies on how media influences the way we see race relations that when media coverage for example if you ask people how many shootings of unarmed black men there are or actually just black Americans there are people will wildly overestimate it in times of media coverage that's really heavy. And it also reminds me of some of these other things, too. Just you can see how when the media is telling us one thing, we're really receptive to the media narrative despite how much we hate the media.

Yeah. It's kind of interesting, too, right? Yeah. I mean, I think we have this sort of innate to the human experience. We always overestimate something either that we experience or that we're like seeing on the news, how prevalent it is, whatever that thing is in society. So like, you know, the life expectancy thing makes sense because we just covered on this show how our life expectancy is in here in the U.S. is declining at a pretty rapid clip and that it's unique to the US.

Other developing nations, we have the lowest life expectancy of any G7 developed nation. And they aren't trending in the same direction we are. So it is a very specific US trend. So there's been, I would say, actually not nearly enough coverage of that. But there has been some coverage of it. And so that contributes to a sense of not only is it declining, but actually it's the worst that it's ever been. That's obviously not the case. But, you know, us humans have a funny way of processing things. This next, put up

a D4, because this is interesting too in terms of how our partisan valence impacts the way that we see things. Now, this has been the case for quite a while. When you have a Republican president in office, Republicans are much more likely to say the economy's great, and Democrats are much more likely to say the economy's trash. And you can see how things totally reverse course. The instant that Joe Biden is elected in 2020, suddenly Democrats feel pretty good about the economy and Republicans take a dive off a cliff. Now, I will say if we look overall here, you can see that Democrats, even under Joe Biden, do not reach the levels of positive economic sentiment that Republicans did under Donald Trump. And so, you know, if you look overall, the economic sentiment was overall, on average, much higher under Donald Trump than it is under Joe Biden. And you can see independents also had a much higher opinion of the economy under Donald

Trump than they do under Joe Biden. So, you know, to take those overall numbers is in some ways more important, but the partisan split is nevertheless interesting that people on a dime, when it's Trump in office the very next day when Joe Biden is inaugurated, suddenly you're like, oh, actually, I think the economy is getting better. I like it. Well, you know, another thing is Democrats now tend to be more affluent. And so they're more invested in the stock market, which is a change. Obviously, it wasn't always like that, but it's been a flip and a small one for now. But I think that's still relevant here that, you know, when the stock market is doing well, it doesn't mean the economy is great, although that's what they tell you constantly in CNBC.

And, you know, sometimes they add new ones to it, but it's not the same thing. Like a great stock market isn't the same thing as a great economy. And that chart actually reminded me, too, of the crime numbers we showed. Because it's, again, you know, when the media—you were pointing out crime in the 80s and 90s. I mean, we're going to get to this in just a second. Let's put D5 up on the screen. Which decade would you most want to live in? You can see Republicans really into the 80s. Democrats less into the 80s.

Independents also into the 80s. Yeah, independents into the 80s. Democrats loving the now. But just in terms of crime, as we were talking about again, like people forget how bad it was in cities in the 80s and 90s. And D.C. is a good example of that. Media coverage about crime is reasonably tough in what's happening here in D.C., but even here in D.C. is not. We're not at the levels that we were in D.C. in the 90s. Yeah, it's actually not even close. And also, this is another one you're talking about, you know, shootings of black men. This is another one where the media narrative really fuels a misperception because there has been a crime spike, but actually the violent crimes have abated almost across the board in the country in the past year. But there is very little public

awareness of that because of, you know, when crime is covered, you feel like, oh, there's, there's crime everywhere. And since there is a large amount of, a more significant amount of coverage of crime, that can lead to misperceptions about what the overall numbers are. So you feel like, oh, this is the worst crime we've ever seen in American history. But just by the numbers, that's like clearly not the case. And this is super interesting. Let's end on D6 here, because it sort of speaks to the psychology that's going on. The Washington Post writes, so we looked at the data another way, measuring the gap between each person's birth year and their ideal decade. So that's what we're breaking down here. The consistency of the resulting pattern delighted us. It shows that Americans feel nostalgia not for a specific era, but for

a specific age. The good old days when America was, quote, great aren't the 1950s. They're whatever decade you were 11. Your parents knew the correct answer to any question, and you'd never heard of war crimes, tribunals, microplastics, or improvised explosive devices. Or when you were 15 and athletes and musicians still played hard and hadn't sold out. Not every flavor of nostalgia peaks as sharply as music does. But by distilling them to the most popular age for each question, we can chart a simple life of nostalgia. Now, Crystal, I actually think what is incredibly sad to me when I read this is I don't think Gen Z and what Gen Alpha, the generation behind Gen Z, is. This is a pattern that is consistent across like the last roughly 100 years, like every generation alive right now. If you look at these Washington Post numbers, I don't know that this is going to be true. I'm actually very doubtful that this will be

as true for those generations because if you look at, have you seen how viral, it's just so depressing, how viral the videos that are just people's old camcorder recordings of a day in the life of a high schooler in like 1999 have gone on YouTube? No, not aware of this. It's all, it's not, it's not people like you and me watching it. It's Gen Z. They're watching these, these time capsules, these windows into what life looked like before cell phones. And that's how they react to the videos that like everyone seems so happy. It seems so simple. And in the Washington Post description here, they say, you know, your parents are the correct answer to any question. You never heard

of war crimes, tribunals, microplastics, or IEDs. Well, if you are young right now, if you're 11 right now, the decade that you're 11 right now, you're on social media and whether you want to see this stuff or not, you are. Yeah. My son is literally about to turn 11, so he's right in there. Yeah. I mean, it's funny with this stuff because on the one hand, I feel like there were a lot of things that were superior about like the pre-smartphone era. I mean, the smartphone was really the tipping point, right? I think so. And I think that's why you see a lot of those numbers spike around 2010. There was more like human connection, more seeing each other in person, more ability to disconnect from the news and less like, you know, social media bullying and all of that sort of stuff. On the other hand, would I want to get rid of my smartphone? No. You know, because like obviously there's positives. I mean, to me, when I think back about when I started driving when I was 16,

and I didn't have Google Maps. I was printing out. MapQuest? I was, like, printing out MapQuest. Back before that, when you had a real-ass map trying to get places? How did anyone get? That is crazy to me. The amount of, like like soccer games that it was

like, I'm going to be five minutes late, not for the warmup, but for the game because my mom was like missing a street. And I used to be like, well, what are you doing? Just like get to the soccer game. And now I'm like, I couldn't do that. It's like, what do you mean turn on this road and then turn on that road? You want me to remember the directions? And even with the map quest, like you miss a turn. It's not updating automatically where you now have new directions. And even with the map quest, like, you missed a turn. It's not updating automatically where you now have new directions. Okay, we'll take this other route. No, you missed a turn.

Like, what are you going to do? Yeah, you can't readjust. You have to, like, what, unfold the map in the glove box? Yeah. Stop at a gas station and ask for directions. I had to do that. I was trying to get to the University of Maryland.

It was terrifying. I missed exits. Because you were going to Maryland. Because there were like, you know, it's where 495 and I don't know, something 270 or something splits off. And I missed whatever I was supposed to do. And I was like, I'm just not going to find it. I'm not going to find it. This is never going to happen.

So there are some things that are more positive about the current era. Definitely. And we've just like stumbled into the biggest conversation of our generations about like the benefits of some of this like hyper modern social media based technology like the smartphone and everything. So, yeah, we could go on for it. We could do a whole episode on this alone. I would give up my smartphone though. You would? I would.

I would brave the maps. No, I can't do it because I'll miss the text from Sagar, the memes from Sagar. From us being like, Emily, we need you to fill in. Or Sagar sending, like, Andrew Schultz clips.

Can't miss that. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You can't give it up. I did think it was super interesting. This tracks with what probably we all experience, especially as some of us get older. But that it's so consistent. Whenever you were 15, basically, is when you thought the music was the best. It's SNL phenomenon, yeah.

Whenever you were 11 is when you say families were the closest. Yeah. Whenever you were 11 is when you say families were the closest. Whenever you were like 19 is when you think that music events and fashion, like things that you're starting to get into once you get older and you're starting to get a job and have money to do these things, that's when you think that was the peak. And across generations, it's super, super consistent. Those things I think will be the same for Gen Z and Jenna. I think they'll feel like the music of their youth was the pinnacle of music. The Drake-Kendrick beef was the pinnacle of artistic creation. That's what Mac will think.

When producer Mac is interviewed by a pollster 30 years from now, he'll be like, oh yeah, remember that Drake-Kendrick? That was the golden era. We've never had it better. Never had it better. Speaking of music of my era. I was going to say, don't date yourself, Crystal. Too late for that, guys.

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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

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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. On a much more serious note, these allegations and the investigation into Diddy is getting really serious. We can put the first hair sheet up on the screen. This is CNN reporting, oh, I'm sorry, we have a shot, but CNN actually had an exclusive report showing that the DOJ is prepping to put Diddy in front of a grand jury. And that's going to be probably in relation as CNN is reporting from sources to sexual assault. But also now,

it's getting more serious because they're also investigating him for sex trafficking, for drugging, for money laundering, all of these new charges getting added. So after the CNN article ran, they did a quick announcement about kind of what their reporters have found on the air yesterday. Let's take a listen. Since November, you'll probably remember that Combs has been named in eight civil lawsuits, seven directly accusing him of sexual assault. The biggest escalation since those March raids on Diddy's homes in Los Angeles and Miami, we are now hearing that federal investigators are preparing to possibly bring witnesses in front of

a federal grand jury in New York City. What we have heard is that possible witnesses have been notified that they could be called to testify. Now, sources do caution that investigators are still in the process of gathering information. In fact, they are still calling in new witnesses, and they have called in some witnesses multiple times. We also hear that the majority of the accusers who have filed these civil lawsuits against Sean Diddy Combs have been brought in for questioning, and again, some of them being called in numerous times. We hear that many are cooperating and even handing over evidence that they feel could be relevant into this federal probe. Now, a spokesperson for Homeland Security did not respond to our request for comment about the presence of a grand jury, but they did confirm

that this investigation is presently ongoing. So as I mentioned, those federal raids that were conducted on his homes back in March, obviously a lot of people wondering what was seized. Well, we are learning now that federal investigators are in possession of video footage that was taken inside of Combs' residence. We hear that these investigators have been contacting individuals that they have seen on this footage. One person, in addition to the accusers who have filed these civil suits, is a male sex worker. That is what a source tells me, and that they have been brought in for questioning through these federal investigators. Now, when the raids first happened, we had a law enforcement source tell us at CNN that the investigation was largely based in sex trafficking, which is what HSI specializes in.

Now we are hearing that that scope has been widened and that investigators are really looking into all of these claims put forth in these civil lawsuits. That would include not just sex trafficking, but also money laundering and illegal drugs. I have a source who tells me, quote, this is much bigger than just these lawsuits. And it's actually much bigger than just Diddy. I think that's a really important point that we alluded to at the beginning of the episode. We're talking about a billion-dollar empire. And so in a lot of ways that the early iteration of the Me Too movement brought in complicit corporations basically in all of these suits. It's not just Diddy that's named. It's relevant companies. It's affiliated companies. Obviously, he's known for being not

just a successful musician, but for turning that into a successful business career. And so it's looking very possible that a lot of people were complicit, that were knowledgeable. I know a lot of people have made great points about the warnings that other celebrities who had seen the victimization themselves were making over the years that were ignored by culture and by other people in Hollywood and in the entertainment industry, and I think there's more to come on that. But it's pretty worth our time to think about the DOJ now after those searches on his homes both in LA and Miami back in late March it was, they are now looking into, as the CNN reporter said, sex trafficking, money laundering, drugs. There are, as I think we heard

from the CNN reporter, video. Investigators are looking at video tapes that were recovered from Diddy's house. And as the, again, they talk about the male prostitute, they talk about what actually is related in the investigation to being on the tape, that people from the tape have been questioned in relationship to what's on the tape, and that they're creating or they're trying to create a, quote, bulletproof indictment, according to the CNN report. So, a bulletproof indictment, according to the CNN report. So a bulletproof indictment is much easier to have when you have actual video evidence and you're able to talk to the people that are involved in it. Now, Diddy has not commented. Like CNN, the CNN reporter you just

saw, she's been kind of a scoop machine on this beat for months. And Diddy has not commented to CNN on any of this new stuff. People obviously will remember that he vehemently denied the allegations as they've come out. He said eight civil suits filed against him since that one was settled with Cassie Ventura right away. I mean, he settled that suit, what, 24 hours? Yeah, after she filed it, it was instantaneous. Speaking of which, speaking of video, we now know that a hotel was allegedly paid 50 grand for that horrific video we covered here on the show of Diddy beating the heck out of Cassie. And that has been, that was from 2016, and it just came out, what, earlier this month in 2024. Yeah, and after it came out, then he apologizes. Prior to that, he had denied absolutely everything, and we're talking about

allegations that span decades, decades. You said eight separate civil suits filed at this point. The videotape that CNN is reporting on here is very noteworthy. Some of the allegations against him is that he had filmed people having sex without their consent. So question mark if that's part of what's contained on this videotape. We don't know if it was part of what was seized in these raids or if they were able to obtain it through some other means. But, you know, some of the allegations are that he was drugging victims and then raping them. Some of the allegations are of the sort of violence that we saw on camera with Cassie. So the picture that is coming into focus here is incredibly far-reaching. And you don't have that long of a pattern with that many people over that many years without having other people know and be involved. And he was protected. For so many years, he was protected. And, you know,

finally now things are starting to come out. And it was also worth noting that kind of what was the watershed moment with regard to any and all of this, there have been like whispers and rumors and podcasts, et cetera, like you said, some little warnings. But when this really burst into the public was when Cassie filed her suit. And that was made possible by that New York law where they opened up. There's a statute of limitations in New York. And they said, you know, we're going to have this limited window where people whose sexual assault allegations, where the statute of limitations has expired, can file civil, not criminal, civil suits for basically like a year's worth of time. And that enabled Cassie to be able to file this suit. It was in the context of that law.

And then that opened the floodgates for all of these additional civil suits. The reporting from CNN indicates that the federal investigation really took those civil suits as a starting point for where they began to investigate. And now we're at the point where it looks like a grand jury is being impaneled and some of the survivors or alleged survivors here may be called to testify about what happened to them, what was done to them, and what they know. I'm usually inherently skeptical or reflexively skeptical when the feds start cobbling together drug cases, money laundering cases, but the video is so powerful. And the testimonies of women that have been coming out in the last, I don't know, half a year are just so, so powerful. And knowing, by the way, that they have tapes, more tapes, that this tape existed,

that it was sat on since 2016. Some of these suits, like the Lil Rod suit, named Cuba Gooding Jr., implicated other celebrities. This is obviously a very bad situation for Diddy's future as a free man because these are incredibly serious. Some of them go back decades, but also some of them are super recent, like the one that names his son and names him as, this was from a yacht worker, actually, being a party to the abuse. That's very recent stuff. We're talking within the last couple of years. You know, it's revenge porn, stuff that's, as you mentioned, videotaped assaults, allegedly. So if they're putting together, if they're leaking to CNN that they're putting together a, quote, bulletproof indictment, these videos support the case that it's actually likely they've got something pretty serious on him. Yeah.

Last thing I'll say about this that I think is worth noting is part of, I mean, that Cassie video, if you guys watched it, it's just unbelievable. I mean, psychopathic. Like, he's a monster. Yeah. There's just no denying it looking at that video. But what was also really noteworthy is she had described in the civil suit she filed that specific interaction bit by bit. I mean, it was identical. What she described was identical to what was reflected on the video, which gives a lot of credence to everything else she had to say.

Totally. And they settled, remember, amicably, that was the quote, which gives a lot of credence to everything else she had to say. Totally. And they settled, remember, amicably, that was the quote, with no admission of wrongdoing on Diddy's part. It happened really quickly, but that's the power of money is that you can get people to settle, quote, amicably, with no admission of wrongdoing within 24 hours,

even when a video like that exists and you know it. Yeah, unbelievable stuff. And definitely that exists and you know it. Yeah. Unbelievable stuff. And definitely one to keep an eye on. Thank you, Emily, for filling in. Always a pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's so much fun. Worked out well since you're the Diddy expert now, since you dug in on the Cassie videos.

I'm glad to have you to break all of that down. We should have Mac do all rap segments in the future. Absolutely. He's our senior rap correspondent. Oh, perfect. We should have Mac do all rap segments in the future. Absolutely. He's our senior rap correspondent. Oh, perfect. We should put that on business cards for him.

Thank you guys so much for watching. Again, I'm just going to say one more time, if you're having any issues, premium subscribers with Locals, support at Locals.com,

email them, cc, breakingpointspremium at gmail.com. We will get whatever problem you're having, we'll get it figured out,

straightened out for you. Thank you guys so much for all the love and support as we make this transition, which we are really excited about what it's gonna mean for the future. Sagar will be back next week. Enjoy your weekend and we will see you then. Thank you. Ketika kita mengambil alat-alat, kita bisa mengambil alat-alat yang terbaik. Terima kasih telah menonton! Thank you. Terima kasih telah menonton! Terima kasih telah menonton! 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, 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 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 iHeart Podcast.