Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/12/24: Hunter Biden Convicted, Alito Wife Leaked Audio, Biden Gaslights On Israel Ceasefire, Feds Investigate UAW, Fox Caught Editing Trump Interview, Pakistan Abducts Imran Khan Allies

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Ryan and Emily discuss Hunter Biden convicted, Alito wife wars with neighbor on pride flag, Biden admin gaslights on Israel ceasefire, feds investigate UAW, Fox caught editing Trump Epstein interview, Pakistan abducts Imran Khan allies.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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. All right. Good morning and welcome to CounterPoints. I'm all alone in this spacious studio here in Washington, D.C. Emily is joining us from our London bureau. Emily,

tell us what you're doing in London. How are you doing? That's right. Well, it's my second week at UnHerd, so I'm hanging out here with the team in London, getting to know everyone. But it was a good week to be in Europe because of the fallout from the EU election. Sagar and Crystal have done a great job covering it, but it has been fascinating to sort of see a lot of it play out here in London. But we have domestically so much on the docket for today's show. And actually also, Ryan, the guest that you have us booked with today, it will be an incredible conversation, no doubt about it. Yeah, that'll be interesting. We're going to talk to Shabazz Gill, who used to serve as chief of staff to Imran Khan. He was famously over there in Pakistan. He was famously arrested there,

tortured, was able to get out of detention, escape the country. He's here in the United States. He's going to update us on some of the transnational repression that's going on between the United States and Pakistan here. Obviously, we're going to talk about the Hunter Biden conviction yesterday. We also, on Monday, we had Lauren Windsor on the show, a Democratic activist and journalist who did the undercover audio of Alito and Roberts. She also has audio of Alito's wife, which is kind of funny at minimum. I think everybody across the spectrum can agree that it's funny, so we'll talk about that. Israel and Hamas are both kind of dueling over who has accepted the ceasefire deal. They're both, each is saying

that they've basically, that their opponents have rejected it, but their opponents are saying they've accepted it. It's completely confusing, but we're going to untangle all the latest of that on that question. Sean Fain is now facing threats basically from this independent monitor connected to the Department of Justice. We can unpack some of that. Emily, Fox News kind of stepped in it with this Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump question, didn't they? Yeah, they really did. They edited part of an answer out and then uploaded the full answer. So either that's a defense of Fox or an argument against the sort of journalism behind this question. So we'll get to that because Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein's relationship to, well, everyone in the corridors of power remains extremely relevant. And on that note, our Friday show, we are going to be having a back and forth with

Oren Cass of American Compass, who's recently been profiled as like the man turning the Republican Party populist, trying to turn the Republican Party populist. So Ryan and I think have some good points of contrast to bring out with Oren. So we're looking forward to a good conversation. Make sure to subscribe to Breaking Points Premium for an early version of that show on Thursday evening. Yes, indeed. So let's talk about Hunter Biden. So Hunter Biden yesterday in rapid fashion, so fast that reporters and Hunter's family were not even able to get into the courtroom in time to kind of see the verdict. That's how quickly the jury was able to come to the conclusion that he was guilty of three felony charges connected to basically illegal possession of a weapon, lying on his background check information, something, a crime.

What did Matt Gaetz call it? Kind of stupid. Basically, on the form, and I want to hear your reaction to this. On the form, it says, are you using drugs? Grammatically, just a mess of a question. And I pointed this out at the time, and Hunter Biden actually did use the defense that I sort of jokingly provided, which was that he wasn't using drugs at the time. Because the form says, are you using drugs? And so Hunter said, not only am I not

using drugs at this very moment, what Hunter had said is that he was going in and out of bouts of sobriety and then relapse during this period. And so if you are an addict, if you're somebody that has serious problems, a lot of times you might say, look, I'm a week sober and I'm never going to drink again. I'm never going to do drugs again the rest of my life. And if somebody asks you at that moment, are you using? You would say no, honestly. That night you might use. So were you lying then? It's like a very philosophical question. The jury didn't take long to debate the question, though, and found him just straight up guilty. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I think what

they read into this is a lack of sincerity. I mean, there's entries in the laptop. There's parts of his own book that are in such close proximity to the day that he signed the form. That said, I mean, he had Abbe Lowell. He had sort of brought out the, and again, this is the state of Delaware, a very friendly state for the Bidens. So it's a friendly jury and they had this addiction defense. So I was actually fairly surprised by how quickly they returned those results. One of the more interesting elements was flagged in Playbook this morning. They noted a source actually told them on the Dem side, it would have been worse if he had been found not guilty for the 2024 campaign, simply because that would have fed into the broader narrative being pushed. And I think it's a correct narrative,

and I think it still stands, that Hunter Biden is being unduly protected by the Department of Justice. And the reason that is still my big takeaway from this case is the gun charge is by far and away the safest charge that Hunter Biden could have been hit with. We've seen this defense. You mentioned Matt Gaetz. We've seen Thomas Massey talk about this, that of all the things in the world to charge Hunter Biden with, he still, by this Department of Justice, has not been charged with a FARA violation, despite the fact that he did not register for his work with Burisma and other clients. That is a felony.

He has, the DOJ slow walked to the point where the statute of limitations expired on felony tax violations. He actually didn't pay taxes on income the year that he was taking money from Burisma and other foreign clients, a much more serious charge. And again, they slow walked, their whistleblowers have talked about this, but the DOJ under the Biden administration slow walked the investigation to the point where the statute of limitations on more serious charges expired, and he still hasn't been hit with a fair violation. He could still be hit with a fair violation. But there's, I mean, from his own book, from the laptop, there is just blatantly obvious evidence. It is plain as day that they should charge him with a fair violation. They charged Palamana for it. And if they don't hit him with a fair violation, that pretty much tells you what you need to know. But we already know that they slow walked. So the statute of limitations on the other tax charges expired. It's happening under his father's DOJ. So it does look

bad. And I think, frankly, it is bad. And the defense from his camp about why he shouldn't be charged as a foreign agent is kind of amusing. And it basically goes, he didn't actually do any work. He took money from these foreign entities. He doesn't deny that. But then he just put that money right up his nose and didn't actually. He was having fun. Yeah, he used his name to get the money, but he did not use his name to then exert any influence in Washington. He just went to Skid Row and he went to Vegas and traveled the country and did what.

You can find out what he did if you want to search or read his memoir even. And very little of that involved like actual influence peddling. Now, it probably wouldn't be too hard for him to find some small thing that he did. And obviously, during this period of his life, he's not a big one for paperwork. The fact that he didn't file any taxes for many years in a row means that if you're not filing your taxes, you're probably not filing any of your lobbying paperwork either, whether he's lobbying or not. It does seem like there's credible potential for some jail time, some prison time here. What's your guess? What's your sense of whether or not he'll actually go to some minimum security federal prison as a result of this? It's a really good question.

And when also, I mean, does it play out during the election? I think is a very interesting question as well. I'm guessing I think you're right. I think you're right that he'll probably get some minimal amount of time in a minimal security prison. He might not, though. I think this is what, isn't this his first time felony actual conviction? He hasn't been convicted of anything before. So that's helpful, obviously. Yeah. And I saw some statistics in Glenn Thrush's article in New York Times. It's something like 8% of people charged with this same crime don't get any prison time, but 92% do.

This is also an unusual case to charge in the sense that two things. One, the gun was not used in the commission of a crime. And two, the person is now sober. So in most cases, like federal prosecutors who would come across this kind of thing would say, given these other circumstances, we're not going to go with this. However, this is, and in fact, they basically got to a deal where he wasn't going to serve any prison time, you know, if you remember months ago, but then it blew up in front of the judge. The judge was questioning different versions of it. Hunter's team wanted, you know, future administrations not to be able to have any, you know, say over kind of the implementation of a sentence. And, you know, the whole thing blew up

in the courtroom. And so she threw out the plea deal. And that's why it ended up going to trial rather than getting pled out like I think most of these would otherwise. Your answer brought to mind Trump as well when you were saying like this is the cheapest, silliest, lamest thing that you could convict the person for when there are all these other more substantial things that are either coming down the pike or could be thrown at him. And it reminded me of Trump and the prosecution in New York where it's like, okay, yeah, clearly guilty of that. And like Hunter, Hunter is clearly guilty. He did the thing. He filled out the form. He had the gun. He was using drugs. We know that because he talks about it and he brags about it on that laptop.

But I think you're right. Compared to the more systemic things, it is small. And I wonder if there's just something about our system that just has such a hard time going after itself. It's fine nibbling around the edges, but going right for the heart of it is just much more difficult. Do you think we've seen the last of this, the prosecutors are saying they still have some tax charges that they could launch,

even if they're not, even if some of them have expired. Do you expect we're going to see more of this? Well, he is facing charges in California. He's likely to appeal this decision. So it's tax charges in California, and he's probably going to appeal the decision that was just made. So I think it's going to continue to play out. And one of the key differences, to your point, it is an interesting point. One of the key differences, I think, with Trump is that we've seen everything thrown at the wall with Trump, which we've talked about. I mean, when you have the documents case, when you have the January 6th charges, and you're talking about the hush money to the porn star. It's like, you know, they really were throwing,

they were doing the throw everything at the wall and see what sticks strategy. Whereas with Hunter Biden, this is so far the thing that Weiss has charged him with. And, you know, he even tried to do a plea deal that the judge was like, well, hold on. Last summer, the judge was like, are, hold on. Last summer, the judge was like, are you the prosecutor? What kind of prosecutor would do? It was such a sweetheart

deal that the judge in this very unusual moment had to be like, wait a second, what's going on here? Because what Weiss had attempted to prosecute just didn't make sense from the perspective of the government prosecuting a case. So I would say that that, to me, seems to be a significant difference between Trump and Hunter. That said, we talked in our debate segment last week with Will Chamberlain that, as he said, Republicans are planning to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks strategy if Donald Trump is elected. I think he had something where he was like, watch out, because it's coming right back in that direction if Donald Trump wins. We can put up a two here. President Joe Biden has said that he has no plans to pardon Hunter Biden. He said, you know, I'm the president, but I'm also a father. He's proud of his son. He wants to be there for him.

I wonder how true that is if Biden does lose re-election in November. I think most of the country would expect him on the way out to pardon his son. I think the entire country would forgive him at that point for doing so, just on a human level. I think most people would almost think it was kind of cruel and callous if a parent had the opportunity on their way out to pardon their son and didn't take it. That'd be almost weird. Is it like Bill Clinton and his brother? Am I remembering that was a Bill Clinton's brother? Yeah, that was Roger Clinton, which is a fascinating story. Like Bill Clinton was informed when he was governor of Arkansas that his brother was under investigation for selling small amounts of crack in order to feed his habit. And basically the head of the police in Arkansas said, what do you want me to do about this boss? And according to Clinton, and this hasn't been challenged by anybody, he said, just

treat it how you would anybody else. And he ended up going to prison. Roger Clinton did. I assume he, I don't know the exact story of what he ended up doing toward the end. But he did serve some time. So yeah, we'll see. So Hunter's best bet at this point for avoiding jail time would be his dad losing, perhaps, in November. Well, and yeah, that was the interesting thing I read into the playbook quote from that source today, is that actually, I think the Biden campaign has realized that if they can make Trump look overzealous in going after an addict who's been treated fairly by the justice system, you know, actually that if there's this appearance of fairness that he was prosecuted, did the time, and Trump continues to, you know, attack this addict, then the Biden campaign sees sort of an upside

in it. And it does. I just looked this up while we were talking. Roger Clinton was pardoned for that 1985 cocaine possession. And it was drug trafficking before Clinton left office. You know, it's also worth noting that the country basically forgave Ford for pardoning Nixon, even though it was really controversial at the time like very controversial at the time uh i think biden would be safe with a pardon for hunter this is your girl t.s madison and i'm coming to you loud live and in color from the outlaws podcast let me tell you. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches.

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That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turned side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies.

Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Speaking of messy family members, let's move on to Martha and Alito. So on Monday, over here at Breaking Points, Lauren Windsor released this undercover audio that she had taken of John Roberts and Samuel Alito at the Supreme Court Historical Society Gala about a week ago. She also had a conversation that evening with Martha Ann Alito, his wife, obviously less newsworthy in the sense that she is not a lifetime appointee to the Supreme Court. But there's some tea leaves that you can read in these comments from her that might have implications for whether or not Alito is

thinking about retiring. But there's a lot more to unpack here. Let's roll a little bit of Mrs. Alito and Ms. Windsor. Why do you think they're coming after you? Because, I mean, the whole appeal to have a heaven flag was, like, bullshit, right? Right, right, but that's, you know, the other thing is the femme Nazis believe that he should control me. So go to hell. He never controls me. You know what I want? I want a sacred heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the pride flag for the next month. Exactly.

And he's like, oh, please don't put up a flag. I said, I won't do it because I'm deferring to you. But when you are free of this nonsense, I'm putting it up, and I'm going to send them a message every day. Maybe every week I'll be changing the flags. There'll be all kinds. I made a flag in my head.

This is how I satisfy myself. I made a flag. It's white. It has yellow and orange flames around it. And in the middle is the word vergogna. Vergogna in Italian means shame. Vergogna. V-E-R-G-O-G-N-A.

Vergogna. Shame, shame, shame. Okay. The shame flag to counteract the pride flag. Clever. Very interesting. The part that jumped out at me is potentially newsworthy was where she said, when you're done with all this nonsense. And she made a couple of references in the conversation about a post Supreme Court life for the Alitos, which would suggest to me that if Trump is reelected, he's well into his 70s now. I googled it. I think he's like 74 or something,

that he would be looking at retirement under a potential Trump administration. Is that what you read from that? And is that the kind of conventional wisdom in conservative circles that if Trump is elected, Thomas and Alito in particular, who are getting up there, might see their way to greener pastures? Real-time fact check, you nailed his age. It's exactly 74 years of age. You hear it, in conservative circles, you definitely hear it more about Clarence Thomas, because, you know, I think, let me look up his age really quickly. I think he's actually older than Alito is. And here we go. He's 75. Yeah. So they're both a similar age. But what's concerning to conservatives right now, especially is that they can't, they feel as though they can't trust

Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh because there's a real big difference. There's obviously a big difference between the GOP appointed members of the court and the DEM appointed members of the court, but there's a huge rift within the GOP appointed members of the court between Thomas and Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett in and of itself. That's something that really worries a lot of people on the right. And I actually hadn't seen people pick up, people on the right pick up on what you did, Ryan, which is that she said, when we're through with this, all this nonsense. It also shows that he was really not pleased with the flag business in

all likelihood. It doesn't prove that definitively, but it seemed to have been an issue between the two of them when Martha Ann said, you know, he didn't think it was a good idea to put the flag up, said something like, please don't put the flag up. I will add, Lauren Windsor is exceptionally good at this, better than anyone in Project Veritas is. Rod Dreher had an interesting column, a sort of Christian writer, this morning saying he changed his mind on Project Veritas stuff over the years and doesn't like what Loren Windsor did because he feels like it really blurs the distinction between public and private such that people don't feel as though they can speak honestly with friends,

et cetera? That's a different question, I think. But I found it interesting. I do think also one of the risks of doing this type of journalism with Alito in particular, the Alito recordings in particular, is that sometimes people are just trying to get out of conversations. It doesn't mean that it's not newsworthy, but sometimes it's like, did he really,

he was even kind of going back and forth on what he said about whether you can, quote, split the difference in his own audio. My personal take on all of this is that they're Catholics, and we probably disagree on this, Ryan, but they're talking like fairly Orthodox Catholics do and we know that they're fairly Orthodox Catholics. So it's nothing too shocking. I always think if you have audio of what they're saying,

it's newsworthy as insight into the most important judicial body in the country. So I don't dispute that, but I also think it sounds like pretty standard Catholic fare. I always take with a grain of salt when people are just agreeing with other people in conversation because, you know, people are strangers, people, especially strangers. And in general, people are conflict averse,

like in public, like you're in line at the post office or you're in line for a drink at the Supreme Court Historical Society reception. You're not going to necessarily pick an argument with somebody. Now, in Alito's case— Martha Ann got into it, though. Martha Ann got into it. Alito got into it a little bit. In his, like, you know, rather than just giving platitudes, he did say, you know, like, one side or the other is going to win. These are, you know, some of these things you can't compromise on.

On the other hand, like, these things you can't compromise on. On the other hand, like some things you can't compromise on. Like that is, that's also, that also is a platitude. It depends on your definition of some at that point. Are we talking like a control of the entire, yeah. Well, this is also something Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have said about women's protection for women. For example, something like Title IX. I don't want to put words in her mouth, obviously, but it's a pretty clear argument when you're talking about,

you know, upholding the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example. You know, people, anti-racist activists would say you can't split the difference. Yeah, and so it's not, you know, I think the concept of not being able to split the difference isn't absurd, and I think it's one that a lot of us feel right now. That, for example, you can't split the difference between people who believe on the one hand, like you and I. Like life begins at conception versus that's like crazy nonsense.

Legally, it's very, very difficult to split the difference if you have two polar opposite positions like that. So I think that's sort of where he's coming from. I actually think it's something that you can hear from a lot of people. If you believe, for example, that there are hard biological differences between men and women, it gets really hard to legally split the difference on things like Title IX. That's what I read into it. I feel like it's a pretty common sentiment among Americans these days. It's been interesting to see the videos blow up since Monday. New York Times kind of led with it. MSNBC was going crazy with it. And then there was a lot of pushback about the nature of it. And think what my pushback against Rod Dreher would be when he's saying it it makes it difficult to have private conversations

like this is with a stranger at a reception like yeah I mean like you don't know who you're talking like you're a Supreme Court justice you don't know who you're talking to like this is just a random person coming up to you at a reception you don't necessarily expect they're gonna be recording you today, when everybody has like four different devices that they can just press record on, it's a completely different world than when the FBI would have to, you know, mic somebody up in a white van and send them into like a mob hideout. Literally tap MLK's hotel line. Yeah. Right. Yes. Now you just hit a button on your watch or your phone

and boom, you're hot. Yeah. So yeah, you're probably going to see a lot more of this. But it's like, yeah, I mean, crocodile tears for public figures who are fairly well off and have lots of power being recorded. I think it is, if you work in media, you know that you lose something when you can't have super candid conversations. You just, you know, everyone is recording everything. You feel like you live in a panopticon anywhere in DC. It's like any given restaurant is probably bugged.

But at the same time, yeah, like crocodile tears for people who are in that panopticon because they are disproportionately powerful. I do think something gets lost in all of that, but it's hardly a major issue. With Martha Annalito, I also think it just, this all came in the middle. Lauren Windsor, I think this was on June 3rd, is talking to her in the middle of the flag drama. She sounded to me like she was desperate for a friend. And I know that's not like a newsy takeaway, but man, it sort of pulled the heartstrings a little bit because you shouldn't be. You should never be. I mean, it's just improper to be sort of pouring out your heart to someone that you don't really know when you're in such a powerful position and you have such powerful

insight. And we can put a B2 on the screen. Democrats are latching onto this, people like Sheldon Whitehouse, again, to tie it to spending bills and say, we won't fund the Supreme Court unless the justices all agree to these ethics standards. And by the way, I am fully in favor of the ethics standards. I think that's fantastic. I think a lot of what Clarence Thomas did should have been disclosed. Even though I'm personally a fan of Clarence Thomas, I think that stuff needed to be disclosed. I think we should have much stricter ethics to the Supreme Court. But that's why to Martha Annalito, maybe it doesn't behoove you to talk to a stranger. And I think in clearer headed times, she probably would have known that.

But she sounded sort of desperate. Yeah, that's true. And one thing I wonder, though, why do they live in Chevy Chase? That's where Kavanaugh lives, too, I think. He lives there, too. You know, they've, I mean, they live wherever they want, but they're surrounding themselves with liberals for the most part. I thought they lived in Virginia. I thought they lived out by, like, Fairfax. I thought this was Chevy Chase. You might be right. The gala might have been in Chevy Chase. Okay. Well, but Cavanaugh does live there. He does. Yes. Yeah. He's somewhere. Yeah. Somewhere in that

neighborhood. Anyway, let's move on to, unless you had any final thoughts on Martha Ann that you wanted to share with us here. No, not at all. I think we covered that. We can leave it right there. This is your girl, T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch wing.

22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming.

Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? I'm just going to show all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? I'm just gonna show all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is.

My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her.

Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. All right, so over in the Middle East, so Hamas, we can put up this Reuters element here. Hamas has responded to the Biden slash Israel proposal, and we'll talk about this in a moment, saying that it opens a broad pathway, was one of the quotes that they had. And they said they had a couple of amendments to the Israeli proposal, but in general said that they were now simply negotiating details around the final terms of a ceasefire for this war. Now, Israeli authorities have put a different spin on it. You can put up a rock ravine here at Axios. Israeli officials telling Axios, Israel received Hamas's response. Hamas rejected the proposal for a hostage deal, which was laid out by President Biden in his speech. Hamas is saying that is not the case,

that they're not rejecting it, that they have a few quibbles around the edges. So let's move through these here. You can put up Blinken, who landed in Qatar today, pressing forward with these negotiations. Here is Blinken yesterday laying out his position on everybody else's position. First, let me be very clear. Israel has accepted the proposal. In fact, they were critical in putting it forward. So the only party, no, that is what the official position of the Israeli government, the prime minister. So the only party that has not accepted, the only party that's not said yes, is Hamas. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has called the proposal,

the Israeli proposal, a non-starter if it does not allow Israel to indefinitely continue the war until Hamas is dismantled. But that's not what the agreement itself says. And Israel has acknowledged that it did send this agreement to Hamas, the agreement that Biden then elevated to try to trap Netanyahu into accepting it. On CNN, there was an interesting exchange, which shows that what's going on here is Israel is willing to accept the deal that they put forward, but that doesn't necessarily mean they, quote unquote, support it. Some interesting linguistic gymnastics here. Let's roll CNN from last night.

This deal is Israel's proposal. Why can't Netanyahu say outright that he supports it? Well, I don't know what he said to Secretary Blinken today when they met. He hasn't said publicly that he supports it. The fact that I wasn't instructed to speak out against the deal means that we accept the deal. Doesn't it? Wouldn't it mean that you support it if you could come out and say you supported it? But I'm saying here that we accept the deal. Again, it pretty much depends on the way it will be interpreted by the negotiators.

Because Hamas, let's say from... Ambassador, you're saying we support it, but you're not just saying unequivocally that Israel does support it. Because the words are very important. Because when you say that if the negotiations continues after six weeks, we need to continue with the ceasefire so Hamas can exploit this clause and continue with endless and meaningless negotiations that means nothing. Obviously, that wasn't the meaning of President Biden. So that's the key difference there, that the proposal says that after the first phase, which would include hostage exchanges,

elderly women, others who were infirm and at risk would be released in exchange for a significant number of Palestinian hostages that are held in detention by Israel. After that, there would be six weeks of negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire, although the Israeli proposal says lasting ceasefire, Hamas in its response wants to change that from lasting ceasefire to permanent ceasefire. But the key point that the ambassador was making there is that if the negotiations are still ongoing in six weeks, the agreement says that the ceasefire should continue as long as the negotiations are making progress.

Israel is saying that it wants the right at that moment to relaunch its war. And what some of Netanyahu's allies have said to him in getting him to agree to this is like, is look, you can restart the war after six weeks if you want to, like no matter what this agreement says. And they've argued that Hamas will do something that will give you a green light to go ahead and do that. And if not, you can always manufacture something. So that he was zeroing in on this kind of pause, this six-week gap between phase one and phase two seems to be the central distinction here. Emily, we've seen this just kind of head-spinning game back and forth where you continue to have Blinken saying,

no, the Israeli government supports this. And you'll have Netanyahu right next to him practically saying, nope, don't support this, don't support this. He's like, nope, definitely supports this. Blinken met with Netanyahu yesterday, and he was asked, did Netanyahu explicitly say that he supported this? And Blinken said, yes, he did. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the UN ambassador, was asked to explain this, to say, you keep saying Israel supports this. Israel keeps saying that they do not. Like, how do you fill in that gap? And she said, look, I can't, you know, they have some, whatever domestic political concerns that they

have that are leading them to say this, basically, you'll have to ask them about it. But in private, in discussions with us, they have been very clear that they accept this, if let's use his term. And he makes a good point, the official, the Israeli official there, that the fact that Netanyahu did not instruct him to oppose it at the UN, despite the fact that previously the Israeli ambassador to the UN said that they would oppose it at the UN. They don't get a vote, but they said that they would oppose it because it's a security council and they're not on the security council. That alone tells you that they're willing to, quote unquote, accept it. So do you think we're getting to a place where we actually sort of now understand what's going on here? Yes, I agree with that. And I do think we are, because I think Israel is increasingly aware, as I'm sure Hamas is,

that the difference between lasting and permanent will ultimately be who can use that illusion as a cudgel sooner or more effectively because we all know that this is not going to be a lasting or permanent peace. And the reporting that you just mentioned about Israel in the negotiation sort of internally over there says what we all know. This is not lasting. This is not a permanent ceasefire. That's an illusion or maybe a delusion. But I don't even think there's anybody delusional enough to think that that's the case. Meanwhile, though, lives hang in the balance amidst our ability to at least agree to the illusion, to at least agree in theory, to at

least agree on paper. And that's a very strange place to be. It's sort of obvious that we know that a sticking point between lasting and permanent is really who can then turn around and say a permanent or lasting ceasefire was broken most effectively, because that's inevitably what's going to happen. So, yeah, I think that's what's being discussed right now. That's what's being considered by both sides right now. And I don't think that's necessarily categorically a bad thing because it could save lives. It could be a stopgap as a better solution is worked out. Now, I'm not optimistic. Less

deadly, less violent solution is worked out. And I'm not optimistic that could happen. But a pause in hostilities right now, there are lives hanging in the balance. There's famine hanging in the balance. So categorically, while it may be sort of frustrating for people watching this play out, people really could be saved and protected by this. You also have a wild scenario where you could have them agree to this six-week pause, do a hostage exchange, and then see the war kick back up again at the end of July, right between the Republican and the Democratic conventions. And a lot of Democrats are worried because they know that Netanyahu, or they believe that Netanyahu prefers a Trump presidency. And so you basically have your political adversary, who is your geopolitical ally, has the ability to harm you in your own domestic politics.

Now, what Netanyahu's own domestic political situation would be like at that point is not even clear. And on the Hamas side, you certainly have elements that are opposed to a ceasefire that believe, Aya Sinwar was quoted in the Wall Street Journal with some intercepted cable saying, we have Israel exactly where we want them. That Israel continues committing atrocities, war crimes, that they continue to get international condemnation for that, and the isolation of Israel globally continues, which is the Hamas goal. Now, Israel doesn't have to play into Hamas's hands by continuing to commit atrocities and war crimes. And they have, I think, well, put that aside, they don't have to, but, you know, Sinwar believes that they will continue to do that.

As long as the war is going on, there will, every couple of days, be something that shocks and horrifies the world, which then further degrades Israel's position internationally, which puts Hamas in a position where they have some advantage in not obtaining a ceasefire, and that's according to Sinwar himself. And the Palestinian people are out of, they feel like they're out of options. And so there was a poignant quote, I forget which publication ran with it this week after the hostage rescue from a Palestinian who said, what were they doing in relation to Hamas, they knew that this hostage rescue was going to result in the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, which it's looking like a very, very high number of casualties. And without another sort of governing body, without someone else prosecuting the war on their side, Hamas has a monopoly, basically, on their political expressions. And so Hamas can

afford to lose the support of the Palestinian people to a degree in a way that Israel cannot really afford to lose the support completely of the United States, certainly, and people around the world. And that leads us to this next clip. The politics of this for Joe Biden are increasingly difficult in the middle of an election system, or in the middle of an election cycle. Let's take a look at this next clip of Biden being hit with some protesters, verbally being hit with some protesters, just recently. Out of my heart. This is a genocide. Stop saying that. That's just what I heard. just recently. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

Four more years! Four more years! Four more years! They care. Innocent children have been lost. They make a point. Come on now. Thank you for honoring gun violence survivors. Thank you. So that was a clip from yesterday at a Moms Demand Action gun event.

By the way, just hours after the Hunter Biden gun conviction. Sort of an odd juxtaposition there. But Ryan, this is going to follow him everywhere and could get even more heated. I mean, we've seen the encampments actually return to campuses. UCLA, I think, when popped up again at Columbia. It's not going anywhere for Biden. There's no question about it. And a peace deal is obviously in his interest. Donald Trump is campaigning hard on the Abraham Accords. So Biden obviously wants to have something like that in his quiver. Yeah, and his response there, I thought, was noteworthy in the sense that it's much different than it had been in the past. In the past, when he has gotten protested, he would just kind of thunder through, and he would urge on the chance of four more years.

And he would say, you know, I am a steadfast supporter of Israel. Israel has a right to defend herself. And instead, this time he said he was trying to stop the chance of four more years and to say, no, listen, the protesters, they make a point. A lot of children, he said, had to do the passive voice. And I think he tried to say they make a fair point. It came out as they make a point. But I think he was trying to sympathize with the protesters there. And I think that that reflects his shift in how he's viewing this and how he is really now trying to force a ceasefire deal onto the two parties. It's funny that he has kind of just willed the Netanyahu government into accepting its

own proposal that they kind of reluctantly put forward, willing it into being by putting it forward and then insisting against all of the Israeli opposition that they supported. It'd be interesting if he just took the same approach to Hamas. Hamas is like, no, we don't support this as it's written. We have some amendments. And you just send Blinken out there to say, no, Hamas told us they support it. That'd be an interesting new way of doing diplomacy. If you just ignored what people said and just assert what the reality is and just kind of will it into being. I mean, I kind of feel like we've seen that.

Sort of. Yeah. I kind of feel like we've seen that. And it's this, again, we've talked about this so many times, the uneven nature of having one major component or one major party to this war before a two-state solution and the other major party to this war, the most major party to this war, Israel, being in favor of a one-state solution. Sort of bridging that gap

between the two most consequential governments is leading to some predictably bizarre results. I'm glad you said that, though, Ryan, because I agree. I had a similar reaction. I thought that was politically. I'm just speaking about Joe Biden's performance as a politician, which has nosedived in recent years. That was vintage Biden. That was the version of Joe Biden that, you know, people thought maybe had a shot in 2008 and actually back years before that, too. You know, he does have this reflex to offer compassion in a way that is sort of casual, relatable, believable.

And I think it was wise of him to do that in the moment that he had those protests. Now, politically, of course, it was wise of him because this isn't going anywhere. We'll follow him, literally follow him throughout the rest of the campaign. And you can't just ignore it. And I think that's a good point because the American public knowing and the global public knowing that one of the one of the only things if you only know one thing about joe biden you know that he has this incredible ability to empathize and and to feel your pain uh and to know that about him and then to see him show so little compassion for for the plight of people in Gaza over the past eight months, up until that clip, basically, I think made it hit that much harder for so many people.

Because people were like, we know that you do know how to show compassion. We know that you do understand what this loss is like. And for you to not be willing to go anywhere near showing that compassion, I think, just hit much deeper. Speaking of people not being able to go anywhere, Jake Sullivan, who was getting protested at his own row house here in D.C. this morning, also got hit by protesters at an event yesterday. We can roll this. Jake, thank you for being here with us today. We know... Jake Sullivan, you are a war criminal. 15,000 people, 15,000 kids dead

is not self-defense. Jake Sullivan, you are a war criminal. Jake Sullivan, you are a war criminal. Let's get off our stage. 15,000 children dead is not self-defense. 15,000 children dead is not self-defense. 15,000 children dead is not self-defense.

15,000 children dead is not self-defense. And the context for these ceasefire talks down in the south is really what's going on in the north. If we can put up C7 here. So yesterday in an airstrike, Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander, Abu Taleb. Hezbollah responded with one of its most furious assaults on Israel since the kind of low-level war between the two of them began after October 7th. And Hezbollah has had a worrying amount of effect in being able to combat Israel's air superiority from the Israeli perspective.

They've knocked out millions of dollars worth of Israeli drones, or American drones, I should say, from the sky, even managed to hit an Iron Dome launch system, which is kind of shocking to this Israeli political system, and has a much more serious arsenal and ability to kind of rearm than Hamas. Like, there's just no question. Inside Israel, all of the attention is pivoting toward the north. There are about 100,000-plus Israelis who have evacuated from areas in the north, which is creating a huge kind of housing crisis inside Israel coupled with the evacuations of so many people from the south as well.

And there's this real push to move this low-level war to a much higher-level war with Lebanon. But it's not clear that Israel has the capacity to do what it thinks it needs to do in that area. You know, this is really zooming out, but just as you were talking, I'm thinking about what's happening right now. People, there was a tweet that was like, I bet you didn't have Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 on your bingo card for 2024. And got to be careful not to, you know, give the warmongers too much fodder. But it's true that Russian ships, I mean, by their own admission, Russian Navy flotilla has been making its way

around the world. They said to raise the flag, basically. That's what Russian media has said. And what we know now is that U.S. warships have followed those Russian ships. We know, obviously, that Russia, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, we could talk about why, but we know that there are alliances. You could throw China into the mix. We know that there's another front or there's another hot war in Ukraine right now. Basically, what I think makes sense about zooming out here is to underline how fragile the ecosystem is right now. Because it does feel like we've talked about what it looked like in the run-up to World War I. And does anyone know that a world war starts when it starts?

Usually not. But these are really scary times because I think the geopolitical ecosystem is at its most fragile point in a long time. Right. And to underline your point, this is after the U.S. greenlit Ukraine using U.S. weapons to strike into some targets inside Russia. Now you've got this Russian flotilla down by the southeastern United States and the U.S. responding, if you add, let's say, a carpet bombing or a major bombing of Beirut to that, and how does Iran respond to that? Yeah, it's dark.

This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite?

It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X?

I'm just going to show all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome.

I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Let's move back to the United States here. stardom after the stand-up strike that the UAW led against the big three automakers, led to record contracts that has led to significant amounts of organizing of non-union plants, including electric vehicles around the country, really given a jolt to the labor movement in the United States that it hadn't had in a long time. Raises up Tesla. Yeah, exactly. Is now facing problems

from Neil Barofsky, who was the monitor appointed by the Department of Justice to kind of root out corruption in the old UAW. Let's put up this, and we can back this up here. So we put up this element here. So UAW President Sean Fain under investigation by federal watchdog court filing revealed. So the court, this filing was entered by Neil Borowski, who is the monitor. So for people who don't know the backstory here, the only reason that Sean Fain is president of the UAW is because in 2020, the Department of Justice reached a consent decree with a very corrupt United Auto Workers. Two of its presidents had been thrown in prison. Some auto executives had also been prosecuted. There was just an enormous amount of bribery and corruption

involved in the old UAW. And part of the consent decree, which is supposed to last for six years up till 2026, although it can be ended earlier if the kind of monitor says like, all right, things are going in the right direction here. One of the things that they put in the consent decree was that the UAW would have direct elections. And that was a reform that union members had been fighting for for a very long time. It was a true moment of the Department of Justice actually using its power for good. Like they actually did reform this union in a positive way. The result was Sean Fain winning this election. Now, after Sean Fain came into power, there were some kind of turf wars inside. And out of those turf wars, you now are seeing

the elements of this investigation. Borofsky is claiming that Fain kind of improperly retaliated against the vice president who he fired because Fain has said publicly he didn't think that this vice president was doing a good enough job pushing the Stellantis organizing, that Stellantis was kind of walking all over the union workers there. And so he wanted somebody in there who was tougher. Meanwhile, he was also tangling with the secretary treasurer, who he said was illegitimately holding back funds for organizing efforts that were important to his strategy. And so, you know, from the perspective of the union, you know, one person, one vote, they elected Sean Fain. Sean Fain wanted to implement a strategy the secretary treasurer was getting in the way of that strategy and so you know he used his authority as

president to uh insist that they push ahead with that strategy this is not there there's no accusation here of any personal enrichment or any type of corruption this is this is the neil borowski the monitor kind of just getting in the middle of basically what is an internal struggle inside an organization, the kind of thing that happens at any organization, particularly one that's trying to be kind of revolutionized from within by somebody like Sean Fain. Interestingly also, Emily, the UAW has to pay for this monitor. So if you look at UAW's public filings, yeah, I think they paid $5 million to, or more than $5 million to like big shoe law. What do you call it? White shoe, white whatever.

Big law. Like big firms are making millions of dollars doing private work for this DOJ monitor. And so now the monitor is saying that they want something like 100,000 emails from Sean Fain, and then he's only given 2,000 is what was in the filing. If they give over those 100,000, they're going to end up spending millions and millions of their members' dues so that these lawyers can kind of go through these emails to try to find something that they can then go at them with. So that's what's going on here at the UAW. The stupid grin on my face is because this is similar in a way. It's such a different case, but it reminds me a little bit of what's on the docket

with the Chevron case that's about to be decided by the Supreme Court, which is EPA making a decision on its own that lobster fishermen off the coast of, I think it's Maine, have to pay these monitors to comply with the EPA's regulations. And the EPA sort of just made that decision

without going through Congress or putting it in any legislation. I find it amusing because I do agree completely that when the DOJ is able to sort of get away with investigations that demand huge compliance resources and efforts disproportionate to the importance of the investigation, it's genuinely problematic. And in this case, I wonder, Ryan, I'm curious, if there's a hair trigger. Because the UAW's corruption before Fain, this sort of revolution,

to use the word that you used, that revolution that he has sort of wrought inside of the UAW. The reason there has to be a revolution is because it was coming from a place that needed a revolution for the better. It was in the shadow of corruption, and that was obviously very damaging to the union movement. And I'm just curious, because I'm trying to wrap my head around why the Biden DOJ would bite on this. Is it that they're on a hair trigger? They're almost trying to, they think that maybe they're protecting the UAW from itself. Is it internal politics?

You know, people are maybe feigned as controversial in ways privately with different people involved, different players. Like, is there any internal drama? Basically, explain this to me, what the motivation from the Biden DOJ might be in this case. I think, so the key point here is Borofsky is a fully independent monitor. And so this is a situation where you get a monitor in place, like when you get, so you had Ken Starr, for instance, as the independent counsel under Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton couldn't do anything about Ken Starr. Once that Ken Starr independent counsel situation was set up, that's what it was. Now, politically, he could have tried

to just get rid of the special counsel, perhaps, But then he'd get impeached for that. Those are political issues. But there's no directive that the DOJ or the White House can give to that type of a special counsel. The Monitor is a similar situation in which he's been set up as this independent watchdog. Borowski was famously one of the kind of Wall Street watchdogs and angered a lot of people on Wall Street back then. So he was going after the bad guys then. Now he's set up. He was the IG, right, after 2008. Right. That's right. David Sirota's podcast, I think it's called Meltdown, and Borowski factors very heavily in it.

It's a fantastic listen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember Borowski from the reporting around the meltdown at the time. And so at the time, he was independent. He's independent now. So the DOJ, so it's not clear what exactly the DOJ could do, you know, if it wanted to. Like, what's going on, in other words, is there something going on between Borowski and Sean Fain? Borowski and the UAW.

And it's new. This is a new flare-up. And it's post-organizing behind the big three, you know, record contract. And he's not making any allegations of corruption. So we need to do some more reporting to figure out what happened. Like what's going on here. Because clearly something happened. You know, Sean Fain is known as somebody with sharp elbows.

That's for sure. He's not somebody that's going to be pushed around. Borowski too is not somebody that's going to be pushed around. Borowski too is not somebody that's going to be pushed around. So whatever happened between them, between him and the UAW, you could imagine it escalating fairly quickly just given the personalities involved. But I think some more reporting is in order and hopefully we'll be able to come back and figure out what it was that sparked this. Because according to Borowski, it's not corruption. He's demanding

100,000 plus emails. Sean Fain is saying that's crazy. No. You're bleeding this union for millions of dollars for these lawyers. And so unless they can figure something out. Now, the threat that Borowski has is that the DOJ could take over the UAW. Like that's within their authority under the consent decree. But politically, can you imagine them trying to get away with that? Like the first major union to actually deliver huge gains for its workers is then going to be taken over by the Biden administration? Insane to even contemplate. But that is the threat. The very pro-labor Biden administration that's allied itself with Sean Fain. Right, exactly. Yeah, it's a strange situation. Yeah, right. Biden went to the

picket line, first president in history to join a picket line when he spoke there with Sean Fain. I know you're used to labor stories not getting a lot of coverage in corporate media, but even so, I think this story has really been flying under the radar. There's been so little coverage. It sort of broke yesterday, but really no focus on it. And that seems wildly disproportionate to its importance, obviously, given Fain's central role in this wave of the labor movement right now. Yeah. And going forward, he has set the next contract expiration for 2028, and he's encouraging other unions around the country to also set their contracts to expire on the same date in 2028, working toward not a total general strike,

but working toward a mass kind of strike coinciding on the same day in the next presidential cycle. So he is clearly calling his shot. And he's coming for the bosses in a major way. And does this, is this, is Borowski, what is Borowski doing here? It's an open question that we're going to try to figure out. I want more to come on that. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches.

My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators

and scroll stoppers. Tina Knowles. Lil Nas X. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stop us. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? Let's do a show with all my exes. X Marks and Spikes. No, here it is. My next ex.

That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Let's move on to Fox News editing part of Donald Trump's answer about whether he would release files related to Jeffrey Epstein out of an interview that aired on Fox & Friends earlier this week. Fox News then aired the entire interview with Trump without, ostensibly without much editing on, I think it was Will Kane's podcast that was uploaded to YouTube. And people noticed that Trump's answer on Epstein was cut in a fairly interesting way. Now, before we roll the clip, I will say it's obviously common practice to splice up long interviews. So you might see a 10-minute package on 60 Minutes, for example, and then actually it was 20 minutes, or I'm sorry, it was two hours of talking, you know, that gets condensed into a 10-minute package or into a two-minute package,

for that matter. So there's a lot of splicing. There's a lot of chopping that's done in the editing process. Whenever you have a big sit-down interview on a major news network, that's common practice. the files. Listen to what he says after that. Let's run this clip. This is E2 from Fox News. Some people think that one way to build trust is to declassify things that everyone's talking about. I know you talked earlier about, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist. So if you were president, would you declassify,

you can answer yes or no to this. Would you declassify the 9-11 files? Yeah. Would you declassify? You can answer yes or no to this. Would you declassify the 9-11 files? Yeah. Would you declassify JFK files? Yeah. I did a lot of it. Would you declassify the Epstein files? Yeah.

Yeah, I would. All right. Yes, I would. I think that less so because, you know, you don't know. You don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, because there's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at least... Do you think that would restore trust? Help restore trust? Yeah, I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others.

Certainly about the way he died, it would be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, etc., etc. But yeah, I'd go a long way toward that one. The other stuff, I would. So that originally aired on Fox and Friends, but was cut off right when Donald Trump said, yeah, I would. And then everything else he said was a major backtrack. By the way, it's incredibly significant news. Anytime Donald Trump talks about Jeffrey Epstein, anytime anyone in a position of power talks about Jeffrey Epstein for what it's worth, for a news outlet, I think actually to get Donald Trump talking like that about Jeffrey Epstein is a pretty big story.

So again, they cut that off. We can put E1 up on the screen. Sorry for going out of order here, but they did cut that off. And some people in media noticed it. I want to highlight another part of what he said. I guess I would. I think that less so because you don't know, you don't want to affect people's lives

if it's phony stuff in there because it's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would. I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others, certainly about the way he died. It'd be interesting to find out. But yeah, I'd go a long way toward that one. So sort of a typical Trump answer.

You don't totally know what it means. It's almost effectively hard to make out. But the editing, I think, where you're just going rapid fire through JFK, yeah, I already did a lot of it. And you get to Epstein, yeah, I would. And immediately, well, you know, there's a lot of phony stuff, you know, less so with Epstein than others. Right. Obviously, Epstein was sort of in that Palm Beach world. Obviously, there's that famous footage of him with Donald Trump kind of partying at Mar-a-Lago. Some people have claimed that there was recruitment happening at Mar-a-Lago of girls who were sex trafficked, essentially.

So I think it's fairly significant. I think it was a great question from Rachel Campos-Deffy. What happened here? Is this, you know, in a way, is this a defense of Fox saying we ended up putting up the whole thing, there was nothing to hide? Or is it them sort of being caught editing it by later uploading the whole thing, maybe not realizing that people would notice the discrepancy? I mean, I think they got caught. But I think, you know, different people made different decisions. I don't think it was, you know, from the top. OK, what we're going to do is we're going to edit this to make it palatable for our seniors who watch on Fox, and then we're going to let the

whole part go out on Will Kane's podcast. I don't think they exactly did it that way, but a system is what it does. And, you know, the interests of the producers that cut that clip are clear, like they wanted, like Trump says, yes, but, you know, I think you could even just, if it's just you can't say it's a time question because you just say, but less so on that one at least if you put the but less so on that one you've at least let the viewers know and you've let them see the beginning

of the backtracking and you can see where it's going from there you know what Trump's going to do in other words, he's not going to do anything and that was clear, you didn what Trump's gonna do in other words. He's not gonna do anything And that was clear. You didn't need the other minute of rambling excuses about why he's not gonna do anything. You just he's not But yes, I think they wanted to I wouldn't think they wanted to keep that from the audience. There's no other way of Understanding that but I think there must be different kind of

editorial processes that that play out on different levels. Like you can't completely keep an interview out from, say, a podcast or whatever. And to your point, there's that great quote from, great isn't the word, there's a quote from Trump in the Vanity Fair article that people can find where he's asked about Jeffrey Epstein. He says, Jeffrey likes him young, likes him pretty and likes him young or something like that. And, you know, he really likes to have a good time. You can even hear Trump kind of dictating the quote to his secretary. Like, it's that, it's a very Trumpian dictated type of quote. And you're like, oh, okay, this, Trump knew what was going on here.

And so it gives credence to all of the other stuff that you hear about Mar-a-Lago and the recruitment. There's that quote. And there's also another thing that turned a lot of people's heads. You'll remember this, Ryan, when he said he was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell and said something to the extent of, I just wish her well. I think that was the quote. I just wish her well. Which, again, it sort of gives you pause when you look at someone like Jeffrey Epstein, who reporting, not suggests, but reporting really has documented,

had links to Mossad and Ghislaine Maxwell as well, through her father or through other channels, was collecting videotapes, was putting other powerful people in extremely compromising positions, potentially to extract policy favors out of it on behalf of other people. Donald Trump hedging on that one compared to others is obviously, I think, a very significant bit. And for a news outlet, this is a big deal. I mean, everyone watches the cut of an interview with the president. I know he's been on Fox many times, but anytime you get a sit down interview with the president, executives are watching that cut before it goes to air. It's very sensitive on the corporate level. So yeah, I agree with you. I think people made different editorial decisions.

The Will Cain radio show aired the whole thing. Good for them for airing the whole thing without cutting it up. But obviously more eyeballs were on the Fox & Friends sit-down when it originally aired. So it does seem like there was something intentional. Yep, I think so. And so I think, in other words, neither president, neither candidate running for president now is going to give us anything more when it comes to Epstein. And he said, you know, maybe something on, you know, how he died or whatever he said there. He died while Trump was president. That's right.

Not forget that. Although it's also the Trump, you know, why I thought that was interesting just quickly while you said that, because that's something I thought about too, is he felt like the intelligence agencies were out of his control, sort of spun out of his control. And so it was fascinating to me that that was the one thing Trump said he would want to know more about and would release publicly is how he died. Because, you know, obviously, if you're someone that could potentially be compromised by Epstein, and who knows if he would. I mean, I don't know that Trump is compromised by Epstein because of the fact that he publicly said, you know, Jeffrey likes him young. But there's some reason to have questions about it. So anyway, all that is to say, go ahead. And not just that, yeah, his labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, was the U.S. attorney who cut the incredibly sweet deal with Epstein and who basically said, yeah, I was told he had intel ties and told to, like, you know, basically make this go away.

And then he's rewarded as Trump's labor secretary. So he could start there if he wanted to, you know, probe that a little bit. Just go ask his own labor secretary what happened. Good suggestion. Who told you this? Go talk to Acosta. You said you heard this. Who'd you hear it from? Yeah, no, I agree. Well, Ryan, our next guest, just a very big interview. And I'm so grateful to you for setting it up. And your coverage of Pakistan

has just been fantastic. So I'm looking forward to having Shabazz Gill join the show next. All right. Stick around for that. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the Internet with a 22 inch wing. My superpower. I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist.

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No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies.

Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Pain into punchline. And grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce. I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. The U.S.-backed Pakistani government is now abducting and arresting family members of political activists whose only involvement in politics is that they are related to people who are here in the West, the United States, Canada, or elsewhere, and are lobbying the United States government in order to pressure Pakistan

to respect human rights over in Pakistan. We put up this first element here. This is Mashwan Azar says, it is the first time in the history of Pakistan that brothers, mothers, sisters, wives of political activists are being harassed, threatened, and abducted. The statement from PTI Canada adds, this vile and cowardly regime has sunk to the lowest depths of depravity. Instead of addressing legitimate political dissent, these spineless tyrants target innocent families crossing every conceivable line of decency and humanity. To talk more about this, we're going to be joined now by Dr. Shabazz Gill, who is the chief of staff to former Prime Minister Imran Khan in Pakistan and is now his media advisor here in the United States. Dr. Gil, thank you so much

for joining us. Thank you, Ryan, for having me. And before we get into the broader political context here, update us on your own personal situation. How is your brother? Have you heard from him since he was abducted just days ago? Right. No whereabouts, actually. Between the night of 8th and 9th of June, he was abducted from Lahore. We do not know about his whereabouts. His cell phones are completely off. His vehicle disappeared.

And of course, he disappeared. Nobody knows who took him away, where they actually abducted him. Like he was leaving from his home to Islamabad, another city. And during this journey, they abducted him. So this is a regular practice right now, actually, to silence people. That has been done. And we have never seen, as you all already read the statement of Azhar Meshwani, that this is the first time we are witnessing in Pakistan that any regime is going this far, that they are actually attacking your families.

I've been threatened before this disappearance. I've been threatened before this disappearance. I've been threatened in the US. I've been conveyed through middlemen, through intermediaries that I have to be silenced. I have to stop my activities, which I'm doing for democracy, freedom of speech, rule of law in Pakistan, and especially the release of Imran Khan and other women in the jail. I was meeting U.S. lawmakers, you know that. I had several meetings with other watchdogs and other people, and that was actually, and I was protesting, of course, in different places, organizing protests with the help of my party people here in the US.

And the last couple of weeks, I was in Europe, in Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, and I was planning to go again into several countries of Europe. And I think those are the things which triggered at once. These are the activities they want to, are unhappy with me and then of course my daily vlog where i update people about the current situation in pakistan political situation what is happening so it is uh it is in a way it's against the law here in the us that they are harming my family and then blackmailing me while i'm here in the U.S. that what I should do and what should I not do. So that is the situation right now. Yeah. And you yourself are obviously a very prominent critic of the government. Your show that you mentioned is watched by millions of people.

So there's no secret about what your position is, but what is your brother's involvement in politics at all, if at all? I don't think so, even if he has any social media account. He never commented on politics. He has nothing to do on politics. He's a regular person who's spending his life with his wife and two sons. One of his sons is very young and very attached to his father, like five or six years old. So he's a very regular Pakistani person who's spending his life with his family and working day to day for his life. That's it. Like nothing to do with the politics. He never even came to meet me while I was in politics in Pakistan

to my political office. Like never came across. Like, you know, families sometimes come to, you know, official dinners and other places, receptions where you invite your family. Like he never came across to politics, ever. To my politics or any political activity per se. So he's not a political person or he's not a media commentator in any way, like social media commentator in any way.

So I think it is purely, as you see, that it is just to anybody. They see that could speak truth or make people aware. Because in Pakistan, there's a complete gag, orders, enforced on Pakistani media. Nobody can speak other than what they really want them to speak. And if you remember the case where I got abducted previously, there was a prominent journalist, Arshia Sharif, who had to leave the country. And later on, he got assassinated in Kenya. So after that, the situation was not the same in Pakistan.

Most of the media people, for example, just to give you an idea, all the prominent media figures are definitely close friends. And I worked with them for almost four years in the government as a chief spokesperson of Prime Minister Imran Khan, later as chief of staff. Before that, I was in the government of Punjab working with the chief minister. So I worked with all these prominent media personalities and TV anchors, and I sent them a personal message about the abduction of my brother. And I tweeted to normally practice in Pakistani media that people immediately condemn or give their opinion about such abduction or any wrongdoing. Majority of them did text me back over the cell phone, I mean, over the WhatsApp,

but they never tweeted. Like they never given their opinion publicly, which is a norm in Pakistan. Usually they do. We all reciprocate to each other. If anything wrong happened to anyone, we raise voice for that person. And even the situation is so worse that majority of our party people now,

even they can't speak. Like my own party, the political party, majority of people couldn't even tweet. There's a so strong pressure over them that it's Azhar Meshwani's brothers or it's my brother. They cannot even come on the Twitter and tweet that one of our fellow party members, family member got abducted and we condemn this. So much harassment, so much pressure on those people that people are afraid of speaking truth now. Harrowing. And Shabazz, I wanted to ask, maybe if you could sort of zoom out and give us the broader context of why it's so important for them to crack down on dissent, why they don't want people speaking freely and critically of the government. Why is that so important? Emily, we need to understand first Pakistan. Pakistan never had an ideal democracy or even democracy, true democracy. It is always a military-controlled or military-hatched

democracy or military, I would say, enforced democracy, whatever you want to say. So Pakistan never had, unfortunately, ideal democracy. And everybody knows that since the inception of Pakistan, it's the Pakistani military establishment which controls everything when it comes to governing the country, majority of the time. But the real problem we need to understand about Pakistan, that Pakistan is very different than any other Muslim country. Pakistan, we have to go back during the British

regime of 1857, people fought for freedom, war, and then later on it continued until 1947. So all the people from India and Pakistan and Bangladesh, today there are three different countries, of course, at that time it was larger India, they fought for their freedom. They exercised their democratic rights. So the training is there. Pakistani people tasted like they have to fight for their freedom. So although I would say that war is continuing, it didn't end in 1947 when British left. People thought it's complete freedom now, but unfortunately Pakistanis never got complete democracy.

And their fight continues, which they were fighting during the British regime. So I don't think people will be silenced. Pakistani people are different. It's not an Arab Spring. You won't see it like that. I'm not offensive to any nation. I respect everybody.

But Pakistani people are different. Yes, they never had democracy, but it's not like, it will not be a pulse behavior that they will speak for six months and then General Sisi will come and he'll curb everything and you will see complete silence. No, you will see movements like maybe for a few months, they can curb and then you will see people again on the streets.

So Pakistani society, Pakistani society's overall makeup is very different. So they have a very strong desire and urge for democracy. Pakistanis really desire strongly for the freedom of speech and Pakistanis are very vocal when it comes to their basic human rights and their freedom of speech. So especially Imran Khan, who has given a completely different, I would say, flavor in politics. He came up with his party 28, 27 years ago with the name Justice Party, and he told people

that the biggest trouble is rule of law and dispensation of justice. If people get justice, like today, if courts can give me justice or Azhar Meshwani and other people whose families got abducted, family members got abducted, if we get justice

and those people who are doing these criminal activities, they could be placed behind the bars or they could be slammed with some kind of cases. So I don't think anyone in future would try to do these kind of abductions. But our problem is that we never, Pakistan was never able to prosecute such people. Rather, political workers got prosecuted, but such people never got prosecuted by the state or by any government, and they know that it's a free ride, whatever they do.

So once, if ever once Pakistani courts really go to the level where they punish such wrongdoings, I think that will be a point where we will see a different Pakistan. It does seem like the court system is trying in a halting and kind of feeble way, but at least in a way to push back against the establishment at this point they've thrown out or suspended a number of uh imran khan's you know kind of trumped up prosecutions the only one that he's still being held in prison for at this point is this really bizarre and embarrassing kind of un-islamic, embarrassing for Pakistan's government, un-Islamic marriage charge. And in order to kind of show that he's being treated well in prison, the authorities

put up this, if we can put up this second element here, they put up this photo of the very cramped, solitary, windowless cell that he's being held in as evidence that they're treating him well. But Dr. Gil, my understanding is that you actually were in this precise same cell for about a week after after you were picked up. Can you describe for us what what the what the conditions are like there? Ryan, I was in such a cell for more than a week, actually, for a couple of weeks. So it's six feet, five and a half to six feet wide

and nine feet long cell, windowless. A very small hole, which is also covered with an exhaust fan, a very small hole which is also covered with an exhaust fan, a very small hole. That is for the light and air. And an open Indian toilet within this cell, within these nine and six measurements you can imagine. So after if you take that toilet out, you end up having only six feet, maybe a few inches more, just to adjust yourself and sleep on that concrete slab. And they gave him a very thin mattress, you can see, which is placed on that slab. And that is also after a lot of public pressure, a lot of lawyers' pressure in the court. Because when I was there initially, and Imran Khan also, when he was there, he never got that

even thin mattress. And I never got that thin mattress while I was in such cells. They used to make me sleep on the floor. So this is inhuman and from every aspect this is inhuman, the way they are treating him. This cell is an embarrassment for rule of law, this cell is an embarrassment for human rights, this cell is an embarrassment for democracy. Like he's the most popular democratic leader he's an ex-prime minister 90 percent overwhelming support with him and people want him back as a prime minister and he's been placed in jail in such a shameful case that he he got married with his wife before fulfilling that required in their own, required time between the two divorces because she got divorced from her previous husband and got married with Prime Minister Khan. And their case is that they got married, their case, which is not a truth.

But if we even take their case is that they got married after 48 days of her divorce from the previous husband. Supreme Court of Pakistan already given judgment in 1992 in another case where a woman got married within 39 days of her divorce. And they said this is a sufficient time period to marry again after the divorce. So this case is already settled in the courts, and even the religious scholars, all of the religious scholars already condemned this behavior of current regime. This is a mockery of religion. This is a mockery of, unfortunately, rule of law and Pakistani constitution just to keep him in the jail.

But, Ryan, the most important point is that Prime Minister Khan has played his vital role and he will be, inshallah, playing his vital role once again in Pakistan. But the way he changed the social fabric and political fabric in Pakistan. That is unprecedented. He has given hope and he has given people a new orientation, I would say, in the political landscape where people want to speak even with more strength. People are not ready to buy. Pakistani military establishment was always successful hiding behind codes and hiding behind all this persecution and making it look like prosecution and making it look like that politicians are incompetent, they are corrupt, they are compromised, they are not honest and patriot with Pakistan. So these were the charges.

Then sometime, if need be, they go after character assassination and their family members and all those things. But they were never open in the field in front of the people that they are the one they are doing. Everybody knew that, but there was no admission. There was nobody accusing them directly. And they were not answerable directly to the people of Pakistan.

What Prime Minister Khan did, and it's very brave of him that he called them out in the public and in the open that it is you who is behind all this. So this is the first time military establishment is feeling real pressure and real criticism and public accountability. Of course, not in any court, but public accountability in the court of public. Everywhere people opinion is now crystal clear that this is the military establishment who design, you know, the make and break of the political governments in Pakistan. When they do not like somebody, they either, you know, remove them through court proceedings or they remove them through, you know, infamous vote of no confidence and such tricks.

Shabazz, how did you escape that? How did you get out of Pakistan? Emily, that's prior to May 9th, which was another orchestrated operation against Pakistan that he came off. After that, everything changed, like courts impact, and I would say courts orientation also changed. Now, courts are very, very limited to their ability to provide justice. But before 9th May, we were having at least, and until then, Prime Minister Khan was not, got arrested. And he was also getting some kind of relief from the courts in terms of bails and other stuff. So April, last year, like 2023, March and April, I went to court. A prominent TV anchor, Imran Riaz, and myself,

our cases were in the court, and Lahore High Court permitted me to leave the country. So Imran Riaz was able to leave the country. Myself was able to leave the country. Unfortunately, Imran Riaz went back after completing his umrah. And I also wanted to go back on 16th of May, 2023. My flight was booked. But then that 9th may happen.

And the way they arrested Prime Minister Khan and they physically roughed up with him. And you have seen all that over the video evidence, what has happened when they arrested Prime Minister Khan. So after a couple of days when Prime Minister Khan got released, he told me not to come back right now because he could foresee what is happening and what will happen in coming days. So that was the time then it was decided that I'll stay here in the U.S. and I'll continue my activities from here. But it was with the court orders of the hot high court, three-member bench,

a larger bench, which made me travel, which allowed me to travel out of Pakistan. And you mentioned Imran Riaz here. We actually, if you can put up the element F4, we have footage of him. This is from yesterday. Headed to the airport and getting abducted. And you can see the way that these abductions happen. This is not, you don't see a lot of,

you see a few kind of authority type figures somewhere in the background. But mostly these are all just plainclothes people surrounding his car, and they eventually took him. emerged from custody, seemingly a changed person, yet with intense courage, like you said, continued to speak out and continued speaking out from inside Pakistan. It's horrific to think of him now back under their control and considering what they could potentially do to him. And I don't want you to necessarily relive your own detention, but it's been widely reported that you suffered incredible amounts of torture as well. And I'm curious if, from your perspective, was the torture aimed at actually extracting information from you? Or was it just, was it to humiliate you? Was it to send a message to the rest of your party? Like, what was your understanding as you were going through it? And if you don't

want to talk about it, I also understand that. No, Ryan, I would talk about it. Actually, there's a history to it, again. When Zulkar Ali Bhutto got persecuted by Pakistani, at that time Pakistani military establishment, they picked up one of his deputy, Masood Mahmood, his name was Masood Mahmood, and he got picked up and they of course tortured him. And then they were able, they were successful to take a statement against Zulfiqar Ali Butto, of course, a concordant statement. But he appeared in the court against Zulfiqar Ali Butto as one of their prime witness to accuse him that he was involved in a murder.

And later on, they hanged him in that completely fabricated and completely, I would say, illegitimate legal case. And later on, after 35 years, Supreme Court of Pakistan now agreed and issued a verdict that that was a judicial killing, that was not a fair trial, that was not a fair case. So they were repeating exactly the same episode with me when they abducted me as a chief of staff.

They wanted me to give a statement against Prime Minister Khan that he's involved with waging war against Pakistani military. And he's involved in mutiny. He's involved in sedition, and he is the one actually who wants to create chaos. And he wants a civil war in Pakistan against the Pakistani military and the Pakistani constitution. So this is what they wanted me to say in the court. This is what they wanted me to appear in the court of law and give this statement against him. And then, of course, had I given that statement,

they would make sure that his fate is similar to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, what has been done to him. What had been done to him, they would repeat the same. So that was the actual purpose. So, of course, information gathering or extracting information about the party, party work, and about Imran Khan, that was there too. But the main aim was to get a statement from me

against Prime Minister Khan. So that was the main objective, to abduct me and then torture me. And, you know, even I was facing trial and charges of sedition and mutiny where I could face and I still have that trial under process in Pakistan where I could even be given a death sentence in that case. How did you resist making those statements? I must be made of much softer stuff.

I feel like by the end of the day, by the end of the first day, I'd be like, just give me whatever you want. How did you mentally and physically maintain your integrity? Ryan, it is, of course, physical pain. When so much physical pain is given to any person, we are all human beings. And I'm not a terrorist or trained criminal. I am a regular, I'm an academician. All my life, I taught in universities, worked in classrooms, research labs, and I was never trained for such kind of horrific torture. But then we have a faith in our Allah that once you go through such things, there's a

reason you are put into such tests. And maybe that was a time for me to go through such a horrific experience, but actually it was a test for me to either I stand by my principles or not. It was difficult, I must admit, it was difficult. Many a times I used to think, okay, let's give it up, it's enough. And then I used to think, no, my statement would produce a lie, a false narrative. And then nobody knows how many more will go through the same pain and the same humiliation and same stress and same physical torture by my wrong statement, by my, I would say, a statement

which would not carry truth. So that was the feeling that who gives me, who gave me right to put other people go through the same just to ease my pain. That was, I think, one of the things which made me decide this. And then I emerged from a very small local village of Faisalabad. So I had a feeling that if I would not stand up and if I would not show courage, people from my area will be embarrassed like this person was the deputy and hand-picked person of Prime Minister Imran Khan as his Chief of Staff. And even if I'm giving any statement which is a truth against

my leader, any I'm talking about, any political difference or anything, even that would cause a lot of embarrassment to people those who are close to me, people who admired me for my stance or supported me for my stance. But speaking a lie, accusing him for something which he has never done, would be a complete shame for me and people related to me.

So those were the things actually that made me think that I think I should, I must bear it, I must let it happen what is happening. And I must talk to my Allah that give me some strength so that I can go through all this pain and torture. But end of the day, I should not fall through, should not go down to the pressure that will leave me in embarrassment and pain for the rest of my life. That's incredible.

Yeah, I hope I never have to find out, but if I do, I can't imagine the fortitude that it took. But it's really interesting to hear the way that you kind of talked your way through it and your faith and also your love for your hometown and the people around them that pushed you through it. Shabazz Gill will be asking the State Department about the case of your brother, no doubt about it, and the others who have been abducted, including Imran Riaz Khan. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing this with us.

And I just want to thank you and your team on behalf of the entire Pakistan. You are a celebrity now in Pakistan, and everybody knows you. I think you are maybe one of the, I would say, three, four names in the entire world from the Western media, international media outside of Pakistan.

Maybe you are one of those two or three people in the entire world who Pakistani watches, they read your work, they interact with your Twitter, you know that, they give you compliments, they give you, and of course, there will be some military regime-backed people must be threatening you as well. But I'm really, really thankful on behalf of Pakistani nation, on behalf of Imran Khan, on behalf of all those women, especially I must not forget to salute and actually appreciate our women.

Actually, they are the ones who are making difference. It's the first time in Pakistani history that any military regime put women behind the bar for such an extended period. And again, this is the first in Pakistan, the way they are responding, the way they are standing tall with all the courage and facing all such pressures and facing all brutality of the state institutions. But still, they are not giving up their hopes. They are not giving up their truth, they are not giving up their right to speak,

their right to have rule of law and democracy in Pakistan. So I would say if one segment of the society is most admirable, more admirable than my, I would say, sacrifice, contribution, sacrifice contribution or anyone else sacrifice contribution it's our women and our journalists like Shaheed Arshashari who got assassinated in Kenya and he was nominated. You make an interesting point because yeah the United States has takes so much pride in the way that it stands up for the rights of women around the world but women have played an extraordinary role in pakistan in the in the democratic awakening there uh and have had the american boot um put put on their neck as as a result um thanks and and thank you for the the kind words and and you know here here's

to a better day ahead for for pakistan and for everyone around the world thank you again for for joining us thank you thank you guys all right that wasabazz Gale, former chief of staff to prime minister, then prime minister Imran Khan, now his media advisor here in the United States. Emily, that was intense. And actually, one thing I was thinking while he was talking is that Imran Khan might be the figure in the world that represents your politics maybe better than anybody else. A true religious social conservative,

but also very pro-worker. It's kind of like the compact politics that's like this kind of new right politics. He kind of pioneered it in a way. It's interesting also because he gets very little attention from the crowd on the right that will give a lot of attention to Victor Orban or Millet or others. And I think probably faith is the key roadblock on that question. But still, I was so glad that Shabazz mentioned how impactful and influential your reporting has been because domestically, to your point, domestically, I think people are paying so little attention to this, despite the fact that the American boot, as you put America's role in the situation in Pakistan.

Your reporting has just been huge. And I thought that was a really well-placed gratitude because it's meant a lot. I know a lot of people over there. Randomly becoming a celebrity in Pakistan was not something I had in my life's bingo card. But it's been gratifying. And if nobody else is going to cover it in the West, we're going to do it. So I'm glad to see there's an audience for it there. Absolutely.

And this Friday's show is going to be with Oren Kass. I know we mentioned that again. We will be back here next Wednesday, obviously, with CounterPoints. Make sure to subscribe at BreakingPoints.com to get all of CounterPoints so you don't just get a few clips. You get the whole show. You get it early if you're a subscriber. And you get the Friday show early as well.

All right. We'll see you then. This is an iHeart Podcast.