Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/24/21: NYC Results, SCOTUS Decisions, Media Distrust, Union Organizing, Progressive Victories, Middle East, and More!

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

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are a lot of other stories going on. There's electoral results in New York across the board, some major SCOTUS decisions that are incredibly telling, a court case involving Rachel Maddow you're going to want to know about, Major developments with regards to unions. So a lot to get to. Trita Parsi is going to be here to break down what's going on in Israel and Iran and put it in context of the entire Middle East, something that he is so incredible at doing. But we did want to start with that big New York City mayoral race. We don't officially have a winner yet, but we got some pretty strong indications. We got a pretty good idea here, at least in terms of how everything went. Let's go ahead and put the results up there on the screen.

So these are pretty important and actually tracked polling quite well. So what we can see from the results is that pre-election polling had Adams at 29, Wiley 23, Garcia 20, Yang 13. Ended up currently, at least with the rank choice, 31%, 21%, 21%, Yang at 12. And I think the real story out of all of this, obviously the indication at the beginning was that Eric Adams was likely to win, is just the precipitous and pretty dramatic failure of Andrew Yang. And if we want to take this map, let's put this up there. And Eric, let's keep this up there for a little bit while we have this map, because I think it's important that we can all see this. Adams essentially won outer

barrow black and Hispanic voters, which actually outnumber PMC whites like two to one. He's like that purple and blue, purpley blue color, right? Exactly. That purpley blue color, sorry, I should have put a ledger there on the map, but it's out there in the outer boroughs. But then you can see Maya Wiley, largely Brooklyn and Queens hipsters, not a surprise. Garcia actually won the Manhattan elites. She was the one who was endorsed by the New York Times. But Andrew Yang, I think this does show a very cautious tale about pandering, which is that, yeah, he won Asian voters, disproportionately had their support from the very beginning. And the groups that he pandered to throughout the campaign, Orthodox Jews, absolutely did come through for him as well as some ethnic white

areas. But at the end of the day, he only got 12% crystal. And you and I will review, I'll let you lay it out what exactly has come out about the Yang campaign. But it is stunning to see how he really just let his brand of being the renegade, the truth teller, true to himself, the positive, you know, forward thinking outsider get tarnished, I think, as he increasingly looked political. And some of those political decisions were a disaster in retrospect. And, you know, that 12% finish, he's already conceded that he's not going to win. I think it's a very, very strong indication of what not to do if you're one of those people. I think that is very well said. And look, we should say it's not officially over yet because this is the first choice preference.

So because it's ranked choice, they've got to tally up all the second and third and fourth choices, etc., etc. There is a very small outside chance that Maya Wiley, she's in the second place right now, could overcome it. But it seems pretty unlikely. Eric Adams has a very— Absentee ballots apparently are breaking their heart in her favor. second place right now, could overcome it. But it seems pretty unlikely. Eric Adams has a very... Absentee ballots apparently are breaking their heart. The two of them. But Maya Wiley is, according to the analysis I read, is better positioned to have a tiny outside chance of overcoming the deficit. But certainly Eric Adams looks like he's in a very strong position right now. There's a lot to say about this race. But to start with Andrew Yang,

yeah. What was it that was so appealing about him in his presidential campaign where he came out of nowhere? No one knew his name. He had nothing going for him. He did. The Yang gang didn't exist yet. And he was able to make this big national impact that actually has had a very real reverberation throughout a political discourse with the adoption, with the adoption of widespread acceptance of UBI, of direct cash assistance. I mean, he really did change politics at the national level and then to completely flop here. So what made him popular and interesting at the presidential level? It was that he was sort of non-ideological. He had a vision. And you just got the sense from this guy that he was the happy

warrior and he was telling you what he really thought right there were awkward moments where we all kind of cringe there were weird there were strange things where you're like are you should you really say that when you're a presidential candidate but that's actually what people really responded to because they're like oh this guy's not just being fed a bunch of talking points from a bunch of like moron on a touch political consultants so in this mayoral race and this is often I find what happens. Ironically, when people really set out to win, they go, okay, let me bring in the professionals. Let me bring in the political class. And these consultants completely ruined

his campaign. I mean, he lost that sense of authenticity. He also, part of the problem was, again, in the presidential campaign, you always had a sense, we had these deep conversations with him about politics. He was always super read in, super educated about the stats and the numbers behind it. Math was his whole slogan and ethos through his campaign. It wasn't a joke either. It was real whenever you talked to him. 100%. I mean, we always, and if there was ever an issue that he wasn't sure about, he was honest about that. He'd get back to you, do the research, he would study up. And there were some basic issues in New York City politics that he seemed like totally out of his depth. There were issues, especially with regards to Israel-Palestine, where it felt like he was taking a position because that's what he was told to take, but hadn't really done the research and thought it through for himself. And those things really came through. So whereas originally when he was leading the polls, he had a broad coalition, black, brown, white, educated, non-college educated. There was a real response to that positive attitude and

authenticity. And as the campaign wore on, I mean, in part, I do want to say the media was wildly unfair to him from the beginning. There's no question. And there's no doubt about that. But just to give you one anecdote of how these Bloomberg consultants ruined this campaign, Dave Chappelle, who endorsed him, if you'll recall, in the presidential primary, offered reportedly, according to Hunter Walker, to do shows for him throughout New York City. The consultants said no because he's too controversial. Like, are you kidding me? What an idiotic moronic. I mean, this is the sort of low IQ crap that passes for conventional wisdom among the political consultant class. And that sadly, unfortunately infected his campaign and really completely derailed it.

There are a lot of expletives I want to use whenever it comes to that. Let me just give you an example of how dumb that is. Chappelle, you might all have seen. The Foo Fighters just did Madison Square Garden, first concert back in New York City. Yeah. They had him as a guest. Everybody at the New York Times and everybody started writing, oh, my God, Dave Chappelle ushers in a new era. And which is good, you know? Like, he sang the cover thing and there was a lot of love, you know, and people were saying this was a really emotional time, emotional moment for New York City. You could have had that,

Andrew. You could have had it. What are you doing? You're going to do Dave Chappelle? You want, and by the way, maybe we'll put the map back up there and we'll see how you did it in a lot of these black areas too, where Chappelle has a large fan base. It's just like turning down one of the biggest mega celebrities in the world. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. All that blue. it could have been you. It's just amazing, really, whenever you think about how his campaign got ruined. And I remember you telling me about this in the height of the Bernie campaign. Bernie started bringing in more corporate people to, like, run his ads.

Or he abandoned some of the people who cut his original, like, America ad. And you saw the same thing happen with Yang, which is that as the more money began to roll in, they would put out these very normie ads. I remember Yang put out that ad with Obama where he was sitting next to him. Yeah, that's right. And I was like, what is going on here? What are you doing right now? What are you doing? That's not how you got here.

You're the guy who went on the stage and didn't wear the tie, which I would still object to. But it was him. But it was him. It was him. And said this. He was like, what are we doing up here? We're all wearing makeup. Like, this is a game. This is theater. It's a farce. He beat Cory Booker to the stage. He beat Kamala Harris, our current vice president, on that stage. That was a remarkable feat. And yeah, look, I will always believe in an idea of him, I guess, but his execution was a total disaster. And look, the New York Times put this up there in terms of what they're talking there about Eric Adams, Wiley, and Yang. I mean, essentially what it is, is that there were two lanes, I guess. There's a progressive lane and the quote unquote centrist lane. Eric Adams basically won because of crime. That's all he talked about the entire time. Number one

issue, especially from amongst black, brown voters all on the outer suburbs. For those who it wasn't, Milo Wiley basically became their default choice. So the problem that Yang had is he wasn't anybody's default choice. He didn't fully fulfill that coalition. And in a way, his pandering, yeah, it worked. Like it certainly won the Orthodox Jewish vote, but he lost educated white liberals. He lost black and brown voters. Maybe not necessarily even over crime, but over like an authenticity that I would say.

I think that's what was always going for him was the happy warrior, was this has been a terrible year. I'm out here like saving restaurants restaurants, that type of thing. And the moment that it all started to turn onto actual politics, and it seemed like he was playing the game. Well, look, if you're going to play the game, and you want somebody who's going to play the game, then choose people who are really good at that, right?

Like Wiley, they work for the mayor or whatever. Eric Adams, former cop, Brooklyn Borough. You know exactly what you're getting when you vote for those types of people. You've got to understand what type of candidate you are and what kind of lane you're getting into. I mean, if you're an Andrew Yang, supposedly outsider anti-establishment candidate, you don't bring in the Bloomberg consultants and let them run everything. I mean, it's not going to work out. And, you know, Eric Adams is a disaster for the left in New York in every way.

Ross Barkin, who we had on to preview this race, he's been really a great voice on these things. And I want to say, I mean, he's been a fairly neutral observer. You know that he's on the left. But he talks about the way that Adams has weaponized race to shield himself from criticism. Really gross. To completely carry water for especially real estate developers. But the corporate interest in New York City writ large cloaks himself in this like progressive identitarian language and uses it as a Trojan horse for corporate values.

And so that's a very hard person to go up against if you're a progressive left that is leaning fully into identitarian language without the class sort of rhetoric and class awareness and content as well. And so he's like the end state of that type of politics that focuses only on representation. Eric Adams, whose policies again from a left progress he hates the left right catherine garcia is kind of like apathetic towards the left like is has similar policies to eric adams but isn't actively antagonistic like eric adams despises the left and the progressive new york city coalition and yet as barkin points out he's going to be very hard to oppose because of those dynamics. He had this, he's already written up, you know, an analysis of the race. And I just want to read a piece of this because I think he's such a good writer. He says,

most working class blacks, Latinos and Asians in New York are tenants. Adams does not want to protect them from sharp rent increases. His allegiance is to the landlords who make up his donor base. And it's this cash that insulates him from true popular pressure. One of the canniest politicians on the municipal scene, he can posture as a populist while doing the bidding of those who revile popular movements. For the capitalists who make up the permanent government of the city, Adams is something close to an ideal vessel. And if you look at the left in this race, my God, I mean, anybody remotely classified as progressive, like they shot themselves in the foot 15 different ways and times. First, they got behind the sort of burning left, got behind Diane Morales. She's revealed as a total

fraud. Her campaign melts down and like, you know, her own staffers are protesting her and she doesn't want them to form a union. Then it comes out, you are an Andrew Cuomo voter and you're a charter schools voter. Like, what are we even doing here? So that was a disaster. Then you actually had, towards the end of this race, as Yang was falling off, the person who was rising in the polls before Eric Adams was Scott Stringer.

Now again, Stringer and Maya Wiley, these are not like leftists. They're like Hillary Clinton progressives leftists they're like hillary clinton progressives but they're much more progressive than eric adams scott stringer's rising in the poll um woman comes out and makes a claim against him sexual harassment sexual assault she had brought it originally now we've learned to the new york times they couldn't corroborate it at all ryan grim did the reporting of saying like there's a lot of holes and problems in the story and actually stringer's version of events lines up much closely more closely than yours but corroborated at all. Ryan Grimm did the reporting of saying like, there's a lot of holes and problems in the story

and actually, Stringer's version of events lines up much closely, more closely than yours, but she gave a press conference and so all the progressive groups abandoned Scott Stringer. He's nowhere to be found now.

His campaign implodes over what may well be bullshit accusations, let's just be clear, but let's just be honest about it. It's clearly BS. So then, the last minute coalescing

is around Maya Wiley, who is fine. But this is someone who, you know, most people know because she was on MSNBC as like an anti-Bernie. She's like a resistance lib on MSNBC. So it's not like the left was even ever represented in this race, which is pathetic in and of itself. So, again, they're a mess. She ended up essentially getting like she she ends up getting sort of, like, the Bernie vote, weirdly. Catherine Garcia ends up getting, like, the Elizabeth Warren vote because she's this competent technocrat. New York Times.

New York Times endorsed. Great point. And the whole thing is just a total mess. And Yang collapsing is just one other piece of the story. Very sad. I think it pairs very well with what I talked about on Tuesday about the barstool conservatism.

And what we were talking about is like, look, we don't like how politics works, but that is how it works. This is the power of culture, which is that Eric Adams can basically do whatever he wants because he's hard on crime.

And that's what a lot of black and Latino voters in New York City is their number one concern. You got to understand how people vote, exactly what animates them. Your number one concern will generally trump even your own tenement rights whenever it comes to culture. So it's just another example of how culture drives purely all of our politics. You do have a good example in Buffalo, which I know you're talking about,

for your monologue. But I do think that was much more of a class-based campaign, based upon what I could see in terms of how she ran. Maya Wiley was only known for defund the police. Like, no shit. I'll say it. Like, no shit you're going to lose in New York City. The left never even, I mean, they didn't even really have a candidate.

It was such a mess, you know, all over the map. And Eric Adams was focused. He knew what his message was. He knew what his, right? And so for people whom that was their number one concern, he built this coalition surely and steadily, played as nasty as you can possibly play and looks very well positioned. There was one other race that I wanted to highlight here in New York that we do have the results from. So the Manhattan DA race was also very important because this is something that really affects this really affects all of us.

OK, so there's Trump prosecutions going on. But this is the DA who's responsible for policing Wall Street. And that's why this really matters. And there were a lot of national forces that got involved. Alvin Bragg looks to be the winner here. This one, you don't have ranked choice. So it's a little more clear than what's going on in the mayoral race. He kind of was the middle pick.

More to the progressive side, I would say, is backed by people like Preet Bharara. Hillary Clinton and some of her circle backed this totally Wall Street-owned candidate who gave herself something like $8 million for this campaign. Oh, we covered that on Rising. Completely tried to buy this race. There was also a leftier candidate that was backed by some of the Bernie forces. It looks like, again, this sort of more progressive but not all the way left candidate is the one that won there. And again, in terms of national import, the Manhattan DA is actually a lot more significant than New York City mayoral race. I want to make sure to point that out. No, I think you're absolutely right in terms of the

future on Trump and all that. It is funny. Even though he's not the son of a wealthy scion, he still has got a hedge fund spouse. So it's just amazing how New York politics works. Gotta love New York. I guess never changed. So we have some more Supreme Court news. Yeah, actually two really significant cases here. One good and one bad. Let's start with the bad in my view. This decision on unions. This was a split vote between conservative block of six and the three remaining liberals on the court over whether or not union organizers can visit farm workers while they're working in the fields. So this dates back to a 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. Union organizers have always had a really

hard time getting accessing farm workers. Oftentimes, they're migratory. They're following one harvest to the next. Oftentimes, they live in temporary housing. They may lack English language skills. And so there's this law in place in California since 1975 that says you can visit them in this really limited basis while they're at the workplace. It's like for one hour every so many days. So, again, very, very narrow and

limited. This was challenged by a number of major growers in California and ultimately the conservative justices on the court, again, acting together as a block. And Roberts wrote the majority opinion here, decided that this amounted to, this is Roberts' language, that this access regulation amounts to simple appropriation of private property, adding that the access regulation grants labor organizations a right to invade the growers property. It therefore constitutes a per se physical taking. So basically putting the rights of private property owners, businesses, corporations over the right of union organizers to try to talk to and organize these farm workers. The liberal dissent, which was written by Breyer, said access was temporary, not permanent. Therefore, it does not constitute a government taking under the law.

Also said the agricultural employers are not forever denied any power to control the use of their property and said that this is not functionally equivalent to the classic taking in which government directly appropriates private property or ousts the owner from his domain. So one of the things that you've been tracking and I've been tracking from the beginning is if you want to know what ACB and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were really put on the court to do, this is it. Bolster corporations, any sort of labor rights, you're

going to tamp those down, side with big corporate interests. And this is a very clear-cut example of that. And look, we already know how hard it is to organize a union in this country. The DAC is wildly stacked against you, as we saw in Bessemer, Alabama. This is just one more addition to that preponderance of difficulty for forming a union and being able to give workers a little bit of power. I mean, this pairs again actually well with the Adams thing, which is that why do Republicans and many conservatives are obsessed with the Supreme Court? It's because of abortion and because of guns. And maybe you'll get those, although I'm actually still doubtful, but this is the other part of what you're going to get. And this is part of, goes back in the conservative movement called the

three-legged stool, which is like the economic libertarians, the social conservatives and the neoconservatives, a lot going on there. And basically the social cons put their fate into the economic libertarians and have now found out about 30 years later that, oh, they basically got played. They used their votes consistently in order to prop up basically a libertarian interpretation of a lot of business law. And having known some people in the conservative legal movement or people who write about it and more, this is what they're really obsessed with. Like this is what gets them out of bed. Administrative law, making sure regulation can't go through and more. It's a very big departure from a lot of a traditional conservative thought, but the Federalist Society, in my opinion,

is probably one of the most successful right-wing quote unquote political projects of the 21st century. If you really, I mean, in almost every other aspect of American life, conservatives have failed miserably on almost every issue. And yet, on the Supreme Court and in legal jurisprudence, they run the show. And it's because they have this huge pipeline from law school all the way up to the judges, you know, in terms of people like Roberts and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and ACB. They're all part of the FedSoc kind of mafia, which is that those people have a very specific interpretation of business law and more. I have friends in many of the biggest law schools, the best law schools in the country, part of these chapters, and they tell me this is

what they talk about all the time in terms of what really gets people going. And so I want people to understand that what you want and think doesn't really matter. This is one of those places where it's purely a kind of an elite funded project that has now been going on for so long and is so successful that it's got six votes on the U.S. Supreme Court. Yeah. Conservatives, I would phrase it differently. Conservatives have succeeded everywhere that their desires back up the capital class. So corporate interests, busting labor unions, right? Military industrial complex, going to war, all that stuff. Wildly successful. I mean, that's really it. Follow the money. If

there was money to be made on an issue, it has been wildly successful. And so the court, you know, bolstering those good old fashioned American apple pie values here by continuing to make it very hard to organize some of the most disenfranchised people, frankly, in the country, which is migratory farm workers who have faced historically incredibly abusive conditions, putting the rights of private property first. There was another case, though, that I was a little bit heartened. This is a good one. This wasn't a huge surprise, but it was still good to see. There's also a weird dissent on this. So in an eight to one ruling, the Supreme Court says that a Pennsylvania school cannot punish a cheerleader for swearing on Snapchat. And this is, we covered this over at Rising. So this girl in high school,

she didn't make the varsity cheerleading squad. They put her on JV instead. She was pissed off. She sent a snap that said, fuck school, fuck softball, fuck cheer, fuck everything. Relatable. Very relatable, right? Right. Teenage girl on Snapchat. Yeah. I mean, very, like, nothing crazy here. And apparently there was one other follow-up one where she was complaining, but this was the one that really, I guess, got her. So she gets kicked off the cheerleading squad, punished because of what she says here. And she took this to court. And eight to one, they ruled, no, you still have free speech rights even if you're in school. School doesn't take precedence over your First Amendment free speech rights. So fairly straightforward ruling here and nice to see the conservatives and the liberals coming together.

What was interesting is that the one dissent was Clarence Thomas. Yeah, right. Who is sort of a hardliner in some other ways on free speech. Like he doesn't think that social media platforms should be able to ban people at all. So on that issue, he's like fairly radical. But here he said, he argued that schools may have more authority, not less, to discipline students who transmit speech through social media because off-campus speech made through social media can be received on campus and can spread rapidly to countless people. It often will have a greater proximate tendency to harm the school environment than will an

off-campus in-person conversation. So I thought that was a curious, kind of surprising dissent in this case, but glad to see ultimately that, you know, I think it was a pretty straightforward application of the First Amendment that bolstered this cheerleader's case. Yeah, Thomas is always a weird one to pail down. He's hard, yeah. He's like libertarian in a way, also conservative. He's actually a swing vote sometimes in certain cases.

It's very strange. People don't really understand there's like alito who's very into like guns and the law and order then clarence thomas who is like kind of a doctrinaire conservative ish kavanaugh is more of like your traditional fed sock more corporate type then acb much more of a culture warrior still also the economic libertarian. And then Roberts is just a guy who really doesn't want more justices on the Supreme Court. He just wants to keep the Supreme Court the way it is. He's like, everybody, please calm down. Everyone calm down. Also, I'm going to continue my legacy of being a Bush toady. So that's Sagar and Jetty's role. Oh, and Gorsuch is just a hardcore weirdo libertarian.

In my opinion, worst justice on the entire court. Really? Interesting. Worst one, hands down. And as people know, I can't stand libertarians. So there we go. But it's a very, look, in the 8 to 1, it's a heartening thing, which is, yeah, no, like, come on. Of course you have free speech whenever you're talking online in an off-campus environment and the school cannot punish you. They literally

suspended her from the cheer team. I can't even believe it. And I remember there were inklings of this right when I was in high, I think it was like a senior year of high school. And they were like, well, well, you know what you say on Facebook, like we can monitor that and like we could suspend. Also, I wasn't in America, so I guess it doesn't really matter. But if I was, I remember thinking, I'm like, this is BS. I'm like, we can say whatever we want over there. So rebellious, you know, 18 year old Zagre. But I can see this type of stuff. It must gotten 10 times worse, you know, in the last 10, 15 years or so in high school and more. And so I do think it's very important, actually, that we establish these type of ground rules,

especially when kids have phones at like nine years old now and Instagram and TikTok accounts or whatever when they're like 11. So having this rock solid kind of belief there pairs very well with past ACLU law where students have free speech, right to protest, and more whenever they're in school. I think it's very important as we move forward. Also, who was the snitch that told the school about the totally anodyne snap?

Really? You're going to go to the principal with that? Give me a break. Screw you. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to breakingpoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. All right, what do we got next? This is the fun one.

This is the fun one. So obviously our good friend Glenn Greenwald, he flagged this. Now, it's funny. So everybody I think knows about that case where, I think it was a defamation case, where Fox News had to go to court and essentially say, Tucker's show is entertainment. It is not information. Now, I think anybody could have told you that about all cable news, but obviously a lot of libs like to use it to dunk on Tucker. Please don't take cable news seriously ever. Yes. Let's preface this with cable, all cable is bad and is poison. Now, what's interesting, though, is MSNBC just had to do the same thing for Rachel Maddow,

except this time everybody's ignoring it. Let's put it up there with Glenn Flags, which is Maddow's show. Here's what a judge ruled, an Obama-appointed judge. Maddow's show is different than a typical news segment where anchors inform viewers about the daily news, okay? So what they have said there is that they are essentially admitting that Maddow is an entertainment program. Now, this is actually pretty important because what we see there is that Chris Hayes, let's put it up there so we have his tweet, go ahead and see how he reacted whenever this was about Tucker. So he says, similar to Fox's defense in court of Tucker, these people are obviously bullshit artists who nobody should trust.

So, okay, Chris, shall we apply the exact same thing? And remember, this is the statement that got her in trouble. On OAN, this is what came from court, she said that it was, quote, literally paid Russian propaganda, which is what forced her in order to force MSNBC to admit that she is not meant to inform her viewers. Now, how about I just say this? None of them are meant to inform their viewers. Tucker, Rachel, Chris, Brian Stelter, Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, Joy Reid. I forget the rest of the Fox lineup. Who else is up there? I don't know. Whatever. I don't watch it. So there you go. The boomers out there can tell me who they are. Now, this is very important, which is that it turns out, as has been the thesis

of the show from the very beginning, something I'm actually covering a lot on my radar, that these people are liars, that all they do is use hate in order to gin up ratings, in order to make sure that they can all make a lot of money and that the core business model of this is very bad for the country. And I would supposit that I thought it was a positive development when Fox outright said, yeah, Tucker's show is entertainment because it obviously is. I mean, what are we all joking ourselves here? But so is the rest of it. There's no exceptionality here. You're all so terrible. And I just wish that the same people, because Glenn points out here in the story, NPR, the Business Insider, the Washington Post, many of these other people,

all wrote stories about the Tucker lawsuit. On this one, mum's the word. It's just right-wing media. It's funny too, because actually the language that was used in both of these court cases was pretty similar and and glenn pulls it here so yeah with with matto the court found that um the medium of the alleged defamatory statement makes it more likely that a reasonable viewer would not conclude that the contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact um In Tucker's case, Fox News argued that viewed in context, Mr. Carlson cannot be understood to have been stating facts, but instead he was delivering an opinion using hyperbole for effect. The court found this general tenor, again, very similar language of the show, should then inform a viewer that he is not stating actual facts about the

topics he discusses and instead engaging in exaggeration and non-literal commentary. And by the way, Glenn points this out, and I completely agree with his assessment. This is the right court finding. Yes. I totally agree. These people should never be held liable. They shouldn't be held liable for defamation or any of that stuff. But it is really clear.

This is infotainment. You should take it as such. You should think of when you watch cable news, you should think of it like, you know, drinking a milkshake or smoking a cigarette. Like, it's not healthy for you. You can do it if you want, but it's not going to be like a healthy

and nutritious information diet. And unfortunately, I do think that the court is a little bit wrong in their assessment that people don't take it as fact. No, they certainly don't. Because they really, really do. I mean, the core of Maddow's audience isn't going, eh, she's over the top. Or of Tucker's audience going, eh, he's just like being over the top and being inflammatory. And this isn't actual literal objective fact. No, they believe it. The problem is that people don't see through the kayfabe of it and actually think when she says

own is literally paid Russian propaganda, they think that is actual true fact. And I think the thing that Tucker said was that McDougal was extorting Trump. Like they take that as actual literal objective fact. And that is the problem, is that it is presented as such. And I don't think that oftentimes the audience sees through it. So it is our mission here, part of our mission here, to make sure that they understand that these people are totally full of shit. Everything they say and do is just for ratings. They find it

advantageous to turn people against each other, make them hate each other for their own personal profit and gain and to bolster the corporate networks that back them. That's what they're all about. So court sees through it. You should see through it as well. Yeah. And I think that that really is the problem, which is that these two people do believe it. And part of the reason I haven't been on Fox News in a long time is because of this is because actually, you know, one of the important things is actually, actually you know go out in public and you get recognized by people um and the difference between getting recognized by somebody who's seen you on fox and somebody who has seen you on breaking points or on rising i mean look i met a lot of people mostly old people and they'd be like

man i love how you stick it to the and i was like wait is this what i'm known for i was like is this is and then i was like wow look that's kind of it, right? Like that's, I mean, in a way, you only have two minutes to make a point and everything is about how the Democrats are bad. I mean, the previous theory about going and engaging with corporate media was like, look, there's massive audiences, you'd be a fool. I think that does actually hold for politicians. But if you have kind of a contrary and different model, if you're engaging in this, you have to be honest about what is happening here. And that is what's happening is that there are a lot of old people out there who they get ginned up about this stuff every single day. I've heard stories about people's grandmas who can't go to sleep at night because they think that the Russians put Donald Trump in the White House.

That's abuse. You know, like I don't even know what to tell you. Right. That's abuse. You know, like, I don't even know what to tell you. Right. That's crazy. And a lot of right wing grandmas who think that literally the democracy is. Yeah. Oh, I grew up around those people like I they have been thinking that way for a long time. And Fox is a big, big part of the story. And like you said, we're not out here being like censor Fox, you know, like this, what CNN wants to censor. Listen, I think they're both responsible and I don't think they're both responsible, and I don't think they should be legally held liable

because the principle of it all is that, here's the truth. They left them. This is what my whole monologue is about. They have destroyed U.S. trusted media to the lowest level of any developed country, opening the space for people like you and me in order to do well. And for Glenn and Taibbi, Joe Rogan, in many respects, in a way, I owe them a lot, you know, in terms of doing their job. So I don't want them to be held like legally liable so they can use a precedent, which could they could come after

us. I wanted to just continue their death spiral, you know, down to the bottom. I just want people to see through it. I mean, in that way, like, I feel, and we'll talk more about this after your monologue, but I feel like a mixed set of emotions around trusted media being so low because you do kind of want people to see through it. Oh, yeah. You want them to see it. Trust should be low.

They should see through it. And so the more people that actually see and understand the game, first of all, the more they're going to tune out. I mean, ratings are dismal. That's the other thing is, look, again, I mean, I believe in going to where people are, having the chance to make an affirmative case to them, like engaging even with audiences that may not already share all your views.

Imagine trying to persuade people. I believe in all of that. But also the sort of return on investment for going on these platforms and playing into their little games is less and less. Yes. The audience is falling off, especially, I mean, actually on all these channels, but MSNBC and CNN in particular. So it's not even really worth your time anymore to go and play into their bullshit games. During the Democratic primary, CNN was having me on a lot to talk about Bernie Sanders and his appeal. And at that time, they had much larger ratings, and there were no voices there who were saying anything other than basically, Bernie Sanders is evil. So I found that a worthwhile use of my time just to insert a somewhat different perspective

for people to see, oh, there's another way of thinking about this race that actually probably comported more with even a lot of their audience the way that they viewed these different candidates. I mean, Bernie Sanders has always been, whether you voted for him or not, he's always been well-liked and a popular politician, and that view wasn't represented at all. So I found it worth my time, but now to go on any of these places, it's just literally not worth it. And look, we're lucky because we have this platform where we can say what we actually think in like a fulsome way and you guys are tuned into it

and actually listening and like paying attention to the things we say, which is also different from cable news. See, that was important though because you're trying to make a point.

And you're like, when you're trying to make that point to a lot of people, then yeah, I'm not saying, oh, I'm never going to go on. No. I'm never not.

Sure, maybe. You'll take your spot. Yeah, we'll see. But like, just to go on, to promote myself, I mean, listen, you know,

they're all mostly old people. Our entire audience, 99% of our audience are people who are young. These are the people I care, frankly, a lot more about in terms of trying to shape the country and more. So like, what's in it for me? Actually, there's pretty much only a downside. That's just the way I look at it. But we also, let's talk about some substantive stuff here. Back to a little bit more on unions and important development on the Teamsters and Amazon. Yeah. Well, and also,

so let's start with the Warrior Met coal miners in Alabama. This is a story we've been covering for a while now. They've been on strike for months now. And basically what happened is they worked for this mining concern that went bankrupt. And as part of that bankruptcy, the union and the miners agreed to take a gigantic pay cut. Okay. So they take the pay cut because they want to keep the jobs. They want to keep the mine going. The mine emerges out of bankruptcy. It's bought by basically a bunch of like private equity ghouls. The previous CEO, who was the previous owner of the company, still involved, still making millions. And so the miners, all that they want, this is it, to get back to the pay they were earning in 2015.

Six years ago. They just want to earn what they were earning six years ago. And so these private equity executives and the other members of the board, they said no. They offered a contract that was so insulting that there was almost a unanimous vote to go on strike. And so they have been locked in this battle for months. Of course, the company's engaging in every union busting tactic you can imagine. Down in Alabama, they've got the court and the political system on their side. You're talking about thugs. You're talking about drone surveillance. There was a boss that actually ran into with his pickup truck one of the miners' allies who was walking across the street to join the picket line, scab workers, all of that.

So this was really interesting. This week, the miners, some of them came up from Alabama and picketed outside of Black Rock's headquarters in New York City, in Manhattan. And we have some of the video here. Kim Kelly has been doing great reporting on this entire strike. If we can throw this video up there on the screen. Some of the workers picketing outside of BlackRock headquarters. It's really amazing to see this because it's so unusual for these BlackRock millionaires to have to actually be faced with the real human beings who their actions are impacting and

destroying their lives, frankly. So the fact that they're taking such militant, aggressive action, it is a goddamn shame that they have to do this. But to actually be there in the face of these private equity executives, sorry, but you love to see it. No, oh, you absolutely love to see it. For those of you who are just listening, it was a group literally outside BlackRock HQ in downtown Manhattan. Have to remember all of our awesome podcast listeners.

Yeah, I love you guys. Sometimes they'll be like, hey, some of us are out here and we're just listening. So I hear you. I hear you 100%. Look. And one other, real quick, just follow at Grim Kim.

She's been on top of the story for all the updates going on, not just with this action in New York, but also with the latest status of this mine worker strike. And she's focused on a lot of labor issues. So definitely worthwhile follow on Twitter at Grim Kim. Yeah, no, she's really good. And that actually pairs with the Teamsters thing I alluded to.

Let's go ahead and put this vice tear sheet up there on the screen, which is that the Teamsters are announcing a coordinated nationwide project to unionize Amazon. So it was an official resolution. And one of the country's basically most powerful unions there is making a goize Amazon. So it was an official resolution. And one of the country's basically most powerful unions there is making a go at Amazon. So what they're trying to do is build some of the power and the organizations and more in order to go after, obviously,

all of these workers. And I do think it's pretty interesting because I know, Crystal, this is the second attempt. You might know a little bit more than I do about a different union making a go at this. The previous one was the RWDSU, the Retail Wholesale and Department Stores Union. Stuart Applebaum, who we had on our show, he was the president of that union, he talked about how there were efforts by the RWDSU in order to begin unionizing several other plants across the country. So it really is interesting here, I guess, to see two different unions both working at it. And I mean, you know, that's probably the best way to go about it because we'll just see which one works out. Maybe somebody is better at it in order to make sure that happens.

You love to see an aggressive push here to try to unionize Amazon workers. And as you guys know, Amazon has tremendous impact over the nation's labor force and over wages, over working conditions. And so the fact that they have been so successful at keeping every single one of their jobs from being able to unionize has a huge impact on worker power, especially as they're this gigantic monopoly. Increasingly, there are a lot of towns out there where Amazon's the only game in town. You've got no other choice, especially if you want like a $15 per hour or more wage. Amazon is it. They use their workers, they chew them up, they spit them out. They basically, they're shop-level workers. This is one of the things

that was recently revealed in the New York Times. They have actively tried to push them out after three years. They have no intention of ever promoting you. They have this hierarchical class system where you're either one of the basically like widgets to be used up and disposed of and treated like less than a human being, or you're part of the management class that gets to ascend and do sort of like the knowledge work and all of that. So the fact that they have such a dominant position in the American economy is disastrous, not only for their workers, but it's frankly disastrous for everyone. The Teamsters is planning, part of the context here is that the Teamsters are in an election year. They're electing their president this year. And so people are campaigning on what they want to do. And so that's part of the context of this is this resolution is sort of like wanting to show what these candidates are

capable of and what they want to do. They're planning a little bit of a different approach than what the retail wholesale department store union was. They were taking on this like very, you know, shop by shop effort. And you can see the way that Amazon was very easily able to sort of rebuff their efforts. So this is reading from the Vice piece. They say that instead, the Teamsters plan to focus on a series of pressure campaigns involving work stoppages, petitions, and other collective actions, sort of militant collective action to push Amazon to recognize a union and bargain over working conditions. That tactic mirrors how the Teamsters organized their very first members, horse drivers,

grave haulers, and beer wagon drivers who didn't have union rights in the early 20th century using shop floor strikes, citywide strikes, and other mass collective action in the streets. So I guess what I would say is this. Sadly, the barriers are so high to organizing, especially at a company like Amazon, that you can't get your hopes up too high on anything like this. And frankly, you know, from the sort of top like union level down, there's only so much you can do. What you really need is like a grassroots upswell of interest in unionizing that a well-organized and well-prepared union that is laying the groundwork with the actions that the teamsters are planning on taking here can then capitalize on. So it's that kind of thing where the moment – it's not just about, okay, what are the tactics and what are the resources and all those things are really important. But you also have to have like an organic worker interest in moving in this direction.

Does that exist right now or not? It's really hard to say. Absolutely. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. While I know this is annoying, instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done,

check out the other podcasts I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. Okay, Crystal, what are your breaking points today? Well, while New York City was reaching for a real estate-friendly corporatist

cloaking himself in weaponized identitarian language, its downtrodden neighbor to the North, Buffalo, was following a very different script. So Buffalo, the faded former crown jewel of the industrial North, appears to have just elected a socialist mayor. It's first in history and the first black woman ever to head that city. Meet India Walton, the first socialist mayor of a major city in 60 years. Do you consider yourself a socialist? Oh, absolutely. The entire intent of this campaign is to draw down power and resources to the ground level and to the hands of the people. And when we think about socialism, you know, we're perfectly fine with socialism for the rich.

We will bail out Wall Street banks and give a billion dollars in tax incentives to one of the richest people in the world to build an empty Tesla factory in South Buffalo. And when it comes to providing the resources that working families need to thrive, socialism becomes scary at that point. Speaking my language there. So India Walton, she's native to Buffalo. She's experienced many of the hardships that will be familiar to their poor and working class residents. She became a mom at 14 and moved into a home for young mothers. And when India was 19, she had twin babies who required time in the NICU and routine follow-up appointments that had India bringing her babies and their medical equipment across town on the bus day after day. Her experience with the healthcare system, it both inspired her

and it distressed her. She was grateful, of course, for the life-saving care of her babies, but she also felt dismissed and condescended to and ill-equipped to make the critical decisions that would reverberate throughout their entire lives. In response, she became a nurse herself, and then she became an active member of her union, SEIU 1199. Now, in this mayoral race, India was such a long shot. She was going up against a close ally of Governor Cuomo and four-time incumbent is a guy named Byron Brown. Now, Brown had taken a typically corporate approach to Buffalo's revitalization from an aborted attempt to bring in a gigantic Bass Pro Shop to the city's storied waterfront to Cuomo's absurdly wasteful billion-dollar investment in a Tesla factory that

has not come close to creating all of the jobs that it promised. Longtime residents, they say they feel largely left out of the touted renaissance of that city. Couple that with a sense of disconnect and entitlement reflected in the fact that Byron refused to even debate India, and you've got the ingredients for Walton's big upset win. So if you're looking to gauge the mood and political inclinations of disaffected America, Buffalo is a much more representative model than New York City. In many ways, the city is a perfect emblem of the destructive forces of deindustrialization that have gutted much of the country. It is a living, breathing rebuke of the neoliberal ideology that would put a sliver of

increase in corporate profits over the well-being of living, breathing human beings. It's also one of the places where Trump initially picked up significant ground on Democrats back in 2016 with that populist pitch. Now, you likely already know the story of Buffalo because it's so similar to other cities and towns across America. It was once bustling, prosperous, host to industry and commerce, a largely unionized workforce working tough jobs, but also gaining middle-class stability. It was a glittering beacon of American prosperity with architectural beauty and a diversity of shipping and industrial jobs.

But then, according to the Baffler, between 1950 and 2000, Buffalo lost half of its population. Where it once boasted the most millionaires per capita of any city in the country, Buffalo saw its factories and preeminence as a logistics hub slip away over the decades, leaving a dilapidated core with abandoned factories, decaying housing, and deteriorating infrastructure for those who remained. Jobs were scarce, and middle-class jobs even scarcer. You can understand why their residents might be ready to try something different. But Walms not alone as a lefty mayoral candidate shocking incumbents. Working Families Party scored an upset win in Rochester, New York on that same night when voters elected Malik Evans over incumbent Lovely Warren.

A few weeks back, Pittsburgh voters chose progressive primary challenger Ed Gainey over incumbent mayor Bill Peduto. But of the three, Walton is the only out-and-out socialist. So, can she succeed? Well, it's a brutally tough job that she's stepped into. How to craft a decent life for the working-class citizens of one city when the entire American system of profits over everything is set against you. But there is a successful tradition of American socialist mayors to embrace. The last socialist mayor of a major city was a so-called sewer socialist. Now, that was the originally pejorative name given to Milwaukee area socialists who were fond in the 1930s of bragging about their city's excellent sewer system.

They preferred these sorts of practical governing considerations impacting the lives of people directly to revolutionary rhetoric and philosophical debates. Healthcare, housing, efficient public works. This practical approach paid dividends and created a long run of political success for the socialists in Milwaukee. Or you could look to the one and only Bernie Sanders. When he shocked the Burlington political establishment and knocked up their incumbent mayor, the powers that be did everything they could to guarantee his failure. An oppositional city council essentially defunded government, forcing Sanders to get really creative. And he did. He devolved power to local communities, truly bringing citizens directly into government, an approach reflected in his regular public access TV show,

Bernie Speaks with the Community. Amazing footage there, by the way, if you haven't seen it. Originally considered a fluke political upset, he turned out to be extraordinarily popular with the citizens of the city and, well, you know the rest. He ascended to the House, then to the Senate, before they finally, barely stopped him from becoming President of the United States. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, though. The bottom line is this. Yes, there are some hard lessons for the left in the New York City mayoral race debacle. But there's also some lessons in New York's second largest city

and some big questions, namely this one, can the sewer socialists rise again? And so, Sagar, I actually think there's kind of a... One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends,

where we do long-form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, look, one of the core theses of the show is that the media sucks, not just left wing media, not just right wing media, the entire institutionalized apparatus, which is supposed to give us information, but has basically become a home of institutional propaganda. Now, it's why Crystal and I have both a copy of Manufacturing Consent and Matt Taibbi's Hate, Inc. right up here on the shelves, because we passionately believe

that the only function the media serves today is making us hate each other more to cover up for the sins of the oligarchic elite. And it turns out it's not just us that thinks that. It's the entire country. We're not crazy, it turns out. The people in charge are. A new study from the Reuters Institute and Oxford University has some grim news for the U.S. media. Not only will they listen, they found that out of the 29 quote-unquote free nations across this world, the United States literally has the lowest level of trust in the media at 29%. The lowest level of the entire free world.

Yeah, we're exceptional, all right, and how much our populace absolutely despises the mainstream. And not only do we not trust the news, but the negative is also true. America actively distrusts the news more than any other major nation on Earth. 44% of those surveys say they actively don't believe what they are being told. It really is almost like the study was perfectly commissioned for this show. My personal favorite statistics within the study are surveys of ages of people and asking them whether they think the news covers them fairly.

Now, I won't surprise you. In the United States, 44% of boomers feel that they are being covered fairly, compared to only 29% who don't. Now, if you switch that around and you ask Zoomers, only 26% say the news covers them fairly, 37% saying it doesn't. Now, if you switch that around and you ask Zoomers, only 26% say the news covers them fairly, 37% saying it doesn't. Similar numbers for millennials at 37% and 35% respectively. So what's going on here? No surprise, the only people in the country who think they're being fairly covered are boomers, and even they think only somewhat. What struck me most about the study

was a nearly ever-present notion amongst those within them, amongst everyone in America who isn't a boomer, that the news sucks. Now look, I know we have some amazing boomer viewers here at Breaking Points, but let's be honest, they are few and very far between. The vast majority are content, they are locked into the cable news delivery systems, which are poisoning the country. It won't surprise you to learn, the younger you are in America, the more underrepresented in the news that you feel. Now, obviously, I identify with that passionately, but it strikes a chord to learn this. We're not the crazy ones, even though it may often feel that way. Cable news is a monopoly, but it is, at its core, a dying business. Glenn Greenwald, ever the thorn in the

side of the MSNBC media, pointed out yesterday, Chris Hayes, who's one of the top 10 most successful people on all of cable, is getting just 100,000 people under the age of 55 out of the millions who tune into a show. The same is said for Joy Reid, for Lawrence O'Donnell. On the weekend, it's even worse. MSNBC is getting only 25,000 to 60,000 people under the age of 55 when they don't have a big-name guest. Now think about that. If those were our numbers here that we're getting on breaking points, I would be living in a shack down under the bridge. And yet, bizarrely enough, the size of the audience somehow doesn't seem to matter.

Some of you might remember when we recently talked to Joe Rogan, I asked him this question. Millions of people listen to you, but also the mainstream doesn't seem aware of you, or at the very least, they try to pretend that you don't exist. Joe didn't give that much thought as to why exactly, but honestly, that's a question I'm obsessed with. If people who get millions of viewers are memory-holed from popular culture, then what exactly is going on here? And it's obvious. They're basically trying to wish-cast their old reality onto the new one for as long as they can. And here's the thing. On the one hand, things are working for them. Joe Biden is

literally the president, the definition of the old order. The Sunday shows in DC, they still matter. People make news. Reporters continue to do their jobs, running around the Capitol, asking about a January 6th commission. In some ways, our politics feels exactly like 2008. Nothing has changed. But obviously, that's crazy. We just live through a wild pandemic. We have a much younger population. The internet is where all of us consume news and share news. It feels like the old order should have already died. Now, I have no idea when it eventually will come. Personally, I can't wait. But one way of reading the survey results on Americans is that things couldn't

be worse in terms of getting information. The other is that people are more hungry than ever, that the old system is so decrepit that they're just waiting for someone to come in and kick them over. I like to think that's a small part of what we're doing here. I hope to see more of it in the future. It's pretty amazing, Crystal, to see some of that data, especially... One of our favorite guests, Dr. Trita Parsi, joining us now. He's the Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute here to talk about those recent elections in Iran and also what's happening there in Israel. Let's start with Iran. We'll put this up there on the screen from the Associated Press around exactly what happened here in the recent Iranian elections. Dr. Parsi, you were on our old show Rising talking to us often about how the Biden administration better get their act together or a hardliner was going to get elected in Iran.

I mean, is that essentially what's happened here? Like, how much more difficult is this going to be in terms of making sure that the U.S. does get back into the Iranian nuclear deal? First of all, thanks so much for having me. I'm delighted. My first appearance on Breaking Point. Delighted to be back with you guys. What has happened in Iran and why it's happened, I think, is really important to understand. First of all, these were clearly not free and fair elections.

I mean, the amount of manipulation that took place in ensuring, engineering Raisi's rise and victory was unprecedented. Nevertheless, the hardliners in Iran have tried to do this numerous times before. But this time they went much further than before for several different reasons. And one of the most important reasons was the manner in which the Rouhani government and with him, the idea of engagement with the West had been discredited as a result primarily of Trump walking out of the deal and reimposing sanctions. And then later on, when the Biden administration came in, unfortunately, roughly two months that were wasted. And we are now in a situation in

which even after the election, there is still not a deal. It would definitely have been a bump for them if there had been a much quicker return. But the real problem, I have to say, is the manner in which Trump walked out of the deal, proved the argument of the hardliners correct, which is you can't trust the United States. And let me just say a couple of things what happened with the economy over there. Ten million Iranians went into poverty as a result of these sanctions between 2018 and 2019. The middle class that constituted 45% of the country dropped to 30%. One third of it was wiped out. And I know we talk a lot about the middle class on this show.

You can just imagine one third of the middle class being wiped out. So a lot of them, and the middle class was the engine and the main constituency of the reformists and those who want to have a more open relationship with the West and a more open society internally. The manner in which they were devastated, the manner in which their leadership essentially was proven wrong is the reason, the main reasons as to why we have Raisi president in Iran. And what do you expect the policy implications of this to be? Well, when it comes to the nuclear deal, I think the Iranians under his leadership will continue to try to get back in there. The negotiations are going to are taking place right now. But I do think there is a major, major problem that has been presented here. First, from the U.S. perspective, the Biden team wants to quickly renegotiate the deal once they're in the deal, meaning that they want to make it longer and stronger. I don't see much appetite on the side

of the Raisi government to engage in such discussions. They want to see the U.S. prove that it will stick to the deal first and their idea of proving it may be two years, three years, and the Biden administration doesn't believe that it does have that amount of time. But perhaps even more importantly, I personally don't believe that we can go through this once again and just have the nuclear deal and nothing else built around it. The idea that you can have this JCPOA existing in a strategic vacuum, there needed to be at least a positive trajectory, a humble one, a positive trajectory of U.S.-Iran relations in order to protect the JCPOA. And I don't see that being very likely right now because the Raisi government, because of this past experience and because of their own suspicions, are going to

look towards China rather than the United States. And so, Dr. Parsi, put this in the context, this is what we wanted to talk to you also about, is these new elections in Israel. So let's put this up there on the screen, the Israeli parliament, the Nasset officially approving the new government. I mean, this is somebody who has already spoken about against the Iranian nuclear deal. How does this change the situation in the Middle East? In some ways, it's the beginning of a new era. Netanyahu is gone, but a lot of his policies seem to remain with us. What's your read of the situation? I think there's several different factors to take into account. First of all, yes, this benefit is in no way should perform

a friend of the JCPOA. He has spoken out against it as well. He does not have the same skills, the same experience, the same connections in Washington to be able to do damage to the Biden administration's efforts to revive the nuclear deal as Netanyahu could. So I think the Biden administration is probably taking a sigh of relief. But the relief may not be very long, mindful of the fact that the coalition that Bennett has is a very, very shaky one. It's not clear how long it will survive. Moreover, there is a broader problem, which is that ultimately, if the United States really want to resolve this issue with Iran, not just a nuclear deal, but in general,

there's going to be opposition from the Israelis, whether it is Netanyahu in power or anyone else, because what the JCPOA is, and I've spoken on the show about this before, is the exit tickets for the United States out of the Middle East. The one factor that could bring the United States back into a big war in the Middle East is Iran's nuclear program. If you manage to put that in a box and essentially resolve it, then it paves the way for the United States to be able to dramatically reduce its military presence in the region. That is not something that the Saudis want. That is not something the Emiratis want. And that is certainly not something that the Israelis want. And that's not just Netanyahu. What is your read on the Biden administration so far and

how receptive they will be to these entreaties coming from Israel? Well, I think the Biden administration has adopted a strategy that I personally don't agree with, the idea that you can just, you know, think you can treat all of those problems with Israelis behind the scenes. And as a result, the Israelis will not create problems. I think they caught a lucky break because of the internal challenges that Netanyahu had. And as a result, he was not in a position to be as problematic as he otherwise wanted to be. I mean, when he had the opportunity, when he was standing there right next to Tony Blinken, it was not supposed to be a conversation with the media about the GCK, but he nevertheless

brought it in to the surprise of Tony Blinken. So the idea that you can actually have confidence that the Israelis will agree to some sort of a quiet arrangement and as a result not pursue what they think is in their interest. I simply do not believe it unless the United States is willing to bring out some much more heavy instruments, essentially start talking about conditioning aid and things of that matter, and make sure that there are consequences for the Israelis, for the Saudis, for the Emiratis, and for everyone else who is a partner of the United States if they act in such a manner that is to the detriment of US interest. We have not seen that with the Biden administration, vis-a-vis Israel in any way, shape, or form.

Nope, not even a little bit. Absolutely. Well, sir, really appreciate you joining us for your inaugural appearance. I know there's going to be many more. We appreciate your analysis always. Thank you. Always love to see you, sir. Thank you. You too. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, everybody, for watching, guys Thank you. You too. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, everybody, for watching, guys. We really appreciate it.

Just as a reminder, you can watch the entire show uncut if you become a premium member today. One hour early. Same thing whenever it comes to audio. And we get to do weekly Ask Me Anythings, which are always really fun. We're actually just about to record it, so that's a fun thing. You guys can sign up right now. Link is down there in description. 100% powered by Supercast, who we love and are great partners with and we will see you all next week yes amas that's our that's our version of fun here it's sad but actually true

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If you want to find out more, go to crystalandsauger.com. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Update it hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7

because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and we need to talk. It's tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices,

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