Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/25/24: Assange Freed, CNN Cuts Trump Spox Live, Debate Predictions, Ukraine Bombs Civilians In Crimea, Macron Brutal Defeat, CNN Blocks BP From Streaming Debate

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Assange strikes deal for freedom, CNN cuts Trump spox live, presidential debate predictions, Ukraine uses US bombs on civilians, Macron faces brutal defeat, and CNN blocks BP from streaming debate.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. Lots to get to today, Crystal. Yeah, we have a jam-packed show for real. We actually have some rare good news. Julian Assange is free. He was able to strike a plea deal with the government. We'll give you all of those details. Also, I think, I think we're going to be able to have his brother join us for a reaction to this fantastic news. So get into all of that. We also have a viral clip from CNN, Casey Hunt, their anchor melting down in an interview with the Trump spokesperson. This is we had, of course, into the first debate.

Today is the most expensive primary in history day in New York. Jamal Bowman really fighting for his political life, in particular because of his pro-Palestinian stance. Millions flooded into that race. We'll break that down for you. We also have some big news out of Ukraine. They struck civilians in Crimea. Their rationale is preposterous. Obviously, we have sort of given them a blank check and opened the floodgates in terms of what they are permitted to do now with our weapons. So extraordinary potential repercussions there. The media is airing blatant lies about a pro-Palestine protest that happened in LA.

So we will show you that video and give you the truth of what actually happened. I'm looking at how Israel lost this war in Gaza. And we are also looking forward to having Arnaud Bertrand join us to break down what's going on in France with their election. So as I said, lots to get to this morning. None of it, we're trying to figure out, is there anything we could drop? But it's also timely. It's too timely. That's right. So I'll save the pitch for too much. Just thank you, everybody, premium subscribers. BreakingPoints.com, support the show. You're going to be able to check in with us during the debate, some special coverage, and support all of our work here.

But with that, let's get to Julian Assange. Yes. So as I said, breaking news. Julian Assange is free. Let's put this up on the screen. We got a little bit of video courtesy of his wife, Stella. You can see him there being transported here. I think he's signing some sort of paperwork with regards to this plea deal.

Here he's boarding a plane. Now, the expectation is that he is headed to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands. There he will have a court hearing in order to, you know, solidify, finalize this plea deal. Then Julian Assange, after 12 years, I think seven years in Ecuadorian embassy, another five years in the UK Belmarsh prison, Julian Assange will be headed home to Australia. So just on a personal level, I mean, I've had the chance and you've had the chance to, Sagar, to interview his brother. I've interviewed his father. Julian himself is a father, a husband. He has two young children at home. So just on a personal level for this man who they have clearly tortured and tried to make an example of to discourage any other courageous whistleblowers

from coming forward, I am so relieved and so happy for him and for his family that he will be going home. Let's go ahead and put the details up on the screen per NBC News of what this plea deal entails. So he is going to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information. This, of course, is in regards to his obtaining and publishing secrets way back in the George W. Bush era, the most noteworthy of which exposed war crimes being perpetrated during the Iraq war. Worth noting, the individuals who committed those war crimes have never faced a single day in prison, while Julian

again has been locked up in one form of detention or another for over a decade. His wife, Stella, she says that she is going to continue to seek a pardon on her husband's behalf. She said accepting a guilty plea on an espionage charge created a, quote, very serious concern for journalists across the world. And Sagar, she is certainly correct about that. Of course, for Julian, he needed to do whatever he needed to do to get home to his family. His brother has talked about his poor health, his concerns that Julian would literally die in prison. I think that was very much a real and ongoing concern. He was in the midst of these extradition hearings that we had covered in the UK, Byzantine process. He had actually won on some level. He had the ability to

continue to challenge that extradition. But I watched Glenn Greenwald, who has covered this more closely probably than anyone, yesterday in his commentary. And he was saying he always doubted that the Biden administration really wanted to have the spectacle of Julian Assange on trial here in the U.S. in an election year and what that would all entail, especially given all their BS rhetoric about the free press and how much they care about that. So he was not surprised that they were able to come to this plea deal. But personally, I was because it just seemed like so hopeless, like nothing was moving, like they were so immovable in terms of changing their position here. And just so people recall, under the Obama-Biden administration, they decided that even though they also hated Julian Assange, you know, they persecuted him in their own ways.

They decided they could not prosecute him without criminalizing all of journalism. It's under the Trump administration that they shifted and actually indicted him. The Biden administration now has continued with that Trump prosecution. And now we have the news today of this plea deal. Yeah, that's right. So the details, as you said, I think what Glenn gets at, and from what I understand is correct, is that in some ways they're like the dog that caught the car. They indicted him, they prosecuted him, they went through the extradition. And they were like, oh, no, we're going to have to prosecute him. Crystal, he would have been on trial in our backyard right

here in suburban Virginia. So they did not want the spectacle of extraditing him to the United States, effectively putting a political prisoner on trial here in Washington, the DMV area. Us, every other news crew in the world would have been down there covering the trial day in and day out. It also may have dredged up some uncomfortable things about, let's say, the U.S. war in Iraq, not to mention 2016, Russia, the Hillary Clinton emails. I mean, and let's be honest, that was his real crime here, right? And part of the reason why the media and many others turned against him prior to 2000. Although I do want to note the actual charges have nothing to do with that. But in terms of Democrats turned on him in the context of the 2016 election because they were told by the media that he was on Putin's side and he was exposing things to benefit Russia, basically.

You can go and read the New York Times op-eds from 2014 up until 2050, every single one. Let Julian go. Let Edward Snowden go. They from 2014 up until 2050. Every single one. Let Julian go. Let Edward Snowden go. They didn't do anything wrong. All of this. Then WikiLeaks came out. Boom. That's it for 2016.

And now he's public enemy number one. Let's not leave Trump off of the hook and his administration. Mike Pompeo, forget landmark speech in the early days of the administration calling WikiLeaks, quote, a hostile, a non-state hostile intelligence service, effectively greenlighting like covert operations against him. There was some real fear in this country. They were actually going to try and assassinate him inside of the Ecuadorian embassy. There was a plot that was crafted. Yeah. I mean, this has been reported out. I believe it was Michael Isikoff who reported that they actually were contemplating an assassination attempt of Julian Assange in Ecuadorian embassy. Instead, they decided just to prosecute him and indict him.

Throw him in a 23-in-1 facility in the U.K., pursue the extradition. This charge in the Northern Marianas basically means he no longer has to step foot on the continental United States soil. He gets to enter his plea agreement here for the dissemination. It was a conspiracy to disseminate classified information. He'll enter his plea and he'll proceed on to Australia. One of the interesting things is we had here on our show Australian lawmakers who were lobbying for his release. Don't forget also the prime minister of Australia and others. The tides really turned where Aussies really began to view this as a matter of national sovereignty.

And there are Five Eyes intelligence, I mean, arguably one of the closest allies the United States have. You cannot drag one of our citizens through your kangaroo courts and stomp all over the First Amendment and the free press in the process. I will say just the muted reaction so far from much of the media shows they still have not forgiven him for 2016. over the First Amendment and the free press in the process. I will say just the muted reaction so far from much of the media shows they still have not forgiven him for 2016. Many of those who would have criticized this under a Trump administration are staying silent, but there is no heralding of this by so-called First Amendment free press advocates in the way that it should be. So it is definitely a travesty of justice what happened

here. He did suffer more than a decade in imprisonment and basically being pursued for the crime of putting out information and conducting journalism. So I'm glad that he's free, but it's been a long road for him. Yeah, it has been horrific. I think probably there's a sense because I do think the goal with him was to make an example of him to act as a deterrence against other whistleblowers who could courageously come forward. And they probably feel like they accomplished that goal. You know, I mean, given what Julian has been through, the way his health and his life, everything. I mean, the suffering that he has been put through is quite extraordinary and quite horrific. So they probably feel like, all right, we did enough damage here to significantly deter other

potential whistleblowers. And then as you point out, Sagar, this is turning into both a political issue because of the potential of having this spectacle of the trial on US soil, and also a diplomatic issue because the Australian government became quite adamant. And what was really significant and why we felt it was important to host those Australian lawmakers here when we interviewed them is they were across the political spectrum. They were like left and right. Yeah, they were saying, listen, we don't agree on basically anything else, but we are united in the belief that Julian needs to be freed. He needs to be able to come home.

And so when you combine those things together, that's how you end up with this plea deal. Just one more quick detail here before we attempt to bring in his brother, Gabriel. Apparently, the sentence that he is being given is the exact number of months that he served in that UK Belmarsh prison. So they can still, you know, they can still move forward with their, hey, we were criminalizing journalism here, but he won't have to serve any additional time in prison. So it is, of course, unfortunate that he was forced into this position of having to plead guilty. That's not on him. He needed to do what he needed to do to get home to his family and, you know, regain his

freedom. That's 100% on the government, starting with the Trump administration. And, you know, for those of you who believe Trump is some adversary of the deep state, Trump is the one who prosecuted him. Trump could have stopped that prosecution at any point. He could have pardoned him. There was some pressure on him at the end of his administration to do that. He didn't do any of that. So just keep that in mind as you consider who this man is and what he's all about moving forward. Instead, Julian ultimately here is being freed under the Biden administration. And that's not to give them any flowers because they also could pardon him. They could have stopped this prosecution. They could have stopped attempting to extradite him from the UK at any time. But at

the very least, it is fantastic, fantastic news that at long last Julian Assange is free. All right, let's go ahead and get to that interview with his brother, Gabriel Shipton. We are so happy and honored to be joined this morning by Julian Assange's brother, Gabriel Shipton. It's so great to see you, Gabe. Yeah, good to be with you both. Good to see you again. So I've had the opportunity to meet you in person, to interview you a number of times. I'll be honest with you, I was not sure that I would ever be able to ask you this question,

which is how does it feel to know that Julian is actually coming home? Oh, yeah, it's a pretty good feeling. We're not quite through the woods yet, but Julian's on his way back to Australia. I was in contact with him this week. You know, he was calling me every day. He was so excited about getting on that plane.

A little bit anxious, but very excited about getting on that plane and making that long journey home. He's got one stop left before he gets home. He's going to stop in the Mariana Islands, which is the closest US territory to Australia, where hopefully a judge signs off on the plea deal. And then he can get back on a plane and do the six-hour flight back to Australia. So yeah, it's an overwhelming feeling. So many people around the world have worked so hard to get to this moment. Your coverage of Julian's case has been absolutely awesome. And yeah, so many thank yous and shout outs to go out to everybody who's been advocating for Julian for so long. Well, we appreciate that, Gabriel. Just tell us a little

bit about the process here. So as you said, Julian has got to arrive in North, I believe, in Saipan. He's going to enter the U.S. courtroom and enter the guilty plea. What is the process then for his release? Will it be immediate? How many days can we expect before we see him on Aussie soil? It should be an immediate release. We're expecting him to arrive in Australia Wednesday evening Australian time.

Yeah, so the deal, I mean, I can't comment too much about it, but the deal is it's for time served. There's one count under the Espionage Act for possessing and publishing classified material. And, yeah, he'll be released with time served and he should be able to just get back on that plane and head directly to Australia. So yeah, credit to the Australian government as well, who have been working hard behind the scenes to engage diplomatically to get this all organized, as well as Julian's lawyers. What is your sense, Gabe, of what ultimately

led to the pressure that was able to secure this deal and hopefully, fingers crossed, Julian's freedom? Well, there was a bit of a ticking clock, I think, because we had a high court appeal hearing, or Julian had a high court appeal hearing coming up on the 9th and 10th of July. And the high court in the UK had drilled down on the freedom of expression grounds related to the extradition, that Julian would not have enjoyed freedom of expression rights if he was extradited to the United States. And I don't think the DOJ really wanted to be fighting a freedom of expression case in a UK court during an election year. But there was consistent pressure from the Australian government, as well as in Congress, actually. You know, Julian's constituency in Congress has been growing and growing and growing.

So I think there's all of these things. Julian wouldn't be free without any one of them, but it's definitely the Australian government who have been working the levers and sorting out all the little bits and pieces to make this happen. So they were a very, very big part of it. Well, and certainly credit to you. I know you've turned your life upside down to fight for your brother's release, your father. Of course, Julian's wife and his family have been a pivotal part of marshalling that support and keeping Julian's cause alive. I know Stella said that she was going to continue to seek a pardon for Julian. She said that accepting a guilty plea on an espionage charge, quote, created a very serious concern for journalists across the world.

And I wonder if you could just comment on that. Yeah, so I guess the political position of the Biden administration has long been we can't interfere with the Department of Justice process. Now that firewall is gone, once this plea is accepted. So really it's up, potentially up to the Biden administration to really hit this home and do a pardon. They don't really have anything to hide behind now with this DOJ process. So they can, the president can be, has a chance to be magnanimous and do a pardon for Julian.

And I know the press freedom organizations and institutions like the New York Times would probably be very concerned about this precedent that has been set. So it's up to the Biden administration now to wind that back with a pardon. Yeah, we would hope so. Last question for you on my end. What can we expect? What is Julian's next plan? Does he just want to spend some time with the family? What is he looking forward to from whatever you can tell us?

When I was speaking to Julian, he was looking forward to visiting some of the places he knew from the time when he lived in Australia. He's been detained in the UK for the last 13 years. His health is not in great condition, so he needs some time to rest, to recuperate. He loves the Australian birds. He loves hearing the Australian birds, so I'm sure he'll be out in the bush somewhere listening to birds and going for a swim in the ocean and doing all those things, you know, all those simple things that have been denied to him for so long. Spending time with his two small children, Gabriel and Max, my nephews, his wife, my dad, they're all going to meet him on the tarmac when he lands. So yeah, hopefully happier times ahead for Julian and our family. Undoubtedly. Gabe, I am so happy for you on a personal level. I'm so happy for you and all of

your family. Please pass along that message to Julian as well. And thank you so much for taking a few minutes. I know you've got a lot of demands on your time today, so we're really grateful. Thank you so much. It's not often I get to smile through a hole. I feel the same way. We're very happy. And thank you for all everything that you guys do, too. We appreciate you, sir. It's great to see you. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this

day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero. She was stoic, modest, tough.

Someone who inspired people. Everyone thought they knew her. Until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh.

I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Yeah. Now, I'm curious, do they, like, rap along now?

Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now, too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's, like, he's a legend so he gets it what does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family it means a lot to me just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better so the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us.

To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.

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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. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. Somebody violated the FBI, and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees. The FBI went around to all their neighbors and said to them, do you think these people are good Americans?

It's got heists, tragedy, a trial of the century, and the goddamnedest love story you've ever heard. I picked up the phone phone and my thought was, this is the most important phone call I'll ever make in my life. I couldn't believe it. I mean, Brendan, it was divine intervention. You can now binge all 10 episodes of Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, it's time to get to the presidential debate, which will happen on Thursday. We'll have live coverage here on breaking points. And ahead of that debate, there's been a lot of eyes on the

network, on CNN, who will be hosting this exclusively, two of their anchors, CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. So ahead of that debate, CNN itself has been hyping this up. This is one of the biggest things that's ever happened in the history of the network. They're selling all this premium advertising. And so ahead of that, they have on the Trump National Press Secretary, Caroline Leavitt, for an interview on the early show with Casey Hunt. And lo and behold, a showdown happens in which the Trump campaign press secretary, doing what basically all Trump campaign press secretaries have always done, which is attack the mainstream media and going after CNN as a bias network because it is the one

that is hosting that, brings that up in the course of that interview. This invites a nuclear scale meltdown on behalf of the CNN host Casey Hunt, who says he will not attack my colleagues, dumps the interview and cuts it off. We have the full clip here, so we're not editing anything out of context. Let's take a listen. President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network on CNN with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years and their biased coverage of him. So President Trump is willing to bring his message to every corner of this country, to voters, to ensure that he wins this election. So I'll just say my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I'll also say that if you talk to analysts of debates previous, that if you're attacking the moderators, you're usually losing. So I really want to focus in on what these two men are going to do and say. It does seem as though many

Republicans have set the bar very low in terms of arguing that Joe Biden is basically senile. Now you have people like Doug Burgum coming out and saying, well, President Biden's very accomplished, trying to set expectations in a different place. What do you expect from Joe Biden? Well, first of all, it's to take someone five minutes to Google Jake Tapper, Donald Trump, to see that Jake Tapper has consistently. We're going to stop this interview if you're going to keep attacking my colleagues. Ma'am, I're going to stop this interview if you're going to keep attacking my colleagues. Ma'am, I'm going to stop this interview if you continue to attack my colleagues. I would like to talk about Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who you work for. If you are here to speak on his behalf, I'm willing to have this conversation.

I am stating facts that your colleagues have stated in the past. Now, ask for this debate. We're going to come back out to the panel. Caroline, thank you very much for your time. You are welcome to come back at any point. She is welcome to come back and speak about Donald Trump. And Donald Trump will have equal time to Joe Biden when they both join us now at next early later this week in Atlanta for this debate. Our thanks to Caroline. All right. So there it is. I mean, look, it's par for the course. If it's one

thing, if it's totally out of control, whatever. But Crystal, to me, you people signed up to host the debate. Then you invite the campaign press secretary on. Yeah, the lady's going to attack the moderators. And by the way, they should attack the moderators, not just for that, but I think you and I will be dissecting quite a bit of the bias in the questions immediately afterwards, shall we? I know that Carolina and I will agree on the nature of the bias. We may not agree on the nature of the bias, but I think we can all agree there's some bias that is happening here. And so to me, this is just such a ridiculous posturing of like, we are the ones, we are allowed to set the terms. You're not allowed to criticize our moderators.

You can't come on here. We're just going to dump it out immediately from this interview, from this position as if they're like godly kings who are above the fray. And like that attitude just pisses me off so much that somehow I am now on the side of Miss Caroline over at the Trump-Russell-Turk. I mean, the self-righteousness meter is just going up on the charts. Like, okay, relax here. Just chill. And so we watched the clip that was going viral on Twitter together yesterday. I was like, I want to watch the whole interview before I judge because it's possible they were going on for five minutes and Caroline kept going in on Jake or whatever. And Casey got to a point, okay, well we're done with this, but it wasn't like that. What we showed you was basically the entirety of the exchange that they had. There was a little bit more before that,

but that's it. So, I mean, I don't know. I find the whole thing silly. Also, from the Trump campaign perspective, like, this isn't the Presidential Debate Commission anymore. So it's not like they're being forced into, you know, being on a network or having rules that they didn't. You agree to that. Like, you and Joe Biden crafted these rules and accepted them. So it does bring a little hollow to the complaints. Of course they're going to do it. Like, it's par for the course.

They're also trying to set the expectations low. They're trying to say, like, listen, if Trump doesn't do well, it's because you guys are so biased. So that's part of the game that's being played here. But, you know, if you're CNN and you're trying to persuade people that you're going to take a neutral, even-handed approach, I don't think that this probably really helps your cause. No, absolutely. Yeah, thank you for that, right? And look, you are correct. It wasn't actually all that crazy. It was just like, hey, Google Jake Tapper. And also,

from the CNN perspective, like from Casey Hunt's perspective, she doesn't like Donald Trump. She would find it to be journalistic malpractice if Jake Tapper and her and Dana Bash and their other colleagues weren't critical of things that Trump had done. So to say he's been critical of things Trump has done, I mean, I don't think anyone could deny that. And I don't really think even that that's an insult even. The whole thing, it's just theater. It's like, why are we not accepting that we're playing this play? But that's why the elitism of it drives me crazy.

They're like, no, we're going to dump out of this because we're like god kings that are totally above criticism. It did invite some interesting reaction from Steve Bannon, who invited Caroline on his program, War Room, immediately afterwards. And he actually suggested Trump should pull out of the debate entirely. Let's take a listen. But I want to get to the heart of it is that how are we possibly having a debate with a network that's not it's so biased that they show absolutely no respect to the president's national press secretary. When you were bringing up what we refer to as news items, it is a news story and a news item that Jake Tapper hates President Trump and has a history of on social media. Same with Dana Dana Bash. How can they not address that? And why are we in Atlanta, ma'am, with CNN, who controls the microphone on Thursday? We're headed to Atlanta Thursday night,

but CNN showed their hand with me on their network this morning. The fact that they cut off my microphone simply for repeating words that Jake Tapper himself has said lies about President Trump. So Jake Tapper can go on the air and spew those lies all they want. But when I simply try to repeat them, which is relevant because he's a moderator at Thursday's debate, they cut me off and kicked me off. Cassie Hunt owes you an apology. CNN owes you an apology today. And we don't get that apology to Caroline Leavitt and to the Trump campaign and to MAGA today. President Trump should cancel this. It's not three on one.

They have the entire news apparatus because she had to produce, you know, Caroline, you've done so much TV. She had a producer in her ear saying, you know, cut her off. Steve Bannon is laying the ground there, possibly for pulling out of this. CNN issued a statement. Let's put it up there, on the screen. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are well-respected veteran journalists who have covered politics for more than five decades combined. My goodness. Maybe that's part of the problem. They have extensive experience moderating major political debates, including the Republican primary debate this cycle. There are no two people better equipped to co-moderate a substantial and a fact-based discussion.

Hmm, interesting. Especially when both have been caught perpetrating several hoaxes. But hey, you know, it's just me saying that, not anyone over at the Trump campaign. I will say, I do think that what Bannon's comments reveal is there is some nervousness. The truth is, is that Trump was so desperate to debate Biden, is that he, in my opinion, made a mistake. He said, I will debate you anywhere, anytime, anyplace, any network, any rules, which basically gave the rules over to the Biden campaign. Yeah, and Biden kind of called his bluff. Biden called his bluff, intelligently, I think. And let's put this up there on the screen. So the

actual debate rules, again, this is just my opinion. I'll lay it out. I'll give you my opinion. The final debate rules are this. There'll be two podiums. There'll be no props or notes. Each person is going to get a pen, a pad, a bottle of water. All mics will be muted except when it's their turn to speak. Let's return to that because that's very important. CNN, of course, saying RFK Jr. is not going to qualify for the debate. The key mistake, in my opinion, Crystal, is stopping the microphones from being open at all times. Traditionally, that's what most debates have looked like, especially the ones that Trump has participated in. In my opinion, he does his best work off the cuff. So if we look at some of his flagship moments from the three debates

with Hillary Clinton, the big one that most people remember is because you would be in jail. Off the cuff comment made against Hillary Clinton in this debate, that's literally impossible. Now, the counter to what I'm saying is that his first debate was so awful because he was so annoying and he was interrupting Biden the entire time that this time Biden can hang himself. But let's be honest, Joe Biden has locked himself up in Camp David for a week straight just to prepare for this debate. He's getting good sleep. He's surrounded by his family. He's going to get plugged full of every drug known to man before he goes up on anything. I don't begrudge it. I want to try that cocktail. I kind of want to be like the enhanced games. I just want like I'm fine with everybody being drugged up, but just tell us what you're doing because then maybe I can do this.

I want to see what both of these gentlemen are on. Regardless, I think Biden is going into this with a position of strength in terms of the rules himself and not to mention the debate moderators themselves. They've claimed they're not going to do any live fact checking. We'll see, like Miss Candy Crowley back in the day. That was a great moment. Maybe. I think actually one day we should talk about it because I think that was a major event in media history. What will happen as a result of the Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderators controlling the mute button,

basically in conjunction with the Biden rules now that have been negotiated. None of this, again, just my opinion, is playing to Trump's strengths. The other one that's not playing to Trump's strength is Trump, he's a showman. Even whenever I was in the press corps, he would pack that building with 200 reporters and he loved playing us off each other. He would look for laughs. He likes the crowd. It's just going to be the mods, the camera guys, and the two candidates. Their staff are not even allowed in the room. That's just a, it's a weird environment. I think you and I are used to it, but people who are showmen in front of thousands of people who do big rallies, not, it's, it's a very uncomfortable thing that,

again, I think plays a little bit more to Biden's comfort level as opposed to Trump. So right now, I think the debate rules are very much stacked in Biden's favor. So I disagree on the muting the mic part. Because for Trump, what does he need to do? He needs to appear like he's not insane. Like just like he can keep it on the rails. He's not totally unhinged. And having the mics muted will keep him hinged or appearing more hinged. I think the big problem for him is the lack of an audience because you're so right. He loves that. He feeds off a crowd. He and he gets react. He's so funny. Like he is even like me who hate him. Like I laugh at

he's funny and it's unintentional. And so regardless of what the room looked like, like getting those reactions from the crowd really shapes the way people perceive how the debate went. So if he has one of his one-liners or says something that's, you know, comedic and there's zero because there will than if you have a room that even if they hate him, they can't help but laugh at what he's doing or react or, you know, groan or whatever it is, whatever response it is that he's trying to elicit. So in my opinion, that's the bigger fail for him in terms of the rules. I also think, and maybe we can get into some of the clips now, but I also think clearly with the Caroline going on and the way Bannon's talking about it, et cetera, Doug Burgum, the way he was talking about it, they realize that the expectations are way too high for Trump. Yeah. Because everyone thinks, myself included, like this guy, when he's on his game, he's one of the best ever in terms of his debate prowess.

You know, some of those 2016 moments are legendary in the Republican primaries and against Hillary, legendary, right? So the expectations for him are sky high. Meanwhile, they've been spending years at this point, clipping all the very worst Biden moments. And let's be real, there are plenty to choose from. But, you know, Biden is not always just wandering around confused, listlessly and unable to form a sentence. It's spotty. So at times, like a State of the Union, he kept it together. He did just fine. So the expectations for Biden have been set like below the floor. And he's got the, you know, most of the media outside of Fox News on his side. So if Biden is even just able to keep it together, appear like he's lucid, formulate some semi-coherent sentences, he's going to be

declared the winner. Yeah. And so what we have here, so Trump himself has recognized this. And one of the under-noticed parts of the All In podcast, I have the quotes here in front of me. He says, I happen to think he's incompetent for a lot of reasons, but it's got the worst policies. However, he said, Trump said that Biden destroyed Paul Ryan in the 2012 debate. He says, I assume he's going to be somebody that will be a worthy debater. I don't want to underestimate him. That's from Trump's own words. So he is very much trying to lay the ground. But regardless, I mean, the media moment, this is part of the issue too with Biden and with just dementia in general. It's like people are not out all of the time. Every once in a while, under the right conditions, it looks okay.

Biden has a history of rising to the moment, these big moments. He's got the March 2020 debate versus Bernie Sanders, held it together. Boom, that was it. Super Tuesday, wiped the floor with Bernie and he wins the primary. Same in the State of the Union. I would say in general, in the debates, he did okay in 2020. Didn't do bad. Most of the attention was then on Donald Trump. And then there was a whole Trump getting COVID thing, which was crazy. And Biden just rides it all the way to the basement. So in this case, Biden's in strong ground. Again, in my opinion, I think the rules are to the basement. So in this case, Biden's in strong ground. Again, in my opinion, I think the rules are to his benefit. I think the environment is to his benefit.

He's got a week of debate prep. All he has to do is just delay those concerns about his age in the two biggest stages that he'll be able to occupy. He doesn't have to do three debates. He doesn't have two. These are all things that really work to his benefit. So we will see. I, again, don't think people should, quote, unquote, underestimate Biden because if he's got enough time to prepare, and it's only 90 minutes. It's not that long with two breaks for commercials.

So at the end of the day, you assume the other guy is speaking for half the time, 45 minutes. He did longer than that on the State of the Union. I think you'll be okay. And I think that's a problem for Trump, again. So as Crystal said, let's get to some of the Union. I think you'll be okay. And I think that's a problem for Trump, again. So as Crystal said, let's get to some of the clips. We pulled some of the examples just from the prior debates. There is, of course, I think what nobody will ever forget was the very first debate, Trump coming out of the gate and just going insane against Biden, trying to interrupt him at every turn. Let's take a listen. You should go out and vote. You're in voting now. Vote and let your senators know how strongly you

feel. Vote now. Make sure you, in fact, let people know you're a senator. I'm not going to answer the question because the question is, the question is, the question is, will you shut up, man? Who is on your list, Joe? This is so right. Gentlemen, I think we've ended this. This is so unprecedented. He's going to pack the court. We have ended this segment.

We're going to move on to the second segment. That was really a productive segment, wasn't it? Keep yapping, man. The people understand you. It was basically that for an hour and a half. Yeah, I mean, it was so annoying to watch. It was so unwatchable. It was so irritating. And I mean, everyone basically agreed that Trump did not. Except Trump. Trump thinks that he did. Of course. But I mean, that's what he claims publicly. But it was this was very one sided in terms of the media analysis,

in terms of the public perception of how that debate went. And Joe didn't really have to do anything because Trump just was so over the top. Who knows what he was on during that debate? But whatever it was, they need to dial that back. A little bit too much Sudafed. Way too much going on there. Description European medication. There were two other moments.

Let's go ahead and play the first one. The Proud Boys one. I remember that one got quite a bit of attention. I believe that was debate two. Let's go ahead and play the first one. The Proud Boys one. I remember that one got quite a bit of attention. I believe that was debate two. Let's take a listen. Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland? Are you prepared to specifically do it? I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.

So what are you saying? I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace. Then do it, sir. Say it. Do it. Say it. Do you want to call him? What do you want to call him? Give me a name. Give me a name.

White supremacist and right supremacist. White supremacist and right supremacist. Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. Somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the left. All right. Y'all remember that one?

Yeah. Well, and they did. They were ready to go on January 6th. They actually took that as a call to arms, by the way. I have an enduring memory of January 6th. Coming to work, coming to Rising, being on a scooter, and actually scootering past some Proud Boys who recognized us from the show. And I remember being like, huh, that was interesting.

And then the events of that day played out. So that's one of my January 6th memories. Yeah, they were. They were right by our studio, actually, which is right next to the National Mall. Then we'll go to the abortion section. That was another critical one. Obviously, presaged a lot of the debate, a lot of the political reactions and events of the eventual Biden presidency. Let's take a listen. I will tell you very simply, we won the election. Elections have consequences.

We have the Senate, we have the White House, and we have a phenomenal nominee, respected by all, top, top academic, good in every way, good in every way. In fact, some of her biggest endorsers are very liberal people from Notre Dame and other places. So I think she's going to be fantastic. We have plenty of time, even if we did it after the election itself. I have a lot of time after the election, as you know. The president also is opposed to Roe v. Wade. That's on the ballot as well in the court, in the court. And so that's also at stake right now. And so the election is all ready to be done. You don't know it's on the ballot. Why is it in the ballot? Because you said it's not in the ballot. It's on the ballot in the court. I don't think so. In the court. There's nothing happening there. Donald, would you just require from me?

And you don't know her view on Roe v. Wade. I don't know her view. So there we go. That ended up being pretty important. Yeah. Claiming we didn't know what Amy Coney Barrett was going to do on Roe v. Wade is absolutely preposterous. I think those three actually kind of sum it all up, which is abortion ended up being the most consequential issue of basically the entire Biden presidency. The Proud Boys thing basically was ahead of January 6th. You can litigate that shit all you want, okay? All I'm telling you is that voters are very upset,

at least about the Stop the Steal stuff, which we saw in 2022. And then we also see the Trump personality conflict that comes into play. So that kind of sums up 2020 that eventually became pretty important in 2020 or throughout up until today, 2024. Now remember though, let's be honest about where the race stands. Trump right now is probably at least coin toss and or in my opinion, has the edge. Let's put this up there. The RCP polling average in every single battleground state, every battleground state together, it's Trump plus three. But in Arizona, Trump plus five. Nevada, Trump plus four. Wisconsin, tied. Trump plus 0.2 in Michigan. Trump plus 2.8 in Pennsylvania. Trump plus six

in North Carolina. Trump plus four in the state of Georgia. Now, listen, this could all be totally wrong. Remember, the polls were dramatically in favor of Republicans ahead of the 2022 election. Biden could shock and surprise all of us, but we don't have enough evidence to say that that is almost certainly the case. We have too many confounding variables, and it's too much of a toss-up right now as to where things stand. The last thing I'll say is this, just remember, all political science tells us that debates don't really matter that much. And this is the earliest presidential debate in modern American history. It is June, we are months ahead of the election. All the debate

literature that we've looked at, Crystal, that's from October, from two, three weeks out. Statistically, most Americans don't start paying attention to the election until exactly three weeks before election day. So, I mean, this is so early that both sides have an ability to recover. I would call it a wash regardless of who wins, unless something really crazy happens, which almost never does. So what is your prediction? Do you think the polls move at all? Do you think they move permanently, temporarily? There's no real movement. What do you think? And who do you think that ultimately is perceived as winning by the majority of people? The media is so desperate to paint Biden as the winner. All he has to do is be articulate for 45 minutes. So I think he's going to quote unquote win by default

by just outperforming expectations. I agree with that. That's why we were very clear here. It's like, look, you know, the way dementia and being old and all that works is sometimes they're good and sometimes they're hot and sometimes they're not. And I think in general, he's got a pretty stated record of being able to do this. The environment is correct. One week with family. I mean, anybody would be feeling good. One week with family, not doing any work, sleeping whenever you need to, doing just this one thing, relaxing, being around your kids. That sounds like an ideal environment for anyone.

So I think he's going to come into there well-rested and probably ready to go just to speak for 45 minutes. That's basically all he needs to do. Will it result in a bump? I don't know. I mean, I just think that macro conditions are going to be important. Don't forget this too, Crystal. We still got the whole DNC, which you and I are going to be on the ground for. What if that erupts into total chaos? We can have a Chicago moment. So then this thing won't even matter at all. I just think this thing is so early that there's just no way to know right now. Yeah. So my prediction is Biden does exceed expectations, does enough to be perceived by the media and lauded by the media as the quote unquote winner. Although that could, I mean, I'm not saying that's a hundred percent because you could also have a situation where it's a total disaster for him.

And I think if it's a total disaster for him, I think he takes a hit in the polls and I'm not sure that he does recover from it. Because here's why this debate to me is probably more consequential than your average presidential debate. It's because the concern about Joe Biden, if you look at the word clouds, if you look at what voters, it's that he's too old. It's so, like, his ability to perform in this kind of setting is so central to voter concerns about him that I do think this debate has the potential to be consequential in a way that debates, frankly, typically aren't. So if it's a disaster, I think it's very difficult for Biden to recover from. If he does well and exceeds expectations, I think that's probably more of a temporary lift of the sort that we saw from the State of the Union. So he got a bump

after the State of the Union, but then it faded away. I think it's probably similar here where people would feel like, okay, maybe he's got a little more on the ball than I thought. You get a little bit of a bounce in the polls, then 18 more media clips come out of him like wandering around and being confused and doing his Joe Biden old man thing. And that polling bump fades away. So that's my prediction. That's what I think is most likely to happen is that he does well enough to exceed the on the ground level expectations that has, you know, that are set for him. He gets a temporary bump in the polls. Polls even are a little bit ahead of Trump in terms of the averages and that that sort of fades off over time. That's what I think. But who the hell knows?

Yeah, exactly. Well said. All right, let's get to AIPAC. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day.

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Lots going on in Ukraine. This was a shocking development that happened just yesterday. Let's go ahead and play some of this video. This was released from the beach in Crimea. These are American missiles launched by Ukrainian military at a civilian beach in Crimea that, according to the Russians, killed women and children. Now, we'll see the official death toll and all of that has not yet been released. However, we do basically have confirmation from the Russian and the Ukrainian side that such a strike did happen, which we will get to. It immediately invited strong condemnation from President Putin. Let's put this up there. He says that Russia knows perfectly well who was behind the Ukrainian

attack on Crimea, and it was not Ukraine, then threatening retaliation against NATO assets all across Ukraine that are there to quote unquote training and equipping. Now, one of the ways that you're able to confirm that such a strike happened is that the Ukrainians are bragging about it. Let's put this up there and let's really spend some time on this. This is from an head of office of an advisor to the office of President Zelensky. Here's what he says. And he says it in English. So let's be clear about who this is targeted to. There are not and can cannot be any beaches, tourist zones, and other fictitious sites of peaceful life in Crimea. Crimea is definitively a foreign territory occupied by Russia where there are hostilities and a full-scale war. The very war that Russia has unleashed for

genocidal and invasive purposes only. Crimea is also a large military camp and warehouse with hundreds of direct military targets with the Russians are cynically trying to hide and cover up with their own civilians, which in turn are considered to be civilian occupiers. Where have I heard such rhetoric before there, Crystal? And this is the thing, is everyone, all of the Ukraine supporters will be like, what, you want them to fight fairly? And it's like, well, okay, fairly means you're using your own weapons. You're using our weapons now, and you're using it, you know, at least in this case, to openly target, quote unquote, civilians on a beach. Why should we have any confidence, by the way, in your targeting ability if this is what you're using it for?

We're the ones who are responsible for this. We're paying for it. We're funding it. We're, in some cases, directing it and telling them where all of the targets are. The Pentagon, I mean, one of the things that came through in the Discord leaks was the extent to which the Pentagon is basically carrying out and running all Ukrainian ops right here out of Northern Virginia and out of European command in Germany. So what we see clearly here is that we are allowing this to happen. We are allowing this to spiral. The Pentagon too, let's put this up there. Just look at their own rhetoric after they were asked. They say, Ukraine may fire into US provided missiles into Russia, wherever it is, quote, coming under

attack. And then here it gets even dicier because this is Crimea. Now, look, I'm not saying it's just that Russia, you know, is occupied and has annexed Crimea. I do know that most of the people there consider themselves Russian. So you take that for what it is. I'm not going to, you know, take a side either way. I am going to say that if you're going to bomb, you know, civilian beaches and then claim that it's totally okay with our weapons, we should probably have some say about that. And the crazy thing is that our say is, yeah, that's absolutely and totally fine. I mean, that statement is so disturbing and perplexing on so many levels. First of all, he says Crimea is definitely a foreign territory occupied by

Russia and therefore, you know, the civilians are quote unquote civilian occupiers and fair game. I thought you all still consider Crimea to be part of Ukraine. Well, yeah, that's right. And you consider these to be like, you know, your people. It's fake. I mean, and obviously, like, this is the same logic that allows targeting of civilians that not only Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu and co use when they say, hey, we need to talk more about this concept of innocent civilians. Or when Herzog says there are no uninvolved civilians, it's their logic. It's the logic of Osama bin Laden. It's the logic of

basically every evil bad guy in history who wants an excuse to murder civilians. And these are our supposed great humanitarians on the side of the good, you know, the goodness and the light, the Ukrainians with our weapons. So there's just, there's the logical and the moral piece of this is outrageous. And then I'm just looking, what are we playing at here? Like, these things have potential consequences that are massive that we seem to continue to sleepwalk into. And I see very little, I see no media discussion, debate. I see no dissent whatsoever from mainstream channels about this extraordinarily dangerous policy, which is an outrageous

escalation, which could have dramatic consequences, right? We don't know where this is all gonna end up. And we just act like this is nothing. If the Biden administration announced this policy from the very beginning of like, yeah, sure, have our weapons and bomb Russia or bomb civilians on the beach in Crimea, there would have been at least some like, whoa, what are we doing here?

But because they've done like the frog in the boiling pot of water and just continually turn up the temp and turn up the temp and continue to ship more and more web, oh, we'll do the long-range missiles, it turns out. All of those supposed red lines that were set at the beginning, those are all gone now. But since it was done gradually, everyone just accepts it. And it makes me feel like I'm crazy watching this unfold. You should be and feel crazy because what do we hear every single time that the Russians, by the way, terribly hit infrastructure and kill civilians?

Oh my God, these Russian genocidal invaders are killing power station employees. Yeah, it's bad. That's, it's terrible. Missile went off and hit a park in the middle of Ukraine and a child was killed. Awful, right? And that's part of the moral high ground which they play into and why a lot of Americans still have a lot of sympathy for them. But now you're doing the exact same thing. You're terrorizing civilians in Crimea, allegedly, by the way, your own

citizens. Or are they not? Are they citizen occupiers? Which, what are we talking about here? Right. Again, shows the farce of that whole situation. And then, not to mention, all of those border towns, which they have used drones and now situation. And then, not to mention, all of those border towns, which they have used drones and now are weapons to target into, they have, you know, it's like a free-fire zone. You think they're doing a good job in terms of their targeting? I go and I go on Telegram every day and watch the videos of the fallout from these things. There are civilians who are killed all the time.

Now we're basically just doing what they are doing. So then what are the Russians going to do? The people with superior manpower, nuclear weapons, they're just going to take even more of the gloves off. And I'm like, OK, forget it. You know, we're just going to go all out. Who is going to bear the brunt ultimately? It's the actual people who are caught in the middle, the actual civilians, allegedly who

the Ukrainians are trying to liberate and save, except not really because now they're literally going to kill them. I mean, it's just, the whole thing is a joke. It makes everything much more dangerous for us. Already, Putin's saying that he is going to target

NATO assets. You know, the rhetoric right now coming out of Russia is terrifying. Everyone's like, oh, they've been saying it for two years. Only needs to go bad once.

At the meantime, by the way, I couldn't help but flag this one. Jake Sullivan and the White House bragging. Let's put this up there. The U.S. will fund the printing of more than 3 million textbooks, Crystal, for Ukrainian students to use in the coming school year after Russia escalated its attacks on Ukrainian

printing facilities, which were used to print Ukrainian propaganda. Russia struck that largest printing house in Kharkiv just last month. Jake Sullivan puts this out basically with no like read of the U.S. domestic, the U.S. domestic context and is bragging about how this is an effort to prop up Ukrainian civil society and how this demonstrates like U.S. will and resolve in backing Ukraine. We're paying their janitors. We're printing their textbooks. And look, I agree it can be trite sometimes of like, we're spending all this money over there and we're spending all this money over here or not spending any money over here. But in this case, it's actually true. Where I grew up, Texas, College

Station ISD, I remember my textbooks were falling apart. I asked, apparently most people, you know, they still have that experience in school. These kids are getting brand new textbooks on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer. What's happening here? If you're, you know, you're having trouble, your kids or whatever, you're paying tons of money in property tax, et cetera. And you're watching 3 million Ukrainian kids get free books from the U.S. taxpayer. How do you feel about that? It pisses me off. I think it should. Yeah. I think there is a real sense of like, okay, you guys legit are more committed to the populations of Ukraine. It's true. And it's just hard to disagree. It's really hard to disagree when you see where the money goes, when you see where the, you know, focus and attention goes,

when you see where the like, I mean, you know, John Kirby up there getting into tears about what's going on in Ukraine. When's the last time you saw a U.S. official in tears about something that was happening to someone here? Literally. Or were they, you know, called an emergency session of Congress to make sure we pass funding to make sure people here have health insurance

or childcare or any number of other things that American housing could really help with? Right. People just died last week of fentanyl. It's insane. I was just looking at some of the stories coming out of Los Angeles and San Francisco. This is horrific stuff right here in the USA. They don't care.

And then, you know, just to take it back to like the AIPAC block and what we were just talking about there, even like the money that's being spent and the focus and attention in elections is on, he has wrong think on our policy vis-a-vis a foreign nation, as if that's just so outrageously out of the bounds of discussion and conversation in American politics. It really is wild. It really is priorities turned upside down. And, you know, this is sort of, I think this is a very bipartisan and correct sense of the priorities of Washington. And then even beyond that, it's just, we're playing such a dangerous game. We're playing such a dangerous game and just hoping we can continue the provocations and Putin's just going to continue to bluff and never actually make good on the threats.

And that's quite a bet to take. And for what? For what? Like, what is the plan here? Where is this going? No one can tell you because there is no plan. The plan is just to muddle through, hope it stays the same, hope Joe Biden can get himself reelected and then figure it out on the other side. The last thing I'll say here is, you know, with regards to the strike on civilians in Crimea and describing them as quote unquote civilian occupiers, I do think that Israel, I don't think they put out this statement if Israel hadn't, you know, just gotten away with bombing civilians over the course of nine months. Yeah, you're probably right. And justifying it and the U.S. press covering for it and the Biden administration obviously covering for it and continuing to ship those weapons, et cetera. Because how can anyone in the Biden administration say like, oh, you can't use this rhetoric and this is wrong, et cetera,

when, okay, well, what about your good buddies over here in Israel? So that's the way that, you know, when these things get justified, it's not, it doesn't stay localized in Gaza, right? We see that with the potential expansion of the war into Lebanon, too. The bombing and targeting of civilian infrastructure, the massive death of civilians, the starving of civilians, all these things have been normalized now. And other leaders around the world are paying attention. We have zero moral high ground to stand on now and lecture anyone about humanitarianism, democracy, human rights, or any of the rest.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to come back and bite us, and it already has, so. So as we've been covering here, Emmanuel Macron called for snap elections in France, which has unleashed all kinds of very interesting chaos into that political system. We're very excited to be joined this morning by Arnaud Bertrand. He has been really invaluable in terms of understanding what's going on there. He's an entrepreneur and a geopolitical analyst and hails originally from France, so has some extraordinary insights there. Great to meet you, Arnaud. Good to see you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah, it's our pleasure. Let's go and put this tear sheet up on the screen here. We've got from the Financial Times some indications of where the polling is. Effectively, Macron's party is getting destroyed, both by the far right group and by the left coalition. The sort of center right party is getting even further destroyed. And they're at the bottom there, you can see as well. Just give us a little bit of background, Arnaud, on why Macron called these snap elections

what he thought would happen and how it looks like this is going to play out. Yeah, so, I mean, no one really knows why. That's the thing. Everyone in the French political system is really surprised by this action by Macron. Even in his own camp, there are many people on record, you know, saying that was a very, very bad idea. So there are a lot of speculationulations as to why they did it. One very popular speculation is that he gave an extremely short timeframe for the other parties to organize themselves

and he assumed that they wouldn't be able to organize themselves, and specifically that the left wouldn't be able to form this coalition that they indeed formed, the Popular Front as they called it. So I think his calculation was that a big share of the left will join him in a coalition in the center rather than ally with the far left. And so, you know,

he will have a left center coalition and people will go, and voters will vote for that. But it didn't work out that way at all. All the lefts formed this popular front on his left in the left with very little support. Got it. Arnaud, can you tell us then about what the subsequent fallout and the implications of this election could be if the Macron party does suffer the defeat that they're expected to? So there are several possible scenarios.

One scenario is that either the Rassemblement National, which is Le Pen's party, wins the decisive majority in the French parliament, or the left does. In that case, it's pretty simple. There is a government, a Rassemblement Nationale or a left government that is formed. Or there is another scenario, which is that no one has a clear majority, in which case things are much more complicated,

because then there would need to be some alliances between either the Rassemblement National, meaning Le Pen and Macron, or the left and Macron, but both have said that they don't want to do that. And so we might, probably the most likely scenario is some sort of paralysis where no government can be formed because they don't want to align with each other. In that case, we could actually face the situation where France doesn't have a government at all. And how does that work?

Well, we don't know. It will be unprecedented. Literally, it will be the first time in the history of the French Fifth Republic. So we will see, I guess. Uncharted waters. Talk a little bit about the way that Macron has positioned himself. We've talked some about his immigration positioning here. I know that's been one of the key concerns that has led to the rise of Marine Le Pen's party, the far right there. How has that played in?

Has that been as central an issue as it's sometimes portrayed? What's your perception there? Yeah, immigration is a very big deal in France because, I mean, that's always been the big theme of Le Pen, of course, for the past, well, ever since the father. So they've been making it their central theme for decades, maybe 40, 50 years. And the thing is that it always was a very important preoccupation for the French. And election after election, the parties that got elected,

always, you know, fairly centrist parties, either on the center-left or center-right, did nothing to alleviate that concern by French voters. And I think, you know, at some point,

people are like, okay, like, we voted for those parties for decades, and immigration has kept getting up, and it's actually at the highest level ever today under Macron. And so at some point, you know, they decided to try the only thing that they haven't tried, which is the Rassemblement.

So it definitely plays a big role, but it's not the only thing, of course. Yeah. Well, one of the things that we are wondering here is about how this will have implication also for French foreign policy. So we saw some news, we can put it up here, on the screen about the National Front and how it may, they said here that the future prime minister, if elected, would end the policy of supporting the creation of a Palestinian state. Obviously, that's with respect to Israel. How would it also apply to the conflict in Ukraine?

Well, that's also rather unclear because historically the Rassemblement National is relatively close to Russia. At some point, they even were financed by a Russian bank. They got a loan from a Russian bank to finance their party because no French bank wanted to finance them. But lately, they've done a bit the same as Meloni in Italy, which is, you know, goes on closer to NATO and, you know, backing Ukraine and so on and so forth. So I think the most likely scenario is that on that front, on Ukraine, they will turn out to be closer to a Melanie than Orban in Hungary, for instance. And how about with regard to Israel? What did you make of that shift away from a two-state solution?

Yeah, so with regards to Israel, they are very clearly pro, not only pro-Israel, but pro Netanyahu, which would be a very, very big change for France's historic diplomatic position. always been more on the side of the Palestinians. It's not for nothing that you have Jacques Chirac streets in Ramallah, which is in the West Bank, a Palestinian city, because there was always that pro-Arab diplomacy by France. So it would be quite, even though Macron is already quite pro-Israel, a Rassemblement National government would be, you know, even probably the most pro-Israel governments in the world. Lastly, Arnaud, for an American audience, you know, we try to draw, are there any parallels here? You know, what does this potentially mean for Joe Biden, the way he's perceived? You see similar, you know, energy that led to the rise of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and some of the, you know, populist directions.

And in the U.S., do you see parallels there? What are some of the lessons or potential sort of canary in the coal mines that we should be looking at here? Yes, I think there are some parallels. I mean, immigration is also a big thing for you guys, right? And also in general, I think at heart, what is the key issue is that you have traditional parties that in France, and I think it's also largely the case in the US, have done little more than manage decline. At least that's the way it's perceived by the French population. They've done little less than manage decline for decades.

And so, you know, year after year, you see the French living conditions deteriorating, especially the middle class, which is freaking. And so, of course, people don't trust the traditional parties anymore and would rather go towards, as we call it, the extremes, because that's the only thing, again, that they haven't tried. And so I guess the lesson is, you know, pay a lot of attention to looking at what people actually want, what are their real concerns, and deliver on that because otherwise, you know, they will turn for much more radical solutions.

Well, that does sound very familiar. Indeed. And you would think that would be very simple. Just, OK, we'll look at what people's concerns are and maybe try to deliver for them. But it seems to be beyond the capabilities of French leaders and American leaders as well. Arnaud, it's so great to meet you. Thank you so much for your analysis today. We've found your Twitter feed to be incredibly important to our understanding of what's happening.

We highly encourage everybody to go and follow him. Absolute must follow for all geopolitical events. We appreciate you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. All right, before we go, we were dealing with something a little bit behind the scenes about streaming the debate.

So we plan on streaming our analysis here. However, as you guys know, CNN has the quote unquote exclusive rights since they're the ones who are holding it. Now they have given permission to every major news organization in the U.S. C-SPAN, ABC News, Fox News, even Fox News have permission. So we got a weird email today at Breaking Points from YouTube basically asking us and reminding us to confirm copyright policies. So I'm freaking out a little bit. What's going on? I work. I get the email for the

head of CNN communications. I'm not going to read her name here, but I'll just read you the email that we wrote her and her response. I said, hi, Sagar and Jetty here from Breaking Points, news show hosted on YouTube, et cetera, reaching out on the advice of YouTube for permission to be able to stream the debate on our YouTube channel, as has already been granted to other news organizations in keeping standing with the norms around presidential debates. Please advise if we have permission to stream this debate with our commentary in keeping with the fair use doctrine. Here's CNN's response.

Hi Sagar, the debate will be available on CNN's YouTube channel. We are not offering the feed for other YouTube channels. So that's it, Crystal. Despite the fact that they are giving permission to every other major news organization, they are effectively stifling all of independent media by banning our ability to stream the debate on YouTube. So look, we will do a before stream and an after stream. We'll do our best, but this is outrageous. It is a total violation of any of the norms and the spirits around presidential debates. And if it was,

it'd be one thing if they said, no, it's all going to be on CNN. But you're allowing freaking Fox News and everybody else to play this, but not us. And Tim Pool show who also reached out to CNN and got a similar response. It's total bullshit. It's an attack basically on their nascent competitors. It is an attack on independent media. There's no other way to read it because like you said, listen, this is part of the fallout from them going away from the Presidential Debate Commission now that it's like this just private agreement between the parties. They decided they could do whatever they want. And what they wanted was to allow their direct competitors in cable news to be able to stream the debate, but not us and not any other YouTube creator.

So it is outrageous. It does feel like a direct attack. We're of course going to do, you know, great analysis beforehand and afterwards, but that's the reason why we will be unable to stream the actual debate on our channel. Although every mainstream outlet will have access to it. That's the landscape we're playing in here. That is just a stab in the front. It's like, you're going to give it to C-SPAN. You're going to get to Fox News, ABC News, all the, by the way, those are your actual competitors. Those are the people you're competing against for ad dollars. This is just a screw you. They're doing it because they can. And so look, it's outrageous. Support us if you can, guys, breakingpoints.com.

We'll have the stream before, we'll have the stream afterwards. This is something that we really wanted to do, but they explicitly, CNN is not allowing us to do so. So we're going to keep in that, you know, with, I guess, what the legal consequences, in my opinion, is a total violation of all the norms, fair use doctrine, etc. Maybe we would win in court, but by that point, it wouldn't. Yeah, we don't have the capacity or the resources to go up against, you know, billion dollar massive media conglomerate. It's outrageous. It's totally outrageous. Anyway, we'll see you later. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country

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Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct.

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