Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/27/25: Hegseth Meltdown On Iran, Gaza Ceasefire, Zohran & MORE!

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Krystal and Emily discuss Pete Hegseth melting down on Iran nuclear strikes, possible Gaza deal amid aid attacks, Zohran on CNN & MORE!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday, a little ladies Friday show for everyone. How's it going, Emily? It's going great. Yeah, I don't know what's up with the guys. They've been working hard. We'll give it that. We'll give them that.

Yeah, I mean, Ryan and Griffin, we're both in New York. I mean, you know, we're a lot going. It was like a hundred degrees. I am seriously, I don't know how you do in that weather. I just am not cut out for it. I wilt like a delicate flower. But you're a Virginian, so you should be used to it. I know, but I don't know.

I just can't. I don't know. There's something about the way I'm put together that it just doesn't go that well. And I'm really, and I'm a really sweaty person. Oh, nice. Oh, I sweat so, it's disgusting. So yeah, I was very glad when I saw that situation because I was tempted to be jealous

that they were at the Zoran watch party because the energy seems super fun. But then I remembered it was like a hundred degrees and was like, no, it's better for me to be here. So now I wish that I had seen you at the Sauron watch party because you're making it sound like this is like freakish like there's some genetic anomaly in your... It borders on freakish. You have to be honest with you. I don't know if there's any other swimmers out there, but the many of the sweatiest women that I know are swimmers.

So I don't know if there's something about like all that time in the pool anyway. This is way too much too much information for a Friday. You know it is, but I'm okay with it. In any case, there's a lot to get to. We've got updates on Iran. We'll do play some clips from the little Pete Hegseth performance yesterday that was kind of interesting. And we've got new potential deal with Iran, new potential deal with Israel, also some horrifying reporting from Haaretz about, and this won't necessarily come as a surprise, but they actually got soldiers to confess that the aid massacres are intentional, that they know these are innocent people that they're

slaughtering as a matter of course. So talk about that bunch of stuff going on with Zoran. Richie Torres defending him, some Republican congressmen saying he should be denaturalized and deported. You've got a bunch of Democratic leaders who are, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand just like aggressively, racially attacking him. Kathy Hochul sort of, I guess, keeping her options open. It's like, y'all, this is the Democratic nominee. Voters chose him. So what happened to the whole vote blue no matter who thing? Zorin also was on CNN.

So interesting clips there. So a bunch of stuff going on there. Donors are plotting to try to see what they can do to overcome this horrifying communist Muslim takeover of New York City that they're apparently terrified of. We've also got the Jeff Bezos wedding that you were interested in chatting about. So we got that.

We also have Peter Thiel getting asked if he's the anti-Christ by Ross Douthat. Of course. And that's sort of like, yeah. And him like sort of awkwardly contemplating whether that could be the case for a moment. So love that clip. On the New York Times podcast.

I mean, where else should you be contemplating such things? But on the podcast, why not? Yeah. I mean, Ross is in a certain sense kind of the perfect person to ask this question, right? You've also neglected to tease that we have a wonderful Eric Adams clip. It's not the best Eric Adams clip, but it's a good Eric Adams clip. I mean, the competition is so stiff that... He's now in competition with Lori Lightfoot for like greatest blue mayor.

Like it's on another level. In terms of the content, there's no comparison. You know, the searching of the child's room video is legendary. Like you can't beat that. And then the sum up the year in one word, New York, because you can see someone opening a business or the planes flying into the tower like you can't beat this guy in terms of content. You can't beat him.

Sorry, Zoran. You're cucked. Yeah. I mean, your Halal cart video was great, Zoran, but I'm sorry. You just, you can't compete with that kind of inspired content creation, truly. Can't come for the king. That's right. Yeah, that's right.

All right. So let's go ahead and jump in with some of what's going on with this Pete Hegseth presser yesterday. Should we start with him raging at his former colleagues, or should we start with his dictating that the media needs to talk more about how good our fighter pilots are? Which one do you prefer? Both are good.

Maybe we start with the fighter pilots because the Jennifer Griffin clip gets us into that question of what the intelligence actually says. Yes, very true. All right, let me get rid of my DMs here. Let me slow down to 1.0 speed. All right, I think we're ready to go. Here is Pete Hegseth yesterday.

And this whole purpose of this briefing was to rebut the idea that the nuclear program in Iran was not completely obliterated and to insist that it was and mostly to berate the media, I think was the true purpose of it. So let's go ahead and take a listen to this. How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don't know, fly a plane for 36 hours?

Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox? Have we done the story how hard that is? Have we done it two or three times so that American people understand how about how difficult it is to shoot a drone from an F-15 or 16 or F-22 or F-35? Or what it's like to man a Patriot battery? Or how hard it is to shoot a drone from an F-15 or 16 or F-22 or F-35, or what it's like to man a Patriot battery, or how hard it is to refuel midair, giving the American

people an understanding of how complex and sophisticated this mission really was. There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that because of the hatred of this press corps are undermined Because people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful. It's irresponsible. And folks in this room are privy to that information because of the proximity here in the Pentagon. It's an important responsibility.

And time and time again, classified information is leaked or peddled for political purposes to try to make the president look bad. And what's really happening is you're undermining the success of incredible B2 pilots and incredible F-35 pilots and incredible refuelers and incredible air defenders who accomplish their mission, set back a nuclear program in ways that other presidents would have dreamed. How about- So Emily, there's a lot going on here, but it reminds me so much of the attacks

that those of us who were against the Iraq War received back in the days, in the day of like, oh, if you don't support this war, then you hate the troops. You hate the troops, you hate America, you're unpatriotic. And so here he is saying, like, you know, what the media really needs to cover is how difficult these missions are. I don't doubt that's the case.

But it also gets into this is the other part of this is one of many things that have driven me crazy about the way that the administration is talking about this, is they act like it's something special for an American president to be able to drop bombs on a place. And that's actually the easiest thing in the world to do. The hard thing apparently, based on the experience of our lifetimes,

is to not drop bombs and to get us out of conflicts rather than get us into conflicts. So what did you make of Pete Hegs's little performance here? He sort of reminded me of like my basketball coach. Like how many of you have thanked the point guard for all these rebounds? How many of you have done that? Two times, three times. It was just like, from their perspective, to be honest, it's politically smart, right, to go out there, create this spectacle. And I feel like they're starting to go out there, create this spectacle.

And I feel like they're starting to do this more to stage the spectacle where you have a TV performer, like Pete Hegseth, absolutely laying into the media over something. The Colonel here is legitimate. Someone leaked part of an intelligence report. We're about to get into that to CNN and the New York Times. And it was something that said the administration's strike was not successful. Now, I'm curious whether these reporters, these Pentagon reporters allow themselves to be used as props in these spectacles going forward, because that's basically what they were. That's a big thing. But, Emily, you also have to say, I think there's two things going on here.

Number one, I don't doubt that whoever leaked this information wants us to get back into the war. I don't doubt that that's the case. Probably. But I also don't doubt that the information was accurate, because we now have corroborating information from other sources that say, yeah, the enrich uranium was probably removed. Yeah, it was not really completely obliterated.

In fact, even the things this administration has put out has not said that it's been completely obliterated. So yes, you have a motivated actor in putting out this leak, but the information is also accurate. So if you're a journalist, you have a response. Oh yeah, it's totally fair. It's not the journalist's fault.

Like you have a responsibility to put out information that is accurate and will help people understand the fact that the truth of the matter is Trump wants to claim a victory and okay, if that's gonna let him not go back to this war, which by the way, I'm still skeptical about, whatever, but it is probably a lie. And you know, so they wanna attack the media

over presenting what is in all likelihood accurate, but yes, motivated information. But almost every leak, whether it's from within the government or from a source or whatever, it's very common that it will be a motivated leak to try to achieve some information ends, you know, one way or another. So if you're as a journalist not going to publish that, then you're picking and choosing what information the American public is allowed to have access to. Oh, totally. And it's interesting to see Pete Hegseth in this situation,

because to your point, and any Trump administration official in this situation, because to your point, this is the administration that campaigned on being anti-war and the peace president or the president for peace, however they phrase it. And they now find themselves saying that the Pentagon press corps is insufficiently patriotic, which is amusing because the Pentagon press corps, I think, crystal notoriously is like intertwined with the, I don't know, what's the best way to put it, like the military industrial complex and is eager to sell stories about how incredible

these planes are, how incredible these, you know, new munitions are. And like it's, it's so to see the Trump administration then come in and say, you're not selling this war enough after, I mean, it's just, it's a kind of an interesting, like she was on the other foot moment. And I do have a lot of thoughts on the intelligence itself. I think I totally agree with you. So we should probably roll the Jennifer Griffin clip because that gets into what the administration is actually saying happened. Yeah, indeed. All right, let's take a listen to this. It's about highly enriched uranium. Do you have certainty that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordow Mountain or some of it? Because there were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there

two days in advance. Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved? Of course, we're watching every single aspect. Before he answers this, let me just say, that is a totally legitimate question. And part of what the Intel that was leaked said is that, and there were satellite images of trucks lined up to move the enriched uranium.

And there have been other assessments as well that indicate probably most of the highly enriched uranium stockpile was moved. So this is the most basic, obvious, legitimate question you could possibly ask. So let's see how Pete Hegseth responds to this perfectly legitimate, fair question being asked by his former colleague.

But Jennifer, you've been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally what the president says. I'm familiar. I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy. So, I take issue with that. I appreciate you acknowledging that this is the first, the most successful mission based

on operational security that this department has done since you've been here. And I appreciate that. So we're looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where. So she says, I did your bullshit propaganda, bro. Like, why are you coming at me? But she has also accurately reported on, you know, some of the things he doesn't want to be put out there.

And so he, you know, he takes this moment to attack her as quote unquote, one of the worst. Yeah, it's not surprising at all because everyone at, well, everyone in like Trump world already doesn't like Jennifer Griffin because she does do a lot of the propaganda to the point that you just made, Crystal. And Tucker Carlson has since reacted

by calling Jennifer Griffin a liberal. I think it's probably true that she's anti-Trump. I don't know if she's conservative or liberal, but she's definitely sort of like pro-military industrial complex and anti-Trump. So it was like, and Haiksef has attacked her before. So it was like, he was ready to just unload this years of resentment from working at Fox towards Jennifer Griffin.

Interesting that her voice sounded like it was shaking a little bit. Like she was rattled and genuinely very angry. Totally, totally fair. You are being dressed down on a actually the question that she asked him, and this is how we queued up the video is completely completely completely legitimate. There were reports obviously that

trucks were moving away from the facility facility in the days before the strikes. And actually, if you, I mean, there are a couple of ways that that could be a, that could have been a deterrent, an attempted deterrent to say like Trump don't bomb Fordow because we already moved everything, or it could be legitimate. It could be real. And the administration is using two lines. They're saying total obliteration and severely damaged. There's daylight between those. There's actually a lot of daylight between those.

So she actually was not asking a bad question, but it seems like- Yeah, and this is the European assessment says Iran's uranium is largely intact. So yeah, it's, you know, I mean, it's pretty key question when you're thinking about, okay, well, did you actually set them back and how much did you set them back by? This is, you know, a core piece of this. And you have multiple assessments, including the one our own that

was leaked to, you know, New York Times among other places that says, and CNN that says, no, the uranium stockpile is largely intact. So, you know, which underscores, listen, again, if they want to pretend that, you know, it's completely obliterated and if that helps prevent us from getting into a war with Iran, okay. But it also underscores, Emily, how stupid and pointless and risky this whole mission was and how ultimately counterproductive.

Like if your goal was to actually set them back and make it impossible for them to develop a nuclear weapon, there's no doubt that they, that failed. Like you have made it much more likely that they will rapidly pursue a nuclear weapon. The thing that had the chance to succeed was the negotiations that you yourselves blew up. So I think it is actually important for people to understand that no, not actually nothing was accomplished by dropping these bombs. In fact, you have set back your own stated goals of preventing Iran developing nuclear weapon, not to mention that you have also set back the overall global goal of nonproliferation because other countries will be looking and assessing what happened

in Libya, what happened here, what happened in Ukraine even, and the fact that we don't mess with North Korea and we're fearful to get involved in a direct fight against Russia. And they will logically come to the conclusion that the only thing that can keep the US and Israel from completely fucking with you and trying to destroy your country is by developing a nuclear weapon. The administration is in... I mean, this is why I think they put together that spectacle. Because they need answers for what actually happened. And they keep saying that that initial report, which was leaked, was low confidence. And they've been using another word

that eludes me at the moment. But it's a preliminary low confidence report. And that means they now have to convince the public that the strike was absolutely successful, but they don't actually seem to know. They don't actually seem to have the intelligence yet. And it seems, Crystal, from all of the points you just laid out, there is a non-zero chance that the Jennifer Griffin report in this case, which likely was leaked by somebody who wants more action in Iran, she was reporting that it was set back by

quote one to two months. And that's similar to the Times and to CNN. So that's why it's really getting under their skin because it undercuts the entire premise of what they did. And that's why, to your point, it was always really risky. So they need to, they really need to come up with answers. I don't think it's impossible that the program was set back years. I don't think it was impossible that it was set back one to two months, but they haven't produced the intelligence yet

to suggest that it was longer than one to two months. That's right. Yeah. Just a couple more things on this topic. So we now have reporting that the White House is gonna limit intelligence sharing with Congress. They are trying to blame Democrats for this leak. Possible, I don't know. I don't know how much access Democrats had

to this intelligence to begin with. They also are addition, sidelining Tulsi to a greater extent apparently than she already was. So they plan to limit classified intelligence sharing with Congress after leaks. Amid a political battle over what the intelligence shows, White House is expected to send four of its top national security officials to brief lawmakers.

Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe, and General Dan Cain, that he's the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You will note who was not there, the Director of National Intelligence, that would be Tulsi Gabbard. It says she testified in March that US intelligence agencies assessed Iran was not building a nuclear weapon,

and she will be notably absent. According to the senior Trump administration official, Ratcliffe will represent the intelligence community. The media is turning this into something it's not, Emily. So that is their line on that. Any thoughts on that report and on the, you know, the sidelining of Tulsi Gabbard, which is significant at a time when they're claiming also

that they're following more of her, what she would wanna see, right? Since they are claiming that this is, you know, the end of the war and the ceasefire will last forever and ever and peace will reign for all time. I don't know why you need to sideline, you know, one of your most prominent sort of anti-interventionist voices. That's a good point. I you know simultaneously love and hate these types of news cycles where

you know that it's a matter of years until you find out what's actually going on behind the scenes because people just flatly will not talk about it, about like the personnel conflicts with Tulsi Gabbard, which could be minor, could be major. She could be significantly pushing back, she could be not pushing back at all, but we don't really know right now. We just have to put together the pieces from reports from what they're saying publicly, like Tulsi Gabbard coming out and putting that post up that said her presentation of the intelligence was being misconstrued and taken out of context by the media ahead of the strike.

That was quite an interesting moment. And it came the week after she put out that cryptic video about Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So it seems that there's something serious brewing, but I don't know how serious it is behind the scenes. Yeah. And she, it could be the case too, she just like annoyed Trump. Right. Because she sort of stepped out from the, you know, she, she freelanced with that video and that pissed him off.

And so now she's just sort of like out of the in circle because certainly publicly she's been pulling the administration's line on everything and backing Trump up and claiming she didn't say the things that she said, et cetera. But it could just be he's sort of irritated with her on a personal level because she, you because she grabbed the spotlight in a way that was not sanctioned by him.

We've actually got Dave Weigel standing by to talk about Zoran, which I'm excited to hear from Dave about what he's seeing inside of the Democratic Party and efforts to stop Zoran in the general election. But first, let me just mention this. So there is reporting from CNN. and efforts to stop Zoran in the general election. But first, let me just mention this. So there is reporting from CNN,

the Trump administration has discussed a new potential Iran deal, helping them access as much as $30 billion to build a civilian energy producing nuclear program, easing sanctions, freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds, all part of an intensifying attempt to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table,

four sources familiar with the matter said. And you know, listen, who knows what they really are aiming for here? Who knows if these new gestures towards diplomacy are legitimate or part of some new ruse. But it's clear that if you're the Iranians, like, you're not going to trust these people. There's no way you're going to trust these people. And so even the framing here that they would have to offer all of these things in advance in order to get them back to the negotiating table where they previously were. And there were like, you know, indications that it was fairly close to being able to make a deal

if the Trump administration didn't have this hardline zero enrichment policy. It shows you that again, in terms of their stated goals, deal if the Trump administration didn't have this hardline zero enrichment policy. It shows you that again, in terms of their stated goals, the military action set them back from being able to achieve some sort of diplomatic solution and may have made such a thing completely impossible. And that gets again to the question of what the intelligence actually is because if Iran is coming to the table with no nuclear weapons, well, not weapons, but no nuclear capacity, no highly enriched uranium or no ability to quickly enrich uranium, then they're in a different spot at the

negotiating table. So it's just, we don't know right now. And I don't know that the Trump administration knows right now because they don't have full intelligence yet. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

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at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murderline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Well, let's go ahead and jump to Zoran since we've got Weigel waiting. Let me go ahead and welcome him in. Hey, Dave Weigel, how's it going? since we've got Weigel waiting. Let me go ahead and welcome him in. Hey, Dave Weigel, how's it going? It's good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, no problem.

You hear us OK and all that good stuff? I do, yeah. Excellent. So curious to get your thoughts. First of all, before I play any elements or whatever, I mean, what is just your takeaway of the significance of Zoran's win and decisive victory over Andrew Cuomo in this week's Democratic primary for New York City mayor?

I don't even want to argue with the hyperbole because because often people overrate I think there's an over rating of what this means for every Democrat everywhere for what it means in New York uh this city has been Democrats have been voting for progressive candidates people they thought were progressive candidates for a while since 2013, Bill de Blasio. But the amount of things Zoran did and said that the media establishment said were disqualifying and that voters didn't care about, that was fascinating. So the idea that New York Democrats say we're tired of austerity and we don't need it right now and we that I think was intensified because Trump is president and in their own strategy was always see where the puck is moving. Don't just run a 2022 campaign where you're going to apologize for there being crime run

on affordability run on housing. That made sense. But the degree to which he got more votes than Eric Adams did in the final round of voting last time, he got more votes than I think anyone who's won this primary since David Dinkins in 1989. Wow. Yeah, New York's population has grown a bit,

but the Democratic electorate has dipped sometimes. They just didn't. The idea that he was going to be disqualified by being a socialist or criticizing Israel in the ways that he was going to be disqualified by being a socialist or criticizing Israel in the ways that he was happy to do or having tweeted about defunding the police, that was significant. Just that he was not disqualified, that Cuomo was disqualified. There are so many elements to this, but just the reason he was covered as somebody who

was interesting but probably not going to win, those merits him reexamination. A lot of New Yorkers said, no, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with everything else he's saying because I want my city to be more affordable. Right. And the question now is whether that extends beyond the Democratic primary. We have this video Ken Klippenstein posted that will get your reaction to Dave of Zoran going on CNN with Aaron Burnett. Much more of this to come, surely. But let me go ahead and play this video and get your reaction. The peaks of capitalism. And I think ultimately the definition for me of why I call myself a

democratic socialist is the words of Dr. King decades ago. He said, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, there must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God's children in this country. And that's what I'm focused on is dignity and taking on income inequality. Do you like capitalism? No, I have many critiques of capitalism. And I think ultimately the definition. Yeah. Okay. He's going to get this nonstop from now

until November. Yeah, it also but look at we'll cool on the financial district. It's not that everyone who works in financial they live they live in fancier places, people who work in the financial districts. But yeah, this was not anathema. This was not disqualifying for people. And let me try not to just recapitulate the last 15 years of politics. Republicans know, Republicans who are now attacking him, they know that there's just a collapse of faith in every institution, even theirs, even the ones they control right

now. But being the party, how did Donald Trump win? Did Donald Trump win by saying, I'm going to protect Wall Street, I love capitalism? He didn't. It's assumed he loves capitalism. It doesn't say he hates it, he's a critic. But the idea of a rig system, there have been different ways to talk about that. We've had 10 years now of Bernie Sanders talking about it his way. We've had 10 years of polls. Now, Bernie's never

been in a general election where he'll beat them up with a billion dollars of ads. But polls saying, yeah, the guy who says as a socialist and he thinks banks are screwing us and healthcare companies screwing us, I agree with that guy. There's just so much overlap. Joe Rogan is very helpful here. He personifies this, but shows like this personify this. And so when I hear the Bill Act ones of the world, you shutter at that and say, well, this is going to make capital flee from from the city. from the city. There are other externalities there. But there are Trump voters. There are people who voted against Harris for Trump, I should say, in New York who voted for Mamdani. And it's in that delta. It is those people who say, yeah, all the systems are rigged. And Eric Adams, who a lot of them probably also voted for, seemed like he was bowing down to donors, cutting services, reversing promises he made when people

gave him money if you say you're against that even if you say you don't love capitalism again pretty easy for a lot of people to swallow yeah um so let's talk about some of the scrambling you mentioned bill ackman that's happening right now behind the scenes to try to you know as for an anyone but zoran effort for this fall and let's's also keep in mind, Eric Adams has a 20% approval rating in New York City. That is the lowest for any New York City mayor as long as they've been doing polling and well-earned because he is a sort of cartoonishly corrupt, likely criminal mayor.

The number of people who were like indicted or resigned from his administration in shame, I've completely lost track of at this point. He only is able to get out of his charges by appearing to make some directly corrupt deal with the Trump administration or not exactly beloved within New York City. And yet now you have business leaders who are like,

maybe we've got to just stick with Eric Adams. Cuomo has also now said he's sort of waiting to see, he's going to keep his ballot line and wait to see whether he actively competes in the fall. But you've got this New York Times report about Eric Adams meeting with business leaders who are desperate to stop Mumdani's rise. Mentioned in here is you've got the Polymarket CEO

in here among others. So what do you know, Dave, about the sort of efforts that are going on with these business leaders to try to figure out some anyone but Zoran kind of a strategy? You summed it up pretty well. They're flopping around. They're not quite sure what to do. They're looking for some Deus ex machina

that will prevent him. You even have Andy Ogles, the trollish congressman from Nashville, wondering if there's some way to deport him. There was a panic because they know that yes, Adams is- Which was so aggressive that it caused even Richie Torres to defend Zoran.

No, it totally did. Tells you how out there that was. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I do, I wonder if some of that's gonna backfire, but what they're doing right now is honestly, again, people forget the de Blasio reaction, different climate. But if you go back and read the coverage when de Blasio won the primary in 2013, because he won in large part running against Stop

and Frisk, there was a lot of the same editorializing. It was, oh, New York is going to implode, crime is going to surge, the wealthy are going to leave the city. And Mamdani, other parts of that CNN interview, which I watched yesterday, he says, one, there's data that says most people who are leaving New York are actually working class people who can't afford it. And two, they say this all the time. And the other, just to say Mamdani's premise, and this is the thing that, to be fair to

Ackman if I want to, he just doesn't believe. Mamdani's premise, I interviewed him a few weeks ago about this, is you need to prove that you vote for progressive, you pay taxes, and things get better. People have not been doing that. Every Democrat agrees. There has been this overlap between the Ezra Klein abundance people and the Zoran people, whether they like it or not, because that's where they agree. They want Republicans to not win elections

and they worry when Democrats win and screw up their Republicans win. So this is where the Adams theory is not very compelling. He's saying that the city has improved since he got elected and it has in some ways, crime is down, but it got more expensive. He has no answer for how it got more expensive. It's just the same position Kamala Harris is in last year. And the Mabdani, it's very well put by him. I don't have to

praise him too much. I interviewed him. He says it everywhere. He looks at Bernie Sanders in Burlington or progressive mayors in other cities. They have it all but successes who raise some taxes and then suddenly you're seeing more public transit. You're seeing better services if if if you gave an Ackman The chip the chance to pay higher taxes and he never had to be Well, I not be takes a subway but but see homeless people sleeping on the subway. Would he take it? It's it's a quality of life thing that mom down he's running on These folks were talking about don't believe they have a vision that socialists are just going to wreck the economy and everyone's gonna

be on the streets. This is their view of what happened in San Francisco. I get that. But the Mamdani premise is, no, we're going to raise taxes and improve things for everybody. When congestion pricing, I'm not trying to swerve too much, but talking to people when I was in New York covering this race, they were saying, that's an example. It's a tax. It has made more people go into public transit. That's been fine. There have not been crises. It's not really been working class people use who are changing their habits. It's been wealthy people who are no longer driving into the city.

They progressives, if they do anything, but please vote for us because Republicans screwed up. They need to be the party that can win and govern well. And that will include raising taxes on people. That is the premise. They just don't buy it because in their mind, every liberal city is San Francisco, but some liberal cities are Boston. Some cities are able to do this a lot better. Yeah. I think Mayor Wilhelm does also loom large over this because, but I also sense that Mom Donnie is aware of that

because as he, his communications director told us on election night that it's really important for them to talk about tangibles and deliverables instead of values, or actually Mom Donnie told us, instead of values and ideas and that juxtaposition that like it has to be about, it sort of reminds me what you're saying on the abundance front. It's like about putting things in front of people and making the social compact like more obvious so that it doesn't look like somebody is just talking about the police being racist and then crime goes up. You want people talking about the city being too expensive and having their rent go down or their rent be frozen or something like that. It just seems that he's actually sort of very aware of that dynamic too.

He is and there are people we haven't been talking about who view this in a different way, because the left is pretty global in its thinking, as you guys know. The right hears socialism and it thinks Pol Pot and the left says your socialism and thinks like Oslo or Stockholm or Copenhagen or something. And what you've seen in the last 48 hours is other elements of the right, not even going beyond what Ackman's saying and saying, this is Charlie Kirk, this is Matt Walsh,

this is Ogles to an extent, saying, well, this is what happens when you let in immigrants and they turn the city into a third world hellhole. And their premise is that is going beyond the economic argument and saying that, well, pluralism and mass immigration doesn't work and he's going to be the mayor of mass immigration that will wreck the city. He wants to bring his anti-colonial values from Uganda and India and wreck the country. I bring that up not because Ackman's saying that.

It's because there really is this cacophony of reasons not to trust Mamdani. You've seen also this comparison to London, which is very popular. JD Vance made this joke, I think, just once, but you've seen the clip a bunch of times saying what's the first Islamist nuclear power going to be? It might be the UK, because there are all these Muslims living in the UK, and there's a Muslim mayor of London. But again, I've been to London fairly recently. There are things that could improve, but people pay a lot to live there. It has congestion pricing. It has some homelessness. It has a lot of things where if you copied them in

American city, you'd say, that's working really well. And it's worth paying for all that. So that is the challenge is part of the, you're right, the de Blasio experience looms. But the first term of de Blasio, people were pretty happy with, it was the criminal justice reform movement. And this is other big topics, not much into into it. But the intersection of criminal justice reform happening just when COVID happened, how much of the rise in crime was people shutting down and social cohesion breaking down, how much of it was bail reform and things like that?

And Maandani did not run on his 2020 positions about defunding the police. He said that he's just gonna hire more people to make the city safer without fighting with the end of NYPD without shrinking it. That is important too. I want to see how that is litigated because right now there is Democrats like Kirsten Gillibrand who have not endorsed him yet are saying they want to talk to him. And I honestly have an open mind about that. I want to see as he does these interviews, he's very accessible, what he says he might tack in.

If he no longer says, hey, I'm gonna be mayor and we're actually not gonna touch the NYPD, we're just gonna hire more public safety officials. Is that offensive to Bill Ackman? Do they not trust it? Because that's actually what's been happening in places like Philadelphia and Boston, San Diego, there's other places where Democrats run things,

but you don't hear nightmare stories about how scary they are. Yeah, I mean, Bill Ackman and the CNBC crew, there's nothing that Zoran is gonna say that's gonna satisfy them. You know, I mean, Ackman has the twin concerns of like, oh my God, he's an anti-Semite and it's gonna be Sharia law.

And also that, you know, God forbid that people get taxed a little bit more and buses are free, you know, like he has. Yeah. And there's no amount of assuaging of those types that is going to ultimately satisfy them. And I don't even know that that would benefit Zoran because the fact of their free count, in my opinion, benefits him. It proves that he's uncomfortable for them. But you brought up Kirsten Gillibrand. I want to get your reaction. I'm sure you listened to her on this radio show.

I'm just gonna play a piece of it because it's like six minutes long, but you'll get a sense. So a caller calls into Brian Lehrer's radio show and is asking about, you know, oh my God, isn't Zoran anti-Semitic and what's your response to this? And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is on the show.

And interestingly, Lehrer is actually trying to somewhat defend Zoran who he spoke with and had asked some of these questions too. And the specific thing that they start getting hung up on was Zorn's explanation of why he won't condemn the phrase globalize the Intifada. And I'm going to pick up here. You can hear, I think this part that I'm about to press play on is where Lehrer is trying to say, I understand this is why people are concerned, but this is also something that he hasn't himself personally

said. So let me go ahead and see if we can start this here. That he has supported violence as that caller was asserting. Can you? it i want to talk as that caller was a certain uh... again brian i don't have all the data information and i've never sat down with mister on donnie so i don't have that meeting i'm going to have a meeting we will talk to all these things you can tell me if you the world

and i can learn a first-hand scum i think the record that i had read with global into potta specifically uh... which is have very serious meaning that are violent and destructive so which which he says and why press him on this on the show on Monday but which he says are not calls for violence because intifada is a much broader term involved in all kinds of uprisings and resistance and things like that so I just want to be clear about how at least he defines it maybe he needs to be more clear i don't mean this i don't mean that he did say

here that he didn't want to be the word police even as the mayor of new york if he's elected but i do also want to be clear and he said he does not support violent interfaith that's it so brian uh... i didn't hear your exchange with him but but if I was speaking to him directly, I would simply say that is not how the words are received. And it doesn't matter what meaning you have in your brain, it is not how the word is received. And when you use a word like intifada to many Jewish Americans and Jewish New Yorkers, that

means you are permissive for violence against Jews. It is a serious word. It is a word that has deep meaning. It has been used for wars across time and violence and destruction and slaughter and murder against the Jews. It is a harmful, hurtful, inappropriate word for anyone who wants to represent a city as diverse as New York City with 8 million people.

And I would be very specific in these words, and I would say you may not use them again if you expect to represent everyone ever again, because they are received as hateful and divisive and harmful, and that's it. So I appreciate that he told you he didn't mean that, and that's great. That's a great place to start.

And I think we would also clarify, or he was clarifying that he never said globalize the intifada. He was asked in an interview if he would denounce the phrase globalize the intifada. And then that led to this kind of conversation, you know, that you were just referring to, but that he was never out there saying

globalize the intifada. He was asked about other people who used it. So just to be precise about about what happened there yes well i believe eric of the city of diversity new york city with eight million people at the largest jewish population in the country he did not get and i think

and you can't celebrate it you can't value it you can't look it up and that's what that is the challenge that you wish you are prepared fairly best october i think october seventh it is exactly what they have felt it like you were can't lift it up. And that is the challenge that Jewish New Yorkers have had, certainly since October 6th. It is, assuming it's October 7th, it is exactly what they have felt. It is why Jewish students in our universities have felt unsafe. It is why Jewish students have felt

that their schools did not have their backs and cared about them or their learning, because the people doing these protests use words that have meanings that are far more violent and horrific than they may have intended. But when you- So anyway, we get the sense of what a Gillibrand is up to there. David,

what is your reaction to Kirsten Dillibrand, you know, picking up on this is one of the things that Cuomo and Whitney Tilson and all sorts of others in the primary tried to, you know, to corner Zoran on and to make him unacceptable because he's supposedly anti-Semite who, you know, supports violence against Jewish people. And clearly in the primary context this did not work and in fact I think it's possible actually in order to his benefit because while on the debate stage all the other candidates were clamoring for saying how quickly they would run to this or that foreign country most prominently Israel, he says I'm going to be the the mayor who stays here in New York and delivers for people including

Jewish people here in the city. A couple of things about that interview. I think the different part she says, she doesn't want to be the word police, but being mayor sometimes you have to be the word police. That's not crazy. So when I heard that bulwark interview, which is where this answer came from, it reminded me a little bit of Bernie Sanders winning the Nevada caucuses and then Anderson Cooper asking him about Cuba, not a top voting issue for Democrats, and Sanders just not backing down. And you do have that choice, right, as a politician to not back

down. And generally, Mamdani has not backed down. His answer on should Israel exist as a Jewish state has been, it should exist as a democratic state with rights for everybody, i.e. no. i.e. it shouldn't be what it is right now. It should change its constitution, basically. And that shocked people because you're usually not, you can't say that New York can win an election, they won an election. So you're right that democratic voters did not see this as a litmus test worth voting against him on. That is a factor in this race that has huge implications for- Including many Jewish voters. Including, well, yeah, look at the neighborhoods he won. And so the idea that, and this is very prominent story, is you go to the neighborhood, you

ask people if they're scared, they say they're scared. What's the context though? Six months of Donald Trump being president and Columbia University having money pulled away from it, people being deported because they criticize Israel may have visas the context changed in the last six months it went from who I feel unsafe because of this rhetoric to It looks like I'm not allowed to criticize this country anymore And I'm not saying these are different people were talking about who had these reactions, but I think my one mom Donnie Bennett for from that But to he has what is he going to choose just to not say some things

that, beyond losing votes, would make people worried? And he said this in other points, in his victory speech. He sort of needs to speak for everybody, even if he didn't vote for him. How is he going to interpret that? Does that mean he's gonna piss off some people who voted for him by not renouncing BDS, which he has not renounced, he supports BDS,

but not using some of these phrases. You don't wanna be in a denouncement with Olympics, which sometimes happens in campaigns where you're asked to announce this statement, that statement, this endorser says, isn't it crazy, did you denounce it? But again, he said in November 2020 on twitter queer liberation means defund the police and he's not running around every tv show

is saying yes i still mean the queer liberation means to police so i think he's going to be consistent as a progressive who thinks that israel's one committing a genocide two should have its government changed constitutionally, three in the meantime should be boycotted. He believes those things. There might be a mayor of New York who believes those things, which is unprecedented, but how does he express it? That's a question. The only other thing I'd say is that the interview is not very long, the bulwark interview. And if Democrats, I think are risking a backlash that will help Maandani, if they rush in and

repeat what someone else said about him and don't look at what he said, Adams has already been doing this. Adams has just accused him of saying things he never said, supporting Hamas, being an anti-Semite. And Adams is generally not very honest. But there is a risk. is a risk though, if if Maandani is called out for something he said, that's a problem. But if he's slandered, and you've already seen

Democrats are pretty sympathetic to that. And they're a little bit tired. Not all of them, but let's say 44% of New York are a little bit tired of being told, we you might lose your job will deport you will shame you if you criticize what Israel's doing. That doesn't feel very American to people. Even if they agree with like 80% of what Israel's doing. Oh, Emily, we lost you. We're not hearing you.

Here, let me pull up for you, David. I wanted to get your reaction to Kathy Hochul getting asked about Zoran so you can talk about some of how the powers that be in New York are responding. And they don't seem to be responding with a vote blue no matter who message here. They seem very much to be weighing their options, which again, it's extraordinary.

I mean, this guy won. It wasn't a squeaker. He won overwhelmingly. Democratic voters said, this is the person who we would like to see. Normally that's the end of the story in terms of the Democratic party supports the nominee. And that does not seem to be the end of the story here.

So let's take a listen to this. Will you support his candidacy and will you back him? No, the election's just concluded. I had a chance to call and congratulate him on the Tuesday's primary and look forward to having a conversation. I would say there's areas of difference in our positions, but I also think we've done have those conversations.

In the meantime, I truly am not focused on the politics. We're six months away from inauguration date, and that will determine who I'm working with for the next four years and that's important because what I'm doing on affordability and making New York City safe and making the state safe so that's my primary objective right now. So are you skeptical then of him and then also the will of New York City voters, New York Democratic primary voters, do you think that their choice is not valid? No, I don't, so you can possibly conclude that

from what I just said. I said that I'm gonna be having conversations. I wanna find out positions on specific issues. But in the meantime, we're working closely with Eric Adams, who is the mayor, who we have a lot of work to do to get through a crisis right now. We just have a lot of people in our city, under siege with excessive temperatures.

We have to keep making sure our subways are safe, building more housing on the city of Ness, which we're going to put over the finish line. So as much as there's a lot of people, perhaps even in this room, who are very focused on the politics, I don't have the lung for the duty. I focus on governing and delivering for New Yorkers and working with the people that are in government today. What do you make of this Dave? And how do you think Democrats ultimately? I mean, you have seen it. So like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer said, basically, congratulations, we'll meet with you but noncommittal. You saw Jerry Nadler come out and directly support Zoran. You actually saw Bill Clinton come out and basically say good luck in November, which seems to be a direct support,

even though Clinton was behind Cuomo in the primary. Where do you think that this is going? Are they gonna try to pull basically another India Walton, who was the lefty candidate in Buffalo, who knocked down a long time corrupt incumbent, and then he came back and was able to defeat her in the fall with a coalition of establishment Democrats or like corporate Democrats and Republicans.

It's coalition of the willing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I covered that race. And honestly, that was no offense to Buffalo, but it's Buffalo's not the media center of the world. And also Walton, the way that they went after Walton and beat her and the Democrats who ended up beating her was just going after her poverty basically just unpaid unpaid taxes then she later paid stuff like that and it was a lower profile race so they could do it

with Zoran there you just talked about all the flailing they're doing and and Adams has done some of this help Matroscon baby they've not figured out an effective line. But if you're a national Democrat, what is the risk of something this high profile ending with Democrats betraying the Democratic nominee? How does that play out in two years, four years? Look at how much anger Bernie Sanders engendered just for saying he was recruiting candidates to run for office, Democrats or independents. And he and he would tell anybody he told me but anybody who asked

him he meant independence in like a place where Democrats can't win he did not mean I'm recruiting you would run against them but you saw the knee-jerk how dare he do this he's not a real Democrat reaction the party has very little credibility left and I might be overstating it by saying very little. If it looks like it is undermining a duly nominated Democratic candidate, then it will be hurt in ways that we can't even predict right now.

And I think that's where Clinton's coming from. But what Hokel's doing, because Hokel, if I recall incorrectly, endorsed Walton but didn't do anything for her. If she does that in this race, well, the complication is that she's got a challenger, Teno Dogado, who is very pro Zoran and endorsed him already and says she should. What she's doing right now, I was giving some giving space I suppose for the Gillibrands and Hocals if they do want to have conversations with

him and say, look, this is what happened with Trump in 2016. Trump wins the nomination. And there are a lot of people who didn't support Trump who get meetings with him and say, hey, I represent 10 million pro-life voters. You should really be doing this and say this now and you should, we can't this interview answer you gave and he did like this is the thing that actually Zoran learned a lot from having talked to him in the campaign that it's not like Trump got away with everything. Trump actually did change some of his rhetoric, change some of his answers, moderate. And so if they're doing that, I feel like they can get away with that. If they, if they undercut him, it will hurt the party long-term. What would Democrats prefer? Would they prefer this situation or one where they can never win the Senate ever again because there's

a fifth, third party left wing organization that gets 15% of the vote. That is the risk. Right now they have progressives in the tent. And the best situation, I'm not telling what they do, but the best situation for them clearly is Zoran Mamdani winning the election, being successful, and in four years people saying that wasn't so bad. For the party, that's what would make sense. For some donors in the party, they don't want that. And that's complicated. But if you're an elected Democrat and you want Democrats to win elections, your choices

are sabotage him and sabotage yourself, or try to just get him to move in your direction so you're both successful. It's been interesting to see the pod bros. I shouldn't use that. It's kind of derogatory, but like, uh, we've decided bros is a slur now. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Dan bifur and others being like, well, I just think it diminishes podcasting actually, not bros to be honest. But they have sort of started saying what the hell is the Democratic Party doing in its reaction to Zoran? And that's been, I guess, Dave, I'm just curious if you think that's indicative of where other sort of younger establishment Democrats are going. of where other sort of younger establishment Democrats are going? I've been careful with this. I was joking with the editor that I probably caused myself traffic

because I think my headline said that Democrats are keeping a respectful distance and then some people said Democrats are in disarray and pointing fingers and we voted the same people. There are some suburban Democratic members of Congress who are not endorsing Mamdani. I don't think Tom Swazi ever will, for example. Even to debate what I just said, but Swazi has to win a seat that's a tiny bit of Queens and mostly Nassau County. Pat Ryan in Westchester County hasn't said something. The Mamdani, my understanding of Mamdani, I talked to him last night about this, is yes, he's going to give some people some room

to not get on board with everything, which is what, again, Donald Trump did in 2016. He is not demanding every Democrat anywhere around the country says, I love Zoro Mamdani, he's the future of the party, I agree with him on everything. That he's not doing that. It's actually us in the media who are asking Democrats

if they agree and the answers we're getting are, I guess they're in the two camps. One is, or three, one is just pure excitement like AOC. Yes, this is the way the party should go, or Bernie. One is, Alyssa Slockin did this. I was talking to Abigail Spanberger yesterday and she did this is well voters want things be affordable We learn in November. We're learning that now, which is a very diplomatic way I think that's where most Democrats will end up is I don't agree with everything

But if somebody like him can win, this is what they say about Trump, right? Like Trump's victory proves that people are worried about some of these issues and we need to we need to figure that out That is the diplomatic way to do it. The least diplomatic is the swazzy way of I can't support this guy and that camp is pretty small So right now they're still on the hill. They're gonna be chased around asked if they endorse them or not I think that'll last for two or three more days. It might pop up again because look I haven't mentioned new New York has the media capital world, but specifically, New York Post is there and Fox News is there. And the New York Post can make anything famous. So there will be news cycles where Zoran does something or something is

revealed and Democrats are asked about it. But I don't think that there'll be other stories that happen. I think the Democrats were safest will be the ones who have some heuristic that says, yeah, I see why he's winning and people are angry, but I don't agree with him on XYZ. That's where I think most of them are ending up because that's my conversation so far and that's what makes the most sense. Gotcha. All right, Dave Weigel, thank you so much for your reporting and for jumping on with us this morning. Always a pleasure to see you, sir. Thank you, no, great to do it. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories

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Interesting perspective from him about where the Democrats are right now, basically, like most of them are going to get to the slot can answer of like, well, he ran on affordability and that's what we need to focus on. So at the same time, you've got, you know, you do have these concert, you still have Cuomo hanging out there, you got Eric Adams, obviously on the ballot line. Apparently, there was some effort to try to pressure Curtis Sliwa, who's the the Republican nominee to take some Trump administration job He has ruled that out quite definitively in a very Curtis Lee walk kind of a way with rhetorical flourish. So so in any case But I think I think probably the most important point is that if Democrats really do try to rat fuck him or even appear to try to rat fuck him, then it is devastating for them because here you

have them having just lost this election and they're all running around, oh, we need someone who's younger and has ideas and that the bros are into and, you know, can win back young people and, you know, create new energy in the party. And then he shows up and they're like, nope, we want Andrew Cuomo over the sky. It's crazy. And it comes at a time when democratic leadership is already deeply unpopular with their own base. And this is what's so different. This, that's what makes this moment so different, even from the Bernie moments, from the AOC moment is that that time, most of the democratic base was still enamored with Democratic leadership.

That is not the case anymore. So you know, which is part of why Zoran is able to succeed. Even though you had all of the establishment lining up behind Cuomo and saying you can't possibly elect this guy, he's an anti-Semite, he's a radical, etc. People didn't listen and they didn't care because those leaders are now not only failed in the eyes of the broader public, but they're only failed in the eyes of the broader public but they're failed specifically in the eyes of the Democratic base. And into all of this chaos a hero emerges.

We utilize the letter F. We utilize the letter F for faith Opponents use the letter F for profanity We need to stay focused No distractions We're straight ahead And grind! Focus, no distractions, and grind! We're straight ahead! Crystal! Do you remember when he won, all the Ezra Klein's and all the like, all the centrists who were like, this guy's gonna be a national figure.

And now he literally has the lowest approval rating in New York City mayoral history. That's what's happened with him. And yet, focus, no distractions, and grind would push him to re-election in all seriousness. No, but actually it could because it depends on how freaked out they're able to make people about Zoran Mamdani. And they're going to try. They're able to get Bill Ackman into the race. It's just like, man, like, if you don't like Zoham Mhamdani in the city right now, you are absolutely cooked because you have Eric Abrahams out there chanting Focus, No Distractions and Grind in front of a crowd of boomers, seemingly.

Well, and it's just wild, the mask off with the oligarchs, because Ackman is literally tweeting out things like, I'm in group chats where we can raise a hundred million, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars for anyone who's willing to get in this race. It's like, wow, they truly think they can just buy any seat in the country, up to and including the presidency by the way, with Elon Musk.

And they're not ashamed of it. Like he has no cell phone, just put that onto the world of like, this guy wants to make the buses free and make it your rent cheaper. God, we can't have that, God forbid. So we're willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and I'm in the group text

where we're trying to control everything behind the scenes. You know, again, like that is part of the reason why so many people voted for Zoran because he represents a repudiation of that type of politics that Ackman is just openly professing to believe in and be a part of. Yeah, they've painted themselves into a corner and it's a catch-22 for them. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

You're damned from their perspective if you embrace Zoran, because they don't believe in a lot of the things that he believes in. So that's just even the ideological component, not even the political component. But if you don't, then you look like you are trying to thwart, as establishment Democrats, you're trying to thwart the will of the voters. And

so you really don't have any good options. Like if you organize an alternative candidate, it looks completely astroturfed. It looks like what they did to Bernie. And Zoran now benefits from this interesting scenario that the establishment has found itself in, where if they try to beat him with some other mechanism, whether that's a third party candidate pouring tons of money behind like Eric Adams or Curtis Lee, it has the effect of proving his point. Yeah. Hot commie summer. That's what Bloomberg's headline is. Wall Street's freaking out over hot commie summer. Incredible stuff. Incredible stuff.

Well, this is a good, well, we're gonna go ahead and transition to the premium show at this point, guys. Thank you to all of you guys for watching. And if you wanna watch the full show on Fridays, make sure to subscribe at breakingpoints.com. In the portion that's paywalled, we're gonna talk about the Bezos wedding. We're gonna talk about Teal getting asked

if he's the anti-Christ. I'm very interested. Emily's done a deep dive on this one, so I'm super excited to get her take on that. And we got a few other clips that I wanted us to react to as well, including we didn't get to Joy Reid on CNN. Sagar and I were supposed to talk to it yesterday. Talk about it yesterday. We didn't get to that.

So I want to try to get to that as well. And in case, thank you guys so much for watching and the premium portion is going to start right now. Hey, if you liked that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people. And if you'd like to get the full show, add free and in your inbox every morning,

you can sign up at breakingpoints.com. That's right, get the full show, help support the future of independent media at breakingpoints.com. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell Helen Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their

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And I'm Rick Jervis. We're journalists and hosts of the podcast, Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple of years ago, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up. But then I see, my son's not moving. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.