Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/6/25: Elon Floats Trump Coup, Bannon Says Deport Elon, Israel Protests & MORE!

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Krystal, Ryan and Emily discuss Elon and Trump exploding, Bannon calls for Elon deportation, Israel arming ISIS and more.CodePink: https://www.codepink.org/To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is

still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7 because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Happy Friday, everybody. Emily, great to see you. Great to see you. We're waiting on Ryan Grimm, but he should pop up shortly. He'll make his grand entrance any moment now. You already made this joke. What are we going to talk about today? What's even

going on in the world? And then J.D. Vance made that joke. Yeah, just how you know that it's brilliant and original. We missed you yesterday when Ryan and I did our breaking news. So I'm excited to get your thoughts on this whole Elon Trump meltdown debacle. I mean, what are your like top line? What are your reflections on what has unfolded thus far? So this is I was wrong. I said on the show many, many times that I expected not a massive explosion in the relationship. But what we saw literally until yesterday is what I thought was

the likeliest scenario, which is that it would be a slow disentangling where everyone can save face because they both are very powerful and both have so much to lose. Now, what's interesting, I think, is all of this happened after Elon Musk came out and said he's done with political donations. And so I think the transactionality of the relationship was really hurt by the Wisconsin election that we covered and was really hurt by Elon Musk saying he can't, he's not even going to donate. And that, I think, made it easier for everything to ultimately blow up. Yeah, that changed the calculation on Trump's part, at least. And then Elon's calculations seem to be changed somewhat by Trump pulling the plug on his NASA pick. Because when Elon couldn't have his guy at NASA to shepherd through

his SpaceX contracts and whatever to fulfill his grand Mars ambitions, that seemed to have somewhat changed his calculus. Hey, Ryan, how's it going? Pretty good. How you doing? Good. So we're going to I have like one million elements pulled on Elon versus Trump to go through just things that transpired since Ryan and I did our breaking segment yesterday. We also have Medea Benjamin from Code Pink who's going to join legendary activists. They just did an action with a representative of Randy Fine's office.

He's the one who called for Gaza to be nuked. So always really inspiring. Great to talk to her. So she's going to join. That'll probably be all we get through for the free show for premium subscribers. We've got some more stuff we're going to jump into. There's Zoran continuing to get asked

his thoughts on Israel, which is, that's interesting in and of itself. We've got the KJP stuff that we didn't get to in yesterday's show because there was too much other stuff to get to. So we got a few other things and we'll take some questions from premium subscribers. If you guys want to become a premium subscriber we have brought back the monthly membership and

and if you use the code bp free you can get a free month so you can try out this lovely product that we are offering and ryan won't have to do any embarrassing ad rates which he has decided to make a threat for the audience to coerce them into. You do not want me doing that. You do not want me doing that. And in the back half of the show, we can also talk about something I just broke, which is that next week the House is planning to vote on a resolution that would deem the phrase free Palestine to be, quote, an anti-Semitic slogan. Jesus. They've tucked it into a resolution that condemns the Colorado terrorist attack in Boulder. But if you vote for that to condemn that attack, you're voting for language that says that

free Palestine is an anti-Semitic slogan that calls for the destruction of Jewish people. Wow. Wow. That is so devious to put those two things together. It's so just incredibly devious. All right. I struggled with how to start the Elon Trump feud portion. So I thought we would start with, you know, the absolute most important news here, which is that Elon Musk has unsubscribed and unfollowed Cat Turd. That's big. Truly an end of an era. That's huge. Why did he do this? He's going to miss out on all of these insights.

I mean, Katchard will still probably be in his feed, but depending on, I guess, how Elon rearranges the algorithm now for this new era. But it's pretty funny. He says, Katchard says, breaking. Elon Musk has unsubscribed and unfollowed me. Alex Jones says he's not in my Trump cult. Many large influencer accounts desperately tried to stay neutral today. I've never changed in years. If you want to criticize Trump's bill, no problem.

If you don't like Trump's policies, no problem. I'm okay with that. If you don't like Trump's tariffs, I'll listen to your side. But when you come out and call Trump a pedophile, that's when you've crossed a red line. Don't care about anything you have to say after that, Emily. First of all, it was for Elon Musk. Like it started, to be clear, Elon Musk started this by saying that tweet he posted. What was it, Monday or Tuesday? He posted one saying, I can't hold it in any longer.

The bill is abominable. What did he call it? Abominable, a disgrace. And that was, I mean, before his criticism of the bill had been muted and I would say civil and polite. And then he posted that and they could no longer do this dance pretending that they were all on the same page and it was just a happy marriage. So to go from that, I mean, this is not zero to 100. This is zero to a thousand to you're in the Epstein files. Musk created a problem for himself, which is basically I helped elect a guy in the Epstein files, despite apparently being really serious about him, said that I loved him as much as any straight man could love another man.

And then working for his administration, it just it creates a problem for himself. Yeah. Oh, no doubt about it. I can. I'll pull this up. So there's some reporting. It's been kind of interesting. Trump's response, because Elon has gone as scorched earth as you possibly can, right? Bringing in Epstein, saying you only won the election because of me, which is another admission, right, that this richest man on the planet believes that he was able to successfully buy the presidency of the United States is like also an extraordinary admission there. So he has gone as scorched earth as he possibly can. And my sense is Trump has been

somewhat restrained. Like he definitely has not gone as hard in response as Elon has. Now, maybe that's because Trump has a lot more than just rhetorical arrows that he could shoot at Elon. Right. He you know, he threatened Elon's government subsidies for and, you know, contracts for SpaceX, which would be really damaging for now we really rely on SpaceX, both in terms of Starlink and in terms of, you know, the International Space Station, all this stuff, which again, is another commentary on how much this one guy and this gigantic monopoly, like how dependent as a country we've become on, you know,

this monopoly, but Trump has the power to pull those contracts to investigate Elon ban. And I've got all bunch of, a bunch of clips from him calling for Elon to be investigated and, you know, deported for his, you know, entering the country under false pretenses or overstaying his visa or

whatever the immigration fraud allegedly is with regard to him. So maybe the reason why Trump rhetorically has been a little bit muted is because he has so much more that he can actually do to Elon, so much more heft really ultimately than Elon has. And on the screen, these are the two true social posts that Trump has. And he was responding to reporters yesterday, too. But these are the two true social posts he's posted so far. Elon, I think, is up to dozens. Like he's in the dozens. Of course, of the week, I think Politico counted like 70. And that was before yesterday. So that's which is actually a diminished pace on for Elon. But yes, no, just on Trump is what they counted. Yeah. Which is something else.

Ryan, there was Politico reporting that there was a possible detente. Signs of a truce are emerging and increasingly bitter clash. Trump projected an Arab nonchalance in an interview Thursday with Politico. White House aides, after working to persuade the president to temper his public criticism of Musk to avoid escalation, scheduled a call Friday with Elon to broker a peace. Oh, it's OK, Trump told Politico in a brief telephone call when asked about the very public breakup. It's going very well. Never done better. Trump went on to tout his favorability rating, saying the numbers are through the roof, the highest bulls I've ever had. And I and I have to go. But this morning we have reporting from Jonathan and Carl saying that, no, there is no phone call planned. Let me see if I can pull this one up as well so we can see it in a phone conversation this morning. Trump told me Elon Musk is the man who has lost his mind.

Trump did not, however, seem angry or even concerned about the feud. As he reports, there's going to be a Trump-Musk call scheduled for today. Trump told me he is not particularly interested in talking to Musk, although he says Musk wants to drag on him and that theon screwing up with doge right you certainly you certainly could although it's a it's tough because it's like people are gonna be like well who hired elon in the first place but yeah he he loves to like blame you know john bolton or whoever um and talk about them as the biggest morons that have ever existed without even like bothering to reconcile the kind of Stephen Miller wing just kind of completely unshackled? Like, was there any useful moderating force that Musk might have been playing, Emily, you think that now isn't being played? No, I don't think so. And I don't think, well, because we should just have glee.

I can't think of a way in which Elon Musk would have been a moderating force unless it was just purely on climate related provisions, like if you're disentangling Build Back Better or something like that. But I don't even know that there's much evidence he was doing that yeah we don't see any indication that there was holding back on that i mean i guess the area i would say is maybe like on the tariffs not elon specifically but having the like tech right in the coalition but it seems to me like the moderating factor on the tariffs is more the bond market than it was you know when walmart target ceos and yeah yeah so i guess we should just have immediately attacked elon musk over the tariff thing and like was talking about how he's just

an assembler and not a manufacturer um So I think they were less listening to Musk and it was more Trump hearing from, who was in the Oval Office? No, he watched Jamie Dimon on Mornings with Maria that day. That's right. And had Charles Schwab in the Oval Office. Right. He had a hell of a day.

Yeah. No, that's right. I mean, there's so many interesting aspects of this. There's also, everybody was waiting for what J.D. Vance was going to say, who was apparently hours after the internet has had everything to say about this dispute. And there's been so much back and forth and Epstein and you should be impeached. And one of the things that Elon said is that Trump should be impeached and J.D. Vance should replace him. And so this is what J.D. Vance said. He said, President Trump has done more than any person in

my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I'm proud to stand beside him. I don't know. What did you guys think of this insertion? Because I mean, part of the reason why there's intrigue around J.D. Vance is he's on the ticket because of Elon and Peter Thiel and the tech right. Like he is Peter Thiel's protege. Peter Thiel funded his Senate campaign and, you know, funded his career. And that is really the reason why he ends up being the vice presidential pick. So everyone's kind of watching like, all right, who's whose side side are you going to be on? How are you going to play this out? Because the the assumption was that he's there to be kind of their inside man and to make it so that after Trump leaves, they get their guy in the White House or at least as a Republican nominee after, you know, after Trump is done.

Well, the thing that stood out to me in that and Ryan, I'm curious because you've like literally written books about this on the left, but on the right, when J.D. Vance says to earn the trust, that to me was reflective of some type of, I think small, not significant, but some type of concern that Elon Musk could split the MAGA movement. And what J.D. Vance was signaling there is to continue to trust Trump, right? Quote, unquote, trust Trump. And that to me is very interesting that they are worried that maybe some people peel off and go with Elon. I think what we saw happen over the course of the day yesterday is basically it looked like Trump people were with Trump. They were there for Trump first and

foremost. But it seemed like there may have been some anxiety about where the Dogebros, Elon people go ultimately. The complicating factor in all this is that, you know, Donald Trump Jr. played a significant role in lobbying his father all of these, you know, oligarchs as the family is trying to kind of take what it sees as its rightful place alongside the rest of these these oligarchs. And so there's that there is that link. So it's in an unusual way and in a kind of aristocratic way, you know, brought together, you know, the families bring bring them together. So I do think that, yeah, what J.D. Vance is reflecting is the same thing that Trump was seeing, that he's winning this, that even though Elon Musk is, you know, buying ink by the barrel,

even though he's got this, like, army of sycophants out on Twitter who he pays to say nice things about him, Trump is still Trump, and Trump still captures the respect and the imagination of the MAGA movement. And so far, I don't see it. The big, beautiful bill may fall apart for other reasons, but so far it doesn't, even though this whole fight was about that, it doesn't seem, at least from my perspective, to be doing any real damage to it.

Emily, are you seeing people saying like, oh, we need to revisit this in the light of Musk's criticism? No, it's the opposite. Truly, it's the opposite. There was all of this momentum before Elon went nuclear on BBB that it was putting the screws to leadership and actually terrifying them. They were freaked out about this bill crashing and burning, which again, we've talked about many times, they need this from their perspective. It's not like an optional part of them having done all of these tariffs. It's a necessary part of it. They didn't think it would be a problem. And they were getting Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, potentially Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, but even just having Rand, Ron Johnson, potentially Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski.

But even just having Rand, Ron Johnson, potentially Mike Lee, who had been interacting with Elon Musk sort of civilly. So they were they were having real problems with this. And now what happens is Elon Musk has for MAGA. If you're worried about getting reelected by Republican voters and particularly hardcore MAGA voters, Elon Musk has made it Trump versus this disloyal oligarch. I'm not saying that's the right framing, but I'm saying that's the framing that MAGA is going to see it through now. And so it actually is going to make it easier for leadership to get a deal because now they have more leverage in that if you're Mike Lee or if you're Ron Johnson, you don't want to look like you're taking Elon Musk's side in all of this. And so I think there's still going to be significant corrections to the bill. I shouldn't say corrections. That's the wrong word. But like

corrections in their direction. They want to make more cuts. I think they're going to get that. But it's made it easier for leadership to get from point A to point B for sure, because now part of the leverage they have is you look disloyal. You look like you're siding with Elon. If you continue to publicly make all of the, create this public movement, this public campaign against BBB, you look like you're siding with Elon Musk over Trump. 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. 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 got 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. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and three on May 21st and episodes four,

five, and six on June 4th, ad free at lava for good. Plus on Apple podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the war on drugs. We are back in a big way,

in a very big way, real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit man we got uh ricky williams nfl player hasman trophy winner it's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne for brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

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It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive Vance instead, like he's kind of announcing his intentions there so fair um but you know bannon is uh is going all in going very hard in the paint in uh ways that i really can't particularly disagree with so let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what he's been saying trump should do in response to these moves by elon you don't know anything he's a know-it-all he knows some engineering don't get me wrong i give a head tip for that but he doesn't know anything about the real world

doge was for any boys this will exist well you're wrapping up in your cape tonight understand on doge there was he didn't find any fraud there's plenty of fraud out there didn't fight this is president trump's first complaint was this all bs right with the uh with with the doge the action that president trump should be taking immediately. I think when he threatens to take one of the big programs out of SpaceX, President Trump tonight should sign an executive order calling for the Defense Production Act to be called in SpaceX and seize SpaceX tonight before midnight. Seize SpaceX tonight before midnight. Seize SpaceX tonight before midnight. And look, I think SpaceX should be nationalized because it really does. This whole situation really does illustrate two things. Number one, the fact that you have Trump operating like this, you know, banana republic dictator who

will pull your contracts if you disobey him and, you know, weaponizing the federal government. Everyone just like accepts that's the way he's operating. But number two, that you have this oligarch who runs this monopoly that our country in significant ways actually truly is dependent on. So Bannon identifies, you know, pretty instinctively what even though Trump has a much stronger hand to play here, that there are weaknesses that Musk is, you know, is in position to exploit because of having this gigantic monopoly that is so significant in terms of, you know, communications with the satellites, with the space program. And so he's saying, listen, you can't let him, you can't let him continue to have these toys because he will use them against you. You got to pull the pin on this right away tonight and so that's why i also well i was gonna say

that's why i also predicted a more muted divorce i mean i agreed with everyone that a divorce was coming but like the stakes here are unbelievable and i think that's why politico is reporting that they have a call scheduled for today um because you know despite this kinetic breakup, this kinetic war that we're they're in right now, they have so both of them have so much on the line to be throwing accusations about Epstein on the Internet at each other like a bunch of teenage boys. Yeah, to me, Starlink is the one that is the real threat to sovereignty. Yeah, agreed. Like that. Well, think of what I used to communication. Think of how he used it with Ukraine. Like, regardless of what you think about, you know, the Ukraine war and whether it was our decision or not. He was like, I don't want you attacking Crimea. So you are not going to have access to Starlink for comms. And, you know, like it's I saw a stat, I think something like 90 percent of the weight that's been shot up into space via, you know, satellites has come from SpaceX.

They have really taken the lead in terms of, you know, we've we decided and this was really a kind of Obama era decision to outsource our own capacity, our own space capacity to the private sector. And Elon has become the primary, you know, beneficiary and contractor in that world. And so, you know, that's not only these whimsical flights of fantasy in terms of we're going to colonize Mars, but more immediately. It is that communications backbone that is incredibly important and he right now has control over. So Bannon immediately is like, you got to do something about this because this is a weakness that he could exploit. Although if the US is going to start nationalizing companies, I think first they've got to win the confidence of the American people that they can actually run them first you got to like get your air traffic

controller towers working like it do the do the basic stuff that we could do in the 1970s yeah effectively and then we'll talk about um going to space again um i have some more bannon here for us to react to um because i do think the things he has to say are pretty interesting so let me yeah absolutely let me go ahead and put this up he's you know and he's been critical of elon the whole time um and at times pretty viciously critical of elon um because elon is this you know has this like in my opinion evil transhuman uh like anti-human ideology that uh you know bannon also sees that way. In any case, let's take a listen to how he talks about this dispute.

Elon Musk is working for himself. President Trump empowered him more than anyone's ever been empowered in this government, had his back, promoted this guy. And when people like me who said you're making a mistake, right, this is a bad guy. He's going to turn on you. He's not with us. He's also totally incompetent. And President Trump said, hey, give this guy a shot. And I trust President Trump's judgment enough to say, as people know, I backed off a little right now. I backed off a little. But it's not about observation. As soon as he didn't think he ran the deal or got the adoration, right, that he was starting to be saying, where's the trillion dollars, right? He turned on President Trump, but most importantly, he turned on the country and the American people. And President Trump just had enough of it now. And he forced his way back in to have like some last day. They didn't want to do that, but fine. And then as soon as President Trump comes out today and President Trump saying it in the nicest way possible about right the bill but being the bank that the guy

gets up and starts the most vicious stuff you could tweet so all the fanboys defend this he accused president trump of basically being a group with those pedophiles on the island he called for he called for the president to be impeached and jdD. Vance to take his role. As hard as we've worked in all the years that we've walked in this audience's work, some punk is going to sit there and go, oh, he should be impeached. And, hey, as sure as the turning of the earth, if those progressives rub up on him and say, hey, they're never going to buy the Teslas, we're going to buy the Teslas, they rub up on him, he'll write a $500 million check for Akeem Jeffries. He'll be across the thing looking to impeach President Trump,

looking to help steal the 28th election, looking to imprison President Trump. So here's my point. Let's get ahead of it. So if those progressives, Ryan, they rub up on him, he'll be there with his $500 million check. And they're already rubbing up on him. I saw Iglesias, yeah, Rocana out there ready to rub up on

him so and he's he's saying you might get ahead of it he then he says he says we should deport him and see his companies i mean bannon does not play around this is he's he's laying down he's laying down a marker um yeah and yesterday i was saying that there was this uh he was on stage uh where somebody on stage with him had like joked about or admitted that they kind of like came in illegally that was with his brother apparently um and his he told his brother like what are you doing man like you it's not cool to like admit to that uh so yeah like steve steve miller's looking through the file as we speak no doubt about it and there's no question Miller has ordered up,

has requested like, let me take a closer look at that file. Was he going to do anything with it? I don't know. Is he looking? You better believe it. Yeah, here's what you're referring to. Bannon says they should initiate

a formal investigation of Elon's immigration status. I am of the strong belief. He's an illegal alien. He should be deported from the country immediately, he said in a phone interview. Bannon said the Trump administration should also investigate Musk's drug use

and his effort to get a classified briefing on China from the Pentagon, which was reported by the Times. Bannon said Musk's security clearance should be suspended during those investigations. And the other thing that I was thinking about, and I saw an article this morning that the Doge boys are kind of freaking out about what their status is going to be in the government now, because Elon does have in all of...

I feel really sorry for them. Big balls. It's all on the line. But Elon does have this like handpicked cadre of loyalists who are now installed in key positions all throughout the government. Sleeper cells. Sleeper cells. Deep state, you might say. They better wake up. All installed throughout the government. I mean, we're joking, but these are people who have explicitly when they came in, they aggressively sought access to these incredibly sensitive systems.

And we have very little insight or transparency into who they are, where they are, what they've been doing, what they have access to, et cetera. So, I mean, that is another thing that Elon potentially has, because those are people who, you know, most of the people who've been installed in the Trump administration, most of them are Trump loyalists, but these ones were picked to be Elon loyalists and they are now like, youge is now a way of life in the government. And so what are these people's jobs, right? Because basically there was this idea that Doge was going to kind of be under the direction of Russ Vogt, but it wasn't really going to be Doge so much as it was going to be just an administration-wide effort to make significant cuts to the administrative agencies while they have the power of the executive and to try to thwart those agencies from ever

regenerating to their previous size. If, you know, there's not a Republican president in the next four years, whatever. So what are their jobs now? Because they actually do work for the government. Are there going to be a wave of people? Is there going to be a wave of people who moved to Washington, D.C. from wherever they were, Silicon Valley, previously? Where do they end up? I mean, are they just going to quit or are they going to cooperate with, for example, the efforts at the State Department, which now oversees USAID, to keep working to figure out what that looks like in the future. I don't know. I don't think we have a good answer to that question. And some of it may be hinging on the call that Trump and Musk have today. Well, if they have, I mean, Trump is saying that's not happening. Yeah. So but who knows? He could be lying. We don't know. But he said the Xi Jinping call was, yeah, I don't know what goes on in this who knows i will say also today but what elon was sort of backing off some online too you know some like small 100 follower account or whatever was

like you guys are both better than this and elon was like you're right i'm not going to decommission the dragon space garbage was the one that like you know we used for the international space station i think that's the one or whatever but in case, so he was also trying to somewhat moderate. So maybe there are some sort of reconciliation. I'll just say Medea Benjamin is waiting to get in. So we'll go ahead and move on to to talking to her about their activism. But I'll just say neither of these men are known for like discipline or self-restraint, even that even when it would be in their potential best interest. So, you know, I would fully, personally, I would fully expect, even if there is a bit of a, like, calming of the waters for the moment and a bit of a detente, that there could be renewed flare-ups at any point in time

because that's just who these guys are. Yeah, I think that's right. 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. The murderer is my husband, I had to call 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. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st. And episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice

to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, let me go ahead and welcome Medea in here.

Hi, Medea, how are you? Good morning. I'm good, thank you. Good morning. Nice to see you. You know Ryan and Emily, of course. Say yes. Hello, Ryan and Emily. Can I tell a quick story, Crystal, before we dive in? Yes, of course. So, Medea, when I was in college, I was an intern at the American Enterprise Institute. And we used to have, I used to have to work the desk. So, I used to have to work the desk to take phone calls. And there was a sticker of people not to let into AEI. And your name was on it.

Be on the lookout. I'm down there. Be on the lookout. My name was on there? Bolo Medea Benjamin. Badge of honor. Yes, absolute badge of honor. Who else was on there? I don't remember. I don't remember.

I think it was like a handful of Code Pink people. Awesome. Love that. Love that. A testament to your effectiveness and your longtime commitment to peace and not war. And we wanted to catch up with you. You guys have been doing, you know, extraordinary number of actions and quite significant. I also wanted to talk to you a little bit about the the flotilla, the aid flotilla right now headed to Gaza, because I knew you were supposed to be on one previously. But first of all, let me let me pull up here. You all just did an action at Representative Randy Fine's office. And for

people who are unawares, he is this newly elected Florida Republican who called for Gaza to be nuked on Fox News, in addition to saying all sorts of other just outrageous and atrocious things that anyone would think would be completely out of bounds, but somehow goes with barely a note in today's climate. So let me go ahead and pull up here a little bit of the video of you all, you know, entering Randy Fine's office and what you had to say. You were not here before. We're the two people with... Oh, this is the wrong one. Hold on. Hold on. That was a different action that you guys did. Let me find it. Well, Medea, while she's looking for it, you want to tell us the only thing about the latest on the flotilla?

And we can come back. Well, it's getting close. You probably heard about the incident where they took these four people on board and then turned them over. Fished some refugees out of the water. Right, yeah. And so they went a little bit out of their way. Now they're back on track and they're headed towards Gaza. Having somebody like Greta Thunberg on board makes it very difficult for the Israelis. But what they have done in the past is board the

ships and confiscate the ship and arrest everybody on board and deport them. So that might be what they're thinking now. Of course, they've done worse than that, like they did in the Mavi Marmara in 2010 and actually killed people. And, you know, they did bomb the ships, well, with drones, the ship that was supposed to be going, the larger ship that was going to carry about 150 people. Wow. I was able to pull up that video I referenced before of you all at Randy Fine's office. So let's go ahead and play some of this. So get ready with us as we go into the office of Congressman Randy Fine, perhaps the most bigoted, hateful member of Congress.

As a Palestinian, look what I have to stand up here and show you. We are here in Randy Fine's office because we're very concerned about his rhetoric about Palestinians and other groups. I am a Palestinian. I'm a mother of four children. I'm an American citizen. All my children are American citizens. And we're walking around hearing this kind of rhetoric.

It's scary. It's. What kind of example are you giving to people in the United States, to young people? We're all responsible here. History will not look kindly. Hashtag starve away. Shameful congressman, a congressman

who says such a thing. Gaza must be destroyed. I've been to Gaza six times. I've seen the wonderful people that live in Gaza. People of Gaza are 2.2 million people. They are families. They are children. They are women. They are men. They are ordinary people just like us. And to say Gaza must be destroyed is a policy that we are now doing and we have been doing now for 19 months. And so, Medea, what sort of reaction did you get from the office when you were there? And what was your goal also to accomplish with this action? Well, we don't think that Randy Fine has gotten enough attention. I mean, you know, if any member of Congress from the Democratic side like Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar, had said one of the things

that he said, they would not only be censored, I'm sure there would be howls to kick them out of Congress. This is just disgusting stuff that he said. And the American people don't really know. So we wanted to highlight it more. And, you know, we're always trying to reach people in his district as well so that they start calling him and saying this is just unacceptable. And I think it was quite interesting because they hesitated in calling the police. And I think that's perhaps because he's new and his staff doesn't quite know the ropes. They don't have the protocols down yet. They don't have the sticker up with Don't allow this lady in the office yet. Well, you know, they do keep their office locked. You have to knock to come in and they say, oh, you know, we get death threats and we're saying,

hey, if you didn't put a hashtag starve away, bomb away, shoot away, I don't think people would be so mad at you. But the staff did listen to us. And not only that, they did give us a meeting later in the day. So we had about a half an hour sit down with some of the staff, which was quite interesting. And we've asked for a meeting directly with Randy Fine himself. So I just think it's an example of how we shouldn't let these things go by. We should contact these members of Congress. We should say that this is just not acceptable. We should be asking other members of Congress to censor them, which we have done. We file ethics complaints

constantly against these members of Congress. I must say, we almost never hear back anything. And when we do, it's just, you know, thank you very much. But again, we shouldn't let it go by. What was the staff meeting like? The staff meeting was good. It was from the communications department. They wanted to hear from us more. We asked them if they think this kind of rhetoric doesn't translate into threats against not only Palestinians and Muslims, but Jewish people as well. And isn't this harmful? What they said to that?

Well, they said that, you know, they had a lot of the standard things. One of the women there was saying that she was recently graduate from university and how Jewish students are not safe. And this rise in anti-Semitism is something that Randy Fine is trying to deal with. And, of course, we say, well, he's dealing with it in the exact opposite way. You know, they just kept saying he's trying to defend the Jewish people and, of course, defend Israel. I can't say that we moved them, but later on in the afternoon, there was somebody who I can't identify, but he came by and quietly said to us, thank you so much for coming by the office. We really like this kind of language. Wow.

We know that there are people inside all of these offices. And, you know, we hear this constantly. It's unbelievable. Certainly from the younger people, we hear it. We hear it from the front desk staff people. We hear it from the cafeteria workers. We hear it from the people cleaning up. So, you know, that's why we're in the offices every single day, because we think just our presence there is important. And that's what I wanted to ask about, because I find that so interesting. I mean, Tucker Carlson just spent a not insignificant portion of one of his shows trashing Randy Fine. And we've covered a lot of polling about the disconnect between younger and older

right-leaning Americans on the question of Israel and Gaza. And so, Medea, I'm curious how your or what you've noticed over time as you've been doing this, having conversations with people who are at least formerly very associated with the neoconservative wing, probably still are, but maybe their staff isn't. Are you noticing something different in the last couple of years, or is that just a lot of talk? What have you seen? Emily, you're right. It's absolutely changed. I mean, first is the generational divide. We see it constantly. It's very unusual, in fact, that young women that I mentioned about Randy Fimes, she was unusual in that she really stuck so much to this, you know, Israel is right. We find that not only is there a generational divide, people of color versus white people divide. You know, it is much more sympathetic among the black members of Congress, not the members, the staff people, certainly the Muslim ones, but also the Latinos, you find a lot of support among Latinos.

And then in terms of the Congress people themselves changing, well, of course, you know, we have seen this ever so slowly. I was in Tom Massey's office yesterday and actually met him and he said, I'm sure you love my tweet, didn't you? In which he said, you don't know more money for Israel. And I said, yes. That was significant. Yeah. It was significant. But, you know, we said, you've got to be working with other members of your party. We need a breakaway moment for Republicans. You know, we have about 25 Democrats who have introduced a new resolution to block the bombs. And that was started by Delia Ramirez with a number of great members of Congress. We need something like that on the Republican side. And because it's so divisive politically, even Republicans like Tom Massey or Marjorie Taylor Greene, they don't want to sign on anything that comes from the Democrats.

So we tell them, start your own. And we've been focusing a lot on Republicans going to their offices every single day, and sometimes in a more aggressive way like Randy Fine, and sometimes in a very respectful, nice way. And we you know, we say to them, Trump is counting on you to support him in the dialogue with Iran. And Trump doesn't want to see a continuation of these wars. And so you can really be helpful. We kind of, you know, swallow deep when we go in. Nice jiu-jitsu move. Got to do what you got to do. You got to do what you got to do. You got to do what you got to do. But we've seen it almost there.

What have you seen in terms of, like, public support for Code Pink and number of volunteers for these actions? You know, what is the sort of ebb and flow of that been? Well, it's just been going up and up and up and up. I mean, among younger people, people who are not U.S. citizens, it's harder for them to join us. And they tell us all the time, we wish we could be there with you, but we're concerned about everything that you can imagine. Their jobs, their student loans, everything. So it falls to a smaller number of people to do it. But we have a great group of people and it changes. We get new people constantly who go around with us in the halls every day, making the visits, doing the rounds, bringing in the latest piece of legislation, asking them to sign on to it, asking them to put out public statements, condemning things like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And in terms of the support, it's unbelievable.

I mean, members of Code Pink, we walk around in the streets and people will stop their cars to get out and give us hugs. We are constantly getting thanks from people. And it's going up and up and up. And I think it's the starvation that people just can't stand. They've unfortunately gotten used to the bombings with seeing that for 19 months, but now the starvation. And that is something I think that's hard for the members of Congress to justify as well. Of course, you know, they try to say it's Hamas and Hamas stealing the food and that kind of stuff. But, you know, it doesn't really pass the what the what test?

The smell test, we'll say. Any test. So, yes, we're getting more and more support. I don't know if you saw this, but about an hour ago, I reported that next week Congress will be voting on a resolution that will be standard resolution condemning the terror attack in boulder colorado uh but embedded in it it said it will deem that the phrase free palestine and let me put this up here the phrase free palestine is an anti-semitic slogan so um let's see yeah um uh yeah it's an anti-semitic slogan that calls for the destruction of the state of israel and the jewish people so yeah whereas while shouting free palestine an anti-semitic slogan so you've seen these resolutions a lot before that it'll say uh you know we condemn this you know truly awful thing and then they embed within within it something that they're trying to trap

Democrats and everybody else into agreeing with. And in this case, it's to agree that the phrase free Palestine is actually an anti-Semitic slogan. How do you think that'll go? Do they still have the juice that they can ram this through? Are people still too afraid of voting no and being told, how dare you not condemn this terrorist attack? Well, yes, you see how sneaky they are. But I think, you know, this kind of thing has just played out too much and doesn't have any weight anymore. It's just a ridiculous thing to do. And many times we've seen that some of these worst resolutions don't even pass. And then if they do pass, you know, they don't have the weight of law. And as soon as we hear something like that from you,

Ryan, and thank you for alerting us, you know, we'll go into Congress and we'll just be going from room to room shouting free Palestine, free Palestine. So this kind of thing can is another scare tactic. But I think we're way beyond that. And one that maybe since you just talked to people like Thomas Massey who have been against that, Medea, will be blocked by enough Republicans. I'm curious what you think about that. Yes, as long as they know what they're voting for and that we have to make sure they do. I mean, we see people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, who doesn't want to vote for these kinds of things. And so, you know, we go to her office and we alert them. We go to the other offices.

But you're right. I think there's enough Republicans that will say, you know, this this just although there'll probably be enough Democrats to push it over the top. But the first part I noticed when I after I reported it, the first person that responded to it was a was a Bannon person who tagged Marjorie Taylor Greene. Oh, interesting. Help us out here. Wow. Interesting. And what what some members do on these is they just vote present because then they're not endorsing it one way or the other. Just just to say this is a game and I'm not going to participate in it. Right. And I think, you know, that these kinds of things, they're just losing their power. And I feel like AIPAC is losing its power. AIPAC doesn't have the power to get to the president, into the White House.

AIPAC certainly, you know, I'm not saying they don't have tremendous power, but I don't feel like they can ram through things like this the way they used to be able to, because there are a couple of Republicans who are standing up. So, no, the tide is turning so, so, so slowly, but it is turning. Medea, what about on the Democratic side? I mean, on the one hand, you have more dissent from the lockstep pro-Israel consensus and pro-genocide consensus on the Democratic side. On the other hand, you have, I think, a much vaster gulf between where the elected Democrats are and where the base is. I mean, the base of the Democratic Party has basically wholesale turned on, you know, this onslaught in Gaza or disgusted with it.

They don't want weapons going. They want it to end. They want aid to go in, et cetera. have you seen a shift among Democratic members as well in the way that they're interacting with you, the way that they're feeling about how they should approach these issues? Well, as I said earlier, I think the starvation issue has really changed things. I think it has made it very, very uncomfortable for these pro-Israel Democrats to be sticking with the line that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is the way to go, that UNRWA is full of Hamas supporters, and we couldn't possibly go with that. You know, we have been pushing that Democrats have to support the United Nations. Now that we have Marco Rubio sanctioning the ICC, and now that we have this just dystopian form of, quote, getting food into Gaza, I think it's a chance now

for getting some more of these more conservative Democrats to go back to saying we have to support the UN agencies. You know, maybe they don't want to say UNRWA specifically, but, you know, we have the World Food Program, and Cindy McCain has been so good on these issues of saying that Hamas is not stealing the aid. So I think this gives us a little more opening to reach some of those conservative Democrats,

at least on this issue of starving people, is not something that the U.S. can support. And then there's also, you know, the issue of a ceasefire, which is really not, there's not a vehicle within Congress to show support for a ceasefire right now. There's only vehicles for the food issue and now this issue about banning some weapons. But we definitely need to bring back up the ceasefire. And that's tough for Democrats because, you know, they see this now in the Republican court and it's up to Trump to figure this out. And they don't want to be seen as pushing him on the ceasefire issue. Medea, do you get still get like personally nervous when you're going to jump up on stage or jump up in an audience or go into a member of Congress's

office and be like, stop supporting genocide? Like, do you have you done it so many times that you don't get nervous for these sorts of things? Because sometimes, I mean, you've been roughed up, like you've been, you know, arrested, I'm sure, countless times. Is it intimidating to you still or you just kind of it's just your day? Well, the only thing I get nervous about is that I've had a broken shoulder and it's a bad shoulder. It hurts all the time. And that's exactly where they take you to arrest you. And if they're going to arrest you in a very tough way, that can have longer term consequences. So that's the thing that makes me nervous. I don't get nervous going into congressional offices. And I want people listening to know that the vast majority of our time, we're going into congressional offices to have nice meetings.

And we want people to come and join us and not be afraid that you're going to get arrested. And we need more people. So please come join us. When we are doing something about arrests, it's usually because we are taking an extra, going an extra step and challenging them. If it's in a setting where there's a lot of security around and you think you're going to get roughed up, that, yeah, that is what makes me nervous. There was a group of doctors against genocide that was in Congress last week, and they were considering maybe risking arrest, but they decided it wasn't worth it and had been given warnings that they were protesting

by walking around in the lobby of the Hart Building with a couple of them with photos of starving children. And when they were given their third warning, they started walking out the door and maybe saying something like bread, not bombs. And seven of the doctors got arrested. So the police in the Congress are really ready to pounce on people. So we want to make sure that people who go with us who don't want to get arrested are very much aware of when you are risking and when you're not. Medea, how can people help out, join up, participate in one of your actions?

Well, thank you for asking that because there are so many ways that people can and need to participate. If you're in the D.C. area or can even come here for a few days or take your vacation time or your student recess time, come and join us in Washington, DC. And we are in the halls of Congress every day, definitely Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays, which are the days that they are in session. And you can sign up on the Code Pink website under DC Actions to learn more about that. But more important for people all over the country is to just get involved with Code Pink. Go to our website. We have very, very creative actions that we have been coming up with and asking people to do. You asked about involvement. I mean, we now have so many people involved and it's the power of the people that counteracts the power of APAC. So please go to codepink.org and join us in any way

that you can. We also have many, many chapters, I should say. And so there might be a chapter in your city. Amazing. Medea, so much respect for you. And it's always an honor to get to talk to you. So thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's our pleasure. And thank you guys for watching this portion. We are going to go ahead and transition to the premium subscribers portion of the Friday show. And Ryan will talk more about the news that he's bringing. We've got some more stuff out of Israel that we want to cover. Maybe talk about KJP, maybe talk about Zoran, take some questions.

So if you want to get that full show. Oh, that's right. We did get jobs report. Yeah, we should take a look at that as well. So if you want the whole show, the whole Friday show, sign up breakingpoints.com, avail yourself of that offer,

promo code BP free so you can get first month free. And we will go ahead and start that portion now. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Helen gone murder line on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts,

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