Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/3/25: Trump Says Don't Cut Medicaid, Scahill Reveals Hamas Strategy, Dems Turn On Israel
Episode Date: July 3, 2025Ryan and Emily discuss Trump tells GOP don't cut Medicaid, Jeremy Scahill reveals Hamas strategy, CNN shook at voters turning on Israel. Jeremy Scahill: https://x.com/jeremyscahill Will Chamber...lain: https://x.com/willchamberlain 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.
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Happy Thursday.
Welcome to Breaking Points.
How you doing, Emily?
Doing well.
We're on the cusp of the 4th of July,
so that's great news.
We are, all right.
So today's program, we're gonna start
the big, beautiful bill,
which I guess Chuck Schumer changed the name,
but we're still gonna call it that anyway,
because we don't have any other name for it. Trump's bill. Let's go with that. I guess Trump's bill
is as we speak, cruising towards passage, there's Hakeem Jeffries is speaking and there's all kinds
of kind of parliamentary stuff that they're tying up, but it's going to pass. So that's going to
happen. Yeah. Mike Johnson secured the votes. He did some arm twisting into the wee hours of the morning,
4 a.m. Scott Perry had to drive back to Pennsylvania to get new clothes after vacation.
He's like York, so that's like, people commute from York, practically. So we'll be joined by
Will Chamberlain, kind of a MAGA man about town, right? One of the leading MAGA kind of figures in
Washington, I would say, who's going to kind of tell us
why this is actually a good thing that this is happening.
Yeah, we're absolutely going to hear from Will about why the right is absolutely happy
about what's happening right now.
Which I'm glad because it's one of those moments where I just genuinely don't understand it.
I usually like disagree but understand.
I have no idea why they like this thing.
I'm looking forward to hearing from Will on that.
Then we're going to be joined by Jeremy Scahill, who's been talking to sources within Hamas
and other resistance organizations about their response to Donald Trump's new ceasefire
proposal.
We'll get details from him on that.
After that, we're going to bring in Mehdi Hassan. We've got three guests today. He's going details from him on that. After that we're going to bring in
Mehdi Hassan. We've got three guests today. He's going to be in the studio.
There's been this bubbling scandal for a very long time where the BBC
commissioned an extraordinary documentary on Israeli attacks on the
medics and doctors, the medical community in Gaza, and has been refusing to air it.
It finally aired on Channel 4 after they just said, fine, we are not fine.
You can take this somewhere else.
We are not running it.
Mehdi Hassan bought the global rights for it, for Zateo.
And so we're going to play a little trailer from that, talk about the scandal, talk about
how that whole thing came about. We've got an update on alligator Alcatraz
and Kilmar Abrego-Garcia as well. His case, there's news out of that one. Plus, we're
going to talk about Zoran Mondani's response to Donald Trump saying he's going to arrest
him and deport him and
how it kind of points away for Democrats to be a less awful party.
Yeah.
And a party that you could actually imagine being excited about.
It's just a really interesting topic to be able to talk to you about after you've written
books on this exact topic.
Yeah, it's nice to see it flourishing a little bit.
Yeah.
So we'll get into that and then we will cover what happened in the Ditty Trial yesterday
where he was acquitted on three counts and found guilty on two of the less serious counts.
So a lot to talk about today.
Let's go ahead and start with the one big, beautiful bill, which as we are sitting here
right now is really on the cusp of passage because House Speaker Mike Johnson
wrangled his conference.
A lot of the Freedom Caucus fiscal hawks did not want to vote on the bill.
They didn't want to vote on the rule.
They didn't want to vote on the open debate on the bill, which is a parliamentary procedure
you have to do to ultimately vote on the bill.
And they are not happy that they're being forced to come to the table on this.
So Mike Johnson and his conference have been doing intense math, trying to make sure, like
they literally had to wait for one member, Scott Perry, to drive back and forth from
the York area, as Ryan points out yesterday, for his vote.
He thought he had more time to go get a change of clothes because he came in after vacation.
And this is happening at like two, between two and four in the morning.
So, poor one out for the Capitol Hill press corps.
There's a Nordstrom rack here in DC he could have gone to.
I was sort of confused about that.
Mike Johnson also said that he would have loaned him clothes.
So, all kinds of wild stuff going on.
That was a story.
He had to go home for some other reason.
Yeah.
It looked like the bill was actually on track to fail
for a brief moment late last night around around like 10 30 p.m. It looked like Johnson had lost the votes
but after
Trump and Johnson were twisting arms all night. They now have the votes
So now the Keem Jeffries was called gets what's called a golden hour where he can talk endlessly
Yeah, and and so I think he's an hour three. It's a real treat for
everyone. Of his speech now. But when he runs out of steam, then, and maybe he'll just speak for 40
years, but at some point he will run out of steam and then they will put this on the floor and they
have the votes. He ran out of steam like two years ago. To pass it. So should we roll some clips first?
Yeah. And then bring in Will? Yeah, let's get Will to react to.
We'll start with this clip of Jim Jordan.
So a bunch of members were brought to the White House yesterday where Donald Trump was
working to convince them to vote for the bill.
They had a lot of reservations on it just 24 hours ago.
So here is Jim Jordan of Ohio on how they got to passage.
I do want to ask you, in that context,
it is Freedom Caucus members who are very concerned
about this bill.
I'm old enough to remember when, if there was a bill
on the floor that added this much to our debt and deficit,
I cannot imagine you would have been
happy about it in those years.
And yet, you have been approaching this a little bit
differently.
What is your message to your colleagues
in that group right now? Look, we all wish we'd saved more money, but you know this a little bit differently. What is your message to your colleagues in that group right now?
Look, we all wish it'd save more money,
but you know this is a good bill,
and I tell people all the time,
you know it's a good piece of legislation
because every single Democrat hates it.
And the reason they hate it is because this bill
actually empowers Americans, it empowers families,
it cuts their taxes, it keeps their taxes low.
It says to the hardworking people
who are working and getting tips, we're not gonna tax those tips. It says to the hardworking people who are working and getting tips,
we're not going to tax those tips.
It says to parents, we're going to give you
school choice in our tax code.
It says the border that's now secure under President Trump,
we're going to allocate resources to keep it secure.
And maybe most importantly or as importantly,
is it says to hardworking American families
who are paying for all this government,
for people who are getting a benefit in the welfare system, if they're able-bodied adults, guess what?
From now on, they're going to have to work.
So I think it's good for all those common sense, fundamental Republican principles.
That's why the Democrats don't like it.
While it doesn't cut enough spending, I get it, but we've got small majorities.
And this is probably as good as it's going to get.
So I am certainly for this piece of legislation.
Okay.
So Speaker Mike Johnson also addressed the, let's say, imperfections from a conservative
perspective in this bill.
We can go ahead and roll A2 here.
We can't make everyone 100% happy.
It's impossible.
This is a deliberative body.
It's a legislative process.
By definition, all of us have to give up on our personal preferences.
I never ask anybody to compromise core principles, but preferences must be yielded for the greater
good.
And that's what I think people are recognizing and coming to grips with.
Now not all Republicans had to have their arms twisted to vote for this bill.
Nancy Mace documented her journey.
We can go ahead and roll this footage that she posted from South Carolina up to D.C. She got caught up in the same travel stuff
that Ryan and I got caught up in. But she rented a luxury Sprinter van and went to Waffle
House and Wawa and wore pajamas everywhere and posted this wonderful video of her pumping
gas and buying red bulls so that she could get up
in time to vote for the bill.
And I think, Ryan, on that note, this is a good time as any to bring in Will Chamberlain
of the Article 3 Project, who is going to talk to us a bit about how the right is seeing
passage of this bill, interpreting passage of this bill, why so many people, Nancy Mace
included, are actually very happy about the
bill, unlike the sort of reluctant folks like a Chip Roy. So, Will, first of all, thank you so much
for joining us. Always great to be with you. Now, anytime you have like a reconciliation bill,
Mike Johnson is absolutely right. Not everybody is going to be happy with every part of the bill.
You have to get your whole conference together. That's everyone from Susan Collins to Chip Roy,
and that's no easy feat.
Obviously they ended up losing Susan Collins,
but kept Murkowski.
It needed to keep Murkowski.
JD Vant cast the tie-breaking vote.
So tell us basically, give us your sort of big take
on why passage of this bill that'll now be
on Donald Trump's desk by that 4th of July deadline,
why you see that as a big win?
I guess you can fit it into two big buckets, both of which are core parts of Trump's agenda,
immigration and tax policy.
So on the immigration side, I mean, this is a 20 times increase in total funding for immigration
enforcement, 10 to 20 times, massively increasing the budget of ICE, massively increasing, spending
$45 billion to build a wall,
spending another 45 billion on detention space.
I mean, I remember having, you know,
knock down, drag out fights over getting $4 billion
to build a wall via national emergency funding
in the first term, Congress wouldn't even breathe on it.
And now we're gonna get 10 times that
to solve what has been a major priority of the
MAGA movement since its inception.
Massive increase in dissension.
All this money is necessary because it's very hard to engage in mass deportation.
It turns out that once people are in the country, that's a logistically challenging thing.
It requires a lot of personnel.
So you need the money for it.
To say you're for mass deportation and not for the money necessary to do it is ridiculous.
Like we don't, we don't, to change the law logistically requires 60 votes in the Senate,
but to fund enforcement of existing law requires 50. So it's a huge win on the immigration front,
which we see as the most central issue in, in our politics. And I think the second big bucket
would be tax policy. No tax on tips and no tax on overtime is a real thing.
And this reaffirms the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
In the absence of this,
you'd have a massive tax hike for everybody.
Instead, you're having massive tax cuts,
or keeping the massive tax cuts from 2017,
and then additionally adding some very pro-working class
tax reform in terms of no tax tax tips and no tax on overtime.
And to the extent there are decreases in benefits
related to work eligibility,
well, it seems kind of obvious
that if you're also massively incentivizing work
by making sure that people get more take home pay
from their work, you're sort of creating
the incentive structure that I think
kind of pro working class Republicans want,
which is we want people who are going out there and working to get rewarded of pro working class Republicans want, which is we want people
who are going out there and working to get rewarded. We just don't want it's like JV
has talked a lot about this in his book. He thought you need to reward the working class
for going to work and but not reward staying at home doing nothing.
And so that that part I understand. And so help help me out for the parts that I don't
understand because it makes sense to me that you guys would do,
like throw billions, and I think the amount of money,
I don't even know how you're gonna be able to spend it,
but good Lord, it's like, you know,
like somebody said, it's more than the Marines.
It's like, it's like the amount of money going towards
mass deportation is absolutely stunning,
but it goes into the category of something
that I disagree with,
but I understand that this is a thing
that you guys have wanted, like that.
So I get that.
On the bargain, encouraging, making work pay more,
encouraging people to work, that makes sense.
What I don't, the parts that I don't understand,
and extending the Trump tax cuts,
he did the tax cuts, obviously he's gonna extend them,
I don't think that makes sense.
Part I don't understand, so let's take the
explosion of the estate tax. Basically, you're spending something like $500 billion to a trillion dollars in this bill to make it so the threshold for people who pay the estate tax is going from
almost nobody, but still raising a significant amount of money, $500 billion to a trillion dollars, a lot of money that, you know, wealthy people were paying
in the estate tax, it's now going to go away. Like, so, and that money is coming out of, say,
extending the tax, no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, because those things expire pretty
quickly. You could tighten the estate tax and say, you know what, the threshold for how much
wealth you can pass down without paying tax is going to go down a little bit. We're going to say
the first $2 million that you want to give to your children is tax free. It's a huge amount of money.
That's an enormous windfall for somebody to get.
And then we're going to take the tax revenue from that. We're going to permanently extend
all these tax breaks for the working class, the tax on tips, overtime, etc.
Instead, they blow out the estate tax, tons of money for Bill Gates' kids.
But they make the working class part tight. Like, why do that?
Well, I mean, from a political perspective, I assume that was necessary to get some votes in
the Senate, right? That's my default assumption, because that's not the core. The core policy
drive for Trump and the Trump movement is the immigration and the working class tax cuts.
But the MAGA movement is not completely reflected in the Senate as we've seen for the last decade.
So I think if you're asking from the political perspective, why are these things that seem
intention with the core Trump policy priorities in the bill?
It's like well, we have a three seat majority in the Senate and effectively a two or three seat majority in the House.
So, you know, we have to give a little get a little.
Got it.
What about the energy part?
Like I understand that Republicans in general
kind of just think clean energy is icky,
like that it's a problematic for reasons,
but over the last year,
like two thirds of new energy production was clean energy,
it was batteries, wind, solar,
and we need as a, to continue the expansion of the supply of energy if we're
going to compete against China.
It's Elon Musk's argument.
Yeah, well, there's Elon Musk's argument.
And also common sense.
You need energy to power your growing economy, whether it's clean or dirty.
Why go after the energy industry this way? It's because it goes
beyond taking subsidies away. It adds taxes, it adds regulatory burdens, it adds all of these
obstacles that make it so that clean energy manufacturing and energy manufacturing is made
more difficult by this bill. So that's one of the's that's that's one of the parts where I'm like
Who's for this because like big tech needs energy?
Consumers need energy. They don't want to pay more like who's the constituency?
Then what are the politics that drove that and then we'll knowingly Medicaid because I know you got to go pretty soon
So I'm not I'm not a huge expert on energy policy
I'll be frank, but I've you know, there's a guy, Alex Epstein, who had some good posts
on this yesterday.
My understanding is that it's a kind of technocratic argument
about what you have to do in order
to ensure that your project gets subsidized
and stays subsidized, like how quickly it gets on the grid.
And if I recall his book correctly,
don't hold me to this.
Somebody will have to go check my work here. But his basic argument was that it's, you know, the question
is like, how quickly does your solar thing have to be operational in order for you to
get the subsidy? And they were trying to reduce that time to ensure that these projects actually
were getting done and adding to the grid. And the problem was, if you don't have that limit, you get kind of what
he described as spamming of the grid where people are just building a lot of random energy plants
to get the subsidy without any, you know, real assessment of the fact that they'll actually be
online in a reasonable period of time. So that was one thing I think. So that's, that's one point.
But I think in general, I mean, there's a lot of long-term standing injections
to solar and wind.
They're not a good reliable basis
on which to build your grid.
And I mean, Spain had massive outages as a result.
Wind has all sorts of problems.
These are not like, the grid, especially in a lot of places,
is ultimately sustained by fossil fuels.
And that's not a bad thing.
We're gonna have more technology
to net more fossil fuels, I think, and we have tons of them sitting underneath your Colorado
So I think that you know, I don't think this is it but I guess the meta point would be this isn't a core area
Of concern for the Trump base either way
And so whether or not again one of these questions about you know, people looking for places to cut spending
I think that and you know green energy subsidies would be one of them. And the irony is that Democrats, and we were critical of this at the time,
it put most of the subsidies into red states, thank you.
Yeah.
And North Carolina and Texas in particular, also Kansas and Iowa and Maine have built up
major clean energy industries that are going to get hit.
That's why Lisa Murkowski was fighting hard.
And so then Medicaid.
Yesterday, Trump has a bunch of Republicans over at the White House, and he's waxing to
them about how you keep your seats.
And he says the way not to lose elections is he repeats his mantra that he said so often over the last eight years, don't mess with,
don't touch Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. And one of the members in the room is like,
bro, we're touching Medicaid in this bill, not just touching it, torching it, like massive, massive cuts.
I guess the, so why, Like, why do that?
No, I mean, this is my understanding
of the Medicaid changes or that it's a work requirement.
If you're able-bodied between the ages of 18 and 65,
you need to be working 20 hours a week to get Medicaid,
which is, I think, and there are exceptions, obviously,
if you're like caring for minor children
or something like that, or you're disabled, obviously.
But I think as a default policy idea, that sounds right to me.
I don't think that able-bodied people should be getting free health insurance from the
state.
That seems wrong to me.
We don't have socialized medicine.
Right.
That's easy to sell.
But it goes so much further beyond that.
Basically, what it does is it readjusts the various formulas so that it's going to massively
reduce the amount of funding that is going to go to states and also to food stamps to
SNAP and it's going to increase the amount that states have to put in.
And interestingly, because Republicans resisted the Medicaid expansion in Obamacare, which
John Roberts and the Supreme Court allowed them to do, as I'm sure you remember, there
were so many movements in red states to push for the Medicaid expansion that a bunch of
those states had to do it through constitutional amendments done by referendum.
So a lot of these red states are now constitutionally obligated to put a particular amount of their
budget into Medicaid.
And now they're going to get a lot less from the federal government.
And hospitals are warning that they're going to go bankrupt in rural America.
And Holly talked a lot about this.
This is not just some Marxist on this program talking about it.
Why wasn't that a bigger concern?
The closure of rural hospitals and the throwing off of 17 million people of Medicaid, many
of them in rural America, that feels like a MAGA issue.
This is one of the places where I'm back in the place of just not understanding.
Does it go back to, this is a coalition of the old Republican Party that I very much do understand
that wanted to cut Medicaid for decades, and they just won?
I mean, I think, again, the throwing off of people of Medicaid, it's, I mean, it's not just randomly throwing
people off.
It's literally, it's imposing a work requirement.
And I think even the MAGA base is pro work requirements.
I think people really should go back and read JD Vance's book on Hillbillyology, right?
It's actually laid out there.
There's just this really clear difference.
You know, on the one hand, we want, we don't want to get rid of Social Security Medicare
But on the other hand there is this deep anger
from
Working class Americans towards towards idlers towards people in their similar class
Not working not having a job and collecting government benefits. So I think it just basically
the policy fits that
the policy fits that.
As for rural hospitals. The policy doesn't, I think the messaging fits that.
Yeah.
That's not, I think it's kind of a myth that there's like.
Well, the knock on effects of the policy on rural hospital,
I mean, people are, these are projections.
I'm sure in a world where rural hospitals
are actually in real trouble
and there's like real talk of closures,
then the policy will change, right?
There's certain, you know, this is a general theme.
You can actually use this as,
call this plan trusting, right? There's a general theme to how things work. This was avid in tariffs
too. Like you name it. People are like, well, these catastrophic impacts will result. I'm
like, well, no, there are competent people running our government. They're competent
people running state governments before the catastrophe hits. Things will, things will
change if you are right that the catastrophe is going to hurt. So I don't, I start, I
don't know that, you know, these hospitals will close. I know people are right that the catastrophe is going to hurt. So I don't know that these hospitals will close.
I know people are arguing that they might.
If there really is a serious problem there, I assume it will get fixed when that happens.
So that I understand.
It's like basically we trust Trump that he's going to do good by us.
I guess last point on the deficit.
I spent my whole life being told
that it's the thing that's gonna like ruin America and it's like, oh, how about, how about we add a
couple more trillion to it? And yeah, one minute on that one, because I know you got to run.
The deficit is to Republicans, is global warming is to Democrats, the impending crisis that, you
know, always will happen in the next year or two and
then never does. I mean I think that I've come to the conclusion that I mean the debt as a problem
is not a problem in the way that you know the sort of freedom caucus people catastrophize it.
It's just a long-term net inflation problem is the way I think about it.
That's basically how some on the left think about it too now.
Yeah and you know ultimately did was Trump getting people to reduce
the deficit?
No.
One of the things that the Freedom Caucus loves to do,
and this is not limited to them, is
pretending that their policy is the ultimate Trump agenda.
And it's like, no, actually, that's not
what the Trump vote base wanted.
The deficit is like 10th on the list, or 15th on the list of concerns. And the ones that are addressing this bill are
number one and two. That's a good point. Well, we're going to let you go. And then Emily and I
have a couple more things to go through. So helpful. Well, thanks. Thanks a lot. All right.
Absolutely. Thank you. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff
Perlman. And this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean,
but the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne,
from Oakley, sports editor and aspiring rapper.
And his stage name? Sexy Sweat.
In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie.
We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone.
In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode.
His mom called 911.
Police cuffed him face down.
He slipped into a coma and died.
I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving.
No headlines, no outrage, just silence.
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.
Adventures should never come with a pause button.
Remember the movie pass era where you could watch all the movies you wanted for just $9?
It made zero sense and I could not stop thinking about it.
I'm Bridget Todd, host of the tech podcast
There Are No Girls on the Internet.
On this new season, I'm talking to the innovators
who are left out of the tech headlines.
Like the visionary behind MoviePass,
Black founder Stacey Spikes,
who was pushed out of MoviePass,
the company that he founded.
His story is wild, and it's currently the subject
of a juicy new HBO documentary.
We dive into how culture connects us.
When you go to France, or you go to England,
or you go to Hong Kong, those kids are wearing Jordans,
they're wearing Kobe's shirt, they're watching Black Panther. And the challenges of being a Black founder.
Close your eyes and tell me what a tech founder looks like.
They're not going to describe someone who looks like me,
and they're not going to describe someone who looks like you.
I created There Are No Girls on the Internet
because the future belongs to all of us.
So listen to There Are No Girls on the Internet
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Radhita Vrithika,
and I'm the host of a really good cry podcast.
And I have the opportunity to talk to Vivian too.
She is someone who is definitely changing the way we talk about money.
She is a former Wall Street trader, turned personal finance educator, content creator,
and now the author of a New York Times bestselling book, Rich AF.
Whether you're trying to get out of debt, build wealth, negotiate like a boss, or just
finally understand how to do money right, Vivian is the person to ask.
I think that is terrifying because not understanding your own money and not understanding finances
is one of the easiest ways to get in a situation where you don't have options and there is
risk for financial abuse.
You don't have the money to leave. You cannot
make choices that take money out of the equation because you don't have it. And that is why
every single woman needs to be good with money.
Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Okay, so that was Will Chamberlain. I guess I sort of see it from their perspective a
little bit more. They just really trust Trump. Like, I'm not saying that's rational, but
I okay, you trust Trump. Like the idea that you've got a bunch of people that are saying
like, hey, and there have been a ton of rural hospital closures already. And you've got people saying, if you do this Medicaid provider tax,
you kick these other people off Medicaid, these hospitals are going to close.
And the counter is, I trust Trump.
Well, but this is also an interesting point that based on what Will just said.
If you don't think there's a problem with spending overall,
that this is, or at least that it's not
an urgent pressing problem.
Right, but they might cut Medicaid.
Well, that's what I was just gonna say.
Yeah.
Then why make these sort of,
you just tweaks to a program that MAGA,
as Steve Bannon has said, MAGA loves Medicaid,
MAGA is on Medicaid, why do that to sell tax cuts that will benefit everyone across the entire, I mean, these
tax cuts will benefit everyone across the entire spectrum in the short term.
Disproportionately will benefit wealthy people.
You could have, as people like Bach, Younger, Sargon have said, just not have reauthorized
the top rate cuts.
You could have just let those expire.
But if you don't think that there's a
Urgent debt deficit problem. Why are you worrying about paying for are you worrying about offsetting the tax cuts at all?
You don't have to yeah, I guess it goes back to the Republican Party still being
somewhat
controlled by or at least having to deal with it's
controlled by or at least having to deal with it's like 1% wing. I'm all for smart work requirements. The politics of this make no sense.
Like just the politics of this make absolutely no sense of packaging them together with a tax cut for the rich.
And I think there's an interesting element, so we'll get to Tim Burchett here, in the
We Trust Trump and also in the We Do Not Trust Democrats and the media, that that kind of
polarized people into just supporting the thing.
And I think we watched it happen in real time on CNN with Burchett on the air.
Well, you had Jim Jordan, who we played previously in this block, saying, this bill is great
because all the Democrats hate it.
So that's right there.
That's just explicitly polarization.
Democrats don't like it, therefore it must be good.
Burchett went on Brianna Keillar's program on CNN and was an undecided vote.
And Trump had brought him and some other undecideds into the White House trying to push them into
supporting the bill.
And then he gets into a fight with Brianna Keillar over whether or not the CBO should
be trusted.
And she's doing a kind of, ha ha, gotcha, you pushed forward a resolution that
said all CBO estimates should be read on the House floor. And now you're saying that CBO
estimates can't be trusted on this. And his argument is, yeah, CBO is the only game in
town and also that resolution didn't pass. But I think the CBO is wrong on this. And
then they go back and forth for a while on whether or not he's a hypocrite and by the end of the
interview he's hardcore defending the bill yeah but he went from yeah on the
fence do you know what this bills gonna save the American Republic and this is
echoes the Jim Jordan point also that he made in the the clip we rolled earlier
that in Trump was pitching it this way, the left hates this bill.
The left hates this bill.
That's why it's a good bill.
And they hate you, and so we're going to vote yes on this thing that's actually, I think,
genuinely self-destruct.
The left loves this bill.
By the way, they're salivating over this bill because they're able to talk about entitlement.
Democrats, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Democrats are so, like, they're salivating over, like, drying shots.
He's like, I really hope the bill doesn't pass.
But if it does, we are going to win the Senate.
Let's hope it doesn't. So anyway, yeah, let's roll virgin.
What did the president say to you that made you feel maybe closer to voting? Yes. He talked
about the economic output that we would have that was not in the CBO scores. And, and,
and along those lines, he talked about other things that I'm not going to share,
but because it was in privacy.
But I think there's a lot of things that probably be revealed when this is passed.
And I think America will will embrace it further.
I think, again, once you you do some things like straighten up
Medicaid and Medicare and you dispute a lot of the lies that are in the media
about people beginning kicked off,
I think America understands what we're up against in this.
Well, the CBO, which you put so much trust in
for years and years that you passed a resolution
wanting estimates read before bills,
is very clear about how many people
are going to be kicked off of healthcare
until you were against the CBO.
No, ma'am, no, ma'am, no, ma'am.
You're, listen, listen, if you wanna,
if you wanna do the editorial, just go ahead and you don't need me on here. But the
These are facts, sir. I don't have to editorialize.
I would like to see what the economic in economic output of every bill you as a taxpayer should want that to. And the CBO is the only organization we have.
If I could allow a private accounting firm to do it, I would much rather that happen. But the reality is it would have to be the CBO.
And what do you have against knowing how much each bill is spent?
Why does the media oppose that?
Why do you all on the left always fight every chance at America knowing what's going on?
The problem you all have with this bill, man, is that it gets government out of our way
and lets Americans make some decisions.
And maybe hardworking Americans would have a better choice and a better shot at life
in this country without you all just telling us how bad things are
going and trying to construct and as you're doing with me trying to dictate what I've
said.
Yeah, and he goes on from there, just the rest of the interview, he just sings the praises
of the bill and now he's for it.
That clip to me is like, and in the broader interview, is like the story of our politics.
It's like the issue itself gets lost in the fact that we hate each other.
And so then, Burj, it's like, you know what?
She sucks.
I'm voting for this.
I'm going to yell that by CNN.
So I'm voting for this.
It's like, don't follow that train.
I would also notice that, just note, that Will started with immigration enforcement,
and that's how Stephen Miller's been selling his bill as the most important bill for the
future of Western civilization is that they believe if you don't do their definition of
mass deportation, which is different than I think the public's definition of mass deportation,
but literally deporting almost everybody, not just the worst of the worst but almost everybody for
Assimilation and labor force reasons then you don't have a country anymore
So it's from that perspective
They would probably swallow a lot of bad policy to pass a reconciliation bill with massive immigration enforcement increase
Just do your do your crackdown then like I don't see why they had to lump it all in, but whatever.
I didn't win. Up next, Jeremy Scahill is going to update us on his reporting on the latest in the
ceasefire negotiations. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff
Perlman and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part,
our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland,
sports editor and aspiring rapper.
And his stage name, Sexy Sweat.
In 2020, I had a simple idea.
Let's find Reggie.
We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone.
In February, 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode.
His mom called 911.
Police cuffed him face down.
He slipped into a coma and died.
I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving.
No headlines, no outrage, just silence.
So we started digging and uncovered city officials
bent on protecting their own.
Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Adventure should never come with a pause button.
Remember the movie pass era,
where you could watch all the movies you wanted
for just $9?
It made zero sense and I could not stop thinking about it.
I'm Bridget Todd, host of the Tech Podcast, There Are No Girls on the Internet.
On this new season, I'm talking to the innovators who are left out of the tech headlines, like
the visionary behind MoviePass, Black founder Stacey Spikes, who was pushed out of MoviePass,
the company that he founded.
His story is wild and it's currently the subject of a juicy new HBO documentary.
We dive into how culture connects us.
When you go to France, or you go to England,
or you go to Hong Kong, those kids are wearing Jordans,
they're wearing Kobe's shirt, they're watching Black Panther.
And the challenges of being a Black founder.
Close your eyes and tell me what a tech founder looks like.
They're not gonna describe someone who looks like me,
and they're not gonna describe someone who looks like you.
I created There Are No Girls on the internet
because the future belongs to all of us.
So listen to There Are No Girls on the internet
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Radhida Vleukya,
and I'm the host of a really good cry podcast.
And I have the opportunity to talk to Vivian too.
She is someone who is definitely changing the way we talk about money.
She is a former Wall Street trader, turned personal finance educator, content creator
and now the author of a New York Times bestselling book, Rich AF.
Whether you're trying to get out of debt, build wealth, negotiate like a boss or just
finally understand how to do money right, Vivian is the person to ask.
I think that is terrifying because not understanding your own money and not understanding finances
is one of the easiest ways to get in a situation where you don't have options and there is
risk for financial abuse.
You don't have the money to leave. You cannot make choices that take money out of the equation
because you don't have it. And that is why every single woman needs to be good with money.
Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ceasefire negotiations are at an advanced stage. Jeremy Scahill, my colleague at Dropsite News, joins us now to talk about his reporting on
what we know about where we stand.
Jeremy, thanks so much for being here today.
Good to be with you guys.
All right, so walk us through where we are now.
Donald Trump, several days ago, announced that he had gotten an Israeli agreement on
some version of a ceasefire.
There was conspicuous silence for a while from the Israelis, but then a media campaign
started rolling out about what was in this agreement.
My understanding, though, is that only recently did Hamas even receive a proposal.
So what is the current situation? I mean, Trump is riding really high on what he perceives to be an ultra successful military
campaign against Iran. And, you know, he's had his own, you know, series of kerfuffles
in Washington over how much damage was done to Iran's nuclear program. But clearly, he
feels empowered now to try to keep the ball rolling with his own agenda
in the Middle East. And what we've seen happen throughout the Trump administration is,
on the one hand, Trump messages that he wants all these wars to be brought to an end.
On the other hand, he's really fully empowered Netanyahu to continue and intensify the war and
actually to expand it, not just in Lebanon with repeated violations of the ceasefire, but also these 12 days of intense Israeli bombing of Iran
that then at the end became a joint
U.S. Israeli bombing operation.
But setting aside any analysis we could do
about what really was at play there,
Trump really, I think, sees that he has momentum.
And so what happened is that earlier this week, Ron Dermer,
who is Netanyahu's point person,
and really kind of like his Roger Stone of sorts,
his political hit man, he arrives in Washington, DC
for talks with a series of Trump administration officials.
And what I'm told by sources is basically they concocted
what they felt would be kind of the final ultimatum
that would be delivered to Hamas by regional mediators from
Egypt and Qatar saying, this is your last chance to make a ceasefire deal. You saw the kind of
power that we unleashed in Iran. Now is your time to do it. There's been a lot of reporting over the
past couple of days in the Hebrew language press, the Arabic language press, as well as in the
American press about what the terms of this proposal
being put in front of Hamas are.
I'm told, though, by sources on the negotiating team, that despite this flurry of media reports
about what the terms are, Hamas was not actually given any document until late last night.
In fact, they haven't really been able to do full consultations within Hamas or the
other resistance factions.
I've spoken this morning to a source who is close to the negotiators that actually has
that document in hand.
And in general, what I would say is this, it is almost identical in most ways to the
previous ultimatum that Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, delivered back in May. It does not contain any clear guarantees
that Israel will not resume the military assault on Gaza
after an initial 60-day period.
It has very vague language about how humanitarian aid
is going to come into Gaza.
It doesn't say anything about the fate
of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,
this aid scam where Palestinians
are being gunned down
every day.
It does mention that the United Nations and the Red Crescent are again going to be involved
with the distribution of aid, but there aren't any clear definitions.
Perhaps the two most significant changes or amendments, I guess, that you could say in
some way inch the position more toward what Hamas wanted is that they've sharpened some of the language
about President Donald Trump.
There's 13 points in this agreement,
in point one and point 13, Trump is mentioned by name.
And what they're saying is that Trump is committed
to an actual end to the war.
And as long as negotiations are committed,
you know, are conducted in good faith,
that he wants to see this two month window
of a temporary
truce continue on toward a resolution of the war.
Hamas, though, had wanted much clearer language, and they wanted Trump to guarantee that he
would prevent Israel from resuming its military assault on Gaza as long as the negotiations
were continuing.
That language is not in this document.
On a technical level, the most significant change
is that the Israelis back in May wanted
to have 10 living captives, Israelis held in Gaza,
released within the first week of any ceasefire deal,
60-day deal.
Hamas looked at that and said, then it's just
going to be a one-week deal, because after the Israelis are
freed, Netanyahu is just going to resume the genocide.
So it's not a huge change,
but what we're looking at now is a formula that says eight Israelis would be released within that
first week. I believe it's on day five. And then the other two living Israelis would be released
on day 50. You would also have the bodies of 18 Israelis who are deceased, but still in captivity
in Gaza, staggered out over the course of those
two months.
What is not mentioned in the document is how many of the more than 10,000 Palestinians
held in detention camps and prisons in Israel are going to be released.
That's unusual.
In other agreements, there has been some formula cited for how many Palestinian captives are
going to be released.
The language on this is very vague.
While there is not, again, Ryan,
you and I have talked about this on this show before,
Hamas has offered to relinquish governing authority of Gaza.
They put it in writing, it was in their draft
that we talked about on this show a couple of months ago.
It is not in the actual text of this agreement.
And Israel and the United States, for whatever reasons,
have taken that term out every time Hamas has put it forward. But I was told last night by a senior Hamas official
that the mediators have made clear to Hamas that that is a condition that Israel and the United
States are going to insist on. And what is unclear is who takes power if Hamas does relinquish its
authority. It's not just a resistance movement, it's a government. So a lot of questions up in
the air. And the final thing I'll say on this is that while Hamas,
I think Hamas is very seriously considering
taking this deal, even though they don't think
it's a good deal, they're under a lot of pressure.
These guys, the negotiators all have family members
that have been killed.
People are suffering immensely in Gaza
and there is unprecedented pressure against Hamas right now, not in a hostile way,
but in a desperate way, please make a deal. So I'm told that they're giving very serious
consideration to it. The question is if they're going to be able to get some amendments to this
language. Last time this happened, Hamas came through and put a whole new proposal on the table.
I'm told that they're looking now at a more surgical approach where they're going to zero in
on what they've defined as their red lines. They really don't want Israel to be able to resume the
genocide and they want a full Israeli withdrawal. What is not in this document is anything about the
Philadelphia corridor, which is the very crucial part of Gaza because it represents in the south
of Gaza, it represents the only gateway to a world beyond Israeli control for Palestinians.
It's on the Egyptian border.
We reported some days ago, Ryan, that mediators last week told Hamas that they may have to
be willing to concede the timeline for an Israeli withdrawal from the from the Philadelphia
corridor.
So I think what we're seeing here, just to sum it up, is it's basically the same ultimatum
that was put on the table with a few amendments
that seem aimed at trying to give Hamas something.
Hamas is very clear-eyed about it.
A senior official told me last night
that Trump is a crucial part
of what he called Israel's deception operation.
Even though they say that this is a deception,
they're wide-eyed about it.
They understand what the stakes are.
And so I think we're going to see
some really intense attempts at negotiation.
I get the sense that Hamas very much wants to make a deal.
And it was announced just a couple of days ago
that Netanyahu will be at the White House on Monday, Jeremy,
which seems to signal confidence
from the Trump administration that something's coming.
What does the timeline look like,
and what did you make of that announcement?
Yeah, I mean, as often happens with Netanyahu,
he sort of projects one message in English
and another message in Hebrew.
Netanyahu has been totally unhinged belligerent
in his Hebrew language remarks
over the past 24 to 48 hours, where he's saying,
we're not gonna stop the war
until Hamas is totally eradicated,
we're gonna kill everyone with a gun, we're not going to stop the war until Hamas is totally eradicated, we're going to kill everyone with a gun, we're not going to have Hamasistan anymore.
On the other hand, what we're hearing is that Trump really wants to kind of put on a show with
this. I think he wants to make a big announcement when Netanyahu is in town. Also, we can report
based on Israeli media accounts from well-connected journalists that there is talk again of another side letter,
a secret side letter that Trump apparently
has told the Israelis he will give them,
saying that they can resume the war in Gaza
if Hamas does not leave power and disarm.
So, it's sort of Groundhog Day again.
I think that with Netanyahu coming to Washington,
Trump wants to put on a big show, he wants to make a big announcement. He wants to sort of
portray himself, you know, in a way that's going to go down in archival reels that are going to be
shown, you know, for decades to come. He may get that moment. The real question is, is Trump serious
about ending this war? Because if he is, he can put Netanyahu in a corner. The Israelis don't seem
to think Trump is going to do that. I think Netanyahu in a corner. The Israelis don't seem to think Trump
is going to do that. I think Netanyahu feels like this is sort of his own victory tour of sorts,
so we'll see what happens. So to your point about Hamas being under significant pressure,
our colleague Abu Bakr Abed had posted yesterday, and we can put this up maybe in post, he said,
growing and pressuring calls among Gazans to accept the Qatari proposal for a ceasefire that people are desperate beyond words for arrest
60 days can offer a huge source of relief and respite from the ongoing Holocaust. It's better than nothing
I hope it I hope it will happen. I think it's a good representation of the desperation at play here despite the fact that Abu Bakr and
everybody else understands
that it could be just 50 or 60 days, and then he resumes it again.
What's the confidence level among people that actually, yeah, that, okay, we'll take it
because it's 50 days of peace, or even let's say 60 days of peace. But like how certain are people that Netanyahu will actually just use that side letter and
go right back into war yet are considering it anyway?
I mean, I think a lot of this also boils down to Donald Trump's relationships with leaders
in the Arab world.
You know, clearly Qatar, Egypt, others
want this to be brought to an end.
They haven't, you know, ever raised the prospect
of using military force to end it,
but it's quite clear, you know,
that Trump has deepening relationships with Saudi Arabia.
He wants to push forward with his so-called Abraham Accords
and get potentially Syria or Lebanon to join on.
Saudi Arabia would be the big
prize.
So, you know, there is some motivation for Trump to try to make this thing stick.
But at the end of the day, you know, I spoke to a source close to the negotiations right
before I spoke to you guys.
And what he's saying is, look, they realize that after 30 days or 60 days, the Israelis
could resume this genocide.
But from their perspective, they still would have cards. They would have 10 living Israeli captives. They would have about a dozen or so bodies of
deceased Israelis. They don't feel like they would have depleted everything they have, but they will
be giving up half of what they view as the only negotiating assets that they have. I really get
the sense that they feel like they need to make a deal right now.
So I think we're going to see a last minute flurry of activity where they try to get some
concessions or even get a side letter of their own from the White House, which I've been
told by sources is a possibility, saying like, look, we can't put this in the real deal.
But as long as Qassam Brigades and Saraya al-Quds are not firing on the Israelis, meaning
that they're not the ones breaking the ceasefire, and as long as youassam Brigades and Saraya Al-Quds are not firing on the Israelis, meaning that
they're not the ones breaking the ceasefire, and as long as you are negotiating in good
faith, Trump is committed to making sure aid flow continues beyond 60 days and that the
Israelis are not going to resume a full scorched earth bombing campaign.
I think Palestinians are in an unspeakable situation right now.
The level of desperation is off the charts.
The entire society is being slowly strangled to death.
And these guys negotiating this deal as cartoonishly as they're portrayed, they're not immune to
it.
Some of them, their mothers have been killed, their brothers have been killed, their children
have been killed.
You know, we think of them in a cartoonish way, but actually as Adam Bowler, you know,
after he met with Hamas said, you know, they're human beings too. So I think what they're trying to do is get the best deal
they can get that doesn't surrender the cause of Palestinian liberation. And that's why they fought
so hard to get that withdrawal and a commitment that the genocide won't be resumed. Well, Jeremy,
thank you for your reporting on this and thanks for joining us. We'll certainly continue to follow it. Thank you guys.
The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman and this is Rick Jervis.
We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean,
but the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne,
from Oakley, sports editor and aspiring rapper.
And his stage name, Sexy Sweat.
In 2020, I had a simple idea.
Let's find Reggie.
We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone.
In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode.
His mom called 911.
Police cuffed him face down.
He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving.
No headlines. No outrage. Just silence.
So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.
Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Adventures should never come with a pause button.
Remember the movie pass era where you could watch all the movies you wanted for just $9?
It made zero sense and I could not stop thinking about it.
I'm Bridget Todd, host of the Tech Podcast, There Are No Girls on the Internet.
On this new season, I'm talking to the innovators who are left out of the tech headlines,
like the visionary behind a movie pass,, Black founder Stacey Spikes,
who was pushed out of MoviePass, the company that he founded. His story is wild and it's
currently the subject of a juicy new HBO documentary. We dive into how culture connects us.
When you go to France or you go to England or you go to Hong Kong, those kids are wearing
Jordans, they're wearing Kobe's shirt, they're watching Black Panther.
And the challenges of being a Black founder.
Close your eyes and tell me what a tech founder looks like.
They're not going to describe someone who looks like me, and they're not going to describe
someone who looks like you.
I created There Are No Girls on the Internet because the future belongs to all of us.
So listen to There Are No Girls on the internet on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Radhida Vlukya and I'm the host of a really good cry podcast and I have the opportunity
to talk to Vivian too.
She is someone who is definitely changing the way we talk about money.
She is a former Wall Street trader, turned personal finance educator, content creator,
and now the author of a New York Times bestselling book, Rich AF.
Whether you're trying to get out of debt, build wealth, negotiate like a boss, or just
finally understand how to do money right, Vivian is the person to ask.
I think that is terrifying because not understanding your own money and not understanding finances
is one of the easiest ways to get in a situation
where you don't have options and there is risk for financial abuse.
You don't have the money to leave.
You cannot make choices that take money out of the equation because you don't have it.
And that is why every single woman needs to be good with money.
Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Israel's ongoing assault of Gaza has led to a radical transformation of views when it comes to Israel and Palestinians.
Harriet and CNN has shocking poll numbers.
Who Democrats sympathize more with,
Israelis or Palestinians?
In 2017, the Democratic Party was a pro-Israeli party.
Look at this, they sympathized with the Israelis
by 13 points, more with the Israelis than the Palestinians.
But look at this, see change.
Now Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians
by 43 points.
Oh my God, that is a change in the margin of 56 points
over the course of just eight years.
So all of a sudden it's the pro-Palestinian position
that actually reigns supreme in democratic politics,
not the Israeli position.
Now you see this, you see this among Democrats overall,
right, but we know that Mondani's base
was younger voters within the Democratic Party.
And so I wanna break it down for you.
With younger Democrats.
Correct.
So take a look here.
Who age 18 to 49 Democrats sympathize more with?
The Israelis or the Palestinians?
Again, in 2017, younger Democrats sympathize more
with the Israelis by 14 points.
Look at this shift now.
Palestinians, they sympathize more with the Palestinians
by 57 points.
That is an over 70 point shift in the margin
in just a matter of eight years.
I rarely ever see shifts like this, Kate,
in which you see one side of the equation
leading by 14 points eight years ago,
and then all of a sudden the other side of the equation
leading by 57 points.
The bottom line is the politics around the Israelis
and the Palestinians have shifted tremendously
among Democrats, and they've shifted specifically
tremendously among Democrats who are under the age of 50.
They have just shifted more so than I think that anyone could possibly have imagined,
say eight years ago.
Yeah.
So, Emily, that is a major swing.
And I'm not shocked that there has been a shift.
You can kind of watch it happening in real time.
But a 70-point swing among young voters, and by young
he meant under 50, which I'd be young and I don't consider myself young.
Congratulations on your newly rediscovered youth.
Young according to Harry Antin. But across the board, a massive shift. How much of the
– and we're also seeing a shift in the Republican
Party. Yeah, particularly young. So if you add that in, particularly among young voters. Yeah. So, you know, how do you think this kind of reshapes the way that this issue affects our politics?
Well, I mean, you've written so extensively about APAC and I think we're
seeing...and also like the Jonathan Greenblatt and the Anti-Defamation
League people, we're seeing a complete freak out because they coasted off America's good
vibes on Israel for a really long time, especially inculcated in the minds of so many Americans
after 9-11.
Don't need to debate the reason, but obviously there was just an immense sensitivity to
radical terrorists in the United States in those years, and so it was much easier for them to frame
Israel as a sort of good versus bad Manichaean dichotomy. it just was even they took for granted how easy that was
So now you see they're they're freaked out trying to paint people like Rumeza Oz Turk as Hamas
sympathizers
And I don't think tough student who was recently released but jailed for the op-ed, right?
Yeah, that's just like snatched off the street by mass
Apparently ice agents and so anyway all those say, they have a lot less power than they used to.
And that is going to materialize, I think, in the next couple of cycles, as politicians
who take their money realize it's not as helpful for them to be taking the positions that they
need to in order to get the money.
And I don't know that that'll show up right away.
But it's, I mean, I think the polling is pretty clear that it's already showed up.
But I don't know how powerful it'll be as an electoral force in the next four to eight
years.
But it is going to be a powerful electoral force.
They've lost the public support that they coasted off of. Yeah, and I think some of this is a backlash to AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby interfering
in democratic politics in a way that has not done them favors.
And so, in my last book, The Squad has this history in it.
So that poll started in 2017.
2018, you get the squad elected, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar in particular becoming first
two Muslim women to serve in Congress.
And in early 2019, Democratic majority for Israel, DMFI, formed as basically an offshoot
of an APAC by APAC supporters and APAC consultants specifically
to push back against Tlaib and Omar.
That was their, that's why they rolled out.
They said that they were seeing a current of what they called anti-Israel sentiment
within the Democratic Party, and they were going to spend enormous amounts of money to
suppress that.
If you look at the numbers since then, DMFI and AIPAC have been engaged in the greatest
failure of political operations, like, ever.
Like, what an absolute, like, catastrophe for them.
If their goal was to do the thing they set out to,
they did, they instead did the opposite. So they launched in 2019, the first candidate
they ever spent money against actually was Bernie Sanders in Iowa. They then spent enormous
amounts of money defending guy Elliot Engel, who was the chair of the Foreign Relations
Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee in the House, who was being challenged by Jamal Bowman.
They spent millions of dollars against Bowman, and Bowman beat him and knocked him out anyway.
And so what they concluded from that 2020 cycle was that they had not spent enough money.
And so APAC, so DMFI raised more money for 2022.
APAC itself launched its first
ever super PAC. It had never had a super PAC before. They had always just done small contributions of
maxing out directly to candidates. And buying goodwill with trips and those sorts of things.
Goodwill with trips. And then if you cross us, we will fund a primary challenger and we will take
you out. And you only have to do that a primary challenger and we will take you out
And you only have to do that a couple times and then everybody else is like, okay
Don't care this much about that issue. Just gonna just use tell I stand with Israel
You tell me what to do and I was just I'll say it. So 2022 they spend somewhere around 30 or 50 million dollars
Going after
going after Democrats who had said things that were sympathetic towards Palestinians. And they succeeded. They spent like $7-$8 million stopping Donna Edwards from coming back to Congress.
Because in 2009, she had voted against some...in 2008, there was another Israeli war on Gaza.
She had voted the wrong way on one resolution.
So they spent seven million dollars to stop her. They spent many millions of dollars in
North Carolina to stop this city council candidate, Nida Alam, from becoming a member of Congress.
She famously had been friends with three or, there were three or four Muslims students,
if you remember in Chapel Hill,
who were killed in like this brutal hate crime,
killed because they were Muslim.
And she then got into politics.
As a result of that, was city council member
and was trying to go to Congress, would have won,
ended up losing by like two points
because they spent like $7 million against her.
Then in 2024, and so across the board, they really blunted the growth of the squad, like
politicians.
2024, they spend $20 million against Jamal Bowman and knock him out, and $10 million
or so against Cori Bush, knock her out, and spent $ million dollars in primaries across the country for in the Democratic primaries
Making sure that nobody is critical of Israel
And so they were effectively able to beat the decent number of candidates like the Democratic
Caucus would look different when it comes to Israel Palestine than it does now if not for all of this spending. Yeah
But good lord, the
public, it has not worked on the Democratic public. In fact, if anything, it
seems like it's backfired. Well, it often takes time because we're not a direct
democracy. We're a public for the makeup of elected officials to catch up with
public opinion. That's one of the things Trump forced among Republican voters,
is that you now have like a Jim Banks in the Senate, for example,
or you now have...
And even if you dispute that they're helping the working class,
I know that that's a raging argument, obviously,
but even if you dispute that,
they at least understand public opinion.
They're reflecting public opinion.
And that hasn't quite happened on this issue yet,
but I don't
think either major political party understands how much it's about to
happen because they've been scapegoating, you know, this idea that all the anti
Israel sentiment is anti-western Marxism as opposed to just saying this is insane.
This is wildly bad policy. It's not making us safer. And I just don't
think they're fully ready for how that's going to manifest in public opinion.
Those numbers don't just reflect a shift. I think they reflect, especially for
younger people, a shift in the, like this is way down on the list of most American
voters priorities, still is is but it's getting increasingly
Important to people it's becoming increasingly animating because people are so pissed off
About what they're seeing now that the media gatekeepers are less powerful. This information is coming through drop site
It's coming through breaking points and I don't know right the last question that I have on this is is how much how much of it is?
the way the Netanyahu government
has waged this war since October 7th?
And listen, we could go back and debate the history of how Israel's conducted itself in
previous decades before October 7th.
Seems that everyone at least agrees that what's happened since October 7th has been on another
scale.
Yeah, I think basically that's all of it.
Like it's the public recoiling of what they're seeing.
And actually, for an unbelievably crystallizing example of that, let's pull up C2.
This is a SOT.
What appear to be heavily armed American security contractors at one of the sites discuss how
to disperse Palestinians nearby.
At that moment, bursts of gunfire erupt close by. shots.
The camera's view is obscured by a large dirt mound.
The contractor who took the video told AP that he saw other contractors shooting in
the direction of Palestinians who had just collected their food and were departing.
That's video obtained by the Associated Press that was posted yesterday along with a long investigation into
allegations from American
consultants working
with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
who say
that what the Palestinians have been saying and what Haaretz has reported recently is true that people connected to GHF have been firing at aid seekers
and what you heard in that video was 15 gunshots followed by I think you hit one
and then yeah hell yeah, boy.
Now there's a mound, so you can't see exactly what's happening, and that apparently has even left
some room for apologists to say, well,
you know, who knows what could have happened?
Yeah, he said, we heard the gunshot,
and he said you hit one, and then they celebrated
hitting one, and later in that investigation a guy says he saw somebody fall right like he after the
shot and a celebration of having hit one they saw somebody fall this is the Hamas
is nowhere around here this is there's not a live battle between Hamas and
Kazaj man it's not a life battle but the claim that I think is probably obvious is that there
are Hamas people who are getting aid. Right. I'm not saying it justifies it. I'm just saying
there plausibly are Hamas people in the crowd, but that's not what they're going after.
Right. It might be a guy who used to be part of Ham mosque, but he's going and getting a box or something.
But yeah, they're not, GHF's not claiming
that's why they're shooting at them.
They claim they're not shooting at them.
Like they straight up deny that what you just saw
in that video is happening.
So I play that as an example, I think,
of the reason that you're seeing these numbers shift.
It's horrifying.
And nobody can support shooting at hungry people.
Unarmed, hungry people.
And one of the interesting things about after that,
Haaretz report, I don't know if he picked up on this.
I know maybe it's just me, maybe it's naivete,
but I thought it was very interesting
that the Israeli government announced
that they were doing an investigation instead of just flatly denying.
I mean, obviously they're denying it, but they didn't dismiss it.
And the reports that they changed their rules of engagement.
And you've now had IDF soldiers complaining that it's harder to get permission to shoot
these quote unquote warning shots athmm after they changed the rules they said we're not really doing this but
then they changed the rules of engagement on whether they could do it
and so the Democratic leadership has been you know mostly immune from a lot
of this pressure because of all the money spent by DMFI and AIPAC. But let's take a look at how voters now feel about their own Democratic leaders.
This is B3.
Party leaders, Democrats who say they want to replace their party leaders, look at this,
62% nationally say yes compared to just 24% who say no.
That lines up with the idea that Democrats view their own members of Congress,
their own leaders in Congress, record low approval rating.
Democrats right now are out for blood.
They want to take out their party leaders.
And you saw that with Andrew Cuomo going, adios amigos, goodbye.
See you later in New York this past Tuesday.
And Emily, that is not the Democratic Party that I know.
The Democratic Party base has always been a kind of support the
leaders, support the leadership. To have them in this open state of rebellion is
a genuinely new phenomenon. Well I wonder, I mean yeah, that is a really big
distinction between what happened post Tea Party and what happened with with
Democrats because it was pretty obvious that Republicans were furious with
leadership. I think it was pretty obvious that Democrats were had a lot of reasons
to be furious with leadership but they kept... I don't know I wonder if it's
just because they didn't feel like there was any alternative
to democratic leadership.
And it also, I think democratic leadership was much more willing to signal cultural solidarity
with the progressive wing, meaning they were using it, and you've written about this, they
were using some of it as a shield, saying Equality Act, trans rights in ways that signaled
equity, in ways that signaled solidarity with progressives.
And I wonder actually if that got them by for a decade and it's just not working anymore.
Maybe, I don't know.
Whatever it is, something is changing.
And also, it seems like all of this has shut Richie Torres up for a second, which is quite
amazing. Put up before, this is just kind of an amusing development, I guess.
You check out this, and you can go check out this tweet from Hamid Benaz.
He says, here's a remarkable stat showing the Zoran effect.
The account, Richie Torres hasn't tweeted either the word Israel or Hamas since June
18th, 14 days ago.
It's now more.
That is the longest stretch by seven days that Torres has not tweeted one of those words
since October 7th, 2023.
And you can just scroll through the Richie Torres' quote, post.
So Torres, the most kind of outspoken democratic, Democrat when it comes to support for Israel,
the most
combative and aggressive out there for him to be quiet for this long I think
reflects that there is there is a centrifugal force involved in those
numbers hey I mean I can't think of Richard Torres anymore without flashing
back to Jamal Bowman with his arm around you and Griffin at the Zaraun.
That was something else.
He's a whack MF.
Maybe that did it, actually.
Maybe that was, Richie Torres was like,
you're right, I am whack.
And he's since self-corrected.
That's true, Jamal Bowman just canceled him.
It's the Bowman effect.
Actually canceled him, amazing.
Things are changing, things are changing, that's for sure. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene, the podcast where silence is broken and stories
are set free.
I'm Ebene and every Tuesday, I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that will challenge
your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you.
Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network.
Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I'm Jeff Perlman.
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 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.
Adventure should never come with a pause button.
Remember MoviePass?
All the movies you wanted for just nine bucks?
I'm Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet.
And this season, I'm digging into the tech stories
we weren't told, starting with Stacey Spikes,
the black founder of MoviePass,
who got pushed out of the company he built.
Everybody's trying to knock you down
and it's not gonna work and no one's gonna like it.
And then boom, it's everywhere.
And that was that moment.
Listen to There Are No Girls on the Internet
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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