Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/3/26: Jobs Disaster, Establishment Dems Bow To Zohran, Israel Journo Killings, Intercept Tipline, Palantir Freakout

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

The Friday crew discusses jobs disaster as prices skyrocket, establishment Dems bow to Zohran, Israel says journos they kill don't count, Intercept tip line breached, Palantir CEO panics on air. William Lawrence: https://wewill2026.com/Nika Soon-Shioong: https://x.com/nikasoonshiong?lang=en   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence, Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now.

Joy 101 with Hoda Kotfi is presented by CVS. My husband is at a spa resort with his mistress right now, and I'm calling the hotel to confront them both. Wait a minute, Dakota. She's calling the hotel while they're checked in together. Yeah, that's right, Sophia. And it gets worse. It's Vacate to Vacation Week on the Ok Storytime podcast,

where she caught him buying gifts on Amazon and then taped the 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out. So she planted evidence before he even took off? And spoiler, So, Two years later, karma hits so hard. He's calling his ex-wife in tears, saying about his mistress, what a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. American soccer is exploding.

The knockout rounds are here. The U.S. won their group, and now every match is winner go home. I'm Tad Ramos. And I'm Tom Boger. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, we'll talk about the real storylines. Discuss the tactics. that actually decide matches and give you the truth about the U.S. national team from inside the program. Whether you're a lifelong fan or this is your first World Cup. We've got you covered. Listen, Inside American

Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, Saga 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 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 breaking

points.com. Happy July 3rd, day before America Day, July 4th. We all just got back from the 250 Fair here to give you a weekend Friday show. Ryan, you were actually at the fair, right? I did. I went by. They would not let me bring in a backpack or my bike. And I was meeting someone who had another backpack there. So I went in very briefly, just left the backpack there.

They're like, yeah, that's fine. I'm like, really, I can just leave. You can leave it there, but you can't bring it in? That seems counterintuitive. The funny thing is that there were many, many, many fewer people inside the fair than outside of it. So it's like, who are you protecting? Like, there's nobody in here.

You couldn't do a mass shooting. There isn't a mass in there. You can commit a crime. But there's no mass shooting going on in there. They just didn't watch you to spark up, you know? Yeah, I guess so. They must protect the reflecting pool at all costs. And there was a band on the stage and two people sitting in chairs watching them.

Oh, my God. And I'll just like a million degrees outside. That doesn't help the situation. Yes. And that's all comical, but yesterday there was this footage of a massive piece of equipment falling on the stage right behind the dancers, which is the kind of thing that kills people when you use kind of non-union labor that isn't following the rules of putting a stage together. Like that stuff really matters. Like a 200 pound piece of equipment falling on you. Yeah, right here from that distance. Oh my God. That would be a little people. Like it is, and normal, at a normal event, that thing would stop and be shut down until they figured out why that happened. They just kept dancing. Look at that.

Look how many people that would kill. That is terrifying. Keep dancing. Wow. Wow. Incredible. Well, you know, there's a lot of festivities in the air, but like these performers, we also must keep dancing. We've got a big show.

We don't know that. To be clear, though, Griffin, we don't know, like the reflecting pool that'll live. didn't cut that part of the state off. There was a gash. A strong gash. The vandals are everywhere. I'm watching the least. Did you guys see the lady who was like, it was too hot?

I started seeing stars, but I managed to find the baptism tent and take a dip in the pool. And remind myself. Came out reborn. So people are having extraordinary experiences at this fair. Yeah, Julian is going for drop plate again later today. We'll have his package. I'm sure at some point. point next week.

Poor Julian. He needs hazard pay. It's too freaking hot out there. He tried this to himself. This is not on us. Okay. All right. All right.

Well, Julian, avoid any head injuries if you can. But yes, it is Fourth of July. We're going to be looking at some job numbers, some barbecue prices for anyone who is grilling this weekend. We're going to be looking a little bit into how one Zoranamani is becoming the Democratic Party power broker, giving advice, or potentially therapy to a slate of 2028 hopefuls. We have Alex Karp crashing out on live television. Ryan is going to take a look at an interesting tip line hack story that's been occurring

at the Intercept. And then, Ryan, don't we have a journalist coming on the show? Well, we have the publisher of DropSight News, which that's the means runs basically the business side in operations. She was basically kicked off the committee to protect journalist board. I don't know. One of my cats just falling off the desk. That was a fair crash. Non-union cat labor.

Keep dancing, Ryan. Keep dancing. Yes, exactly. And I know I think we need to stop down and make sure that no cat is injured again in the filming of this production. No, so the CPJ, there was an effort inside CPJ to redefine who is a journalist in order to try to get down the number of journalists that Israel has killed amid its genocide. That was actually beaten back.

Nika was part of that. It was no longer on the board, I would say, as a result of that. So she can talk to us about, you know, the fight that went on inside the committee to protect journalists, which will continue to go on even though this round has been won. Gotcha. And then on Crystal, we're going to cap it all off with a candidate interview. One, Will Lawrence. What's his deal?

He's making waves in his congressional campaign with an anti-data center ad. So, of course, that caught our attention. So we're going to speak with him about that in his race in general as, you know, the left continues to notch a lot of extraordinary victories. On that front, I just want to mention, you know, when Election Day ended this week in Colorado, it looked like Julie Gonzalez had been beaten fairly, you know, handily by John Hickenlooper, the incumbent senator there. although even, you know, the margin that it was looking like it was going to be was pretty impressive given how much she was outspent, how little national attention went to her race. Now that the votes have almost all come in, she was only lost to him by a handful of points, like six points at this point. So I think for the left, you know, it was a real missed opportunity

to take out one of the worst Democratic senators. And it just shows how powerful the change movement is, within the Democratic Party, that even I think she was out and spent 13 to 1. You know, she didn't get all the big endorsements, didn't get as much national attention as Mila did, for example, and still, still almost pulled off this massive upset. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So we've got all of that and more. But let's focus on the most important thing first today, which is, of course, the grill, Crystal. What is going on here with our barbecue prices? Well, I don't think Americans need me to tell you that the costs are going up. We have some numbers. We can show you, though, officially the barbecue index here from the economist. You can see the way that all of these prices have continued to climb year over year.

It looks like ground beef. And for some reason, Coca-Cola, which you guys should be skipping that entirely anyway. But whatever, those costs continue to climb. You can see steak there. That is only going to get worse with this whole. whole screw worm situation unfolding in Texas. I actually just talked to David Griscombe for Crystal and Kyle, Crystal Kyle and friends yesterday about Texas.

And he was emphasizing what a big deal that is in terms of Texas politics, that there could be beef shortages, even in that state, which is, of course, famous for beef and barbecue. So in any case, you know, people feeling the pinch as they had into this holiday weekend. And, you know, unlike with COVID, which was this thing beyond, the, you know, that was, we can't say that global governments had nothing to do with it, but this is a pandemic that, you know, was out of the hands in a lot of ways of the Trump and then the Biden administration, unlike the Ukraine war, which again, we can say the U.S. had a hand

in creating the conditions, but ultimately it's this, you know, external factor, Russia invading Ukraine that leads to the, you know, but the increase in inflation or contributes to it at least. This is entirely due to the policy of Donald Trump between the, tariffs and now, of course, most critically from the war in Iran. I guess the other factor I would add to that is because of the climate crisis, there have been tremendous drought conditions as well that have devastated farmers' crops. And so you're about to have like the lowest wheat yield in decades because of those climate conditions and the rising price of fertilizer contributing to that as well. So all of this has meant increasing pain for American consumers and really for the globe and in

poor countries. It isn't the difference between, you know, affording a steak for your 4th of July barbecue or not. It can literally be the difference between life and death. And we have had an escalating hunger crisis around the world that appears to be only set to get worse, especially with climate conditions set to be really difficult this year with the La Nina cycle too. I just wanted to put up on the screen here, wage growth versus the inflation rate, because that's another part of this as well. So if we're looking at what was the 12% year over year barbecue inflation? index. But right now, as of May at least, wage growth is being outpaced by the inflation rate.

So that's another aspect of this. We were talking Crystal yesterday about how I think the Trump corruption stories are going to hit much harder politically. And maybe you all can let us know. I'm sure you'll shoot us in the comments, shoot us your thoughts in the comments, because I bet that'll be a topic of conversation at some barbecues where you have people feeling like the prices are going up, wages aren't keeping up with that. And on top of it, you see news about the president of the United States just breaking in $1.4 billion in the first like 18 months of his presidency and crypto schemes. So when the wages aren't keeping up, that's different than Trump 1.0. So a little political problem, obviously, as well. Yeah. Let's put Griffin the jobs numbers up. The jobs report came out

yesterday. Normally it comes out Friday. I presume it came out yesterday because today is technically a federal holiday. That's my guess. Anyway, not a good jobs report. Only 57,000 jobs added. 115,000 were expected. This is data pulled from Heather Long, who's an economics reporter for the Washington Post, who does good work there. You can see the chart here, which shows the way that job growth has really fallen off so that we've had in recent months since Trump has been inaugurated. we've had a mix of actually job losses and very modest increases. The unemployment rate still stays low, 4.2%, but she points out this is mainly due to a big decline in the labor force. You had a large number of people, hundreds of thousands of people who said, you know what,

I'm just not going to even look for a job anymore. I'm just out. I'm out. I'm out of the business of looking for jobs. She says the job market is stable. That's good for the Fed, but it's still tough to get a job outside of health care or professional services. hospitality shed about 61,000 jobs. Inflation is wiping out wage gains as Emily was just putting out.

Bottom line, the June jobs report is great for the Fed, disappointing for the rest of America. And Griffin put the next one up on the screen because there are a few dynamics here that are important. First of all, we've talked before about the fact that, you know, the Trump administration, they really ran this very, we're going to look out for the men coded campaign, not even coded, very very overt, right? It was very machismo. We're going to bring back the tough, the factory jobs, the manly man jobs. What has happened, again, directly as the result of his policy and of the rolling back of some of the, some of the policies of Biden administration is actually you've had a decline in manufacturing sector. And the jobs that are growing right now are the ones that

women traditionally have been more represented in. So things, for example, like health care. social services. At the same time, this status shows you that, you know, the last couple of years for working moms in particular has been difficult because of the return to office mandates and also because of the skyrocketing cost of child care. So you have more women who are leaving mothers specifically who have young children under the age of five who are being forced out of the workforce because it is just not a sustainable situation for them to both have to be in the office full time and pay for full-time childcare. So you've got that hit being taken as well.

And you can see that in the chart here. So in any cases, some of the underlying dynamics. And one more thing I'll mention before Ryan gets you in here to react to some of this is that you also had a downward revision of the last two months as well. So the last jobs report of memory serves looked pretty solid. Well, now they've come in and said, well, actually now that we've got the full data in, We've got to knock off tens of thousands of jobs off at that number. Month before, they also revised downward. So a pretty dim picture here in terms of the job market.

And one of the, maybe Emily has thoughts on this too. One of the hopes I've seen from some people is say, well, this is not really factoring in the fact that Stephen Miller's immigration policy has perhaps driven net net negative migration for the first time in forever. And so therefore there's actually fewer people. And so the way that you're looking at this is not completely accurate. A couple responses that. One would be what Emily put up earlier, which is that wages are growing slower than inflation. So if it was truly the case that a reduction in a reduction in the supply of workers was driving up wages, people would be making more earning power. Instead, they are earning their earning their earning power.

is going way down. Also, if you look at just kind of Latino employment, it's slightly up over a year ago, just in absolute terms. So that's, you would expect, because he's really rounding up as many kind of Hispanic people here without, and deporting them, you would expect that number to be going down if it was true that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, to

Crystal's point, you know, manufacturing and construction are either flat or down depending on, depending on how you do the counting, but certainly not not up or seeing any kind of renaissance. Yeah, and what they typically point to is that it's been a decline in the decline. And I don't think that's nothing, but just to see a little bit here from, you all will remember the name, E.J. Antony. He was Trump's pick for the BLS position, got booted out, pointing out basically exactly what Crystal is pointing out here. Today, today's June. Jobs report showed continued wage growth, and that combined with the CPI estimated to have been flat month over the month, means solid real wage growth. However, what the average American's

weekly paycheck can actually buy is still down about 3% since January 2021 and up less than 1% from January 2025. And further, Antony, again, who remember the criticism of Antony was that he is basically going to be a total Trump shill, a MAGA shill. And here's what he posted yesterday. ugly jobs report for June as payrolls rise just 57,000, but two previous months were revised down. Again, sounding like Crystal combined 74,000, a net loss of 17,000, while employment level plunges more than half a million as people leave the labor force. One more thing I'm going to put up here is you can see, this is from usafx.org, which I think is technically a sponsor of Afterparty. They have this number, see this purple downturn? that's the wage this is wages and inflation. And so this is for the Trump administration,

a pretty bad sign as they go forward into the summer and into midterm elections. Let me share something here on the manufacturing piece. So this is manufacturing employment over time. And you can see the way that it builds up through, you know, fits and starts, even up through the 80s. And then with the hard neoliberal turn of the Reagan administration and then NAFTA, you can see the downward spiral here, which continues unimbated till 2010, there starts to be an uptick. This is a major COVID crash. And then this is the Biden administration where, you know, it's chips, didn't get built back to better than it was in, let's say, 1970.

But it was building back better than what it was. They didn't promise good. But there was some, you know, it wasn't sufficient, but there was actually some genuine manufacturing employment improvement. And for the first time in a long time, you coming out of a recession, normally what happens in these drops is that the manufacturing employment never comes back. And so this time, it came back and it actually recovered beyond where it was during the COVID crash. And, you know, now you can see the, you know, the rate here.

under the Trump administration where it's just completely flatlined, it's fallen off, et cetera. So, you know, again, this is just the polar opposite of the promises that they made and what the tariffs were designed to do. And I think at this point, I guess the argument on the other side would be, yeah, but the tariffs got struck down and they never did what they were fully intended to do. Except they were still in place, are still in place. and it had the exact opposite impact of what you would expect, or what they promised at least. It was what we all expected, but what they promised.

So, you know, completely counterproductive. And then the programs that genuinely were working to some extent during the Biden administration, they doge and destroyed. So there you go. And with the court ruling, you're getting the worst of all worlds, the tariffs, which do produce revenue for the government, are deemed to be illegal. and then the government has to then give that money back.

Howard Lutnik's kids and Howard Lutnik's firm kind of bought up most of the rights to get those rebates. So not only are they kind of hurting manufacturing because they're making it hard for people to import the inputs that they need for manufacturing, we don't even get to keep the money. That goes back to Howard Lutnik. And then Trump just puts in new tariffs

under a different legal rationale, which maybe gets struck down eventually. And then that money goes to Howard Lutnik. Nick, too. It's just kind of self-dealing all the way down at the expense of American workers. And they totally, worth noting, they totally pulled out of USMCA this week as well. Interesting. But Emily, I've been told from the White House Twitter accounts that we are, you know, we are trad-cath now. We like that women are leaving the workforce and working at home. So this is a resounding success, right?

Well, to be clear, we could have a separate debate about that. a lot of the numbers show that the preference of most, like, mothers, working-age mothers, is to have some part-time work arrangement. But a lot of younger mothers particularly can't do that because wages, inflation, et cetera, they have to be grinding it out. And as Crystal said, there's been an adjustment post-COVID where a lot of people are frustrated that they can't do jobs from home. They feel like they're perfectly capable of doing from home.

And they've been put back into the workforce as child care prices are spiked. as well. So I don't know about the, the, the, the trad Catholicism of the Trump administration. That might just be wishcasting from Vice President Vance. Let me put this last one up here. Just this will feed into a later conversation we'll have about AI, but this is the change in U.S. tech employment. And, you know, this Twitter user Joe, Joey Politano says the U.S. tech sector continues bleeding jobs. American tech sector employment is down 49,000 over the last year in data release this morning, nearly as bad as the worst of the 2024 tech session, significantly worse than either the 2008 or 2020 recessions. And I mean, I think you have to point to AI as being

a significant factor here. All the people who were told learned to code had the rug pulled out from under them. And that's been the front line of true AI job replacement has been in the tech sector, because the thing that they can right now do with the most proficiency, and you have a workforce that understands how to deploy the technology is coding. And so I think that's why you see a huge reduction in the tech labor force. An IR Radio Experience. Weekend gold tickets to Ilson Inc. In Montreal with Dom Dalla, Chris Lakin friends,

Woolly, Deadmouse, Above and Beyond, Subfocus, and More. With flights from Porter Airlines, three nights at rest. residents in downtown Montreal and $1,000 cash. Enter for your chance to win at iHeartRadio.ca. Ilsonique in Montreal, every day you enter is another chance to win. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy.

So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to.

me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress and I'm confronting them. Tell me, Sophia, how did she even catch them? One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo of the kids' Christmas gifts with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. He exposed himself? That's a rookie move. Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes, and lingerie he then moored her for. So she spent four weeks gathering evidence and taped a 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out.

In his luggage, she came to play. And the second he landed, he blocked her. So she called the hotel room directly and got the mistress on the phone. Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone? That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. Then it gets worse. He took the mistress on the Bahamas honeymoon trip he had planned with his wife. And then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the fair to her entire family.

That's like a whole public confession. And spoiler, two years later, karma hits him so hard. He's calling his ex-wife in tears saying about the mistress. What a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. All right. Well, that'll do it for jobs. but why don't we move over to Kamala,

who might be returning to look for a new job in 2028. We've got a report here that Kamala is not only reaching out to Zoranam Dani, but pro-Palestine activist. It says here in Axio Scoop. Harris reaches out to Modani, pro-Palestine activist and run up to 2028. I guess she's going from I'm speaking to I'm listening.

Oh, Griffin. Now, outside of just this report, there's been reports of her reaching out, not only to, or people reaching out to Mom Dani, like Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsome. It really does seem like Mom Dani is becoming sort of a power broker of the Democratic Party. What do you guys think about that? Can I actually also ask you to, like, this is an interesting comparison because when AOC defeated Joe Crowley, there was this idea that AOC, who, by the way, adored, endorsed Abdul al-Sayed this week as well in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary was going to be the new kind of kingmaker. And what I think we're seeing is Mamdani handling that in a really deft and like leaderly way. I don't even know if leaderly is a true adverb. But it's kind of been interesting. He's not like he's sort of subtle about it, but it's concerted and it's serious. And it seems

like it's coming to fruition in a way that people might have expected earlier in the DSA boom, but now it feels like it's actually really jelling. Yeah, but let's focus on Kamala. And I want you all to react to that first before we get, because I do want to talk a little bit about the Abdul endorsement here and your reaction to that, because just months ago, Kamala could barely even say Zoron's name. Let's take a listen. What do you think of him and his candidacy?

And what do you think of mainline democratic shyness and agitation about the prospect that he's going to win? Look, as far as I'm concerned, he's the Democratic. nominee and he should be supported. Do you endorse this candidacy? I support the Democrat in the race. Sure. What do you?

So, you know, not exactly brave, but also probably more than a lot of other people had to say at that time about him to even support the Democratic nominee in the race. Ryan, what do you think these conversations are going to be like between her and the pro-Palestine activists? How do you think she's going to navigate that situation? I mean, I guess it depends on who she talks to. But let's not forget that the number one hit that Adjiano Espaya used against his opponent, Daria Liza, was that she had said F. Kamala Harris. He put it on a giant mailer.

He put her face on it. The mailer said F. Kamala Harris, Darya Lisa. And he mailed that to everybody in his district. And we're still looking for a copy. If anyone has a copy for us. Oh, like an original copy. Yes, put it in the museum. So if you're Kamala Harris and you're watching that,

to me, you'd be like, all right, I guess it's a wrap for me. Like that's like, how do you come back from that? Like, Normie voters in Harlem saw that and were like, I'm with Daria Lisa. Like, where do you go from there? I guess where she goes, she calls Mom Dani. Maybe uses his name at this point. and then asks like, who do I need to talk to to get right on this question?

I think nobody, I think there's probably room for people to be open to her because nobody thinks she has any deeply held views, period. So it's not like she has a deeply held view of support for Israel. She just doesn't care. She's just a politician who's going to mouth whatever it is. At this point, though, in our politics, I don't think you need somebody like that. if you're the kind of progressive left. You could get somebody who actually does believe things and believes things that you agree with.

So also what like she ran in 2020, didn't even make it into 2020. I think she dropped out before the calendar turned into the election year. Yep. And then she gets picked by Biden. And then she becomes the nominee by Fiat. Like what, like what is it about her that Democratic voters are going to say, yeah, this the person that we need to put out on the field. I just don't see it. Well, Crystal, do you think if she does adopt a pro-Palestine position, she says, now I am listening and what we did was wrong, or we should

be actually holding a larger candle to Israel and holding their feet to the fire? Do you think that would get her through at least a month or two of the primary before crashing out? Like, it does seem like she is going to run now. Yeah, I mean, she can get through a month or two or the primary just from being the first, you know, black woman vice president and having some base of support because of that and high name recognition. But on Palestine, how could you ever trust her? Because when it mattered, you did nothing. When it mattered, you would not even let a Palestinian American who endorsed you and wanted to speak on your behalf, speak on the DNC stage. What's that, Ryan? Yeah, and say nice things about you. Like an evented speech. Yes, exactly. So very neutered speech, right? Very iodine speech.

So, and it reminds very much of Kamala Harris in 2020 on Medicare for All. Remember, she signed on a Bernie's bill as a co-sponsor because she thought that was a political thing to do. And then some donors gave her some pushback. And remember she was pretending. She didn't hear the question when she got asked about private insurance. I mean, it was just a mess because she doesn't have any core convictions. She's just constantly finger in the wind. And the finger is not even that sensitive to where the wind is blowing.

Okay. It's like she's getting the wind. from like three years ago, blown by at this point. So, yeah, I mean, and I would point to examples that I think Ryan has pointed to in the recent election results, which is Antonio Renoso, who is running against Claire Valdez. He said it was a genocide, but he didn't say it until it was politically convenient to

him. It was not until he was running, and it was clear he needed to say it before he said it. And people looked at that and said, not good enough. When it counted when it was hard, you were nowhere to be found. You could see Scott Wiener being confronted by activists while he's at Pride events. And same thing. He has now said it's a genocide. But people look at this and go, yeah, but when it was hard, when the, you know, bombs were

being dropped, there's still mass murder happening in Gaza, don't get me wrong. But when the bombs were being dropped and babies were being mass murdered, you had nothing to say about it. It's not good enough. So I think for, you're going to see a lot of Democrats. now who have been horrendous on this issue, who are looking at the election results who are going, holy shit, I better get on board with this or I'm going to be in big trouble. You're going to see a lot of people repositioning themselves and suddenly, you know, it's a genocide and suddenly they can get on board with blocking weapons and suddenly they are repositioning themselves as economic populace

and trying to meet the moment. That's a good thing that cynical politicians are trying to move to be in the correct place now. But no, I don't think voters are going to forget for Kamala Harris that when it counted both when you were vice president and when you were campaigning for president and at risk of losing to Donald Trump, which you did then lose, that you were terrible and nowhere to be found. So no, I don't think a few conversations with, you know, pro-Palestine activists or reaching out to Zora and Mamdani is going to solve that issue for her. I don't think it's fixable. I wrote a piece on this this week going back with the not just the Medicare for all in Kamala Harris, but also as you all remember when she got a town hall question, it was like 2018 and 2019 about accepting corporate

money versus corporate lobbyist money, like corporate PAC money versus corporate lobbyist money. And she tried to split the hair. And it went super viral. She got just like roasted for it. And immediately within like a couple of weeks, she went on breakfast club and was like, I will not be taking corporate pack money. And then within a year, she was doing a tour of the Hampton. and just like trying to rake in as much corporate money as possible,

but within this framework of Kirsten Gilbert and did it as well. There was this like rush to say, we're not accepting corporate PAC money in the 2020 Democratic primary. And then instead of taking the PAC money, they were just begging Wall Street and the like hedge fund folks for donations either way. So it was like this meaningless thing where she had, she had her finger in the wind to Crystal's point, but like couldn't even pull that off because she is not principled enough.

or smart enough politically, clever enough politically to pull it off. But it's like she doesn't understand campaign finance. It's like, bro, corporate PAC money doesn't scale for a presidential campaign. Like, you're capped at like $5,000 or something like from an individual corporate PAC. Right. Like, do you know how much you would, how many corporate PAC donations you would need to get a billion dollars? I mean, it's like, you'd need every company pack like on the planet to give you multiple donations. But you can go to the Hamptons and get a million dollar check from the guy that owns the company.

Exactly. Forget the cap. So to not even know that, like, we need more competent, corrupt politicians. It's like, come on, give us something better here. Do better there. Do you more like Gavin Newsom. Well, the politicians. Oh, yeah, he's got it.

So the politicians are coming around to the idea that they need to pivot on the issue. but mainstream media seems to be still stuck on this, which I think leads us nicely to this clip of Abdul Al-Said, who's been making the rounds on mainstream media, and recently got into a little bit of a kerfuffle over saying that his opponent, Haley Stevens, couldn't string two sentences together due to her APEC

FACFUFUndi. I love Haley Stevens so much. This anchor grills him a lot on Israel's right to exist. It's the whole shebang. over again, but I think this sexist misogynist accusation is the new one that they're going with, because APAC really can't run on the issue of Israel. Let's take a little bit of Casey. When you said that you hoped that APAC could teach Stevens how to straight- Why is she standing together? Do you regret how you phrase that at all? That's the right way to put it?

Obviously, Congresswoman Stevens is really smart, which is why it's so surprising that whenever you ask her why, for example, she took a trip to Portugal, paid for by Center Forward, one of the Super PACs that is playing in this election to Portugal with her mom, why she took that trip, why she's taking $30 million from APAC, where her money comes from, she struggles to explain what that's, what that is. And so I just think it's really important for us to get a clear explanation of where that money's coming from and what she's promised to these corporations in Super PACs, including APAC, about what she plans to do for them when she's in office. Do you want to see the Super PAC supporting you, air negative ads like they've now said they're planning to do?

Obviously, I don't coordinate with them, but you're talking about the National Nurses United, the UAW, Working Families Party. These are folks who are trying to push back against the mis and disinformation that you just saw from APAC. So at the end of the day, I would rather not engage in negative campaigning at all. I don't do it on my campaign. We're focused on talking about getting money out of politics, putting money in your pocket, passing Medicare for all. standing up with and for women doing the work that builds in America where everybody knows if they can get the health care they need when they need it, that they can get child care when they need it, and that their health care and their economy is not dominated by a large corporation

telling us what we can't have, shouldn't fight for, and have to put up with. All right. So we've got the 30 million apex spend versus the dark money of the nurses in the UAW. What do we make of that? Well, let me just let me, as a woman, let me weigh in here. since the ad that APAAC backed group put out said that Abdul-Aid has like a history of disparaging women or something like that. And the Detroit Free Press dug into the claims that they made in this ad and were like, this is total incomplete bullshit. One of them, just to give you a sense, was like, he said Michelle Obama was ineffectual and incompetent or something like that. And he was critiquing her, you know, her push when she was the first lady, the let's move project. And he was saying, look, it's great to encourage kids to move. And, you know, that's good. But we also have to address these structural factors, very consistent with his view on Medicare for all. And he said that her program was well meaning but ineffectual. And so they used that to be like, he hates Michelle Obama and smeared her in a sexist way. It's total and complete bullshit. Obviously. It's also very Hillary Clinton,

2016 coded what they did to Bernie of, oh, the toxic Bernie bros and breaking up the big banks doesn't end racism. It's a great reminder of where the, you know, woke 1.0 type politics, the well from which they sprung, which was the neoliberal trying to beat back this left insurgency. They're trying to run the same playbook. I don't think it's going to work. But the other thing I see here, and you guys can tell me if I'm overreaching on this, but Abdul al-Sayyad is a Muslim man. And I also think there's a little bit of, oh, let's tell the public that this Muslim man mistreats women because that's the Islamophobic stereotype of Muslims in America. So I think there's some of that going on there, which is really gross.

But if you watch that whole interview, Griffin, you referenced the Casey was pushing him on. Oh, does Israel have a right to exist? Why wouldn't you say Israel has a right to exist? And Abdul handled it very well. He was like, look, no one ever asked me if Palestine has a right to exist. The reality is Israel does exist. Let's ask the question with our tax dollars should be going to them to bomb babies. rather than, let's say, building hospitals in the state of Michigan.

Great answer. But I really think the media has lost the plot on what is going to help and what is going to hurt these candidates. Yes. For the vast majority of Americans, not just Democrats, Americans, when they look at that exchange, they are going to be on Abdul's side. They're going to say, yeah, he's right. Why are we spending our tax dollars?

Why is he being harangued over this issue, by the way, again and again in this incredibly tired and cliche way. So it reminds me somewhat of the way that some of the attacks on Trump from the mainstream press have backfired over the years in the same way where, you know, when he comes out and he's slinging and he's making them look like they're melting down and he's sort of like owning them, people are going, oh, yeah, I like this guy versus they thought they were hurting him. And I think there's a similar dynamic going on now where the mainstream press doesn't realize that, for example, associating a candidate with Hassan for the Democratic they're looking at that and going, oh, I guess that's the candidate that is actually good on

Israel that actually has a moral compass. I'm going to be with that guy, which is exactly what happened in the Michigan race with Abdul as well. Hmm. I think there's something to that. And Casey Hunt is a good example. She's on CNN of somebody who I think is, it's odd because I'm trying to explain this. And you guys can tell me if I'm off on this. But like post quote unquote woke politics are sort of strange how they've split in the centrist media because on the one hand, they know that like political correctness is over and they should be having these like fiery panels on the Abby Phillips show, whatever, like let everybody shout at each other. On the other hand, they still do want to like tone police sexism and

misogyny and don't understand in any way whatsoever that people don't buy these like really thin attacks anymore. It does, to Crystal's point, it does remind me a bit of every time the media will melt down about tone policing Trump and knowing that the public is like, no, most people in the public aren't on board with Trump's tone. But it's not like the core issue that they're concerned about over and over again. Like they're concerned about putting food on their table, paying their health care bills and like being able to afford daycare, stuff like that. And so it just, it's a strange dynamic when you see the media try to like parse these politics in 2026. They just don't know what actually people care about.

again and you see it with a it's it's it's very Bernie uh 2016. Mm-hmm. Yes. APEC doing that type of attack ad, uh, you know, basically dredging up 2015 again feels sort of like the, you know, hello fellow Democrats. How do you do that thing? Like, you guys care about women and women's rights, right? Well, this and it's like, well, you're like 10 years late on this and I don't think people are

going to buy it from you. And politically kind of practically, kind of practice. mathematically, he's going to overwhelmingly win women in Michigan. His challenge against Mike Rogers is going to be independent women, independent men, and older men, too. He needs to tighten the margins. He's going to lose older men to Mike Rogers. But if he can shrink that margin, then he can,

then he's going to be more competitive. And ironically, some of those older men in Michigan are going to hear these ads saying that he's, you know, hostile to women, and it's going to cut against the Republican attack that he's too far left, and they're going to be more open to him, ironically. And there's a bar stool. There's also these, like, young barstool guys I'm seeing

that are going out for Abdul. Like, I'm seeing these Dave Portnay-esque bros holding up with women. He's our guy. Well, I think it's more the gym stuff. Crystal sent this banger yesterday, by the way. Yeah. Oh, I love the, that's a good shirt, too.

Really good shirt. I want that shirt. But you know what? I just have to give a shout out to David Serrata who went to Michigan and did the gym thing with Abdul, despite decidedly not being a gym bro himself. Yeah. I just really want to admire. I just admire him for doing that and making himself vulnerable in that way. He's like, I got crushed, but it was a good time.

Yes. He admitted to me on Twitter that he's actually a gamer. So, yeah, a gamer in the gym is very unusual. So we've been talking a lot, though. There's another big C change in this race because AOC just endorsed. I guess she heard that he was a misogynist and now she's in.

Now, we've talked a lot about AOC's strategies on who to endorse and when. So I did definitely want Crystal's reaction to this. Or Crystal can leave the call and I can get Ryan to do it. You're trying to give me yell that again. But there's also talk about, yeah, but there's also talk about how she coordinated a Zoram for the congressional races. It's great that she endorsed him. I just want to see more of this, you know, and it's significant, too, because Haley Stevens is one of her colleagues.

So, you know, she, to go in and endorse Abdul at this point, I think makes a difference. I think Abdul is on track for victory. So I also think it's like relatively safe for her at this point to jump in the race. I just want to see her use that power more. So a great example of, you know, another place where she could make a difference is with Corey Bush and Missouri. And maybe she's going to get in there. But Corey's a former colleague.

You know, they are friends as far as I know. And but she's running against Wesley Bell, who takes the billions of dollars from A PAC roughly. And so that would be a race where it would really make a difference. In terms of the New York coordination thing, I completely, you know, I'd seen this reporting before that she and Zorrizzar. coordinated and, you know, I don't doubt that that is the case. I just, from my perspective,

Zoran has gotten justifiably a lot of the credit and is now being called by Kamleris and Gavin Newsom, et cetera, because he is perceived as this kingmaker. And I think that's legitimate. You know, I think he almost uniquely was able to transfer his coalition to these candidates in New York City. People spoke to reporters on the ground who were voting for Dari Elisa and were just basically like, yeah, I don't know much about her, but it's Zoran's candidate. so I'm voting for her. I think that's pretty extraordinary. And so if AOC had taken the risk of also backing some candidates against her, against incumbents,

which is what she was when she won, she would also be able to accumulate that capital and be seen very much as the leader of this movement. So, you know, I think she's playing it too safe. I think that she is deferring too much to the feelings of her colleagues versus the needs of the movement. And there are a number of races that it really could make a difference. You know, another example here is I think of Bernie also, I think, plays it a little too safe, although not quite as safe as AOC. If he and AOC had endorsed Tom Steyer in California, who was clearly the most progressive candidate, he would have made the top two. It was very close. And he would, you know,

be in the game and have a real shot at winning in that state. And that would make a huge difference. So I just think there's a lot of misopportunities here and too much of a cautious approach. But I'm very glad to see her in Doris Abdul. And I mean, these are won by like 2,000 votes. That was a really close one. Close. Very close. And I've seen people say, well, how come it's okay for, it's not okay for AOC to do it this way, but it's okay for Mom Donnie to do it.

And actually, you know, it's sexist. It's a double standard. There's a very big distinction between the two at this moment. As, as mayor, he's highly dependent on what Albany kind of allows him to do as mayor. Like that, his, his agenda. For the budget. For the budget and for lots of other things, direct. is directly linked to his ability to get things done in Albany.

AOC does not need the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is her platform, but she is not like, she's not going to pass some like Ocasio-Cortez Act over the next couple of years that Trump is going to sign into law. And if she's going to do it next term, it's going to be because of the power that she builds nationally. Nobody in the House,

except maybe a couple of Republicans likes Roe Kana. Like they hate him. The House Democrats, they hate him. Yet he passed the Kana Massey legislation because of the raw power of the public getting behind him.

So, yes, she's preserving her relationships in the House by not endorsing any incumbents. And if she sticks by this apparent pledge that she made to not endorse any challengers, that literally does mean that she won't get behind Cory Bush against Wesley Bell,

who ran in 2018 with her was her former incumbent colleague that APEC spent millions to knock out that slept out on the capital steps to protect people from eviction and you're not going to get behind her because you're trying to preserve relationships with these people, you know,

that would love to see you burn. Yeah. And for what? It's not like you're developing any legislative power. And that's such an important, both of those are important points. Okay. You don't think,

that the Democratic establishment would destroy her, given the slightest possible chance. Like this loyalty she's showing is not going to be reciprocated. That's number one. Number two, she's, this is, you know, she's been taking this approach for a while. What has it gotten you? You know, when you wanted to be the ranking member on oversight,

they were like, no, we're going to give it to this man who was literally going to be dead in a few months. We will pick him over you. I mean, it's, that's, that's what it's gotten here. And apparently she made the promise in that. campaign that she wouldn't endorse. And so she kept the promise, but didn't even get the position. Even didn't get the position.

Now, the counter would be the frontrunner for president. So that's the counter argument. In contrast, Zoran, you know, with his move, some of which I was critical of at the time, they've paid off. He was right. I was wrong, you know, in terms of preserving his relationship with Hokel, not endorsing against Hakeem Jeffries. And as you pointed out, Ryan, he went through the, the DSA Democratic process, too,

by the way, and made his case. And they were like, okay, narrowly. We agree with you here. So it has been a successful, pragmatic approach with AOC, who's been in the House now almost a decade. It's hard to point to similar fruits of, you know, the approach that she's taken in terms of, like, pragmatic legislative victories. And then the last thing that we haven't even mentioned here is she's already come out and said she's went for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker. Why would you do that? Why?

Even if you in your heart of hearts know that at the end of the day, okay, I would vote for him. Why would you announce that publicly now? That just means that going into those negotiations, you have zero power in leverage. There is no ability of you to join, you know, all of your new colleagues at Chris Rab and, you know, you've already got Summer Lee and you've got Dari Lisa and Claire Valdez and all of these people that are coming in now. And, you know, in Malad Kiros in Colorado, you have a genuine faction here who could push for some real things and extract some concessions out of Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic establishment. And you've just handed over willingly all of your power. Why? Why would you do that?

It just makes no sense to me. But Chris Rab also said the same thing on the show. So it does seem to be some sort of keep your powder dry strategy with these D.STA elected. You may remember better than me. My recollection is he was just like, I'm not sure. We'll see who's running. AOC actively said, no, I will vote for Hakeem Jeffries. So those are different things.

Now, I prefer to see the Malakiros approach of I will not vote for Hakeem Jeffries. But at the very least, have that line of like, I don't know who's running, so we'll see, right? Yeah. Keep maintain your leverage. That's all you have to do. It was crazy to me to see her give that up like that. Yeah, you can get so many different. I mean, obviously, this was, Ryan, we were talking about this the other day.

This was Kevin McCarthy's great downfalls that he ended up giving so much away. I don't think it ultimately helped the Freedom Caucus folks and those who voted against Kevin McCarthy, but that's because they played it poorly, to be honest, when they ousted him. But that is exactly how they, he ended up as, because he had to give so much to the HFC people just to secure their votes because they leveraged their votes, which is a thing that you can do in politics magically. It's amazing how that works. But I actually thought the way that AOC played the Nancy Pelosi stuff was impressive in the moment.

I actually, though, on the other hand, now that we have some like time in the rear room mirror, look at that and say, well, with Zoron and now this new wave, it's not, even an option for the Democratic establishment anymore to continue clinging to their status quo, because they literally do not have the public on their side. They don't have the momentum of the party's base. They don't have the grassroots. And so it's not just kind of like, oh, maybe we're in a transition phase, circa 2018, 2020, 2020, 2022. Now it is just like abundantly clear what direction the party is going in, what direction the voters want it to go in. And so it's like, she is, she could be more powerful than Hakeem Jeffries if she chose to be.

Like, Hakeem Jeffries is the guy. Yeah, he's the guy who has no power anymore. I mean, does he technically have power? Yes, of course. But, like, he doesn't really have people with him anymore. She's the one who should theoretically have a ton of power because she's representing the base and the grassroots that is now firmly ensconced as the, like, engine of the Democratic Party.

So it doesn't make any sense to continue to be deferential to the leadership because they, you can give to them more than they can give to you at this point. You know, the strategy maybe makes more sense if she's planning to run for Senate instead of for president. You know, maybe there's a theoretical like, okay, Kim Jeffries is powerful in New York.

Chuck Schumer is powerful in New York. Maybe if I don't rock the boat with these people, maybe it'll be, go easier for me in a Senate primary down the road. I think, so I think the strategy is somewhat more. more logical if you're going in that direction. Now, in terms of what would be best for the movement, there's still, I think, a major flaw in the approach here where, you know, the left has the wind at their backs right now. It's in a way that has never been the case, even in a peak Bernie moment. You know, the Democratic base agrees with the left. The neoliberal establishment has been

destroyed in terms of their credibility. And so now's the moment when you take those. risks and use the political capital and the prestige you have with the liberal and progressive base to try to expand that coalition and move the movement forward. And I think she's, you know, I think she's missing the bark and being too cautious in that regard. Whereas I think Zoron has really successfully combined pragmatism in terms of I need to govern effectively in the city of New York with taking some major risks that have paid out off and have really been incredible for helping to build the movement, including his own campaign, by the way. I mean, let's not forget he started 1%. It was an incredible long shot in nothing has been more consequential in American politics for

the left. Nothing. Well, Crystal, do we have a second to talk about Colorado before we get to our guest? We better. We better have a second to talk about Colorado because I am, okay, I have been following this. You know who turned to put me on to this complete maniac who is now looks to be the Republican nominee for governor of Colorado is actually my 18-year-old daughter who was like, mom, have you seen this interview? This guy is insane.

And this interview is blowing up on TikTok. So this man, what is the name, Victor Marx? He's a Marxist. His dad is actually named Carl Marx guys. I shit you not. This is how insane this whole situation is. Wait, really?

I think so. I saw that on Twitter. Double check me. Maybe that's bullshit. But that is what I saw on Twitter. In any case, he runs one of these like, oh, we help women. and girls that have been trafficked.

But in an interview with a local news reporter, he got completely called out. He refused to back up the statistics that he'd put out there previously. Just, you know, the details around the reality of what is happening in this organization are in doubt, to say the least. But the other thing that's insane,

and we'll play this clip for you, he claims that his dad made him kill a man when he was seven. And then when he got asked, whether he's killed other people, he refused to say, okay, and was like, I don't see why that's important. He's also claimed to lead these, like, strikes on terrorists, but he was never in the military. So he's claiming as a civilian, he, like, directed these military operations against terrorists in various locations around the planet. Also, one specified the details of that.

So Griffin, could we go ahead and play this clip? Because I just need everybody to know the type of people that are getting nominated. around the country on the Republican side. This clip feels straight out of the jinks with Robert Durst. Oh, greatest documentary of all time. Yes. Your claim that your abusive stepfather forced you to kill a man when you were seven years old, is that one that he's ever killed?

Well, as a child, yes. Without question. But I've been in other situations. where, you know, possibly people or persons died as a result of me defending myself in other countries? Do you think that you've killed people as an adult? Does it matter? Yeah. Killing somebody is a pretty weighty thing.

Yeah. If someone's trying to kill you or you're in combat. It's still a weighty thing to take somebody else's life. Again, was not in the military. It could be justified, but it's still a weighty thing. So I'm just asking me, how many people have you killed? Well, if I did, I wouldn't be telling a reporter sitting here my training center. How about voters?

Would you tell voters? There's no need. I don't think that's important. It's actually kind of, it's an odd question to me. Because you actually talk about the idea of killing people with some frequency. and why it's a necessary thing to do, killing people. You said on NRA TV in 2017, now a lot of them just got to be killed.

I've had them shoot at me and I had to shoot back. There's a time and place to eliminate the enemy, and you have to. You said on Jeff Learner's podcast in 2025, some people have to get killed. Some people have to die. But it's an odd question to ask you how many people you've killed. Yes.

All right. So, Crystal, he's not in the military. Well, I was just going to say, So the Washington Examiner and the Army website report that he was a Marine. So I don't know if that, I don't know. Yeah. So anyway. Either way, it doesn't really check out.

Yeah. I mean, I was ready. I was, when I first saw that, I was ready to defend him because if you're in combat, I think what he was trying to say at one point, if you're in combat and you're shooting off into the distance, maybe you don't necessarily know if you're not sure. build somebody or not. But then when it gets, when it brings up the fact that you yourself have bragged about killing people and talked about the importance of killing people and how much it matters to kill people that are trying to kill you, like if you're the one that introduced it into the conversation, then it's a completely fair question. All right. So here's what it looks like.

It says he served in from 83 to 86 under a different name, Von Kennedy. Incredible. Incredible. Never deployed you. Or zone or saw combat. Oh, my God. So are these parking lot fights? Like, what's, where are these? Yeah, where, where do you have killed people, Grenada? Like, never deployed to a war zone, never saw combat.

So. Although. And also, okay, if you. Well, and we're assuming that this name thing is correct. Because that's what's like confusing about all of the, like, we've seen people embellish and have totally incorrect information about whether or not they served in the military before. So that's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, And he's winning. He's winning. He won the nominee.

Well, he's winning the Republican nomination. He will almost certainly lose to the Democratic nominee. But congrats on your Republican nominee for governor in Colorado. Yeah. Colorado elected Republicans recently. Not long ago. Yeah. I don't think it would be him. Wow. Well, everyone keep a far breath away from the Colorado Republican primaries. I hadn't seen that. killing going on there and DSA must disown this Marxist. Shout on to Kyle Clark who did a great job in that interview. Everyone should go watch the whole thing because there were many more moments like that that were just like, oh my God. Killing someone is a weighty thing in the words.

It's like, it's an odd question. Well, you've made some odd claims. So we're going to have to ask some odd questions. All right. Let's talk about journalism or protecting journalists. We have a guest here, Ryan. Let's bring them on in. Listen

And you're there For heart-wrenching knockouts The world's biggest stage And breathtaking triumph In 2020-26 FIFA World Cup The knockout stage Every match, every moment Listen on TSN Radio

Join the globe On the road to the July 19th final 2026 FIFA World Cup Stream it all live on TSN Radio Available on IHeartRadio Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotbby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy.

So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw. coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it.

Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress and I'm confronting them. Tell me, Sophia, how did she even catch them? One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo of the kids' Christmas gifts with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. He exposed himself?

That's a rookie move. Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes, and lingerie he then mowed her for. So she spent four weeks gathering evidence and taped a 10-page letter inside his luggage. before he flew out. In his luggage, she came to play. And the second he landed, he blocked her. So she called the hotel room directly and got the mistress on the phone.

Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone? That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. Then it gets worse. He took the mistress on the Bahamas honeymoon trip he had planned with his wife. And then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the affair to her entire family.

That's like a whole public confession. And spoiler, two years later, karma hits him so hard. he's calling his ex-wife in tears saying about the mistress, what a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Ryan, who do we have today? We've got Nika Sunshung, publisher of Dropside News.

Nika, how you doing? Not so bad. How are you all? Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. Of course. So you found yourself in the middle of a controversy.

this past couple of weeks, just to give it a little bit of the background, but I want you to kind of tell us everything. So you were up until recently a member of the board of the committee to protect journalists, which like other similar committees, keeps a list of the number of journalists around the world

who have been killed while performing their journalistic duties. That list has become a, massive political liability for the state of Israel, which has killed more journalists, maybe than any other country in modern history or, I guess, history period, in such a short amount of time. And so there's been this then rearguard action by defenders of Israel to try to either one by one eliminate people who were added to that list, but then more importantly, to kind of change the definition of, of who becomes a journalist.

So can you talk, tell us like a little bit about how, like how it came to pass that all of a sudden CPJ was going to review its definition of who counts as a journalist. And what was the change that some advocates were looking for? Yeah, well, I'll say it's not CPJ. It's specifically the CPJ board, which has the independent authority to change the definition for the organization. Right. And it wasn't even an agenda item for the board to discuss. It actually came from a discussion that was planned of an article that was titled CPJ board stacked with figures who accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid. And then had several free beacon, yeah, exactly. And the article had several obvious factual errors, etc. But first of all, Israel is an apartheid state and it is committing genocide. And we should be able to say, that. And second of all, we were supposed to discuss a response against the piece, which cites accusations from honest reporting that DropSite does quote unquote terrorist PR.

Instead, the outcome was, well, maybe the piece is wrong, but maybe it has a point. Maybe actually some of the journalists in Gaza are legitimate combatants. And for that reason, we should really reevaluate whether or not they qualify as a journalist. And so from there, the discussion was long, and the next thing I knew, there was a task force established to evaluate whether or not CPJ's definition should break from international law and count. But not by a vote or anything of the board, just a, all of a sudden, somebody on the board is just, we're going to do a task force and we're going to look at this. Right. And then a couple weeks later, the task force had been selected, had been selected with members, including. including members who advocated for the questioning of the inclusion of journalists who are associated with Hamas and P.I.J.

And so from there, I sent an email asking very simply for a vote and laying out some of what I thought the moral stakes were of even beginning this process, of even beginning this sort of collective active suspicion to re-verify and reevaluate the very terms of the organization is built on. It's like the J and CPJ is journalists. We really don't know what that is. Then the whole organization should shut down until it's figured out. And so it's quite consequential. And what's the current? Go ahead, Crystal.

I was going to ask the same question. What is the current definition of journalists that is held by the CPJ? How was that determined and how was it going to be changed? Yeah. So journalists are people who regularly cover news to report or share fact-based information. That includes journalists that state-backed publications. It includes freelancers. It includes journalists at publications run by identified terrorist groups by certain countries. Now, journalists are excluded from inclusion from the impunity index, from the database, if there's evidence that they were directly participating in combat in armed conflict at the time of their death.

And so really now, the new element being introduced is, well, should civilian journalists affiliated with, with non-military wings of identified terrorist groups be excluded categorically from being counted as a journalist. And I saw the email that you sent, you pointed out, because people have a very hard time humanizing Palestinians. So you said, okay, the ANC, you know, Nelson Mandela's organization, was listed as a terrorist organization up until like relatively recently. Right.

And they had a media. they had a media wing. They had reporters that would write for publications that were kind of affiliated with the ANC. Most political groups around the world have like a separate media wing. Most states have it too. Russia has RT. Turkey has multiple state act ones. The U.S.

has NPR and PBS. Britain has the BBC. And so the idea was if you're doing journalism for any one of these officials, affiliates does not matter what the politics are of the organization you're affiliated with. Like you can't kill an RT journalist because you think that Putin is a terrorist. You can't kill an ANC linked because you think that the ANC is journalist. You can't kill a Hamas linked because they've got their own news organizations. You can't kill them if they're freelancing for this outlet.

So that was the counter argument. What like what was there how do they everyone agrees. with that in the world of journalism. So how are they going to single out kind of Palestinian journalists working for these organizations without also then saying if you work for Israeli Army Radio

or in Israeli public news organization or the BBC, because they wouldn't want to say a BBC journalist is fair game, even though the UK is complicit in a genocide. So what was their attempt to kind of write a deaf

that would say, these journalists are terrorists and you can kill them, but these journalists are not and you can't. I mean, I think in many ways it's driven by the discomfort with the international laws acceptance of Palestinians' right to armed resistance to a military occupation. And you mentioned the ANC. It's not just that ANC had a newspaper and an outlet. It also had an armed wing and Conteuxes-Seasweight that Mandela was a founding leader of. and Mandela himself was on the U.S. terror watch list. And so really it's the accusations of violence on behalf of quote unquote terrorist organizations that is really driving this special rule, but the logic doesn't hold up if you push it just an inch forwards, which is really why I thought the process was in bad faith to begin with. Well, that was going to be my question is what evidence do they have that any of these

journalists may have been acting as you laid out, Nika, in violent capacities at the time of their death. Does that evidence exist? Would that put a serious dent in the numbers if it were there? So that is the current definition now. If their journalist is acting in combat the time of their death and there to be excluded, I know there were instances. And again, I haven't reviewed this myself and I actually can't speak to any of the data or the cases. But there have been instances, for example, where there have been obituaries published by Hamas that have identified a journalist in a particular way that caused for a review of how they were included in the database. And I think those rules are legitimate and that is a legitimate reason to review that case. And it's unfortunate

that a politically motivated board-led effort is being conflated with the review of the database, which is conducted by CPJ staff, CPJ staff that operate independently. And so Nika, what events led to you being off the board? How did that transpire? Yeah. I mean, I sent an email, the email that I shared. There was one response from a board member saying that they agree in terms of procedure, a board vote should happen. There was another response from the person who asked for this process to begin with, simply saying, I don't think Niko wants a debate and I desist from responding. The board chair didn't respond and the next morning in fact told me that my term limit was up

and that I was no longer a board member. And that was it. That was the only communication. But then they did have a vote, right? They did have a vote. They did have the vote passed. So the definition, I'm thinking the task force isn't happening anymore. Nika, I have a question because I see a lot of the pro-Israel, the Zionist crowd, trying to label some of these journalists as combatants.

Now, they use pictures of press sitting on top of tanks and things like that. As we see, he's a combatant. So I wanted to know, like, how you define combatant versus journalists. And I also did want to share an image of Douglas Murray and Deborah Messing, who did ride around with some tanks with Israel. And if we're to go by the definition of being near or around tanks, then aren't Douglas Murray and Deborah Messing free game as well? I leave that up to CBJ, but I really do think that this is...

I'll bring it up to them. It's a whole process. and it's something for which there should be, and actually is an open methodology that's being refined, that's being reviewed to make sure that it captures these really difficult gray areas quite carefully. And it's for that reason that redefining the very parameters of what is a journalist would undo all of that work

and categorically mean that almost all Palestinians on the database would be removed. And so we can talk about these individual cases and the validity of their exclusion, but I think it's more significant to consider the politically motivated entire reimagination of the term. That's a good point. There is really no significant political faction inside of Gaza that has not been designated by either the U.S. or Israel as a terrorist organization. and those are the organizations that have kind of media operations. And so if you're going to freelance, and a lot of them freelance for Western outlets

and then also for local outlets, if you're going to do that, it's almost impossible not to work with somebody that Israel considers to be a terrorist. I'm just curious, and maybe you don't know the answer to this. Do you know if CPJ considers Stars and Stripes, which is the American kind of newspaper? I would assume that those are journalists and not combatants.

I'm not sure, but I do know that voice in, you know, Voice of America was on the board at some stage, and that's a state-backed outlet. Okay, so Voice of America gets to qualify as journalism, which they should. I don't think you should be able to kill somebody at Voice of America. And also oftentimes these journalists are killed intense, and they're killed in tents that are known to be,

where the journalists operate outside of Nasser Hospital and other places. So was your term supposed to be over? What were the actual details of that? Yeah. I mean, I was emailed that my three-year term was over, and then the board chair said in a media interview that my five-year term was over, and I looked, and it is a five-year term, and it technically is over, but according to the bylaws, I should remain being a board member

until a replacement is selected and I'm not aware of a replacement. So there's a chance of, it's just interesting timing that it was brought to me this way and it was brought to me in lieu of a response to what I'd written. I think Ryan would be a great. No. I think Stogger, like who would annoy them more than Stager? They'd all resign. They'd all quit. I like that idea.

Nika, my last question for you is, and again, maybe I don't know how much insight you have into this, but I suspect this wasn't a one-off pressure campaign from Zionists. Why do you think that, I mean, this is kind of obvious, but why do you think they're so sensitive to these numbers? To me, that's very telling that they, you know, that they care, that this looks so incredibly bad for Israel. And how significant has that pressure campaign and how long has that been going on? I mean, I think we have to ask, why is the world's leading press freedom organization at this time re-evaluating who is a journalist when the legitimacy of Palestinian journalists is being questioned in mass? And why is honest reporting being cited? Why does honest reporting have offices in Tel Aviv? Why did the IDF tweet that this, I told you so when this all went down? I mean, these are really important questions, but I also think that.

CPJ's board is comprised almost entirely of leaders of mainstream media at New York Times, Fox News, NBC, the list goes on. And these are organizations whose complicity in the ongoing genocide is really being highlighted and emphasized. Also, the IDF, I wonder if I can find it. The IDF even tweeted at you, Nika, a bizarre SpongeBob meme? that did happen like the IDF's official count

throwing a SpongeBob mean at you which I didn't quite even understand I'm like maybe IDF is a lot younger than me I was like what IDF canver account are we looking at we'll add it to the link show but I can't find it right now but it's like what on earth is going on here

and I just want to actually to get this the question that Crystal S. home, this was Theo Vaughn and Republican Senator John Kennedy on Theo's podcast this week. And Theo pressed Republican Senator John Kennedy on deaths of journalists and he didn't want to accept the numbers. And we, but, but, but, but Hamas would, Hamas would hold the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, they would put them out front. But how do we. But how do we know. They killed 220-something-something. But they killed 220-something journalists that went there to document what was going on. There's no question there had been civilian deaths.

They wouldn't let journalists in to even document what was happening there. They have been civilian deaths, but it is primarily the fault. And so what you see with that is just obviously the stakes for Israel right now are very high when you have Theo Vaughn pushing a Republican senator, and the senator has no good response to that, Nika. Absolutely. I think we're at a critical moment. So I'm grateful for the board's decision, and I think it was the right one. That's indeed.

Well, Nika, thanks for taking some time this morning to join us. Thanks. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, you got it. Talk to you later. An IR Radio Experience. Weekend gold tickets to Ilsoni. One, two, three.

Everybody just three. In Montreal with Dom Dalla, Chris Lakin friends, Woolly, Deadmouse, Above and Beyond, Subfocus, and More, with flights from Porter, Airlines, three nights at Residence Inn downtown Montreal, and $1,000 cash. Enter for your chance to win at iHeartRadio.ca. Ilsonique in Montreal, every day you enter is another chance to win. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression.

I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice. but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress, and I'm confronting them. Tell me, Sophia, how did she even catch them? One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo of the kid's Christmas gifts, with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. He exposed himself? That's a rookie move. Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes, and lingerie he then moored her for.

So she spent four weeks gathering evidence and taped a 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out. In his luggage, she came to play. And the second he landed, he blocked her. So she called the hotel room directly and got the mistress on the phone. Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone. That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. Then it gets worse.

He took the mistress on the Bahamas honeymoon trip he had planned with his wife. And then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the affair to her entire family. That's like a whole public confession. And spoiler, two years later, karma hits him so hard. He's calling his ex-wife in tears saying about the mistress. What a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. While we're exploring the vast, dangerous world of journalism,

there has been a story that Ryan has been looking at with The Intercept and their tip line, which correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan, was recently hacked for a period of maybe even a couple of months. Now, what does that mean for the Intercept? What does that mean for all of the sources and people that potentially have been submitting to this tip line. And maybe your thoughts on who would have hacked it? Yeah, unfortunately, not that recently, as far as we can tell,

it's been going on for quite some time. So back up and people are going to read the details at DropSight. So basically, the Intercept has a, as many news organizations do, has a signal tip line that people can send in tips. If you don't check a signal account, so this is something everybody who has signal should know, if you don't check a signal account for some set of time, it might be a year, we're not exactly sure, we're trying to get this information from signal, it becomes dormant, and then somebody else can claim it. So somebody went in and claimed the intercepts signal account, which is the intercept.

and started messaging and also set up a, I'll show you this, also set up a Twitter account. That was, and here it is, that was, they said they were the intercept's kind of investigative intake side. So this fake account here, and then this is me reaching out to them,

would underneath a tweet by the White House or Chuck Schumer or Jim Jordan would say, if you have more information on this, reach out to the intercept, at the Intercept.O.1 signal. And then if you went to the Intercept's website, it would say on their how to leak that that was in fact their signal account.

And so this went on for many months until they recently discovered. Our understanding is, you know, I think we're going to learn more about how exactly they discovered it. But all of a sudden they're like, oh, we don't have action. access to our tip line anymore, which also shows, by the way, they would have realized that

if they went to check it at any point in the past so years, you would go and you would check it. So they told us in a statement that they don't have any information that any sources have been were compromised. Problem is they wouldn't necessarily know whether or not a source was compromised because the source is going directly to this third party, which is then going. kind of back and forth with them and maybe, you know, soliciting information, soliciting, uh, their, their identity. At first, so the, when they finally learned, and let me put this, when they finally learned,

what had happened, I'll put this back up. Uh, they put a rather innocuous sounding, um, where is it, a rather innocuous sounding update on their Twitter account. Oh, this is, uh, yesterday they had a, uh, a verse. training session on protecting your personal data. Not so sure about that. I think I might skip that one. So they said this basically, and they put this out on Twitter as well. They said, in keeping with security best practices, we have updated our signal tip line.

If you want to contact the intercept, please get in touch with our reporters individually or use the signal account, the intercept underscore tips.01. please do not use the username the intercept.01. And then they say the username, the intercept underscore tips.01 is up to date as of June 30th and is the only place to reach the intercept's institutional signal account. They got to change the handle a little bit more than that, right? That's like a typo.

Like it's too close. Got to do something else now. Yeah. And the intercept. 0.1 is still engaging. with people with the intercept's logo on it, Halal Flo reached out to them and is in communication with them today.

He was just texting me that they're still using. And they're saying, yes, this is the intercept. Please send your secure information here. We guarantee you anonymity. So to me, the intercept really, that this is not enough. To say in keeping with security best practices, we've updated our tip line is not enough.

What they need to do is, is to publicly say, if you have communicated with the intercept's signal tip line in past X months, and they need to figure out when the last time they checked it was, then just be aware that you were communicating with somebody other than the intercept. Wild.

Like, that needs to be what they say publicly. How humiliating for a news organization? Mm-hmm. Because the reason they don't want to say that is because that requires fussing up to like, Yeah, we just don't really check the tip line. That sort of news gathering is just not really priority for us, apparently. I mean, that's just humiliating.

Ryan, did it feel to you when you were interacting with this person who is impersonating the interceptor? The responses feel sort of AI. Did that come across to you or no? Either AI or English as a second language. Yeah. We, like, if you check when they were responding to people, the account is linked to Hong Kong, Twitter. You can't necessarily trust Twitter on this,

but it also aligns with Hong Kong slash Beijing's time zone. Now, maybe they're a night owl, but like if they're doing work hours, it's in the Hong Kong Beijing time zone. So it struck me probably more as English as a second language because there's a delay in the response where usually if it's AI, you're going to get it like right away.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. but it's still going. The way to actually fix this, even though the Intercept doesn't seem intent on taking it as seriously as I think they should, would be for everybody to just message the Intercept.01 with fake tips and just make that account unusable to the Chinese person who's using it now. So just send them pictures, send them whatever you want,

just tie them up until... Send them videos of hate. Bailey Stevens campaign. Yes, say I got a huge tip on the Michigan Senate race. Get together your best schizo posts and send them their way. Just like flood them in garbage. But also, signal, if you're watching, shut that account down. The intercept.0.1 is fraudulently soliciting tips pretending to be the intercept.

And also, if you're a source, do not leak to that account. Also, they're not going to check it anyway. I'm leaking all of my fake tips about Sagar and Jetty to the Intercept 01. Excellent. Yes. If everyone for breaking points could send a meme of Sager hitting the bong to this intercept, that's probably the most useful way to use that imagery right now for journalism. All right.

That was our question. Actually, like, legit, if Sager did get caught, like, being a podhead, that actually would be news. That's news for sure. That would actually be news. Yep. Our signal lines remain uncompromised for any enterprising audience members. All right.

So that was our look at the wide world of journalism. Up next, we have a candidate, William Lawrence. Why don't we talk to him? An I-Heart Radio experience. You end up with weekend gold tickets to Lassau, Montreal. Thomas Wrett. Mumford and Sons Well here's my pride and here's my shame

John Party, Old Dominion, Carly Pierce, and Moore And the prize gets even sweeter With flights from Porter Airlines Three nights at Residence in downtown Montreal And $1,000 cash Download the free Iheart radio app Listen to Pure Country for 10 minutes And enter to win

Lasso, Montreal Every day you listen is another chance to win Hey I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda it caught me. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never

saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it.

Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress and I'm confronting them. Tell me, Sophia, how did she even catch them? One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo of the kid's Christmas gifts with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. He exposed himself? That's a rookie move. Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes, and lingerie he then mowed her for. So she spent four weeks gathering evidence and taped a 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out.

In his luggage, she came to play. And the second he landed, he blocked her. So she called the hotel room directly and got the mistress on the phone. Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone? That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. Then it gets worse. He took the mistress on the Bahamas honeymoon trip he had planned with his wife.

And then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the fair to her entire family. That's like a whole public confession. And spoiler, two years later, karma hits him so hard. He's calling his ex-wife. in tears saying about the mistress, what a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Joining us now as a Democratic candidate for Michigan's 7th District, Lansing and the surrounding mid-Michigan area, Will Lawrence. Will, thank you for being here.

Thank you so much, Ryan. I'm glad to be here. And so Will is in a competitive Democratic primary against two other more kind of central. opponents and for the privilege of taking on incumbent Republican Tom Barrett. So is it real, you know, if Will is able to win, it'll be this interesting test of whether kind of the populist wing can also flip red seats in a similar way that Randy Vegas is trying to prove over in California. But I wanted to start by playing for you this, this super viral clip of a very animated Alex Carp, the CEO of Palantir.

And then we'll get into this. If people haven't seen this, this full clip, it's, it's, uh, it's quite, something, but let's play a little bit of it now, Griffin, we got that? Who owns the data? Where is it cashed? Are the prompts secure? Is this being transferred to you? Are you being compensated? Okay, if it was so valuable, let's say I can make you a billion dollars, right? Tomorrow, wouldn't I say, I'll make you a billion dollars and I want 30%? Why are they charging for tokens if it's so valuable? So then, Alex, if the key, from what I'm hearing you say, is a secure American-born open-source model, how quickly can your model compete with the

frontier animals in terms of losing and pedantic AI tasks. Okay, what I am claiming, obviously slightly true, but slightly self-centered is it's the model plus an application layer plus compute. It is really all three. So in our jargon, it's the value, the reason, okay, just look at our financials. The reason why everyone is chill-axing with bad financials and growth while losing money is the client refuses to pay the true cost. the two places that actually make money like profit free cash flow are our application layer called ontology and compute

okay what i am not just claiming we can take an open model and in the classified or not classified context get it to the point of a frontier model but a you control the weights so what is the true cost not just what you're paying the true cost is not just is what you make minus what you lose meaning the value of your business. But we can get the frontier application to be exactly the same as a frontier model without the risk of transferring

the alpha of your business to another bit. Will, basically what he's saying there is related to Palantir's recent struggles. A bunch of countries around the world have started to tell Palantir, including France. I think the UK's NHS is reviewing Palantir. France is kicking them out.

Germany's kicking them out. A bunch of countries are saying, wait a minute, we don't want this closed American AI inside what he's calling their alpha. Like, you know, their alpha is their business, the whole point of their business. And he's worried that the U.S. companies are going to go in, basically steal it and run it, and can flick a switch and turn it off. And so this closed model approach that the U.S. has been taking versus the Chinese open approach is turning out to be a very expensive and very incorrect bet. The open stuff also needs much less compute, which also then means many fewer data centers.

Meanwhile, we are pumping endless amounts of money into building more and more data centers. Any reaction to CARPS, kind of self-motivated and I think actually fairly accurate in some ways. Someone incoherent, but maybe accurate, yes. Right. And how it fits. and how it fits into your campaign, which picked up a lot of attention over the past week for your first television ad, you know, standing up against the development of a local data center in Michigan. I think Karp is always very clarifying when he's in the news because what he's clear about

is that this is fundamentally for the powerful technology of surveillance and warfare. So, of course, there are sovereignty questions that are coming up. When that is what the technology is being used for, and that's what Palantir's proprietary software is designed to do, is to help powerful people to surveil and make war. And, you know, the Pope said in his encyclical on AI that the AI is making the, to kill is now as easy as snapping your fingers. In fact, you don't even need to snap the fingers. You can have the computer snap the fingers for you. That's what was at stake in the debate between Anthropic and the DOD, right? is do, can the computer press the button, or do we want the computer to line everything up,

calibrate the target, and then you still require a human to press the button? That's, you know, that's an important distinction, but the bigger picture we need to be clear on here is that this is a tool of surveillance and warfare that is being used to track all of us. And so when I'm here in the ground in Michigan, and we're talking to people who are fighting against these data centers, you know, the local company officials, they come into town and they sign the township elected board members and whatnot to non-disclosure agreements. And then they come forward and they say like, oh, you know, this is the wave of progress for the 21st century. And you're going to miss out on it if you don't take this deal and allow this behemoth data

center to be built in your front yard. And folks are saying, well, what progress are you talking about? I mean, you're talking about the ability to surveil us. You're talking about the ability to kick 10 million people out of their jobs, which we're also hearing Amaday and, you know, so many others, prophecy. And there are people who believe that, you know, the AI could be used for the best. And, you know, I'm someone who believes we could be using it to make biomedical advances and curing cancer and things like that. But what's clear is that under the current leadership and the current incentive system, it's going to be used for surveillance, warfare, and as a mass unemployment machine. And people don't want to have any part of that. So let's go ahead and play your ad that

captured so much attention. And I'll just add to this. I did a monologue this week. But in Utah, I'm sure you were following the saga of this Kevin O'Leary backed hyperscale data center in rural Utah. Local people did not want this there. It didn't matter. Got ram through by the politicians. Well, the state Senate president just lost his seat in a massive backlash to the data center. Two out of the three county commissioners, the only two that were on the ballot, also lost their seats for greenlighting the regulatory regime that would enable this data center as well. So I think these politics are very potent. Let's go ahead and take a look at your opening ad here. I'm Will Lawrence. And tech billionaires want to turn this whole field into a massive data center that'll jack up our energy

bills and ruin our home values. They put that in. It's going to plummet the values. It's an existential threat. I'm running for U.S. Congress because I've never been afraid to stand up to corporate power. I'm backed by Bernie Sanders and I don't take a dime from corporate packs. Well, Lawrence isn't going to let us be bullied by a big corporation. I'm Will Lawrence and I approve this message. So what has been a response to this ad? And also I, you know, find it noteworthy that not only you, but Abdul Al-Sai, are touting your Bernie Sanders endorsements in the state, you know, this after Bernie's been painted as this fringe character, the polls tell a very different story about his popularity. So I'm just interested in what the backstory is,

why you decided to launch with this ad and its particular makeup and what the response to it has been. Yeah, well, just on Bernie, I'll say, you know, people love Bernie. People who had never voted for him in 2016 or 2020 are now coming around to the truth of his message. I hear that every single day on the campaign trail. But the data centers was not something I expected to be talking about when I got into this campaign last August. But we've had a wave of data centers proposed all across the state of Michigan, thanks to some tax incentives that were passed on a bipartisan basis at the state level several years ago. And again, how the playbook usually goes is that the residents are the last to find out.

The local elected officials have been signed to nondisclosure agreements. And then the PR agents and the lawyers come in and they say, everybody, this is a great deal. Just trust us. The utility companies have assured us that your rates will not rise. You know, there might be some inconvenience, but this is just the price that we all have to pay for progress. So get on board. And people say, why would we trust you? you've given us no reason to trust you.

This was negotiated under an NDA. The utility monopolies are completely untrustworthy. Sam Altman and Musk and Alex Karp and their elk do not exactly seem like the most morally upstanding characters. I mean, Altman's own colleagues call him a pathological liar. So people say, we have got good reasons to doubt whether this is a good deal. And then normally the next line is like, well, don't you idiots know that you don't have any better options

because you don't got a lot of money out here. We've got billions upon billions of dollars in California. And if you don't get this investment now, it's the last best option you're going to get and you're going to be left behind for the rest of the century. That goes over like a lead balloon. And people say, hey, actually, we kind of like our town the way it is. And we might want some things to change, but we want to be part of that change because that's what democracy and self-determination means. And what you're offering us looks a lot like a con job and you're acting like bullies. And I've been on mute because it sounds like a war zone.

here in D.C. because if you start hearing like fighter jets in the background, blame Trump. Yeah, there's clearly something going on. It's a data center. It's, yeah, it's just the, the beautiful Lullabic hum of the data center in the background. But Will, the question I wanted to ask is, I think a lot of people, my fellow conservatives, look at candidates that are aligned with Bernie, DSA candidates, folks running in flippable districts, perhaps, or red areas, and make the mistake of thinking that because there are some cultural positions that might be, like, disagreed on by some of the folks even that you're talking to in that video that might be like, there we go with the fighter jets, that might be a little bit of a barrier. But I think when the economy doesn't feel good,

and as we were talking about earlier, wages not keeping up with inflation in the show, that I think my theory here is, and I'm curious what you make of this, people prioritize someone who has their economic interests and can kind of get over some of the cultural differences they might have on issues that are related to like maybe immigration, maybe ICE, those types of things. And I just want, I'm curious if that's a response that you've gotten because this data center is really, the data center issue is really unifying. Like people across parties are on that. And if you can talk to them about something like this, you can build trust. And so basically that's just the theory I wanted to lay out, lay out for you and see what you think.

You're totally right. You're on the money. People feel like so angry at the leadership of both parties for rolling out the red carpet for big tech. This is something that Trump has been all on board for. It's something that our governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has been all on board for. And people see that. People see how our congressional delegation and our state legislators have also been silent or at worst actively abetting these data centers coming into our communities. So in that context, It's just reinforcing what we already know, which is that people feel ripped off by both political parties. People feel that both parties are in league with the billionaires in Silicon Valley and Wall Street more than they give a damn about the working class or regular people across Michigan. And when somebody just shows up and is willing to listen and say, hey, you're not crazy for fearing this behemoth data center coming into your front yard. and you shouldn't take kindly to people coming in and lecturing to you about why it's actually a great thing. People respond well to that, and that's why I'm earning trust of people of all political persuasions across the district who are impacted by this issue. I want to play one more clip from this Alex Karp interview because I thought it was extraordinarily revealing, and you kind of have to listen closely if you're watching. But what he says is that he's super angry at the Sam Altman's of the world who have been talking about.

about the unemployment apocalypse that AI is going to bring about, not because it's not true necessarily, but because what it's going to do is allow the public to create a wealth tax on billionaires because they're going to be so scared. And so listen to how he frames this. These people are livid. They're like, I am paying for tokens that create no value.

These people are stealing the weights and alpha of my business and they're creating a wealth tax that does not help the poor. It just punishes, starts with the billionaires. Every single person at this table is going to be paying a wealth tax only to punish us. And the reason for it is because these models have been completely over, irresponsibly over-sailed. And the sale is it's dangerous for everyone, which is why I can give it to all your adversaries, but I can't give it to the Department of War or I can't safely give it to an enterprise in this country without being certain that the alpha of that business could transfer to this model.

So what he's saying is because you've overhyped A.I. and told the public that 100 million people are going to go out of, get thrown out of work, they're going to tax your wealth. First of all, do you support a wealth tax? And do you think he's actually right that the mood among the public is actually getting ripe to say,

you know what, this is unsustainable and obscene. We need to tax these guys. I do support a wealth tax because it is unsustainable and obscene. I mean, again, I'm an organizer and I'm a public servant. I've spent my last five years most focused on the housing crisis here in mid-Michigan.

And you may be surprised here that even in Lansing, Michigan, the rent is way too damn high. I don't think there is an affordable place anywhere in my district or anywhere in the country these days, frankly. And I was just talking yesterday with a good friend who I met because we were helping her to fight a mass eviction with her neighbors. and she ended up fighting that eviction, getting time and money to successfully relocate, but now her new landlord is raising her rent 50%. And she is going to have to, she's not going to be able to pay it. She's going to have to go find a new place. And Lord knows what's going to happen to her.

I'm hoping that we can help her find a place. But people are getting pushed out onto the street. People are going deeply into debt. People are dying of preventable diseases because they can't afford their health care, while we've got these billionaires getting richer than it. anybody in the history of humanity and making their plans to go off to space. This is not a sustainable foundation for a society. We actually do depend on each other still.

These billionaires actually do depend on the working class still. And they do depend on the relative peace and harmony of the social fabric so that people are not bringing the pitchforks out into the streets because they are so desperate to be fed and housed and to ensure the same for their children and grandchildren. People can see that it's not right and something is going to have to give because we're not just going to go down lightly as these people hoard all of the wealth of our society and take it away to Mars with them. Will, what other positions, you know, you said you didn't want to start with data centers

or you didn't think that was going to be while you got into the race. What other positions are part of your campaign and what does the race look like right now? Are your opponents going all in on pro AI? Mention a little bit about that. Sure. Well, you know, I got into this race because we need to flip the district. This is one of the top five swing districts that's going to determine control of the U.S. House. It's a 50-50-even district.

And it was formerly held by our now Senator Alyssa Slotkin. When she moved up to the Senate, it flipped into Republicans' hands. And we have a first-term Republican named Tom Barrett, who has not done. the job. But when I was working in D.C. as a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and fighting for the Green New Deal and then the build-back better agenda, I heard what the corporate lobbyist said about districts like mine, the frontline swing districts. They said basically, you know, we can't extend the child tax credit because people in Michigan 7th District won't go for that. We can't have Medicare for all. We can't block the bombs to Israel because people in Michigan 7th District and other frontline

districts will not go for that. That is a lie. It's a self-serving lie. But that is one of the of the ways that the corporate establishment on both sides of the aisle allows the status quo to be maintained is by telling these myths about places like the place where I live. I know that that's crap. We need to prove that it's crap by winning with a populist progressive platform in a district like this so that we can redefine what is possible in the United States Congress. And, you know, one of the issues that, you know, so of course it's it's the affordability, it's the cost of living, it's housing, it's health care, it's protecting social security. The These are things I hear a lot about and I've been talking a lot about.

But when I got into the race, you know, saying no to war and really reevaluating our foreign policy was one of my core convictions from the very beginning. Because, again, when I was at Sunrise Movement, fighting for the Green New Deal and build back better, I saw how the Biden administration, you know, specifically under the leadership of Jake Sullivan took up the whole idea of, you know, good green American jobs and green industrial policy, which I stand by and still support. But then they added another piece to it. They said, and therefore we must also conquer China so that we can ensure American dominance worldwide for the 21st century in the economy of the future. And I was like, no, no. And we need to go to, we need to have a shooting war. We need to have a shooting war in the Pacific if that is required to maintain our unquestioned economic dominance. And this is just, nothing could be more disastrous for the American economy.

for the American people, for the Chinese people, for the planet or for humanity as a whole, then to think that we're going to go into some Cold War, which then becomes a shooting war with China. We need to reinvest in multi-I mean, how about a radical idea like multilateralism, diplomacy, dialogue, you know, being able to actually solve problems with other nations around the world that we don't agree with every day of the week, but we have to live with them. In the same way we have to live with our neighbors here in Lansing, we don't always agree with them, but we don't just firebomb each other's homes. So seeing how that progressive agenda,

because I do believe that there was, you know, something good about Biden's efforts to, you know, build a working class agenda, and he did a lot to support unions, and his investment in green industrial policy was significant. But that was all undone by the hawkishness that pervaded his administration in the ways I just mentioned, as well as, and then especially the blank check that was offered to Netanyahu

to conduct the genocide in Gaza. destroyed the Democratic coalition. So if we want to be able to win and keep winning in the future for the American working class, we need to bring a more sensible foreign policy into the center of our politics rather than thinking that we can just focus on the domestic issues and let the warhawks and the blob have their way with our foreign policy. It's just not going to work. Well, let me ask you a little bit more about that because obviously Gaza, the genocide in Gaza, has emerged as a real moral litmus test in a lot of Democratic primaries. It was front and center in New York City. It was front and center with Milak Kuros and her ability to defeat Diana to get

in Colorado. Are you seeing, is it a central question in your race as well? And where do your opponents in the Democratic primary stand on that? It has been a central question. I mean, I remember sitting in a meeting of the Clinton County Democratic Party last October when I was just getting into the race. This is a relatively rural county north of Lansing, Democratic Party activists, mostly over the age of 65, many of them over the age of 75, and almost entirely white, deliberating in really good faith for like 40 minutes about the language of a resolution to condemn the blockade on Gaza in defense of the Palestinian children who were starving there. And just really thinking about how do we adequately express the humanity of these children and the horror that we feel at our tax

dollars being used to send bombs and supporting this government, which is maintaining this blockade? And that was a real moment for me. I was like, wow, conversation has really changed because five, you know, three years ago, you would have never, ever, ever heard that conversation in Clinton County. And now it was 100% focused on how do we express the humanity. of these children and the horror that we feel at the crimes being committed in our name. So it's been like that, you know, since then. And it's true that the issue of Gaza in particular kind of, I think, faded from the public

consciousness for a while as so many other crises have come to the four. But now the outrageous and disastrous war in Iran, which has started this spring, you know, had then brought the question of our entanglement with Israel, our alliance with the totally outrageous and aggressive Israeli foreign policy as we went into this war with Iran together. And that has also I think brought Palestine back onto the forefront again. And my two

opponents are hard pressed to even acknowledge the humanity of Palestinian people. They will not acknowledge that there is a genocide. We were asked that question straight up, yes or no, at a forum, and the two of them talked around it for 90 seconds each without answering the question because

they're working to leave the door open for support from APAC in their race. Well, well, yeah, the populist wing of the Democratic Party has always wanted kind of a people-powered campaign with a moral center to be able to challenge a Republican incumbent and say, no, this kind of policy can actually win in swing districts as well. So it looks like you may get a shot to do that in the general. We'll keep following this race. But thank you for taking some time.

on this Friday to join us. Yeah, and where can people find you? I'm sure this is probably definitely resonated with a large part of our audience. You're speaking their language, so if people want to learn more about you, where can they go to find out? You can go to WeWill226.com

and We Will 2026 on all social media platforms. All right. Thank you very much, Will. We'll keep tracking your race. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Love the show. It's a pleasure to be here.

Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer,

and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you your podcasts. My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress and I'm confronting them. Tell me, Sophia, how did she even catch them?

One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo of the kid's Christmas gifts with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. He exposed himself? That's a rookie move. Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes, and lingerie he then mowed her for. So she spent four weeks gathering evidence and taped a 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out.

In his luggage, she came to play. And the second he landed, he blocked her. So she called the hotel room directly and got the mistress on the phone. Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone? That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. Then it gets worse.

He took the mistress on the Bahamas honeymoon trip he had planned with his wife. And then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the affair to her entire family. That's like a whole public confession. And spoiler, two years later, karma hits him so hard. he's calling his ex-wife in tears saying about the mistress,

what a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, that was Will Lawrence. And the primary is going to be on August 4th in Michigan. Pretty impressive guy. What do you think, Crystal?

Yeah, definitely. Very thoughtful. Very thoughtful. And I think what he identifies is also very critical, because the knock now is like, oh, you guys can win in New York City. Maybe you can win in Denver, Colorado, young, progressive, you know, audience there. But I don't know, the type of Alyssa Slotkin district in mid-Michigan, don't know if you can pull that one off.

So I think it is an important test in that regard. Well, also to have, I mean, Sunrise is hardcore stuff. To do that in Michigan, you know, where the auto industry is historically, psychologically so important. It's a pretty interesting experiment. Yeah, that'll be interesting. All right. Well, let's end it with just a quick rapid fire. AMA, of course, for anyone who's a new...

Sorry, Emily, I think I'm getting an echo from you right now. It's the freaking... I don't know if your headphones switched or something. No, nothing switched. You're probably hearing the Battle of Britain outside my window. The Battle of Britain. All right. Let's do some rapid fire AMA questions.

Of course, you can submit a written AMA question for the Fridays. The link in the emails. Let's start with RAPTRAF. Reggie Blader, what AI search engines would you guys recommend based on safety and privacy? I am a casual user, but I cannot find good information online about which models do a good job of protecting data and such. I don't know the answer to that, to be honest with you. I guess I've given up on privacy. Kiss your data, goodbye.

Yeah, I mean, I would be very cautious of the agenic capabilities. I'd be really cautious about giving them access to your, you know, email and your bank accounts and all the stuff that's on offer now. I'm not there yet in terms of turning them loose inside of that level of personal stuff. But yeah, to ask, you know, query various things, do data analysis and stuff. I personally am a Claude user. I hear that. Yeah.

Wow. I'm personally in Claude user. I think their models are tend to be the best, the most effective. GROC tends to be the worst in my opinion. But I would say Claude and chat GPT are. kind of relatively on par in terms of their, their effectiveness. Can't trust anyone.

Left turn question from Joseph D. What's the last movie that you saw at the movie theater? Anyone going to the theaters these days? The Minions movie is out this weekend. I'm excited to see the minions. Yeah, same. I'm stoked for the minions. I saw the...

What is the last movie I saw? I saw the Peaky Blinders movie. That was the last one I saw in theaters. Probably the last one I saw in the theaters was Wicked 2. Probably the last time I went to the theaters. I think that's right. I saw a goat with the kids.

It was great. How is that? Oh, that's excellent. Loved it. What about you, Grave? Goat that plays basketball. Classic formulation. Speaking of goat,

kind of goat related or a different animal, the sheep detectives is an incredible, incredible film. Livestock-related films. I heard that. It genuinely, it lives up to the hype? It is great. It's fun for the whole family. I cried. It's very emotional. It's very funny. And it kind of harkens back to sort of a more 90s or like early 2000s kid film where there's

some dark material in it. It's really, it's really something for everyone. So I highly recommend the sheep detectives film. One of my favorite films that I've seen this year. And then let's do one more. One more fun one here. This, of course, comes from frequent questioner Sabas 101 for the amazing BP with Trump's gay tendencies and behaviors. Why haven't news outlets sent out only their best dressed and good-looking men that fit Trump's type to get more honest answers? In an AMA months ago, Sauger said he wore his best suit for his Trump interview and it proves that it works. Oh, it does. No, it does.

No, they should. Yeah. Ryan, how are you at DropSight? How are you guys thinking about Trump's bisexual tendencies? Yeah, Julian. You've got to send Julian in there with a nice fitted suit. Oh, he would be so impressed with Julian. He would be like, dog guy.

Look how tall this guy. Julian would get all the questions. He would be like, this guy is like Baron. I feel like he has a real reaction, though, to like the sort of like tall, dark and handsome. He loved the Syrian. You know, Al Jolani. He was all about him. Obviously loves Zoran.

So I do feel like he has a type. You guys have seen this. Jolani, maybe you guys disagree. Jolani is not that hot. Look at this guy. Holy mackerel. I'm looking at him. I always wanted to look like that.

I just didn't want to do the work. You look good. Don't let anyone stop you. You look good. I love that. Yeah. Much better than Sarah Cooper. Oh, yeah, Jolani.

Jolani, come on. He's not that hot. He's like, he's fine. But maybe it's something about his eyes that Trump loves, that doesn't come across. I liked when the Iranian men's soccer team, there were like, there's traps for them all over the, all over the timeline. And it was around the time that the memo of understanding got signed and they were like, there you go. saw that soccer team and was like, big strong guys, give them whatever they want. Or when he was talking about the LCC, the Egyptian president, and he was like,

did you remember this one? Yes, of course. He was like, we stayed in the hotel much longer than we were supposed to. It's like the plot of Sarah Marshall. It means Sarah Marshall is so good. He also just likes men in all types of uniforms. He loves sailors. So I think we should dress Julian up in a little.

sailor outfit. And then I think... There you go. Now we're thinking. He'll say, clear the room, just one-on-one interview. Take a, take Julian back to a hotel room. Yeah. I mean, he also, he loves musicals. You know, there's just a lot there. There's a lot there to explore. He loves riding around in his golf cart that's been tricked out with speakers. He has it connected to his iPad, which has his personal Spotify account on it. And then he will bump his show tunes as he rides around in the golf cart tricked out with speakers. It's unbelievable. Phantom of the opera,

cats, aren't those some of his favorites? Yeah. There's nothing like it. Yeah. There was a day last fall I was walking around. I had pool duty. I was walking around the White House outside and you could just gently hear in the background show tunes blaring from the speakers. Trump, share the Mar-a-Lago playlist for everyone's Fourth of July barbecue. We can all have a great American time. But that's going to do it for us for this Friday show, extra jam-packed with

Lots of stuff. We hope you all have a really wonderful weekend, and we hope you've been enjoying the newsletter. Now, I know that there's been some people that have been having trouble getting the new newsletter email, so make sure to check your promo or spam folders for breaking points because I know it's getting sorted in there. I have some data that I think we're at like 99% delivery rate.

So it's hitting your inboxes somewhere. Check your spam or promo folders. And if you're still having issues, if you want to email help at kit.com, That's help at kit.com. They will make sure that newsletter is landing in the right place. And that's going to do it for us. Anyone else got I think I must to plug before we get out of here?

Happy Fourth of July, everybody. Stay safe on there in the heat. And I will be at the beach next week. So I will see you guys a week from now. Saga will be back next week, though. And Ryan and Emily, of course, always. All right. Emily's always picking up the slack for everybody else.

She's the work for. You got to do. All right, we'll see you then. Bye, bye, by, everybody. Joy is essential, and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence, Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats.

Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101. and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Cotfi is presented by CVS. My husband is at a spa resort with his mistress right now, and I'm calling the hotel to confront them both. Wait a minute, Dakota. She's calling the hotel while they're checked in together.

Yeah, that's right, Sophia. And it gets worse. It's Vacate to Vacation Week on the Ok Storytime podcast, where she caught him buying gifts on Amazon and then taped the 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out. So she planted evidence before he even. even took off? And spoiler, Sophia, two years later, karma hits so hard, he's calling his ex-wife, in tears, saying about his mistress, what a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

American soccer has exploded. The knockout rounds are here. The U.S. won their group, and now every match is winner go home. I'm Tad Ramos. And I'm Tom Boker. On our podcast, Inside American, soccer, we'll talk about the real storylines. Discuss the tactics that actually decide matches and give you the truth about the U.S. national team from inside the program. Whether you're a lifelong fan or this is your

first World Cup. We've got you covered. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tabramus on the IHeart Radio Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.