Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/6/26: Zohran July 4th Speech, AIPAC Millions In Michigan, FIFA Corruption

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Ryan and Emily discuss Zohran July 4th speech, AIPAC dumps millions into Michigan, Ryan cheers for FIFA corruption.   Noga Tarnopolsky: https://x.com/NTarnopolsky?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 I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Munges Chitigler, and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, curmudgins, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing.

That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive How to Live Forever on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Betrayal Weekly is back with brand new stories from threatening text messages disturbing a small Midwestern town. It was from an unknown number. Who else is getting these messages?

Why did it start with us? To long cons and stolen identities. Who lies about being this sick? This was the last time I ever believed a word she said. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Michael Rappaport, and my podcast, the I Am Rapaport Stereo podcast, is unlike anyone you've ever heard. If you're looking for strong opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid, Jafar Jackson, should absolutely positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael

Jackson. Listen to I Am Rap Report on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or 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 honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com.

Independence Day brought us dueling visions of America, one presented by the mayor of New York, another presented by the president of the United States, both triggering lots of other Americans. Let's roll Mamdani to start the mayor of New York with a July 3rd address surrounded by some recent Americans. That legacy of every generation of Americans insisting that the right to life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness extends to them too, is no relic of the past. It carried millions of black Americans north during the Great Migration. It drew hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans to New York City after the Second World War. It invited countless others from the West Indies in South Asia and West Africa and across the world.

And it is what brought my family to the city when I was seven years old. My family did not arrive by boat, although we saw the Statue of Liberty from the window of the plane. Even from the air, we could make out the promise of America, the promise of the beautiful patriotic work of rendering America, year after year, a little more faithful to its founding ideals. There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it,

American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free, is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the West, is why children in faraway lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here. And yet the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.

For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshiping the wrong gods, angering the wrong people. It sent peasants and serfs from slums and stettles who were treated as less because they hardly owned clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants from whom power was something someone else had. We are told that America is exceptional because we

are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures, and it belongs to us all. It belongs, too, to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel, the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American, too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means. I have President Trump meanwhile for some reason waited until after 11 p.m.

Basically the weather was so bad here in DC. It was raining. It was humid. You don't have a roof somewhere? People have been out in the mall forever on the 4th of July and so they delayed the fireworks although there still was lightning during the fireworks. It was a pretty it was actually kind of cool but it was like a very chaotic and dangerous situation. It was and also this guy kills me. fireworks are basically for children, right? I mean, adults think they're cool for like five minutes, but it's really for the family and for the kids. You started them at midnight?

It was wrong with you. And one reason they started midnight is because Trump had to give a speech. Why? 40-minute speech. Well, all of the musical acts canceled, and after that, Trump said, all right, I'm just going to do it last.

He said we have the greatest performer with the biggest flaw. So what do we need all these, you know, these has-bens? Who didn't know they'd been booked was basically the story and some of them. Yeah, anyway. So Trump played the hits for us. Here, let's roll some Trump. He vanquished fascism, Americans stood against the evil of communism in the Cold War. And as they said last night at the beautiful Mount Rushmore, what a beautiful place, where Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt loomed over my shoulder as I spoke.

America will never be a communist country. Won't happen. Communism is a loser and it always will be. The communist system is the opposite of the American system and the communist system has never worked. Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen. We'd like to stop a threat like that immediately and before it begins, just like a cancer. cancer, you gotta cut it out, you gotta cut it out fast. Now hold on, can we get a fact check?

He says we fought communism on the battlefield. We have met communism on the battlefield in Vietnam, Korea. Yeah. Those are the more overt conflicts. And maybe we want to say Angola or Central America. Where did we beat communism on the battlefield? Where did we beat it? The question is, not where we met it, but where did we beat it?

We met it. He says we beat him, right? Or did he just say we fought them? He didn't mention, and yada, yada, yada, we fought them. We've fought them. We definitely fought them. Listen, I obviously... And we won the Cold War, you can say that, but that's not the battlefield. Right, right, right, right.

Or did we? Just China is still... We forgot about China. He just referenced the speech that he gave the day before at Mount Rushmore. He may have also mentioned the communist threat when he was doing the Teddy Roosevelt Library. opening, but what was rolled out this weekend after Zoroamam Dhani, after the Daryaliza victory, the Milakkiros victory, clearly they have pull test of communism instead of socialism. And that's the significance of bringing both of these speeches together in the same place,

because clearly they just started testing this. And I honestly, like, to the extent that I don't think we talk quite enough, and audience members will hate me for saying this, but quite enough about some of the history of communism in the 20th century. This is the politics of this I'm not sure are going to resonate actually and I would question their poll testing of just turning People who are saying politically savvy things about well our democratic socialism is just Medicare for all and you know like that I don't know that turning them into Communists or trying to transmogrify Democratic Socialism to communism and the American imagination actually is the best political maneuver Which was interesting to see yeah, I don't I don't see it how it would work banon doesn't seem to think so either right so right so let's Let's roll Steve Bannon here.

I want to talk about the labor participation rate. That essentially means basically 39% or almost 40% of people eligible to work are out of the labor force. Why do you think the Marxist jihadist are getting traction? And Mandami's not 10 feet high. Don't believe that at all. In fact, I think he's got he potentially has feet of clay if you move and move smartly. but here's what you can't do, Republicans, in the pundit class, because you've got a ton of pundits.

You can't take a copy of Milton Friedman and throw it at them, or Atlas shrugged. You're going to go back to the Paul Ryan and to all the playbook of Ted Cruz and his entire crowd. This is how you got in this jam. You're not going to take Atlas shrug and throw it at them. You're not going to take Milton Friedman's, what, freedom and capitalism, throw it at them.

That's not going to work. Why is it not going to work? Because the elites in this country have sold the country out. All this garbage and talk about free trade and free trade and free trade. And you had a mercantilist system run by real hardcore communist in China, of which the American business community and most of the Republican donors underwrote. To take your jobs. This is why this entire situation is like a Greek tragedy.

in that the great strength of our hero turns out to be his core weakness. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. And the main thing I've seen thrown at Mamdani is this Paul Ryan line, makers versus takers, which is, which was lame when Paul Ryan was doing it. And they're like, Momdani is a taker. And it puts the speaker in the position of saying that they're the maker. that they're the ones that, you know, we're the boss, we built the factory, we built this, you're just taking from us, you're just leeches.

It's unpatriotic in the sense that it's denigrating, you know, huge swaths of the country. And it doesn't really delineate where the takers begin. Like, are union workers takers? because they're organizing together for bigger wages that you think, if they weren't organizing for, that would just be money that the bosses, the owners of the factory would be able to take home. They certainly think that all public service workers are takers. And so, yeah, for Bannon, he's like, no, this is, you need a different playbook. Like, you tried that, and here we are. So what do you think?

Is it, like, what would you throw at them if you were advising? Neil Paul Ryan's. God forbid. The way that they don't see it is they think they can say this is going to be such a disaster, but people think the status quo is a disaster. And so if you are just saying what's going to happen is going to be a disaster, it doesn't work anymore because people feel like we are in a disaster. And a lot of people do.

I'm not saying everybody does. There's some people who have very comfortable lives and probably still will be moved by the Paul Ryan language. But it's not everyone, and it's not most people anymore. If you're looking at polling about how socialism fares with young people or public opinion of socialism with younger Americans particularly, it's really not that much of a political win to just be like, oh, Ryan Grimm's a socialist. Like, you're like, oh, interesting. Tell me what you want to do to make my life easier. And so you have to proactively explain what you're going to do. That's not the status quo.

You can't just be like, that guy's a commie. That guy's a socialist. you actually have to have a positive vision for what would transform the status quo, which is what the socialists are doing. Now, I thought the optics, I actually thought the Mamdani speech itself was really, really, really interesting.

Like, I pulled up the transcript here, and I'm looking at it, and if I just read this, I think it would be a fun experiment to just go out in the street and read this to some people and be like, who do you think gave this speech? I mean, listen to this.

He says, here at City Hall, as I sit behind George Washington's desk alongside New Americans who came to this country, I cannot see all of America, but like so many who came before, I can see New York City. Then he goes on to tell this story of the founding of the country in July of 1776. Our city simmered under the yoke of oppression. The British didn't take it while.

War broke out. He's like literally talking about George Washington leaving Brooklyn. It sounds like Glenn Beck in the Tea Party era, like talking about colonial oppression. And I thought the optics of the speech, he's usually so much better optically. It was kind of like a dull aesthetic. and nobody, the new Americans that were behind him weren't smiling. I actually thought some of the criticisms of the aesthetics of it were on, and it's a rare aestheticness from Zoron.

But the speech itself was potent. Like, there was something in that that tells you this is a totally new generation. The guy who was flipping off Columbus when he was wearing a glove during COVID famously in his like 20-20 posts is here saying, I'm sitting behind George Washington's desk and telling the history of us fighting off the yoke of British oppression and is like being reverential about our founding ideals, as he put it. That is a totally different generation of democratic socialism. Yeah, and I think a lot of people who were triggered by the speech didn't actually listen to it. Listen. Agreed completely. Because they're like, yeah, he's just trashing America. It's like,

actually he's not. You picked up a good part. We can roll, let's roll C5. This is how he ended the speech. And you tell me if this sounds like somebody who's trashing the country. ours is a nation working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived, a nation striving each day to better itself. Therein lies the work of America, the striving, the bettering, the reaching towards perfection. What a privilege each of us has to live in a nation that every one of its inhabitants can shape. What a responsibility each of us possesses, to prove ourselves worthy of all those who came before? What power, each of us holds, to bring America ever closer to the greatness so many have seen when they

looked upon these shores, the greatness that for 250 years has been America. Thank you. I mean, how is that anti-American? That's, it's very Frederick Douglass. Yeah, the clips from the right were saying, here's Zoroamam Dani taking the opportunity to criticize the United States on the 4th of July, and that's how the RNC was framing it, and the Republican groups were framing it. But interestingly on the left, and Zoran himself, the clips that were coming out were positive about America, which is kind of fascinating because there's so, I pulled up poll numbers, the Cato Institute just did an interesting poll. And as Democratic socialists are trying to go national, when you look at polling, overwhelming majorities Cato rights are grateful for the country, 86 percent and proud to be Americans, 79 percent. Most also believe America is a land of opportunity, 61%, and even more believe the American dream, 74% is available to them personally. Now, you get different poll results if you test whether people think the American dream is dead or alive, but that's when you ask people if it's available to them personally.

76% say they're positive about the nation's founding. Zora Mamdani was positive about the nation's founding talking about the ideals, not like wallowing in George Washington as a slave owner, which is a real part of the history. It shouldn't be ignored. But when you're celebrating the 4th of July, it's kind of appropriate to focus on the ideals. And that's exactly what he did in a country where the polling, people do, if you want to take Democratic socialism out of Brooklyn in the common corridor into the rest of the country, this is the messaging that is much, much sharper, more clever to strike. And what he did, which I loved, which was that he said the thing that is standing between us and the perfection of the American ideals is the billionaire class. that wants to divide us, wants to keep us fighting so that we can't reach our common destiny together. So he connects the founding of the country with an idealistic vision and identifies the obstacle to achieving that vision accurately as this billionaire Epstein class.

And so then the task at hand for the American people is clear. Get them out of the way and we can reach our destiny. like let's start taxing a little bit of their wealth and start building the thing that that we all want together let's let's also let and to ban his point they're saying go ahead let paul ryan and ted cruz argue against that i'll say the trump speech he gave like everyone was just ready for fireworks at that point it was so late it was about to like bust out into rain he gave like a 40 minute speech the some of it where he brought out these veterans I think one of them was 107 years old.

Just incredible for them to then have the camera. We had the camera on them as they were watching the fireworks. That was super fascinating and moving to watch. But it was chaotic on the National Mall. C4. Let's play a little bit of this. You can see what it looked like on the mall as people were waiting for fireworks. Oh, my gosh.

This was like earlier in the evening. So they had evacuated the mall at one point in the afternoon. or early evening, they canceled the whole parade. Like, imagine the money and the months, like, year plus that went into organizing the parade canceled it because it was too hot. And then people tried to get back in. And you can see that in the later in the evening as people are trying to get back into the mall for the fireworks.

Trump actually opened his speech by talking about how there had been some like 300, 400,000 people evacuated. And now there were almost, I think he said, like 200,000 people that were there. He started literally by talking about the numbers to address that. case anybody was thinking, wow, that crowd looks small. He wanted to get out of the way right away before even getting into the speech. We had many more people, but, you know, the rain, all of that. But they didn't have a contingency plan for any of this. They haven't had contingency plans for the Great American State Fair, where Julian actually from JobSight was reporting, I think on Saturday, after

Friday's heat, there were seven people on critical life support in the hospital from the fair. And that's East Coastwide. I mean, actually, like, nationwide, the heat has been just insane over the couple of weeks, but the state fair was proceeding. They evacuated that. The Great American State Fair on the National Mall was evacuated on Friday for heat reasons, and they didn't have a contingency plan. Like there weren't what I heard from people who were out there, there weren't like misters that were keeping people cool. No, and they were banning water. You couldn't bring water in. You had to buy it inside, right? What kind of country is this? It's a public, it's a state fair, a public event, a security thing. I think you're right. Well, I think you're right. They should have,

drink of death. They should have opened it up. Like it actually all just should have been a roving thing coming in and now. Obviously security challenges, but it's the national mall. It's a national mall. And they had no, they had no real way to evacuate the people from the mall once the lightning started. What they should have done is told them that Mike Pence was on the Capitol. He was about to count the electoral college. I don't think they were enough. I would have cleared them out immediately. I don't think there were enough FBI people in the crowd to get them over there. They were all prepping for their Patriot Front. March the next day. There was a hilariously pathetic Patriot Front March on the 4th of July as well.

They wanted to join the parade. The parade. They were going to like try to disrupt the parade. Right. Patriot Front, which almost certainly is. Listen, I don't actually think January 6 was a fencer. It was a little joke having reported on it live on the ground as it was happening. It was like a lot of normal people who just got whipped into a frenzy. Some of the people who were whipping were probably feds, but not everybody was. And in this case, the Patriot Front guys, I mean, it looked like It looked like a Fed festival, a festival. It was crazy. They're all out there with their neck gaiters preparing with like their flags,

chanting weird stuff. They had to go on the metro instead because. Yes. It was too hot. Yeah, wild scenes on the 4th of July, America's 250th birthday here in a Washington, D.C. Did not go exactly as the Trump administration had planned. Ryan, did you watch the fireworks? I did. I did. We stayed up. I was on a rooftop. up. But then about 20 minutes in, like, okay, like 15, 20 minutes in, I'm like, okay, I get it.

Like, they did this kind of spectacular thing where for this entire row along, I think it was along the Potomac, they'd have like a dozen fireworks go up simultaneously and create this row. They're like, wow, that's like, cost millions of dollars, no doubt. But that's, looks really cool. And then they did it again and again. And again. It was long. And again, I asked my friend, I texted my friend, I was like, how was the finale? Because we left before it.

And he's like, it was just a giant cloud of smoke. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. Well, in Trump's defense, who knew that fireworks create a lot of smoke? It's hard to predict that. It's very hard to predict that. You couldn't have seen that coming. Speaking of, though, the stupidest person on the planet, I didn't want to leave this

second without talking about former Jill Biden spokesperson, Michael LaRosa, who I think had the... He's been on the show. by the way. As he? Yeah, Crystal and I interviewed him. Amazing. He had the most amazing comment about Mom Donnie's speech. Two months shy of the 25th anniversary of 9-11.

This is what New York City's mayor has to say about the 4th of July. Mom, Donnie is unwell. Unwell? And you're like, wait a minute, hold on. First of all, it's two months and a week shy of 9-11. 9-11?

Like, what is... So I want to know what is the window around September 11th where a Muslim has to be like conscious of what they're saying about New York City? Is it three months?

So every... From June through, I guess, like, September, October, November, December, maybe into January. So June into January, basically. But then if you get into February, like you're getting close to the sixth month biannual anniversary of 9-11. So you've got to be careful around that time, too.

It's like, how did you bring 9-11 into this? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Speaking of absolute morons, let's talk about the Michigan Senate race. There we go. Listen. And you're there.

for heart-wrenching knockouts. The world's biggest stage. And breathtaking triumph. In 2026 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 IHeard Radio. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast. Joy 101 with Hoda Cotney. 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. I'm Munges shit together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain. That's incredible.

As opposed to his brain. Here's some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined.

They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. surprising news out of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary yesterday, as again, it's a Sunday, and Mallory McMorough suspended her campaign for the Michigan Senate Democratic nomination. Let's take a listen to her announcement video.

Today, I'm announcing that I am suspending my campaign for United States Senate. And I'm doing it with a deep, deep sense of gratitude for our thousands of volunteers, for everyone who donated what you could, building a campaign with zero, corporate PAC dollars. Okay, that was like the consultant focus group tested candidate in this race, who I think a lot of consultant types on the left, Ryan, they thought with Mallor McMorrow, who initially went viral for pushing back on quote-unquote book bans, which actually it was a lot of Muslims in Michigan that were upset about. It was a lot of Christians, a lot of Muslims as well, but she went viral during the pandemic era because people were saying, here we have this

normal Michigan mom making a kind of inspirational left argument against this. And look, she seems like a normal soccer mom. And we might be able to take her all the way to the Senate. She's actually like lived in California right before moving to Michigan. I think maybe her husband's from Michigan or something like that. But anyway. Vote for Gawker, right? Did she? Oh my gosh. After all of that, Mallory Woodmorrow suspended her Senate campaign. Let's take a look at this throwback conversation. between Emma Vigland and Mallory McMorough on Medicare for All. A public option is an improvement, of course, on the private marketplace and the Affordable Care Act,

but that would still involve premiums and deductibles. Why not go all the way to Medicare for All? Yeah, I hear you on the vision. I 100% do. And what I know after almost a decade as experience in a legislator is that you need to push as far as you possibly can while building the coalition of votes to actually get it across the line. And the support for a true single-payer system isn't there yet. I think that when we're talking about how to keep a coalition together,

the 77% of Democrats that think Israel's committing genocide, the 90% of Democrats that have a negative view of Israel or don't want to send them more money, that would I would imagine be the position that would, be as unifying as possible because it appears like this is kind of a consensus opinion now within the democratic base. I mean, I hear that it's reflective in polls and reading polls and asserting how campaign should be run based off of polls is not a way that you win in a state like ours. I hear that. I hear the vision. She's so, so acting. You just get from her that she's artificial. I'm sorry, I'm really going in on Mallory

McMorough. I can't stand her, but it's more that I can't stand the consultant. What drives you crazy? The consultant class, I was going to say, like, what drives me crazier than McMorrow is that the consultant class looks at that and says this is what we'll connect with normal people in Michigan. This is how we make our

Democratic agenda look palatable to people in Michigan. She's inauthentically Michigan. Like, it's just, I'm not from Michigan, from Wisconsin, so I don't give like, I'm not, I can't speak for Michigan, but it's just like, come It just drives me crazy because it's like we're 10 plus years in the Trump phenomenon and that's what they're coming up with and thinking that it's going to work.

You know, ironically, it may have, if not for Abdul al-Sahed running to her left because Haley Stevens running in the establishment lane was such a, and is such a flawed candidate that she would have, I think, been a lot more appealing compared to Stevens. At least she sounds like she's from Michigan. And Abdul, I think, comes across as much more of like a Michigander, too. Like, he just seems to be much more fluent in Michigan than McMorrow. And McMorough had the endorsement of Elizabeth Warren and kind of ran in that Elizabeth Warren lane. And it'll be very interesting to see what Warren does.

She's much closer, obviously, to El Cyan's politics. So she goes out with AOC and Mernie and campaigns, that could be decisive. There's this, there's been a lot of pressure on McMurro to drop out. and endorse Stevens to try to stop El Saeed. From everything we gather, McMorrow is no fan of Haley Stevens. So if she does that, it will be as a favor to the party, establishment of the party bosses, not because she herself is a huge fan of Haley Stevens.

There was a Politico report that El Siyadh immediately called McMorro, thanked her for running, because now everybody's going to be trying to court her and her supporters, but that Stevens didn't. until the Politico reached out. As soon as Politico reached out, that's what happened. Let's skip ahead to D5. This is from Prem Thacker, who posted, from Zateo, who posted Haley Stevens makes no outrage to

Mallory McMoros borders, while Abdul Al-Sayat explicitly welcomes them to his movement, put out a press release right away, the Al-Said campaign, and said throughout this campaign, Senator McMurow showed what it looks like to fight back against the politics that rigs the system against too many of us. While we have policy discreements, I never questioned whether Senator McMurroro would fight for a better America for my daughters and hers. Goes on to say I welcome her supporters to our movement and stand up against money in politics. Finally, a couple other things we wanted to mention here are the polling and the ad spending.

This is according to ad impact politics, ad reservations as of July 1st, 3, I'm sorry, 34.4 million reserved for Haley Stevens, 8.9 million reserved for Mallory McMorough, 2.8 million reserved for Abdul-El Syed. And then finally, the Real Clear Politics average. As of yesterday, we can pop up on the screen. This is for the Al-Saiad campaign. I mean, they were at 35.0 in a three-way race between Stevens, who was at 29.7, and McMorrow, who was only at 7.7. So where that 7.7 goes, that is obviously determinative, because if it all goes to one or the other, if it goes to Stevens, you're basically in a tie. And if it goes to El-Sayed, the race is totally different.

And he's a really, really comfortable lead. He's up 5.3 points in the RCP average right now. And recent polling is all from June. So it's not like it's sparse. Like that's a pretty good indication of where the voters are. Yes. And by the way, let's not leave without identifying the wild thing that happened in this race that you're probably not going to hear about from like CNN or the New York Times as they

cover this development. But if you watched it in real time, you saw it happen. And that was that in March, the McMorro campaign decided, and the Stevens campaign as well, but McMorro really taking the lead on it, decided to make Hassan Piker a major part of the campaign. As Abdul al-Said had said he was going to campaign with Piker or the Twitch leftist Twitch streamer. And McMorro comes out and slams him and says, compared. Hassan Piker to Nick Fuentes. That was what McMorro did.

In a state, by the way, where you're running in a primary, a Democratic primary, which means you have to have grassroots and young voters, it's a state with a bunch of young Muslims that are involved in the grassroots at the Democratic primary level. Yeah, and at the time that she did this,

the race had been pretty stable for months, and that was Stevens with a slight lead over McMorrow, and then El-Syad, a couple of points behind. They were all in the 20s, but with Stevens in the lead. And as the weeks go by and the major focus of the race becomes this question of Hassan Piker, which then evolves into the question of where the different candidates stand on the question

of arming Israel and whether or not they're willing to call out its genocide, it begins to become apparent to voters what's going on here and that el-sayat is the progressive left-lane candidate. Like it really cemented that idea in people's minds. And McMorro, by comparing Hassan Piker to Fuentes, came off as cynical and dishonest. Like, there's nobody, like, nobody who knows anything about the two of them thinks that there's any similarity between them other than they're both critical of Israel. Nick Fonis is an outspoken white supremacist or white nationalist or whatever he says he is. Supremicist?

Whatever. I think it's probably fair. He's not Hassan Biker. He's a completely different political animal on the far right. And so it destroyed her campaign. Like that alone. Third Way went to the New York Times and they made this like third way is this corporate centrist group saying that the tent needs to be drawn such that Hassan

Piker is out of the tent. And they launched this campaign with the New York Times and CNN and all these others. Jake Tapper are doing program after program about it, Fox News covering it every single day. And the lines were drawn. And it's McMorro that was pushed out of it. Because people were pushed on the question. And when they weren't pushed on the question. Well, and Haley Stevens is already in the race. Like you're not going to out Haley Stevens, Haley Stevens. That's impossible. And McMorough had a strategy going in that she was going to try to keep, and it's kind of, it's messed up how you have to strategize around APAC, but her goal was not to win APAC support because she knew that wouldn't be possible because Stevens had beaten Andy Levin with millions of dollars in APAC support. She was clearly APAC's candidate in a previous race. So it was very unlikely that McMorough was going to become APAC's candidate.

But what she wanted to do is persuade APEC to stay out of the race. Just let us fight this out and then we'll see you in the general election. To that end, and this is where Dropside played a role in this election, to that end, one of her top supporters on a donor call said that McMorro had submitted an excellent APAC paper, policy position paper. I suspect he misspoke and he meant DMFI, which is Democratic majority for Israel, which is kind of an A-PAC

offshoot. Either way, so McMorrell produced this secret Israel policy paper in an attempt to keep A-PAC'd out. That kept coming up throughout the race with people

saying this also appears cynical. What's in that paper? Release the paper. What are you not telling us about? your actual position. Daniel Biss, who won his race against Kat and against an APAC candidate in Chicago, he also got hit because he met with APAC trying to keep them out. Wasn't trying to win their support and wasn't bending to everything they wanted, but he met with them just to try to, because he was meeting with everybody. He said after the race, if he had to do over again and his advice to other candidates, do not ever meet with them

because it's just politically too toxic, even to take the meeting. And McMorow, I think, found that out. If she had not done that secret policy paper and if her donor hadn't... Because what good is it if you can't tell people about it, so the donor kind of told other donors about it on this off-the-record call, but then that got leaked. So that really screwed her. So it's an amazing own goal on the part of Third Way.

who thought they were going to make Hassan Piker the center of this campaign, they succeeded, and they blew themselves up. Totally embarrassing, and it's just misreading where the electorate is

in just a ridiculous way. It's not that hard anymore, honestly. I think of McMorough as the type of candidate that 10 years ago actually might have been a slam dunk or 20 years ago might have been a slam dunk,

but even Haley Stevens in this new media environment, She's out there just, like, riffing and saying the craziest shit ever in a way that does feel a lot less stage managed than McMorro. And Abdul Al-Sayyad feels a lot less stage-managed, too. Like, he goes on Fox News and answers tough questions. He, like, he just comes across as a normal guy. He knows how to talk on podcasts and just have a, like, authentic, genuine conversation where you don't think he's reciting talking points. Same thing with Haley Stevens as, like, crazy as Haley Stevens is.

She's out to riffing about how she dreams about Israel. She's just talking. That one's haunting. And McMorro's the type of candidate who would never, she's like so risk of her. She can't do either of those things. So it just was an impossible lane with all three of them in the race. And it's unfortunate because I think like there is something likable and like there's some inherent talent behind McMorro if she would have been unleashed. like if she would have just been able to be herself but she was trying to calibrate this

Goldilocks thing of I'm not the establishment candidate but I'm also not the super far left and it and it didn't allow her to it made her just constantly be measuring everything that she was saying exactly and that turned out to be too difficult once she kind of deliberately polar the race around Israel, which was a huge mistake. Huge mistake. Well, we'll obviously continue to cover that race. The primaries, I believe, August 4th, Ryan, right? Yeah, that's right.

Now, like, Al-Saiad's supporters are pretty confident at this point, but, you know, there's millions and millions and millions of dollars coming in for Stevens. This race is not over. Like, she could, if the polls show that about half maybe of McMorough's remaining support could go to Stevens. So if El-Saii can pick up that other half, And he's in really good position. We'll see.

All right. Well, let's talk about the huge. This is the huge conflict. Roiling FIFA at the moment. And has the United States very excited. Listen. And you're there. For heart-wrenching knockouts.

Breath-taking triumph. 2026 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 IHeard Radio. 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 be. 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. I'm Munga Shat Together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about. and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths.

I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five-year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know.

Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Valor and Balligan will play for the United States tonight against Belgium after an intervention by President Donald Trump, the undisputed winner of the FIFA Peace Prize. She made a call to the head of FIFA and said, hey, look, we just want you to go ahead.

look into this red card situation. He made some peace. He made peace. He's again, he's a peacemaker. So Donald Trump thanking FIFA for help for getting flow back onto the field. We can put up E2 here. Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice. President Donald J. Trump.

So basically what happened is the U.S.'s striker landed, his foot accidentally landed on somebody else's ankle, and they gave them a red card for it, which, you know, things happen. And when you get a red card, you are then automatically suspended for the next game as well. FIFA has the authority under article something, something, something, something, to suspend the suspension. Right. And according to all of the different reporting that we have. It was a heavily disputed call.

Disputed call. And, you know, heavily. It can, like, you're going for the ball. It can happen. Yeah, you know, your red card. Leg finds another man's leg. The legs are moving fast. Apparently one thing that the Trump administration protested was the use of super slow motion replay on the doling out of these red cards.

Because it is true that it always looks worse, almost always looks worse in slow motion. It's like, oh, look, he's aiming right for the ankle. And ooh, that looks like it really hurt. Yeah. And unlike almost every other tackle in soccer where the guy's faking being hurt, that one looked like it actually did hurt. But also, you know, let the boys play. So this is the Trump for once using his powers of corruption for the country. Well, you were pointing out earlier in the show that actually it's as Americans arriving on the soccer scene.

We have learned how to play soccer correctly. Which is that you bribe the FIVA officials. Well, let's put the first element up on the screen. This is confirmation that this. Ben Jacobs, not the political reporter. Ben Jacobs, yeah, different Ben Jacobs, confirmed. The White House made a direct call to FIFA to ask Gianni Infantino to review Balagan's red card. FIFA approach for comment referred to the findings of its independent committee.

FIFA sources insist White House influence could not affect the decision due to the powers contained in Article 27 and the independent nature of the disciplinary panel. But obviously the White House did take a call. Trump has very carefully not taken credit. You noticed in the true social. He didn't say anything. He just thanked them for making the right decision. Now, we can also put this Clay Travis post up. This is the third element.

According to Clay Travis, he's a conservative sports journalist. He says President Trump Commerce Secretary Lutnik and White House Task Force head, Andrew Giuliani, he is the son of Rudy Giuliani, put together a team of elite lawyers from outside the government to challenge the balligan red card. Specifically, they challenged the use of slow motion, as Ryan mentioned, instant replay to give the red card, which they argued violated FIFA rules. The president also conveyed to Gianni Infantino that the appeal had been filed and he believed the red card penalty was excessive.

FIFA's independent committee reviewed the decision and agreed the penalty was incorrectly given, rescinding it under their Rule 27 authority. Now, Rand, I think you can actually make an argument that all makes sense, right, that it was a bad call and that the suspension is wrong. Of course, we can make that case. Now, don't tell me that any other country would refuse to use this power in the World Cup. If any other country had this level of sway, they had the FIFA Peace Prize winner in the Oval Office, in their version of the Oval Office. You're telling me they don't make this call.

I don't buy it. Now, we should mention that Belgium is appealing. So the CNBC headline from yesterday, Belgium set to appeal as FIFA reverses Balgans World Cup suspension after Trump reportedly intervenes. So Belgians are furious. No surprise there at BBC when I checked their website this morning. They were leading with a headline that was integrity of game at stake over FIFA balligan decision at UEFA. So they're reporting that balligan, who was sent off against the Bosnia-Herzegovina should have had a suspension for the last 16 tie against Belgium. But FIFA opted not to enforce that.

UEFA said that, this is the European Soccer League, said that, or authority, said that intervening to effectively cancel suspension at a tournament, quote, crossed a red line. First of all, the idea that FIFA has any integrity to be challenged? Amazing. Get out of here. Stop it. You don't have any. So Emily has been doing more social media, and so she did a direct-to-camera reaction to this ruling.

When it first came out, let's put up E-4. Corruption is not bad. Corruption is only bad if I'm not involved. Yes. But if I'm part of that corruption, I'll defend it. We are all that guy. How did you get that video of me? We are all, Emily.

I mean, and I think this is where Europeans are going to learn something about Americans. Like, we like to win. And we don't, many of us do not like our president. We also don't like this stupid. rules that this stupid game has. And we are, I think, repulsed by Belgium's anger at this. Like, it's, okay, fine.

Trump used his power illegally to get the Americans' best player back in. But that's not your business. Your job is to go out on the field and beat our best team that we can put out on the field. You're supposed to want to beat our best players. That's a good point. That's a good point.

It's us. How could you be so intimidated by us? It's the United States playing soccer. You're fine. You can beat our best players. Yes. Yes. But you're right.

Win with the best players and not on this, what was obviously a very questionable red card call to begin with. But all these stupid red card calls are pretty questionable. The whole thing. Ryan's getting dangerously close to saying play football like a man. The whole sport is just a little bit ridiculous by how much it hinges on the on all of this stuff and then the penalty kicks and the offside. Like, it's just dumb.

But whatever, this is the U.S. playing the game of soccer, how it's always been played. And now we're actually getting involved in the corruption. And so we're going to, we're going to defend this corruption. And so the game will be tonight at, what, 9 o'clock? Eight o'clock. against Belgium. And also, we had to beat two teams at once, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to get there.

You're right. And you're going to say that it's not fair? That's 22 players against 11. I'm sorry, but every other country, both Bosnia and Herzegovina would be using this power if they had it at their disposal. Everyone would be using this power. Trump, by the way, this morning on True Social put out a very random post where he said, Harry Kane of England is a great player.

That's all he said. Amazing. Actually early this morning, so like 11.08 p.m. last night, actually. Also, real quickly, do people know, and people who aren't following this might not know Balagan's story. Do you know how it intersect? The birth rate citizenship. For people who don't know it. His Nigerian family was like visiting the United States and they were on their way to London.

but she was so pregnant that the airline wouldn't let her get on the plane. And so she had flow here in the United States. And then once they were able to fly again, they went back. And he grew up in the UK. And as a boys under 17 always played with the UK. But he has said that Americans, as they were getting more and more into soccer, would constantly be kind of in his mentions and comments saying, well, why don't you play for us?

Why don't you play for us rather than the English team? And because he had birthright citizenship, he was able to do that. And also, he's able to start because we're not as good as England. So it's not just that he loves the United States. He loves being on the field. And now we have a president who's willing to fight for him and get him back on the field. Fight, fight, fight.

Meanwhile, Wildwood went down in Mexico. We put up E5 here. So these are Mexican fans outside of the English Players Hotel, having an all-night party, setting off fireworks, playing music, rather crassly, I guess we could all say, trying to keep the English team awake didn't work. Oh, I mean, might have worked. Maybe they were pretty tired, but they beat Mexico last night. And then also Norway knocked off Brazil yesterday. I don't know if you watched this game.

And then watch it, but... The most Viking-looking guy ever. I saw that. Norwegian scored two goals. Yeah. Just this absolute Norwegian specimen. You're like, that's comical. Like, that's what the Norwegian guy looks like.

I was reading her... He's like a foot taller than the Brazilians, and his first header is just so nasty. Yeah. And his second goal, where he just blasts it into the corner. It's brutal. It's a brutal way to lose. No, I was reading an essay recently that said soccer actually has the highest upset rate of Americans.

Like, if you compare it with baseball and American football, it has the highest upset rate. Which I think is the knock on it from Americans perspective because it's like there's so much chance involved. And you can be dominating, dominating, dominating, and then you just get one run going the other end. Brazil. Yeah. So it's a tough one for Americans, but... But the argument is that it makes it fun to watch. That's the argument.

Yeah. Also, we need more commercial breaks. Like, I think Americans feel uncomfortable if, like, there's live action for 10 minutes, and we haven't heard from, like, Buffalo Wild Wings telling us about the new specials. And so for the first time ever, FIFA added these fake water breaks. So that we could have anthropomorphic... So that Buffalo Wild Wings can... We're like, ah, okay.

we now we feel centered and grounded. Should I buy the Bud Light? Then you know. Yeah. And then back in the action. Someone tells us, yes. And producer Mac just adds finally before we go that it is against FIFA's own rules to use slow motion on red cards.

Aha. Just the final point, tie this all together. But did they? Maybe they did. Well, yeah, that's true. Producer Mac, see everyone, everyone in America left to right, left, center, and right is going to defend the corruption. We don't call him good soccer guy.

We call him good politic guy. That's right. Check out that channel. All right, that's going to do it for us on today's edition of Breaking Points. I think, I think, Sager and Jetty is going to be back and in studio tomorrow with you for a bro show. I believe so. Is that correct? USA.

Bro show all week. Is that correct? If Sager keeps showing up. Oh, well, Tuesday, Thursday, Bro Show. That's right. That's right. Okay. Well, all right, fingers crossed for a bro show tomorrow.

Fingers cross. Hope everybody had a wonderful July 4th. If you haven't signed up for the newsletter, it's breakingpoints.com. Just as a reminder, it's totally free. If you want a meteor version, you can get a premium subscription that also sends the entire show into your inbox early uncut version. That's breakingpoints.com. If you've been having any problems, make sure just check your spam folder first. But then if you still need help, help at kit.com.

KIT.com is the email address. Ryan's going to be back with you tomorrow. We will see you on the next edition of Breaking Points. I'm Mangayshatigua, and I'm back with a news. season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, curmudgins, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works.

I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Michael Rappaport, and my podcast, the I Am Rapaport Stereo podcast, is unlike anyone you've ever heard. If you're looking for strong opinions about sports, entertainment, politics, pop culture, and whatever else catches my attention, then subscribe now. This kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to IAM Rap Report on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Betrayal Weekly is back with brand new stories from threatening text messages disturbing a small Midwestern town. It was from an unknown number. Who else is getting these messages? Why did it start

with us? To long cons and stolen identities. Who lies about being this sick? This was the last time I ever believed a word she said. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.