Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/13/25: Saagar Vs Trump Marijuana Rescheduling, Orthodox Nun Slams Israel With Tucker Carlson

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Saagar and Emily discuss Trump rescheduling Marijuana, an Orthodox Nun slams Israel with Tucker Carlson, and Zohran Mamdani slams Andrew Cuomo for ties to Jeffrey Epstein.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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He confirmed it recently in a press conference. Let's take a lesson. There is reporting that the administration is going to reclassify marijuana. Would that send mixed messages that if marijuana is okay, drugs are some drugs are okay but we're trying to clean up crime how do they go hand in hand we're only looking at that that's early but you know somebody reported it which is fine we're looking at it some people like it some people hate it some people hate the whole concept of

marijuana because if it does bad for the children it does bad for people that are older than children but we're looking at reclassification and we'll make a determination over the next i would say over the next few weeks uh and that determination hopefully will be the right one it's very complicated subject they you know the subject of marijuana i've heard great things having to do with medical, and I've had bad things having to do with just about everything else. But medical and, you know, for pain and various things, I've heard some pretty good things, but for other things, I've heard some pretty bad things. Now, you may be wondering who he's been hearing these great things from, and the answer would be the big pot companies,

which are massively lobbying him to reschedule marijuana. So let's all talk about the issue, shall we? Look, I know everybody here knows my... We don't have a choice. People may know my views, but just stick with me at the very least. Let's go and put, what is it? The next element, please, up on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal report about reclassifying marijuana as dangerous. Quote, quote, this is how this is all come about, just so people understand. At a $1 million a plate fundraiser earlier this month, Trump told attendees he was interested in such a change. Why? Well, the guests included the chief executive of one of the largest marijuana companies in America who is encouraging Trump to pursue the change and, quote,

medical marijuana research. Apparently other executives there were the CEO of Pfizer, of crypto, and of others who have all supported the initiative. So you may be asking, you know, why would pharma and these companies, why do they care so much? It's just about the research. No, it's none of it has to do with research. The reason is because at the Schedule 1 status, as it is right now, it means that these marijuana companies, which are printing money, high-potency THC to probably half the people who are watching this video, as well as half of America, apparently, well, they don't have as much access to the legitimate banking system as they would like. So this is pure pay-for-play corruption. They don't care one iota about, quote, studying

weed. Millions of people use weed every single day. We know everything we need to know, and I will come back to that here in a little bit. This is entirely about expanding access to the banking system and turning the marijuana companies of today, which are already massive multi-billion dollar industries into a multi-trillion dollar industry a la big tobacco. This time around is the exact same playbook. You have capture every single one of these licensed pot shops and all these that are springing up across the country. It's all through the city, getting municipal license deeply corrupt.

All the money that's flowing in is from venture capital, from big pharma, and from others. and the amount of daily use has now surpassed alcohol in the United States. 17.7 million people, as of 2022, smoke weed every single day. Apparently it's not addictive, though, Emily, whenever you don't smoke, when you smoke something every single day. And it has become a major social issue in terms of just the way it's impacted, social life, daily drug use, et cetera. So I just want people to know that even if you support this,

It is because some major weed company wants to sell you your THC soda, unregulated, by the way, THC lollipop, THC high potency stuff, which your grandparents would never have dreamed of getting as high as many of these people are getting high on a daily basis. None of it factors in any of the proven deleterious effects of daily marijuana use or marijuana use in general. I know everybody's like, oh, Reef for Madness, et cetera. So before I even get there, just so you all know, let's go and put D5 up here on the screen. I love this. So I recently tweeted that nobody needs to study weed.

We know everything we need to know. It makes people dumber. It makes people literally go crazy. It messes with hormones. It increases the risk of heart attacks. It's horrible. And lastly, it smells like shit. And multiple people said, this guy is such an idiot.

He has no idea what he's talking about. And then they would ask AI to fact check me. So let's go down, claim by claim, makes people dumber. This is from GROC. Yes, reduces brain gray matter, impairs cognition and memory, no safe level. I would add, proven to reduce IQ in users and particularly brain function in users under the age of 25. Let's go to the next one. Makes people go crazy.

Yes, can cause psychosis with hallucinations and delusions. Just so you know, this is not conjecture. Multiple observational studies across the world prove that it massively increases the risk, if you're predisposed to schizophrenia or psychosis if you're a heavy marijuana user. Let's continue. Especially under 18. Especially under 18.

Messes with hormones, yes, disrupts insulin, estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, that seems important. Increases heart attack risk, heavy use, which as I just mentioned, 17.7 million people are smoking it every day, risks via high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, horrible for pregnant women, yes, causes miscarriage, some syndrome, lifelong disabilities. They finally say smell is subjective. Well, you know, some love

wines aroma. Yeah, some love wines aroma. Now, answer this question, when you walk down the streets of New York City or Washington, D.C., or San Francisco, or L.A., or any of these places where weed is legal, do you smell alcohol everywhere you go? Is it the alcohol users who are polluting the air around literally everyone else and making it so that it's intolerable to just walk down the street? I mean, By the way, I'm not sitting here defending the rights of cigarette smokers to just smoke away in front of everybody else. If you go to my favorite city in the world, Tokyo, they don't let you smoke. Guess what? It's great.

It's beautiful. The air is nice. It's clean. Okay? And it's similar how it used to be, kind of, actually, in some of these bigger cities, when smoking rates were down. Now, everywhere you go, all you do is smell weed. Denver. Oh, Denver is the worst.

That's the number, this is the worst city in the entire country. So I'm just laying it all out here. In terms of this is a corrupt deal because the pot companies are bribing a bunch of conservative influencers to talk about rescheduling and research, they are going after the Trump administration because they think that this is, this will expand their access to the banking system. And again, even if you use weed, I genuinely ask everybody to ask whether it is acceptable that right now you have daily use, which is not in any way treated the way that we look at somebody who's anybody. who smoke cigarettes every day, they know that they're massively increasing their risk of cancer and all of us socially are like come on, man, what are we doing here?

Say, if you drink every day, you're a fucking alcoholic, okay? You are an alcoholic if you drink every single day. Everybody knows that. If you smoke weed every day, it's chill. There's no problems. There's no addiction. It's like there's no social stigma on public weed use, on daily weed use. Everybody is just acting like there's no health risks

or any of that whatsoever. And these pot companies don't have come anywhere close to the level of scrutiny that alcohol and tobacco companies. And everyone's like, oh, what about alcohol? Yeah, tax them. You know, did you know alcohol taxes are down 50% from the 1980s? They should be way higher. Alcohol should be way more expensive. It's horrible for you.

I don't drink alcohol. There's a reason for it. This is the problem, though, is that socially everybody just is accepting this, like, 1990s stoner propaganda, that everything is chill and there's no problems or whatever. And now we have the results, like teenager. psychosis problems. There's, in fact, doctors have had to invent new names for the problems when teenagers, in particular, use extremely high levels of THC.

And then it causes vomiting. You can end up in the hospital. It actually gets stored in your fat cells. It's craziness. And this happens to, you know, to babies as well from mothers who use cannabis, their favorite word, instead of weed, for their, while they're pregnant. and it's the same thing. Everybody knows about fetal alcohol syndrome.

But cannabis? Oh, it's got health properties or anything because one person with glycoma is using. It's ridiculous. So, anyway, that's the end of my rant. It's not the end of your rant. I'll continue. Because if you were like Woody,

like you'll go wind-up dog. I can just keep going. I actually had a question. You're saying that the rescheduling here is about access to banking. Yes, that's it. Tell us more about that. So what happens when you reschedule

and then with the, as it pertains to the monies. Yeah, all right. So right now, this is crazy, by the way, is right now weed is federally illegal. Schedule I don't remember people working in the Biden White House, couldn't smoke marijuana that was legal in D.C. And if you really want potheads running our government? I don't, okay? I don't want daily drinkers run of our government either. All right.

So drug trust everybody. Be fine with me. So let's think about this. The Schedule one status means that the big banks in particular do not want to want to accept your business. It's also much more difficult for these pot companies to raise money, to gain access to, let's say, venture capital rounds, et cetera. A lot of, called LPs and funds, they have vice clauses in there where they're like, we don't want to invest in anything that makes it risky for our investment. Okay. So that's the main problem. Now, this has caused issues because

banking is access to credit markets and basically the ability to borrow. To grow. Yeah, exactly. And it costs them a lot of problems because they have all this cash on. on hand and they need to move it by armored trucks. It's all crazy. And they have to use that basically it's like a shadow banking system, even though absolute oceans of money and all that's are being made. What they want access to is the ability to basically become big tobacco. They want to be totally legitimized in the federal legal code. They want zero regulation, which again, currently they don't have. Everyone always says, yeah, we need regulation. We're long past that people, all right? This high potency stuff and all that. The reality is it's not happening and it won't

People are already massively addicted to this high-potency THC, and nobody even really wants to acknowledge the problem. So to go to Schedule III status, it makes access to the banking system almost not immediate, but much, much easier. For these companies, it lets Goldman Sachs and all these venture capital funds pour as much money into these as possible. And it will massively increase the current lobbying in the same way that big tobacco had for years, right? They were able to hire all these massive lobbyists. That's already part of the problem. These people have become so filthy rich that they're hiring all these conservative influencers and others.

They're paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars, just so everybody understands. Let's get into this. Okay, so let's put D3 on the screen. This is Alex Brousselowitz. So if you're not on Twitter, you might not know the name Alex Brousselowitz. But the headline here in the drug report is Alex Broussoitz's company took $300,000 from a pro-weed pack. Days before he said he had, quote, quote, no personal state. in rescheduling, in the rescheduling fight, basically.

So that's what Bruce Witt said on July 11th. It turns out his company, according to the drug report, was paid $300,000 by the American Rights and Reform PAC, which has been, as Josh Dossy put it in the Wall Street Journal, seated with money from the industry. And I believe that pack also gave a million dollars to Trump's inaugural pack or campaign pack. I'll look at it all you talks about. I have nothing personal against Alex.

these may be his views, but the fact is, is that he and many others have obviously a financial incentive to be talking about this. And by the way, that fits with Matt Gates, who, look, the guy, I'll give him credit, he actually has mostly held these views for quite a long time, many years. He's not bought and paid for him. I don't think he's bought and paid for it. It doesn't hurt, you know, having the support, because I also know that he's had a lot of money that flowed into them from these wheat companies over the years. And they're now trying to frame this as some major populist decision. D4, please. Let's put it on the screen. It's populism meets practicality. Suddenly, maga hats in line at the dispensary, patriots buying pre-rolls called 1776 Freedom Cush.

Beautiful. Now, don't get me wrong. There are still people clutching their pearls saying buying marijuana is a gateway drug. Yeah, so is drinking Mountain Dew if you consume enough of it. In reality, marijuana is more like a gateway to eating three sleeves of Oreos and having deep thoughts about how ceiling fans work. Yeah, I mean, I thought this was Maha. Is that what we want? We want people to eat two sleeves of Oreas. By the way, yeah, Mountain Dew is horrible for you. It's like, what are we sitting around and defending it? This stuff drives me crazy. But the point is, is that at the end of the day, I will acknowledge everything I'm saying is deeply unpopular. I get it. You know, people, you like to get high. Fine. But don't sit here and get. gaslight me about how because one child was helped by not getting a seizure, who, by the way, still has access to it if they want to. That means that it's healthy or that you need more study or for application or any of these. These big companies, they care about it for one reason. It's obviously highly, if you're all using it every single day, you're addicted. You're addicted

to weed. And they're willing to sell it to you in the same way that these alcohol companies and these gambling companies who I go after are. These people are scum. They do it specifically, because they know that they can peddle it to you and that you need it and you're a dependent customer. I think that's really gross, you know? And I've even looked at other models that might work. The only one I could ever potentially support would be a highly regulated and a non-profit system.

There's some areas in Canada, actually, which do this, which we remove the judicial problem, which, by the way, is fake. There's nobody who goes to jail for marijuana. You can fact check me if you want on that. Zero people go to jail for smoking marijuana. or for possession of marijuana. They go for possession of drugs,

and even then that's only 3.2% of the entire state prison population. Zero inmates are currently federally incarcerated for possession of marijuana. The only marijuana-related offenses are people who are high-level cartel drug traffickers who are probably involved in a whole lot of a mess than just moving weed across the border. And also, oh, lo and behold, the cartel business

here in America in the illegal weed market remains thriving, even in states of California where weed has been legal now. has been legal now for quite some time because they undercut the legitimate price. So my point just around the entire thing is that the road that we are on is unregulated, unchecked, massive addiction,

the intersection between marijuana and big capitalism, which is right now. And if that's what you want, okay, just say it though. Be honest about really the road that we're all leading down to. And everyone said, what about alcohol? The way alcohol is right now is horrible, horrible, especially if you look at the way that people are, if you look at the drinking rates post-COVID,

it was a disaster. And the way that the taxes and everything continue to go low on it, and we have these like sin industries, which become massively extractive, nobody can sit here and tell me that it's a good thing. You know, there needs to be much more like deep thought. The gambling thing is another example around it. This is what I was just going to say. I mean, so gambling to me, I'm as radical as you are on that, there's truly nothing else

like app online sports betting that exists right now and that's what's complicated about the marijuana conversation because between alcohol sugar all kinds of these actual addictive substances marijuana can make an argument that these are also harmful in similar ways and i mean i i agree with that and that's sort of where i think the the maha conversation is an interesting one in the context of marijuana where it's just like we already have set the bar across the board for what we allow into our food system and what we tolerate. You are consistent and you say that should all be different. But I don't think most people would agree that we should treat alcohol. As you were arguing, like it should be way higher taxes on alcohol. Massive. I don't think most people would agree with

Yeah, I know. People like to drink. I get it. Okay. I understand. I don't know what to say. Look at what it does to your body. Look at, there is, you know, you want more studies on alcohol? Well, yeah, but what they're saying is that it, look at what it does your body, sure, we know, but hey, I'm choosing to do it, and I'm an adult. So that's where, I think, for marijuana, it becomes genuinely, like, if you can consume as much sugar as you want, if you can consume as much alcohol as you want, that's where I see a difference between gambling and marijuana. I'm not saying, I'm, like, actually pretty ambivalent on this. I don't know what the right answer is, but it's difficult. But let's compare it then to cigarettes. So, yeah, cigarettes are people.

Do you know how much a cost of cigarettes? Griffin, text me and tell me how much is a pack of cigarettes in New York City today? What am I guessing? Like 19 bucks, maybe 17? I'm waiting for him to tell me. So let's, so yeah, $18 to $20. If you go to North Carolina, a state which doesn't tax, how much is a pack of cigarettes? Five bucks? It's that 15 extra bucks. We're like, hey, you want to smoke? Okay, fine. It's going to be massively taxed. At the same time, it is going to be paired with unending. Do not smoke. Smoking is bad for you in school from the time you're what, like four years old. If that was the social norm, I'd say, okay, fine. But that's not the social norm. The social norm is one where you have a modest tax on the marijuana, and you have an entire society, which is basically things just like giggling Cheech and Chong,

is the way this is all. It's like, no, that's not what's happening. By the way, oh, people are like, oh, what about alcohol? Yeah, add it to the school. of nobody be happier than me if we educate people about what actually it does to your body or any of that. But what I am objecting to is not just the government policy and the corruption behind this entire decision. You're objecting to the social. The entire social conversation around this is one that acts like it has zero downside.

Yes, very similar to alcohol. Most people have no idea until very, very recently what alcohol actually does to the body because of social stigma. Everyone's like, oh, it's totally fine. This is just part of our culture or whatever. and, you know, all of the studies, just like they've done on alcohol and marijuana, prove the deleterious effects. At the end of the day, sure, you can make your own decision, but government policy should be engineered around trying to actually get good outcomes. And that is the opposite of what we're having right now. So that's the end of my rant. If you made it this far.

I'll also just add the lobbying is particularly gross in this space because it's just, I mean, the Josh Dossi story is worth reading. It's really similar. to what happened with crypto, where people realize that if you can sit down across the table with Donald Trump and, you know, meet him, if you can make a smart argument knowing what Trump wants to hear, which is, according to the dossie article, he wants to be on the 80s side of 80-20 issues. And politically, part of Trump's genius there. And what happened is he got all this money from people associated with true leave and

the PACs and supported the legalization in Florida last year. And that's now happening at a federal scale. And it's very similar to what happened with Trump and crypto. You get in front of him, you make a clever argument that you know is along the lines of what he wants to hear. And he's pleased to be a negotiation, to have people come kiss the ring and make deals with him. And that's happening now with something that affects lots of kids and their lives too. And crypto does as well. I mean, crypto is going to affect people's – it's obviously currently affecting people's real lives.

Yeah, like the 401K thing. By the way, update on the BlockFi, I have finally gotten all my money back. It only took three and a half years after the company went bankrupt. I really have no idea how they did it, but I did actually get it back. Yeah, I mean, it didn't grow, so the opportunity cost is high. But yeah, I got it back. I have no idea. Thank you to the bankruptcy attorneys.

I recently got an email, and I was like, wow, I thought this money was gone forever. It's back. Amazing news. Yeah. Okay, let's go to Tucker. Imagine that you're on an airplane, and all of a sudden you hear this. passengers, the pilot is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the

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Tucker Carlson yesterday dropped an episode of his show, which featured George Stephanopoulos' sister, who's a nun who lived for a long time in the Holy Land. And the conversation was focused on the plight of Christians in the Holy Land, what it is like from this nun's perspective, Mother Stephanopoulos, I suppose, to live as a Christian in the Holy Land. And it's gone massively viral saga. This just on YouTube alone is already at a million views, and it's been up for about 24 hours. And it's definitely pinging around a lot in Christian circles. No surprise there.

So let's just get a flavor of what this woman told Tucker Carlson. We can roll the first element here. What is a yellow license plate mean? Yellow plate is for people who live in the state of Israel, and they can go on certain roads. All roads. and for Palestinians who have a Jerusalem ID are allowed to have a car with the yellow plate.

And then Palestinians have green and white plates and they cannot use. So over that time that I've been here, as the settlements have grown, you build the infrastructure for it, the electricity, the roads, separate roads that are used only by people that have yellow plates.

As a foreigner and part of a foreign church, we were entitled to have either those or they also have white, demonic, and religious plates that are there. So there's very much an apartheid system. So Mother Akapia Stephanopoulos is a Russian Orthodox nun, the sister of George Stephanopoulos. They talk a little bit in their interview, actually, about what it's been like for her brother, George Stephanopoulos, to get heat over the years as she shared her perspective, mostly about Israel soccer. So that's where this is causing already, you know, predictable levels of controversy on the right because she's very, very anti-Israel.

this episode and throughout her whole career. She's her. Yeah, look, her, the episode consistently, I found valuable because she's like, look, I'm a nun. I live in the Holy Land. Here is my daily interaction with the Muslim population. Here is what it's like being a nun in my Orthodox Christian community and doing ministry in going to these churches in Gaza and generally observing what things are like. And what she is talking about, and the main criticism I've seen is that it's preposterous for Tucker to interview her about Christian destruction because Christianity

is growing in Israel. But everyone then ignored that she's talking about the West Bank. And what she's talking about is the separate system. And she's talking about the separate system and the war on these settlers on many of these communities,

many of which are also Christian and of the two-tiered not even two-tiered system of justice. There's justice for one and then there's not for other. And that's the part that is so annoying is everybody, the Israel defenders will say in one breath that the West Bank is in Israel, but that then they will cite the policies of the officially recognized Israel. And it's like, well, if you combine the two, things are a little bit different, though? It's like, yeah,

Arab Israelis can vote in Israel. How does it work when she's talking about the yellow license plate? Right. And also, the settler thing is a much more urgent question today, because it used to actually be controversial in Israel. There were a lot of Israelis that were against it. There may still be. But it's part of the governing coalition now to not just support them, to arm them, and to protect them, with military force, is almost certainly coming to Gaza very soon. So then the question of how do they act outside of currently recognize Israel, or what Israel calls itself Israel, and in greater Israel, well, that becomes the urgent question of that

treatment, which she has now lived through for many years, and why I thought her perspective was very valuable. She also, yeah, go ahead. Well, no, I mean, it was just super interesting stuff. And we, it was a long conversation, so we have a selection of highlights. Do you want to get to this mainstream media point next to that? Well, this is important because she talks about her brother, who works at George Stephanopoulos, but more importantly, what she talks about is the way that mass media in the U.S. frames the issue in the conversation. Let's take a listen. It's certainly a great problem right now. I mean, you know, and even with this, we're dealing, now it's becoming a lot of publicity on the start. Even though it is being distorted. I actually watched the news this morning, and James Stavridis is on, and he's talking about it's all Hamas. And they show the emaciated. hostage. And as if, you know, we would, everything would be okay if only Hamas would release the

hostage and, and that's the starvation. When it's taking place, millions of people are being starved. Babies are dying there and we're focused. God, I hope the hostage gets freed. He should get freed and he should get freed and Israel should remove themselves from Gaza and allow the food to get in. And that's, and Christians should be pushing for that. And I think we are seeing that to some degree now, but it's still obscuring the main point. Like I said, the great, the unspoken thing when I talk to all my friends on the West Bank now is that, because they know we're next that it's going to happen. And it will happen. Maybe we'll go back to that time where it'll be more like they play a long game, you know, even with this settlement building, we'll build. And then if

America gives a little bit of pushback, okay, we stop for a while and then we start again. So maybe even in the West Bank for now. So, yeah, I mean, I think that that's perspective. is very valuable from her, again, as somebody who currently experiences so much of this stuff. And where she really kicked, I think, the horniness was by claiming that Christian fundamentalist support for Israel is heresy. Now, I am not Christian, and I am not going to get engaged in theological debates. But you tell me what the response to that was. Well, let's throw the clip. This is going to be E3, and it's not surprising at all for a Russian Orthodox nun to make this point. We'll get into it on the back end. This is E3. Just like many Jews are protesting and saying

not in our name, there has to be much more done by the Christians in America because these Christian Zionists are speaking in our name. Someone like Ted Cruz is saying and doing what he's doing because he's falling a Christianity that is not the Christianity of the Holy Land. We are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel. We are commanded to support Israel. It's a heretical belief. What is Christian Zionism? It's sort of this cruel bargain they have going with Israel. Because basically what they say, that they're going to be swooped up into heaven, right? And then there's going to be a thousand year kingdom. And then there'll be the end of the world and the judgment by Christ and he'll come back. This is a false, it was condemned

as a heresy in 381 because basically there is no thousand year millennium to come. No thousand year period. We are in that time period now. It's a false belief there. So basically they're arguing is that Jesus coming the first time wasn't enough? Yeah. And it's like in a way it's denying the Messiah. Ooh. All right. Tell me. Tell me what's going on. So we don't have to get into the whole pre-millennial dispensationalist thing again, but that's basically what she's talking about. Ryan and I talked about extensively in our Red Heifer segment that Ryan reported out last week, and we're talking about before too,

but the idea that there's a rapture and then the, it's, it's mostly evangelicals. Now, as an evangelical, you hear sometimes those arguments made, and I would say it was probably the case in that interview that comes across as just anti-protestant, which is still sensitive. I don't take any offense to that. I think it did sound sort of anti-protestant. But to say it's a heresy, to me, as much as I disagree with it and think it's dangerous, this is a semantic conversation. It's just a bad interpretation. And it's a bad, it's a, I think a thin interpretation to base your foreign policy on. It's not a crazy interpretation of scripture. It's just, in many cases of very literal interpretation of scripture. So I wouldn't go so far as to call it a heresy.

But she did call it a heresy. But that's consistent with their beliefs. She's rational orthodox. She cited some, again, this is like, you know, my experience with this is like the Da Vinci Code. But like talking about, she was like in 350 AD they declared it out. I'm like, okay, I mean, sure, whatever. I'll take your word for it. But she's Russian Orthodox. Yeah. She's not a Protestant. So it's not offensive. But I think most people would say it's not so much heretical. It's not Gnosticism, but it's a very literal interpretation, and it's thin

gruel for your foreign policy, which is a very fair point. Like the Red Heifer segment we had last week, it's just to base your foreign policy around this as ostensibly Mike Huckabee and Mike Johnson and Ted Cruz do, that's really a serious problem, and I think that's probably what's most

offensive is not calling it a heresy because that's more semantic. I mean, pre-millennial dispensationalists know that they're kind of a lot of people disagree with them and think that they're bananas. But I think what's more offensive is this idea that your lifelong support for the Israeli state, the Israeli government, political Israel, I think it's a more sensitive topic because it hits a live wire for a lot of people that's, you kind of look around and you realize, hmm, guess some of this maybe was wrong. Yeah. That's why it's so sensitive. I would hope so. Let's do E4.

as well, her talking about, I think this is what was most. Yeah, this seemed to be the most controversial. This is what people got upset about. All right, let's take a listen. I mean, I'm sure you've dealt with Hamas or no people who are, right? Are they religious fanatics? Are they jihadis?

Not the people that I know. Like I said, when I was again in, in, at the school, we had a couple teachers, Muslim men, and there were some elections going on. And it wasn't Hamas then. It was the social party or something, but it was definitely a religious, Muslim religious party. I would have voted for those guys because they weren't corrupt. They wanted to serve their people. And that's what it was about. So I'm not saying it doesn't happen anywhere. I'm not totally ingrained in the community. But I don't, it doesn't, the vibe there isn't one of

wanting everybody to convert to Islam and forcing it upon them at all, at all. And the purpose of Hamas is primarily to resist and to protect their people. And she's a bit cagey when Tucker asks if you can proselytize and she says, you know, we don't really do that because we're Orthodox. It's not part of our faith. But Sagar, again, important point that a lot of people do want to gloss over, Hamas is not exactly the same as ISIS, right? Like there are distinctions between one of the other. Yeah, it's a political organization. They're very, I mean, I guess you can call ISIS one too, but they're very meaningful distinctions. It doesn't mean one is great. It means that it's different. Yeah, I mean, the

take I saw was that she's reluctant to say it because then she couldn't be able to go back. I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day, I guess I'll take a word for it. Like, I would probably want to say we should, you could ask like other people who are Christian in, let's say, Gaza and or in the West Bank about their general experience, because those are the ones ultimately you have to deal, you know, with the population. I did think what was kind of interesting, talking, or listening to her was just about the Islamic and Christian communities who live

side by side there. Yes. And she did not make it seem as if it was the Muslim population that was driving them out. She much more laid the blame at Israel. I don't know if that is to be true. It is. It is just interesting, though, to hear her say that. And I was like, well, you know, I mean, I'm assuming there's...

I mean, what incentive do you have for a Christian leader to say the otherwise? Well, so I think it's very obviously true when you're talking about some of these sites. And she makes a really interesting argument about Jacob's Well and other sites in the West Bank, where for Muslims, these sites, or actually, here's an even better example, some of the sites where, so Jesus's birthplace, those are really, those are actually also important sites to Muslims because obviously they incorporate Jesus

into Islam and always have. And so they have incentives to protect these holy sites for Christians in the same way that Christians have incentives to protect their holy sites. But if you are Israel, what incentive do you have to protect a site that has to do with Jesus, who you believe was a false Messiah? So from that perspective of just purely preserving the history, there's obviously, like, the Venn diagram has an overlap on the question of like holy sites for people who believe in Jesus Christ. So I thought that point was interesting. She's basically saying there's a real risk with settlements and such of these holy sites being completely obliterated. because the Israelis may have reason to preserve Jacobs well, but what reason do they have to preserve Christian, like Christ-centered holy sites?

Not really much at all. And that is a legitimate risk. But yeah, the Hamas stuff, did it sound like she maybe was a little tense? Yes, of course. She was like, they're, you know, they're defending their people. I was like, wow, I mean, you know, theoretically, I guess, technically true. Maybe she has her own incentive. She probably, if I had to guess, is just one.

who was so horrified by Israel that she doesn't want to fall into any trap, which I actually do get. I think that's right. I do understand that. She did not want to make it sound like by criticizing Hamas. And you can take issue with this argument. Yeah, exactly. She didn't want to fall into, you called it a trap. I think it's exactly right. That was my interpretation of what she was doing. It's like, do you, but do you condemn Hamas? Do you condemn Hamas? And by the way, she was like, yes, the hostage should be released. Anyway, interesting combo. I don't know. I don't know. I'm glad that I at least got your perspective on it. Let's get to Epstein.

Imagine that you're on an airplane, and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying, like, okay, pull this. Do this, pull that, turn this. It's just...

I can do it my eyes close. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. See?

Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more,

and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on the street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into,

lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry, and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live. after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate.

On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like, in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who've lived through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance, and the tools we use for healing.

The unwanted sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's walk in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hashtag release the Cuomo list. That is the new campaign push from Zoran Mamdani, Democratic nominee, not Andrew Cuomo, for mayor of New York City. Obviously, everyone is familiar with him. But let's go ahead. and take a look at this ad that Zoron dropped yesterday with hashtag release to the Cuomo list, now tying Andrew Cuomo, his opponent, who he obviously defeated in the Democratic primary, to the Epstein list. Let's roll the clip.

Four years ago, Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace, and you probably know why. The governor's office kept the nursing home death data secret. Cuomo aggressively groped an aide. Inappropriately touched a female state trooper. Use of state resources for a COVID-19 memoir. Less well-known is what he spent the last four years doing, besides getting trounced on the Democratic primary. In 2022, Cuomo started Innovation Strategies LLC to represent individuals and corporations

in a variety of matters. Definitely not vague. Last year, it raked in more than half a million dollars. Who paid for Cuomo's services? He refuses to say. But what journalists have been able to piece together is troubling. In April, Bloomberg revealed that Cuomo advised a cryptocurrency exchange based in the Seychelles as it faced federal investigations.

Then in May, Politico reported that Cuomo failed to disclose $2.6 million in stock options to the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. His excuse? The stocks were technically owned by Innovation Strategies, LLC, of which he's the sole for prime. Finally, in June, the New York Times uncovered that Cuomo had worked with his longtime friend, Andrew Farkas, on a luxury marina project in Puerto Rico. Farkas' previous partner on luxury marinas in the Caribbean?

Jeffrey Epstein. That's the thing about Andrew Cuomo. Once you think you found out about all of his scandals, you find out about another, and then another, and then probably another. But if my friend, the disgraced former governor of the state of New York, feels that's unfair. Habibi, release your client list.

Release the client list. I like it. I like it. So let's put the next element on the screen. This is a tweet that went mega viral and said, Breaking, Andrew Cuomo is on the Epstein list. But you know what that article links to Sager is. A story about the binders that Pam Bondi released in late February, which all of this was already known, has been known for a really long time. Another thing I noted in the Cuomo video that Mamdani just put out, actually they're tying him more to COVID in that as well.

Yeah, I think that's smart. Yeah, what they were talking about with the Epstein list binder is like you said, of the contacts that were included in there. By the way, we can put that on the screen from the New York Post if we want. on to F3, please. And it says, you know, the Epstein contactless included such luminaries as Alec Baldwin, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, and RFK Jr's mom. I will say, you know, again, to be fair, and this is what they always say, there were people in the Black Book apparently who literally had never corresponded with him. So in some cases, like he would keep their information, but they didn't necessarily know it. But the point beyond the Zoron ad is more

about using it as a political vector. Yes. And I think very effectively. I've seen some Democrats try to do this in the past. Of course, the COVID connection, in general, what do you want to gin up against Andrew Cuomo? This was a corrupt governor. He has sketchy ties in the past. And he literally, his policies killed people whenever he was the governor. Why would you want somebody as out as New York? All of that is true. Sexual misconduct allegations against him, which the Epstein, you're pouring gasoline on it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I think those two things together are effective. And I mean, Cuomo himself, just, seems to be going through some like mental crisis like in his uh attacks on zoran he's like you know

i'm the son of you know what does he say i'm a boxer like i'll meet you in a ring he said he also said fly like a butterfly thing like a view which is supposed to be float yeah right yeah it's like what are you doing here like you know and i think what it all kind of comes together with in his strategy is presenting himself as a tough guy yep that's that's what it seems to me But, you know, the problem is in the current split field, I think all it's doing is consolidating the support right now for Zorin, because you have Silwa, you have Adams, you have Cuomo, all of those together. They're going to split any so-called moderate vote. Well, you also, you don't look like a tough guy when you lost. Yeah, of course. How could you? To an upstart 30-something, like, state legislator. It just, you can't come back from that and look tough, even if you have all the resources in the world because you were just outgunned by somebody with.

no resources. There's just no way to recover your tough reputation. Clearly what he has is some type of teenager or with somebody with a teenage mentality running his Twitter account and posting those things exactly what you said. Well, you would hope so. Well, those quotes that you just alluded to where he's referencing his dad and fly like a butterfly's thing. I mean, it's just crazy stuff. But he clearly hired somebody to run his social media in a way that makes it look like he's having a mental breakdown and is about to buy a red convertible and do some more adultery. Yeah. And keeping with the Epstein thing, the more that there is like a cover-up and mentality to it, I think the more this will resonate amongst Democrats. And specifically,

you know, we've seen this, you know, all of a sudden some of the Democratic, you know, influencer accounts or whatever, they're going crazy with Epstein, which is fine with me. Hey, anything that leads to the release of more information? It's totally cool. Let's put the F4, please, up on the screen just to give everybody an update. The judge will not unseal grand jury papers of Galane Maxwell or Gleine Maxwell after Donald Trump and the administration asked them to. So that kind of, you know, defeats the alleged transparency that they were going for by saying that they were going to ask the judge to release the grand jury information. both Maxwell's attorney

and the government previously had opposed the release of such documents and so now the judge is basically been like, yeah, no, we're not going to do it and Galane is miraculously still in the federal prison camp in my hometown, Brian Texas. And yeah, when I go back, I should go and survey

because apparently in a federal prison camp so there was some story going around work release. Apparently it's not true. Her lawyer denies that she has work release. But you do have like more limited interaction like with people in the community possibly, especially because some people do have work release, there who would know her.

So I need to go and investigate the next time I'm going to go home. No, you do. Apparently you can even go take photos. The Daily Mail has photos of Elizabeth Holmes daily workouts. And Jen Shaw from Real Houseways to Salt Lake City. We shouldn't arrest her as well down in Club Fed.

So maybe I'll do that. I'll do the paparazzi thing. I'll go. I'll shout some questions at Glein and see if I can get an interview with her. This judge's response was pretty annoying. Why so? Why do you think?

I mean, it's just like they're saying there's nothing new, public's not going to learn, and obviously they don't want to breach the grand jury. I get it. But if that's the case, just let us see it. Well, it's complicated, because I think it was designed to fail, right? The point is not to point to these files. The point is what's in the government's purview already, if they wanted to release, which they fully have. They have 100,000 documents compiled in the FBI. They have so many documents that Treasury, bank reports, etc., all of which are totally open and subpoenaable by Congress, except which they're blocking. They're not allowing them to have it. So I'm hoping that at least some of it, you know, does come out

at some point because, you know, even these Republican politicians, when they eventually come back to town in two weeks, the Oversight Committee and others have subpoenaed Gleine Maxwell. They've subpoenaed some of these records, right? So more information actually could still be coming out. Yeah, so let's just pause. Just one more thing to add on that. A lot of people were following Thomas Massey's post yesterday about how Trump can't do recess appointments to fill hundreds of empty seats in his administration because GOP, House and Senate, I'm quoting here, hold pro forma sessions to block him. Meanwhile, bureaucrats carry on as if they report to no one. Here's the one they held today in an empty chamber. And he posted a video of a pro forma session

happening in an empty chamber. Someone tagged us in response to the Massey tweet and said, what can you find out about this? So I asked a source. And this is also Epstein-related. The reason, basically, that you can assume, we can assume, that they're doing these pro-formist sessions that block Trump's own recess appointments. is because, in all likelihood, Trump agreed with Mike Johnson and John Thune to do this, to block the reasons appointments in order to avoid a vote on the Epstein bill. So, again, all of these things that are, like, designed to fail, that you just, I think that was a perfect description of what you just mentioned, that is what the Trump administration

is now pushing under the banner of trying to ascertain some level of transparency and to get more information out into the public. There are all of these stall mechanisms that we're starting to see, I think, pop up. And that'll likely be the course of the next three years of the administration. I agree with that. All right, Emily, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for letting me hijack the show.

And rant about weed. That's the only you would let me do it. I mean, I learned. I learned. I hope the audience. I always do it. And my favorite thing is that you had to drink out of a mug with minor Ryan's face. I don't mind it all.

Listen, I don't care. You know, it's good for us. It's good for the company. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. I'll be on with Crystal tomorrow. We'll see you then. Hey, guys, it's Janae, aka Cheeky's from Cheeky's and Chill podcast. And I'm bringing you an all-new mini-podcast series called Sincerely Jeannay.

Sure, I'm a singer, author, businesswoman, and podcaster. but at the end of the day, I am human. And that's why I'm sharing my ups and downs with you in real time and on the go. Listen to Jikis and Chill on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Black Business Month and Black Tech Green Money is tapping in. I'm Will Lucas spotlighting black founders, investors, and innovators, building the future one idea at a time. Let's talk legacy, tech, and generational wealth. I had the skill and I had the talent.

I didn't have the opportunity. Yeah. We all know, right? Genius is evenly distributed. Opportunity is not. To hear this and more on the power of black innovation and ownership, listen to Black Tech Green Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever wished for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you felt stuck in a job, a place, or even a relationship. I'm Emily Tish Sussman, and On She Pissman. I dive into the inspiring pivots of women who have taken big leaps in their lives and careers. I'm Gretchen Wittmer, Jody Sweetie. Monica Patton. Elaine Welteroth. Learn how to get comfortable pivoting because your life is going to be full of them.

Listen to these women and more on She Pivots. Now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.