Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/18/25: Laura Loomer Blocks Gaza Child Treatment In US, Mayor Pete Panics Over Israel, Fort Bragg Cartel Book

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Laura Loomer pushes block on Gazan children treatment in US, Mayor Pete panics over Israel, Fort Bragg book exposes murder and drug trafficking.   Fort Bragg Book: https://www.amazon.com/Fort-Bragg-Cartel-Trafficking-Special/dp/0593655087    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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from Gaza, the U.S. with the help of a group called Healed. Heal Palestine. How did Palestinians get visas under the Trump administration to get into the U.S.? Did the State Department approve this. How did they get out of Gaza? Is Secretary Rubio aware of this? So after Lumer tweets, hey, we don't want these kids coming in from Gaza. Lo and behold, State Department says, all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical humanitarian visas in recent days. And I'll play in just a second. Marco Rubio, he was asked about some of this on the Sunday show is very actually lean questioning of him, but whatever. In any case, just to be

totally clear, you know, even what she's saying here about Palestinian refugees, personally I would support it, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about temporary B2 visas that are used to allow people to come in and seek medical treatment. They are good for six months at a time. You have to seek an extension, prove you're continuing to receive medical treatment. You're not eligible for work. You're not eligible for permanent residency. That's what we're we're talking about here. We're talking about kids, oftentimes, who had their arms and their legs blown off frequently by American bombs who are being allowed in in very limited numbers in order to seek medical treatment here in the United States. And that is what Laura Lumer

objects to. And that is who, by the way, describes yourself as a quote unquote, proud Islamophob and who the State Department is listening to in blocking these visas. So let's go ahead and take a listen to Marco Rubio on the Sunday shows and then we'll get soccer direction on the other side. Why did the State Department just announce that they're halting visitor visas for all Gazans coming here for medical aid? Why would some of these kids, for example, who are coming to hospitals for treatment be a threat? Well, first of all, it's not just kids. It's a bunch of adults that are accompanying them. Second, we had outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it. And so we're going to reevaluate how those visas are being granted, not just

to the children, but how those visas are being granted to the people who are accompanying them. and, by the way, to some of the organizations that are facilitating it. There is evidence been presented to us by numerous congressional offices that some of the organizations bragging about and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas. And so we are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas. So we need to, we're going to pause those visas. There was just a small number of them issued to children,

but they come with adults accompanying them, obviously. And we are going to pause this program and reevaluate how those. visas are being vetted and and what relationship of any has there been by these organizations to the to the process of acquiring those visas we're not going to be in partnership with groups that have links or sympathies towards Hamas so there you go saga they're Hamas well listen I agree that the Palestinian shouldn't come here because i think they should stay in their current place and they should be allowed to seek medical care in their own area which they cannot do because they have all been leveled also there is a very developed

country called Israel, which has hospitals and specialized medical care. If they really cared about Palestinian children, they could treat them if they would like to. They're, you know, open. They brag about it, right? We got all these five-star medical equipment, etc. The reason why, and again, I looked into it just like you did. These are not refugees, people who are permanently living here. They're on a permanent, or sorry, on a temporary visa to seek specialized medical care, which does not allow permanent residency. I guess it's fair to say that sometimes, that does lead to permanent residency. So, okay, whatever, that's their objection.

But what drives me nuts is the way that this is being... What drives me nuts is the way that we have all of this double standard. We literally just let, in Israeli pedophile, flee the, allegedly, an alleged pedophile, flee the country after he was caught in a sting here. That's no diplomatic outcry. The State Department, if anything,

probably facilitated it, allegedly. Yeah, where's Laura Luma on that one? Exactly. So do we care about security? or any of that. More recently, our government actually launched a hate crime investigation after a soldier returned from fighting in Gaza and faced some backlash or whatever here in the United States. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, he's a foreigner. According to the U.S. passport, you're supposed to lose your, you are literally supposed to lose your citizenship if you go abroad

and fight in a foreign military. And now our federal resources are being marshaled to protect. So we have not only just a double standard, but a sick standard here. So, yes, let's make it so that they can stay exactly where they're from and seek medical attention. Yeah. There's an easy way to do that. That's not really something you want to do. You know what? Gaza actually had quite extensive medical care inside of Gaza, especially given the difficult conditions that have been imposed on them for years and years and decades by Israel. But they had quite sophisticated. Yeah, no more. You bombed it all. You destroyed it all. And this is the thing, like, you know, from if I'm to take a sort of like right wing perspective or channel or right wing perspective, if you don't want a lot of refugees displaced, then stop backing the fucking wars that display. You think that Palestinians want to have to have their kids' arms blown off and seek treatment here. You think that's the life that they envision for themselves? Of course not. They would like to be in Gaza. They would like to be in their homes. But guess what? Our tax dollars went to. destroying and turning all of Gaza, including, yes, the medical system, into rubble. And so given that context to then object to, we're talking about a small number of kids coming here, and we can put this one 11-year-old boy, this is D4, up on the screen, coming here to seek specialized treatment.

And you object to that. You, I mean, to me, it is so depraved. It is so sick as to be almost beyond words. These little kids who have had their childhood robbed from them. God knows the trauma that they've experienced, the loved ones in their lives, the family members that they've lost, who will never be able to gain back their limbs and their peace of mind that was stolen from them. And then the one little bit of kindness, we have to be able to get them out of Gaza and get the medical treatment. And you're mad about that. That is so disgraceful.

It is just unbelievable. Well, this was a big debate back on during the Syrian crisis that I remember over the Syrian refugee stuff. And, you know, the Europeans obviously invited all these Syrian refugees and Afghan refugees into the country, destabilized, responsible for Brexit, has caused problems basically now to this day. But like you said, to channel a more right-wing perspective, the solution the whole time was, why do we keep funding this? We are responsible for basically creating the political crisis and the problem here that is fueling all of this. There's a, I'll get canceled for this one, but there is a term or a phrase come up with a guy named Steve Saylor, which is invade the world, invite the world, which is basically like, go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, destroy them, destabilize them either on behalf of Israel or support policy to do so, and then invite them, you know, to your own country. Now, again, you know, the Israelis out of two sides of their mouth are like, these people are so horrific that we cannot even be forced to live next to them. And then in the second breath, they're like, by the way, America and everybody else, you need to take them.

It's like, well, okay, so basically you don't really believe that. You just don't want to live next to them. I support their right to seek medical care in their own territory and or in Israel for creating that crisis and to allow. Also, you know, this is the other question of you're destroying all the hospitals and then you're blocking all of the aid that's, even coming in there with GHF. I mean, all of these doctors who have gone into Gaza, all of them report massive problems even getting in there. Don't they have to go to the UAE or some other special system

to even to be able to provide it? They lose power when they're doing so. These things occur because of what we are supporting. This is the classic invade and invite scenario that Sailor described. So I don't know. I mean, I think with Lumer, really what you're watching is kind of this like weaponized like hysteria

over Palestinians and others, where if they actually cared about not wanting Palestinians do have to go anywhere, which, of course, they don't. They support it. They actually support the mass ethnic cleansing, really, of what's going on. Then you would support basically telling Israel no. And, you know, if we have a blanket policy that Israelis and Ghazans and all these others, are not going to get any of our more of our money and have much more of a fair application, but we don't.

Our federal government basically rolls out the red carpet for former IDF soldiers who are coming who are responsible, in some cases, for creating much of this. But then, you know, the victims of it are then treated with contempt. Yeah. I don't know. The whole thing is gross. And just so you know, the type of people that she is objecting to being able to get treatment here, let's go ahead and play D4.

This is a little 11-year-old boy and his family who, you know, local news did a piece on and they arrived in Atlanta. Let's take a lesson. Yassine Al-Gabon is slowly learning how to be a kid again in the suburbs of Atlanta. He came here all the way from Gaza. after losing his legs in an airstrike last year. He didn't want to talk. Arrived in the U.S. for medical treatment

through the nonprofit, Heal Palestine. Here in Atlanta, he'll need more surgery and eventually prosthetic legs. He said I'm fine. Need for medical attention nearly caused the family to split apart. So that's who, you know, that's who Rubio is saying,

oh, these are linked to terrorists, this is Hamas, this is who Lumer is, you know, pitching a hysterical fit about to try to block their entry, and I truly just find the whole thing to be grotesque and disgusting. I think it, again, is gross in the Israel, in the pro-Israel context. I mean, I don't think it's a secret, but part of the problem is that there's always weaponized empathy for mass refugee status. But, I mean, it almost feels silly to have that argument or discussion right now, because we're not, no one's proposing that. No one is saying, well, actually, Israel is proposing some sort of mass refugee expulsion. But there's not a serious debate,

right now to invite hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Palestinians, you know, here to America. That's not actually what's even really part of the question. This is not even like the starting point of any of it. It's not a realistic political outcome other than the one that's being pushed by the Israeli. If it were, then I would not be willing to have an argument. We are the ones who, we are the reason this little boy doesn't have Lex, right? We are, he lost family member. I believe he lost his father. Like his, we are the reason for that. And like the tiniest bit of, I mean, this is a pathetic drop. in the bucket. I think a few hundred kids. I mean, it's, it's so minimal. And this is the thing

that you're up at arms about. It's, again, it is so disgusting. And if, like, if you don't want for these children to have to seek medical care abroad, then support the ending of the bombing and starving of them so that, yes, they could, where they would actually like to be at their homes with their loved ones, with their limbs and body intact. Yeah, I believe Ryan also was pointing out that in many of the cases, it was a hyper-specialized medical, because people are like, oh, why do they have to come here? And he's like, well, in many of these cases, it's a very specific type of medical treatment available in the United States that's being paid for by donors and others with the scrutiny of the State Department on the B2 visa. Lumer has been saying,

like, oh, well, why don't they go to Arab countries? And it's like, well, in some cases, there are literally only specific procedures where they have doctors, like, available in the United States. That's what I saw him in his back and forth with Lumer. But yeah, I mean, overall, it just goes to show you the level of which we can have just like complete hysteria and panic in some sort of service of Israel, you know, here with the victims of a policy which is directly supported by the last two administrations by tax dollars and others. Yeah. What exactly is the way that we square it. And by the way, if it was a child like an October 7th victim and they were blocked from coming over here, what do you think these people would all? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know,

you want to go there for a second? Like, let's do that. Let me just, before we get to Pete, let me just read this exchange from Lumer and Ryan just to get it in here because, yeah, our man has been doing battle. He's been doing battle in the trenches over this one. So Lumer quote tweeted a drop site report and said, why should Palestinians be treated American hospitals for free while U.S. veterans are homeless on the street unable to get health care. This is why everyone hates them because they want to come to our country, get free health care and never assimilate while Americans struggle to pay their bills. Not even Americans get free health care, but you want Palestinians to have free health care while you are America last unreal.

As if Ryan doesn't want Americans to get free health care, by the way. And this lady, you think she has ever supported free health care for all Americans? Okay. Anyway, Ryan responds, Trump slashed Medicaid, slashed the VA, slashed ACA Exchange, subsidies and increased the military budget to over a trillion dollars. But Lumer wants people to think the reason they not of health care is that a Palestinian child got treated thanks to donations from people heartbroken at what Israel and the U.S., by the way, is doing to children. This is a lie. The trillion dollars being spent to blow the arms and legs off of children is the problem, not the children themselves. Well said, my friend. Well said Ryan Grum.

in 1920 a magazine article announced something incredible two young girls had photographed real fairies but even more extraordinary than the magazine article's claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article sir arthur conendoyle the man who wrote sherlock holmes yes the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls in into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood.

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and partnership with unanimous media on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. We covered this last week, but just as a refresher, Pete Buttigieg went on Pod Save America. John Fafra was doing the questioning, and he just made an absolute mess of his answers on Israel. Said a lot of words, said absolutely nothing. It was pathetic. He got absolutely destroyed online. huge backlash to his comments. So just as a reminder, because we've got an update on this, just as a reminder of what he said, this was his response to, hey, do you think we should

recognize a Palestinian state? Do you think it's time to recognize a Palestinian state? I think that that's a profound question that arouses a lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's right to survival in the diplomatic scene. And many of the people who have taken that step historically have done so for different reasons than what we see happening with European countries. I think we need to step back and we need to do whatever it takes to ensure that there is a real two-state solution and that no one, not even the likes of Netanyahu, can veto the international community's commitment to a two-state solution where you have Palestinians and Israelis living with safety, with security, with rights. I believe that can happen,

but we have to actually show some commitment to it. So, again, the question was, should we recognize a Palestinian state? All of that long gobbledygook was the answer, which started off with, that's a profound question that arouses a lot of the biggest problems with regard to Israel's right to survival. Oh, thanks, Pete.

Thanks, that was really useful. And all of his answers were like that. So it was so bad that he actually went to Politico to try to clean up the mess. We can put this up on the screen. This is an interesting article overall about what they describe as Dempenter. 2028 litmus test on Israel, and they say Buttigieg discovered that this was, I mean, they're so

out of touch, just crazy that he didn't realize this would be an issue. But in any case, here's part of what he said. He said Democrats, like all Americans, but certainly Democrats are sickened by what's happening and trying to hold several things in mind at the same time, all of which can be true, that what has to happen next is the killing has to end, he told Politico in an interview, the hostages have to come home, the people of Gaza need aid unimpeded, and all of that should be happening immediately. They describe that as a sharper response than in his interview. I don't know how sharp that is, but in any case, it goes on. He says of the criticism of his podcast interview, quote, I get it. It's important to be clear about something this

enormous and this painful. It's just that it's so enormous and it's so painful soccer that sometimes his words can fail. It's just that he feels it so deeply. It didn't express himself properly. Okay, but the next piece up on the screen, we got one more here. So Buttigieg sees a larger paradigm shift on the issue following the blowback this week to his response on the podcast. He's now trying to directly answer Democrats' questions about his positions on Israel, asked whether Palestinian state should be recognized. He told Politico, a two-state solution has to come in the context of a credible and enforceable and negotiated a process.

I think if you just try to do it unilaterally, it's not going to change anything for people on the ground, and it'll just be words on a page. As for passing more decades-long, military aid packages, Buttigieg said, we have to shift to a more case-by-case approach instead of a blanket approach. And he added, Netanyahu's military campaign is even more horrifying when you contemplate this is happening with U.S. support. So I don't know how great he did cleaning this up. It's still a lot, in my opinion, of gobbledygook that completely misses the moral clarity that Democrats certainly want to see from him. But, Sagar, it was noteworthy that he felt the need to go in and play cleanup at all after, you know, the answers that he gave, this classic like Pete McKinsey speak of let me like restate the question and then bullshit.

around until you don't notice that I didn't answer your question at all. He would have gotten away with that just a few years ago. And now people are like, no, we want an answer. Where do you stand? And the Democratic base is overwhelmingly of the view that this is a genocide. All weapons need to stop. There needs to be an end and that this is horrifying and there needs to be total and complete moral clarity when it comes to this issue. I think what they horseshoe on it will be eventually is, and this is why Buttigieg made the mistake of just like trying in the very beginning

to give his gobbledygook answer is going to be the eventual place that Slotkin ended up after our interview, which is they're going to stay silent. The ambitious ones will stay silent for now. I doubt they'll ever get to genocide. I think what they'll say is I support no more weapons to the state of Israel. That

is the like horseshoe between whatever is left of liberal Zionism and of the activist class who is going to rejoice at seeing somebody like Gavin Newsom or others be like, yeah, we're not going to support. And, you know, realistically, that's what it's going to look like at an actual policy level. So, in my opinion, what Buttigieg has shown is the political trepidation of even trying to square the circle by not just outright declaring several things at a concrete level.

Palestinian statehood, offensive weapons, not even offense, weapons to Israel. I think those will be the two actual litmus tests. And if I think about it in the Pod Save America clip, the one that went very viral was him saying we're not going back to the pre-October 7th status quo. Yeah. That I think, again, is another... What was the time? That's what the pod save guys. Yeah. Well, I think it was John Favro who said it. And who's the other one? I forget his name. Don't love it. Love it. Yeah, love it. Yeah, they were all... But my point is that that will be, I think, where the eventual nexus ends, where the activist class will be satisfied at a policy level.

And in terms of the reality of, like, where this base and policy actually looks like, that's what it means. It means the special relationship is over. Offensive weapon or weapons period while your gangsterism continues is not on the table. Us protecting you with the United Nations, not going to happen anymore. The anti-Semitism resolutions and the A-PAC stuff, it's like, no, you know? I mean, think about it in the future. Can you win a Democratic primary at the presidential level if you appear recently on the A-PAC stage? I would say no. I don't think it's going to happen. Especially with the, and so looking at that politically and how that operationalizes, like, J Street itself is going to be the only place where it's even remotely safe. APAC is done for it.

And when we had Abdul Sayad here on the show, he kept calling it like a MAGA billionaire organization. And I was like, okay, man, like that is kind of true, but there's a lot of Democrats who support APAC as well. But that's the framing I saw, where this is all going to end up. Yeah. I mean, I personally think that the language of calling it a genocide is going to be important, too, because it's a signal. I don't think so. I do. Because it's a signal of that sense of moral clarity. And so, well, of course, the policy is the most important thing in terms of what you're going to do, that is the real litmus test of, do you get it? Like, are you willing to say the thing that is the most difficult to say right now? And for people who care a lot about this issue, I will tell you that is what... That's not the entire Democratic base. I mean, the No King's protest is bigger than any other protest.

protesting the entire country. It's not about Gaza. It's not the entire Democratic base, but I do think it is becoming increasingly central dividing line because it is a symbol of not just where to stand on this issue, but are you going to be independent? Do you have integrity? Are you going to fight? Are you going to be different? And it really does come back to that Tanahisi quote, of if you aren't willing to stand up against a genocide, how can we trust that you're going to stand up against Trump, stand up for democracy? And I think that is increasingly the sense among a large I'm just skeptical. That just seems very like defund the police logic. It's like if you don't have the full activists on board, I feel like they should have learned their lesson. If you're

going to get everything you want on a policy level, just shut up and take it. Like, why are you upset? I mean, in terms of... Because Sagar, it's about that signifier of, you know, this is the thing that's the hardest to do on this issue. Right. It's the hardest thing to do on this issue is to actually say the truth that it's a genocide. And so if you're not willing, if you're still trying to dance around that reality and come up with some sort of tortured rationale of why you, you know, they're not like you. They do believe that a genocide is such a thing and a word that should be used. If you're still dancing around, then, yeah, you just look like a smarmy, dishonest politician

who is not willing to be clear even, you know, in defense of, you know, innocent people who are being murdered on mass. I just find it very hard to believe that is the sole litmus test for a Democratic politician. Like I said, no kings is the biggest protest in the country. that's much more like Gavin Newsom, we're going to fight coded. That's not about Israel at all. Gavin, one of the most popular politicians right now. I get it, you know, for a lot of young or people, this is just again where I think with the defund logic is going to come in. It's like, oh, is that going to become the single troll of the Democratic primary? Like, I don't think so. And I feel like they should probably learn a lot of their lesson from demanding, you know, specific rhetorical concession. If they agree with you 100% in how this is going to be actionableized and you're still not going to support them, I think that would be preposterous. for the way that it goes about. And I do think that the way that the Republicans are current, like if you look at the way that people are so upset about Democrat or Republicans actions right now, a lot of it is Israel. A lot of it is ICE. But I would say broadly, it's a feeling of gangsterism,

as in they are getting away with everything that they want, from gerrymandering to support for Israel to ICE. They've taken over and they're fighting with power. That's where I feel like Newsom's energy in terms of saying things like, we're no longer going to sit around and hold up signs, we have to fight back. That is the core nexus of what the Democrat demands. If he doesn't say the word genocide, are people really not going to support him? No, I just, I see no way that that's going to work out. Like, this is very activist brain. No, I don't, I think you're wrong about what it will, what it indicates to people and why it is going to be a, because the thing with Newsom is he doesn't really have to answer any questions on this right now because he's

governor. But he will, when he runs. He will have to answer questions on this. And what people are looking for is almost like a Democratic Trump who's going to say the shit you're not supposed to say. And yes, in the context of, you know, his fight on gerrymandering, he is doing that thing. But if you're still a smarmy politician who is wrapping themselves and twisting themselves in pretzels about just this one word, then it's an indicator of who you really are and how committed you really are to being clear, being forceful, you know, having that. moral clarity. But, you know, we'll see. Look, I could be totally wrong.

How it all plays out here. But I just, I know there's going to be someone because the lane is wide open, someone who fully occupies that sort of like Zoron lane. And it's truly like anti-Zionist is, you know, says we should arrest Netanyahu and we're cutting off all the weapons, not just like, oh, the offensive ones and the defensive ones, blah, blah, blah. There is going to be a lane wide open for that person. There will be someone who will occupy that lane.

and I think they will get significant support. It will be, you know, and it will push everybody else on the issue as well. I wouldn't deny that. I think that certainly will happen. I would look at as an Overton window pusher and somebody who will definitely kind of be looked at as a pain in the ass or anything. Do I think that person is going to win solely on that? No. And I don't think that's why Zoron won either.

I don't think it's the only reason he won, at least, is the only reason that he won. It's not the only reason you won. But I do think it was more important than what even I initially thought. Maybe. Let's go ahead and get to this next part because this does indicate the, like where how the Democratic leadership is desperately trying to catch up to where the base is. Catherine Clark, who is the Democratic House whip, so she's the number two most powerful Democrat in the House, appears to have called Gaza, what Israel is doing in Gaza,

a genocide at an event. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of this. And we each have to continue to have an open heart about how we do this, how we do it effectively, and how we take action in time to make a difference. Whether that is stopping the starvation and genocide and destruction of Gaza, or whether that means we are working together to stop the redistricting that is going on, taking away the vote from people. So she says they're stopping the genocide in Gaza. She joins a very small number of Democrats and very small number overall of elected representatives

who have called it a genocide. Politico asked her about it. They said, you know, she didn't, they didn't walk back. Her office did not walk back the characterization, said the Massachusetts Democrats' position on the fighting in the region has not changed, quote, whip Clark's position on the war has not changed. The Israeli and Palestinian people deserve security and peace. It can only be achieved through a permanent ceasefire, immediate return on the remaining hostages

and a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza. It should not be controversial to say that Israeli children did not deserve to be kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, nor should be controversial to say, Palestinian children who bear no responsibility for Amaz's atrocities do not deserve to be killed by war or starvation, a secure future for Israeli and Palestinian children demands a real two-state solution and a permanent end to efforts to deny their rights to exist. So didn't walk it back totally, but did sort of like, I guess, provide context for the language here. Nevertheless, Sagar, I think it is quite a significant development that you have the number two in the House now.

Staying on this position. And it will provide a sort of, it will provide a permission structure, I think, for others in the House Democratic caucus and other elected Democratic leaders. to take that position. The other thing that I think provides a permission structure is Obama back in Zoron is a big deal for that as well. That's fair. Yeah, totally. I mean, I still wonder how much of the nexus is on genocide and not what I said about October 7 status quo, about policy levels of offensive weapons, etc. I'm willing to be totally wrong. I mean, remember, if you think words and all that don't matter, do you remember how much Hillary refusing to say radical Islamic terrorism was a thing? No, I know.

That was just popped into my head is a counterargument to myself. I was like, well, maybe I'm totally wrong. I mean, maybe that's the only signal that some people want to hear. Because, yeah, I mean, a lot of times people don't really dig into the policy details. It's like, what are you signaling with your language? You know, are you signaling that you're this just like doesn't give a fuck on Barnes Truth Teller? Or are you doing some sort of weasley politiciany bullshit that gives you room to, you know, not piss off the donors too much and be able to shift your position down the road, et cetera. Fair. I mean, in retrospect, it's crazy that Hillary didn't just say it, like, on the stage.

What did she say? She was like, radical jihadism or something. I don't remember. It's like, just say it, lady. It's the same thing. It doesn't matter. Major fixation on that, I recall. It was huge. Yeah. All right, we've got Seth Harp standing by. Let's get to it. In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies.

But even more extraordinary than the magazine article's claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in Hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode will explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeare's to Balloon Boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Bud. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess. But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you

follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to fud around and find out, a production of IHeart women's sports and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Joining us now is journalist Seth Harp. He is the author of an explosive new book. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. He's been teasing it to us now for quite some time, the Fort Bragg cartel, drug trafficking and murder in the special forces. Seth, you have been making the rounds now with this book, with some extraordinary new reporting and revelations. But at a very high level, why don't you just describe what you found at Fort Bragg the consequences of our 20 years of action? abroad and what it wrought with the U.S. Special Forces inside of their community? Sure. The book is basically an investigation into some unsolved murders that took place on Fort Bragg among Special Forces soldiers who were involved in trafficking drugs. But in the course of

investigating those murders and trying to determine who committed them, I came upon a much larger story of drug trafficking and impunity at Fort Bragg, culminating in a huge number of soldier deaths beginning in 2020 and continuing all the way through 2024. So the book really draws in a lot of those themes. And as you said, tries to show how that very high mortality rate and high rate of criminality in the special forces in the Airborne Corps is attributable fundamentally to the way that our soldiers and troops have been used for the past 20 years of forever war. And Seth, the book reads like, I mean, the structure. I think really well done. It reads like a murder mystery and then you also zoom out and talk

about these broader implications. And one of the pieces you really dig into, which I'm shocked hasn't been fully explored to my knowledge previously, is the way that our war in Afghanistan helped fuel a drug crisis here at home. Can you lay out some of those connections for people because, you know, and I'm sure that this was part of the story, the story that we've told here is that, you know, you had the increase in Purdue Pharma and these other pharmaceutical companies start pushing Oxy, people get addicted, then they turn to the street. I'm sure that's one part of what was going on here. But take us into your reporting on how the Afghan drug trade, you know, fueled by our war there, ends up coming back home. So the narrative in which heroin addiction in the

United States is precipitated or precipitated, excuse me, by overly lax prescribing practices around opiate drugs. That's true. That's not a false narrative. However, what it leaves out is that during the 2000s and 2010s, there was a flood of supply of heroin in the United States, enormous availability, high potency. And my book tries to show how the majority of that heroin came from Afghanistan while it is under occupation by U.S. forces, which is an angle of the war that has not been thoroughly explored to date. So one of the things, Seth, I wanted to get into, or some of the really extraordinary stuff that you uncovered in your book, I mean, just pure, like, wanton behavior by some of the troops that you're alleging there. Can you go into that, including titanium teeth for dogs and

eating human flesh? These have been the most controversial claims that you've made in the book. So that detail is really a passing detail in the book. However, it is something that people seized upon online. There was an operator who was suffering from extreme moral injury, PTSD, drug addiction, who was involved in the drug trafficking activities at Fort Bragg. His name was Billy Levine. He had been a dog handler on Delta Force. And in fact, he had adopted one of the units working animals after it had been retired.

And I related a story that Billy told to the sister of another Green Beret in which he said that the dog had had its titanium teeth removed upon retirement in order to prevent it from posing a danger to people because while in service, the dog had actually developed a taste for human flesh. Again, this was something in the nature of hearsay that I repeated in the book. It was a credible enough claim, but people seized upon that online and were saying this detail has to be made up. However, no sooner did that pylon began than somebody anonymously posted a video of a clearly marked Delta Force K-9 or Special Forces K-9 in the event doing almost exactly what I had described in the book. I don't want to horrify people by describing it in graphic detail, but it was amazing to see video evidence of exactly what I had alleged emerged just like that. So not to turn this into a gotcha or anything, the reason I'm asking is I did have some people in the community reach out to me about your book and they knew that you and I were close and they were alleging that you had not reached out to them for comment in some of these specific instances. This isn't to

put down your work, but I do want to ask you because there's very specific claims have been made here about not being reached out for comments specifically on some of these allegations, using some of the hearsay and other things, and then claiming a firing, I believe, of a person or sorry, claiming a voluntary leaving when they were fired in one particular case. I want to give you a chance to address that just to get it on the record? Sure. That's just not true. We contacted everyone who's named in the broker, made an attempt to contact them. If they're named, we made an attempt to contact them. And all of the allegations that we make about the unit, we make about Delta Force, about the special forces,

all of that has gone to the special forces command with an opportunity for them to comment. They have declined every single time, including most recently when Politico did an excerpt. We sent them a very long email outlining every single thing that we were going to say in the article. And they said, because your comment involves a special, or because your question involves a special mission unit, we cannot comment. So I find it to be kind of a double game they're playing where at the one point they hide behind, you know, the unit secrecy and say that we can't ever, we can't comment on any of these allegations. And then when the book comes out, they say, well, you didn't really talk to any of us. it's also not true that I didn't interview Delta Force operators is quite there's several who are named in the book and there's even more who spoke to me completely off the record on condition that I not even described them so the idea that no one was contacted that there were allegations that were a surprise people are just simply making that up I don't know where they're getting that we don't go into that we don't say every single no comment is recited in the book because that gets boring but that that allegation is completely baseless I want to make sure it was addressed let's talk a little bit bit more about Delta Force, which is where you focus your reporting. I mean, first of all,

for people who don't know, who don't know, where did Delta Force come from? How was it established? And in what way have they been used and deployed during the War on Terror in particular? So Delta Force started out as a very specialized and very elite counterterrorism unit in the early 1980s or in the late 1970s originally. For many years, it was not used very often because of its high degree of specialization and use in things, rare missions such as hostage rescue. It continued to have that niche role after 9-11, and it wasn't really until the surge in Iraq in 2007, 2008, as I relate in an early chapter of my book, in which the unit became something much more of a death squad that was used in night missions going out night after night and just hitting targets

that were believed to have something to do with the insurgency in Iraq. And that was a model that was expanded into Afghanistan during President Obama's term in office. And we heard a lot about this when it was all called by the euphemism night raids. Dron strikes and night raids really became the entire American war effort. And Delta Force was always at the leading edge of that. Other people in the special forces community have criticized because I follow the message boards. The book has become very controversial among these folks. And one thing that they were saying was that, you know, and a lot of times when they hit targets, they're just capturing targets and they're quibbling with the idea that Delta just shows up and just massacres everyone on site.

Now, it's true that Delta Force does do capture missions. That certainly happens. I'm not in a position to say what the exact proportion is, but also just last night I saw some comments by a former Delta Force commander named Jeff Teigs in which he was saying basically the exact same kind of things as I. was saying about the unit he says when we show up we will kill you your family your village your pets your goldfish was an exact quote from this individual and he added that when the black helicopters show up everyone dies that's coming from a delta force commander to a podcaster named dalton fury just a few days ago so um i stand by my portrayal of delta force in the book it was based on rigorous research and investigations and interviews Seth to me if I is

zoom out, and I know this all sounds tedious, but as you know, when dealing with special forces, people, they like to get into the leads. Controversy is very big amongst them. They enjoy sniping each other on podcasts. Don't ask me why, but this has been long part of their own community. When I zoom out and I think about your book, it's about the toll that the Forever War took on the people who fought them, who fought them the most, the psychological toll, and the lack of leadership from the Pentagon and others to recognize of what 14-15 deployments of gangsterism, of just wantonly going in, running missions under the cover of darkness, of killing people, even capture, even if you're doing so legally, you're not doing anything wrong, I'm saying, but what that is

going to breed into you as an individual. And what you write in the book is to show all of these unsolved murders on a per capita basis, you know, exploration of drug use, of the psychological toll that it takes on anyone to serve in this type of environment. And I'm just saying within that context, is that how you viewed the inevitable rise of what you say is the Fort Brad Cartel? Yes, absolutely. And I'm not trying to portray some of the enlisted operators

who the book follows their careers and their lives and their deaths. I'm not trying to portray them as monsters. On the contrary, I try to portray them very much as humans and show how they started off from a place of good intentions. started off as normal guys, joined the military, progressively rose through the ranks and became more and more inert to the nightly killing fest in Iraq and Afghanistan and the terrible consequences that had on their bodies, their minds, and their souls inevitably, this is what our

foreign policy breeds and, you know, military bases like Fort Braggen and the lives of these people who get chewed up and spit out by this system, which, you know, it's a policy to use just the special forces groups and the Navy SEALs and other elite formations to prosecute these wars that we maintain because American voters don't want to see large divisions of troops deployed to foreign countries. They don't want to see conventional troops coming back in body bags. And so relying on the special forces to wage wars out of sight and out of mind of the public is really, I think, a deliberate policy choice. But you end up with having the same guys deployed again and again 10 times, 12 times, 15 times to these war zones. And that's just

just terrible things to a person, as you say. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I can't imagine what it does too. If you've killed on behalf of the U.S. government and you come to lose faith in that mission, like the level of moral injury and the level of nihilism that that would instill in you, I, you know, is beyond fathoming. I'd love for you to take us through a specific example here. If we can zoom into the micro just so people can get a sense of some of the, you know, the murders that you detail. One consistent theme also is the lack of accountability because these guys are so valuable

to the U.S. government and probably know so many things that they don't want coming forward as well. So that's another significant piece of the story that you're telling here. But tell us about the beheading of Enrique Roman Martinez, which is one of the stories that you detail in the book. Yes, one of the strangest episodes of this spate of murders at Fort Bragg was the death of Enrique Roman Martinez. Now, he was a little bit different from my other subjects. He was a very young soldier in the conventional army in the 82nd Airborne Division. He disappeared on a camping trip with several of his fellow soldiers from Fort Bragg who say, who told,

police the next day that they just woke up and he was gone. By the way, Enrique Roman Martinez, although by all accounts, he was a nice kid. He was dealing drugs on Fort Bragg. In fact, he was deeply involved in that world. He was selling psychedelic drugs in particular out of his barracks room. And so that was an important detail because that same night, the night they went on a camping trip, he also took a large dose of LSD and was suffering a bad trip. That was the last thing that his friends knew of them. They said he woke. They woke up the next morning. He was gone. However, a couple of days later, his decapitated head washed ashore on the beach where they had been camping or nearby, on a nearby island, showing that he had been murdered. Several

medical examiners determined that his head had been chopped off with a hatchet or axe or some other kind of heavy and sharp hand tool. It is one of the most mysterious and baffling cases in the, in the annals of military crime, and I devote two chapters dedicated to getting to the bottom of this mysterious case, which almost ends up being like an episode of the X-Files, more than some of the, you know, sort of like mafia-style crime that the other murders were characterized by. So the case of Enrique Rowan Martinez is in the mix in all of this, and I hope that my book will provide the definitive account of what's known of his murder to date. Yeah, that's actually an interesting question. What was your goal in writing the book, Seth?

There seems to be this theory amongst these former Fort Bragg guys. Like, he wanted to embarrass us or any of that. I mean, knowing you a little bit, I don't think that was really your goal at all, outside of being journalistically interesting, were there any policy takeaways that you would have liked to seen as a result of the book? Yes, there certainly were policy takeaways that I came to, but originally no, that wasn't my intention. I certainly didn't set out to write a book about policy. I really wanted to get to the bottom of the murders of Billy Levine and Timothy Dumas that took place on Fort Bragg. That was fundamentally my goal that drove the whole project from the beginning to end. But in order to understand those two men and what they were up to, it was necessary to delve into their respective lengthy military histories and provide the context of the wars they fought in. And in doing so, I'm not going to sugarcoat what these wars have been all about or what the unit is like. And so regarding policy changes that I would like to see, there are many, I think our military is in deep, deep need of reform.

Really, the most fundamental policy change wouldn't be directly to change anything about the military so much just to wind down all these foreign wars and not have the need to have these small units going out and doing assassination and abduction missions almost every night, which, by the way, they continue to do in Iraq and Syria with virtually no media coverage. of it and very little oversight from the Trump administration. So foreign policy changes, I think, are more vital than specific technical changes to the structure of the military. But down there, you could also, you could also advocate for certain policy changes. I think the use of special forces should be de-emphasized. I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a successful strategic model. The idea that we're going to use elite troops, intelligence agencies, you know, the Air Force and the surveillance apparatus, proxy forces, you know, this whole model of war fighting that developed under the Obama administration, I think, has been a total failure.

I agree. And so, you know, moving towards a more conventional military, winding down foreign wars, I think those are the two most critical things that would alleviate some of the, some of the criminality and mortality we've seen at bases like Fort Bragg and also Fort Hood and other bases, too. Really well said. President Trump has increased the defense budget. of course, most presidents do. And it's now over a trillion dollars. How effective is our military? How capable are they? I think people complacently assume that because we spend a trillion dollars in our

military every year, that we must have, you know, the greatest fighting for us on Earth. And that's just not true anymore. The military spending is so incredibly outrageously wasteful that it's hard to see where all the money goes when you're actually looking at the military. You know, I was at Trump's military parade not too long ago covering that. And it did not look like a force that a trillion dollars had been spent on by any means. You know, a lot of the armor vehicles, all of the military's workhorse armor vehicles are so badly out of date, 40, 50 years old in some cases. You know, the Black Hawk helicopter is performing really poorly. There have been an incredible number of helicopter crashes recently. Another subject that's been underreported. But it culminated

in the crash of that Army Black Hawk helicopter with a regional jetliner over the Potomac River earlier in January, that was symptomatic of all these crashes that are taking place. And the military is struggling with recruiting, although 2025 was a little better than past years, but it's shrinking. It's at the smallest size ever. I really call into question whether the Army is even capable of fulfilling its core mission if a division needed to be deployed on sudden notice or something like that because of the institutional decline that has seen at bases like Fort Bragg.

And I really think that, you know, the national defense budget has got to be reined in because that spending is not going where it needs to go. I don't know where it's going, but, you know, we saw earlier in this year that U.S. Navy went head to head with the Houthis. I don't know what their military budget is, but that's a country that makes Haiti look relatively affluent. And the Houthis arguably prevailed in direct confrontation with the U.S. Navy over the over the straight controlling access to the red seat.

I mean, that was just such a pathetic performance that the military turned in. That's another, you know, symptom or another manifestation of the weakness and decline that we have seen in the military and are seen despite this gargantuan spending. Yeah. Well, not only... Not only do you not know where that money, apparently no one knows where that money goes, given the fact that the Pentagon is, you know, can't pass a budget, can't account for significant portions of their budget.

Right. And more and more things are being written to like the laws that provide aid to Ukraine. It's written into those laws that that spending can't ever be audited, which is just crazy. You know, they're making sure that nothing like Saigar, which did a retrospective. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction provided some clarity and some limited accountability for how the war in Afghanistan was away. and there's actually provisions of law that make sure that we'll never learn that same kind of information about the war. Seagar was one of the most important journalistic resources in Washington.

I actually think it was critical in eroding support for the war in Afghanistan because people just cover their claims and we did it for years and years, always that the stories that we wrote on it would go viral because people saw how much of a waste it was. We don't have a single clue, even though it's a similar amount of money that we've sent over to Ukraine. Seth, I can talk to you all day, man. Thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations on the book.

We hope everybody goes in by, so we're going to link down in the description. Thank you, Seth. Thank you guys for having me. Thanks so much for watching, guys. We appreciate it. We're going to have a great show for everybody tomorrow. See you then.

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That's Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. In 1920, a magazine article announced something. incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that? Hoax is a new podcast for me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history and try to answer the question, why we believe, what we believe. Listen to hoax on the iHeart Radio.

video app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as the People's Princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fud Around and Find Out, I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court.

Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHeart Women's Sports in partnership with Unanimous Media. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.