Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/20/26: Hegseth Hid Damage To Bases, Fox News Data Center Propaganda, Palestinian American Begs US For Help From Settlers

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Hegseth hid damage to US bases, Fox News insane data center propaganda, Palestinian American begs US for help from settlers. Sal Mercogliano: https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping/videos    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these.

These are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island to serve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture, with your

favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. So I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent Media just played a truly massive role in this. this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that

simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Very excited for our next guest who can break down all of the shipping and logistics issues at the center of the Iran war. Sal McCogliano is with the what's going on with shipping YouTube channel. Everybody go subscribe. Fantastic work you're doing over there. Welcome, Sal. Thank you for having me, Crystal. Yeah, of course. And Saga regrets not being here. Suddenly all of our mics, except for mine, stopped working. So I get the privilege of interviewing you solo. But I wanted to start with a little bit of the state of affairs with the straight of Hormuz as best we can tell. Here's Trump. insisting that the strait is open at this point. I'm going to ask you about Canada, but first, the Treasury Secretary says that we could see the most impactful sanctions on Iran this week. When will they come? And what else could be sanctioned on

Iran? Well, we have things that we could sanction. We have very draconian sanctions. And we'll see what happens right now the strait is open. A lot of boats are coming through. People aren't reporting that. And that may slow down a little bit at some point. But right now, a lot of boats are coming through. The naval blockade has been extremely effective. So this is something as a layperson, I've had, frankly, a lot of trouble tracking just how many boats are getting through the Strait of Hormuz. So what do we know at this point of how choked off shipping is through this region? Well, what we do know is we could track the vessels that are loading up against the docks in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Persian Gulf. That's visual. We can see that. And so we have a good idea.

Obviously, ships are turning off their tracking as they go through the Strait of Hormuz. So you can't really use AIS data until they come out. What we think is coming out, Secretary of Energy Wright came out and said, we're seeing anywhere from a range of about 9 million barrels per day coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. And he said that's giving us a total of about 15 million with the bypasses in effect. However, prior to the war, with the Strait of Hormuz and the bypasses, we were getting about 23 million barrels. So we're nowhere near the level that we were pre-war.

And that's one of the big concerns. But the more particular concern right now is the fact that the Iranians seem to be hitting ships very consistently coming out of the Strait of Hormuz to the point that we just saw three Chinese tankers heading for the Strait of Hormuz coming out, turn around. And that's going to slow up the ability of ships to come out. So right now we're seeing some ships come out. We're catching them as they come out into the Indian Ocean and they turn back on their transponders and come out. But the problem is it's nowhere near at the rate we were. And more importantly, it's not flowing in a consistent manner because a lot of that oil that does come out of the Strait O'Hormuz then has to be transferred to other tankers because those same tankers come back into the Stradle Hormuz. So it's not a very smooth flow.

We're not getting levels. So are they still doing this shuttling process? Is that what you're referring to there? Yeah, the process that had begun early on under that MOU where the United States was kind of clandestinely operating this southern lane close to Oman, that seems. to have been consistently being done. It kind of turns on and off at times, and we catch it. The way we catch these ships coming out is they're coming out of the Strait of Hormuz and they're nesting doing what we call a ship-to-ship transfer.

They meet up with ships out in the Gulf of Oman and transfer their fuel because most of the ships that are making this run are state-owned ships. They're owned by the UAE, by Saudi Arabia, by Kuwait, by Bahrain. And those are the ones that are risking the voyage out because they're insured by the state and they're getting some sort of protection by the United States, probably aerial protection. But again, the Iranians are demonstrating the fact that they can reach out and touch these ships, and that's the most disturbing. We're seeing at least one or two ships almost hit every day now.

Let me get your reaction to a CNN piece that ran recently that you likely saw. The headline is Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz. I'll just read you the couple opening paragraphs here. The battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz has become the focal point of the Iran war. At the moment, the evidence is clear, the U.S., patrolling the strait with its Navy, is gaining ground, and Iran is losing much of its control of the critical waterway. More than 80% of liquid transits through the strait of hormones over the past two weeks have taken the Omani route, a U.N. authorized shipping channel that Iran vehemently opposes or have been dark transits that

likely took the Omani route, according to Kipler, which tracks ships using transponders and satellite data. I saw a lot of debate around this piece. I wonder what you make of that. Yeah, the Iranians are losing a little bit of control, but that has a lot to do with the U.S. blockade, too, because the U.S. is stopping Iranian ships from flowing in. They're also stopping ships that are going to Iran. And so a lot of that traffic that was coming out through that northern route, which was the Iranian channel close to Kashim and Larrick Island, that was Iranian ships. And the U.S., once they reinstituted the blockade, what we're seeing is a lot of Iranian ships, you know, heaving to and basically sheltering in the territories. border waters of India, Sri Lanka, and off the coast of Malaysia. And Iran had been working deals with countries to broker their passage through that northern Iranian strait. Behind the scenes,

the U.S. is exerting a lot of pressure on the ships that were using the Iranian route. They're saying that if you do business with the Iranians, the what's called the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which is operated and controlled by the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, you are going to be sanctioned, meaning if you touch that, you know, that oil you're carrying, the tanker is going to be under a U.S. and potentially other sanctions. So they're trying to use economic coercion against the Iranians, and that is having an effect where we're seeing less ships come out through the Iranian route. Turning to another issue that you've been tracking closely, we've also been trying to track closely here on the show, some of the dire conditions and supplying issues

with regard to our Navy and specifically sailors aboard these carriers in the region. Give people the top level overview of what has occurred in this war that has made this provisioning of these ships very difficult. Well, in many ways, this goes back, Crystal, to the concept of the war in general. The Trump administration came in with the idea that this is going to be a short war. They envisioned an offensive operation two to four weeks, and I don't think they foresaw a shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz to the level that it happened. I think they were looking at what happened back in July of 2025. we saw a slight reduction in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, but the Iranians never targeted ships to the scale that we saw.

March 1st, they started hitting ships, and that locked everything up in the Strait of Hormuz. But more importantly, prior to the launching of the attack, the United States Navy and Coast Guard pulled all its assets out of the Persian Gulf, meaning that the bases that were located in the Persian Gulf, particularly Bahrain, the base at Manana, and the other bases in places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Dubai and the UAE, and Fujara, they were lost to the United States.

And once the U.S. stopped their offensive operations, the hope was the U.S. Navy would be able to pull back, resupply, and kind of get themselves restored. But they immediately went into a blockade operation. And that blockade's been kind of on and off. And unfortunately, what has happened is to sustain that U.S. fleet, instead of being just a few hundred miles from bases, they're now several thousand miles from bases. Diego Garcia in the central Indian Ocean, and more importantly, the supply for Diego Garcia, which is coming through Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea.

So we're talking about a supply chain that's actually thousands of miles long. And unfortunately, because of decisions made by not just the Trump administration, but previous administrations, it goes back to 1990s with the kind of the peace dividend after the Cold War, we're trying to fight a military operation with a peacetime logistics infrastructure. And unfortunately, you know, once you go to war, you start consuming more, fuel, spare parts. And what's happening here and what you see very graphically in the Lincoln is they just can't keep up that pace of operation and it catches up with them. You know, one of the things, I think, you know, everything you say is completely accurate. It's just sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around, though, because you talk about a peace dividend after the Cold War.

And yet we see the military expenditures going up and up and up. So I think myself and a lot of Americans are asking, well, what is this money going towards? if we're having all of these issues with, you know, the very basic idea of, you know, logistics and operations in what has been a relatively, it's been a very significant war, but relatively short-term in the grand scheme of things. Well, in many ways, what we see, and I think Pete Hegseth kind of really embraces this idea is what you're seeing here is the idea that the focus is on really the warfighter. It's on, it's on the kind of the point of the spear. Unfortunately, the logistic side, the tail of it, doesn't get the attention it needs. And, you know, we see that in commercial. We saw that happen during the supply chain crisis during COVID when all of a sudden toilet paper became a commodity shortage.

We see it when all of a sudden there's a disruption and you can't flow goods when the Port of Baltimore closes because of the Dolly, when the Houthi start attacking ships. And what this takes is a lot of investment in for the infrastructure. One of the things that I've talked about in the past is post-Cold War, we should have been shifting our investment in shipping from military shipping into commercial shipping so that we would have the tankers and the cargo ships. And more importantly, the kind of the civilian infrastructure, especially across the Indian Ocean. We see the Chinese doing that, for example, with their Belt and Road initiative, where they have a lot of infrastructure across the region. And I think that's really one of the focus. Nobody wants to listen to the person in the back of the room who's going to sit there and say, hey, this operation is going to be.

going to be tough because we may run out of food and fuel and ammunition, but that is the real critical element. And in many ways, we are so good at logistics and we've been so good at it for so long, you kind of take it for granted that it's always going to be there. We're always going to have that supply. And what we're seeing now is a real challenge to it. Yeah. Put C4 up on the screen. This was something that you flagged that I wanted you to explain for me and for our audience. You said hearing rumors the Department of War is going to activate one of the national security multi-mission ships, either from a variety of locations ahead to Diego Garcia, mission could be to provide additional housing at Diego Garcia, but also a place where crews can come off

U.S. Navy warships for rest and recovery. Talk to us about what you're hearing and what the significance of this would be. Yeah, so this story has also been mentioned by G-Captain, an online maritime site, and what we're hearing is, is there's talk of activating one of these vessels. So these ships are nominally training ships for the state maritime academies, but they're purposely built there. They've been built up at the Philadelphia shipyard there under Hanwa. Five of them are being built. Four of them are out there.

They're designed for being used for state training academies, train future mariners, but also for emergency operations. So Diego Garcia is kind of getting overwhelmed in some ways in a lot of aspects. There's a lot of ships coming in, a lot of supplies need to be done. And what these ships do is do two things. Number one, and we're not exactly sure of the mission because, again, we're not getting a clear message out of Department of Defense on this, is the ships could be used for a temporary birthing area. It could help get the crews off the ships. Now, it sounds strange going from one ship to another, but these are much larger ships, more spacious.

If you've been on a destroyer on a warship, you're kind of stacked up in racks. So this gives you a little bit of space, but one of the more disturbing rumors going out is there may be a threat to the airway to get. into Diego Garcia that moving people in and out of Diego Garcia may become a threat. And so they may want to use these ships to shuttle personnel. We're already bringing extra ships into shuttle supplies, but these ships may be used to move personnel. You may remember at the very beginning of the conflict, the Iranians lobbed two missiles at Diego Garcia. One crashed halfway there, and one was supposedly intercepted and didn't hit. So if Diego Garcia is your sole base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 2200 miles from the blockade line, it's a really important airhead. It's a logistics head.

And so you want to have a kind of a redundancy. And that's what these ships may be. I should know, but it's going to take a month to get these ships there. It's not an easy sale to get there. Gotcha. And also, UK was originally reluctant to even let us use Diego Garcia for these operations. So the geopolitical situation is significant here as well. You know, bottom line, as best as you can, how much do these supplying issues impact our ability to sustain this blockade and how much do they impact the military options that Trump would have at his disposal? Well, I think what we're going to see is, you know, you're hearing about the swap out of Lincoln for the George Washington battle group.

This, it really doesn't matter because you're going to have the same problem once Washington gets on place, is providing that logistics. It is, as long as you keep trying to fight a war, you know, a wartime operation, this is war. I mean, there's no question. A blockade is legally a war. And you're doing those scale of operations, then you're going to be putting a lot of stress on the logistics system. And, I mean, we're devoting a lot of resources to sustain those two carrier battle groups and amphibious ready group. A lot of tension on the Lincoln, but the destroyers out there, the amphibious warships are all having the same problem. They're going through a lot of churn. They're not doing the maintenance. They're not doing this standout. I've sailed on ships. I was on a ship for 11 months. But we pulled in a port once in a while. They don't. And, you know, there's a point when you've got to get off the boat and just have a kind of reset. And what we're seeing is really that. We saw it with the Ford when the Ford came back in after a really long deployment. We're seeing it with Lincoln right now. And the problem is not just swapping out the ships, but having enough ships to do this. And what we're trying to do is cover a massive amount of real estate in the ocean without enough assets to do it. And you need a much deeper bench of ships to do this. And what it tells us is, you know, we're able to do it. I mean, the warfighters, the sailors and the Marines out there are going to do it. They're going to do their mission. But we're seeing the impact from the families and that impact. And the problem is

you can have accidents. And that's the big concern is that when you're tired, when you're out there, accidents happen. A flight deck, a destroyer is a really dangerous place just normally. And that's the fear I have out there is that we can see a really horrendous accident. and take place. Yeah, and actually, lastly, if you could, just speaking from your your personal experience, because I think we try to imagine what it's like for these sailors and Marines, what they're going through, but those of us who have never been on ship for any length of time, I think it's hard to really put yourself in that mind space. What do you think is going on for them mentally, physically, when you say you get to a point where you've got to get off the boat? What is that like?

It's, I mean, every day is Groundhog Day. It's the same day over and over again. There's no, there's no weekend. It's Monday. Because, you know, you're running that. that same operation all the time. Lincoln is averaging 50 flights a day, which may not sound like a lot, but it's a huge tempo of operation. They've got to replenish. They've got to refuel. You've got 5,000 people on board.

You've got to cook 15,000 meals. And it's not just, hey, you work for 10 to 12 hours, but you don't go home. You're on the ship. You live where you work. You see the same people, and it becomes very much a grind. And one of the worst things, I would say, is kind of the. start, stop, you know, it's, oh, you know, we've got a ceasefire, we don't have a ceasefire. The blockade's on, the blockades off.

You're going home. What they want is clear communication. They just want to know, if I got to go to August 31st, then that's a goal I can set. And that's really one of the worst things you can do is keep extending, extending, extending. And I think that's what starts really getting a bear. I mean, you hear a lot of veterans who are in Afghanistan and Iraq talk about, well, you know, Navy's got it easy. They've got food. they're in air conditioning.

It is a chore, and it's a dangerous environment to be in. We've got ships doing boarding operations. You've got those flight operations going on. And you're asking them to do a lot without. And the fear is, again, these are old platforms. They've been used a lot. And just the maintenance isn't being done. We saw that on the Ford when they had the fire and the laundry.

And then all of a sudden you had 400 crew members who didn't have bunks to sleep in. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I'm still a little suspicious that we're getting the full story about that fire in the laundry situation. But Sal, thank you so much for your time and your analysis. Everybody goes, subscribe to the channel. What's going on with shipping? Sal is the man

at the moment. Great to have you on. Great to meet you, sir. Crystal, thank you for so much having me. Anytime. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.

Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

I knew if he woke up, without a doubt he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality,

welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. Someone says.

From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

See you between the pages. All right, everybody, I'm back. You have no idea the screaming and all that was involved behind the scenes, but the microphones are now fixed. Wasn't our crew. Wasn't our team's fault. It was not our team's fault.

They're amazing. They did nothing wrong. I'll leave it. I'll leave it at that in terms of, yeah. Anyway, so I'm back. Great interview, Crystal. Thank you. All right, so let's go ahead and talk about data centers. Let's put D1 up here on the screen. So this is a fascinating

actually internal memo, which came from the Senate GOP campaign arm. Quote, in a private memo to top AI companies, they warn that toxic views of U.S. data centers are killing the party's chances of holding a vital seat in Ohio. In the memo obtained by Axios, the NRSC, Democrats have made data centers a centerpiece of their campaign to defeat Senator John Hustead, and it's working. If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice. They will not go near the next one. This has become a sleepier issue, sleeper issue for the entire election cycle. Why it matters, Republicans want AI companies to do whatever it takes to stem the public backlash. AI CEOs and top Republicans share in the rising panic. They tell us internal polls show data centers are as popular as nuclear waste and more broadly have become a proxy for feelings about AI. Tech giants are now scrambling to pull together media campaigns, of which I have certainly found my. myself a target of, to try to shift opinion before it hardens locally and nationally.

But Democrats aren't dummies. They see the same polls and are moving fast. And perhaps the single best example of that, of the media campaign, we have found this segment, which just happened, what was it, two days ago? Yeah, I think, on Fox News. It was right after this Axios story dropped about how Republicans are freaking out. Right. About the data center issue and warning the tech industry. hours later, Fox News launches this little segment. Little campaign. This is a gem. Let's take a listen.

I think this is a grave mistake. This is a national security issue that's turning into a local zoning issue. And I don't know anyone, if you've ever been to a homeowners meeting that's run well. They never are. And now we're putting politicians in charge of a technology that very few of them ever understand. And it's moving too fast. And I would tell you, we've been here before, right? Remember 5G and cell towers?

Nobody wanted them in their backyard, but they wanted. wanted five bars of coverage. Same thing here playing out with data centers. People are afraid of what's going to happen. They talk about the cost, but here's the funny thing. When it talks about water usage, your local Olive Garden uses as much water as an average data center. So I don't hear anyone opposing Olive Garden on their water usage and bill going up.

They should because it's not real Italian food. So we're to race with China. Absolutely. And you can look at the numbers, right? AI inventions, China, $38,000 compared to over $6,000 for the U.S. Patents, $38,000 to $6.000. You see what we're seeing here, by the way, robots installed 276,034. China isn't dealing with any of this.

But I wonder if ultimately, forget the scarcity of chips, forget China trying to go without being held back in any way, if the rising opposition to data centers in this country is one of the biggest threats to our development and achieving dominance. Yeah, as you see here, I mean, China's building out capacity while the far left's building. out opposition. The saving grace is federalism here, right? Different states have different laws and rules. So while New York and other states may pass moratoriums, which will ultimately damn them and drive up electricity costs and keep them out of the data center race, I think this administration, the president, is very rightly focused on making sure there are plenty of data centers built here. There's over 4,000 planned right now on top of the 4,000 that already exist. You know that

Virginia's an epicenter. So we're going to see that happen in areas like Texas and New York in spite of some of these regulations. A lot going on there. It's about China. It's about the far left. Yes, far left weirdos like Greg Abbott, Byron Donald's, and Josh Shapiro are the people who are leading the campaign. And just to show you how politically radioactive this all is, let's take Josh Shapiro as a test case.

So let's put this up here on the screen, the governor of Pennsylvania. I talked to a polling expert, and he said that Shapiro was above water in the state on every issue except for data centers. And lo and behold, he just comes out yesterday. Breaking, I just signed an executive order, signing, order blocking irresponsible AI data centers, implementing the strictest standards in the nation. I will not allow Pennsylvanians to be bullied by greedy developers and bulldozed by the lawyers working for these big tech companies. Effective immediately, we are requiring AI data centers to commit to strict environmental and transparent requirements, receive approval approval from the low.

local community if they want to build here. That's not all. We are also removing all data centers from our fast track permit program and stopping any office or agency under my jurisdiction from signing an NDA with AI data center developers. Now, let's contrast this to a year ago of Governor Shapiro on CNBC when he talked about a new Amazon data center coming to PA. Let's take a listen. Amazon announcing plans to invest $20 billion in Pennsylvania to build high-tech cloud computing and AI campuses across the state, hoping to create over 1,200 jobs. Join us now, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Is this the biggest ever private investment in Pennsylvania, Governor? The biggest ever by a factor of three.

And I think it's important to note that this is just an initial investment coming from Amazon of at least $20 billion. this is going to grow. Pennsylvania is going to be better off. I think America is going to be better off because we're going to win the battle of AI supremacy. It's going to be done right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Look at that little smile on us for the biggest investment. What a difference an entire year makes. And you think that that's far left from Governor Shapiro? Also, for the record, Olive Garden is bad and we should ban them too. But America's not ready for that conversation. Also, for the record, what he's saying about the water usage is Right.

Total incomplete bullshit. Just so we know. Maybe you could cherry pick some small data center somewhere servicing some sort of something that uses the one to five thousand gallons of water that Olive Garden uses. But the AI training data centers use millions of gallons of water. There is no comparison there. So it's just total incomplete bullshit. But it's very, very interesting that they want to try to frame this as a far left issue and make it partisan.

And I think for some Fox News boomers, that may well work if they do it consistently enough. What the polling reflects right now, there's very little divide between Democrats, Republicans, and independents in terms of their opposition to data centers and certainly their opposition to data centers being located in their backyards. A lot of these places are going up in rural America, which of course tends to be more Republican and more conservative. So a lot of the local opposition, grassroots opposition, has been among Republicans with in very conservative parts of the country and red parts of the country. So, you know, these dynamics

are starting to pop up in a lot of races. In Wisconsin, Francesca Hong, who ultimately lost the Democratic nomination, she was the only one in the Democratic primaries who took a clear-cut position in favor of a data center moratorium. David Crowley, who won, has a sort of, it's sort of a Josh Shapiro position, but when he got asked about what's your big difference between you and Francesca Hong for some unknown reason, he said data centers, which is one of the issues which she was best. Republicans who have a very similar position to him, by the way, on data centers in the state of Wisconsin, seized on that, and they're calling him Data Center Dave. I know.

And are very effectively weaponizing this against him because the politics are not just toxic for the quote, far left, guys. This is a very, very, very popular position. and the freak out, I think, from the political and the tech elite class is warranted because politicians will look and see as Sherrod Brown wins and a lot of it has to do with data center. They will take that as an example of, oh, this is an issue. We just can't cross.

You know, moving forward to 2028, we got to be on the right side of this because people are pissed. They said it's as popular as nuclear waste. It's actually less popular than having a nuclear facility in your community. People would rather have that than a data center. in a certain way that actually makes sense because the data centers are really noisy and have a lot of direct impacts

and quality of life and of course on your electric bill. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details

and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent, my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.

Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my... and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsesives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Well, let me show you another far-left socialist. His name is Sid Miller. He wears a Stetson. He is the Texas Agricultural Commissioner. He was a leading

surrogate for Donald Trump in the election. He is one of the most well-known Republicans in the entire state. Here he is, sounding off on the governor of Texas, who, by the way, is now against data centers, signed a data center moratorium in the most pro-business state, arguably in the entire union. And here is a leading Republican elected in that state, attacking him for that position. for not getting there soon enough and taking money from those companies. Let's take a listen. If we don't get our cattle supply up, couldn't one argue, well, you're doing something

with your land, you know, selling it to an AI company that can make money off of it, you know, versus unless we're going to get more cattle, what's it doing? Well, we do a lot of that. Actually, we lose about a farm a week here in Texas, either data centers, solar farms, wind farms, housing, parks, airports, I mean, you name it. So urban encroachment is getting more farmland than anything else. Are you worried about these data centers? I'm very worried about the data centers.

We're going way too fast here in Texas. The reason to come to Texas, in our counties have no oversight ability, so they can just do whatever. If they can pick a place that has no groundwater conservation district and the county has no ordinance, they can do whatever they want. So that's why I call it on the governor. Abbott took for a one-year pause, a moratorium. Let's wait. Let's let the legislature meet. Let's put some guidelines, some oversight on this industry. And September 1st of 27, we'll have a handle of this.

He refused to do that. Then I called him and said, well, if you're not going to do that, let's do a special session. You can call up the guys in and gals in tomorrow. We'll get on this. If it's the only thing on the call, we'll have it done the week. Give it immediate effect. We can control the growth of this industry. He refused to do that. And the reason he's got a huge conflict of interest, Governor Abbott's taking millions of dollars from the data center industry. Yeah, so that's a real far left social. You know, I want to address all this stuff, too, because – and this is where somebody sent me a very thoughtful message. And they said, Sager, you are an advocate for nuclear power. Do you not see the parallels where you and I both know nuclear power should have been ubiquitous in this country from 1970s?

However, it was not done so because of public backlash. very nimbie-esque because of Three Mile Island and all that other stuff. And I'll go, you know what? I take your point in that public backlash does not always equal the right position. We would be crying for ubiquitous nuclear power and we would live in a much better country if that were the case. But what are the differences? And also even where did they come from? At that time, to be fair, we did have Chernobyl and we are, sorry, Chernobyl in the 80s and Three Mile Island.

Now, nobody died from Three Mile Island, but the way that it was all handled and the corporate stuff. was, you know, look, that I don't blame people for being upset about that. And we were living through the horrors of the nuclear age and the duck and cover and all that stuff that those people grew up with. So I get it anthropologically. It was the wrong decision. But what is AI promising us that is equivalent to nuclear power? Because nuclear power would have led to abundance. Ultimately, and I also got a lot of like, oh, guy who makes his living on YouTube fair. I will say nobody's built a new YouTube or YouTube data center to make host YouTube videos.

pre-AI had three new data centers. They have now 140 that they've announced. That's got nothing to do what I'm doing over here, or tweeting or an email or any of those. Yes, I know those come from data centers. These are AI data centers. And it's a proxy for AI as a technology. And that's where we separate it out. AI is a tool. We use it. Yeah, it can be very useful. But the CEOs say, we're going to replace you. The CEOs say this is equivalent to nuclear weapons, like I just talked about. The CEO says that there's, what is an X percent chance, humanity will no longer be involved. In fact, that's the plan. That's the underlying growth trajectory. We want people to be fired. They want them to be unnecessary. And by the way, we promise we're going to cure

cancer, except that hasn't happened yet. They're more recently pointing to this AI-assisted Moderna-MRNA cancer vaccine, which a lot of questions about that one. We'll see if any of that is true. How much of AI even contributed to that. But if it were more like that, I think that'd be fine. But what is it really about? It's about the internet and our proxy feelings about technology generally. And the proxy feeling is technology has been very useful in terms of capitalism and in terms of productivity. It has been a destruction of basically everything it means to be human. And we see that in all the trend lines over social isolation, over dating, over the birth rate, I mean, literally any aspect of social life has been killed by the internet.

This is an empirical fact in terms of also our children and their addiction. It is now a proxy battle, I think, for control over our lives, because AI is the ultimate tool of control as we see. And so, I don't know, I'm curious for your reaction too, like especially with the nuclear power example, because we have to grapple with that. We know it was very unpopular. It was obviously the right thing to do. But we have to grapple, I think, with why I think data centers is ultimately different than that.

Yeah. Well, you know, the Luddites, the original Luddites, they were not actually opposed to technology. There was technology that they supported being implemented in their workplaces. They were opposed to the destruction of their way of life. And in a lot of ways, I think they were ultimately vindicated. And I feel in a similar way here. I'm not opposed to technology. But the promise of AI is we're going to rip up the social contract, destroy your entire white-color labor

force first and then coming for the blue-collar labor force next, which has already been, of course, you know, significantly threatened by a lot of the globalization, the global trends that have been pushed by neoliberalism. But in any case, this AI fight and pushback, it is one of the only areas where the public actually has a chance to exert some pressure and be able to successfully have some sort of pushback on this overall trajectory. That's the reason why I focus on it so much I think it's so important because at the top level, you know, Trump didn't ask, he didn't run on, hey, we're going to be off to the races with AI. This was not a central part of his campaign.

Now, those of us who are falling could read between the lines and see this is the direction that it was going in. But that was not what he campaigned on. I don't think it was what most Americans who voted for Trump voted for. So there's very little small D democracy occurring in terms of what we're being pitched as this completely revolutionary, every. is going to change. No one's life is going to be the same. Technology. We didn't have buy-in. We didn't have a Democratic say, and we still don't have a Democratic say. The only place where we have a

chance to at least slow things down and put some pressure and force them to get some buy-in from the public and strike some sort of a deal with the public as they seek to amass all of this immense wealth in power is through the data centers. Then there are, of course, plenty of legitimate concerns. I mean, have you heard the way that some of these things sound? It sounds like a jet airplane is taking off 24-7. You live next to that. That's going to make you absolutely crazy. There have been issues with water supplies running dry because of the impact of the data centers. Of course, there have been massive issues in terms of the increase in the electricity cost. And people, look, NIMBY is I'm not like a NIMB, but there is something to say about people should get

to have some input over the direction of their community and what this ultimately looks like. So I think that this is such an important political fight because it is one of the only areas where there is a chance for small D grassroots democracy to have any impact here. And that's part of why they're freaking out. There's a reason why there is this concerted campaign now to say that you're wrong and you shouldn't fight these data centers and these are great for communities and communities are going to want these things. You're going to be on the wrong side of history, et cetera, because it is a weak spot and a vulnerability for them. So that has to be exploited. I saw a good article about Loudoun County, which the debt, and I'll end on this because I know our guests in the waiting room. Our Loudoun County here in Northern Virginia has raised $1.3 billion in property tax.

They're going to use it to outlay, make sure that they can cut the rest of their residence tax. That's great for the people who live there ostensibly. But some forward-thinking people in the county are like, you know, this makes us really relying on this data center. Right. And it means that in the future, we have to give them whatever we want, because if we don't, we're going to have to raise our property tax. It's a more stable environment for it to be relied on the people who live there as opposed to this single point of failure machine.

And everyone's going to say, oh, that's easy for you to say, you're saying property tax. But how many examples of we have of this? Detroit, remember, what happened to all of those communities in Michigan when the auto guys fell out? They were destroyed. Their entire way of life. In West Virginia, I mean, that's an extreme example. But it's not, though, because that's kind of what they are saying.

Their whole pitch is we build, you tax us, you get to pay less in property taxes. It's like, well, that makes us hell of reliant on you. And it also means that if you ever fail, the feds are going to have to come in and bail your ass out because otherwise we're going to get stuck. What if it is a giant bubble? What if, by the way, the Chinese are able to do this, their models much more efficiently that don't require as much compute? So what if that is the technological direction that things go in and there didn't need to be this whole massive data center build out? What happens then? then you're going to be in big trouble in the places that bet the farm on this.

And, you know, it's also, it's very, like, there is a dynamic here, too. I understand why politicians are reluctant to say full data center moratorium because you have so many parts of this country that have been so decimated and are really desperate for anything that might provide them a lifeline, where they might say, yes, okay, come in data center, even though we have concerns, we need something to, you know, improve life in this town and create some sort of jobs and some sort of a tax base, So I do understand that. I mean, that's just a broader issue with the way that we've allowed so many parts of our country to be left behind, that they would be desperate enough to say, okay, you know, come what may. And with all of the costs and consequences that are going to befall us, we still want this to come into our town. So, you know, there is going to be some of that dynamic, too.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's the central question of our lives. It's about control. And I think that their whole pitch for us right now, at least it doesn't make any sense. And in this case, I'm following. other people's lead to because I do think, like I said, nuclear power, people can get things wrong, but generally I'm going to go with them on this one because they feel it, they see it. And if you don't have a lot of control in your life, you've got nothing. Like ultimately, that is what the purpose of living is for, not to unlock new productivity for the company you work for, which doesn't give a shit about you and is cutting your health care premium. Yeah.

You know, all right. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney. Plus from $94 a month, price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth smart, and these are the survivor files. I just remember this low, taunting. voice next to my ear saying shut up, don't say anything.

Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of distance. course. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. Someone says. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a

community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Israeli settlers have been terrorizing, along with the backing of the IDF, the West Bank Village of Kusra, and a Palestinian-American and Ohio business owner who has a house there that has been menaced by those settlers, joins us now live from the West Bank. Louis Riddie is a homeowner there. Great to have you, sir. Good to see you, sir. Thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. So just tell us what has been going on. What have you witnessed?

Well, today is the 12th day that my house is under siege by IDF and Israeli settlers. We have been dealing with the situation for the last eight months. They came in. early January of 2026. In those eight months, they were harassing my brother, breaking in, making damages. They cut off the water line, the electricity line, until August 9th, when they decided to come closer and build a tent in front of the house,

and creating a complete siege on my, brother and his son and other two houses nearby. And when my brother called the police, they dispatched an IDF vehicle, and they went straight to their tent, and they celebrated with the IDF, and they conducted a prayer. So since then, the IDF, two days, three days later, they came, they attempted to remove the settlers, but instead they declared the area as a closed military zone, which is prevent us from leaving the house. No one from the family members, friends, anyone can come to us,

bring us food or supplies. My mother is 83 years old. I haven't seen her more than five minutes. I'm able to come and see me. the IBF for the 12 days failed and unable to move the settlers as they still come in daily. Just like a couple hours ago, they were around my house. Wow. So, Louis, can you explain to our audience how little power you have to intervene in this as a person who owns this property?

You know, you were obviously from the United States as well. So if you have problems, property dispute, you could call the police, you have the county, all of these other people who can intervene on your behalf. Just explain to people the kind of sheer insanity of the system that you're dealing with right now. Well, I've been watching this from Ohio life on my security cameras. My brother dealing with the situation. a lot of time they come and assault and make damages to the house and my brother end up calling the police and the police dispatched the IVF and most of the time they sided with the settlers and tearing on

my brother and my family. It's become very, very hard to survive in this house. So both of them against us and we reach to the point that I see. said to myself, I have to book my flight, a flight to support my brother and my own house, and to do whatever it takes so I can protect it. There was Reuters film crew nearby when you were engaged in a heated confrontation with one of these settlers who has been terrorizing not only you but other Palestinians in the West Bank. Let's go ahead and take a look at how that exchange unfolded. You are a terrorist settler.

You know that? Come in a bagan. You are a terrorist scept. It's garbage, you know what that means? You stink. Move, move. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me.

Terrorist. You are a terrorist. I'll love to be in my house. Yes, yes. Okay, that's my property. That's belong to me. That's all the fence I did that get. did that gate, they damaged it. That's my entrance right here. That's my property. Yes, I'm not, I'm not going any, any beyond my property. Okay, just be inside, there go, you'll be inside. I'm not here. Don't talk each other, okay? I'm not. I don't know. Yeah, he's the one came to me,

I didn't go to him, you know, I was walking peacefully to check the property. I, I, I came here last night. I was in America. I planted this before I left. I know, I know, and I come to find all this damage. Louie, do you fear for your safety? Because, of course, we know that not only is there a threat to your property, but we've seen Palestinians assaulted. We've seen Palestinians killed by settlers. Is that something you're fearful of? And if you were, say, in a horrific scenario, if you were assaulted, what do you think would happen after that? Would there be any justice met it out to the people who committed those crimes? Well, absolutely. I do fear, for my own safety. I do fear

for my family safety here and even the neighbor's safety. And I've been saying this now for days and I've been asking the U.S. government and the U.S. embassy that this is my house, this is my property. I do feel for my safety and I need

a protection and I need an actually to be done on the ground to move the settlers. And as you watch the video, the IDF guy, he listened to the settler because he was telling him, I need to leave. I need to leave.

I need to go back to leave this area because this is his land. And sure he did, the IDF soldiers came to me. He's asking me to lead. I said, no, you're supposed to arrest him. He needs to be removed. He's the one in legal. This is my property. So the IDF, they're not doing their job.

They all sided with the settlers. So, yes, we live in fear here. And, Louis, if you leave and you come back to the United States, what do you fear is going to happen? Well, that's really a big concern. If the settlers still able to come around my house, while this operation is still active, while the IDF declared it's a closed military zone, and they still managed, as you just saw in the video, they just walked in freely,

and he was negotiating with him, like begging him just to leave the scene. This is not how you deal with a criminal like this. He should be arrested. So what's going to happen if the IDF and the international media stop covering and the IDF leaves, that means they left us along with the settlers. It is a huge risk and concern to us. I saw that you raised an American flag

above your house hoping that might provide some modicum of protection or at the very least, if they do take over your house, that there would be a message sent when they take down the American flag and raise the Israeli flag as they would be likely to do. Do you have any expectation that the American government would come to your aid? They have issued some statements upset about the, you know, the settler assault on Kusra, the village that your house is in. But do you think that the American government would come to your aid? aid in under horrific circumstances. Actually, in the last three days, I've been asking the U.S. Embassy to come and visit me here, to see what we have been dealing with. I'm an American citizen and is my right to ask to be protected. Yes, Mike Huckabee has been condemning those action against Israeli settlers. He called them terrorists. I appreciate this, but that was not enough.

We still want a follow-up. We want action underground to be a move. And I'm asking again our ambassador, Mike Huckabee, to come himself and visit me here so he can see himself what's going on in my own house. Wow. Louis Ritty, thank you so much for taking the time to explain to us. Your situation, please keep us updated.

Thank you. Thank you. having me. It's our pleasure. All right, guys, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for watching. I'm actually headed down to town taking my daughter to college, which I'm very emotional about. So I will be out next week, but you'll, of course, be in great hands with Sager and Emily and Ryan. So we will all see you guys soon. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Five.

Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone. who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots

between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita,

we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita,

trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.