Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/21/25: AI Bubble, Netanyahu On Triggernometry, Israel Invades Gaza City, Tim Dillon Shreds Trump DC Deployment

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss the AI bubble, Triggernometry says peace impossible to Netanyahu, Israel invades Gaza City, Tim Dillon shreds Trump DC deployment.   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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Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. First, we are asking the question, And is the AI bubble popping? I guess is there an AI bubble? It's possible.

I think the bubble part is pretty definitive. Yes, but the popping is the question. But there are some very interesting signs. It says a lot about our... We're going to dig into that. Very important topic. We are also going to take a look at Bibi sat down with the gentleman of trigonometry.

So producer Griffin pulled a couple clips for us to react to. This all comes as the invasion of Gaza City has begun. Tim Dillon is sounding off on the D.C. National Guard situation. protests here in the city yesterday against Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance, so we'll take a look at that. We also have Megan Kelly sitting down with Marjorie Taylor Green, some interesting comments and revelations there. Sagar has an update for us on that Israeli alleged pedophile who was able to fly out of the country, digging into exactly how that unfolded and what is going to happen next. He also has some thoughts about this new war on property taxes coming from Republicans.

I hope you'll join me because this is... Oh, yeah, I will join you, but I just want to give credit Yeah. This is your thing. If I'd had the time to do the monologue, I would have. But I have been just going down. I've had the baby in one arm and property tax, chat, GPT, and the other. And I have just been, I'm getting more radicalized by the day. Boomers, I'm already going to warn you. If you watch this segment, it's going to piss you off. I don't care. I don't care. I'm doing this for the young. Radicalizing what direction, I'm curious. Would you describe your radicalization? Oh, I'm much more in favor of the young. Like, I mean, we are living in a country which has socialism for the old and rugged individualism for the young. So if we're going to have anything, thing, it should be flipped if I think most people would agree with me. I don't even think it's rugged individualism for the young. It's like the deck is stacked. No, yeah, I agree. No, I mean, it's not even like rugged individualism now at this point. It's actually the opposite where the boomers are using their oppressive political power, tax status and wealth to literally oppress the lower classes to force us to pay for their dialysis. So I will, I will, I just can't get over it. Like the more numbers that I have been crunching and all of this, I'm, I'm in shock. I, I, I, I, I, I

I'm naive that I did not look into this earlier, and it's all coming to head with Florida, Texas, and an increasingly number of red states, which are already zero-tax states, wanting to do away with property taxed, right? Isn't it a big running on getting rid of the property? He is, and this is entirely driven by seniors. Anyway, I'll go off on it. Yes, and I'm going to take a look at the rise of a new eugenics movement coming out of Silicon Valley, but in being represented in various sectors of society, there was a wild interview

with this lady with Ross Dalfat, who she is a founder of a company where you can do this like embryo selection and very dystopian interview and very dystopian future and present possibilities, I would say, going on there. So I'll dig into all of that. Before we do, though, thank you so much for those of you who have been supporting the show, enabling the great reporting that Sager has been doing this week, enabling the expansion into, you know, the full week Friday show as well as you guys know, the premium subscribers were the first ones in the world to get to. to see the official arrest notes of that alleged Israeli pedophile. So you do get some benefits

for signing up. I do really like, it means a lot for them to support our journalism because it's literally that thing of scratching an inch and just putting in the work. I mean, it took a lot of work, actually. Get those documents. It's like a lot of time on the phone. And I'm, I've familiarized myself with Las Vegas. By the way, to our Las Vegas audience, I don't, I feel sorry for you guys. You live in a mafia state. Like, I, I'm really, beginning to learn. And when I break down this story, it's nuts. Like the who the lawyer is, the connections to Israel, the Adelson Mafia, who run the state, who owned the largest newspaper. I mean, I am getting a radio silence from the Las Vegas, Nevada political establishment.

And like, the word has come down. But the good news is that people are pissed off, the rank and file in Henderson and city, in the police department, amongst the FBI and others. So I'm hoping that there'll be some more exclusive reporting soon. Yeah. Anyway. So, thank you. Breakingpoints.com, if you can sign up and help us out. Sager, what are we looking at with AI? We're looking at the AI bubble and potential signs of popping.

I mean, this is one of those where everybody's predicted it for quite some time. And everyone's wondering if this is going to be like 2000 all over again. And there are some signs that happened just yesterday. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. The U.S. tech stocks slipped as investors, quote, rotate towards defensive sectors. So what they talk about specifically is that a decline in U.S. stocks extended into Wednesday, quote, as concerns about the durability of the rally in artificial intelligence shares prompted a shift into defensive sector.

So specifically, the tech-heavy NASDAQ was down some 0.7% while the blue chip S&P just lost by 0.2. So what they say is that the big tech groups specifically are coming under selling pressure, falling 1 or 2%. Palantir stocks is actually down some 20% just in the last couple of days. There's a big question exactly as to why. A lot of it has to do with capital expenditure. And what I think we've tried to highlight here on the show previously is that a significant part of the reason that US GDP remains okay at the top line figure is all because of AI data spending. And that's really dangerous because it's not broad-based over the economy. It doesn't

mean that people are feeling confident on investing in America. What it also means is that that Mark Zuckerberg could quite literally engineer an entire recession if he just paused the current rate of AI data spending. And we're already seeing some indications that that could happen. Similarly, there are increasing numbers of studies about the promise of AI. This is what people need to always remember with the stock market. It's always looking at future value. It's about the promise of set technology. So the expectation of Nvidia value of AI is not just their current use, but about what it may unlock for the future. So let's put this passage up very importantly, because what they say is that some traders on Wall Street are pinning some

of the decline on a new report, which actually released on Monday by MIT, which said that, quote, 95% of organizations are getting zero return from their investments in generative AI, the technology that obviously sent the stocks to the moon. It says the story is spooking people. Just 5% of integrated AI pilots are extracting millions of dollars in value, while the vast majority of remain stuck with no measurable profit and loss impact. So this is about a question of productivity. It's about a question of what this will actually unlock for the future. I mean, I've talked here previously about how a lot of the pie in the sky promises may ultimately just be marketing. And most of it is just about eliminating like very entry-level scutwork for me personally.

Like, I use chat GPT at AI every day. I use it for math, like to compute various, like I was talking about property taxes, to be able to do, like, a large sum math, which is actually quite good at, and for research. But all that's really doing is saving me some time while conducting research. And as you also know with ChatsyPT, you actually have to go in check most of the figures. So, I mean, look, that's great. I mean, it definitely serves me time and it's convenient. But is that unlocking, like, billions of dollars and potential here for breaking points? Like, at this point, we've been living in this environment for three years. Yeah, That's nice. Oh, you can do a little bit more of a thumbnail. I can crunch some data. Every once in a while we'll upload the analytics. They'll be like, oh, tell me about some standout things. But actually, YouTube analytics are pretty good at that. They've been pretty good at that for years. I haven't seen a lot of the promises yet. And we literally run a business, and so it's helpful. And if anything, we may want to run a business, which is supposed to be, like, most impacted for creative endeavors, for, you know, a lean startup kind of machine. So then I think about it at the enterprise level, and they're not seeing a lot of it either.

It's making things a little bit easier, but that's not the same thing as unlocking trillions of dollars in value. Yeah, I mean, I think it could both be the case that AI, in the same way that the, you know, the internet bubble, the dot-com bubble ended up, there were a lot of companies that were not real and that didn't have any sort of real revenue model and that ultimately went bust, but also that the technology ends up being quite disruptive and quite, you know, transformational. I think those things could both be the case. That's where I suspect we're going. But yeah, I mean, as of right now, it's like replacing entry-level workers, which is not great, replacing Google, which, you know, is not really, like, changing the game. It's changing a lot of sort of internet dynamics and internet revenue models, but is not sort of transformational completely, cheating on tests and porn, basically.

I mean, it's very, again, very reminiscent of the internet. And I'm sure the startups that will succeed immediately in the near term are the ones that are like most plugged into the porn economy is probably where things are going to be going. I also think it's very likely, you know, when you look at those stats of 95% of these AI companies are, don't have a revenue model. It reminds very much of the like the media boom where you had all of these like startup media companies that were supposed to be appealing to millennials that would get huge traffic or at least claim to get huge traffic. And there was an assumption that they'd be able to figure out how to fully monetize that and often that

did not come to fruition. I think probably because we are in an era of mass industry consolidation where monopolies sort of rule the economy, we're probably going to end up with one or two or three, just a handful of winners in the AI economy. And they plan on that. They even say that openly. It's kind of an arms race. That's exactly right. It's an arms race. You know, we think nationally of the arms race between the U.S. and China, but each of these companies individually are in an arms race. That's why they're spending so much and putting so much on the line right now to try to get the edge in this field because they realize it's going to be somewhat akin to a winner take-all type of technology where it's very likely people sort of

consolidate against around one leader that has the technological edge or proves itself to be the most useful or just becomes the most sort of like, you know, culturally taken up for whatever reason. And so that's why they're all pushing so many chips on the table in this direction right now. And that means that you will have, you know, some company. or some few companies out there who are big winners and you know, you'll probably end up with the world's first trillionaires as a result of this technology. That doesn't mean that you're going to have a broad-based flourishing ecosystem. And let's keep in mind, of course, that the ultimate promise of this technology is to completely upend the labor market and replace a lot of human beings. So, you know, it's one thing to talk about the stock market.

You also have to keep your eye on what this means for the real economy over the long term. Now, one thing that's different from the dot-com boom is you do have a lot of actual building. Yeah, like actual money. Right, of building out these data centers. Now, that's sort of like a one-time expenditure. You build out these data centers. It's not like those are ongoing construction projects. It's not like you need that many people at the data center to maintain it.

But there are like, you know, real-world construction projects, lots of them going on across the country to fuel this boom. Yeah, I forget the book I read about dot-com. in early Silicon Valley, but one of the better things that happened as a result of dot com is it financed a lot of fiber optic cables that were laid all across the country, which was the backbone for not high speed, but higher speed internet and the move away from dial-up. It ended up being actually quite important for the eventual adoption of like the PC and the home and email and all that. So there was some upside to the KAPX spending that was financed by a lot of that insanity.

So it could be something like that. But, you know, if you go back and you compare the rhetoric, of the information superhighway that Microsoft and all those other people were talking about. None of it even came close to coming to pass. This is the point. We go to the next part up on the screen about the data centers because this is really important. Just, you know, they point exactly what I was saying. They say, quote, partying like it's 1995.

United States, AI relative private fixed investment as a percent of GDP is just crazy high. The vast short-run impact, they say, on GDP economic growth. one sixth of growth over the entire past year is just data spend and 50% of all growth in the U.S. economy over the last six months. So far, it is much smaller than the 1990s.com buildout, but it remains still very important for us to keep an eye on and just shows the impact of how, again, even minute changes in the way that these companies do business, it could send everything belly up. This is already impacting interest rates, the overall stock market, the U.S., you know, I mean, think about borrowing costs. Everything is now downstream of how these like four or five different companies spend their money. Let's put the next one please up on the screen. This is very interesting and a lot of people were looking at this. This is about meta is now planning a quote fourth restructuring of its AI efforts in six months just to show you how capricious some of this stuff can be. And what they say is that they're going to divide their new AI unit into four different groups. The reason why people are paying a lot of attention to that,

is because, first of all, you can change restructuring your AI effort in six months. So that's what, every two months or whatever, like you're changing your business plan. But it's moving so rapidly and in such a way that, again, changes to the way that they spend money, which is billions of dollars, would have immediate impact on the entire US GDP and U.S. economy. There's also some very interesting signs showing up about the impact of these data centers. One of these is electricity prices. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is a flag that somebody sent to me recently, which I was not aware of and is shocking. So you can see electricity price

from 2020 is up 30, this is from the Federal Reserve Bank, is up 38% in the last five years. It was basically stable from 2015 to 2020. Now there's a lot of different reasons why. You could see the huge jump from 2022. That's the Ukraine War. That's natural gas. there's also been the impact on gas prices, gasoline, changes to the overall energy markets. But even from 2022, you can see we've almost gotten up as much from 2020 to 2022 as we did from 2022 to today. And especially look at that massive bump just in the last six months of the increase in the overall average price of electricity. Some of this is going to be accounted in data center. And so increasingly, there is going to be a big fight in Washington. And I think

at state and local level of people being like, hold on a second. You know, I'm not, I'm not, yeah, you can come here and that's great. And yeah, you're going to imply 500 people, but all of a sudden my electricity bill goes sky high. Also, this, of course, impacts the poorest residents, the hardest. It's the fixed costs like gasoline, electricity prices, home, just generally like maintaining, even if you're a renter or any of that, that, I mean, 38% to your bottom line for fixed costs. That's extraordinary, if you think about it. massively outpaces even inflation. So you put those two things together and you can see like a

future organic pushback against a lot of this new data center economy, especially for my friends in my home state in Texas. I mean, you literally just have your own power grid and you've got data centers popping up all over the state. You have more of a deregulated energy market already, which is more vulnerable to price fluctuation, I guess, as I understand it. And you could have a disaster, right, in terms of the overall aggregate price. It's not something that just can be fixed overnight, as we've all found out. Yeah. No, I mean, these data centers are unbelievably energy and water hungry. Unbelievably so. And you also have, you know, in the one big, beautiful bill, they, you know, attacked a bunch of different energy sources. So it's not like we're

really building out either the infrastructure or the sourcing that we need to be able to fuel this boom. And the approach of American tech companies in particular has just been to build out, build out, build out, build out. That's part of the arms race here that's going on. You can listen to Sam Altman talking to Theo Vaughn about how these data centers are going to just like populate the entire earth and make the whole thing look like, you know, it's a computer chip board. So that's the direction we're adding in. And there's also real, like, quality of life issues, too, if one of these is located in your community. They're very noisy. They're very dirty.

They're very noisy. And so there have been a lot of complaints about, you know, the communities where these have been located as well. So, you know, look, on the one hand, you get the construction jobs, right, out of the gates. So I'm sure, you know, people who work in that industry very much appreciate that work. But it comes with all sorts of drawbacks and you're really sort of sucking the resources out of the rest of society for an industry that, again, ultimately aims to put you out of work, put most, you know, most workers around the world out of a job and consolidate even more wealth and power. in their own hands. You know, in terms of where we are economically, whether it's a bubble, I think it's pretty undeniable when you look at stats, like, oh, 95% of these companies don't even make any money.

That seems like a pretty clear indication that we are in some sort of a bubble. So not only do we have those longer-term concerns about what this technology is going to do to society and very little grappling with that in terms of the economic costs and the environmental cost, but you also have a potential short-term economic collapse on the table because of the bubble that's been inflated around the promise of this technology. Yeah, and then finally, we just wanted to put this in here about these meta-chatbots, if anybody's not aware. Crazy story.

Let's put it up here on the screen. You could see here, like, you could chat with AI to something called rich but strict parents. This follows, there's actually an open investigation now in the U.S. Senate. over a leaked document, which, quote, showed the tech giants, artificial intelligence was permitted to have sensual and romantic chats with children. An internal document said that meta is acknowledged it. They said that it was, quote, erroneous and inconsistent with our policies and have since been removed.

But, I mean, these things exist in your kids' Instagram app or, you know, anywhere else were these chatbots, which kids can just engage with. I don't know. I mean, that's as dystopian as it gets. I'm pretty sure it was Wall Street Journal that did most of the reporting on this. And I read through it. Right.

It was pretty shocking. It's creepy. And you know what, Alessagher? They licensed the voices of like John Sina and Kristen Bell, who plays Anna in Frozen. And one of the stipulations was, you know, you can't use my voice for like sexting, basically. You know, because they have a brand that they want to maintain.

and they don't want to be used for that. There were no prohibitions. And not only that, users were able to program chatbots, because a lot of these chatbots are actually, like, user-created. They can create their own. Users were able to create their own chatbots to have, like, Kristen Bell's voice as Anna, but in, like, sexual role play. Yeah.

I mean, why? So I don't see how that's not a lawsuit for them, because they paid millions of dollars to acquire this, you know, these voice capabilities from these famous actors and then that's going on. You have chat bots that are like one that the Wall Street Journal

tested was called like submissive school girl where it's, you know, the chat bot is posing as like a middle school girl and you can imagine the type of role play that she's, that this bot is happy to engage in. And then you also had, you know, the other direction where teens

and children, I mean, teens are children, could engage in, you know, whatever with any of these chatbots. And apparently what had happened is internally, META's safety team had all of this, like, prohibited. And then at some expo, Zuckerberg was unhappy with the, like, level of risk taking. And so he specifically, as according to their reporting, intervened. It was like, you need to take off the brakes. That's wild. And let all of this fly. And there were a lot of internal concerns.

I suspect some of these leaks probably came from internally. People being like, what the fuck is going on here? And so, yeah, it really was Zuckerberg. And now I think that they've, you know, tried to rein some things in. But when I saw the headline, I thought it would be sort of like borderline. No, it's not overblown. It's not borderline. It's really, really overt.

And so, you know, I mean, I just think about too. Obviously, I'm a mom. I got three kids. You know, one of them is a preteen. One of them is 17 years old. I've got a little girl who's eight, and kids also get, they have a harder time distinguishing between like this is a real person and this is, you know, this is a YouTuber who I'm not going to have a relationship or this is some sort of tech or this is like a cartoon character. And so also just thinking about what the formation of these relationships are going to mean for kids, even putting aside the sexual part, like what that's going to do to kids, I don't think anyone knows. I don't think anyone's thinking it through.

We're just using them as like guinea pigs. Well, let's just turn it loose and see what happens. It's a good point you make about children. I mean, if you think about when kids go to Disney, not that my kid will go to Disney. I have made the blood oath. She'll probably make me break it, but at least for now that's the blowout.

And they think the characters are real. You know, they make goofy and they're like, oh my God, it's goofy. Well, now imagine if you could chat with goofy. Sounds cute until it's not cute, right? And so just take that to its logical conclusion. And that's already where we are. Man, I just saw some good news, though. Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation,

number 73 weeks on the list at number one for New York Times bestseller. So a lot of parents are still, they're waking up and they're fighting back. So please, you know, if you can. We are outmatched. If you're outmatched, let me tell you, we're outmatched. You know, you definitely are. But read the book. It will give you some good guidelines.

If every public policy, every public school should have, it should be required reading. His phone-free school idea is so, so important. And if you're involved in your local politics at all, you've got to push the school district to go for it. It's vital, vital to make sure. And just parents, you've got to be on top of what your kids are consuming and watching and doing. My kid is three months old. I put the damn TV on.

It's like a magnet for the eye. I was like, oh, my God. I mean, you know, I guess I grew up in the 90s. It was probably the same way. But it just shows you the power of the screen on a developing brain for someone who's only word is gah. And you're like, wow. Like, that just shows what you're really up against. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impaired. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism.

Law and Order Criminal Justice System is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice. system on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty

Private, we'll explore the untold experience. of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, sis, what if I could promise you you never had to listen to a condescending finance bro? Tell you how to manage your money again. Welcome to Brown Ambition. This is the hard part when you pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem a year from now. When you do feel like you are bleeding from these high interest rates, I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with your local credit union, shopping around online, looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here to judge. It is so expensive in these streets.

I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much. credit card debt and it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand. Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, let's get to the next part. All right. So fresh off his blockbuster appearance with the Nelke boys, Benjamin Netanyahu who has now joined the gentleman of Triggernometry for an appearance. Admittedly, I haven't had a chance.

This came out last night, so I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing. Producer Griffin pulled a couple clips that he thought were interesting. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this first one. This is Constantine saying basically, listen, I don't think there's any peace possible with these people in Gaza because they are, quote, unquote, Jew haters. Let's take a listen. And then you're going to say, and then we need a civilian government in Gaza that's not hostile to Israel. And that's where you lose me, Prime Minister, because I look at the opinion polls, I look at the people celebrating October the 7th in Gaza.

I look at the fact that thousands of civilians crossed into Israel on October the 7th to commit the atrocities that were committed. And I go, these people hate you. They hate you, they hate Israel, and they hate Jews. How are you going to have a peaceful coexistence with those people, particularly given the fact that, as Francis, mentioned earlier, they have been very heavily radicalized, not only through the education system, but through the fact that they've been on the receiving end on Israel's war effort. Well, I think what you're pointing out to is that you need also a program of de-radicalization. Now, has that been done in societies that have been conditioned to hate their adversaries?

Yes, of course, it's been done in two places prominently in Japan and in Germany. It's also been done in the Middle East. I mean, there have been very noteworthy programs, successful programs of de-radicalization in some of the Gulf states, which are actually proving to break this prototype of Arab societies that cannot seize the future. I'm not saying they're model democracies, mind you. They're not. But they certainly want to seize modernity and not go back to the savage and early

medievalism. Please tell me how Constantine is making Netanyahu sound more moderate than him. And like, yeah, just the idea that, okay, you know, these people hate it. Yeah, gee, I wonder why. Maybe it's because they've been like occupied

and being starved and bombed to pieces for, you know, and not even just post-October 7th. But also, Saugher, you can speak to this. How many times throughout history have we seen bitter enemies who hate each other? And guess what? When you're able to come up with some sort of a peace deal and have a coexistence, you know, that fades over time.

We can see it with our own country. You know, we were bitter enemies, obviously, went to war, Germany and Japan, and now these are some of our closest allies. Well, we can see it inside of our own country, north and south. It took a long time to shake out. That's exactly right.

That is the Israeli line, which drives me more insane than any other. It is we can't be expected to live next to these people. No, actually, you can. If India has to live next to Pakistan, you can do it too. All right? Yeah, they both have nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction.

If Iran has to live next to Saudi Arabia, then so can you. I can go on forever, Northern Ireland and Ireland. Yeah, absolutely. How many of these have we now lived through? They're like, they actually, is really exception, is that they want to be the only nation in the history of the world that actually is not required to live next to the people, quote, who hate them. Everybody else has to deal with it.

And in fact, one of the normal, like, established things post-World War II, which we're told for why we have to support, Ukraine and its war against Russia after they invaded is, oh, well, we just simply can't allow, you know, gangster states to do as they please in their neighborhood based upon old, revanchist, revisionist history of pre-World War II. Like when Russia, when Putin starts talking about Ivan the Great and the Treaty of Breslautovsk, everybody in the Western political establishment rolls their eyes. But when these people talking about 3,000 years ago, I mean, yeah, that's the other thing.

which one's more legitimate, 1789 of Crimea or 3,000 years ago, Judea, Samaria, and these ancient biblical texts, you know, promise us the land. That's, they think that's legitimate. The Western political establishment says that the latter is legitimate, but the former is a violation of post-World War II norms. No, I mean, you know, which one? And even if you disregard all of that, I'm not a huge believer in the so-called Western liberal democratic order or anything, but you can look from south. I can't think of a continent where people have not been forced to, quote, live next to the people who hate them. That, yes, it is simply a fact of life because the alternative is basically the current Israeli strategy is mass displacement and killing, mass murder. I mean, I guess that is one,

which theoretically, you know, you could go down that road. Again, you know, supposedly one of the norms after World War I and World War II was, hey, actually, we don't allow that stuff to kind of happen. Or at the very least, we're not going to support it. Well, you know, again, we've flipped it on its head. So the premise of that is preposterous. And especially for somebody from the U.K., who's one of the more recent Western nations, which quite literally had to force, you know, this entire, the troubles and all that. I mean, that happened in my parents' lifetime, if you didn't think about that. That's right. It was considered an intractable conflict, literally, from what, when was the first war of Irish independence? I'm thinking,

I mean, hundreds of years. I don't even know the date off the top of my head, all the way to 1919 and then post-World War II and separation, the Northern Irish question, the troubles, the border, you know, all the way up to the EU. These are even today, very sensitive issues, you know, after Brexit about the movement between the two borders. So again, you can't sit and tell me that you can't be expected. You can. Actually, you can. And you will, you know, because we should fork you to. Yeah, I mean, the better question is how, you know, Palestinians after this genocide of them could be expected to live next to the Israelis. But that's something we should expect of them too. We're like, listen, no, that's exactly right. But you have to live here.

That's exactly right. I mean, that's the nature of, you know, of humanity. That's the nature of being able to have some sort of an agreement. And yes, over time, not to say that there won't be continue to be tensions as there are, you know, in Ireland and Northern Ireland, like there continue to be tensions. But the idea that, oh, no, you couldn't possibly live next to these is just preposterous and historically illiterate. There was another interesting section where the other host, Francis, is pressing Netanyahu a bit on some of the comments of, you know, the Smotritches and the Ben Gavirs. Let's go ahead and take a listen to how that went down. There are critics of yours, Prime Minister, who will say, well, part of the reason that

Israel is losing the propaganda war is when you have ministers like Smotrick making incendiary or inflammatory comments, and there doesn't seem to be any particular pushback from your government to this, they go, well, what does the prime minister really believe? What I believe I say, in a parliamentary system, people are free to say. Sometimes they say things they don't quite mean. It happens all the time. You have a very active fringe. Prime Minister, forgive me, but these aren't parliamentarians. These are people who are part of your government, and they remain part of your government after they say these things, that to many people, even your friends, sound a little bit

like ethnic cleansing is being discussed. Well, we're not discussing ethnic cleansing, and to the extent that we have these conversations around the cabinet, the security cabinet, that is actually not being discussed by these people. But Prime Minister, I just interrupt, when you have your finance minister making a speech and talking about occupying Gaza, and it doesn't. seem to be any pushback within the government, people quite rightly, in my opinion, would say, well, surely aren't you condoning that type of rhetoric? No. And that is exacerbating Israel's

PR problem. I disagree completely. When somebody says, and I'm asked, is that your policy? And I said, no, it's not my policy. I don't intend to build the settlements or communities in Gaza and not Israeli ones. I want a non-Israeli civilian governance after that is committed to living in peace with us. It is so unbelievably dishonest at this point to still pretend like that's not your policy and like you condemn it and you have nothing to do with it. But you also got to give me credit

because I called that this would be exactly how he would answer. Because I asked Christel yesterday. It's a democracy. Yes we have a fringe, inflammatory rhetoric, blah, blah, blah. I was like, how is he going to square that? Because it's true. But I had not, I didn't put myself in the mind of BB to be like, yes, we have free speech, we have a vibrant society where we allow such thing.

But I mean, to Francis's credit, He was like, no, this isn't, it would be like somebody else using Ilhan Omar's statements. I mean, yeah, you could say that. I'd be like, look, we have 435 members of Congress. One of them, Marjorie Taylor Green or Ilhan, they say some crazy shit sometimes, whatever. But that is not the same whenever those people are actually in power, members of the government. Well, and when the government policy reflects their desire. And then government policy reflects their desire to the point where they're handing out weapons in the West Bank

and or U.S. dollars, which they then use to prop up their expansionist regime. Yeah. That's very different than, oh, we have free speech. Yeah. This is the thing about Bibi. He's the master. It's not like he has always, it is perfect Philadelphia-born English. You know, he understands which parts are distasteful, you know, to the U.S. public.

And so in English, he does not endorse any of the stuff. But again, in the age of Google Translate and AI, if I will, you can easily dub the stuff he says in Hebrew, and it's the same stuff. That's the stuff that drives me crazy, too. Yeah, and that's part of what I think the framing of the question. I have all kinds of issues with the framing the question. First of all, the idea that Israel just has a PR problem is just disgusting, in my opinion, genocide.

We're going to get to that with Megan. She said that too. She's like, the Palestinians are masters of propaganda. And that, you know, oh, the problem is just this incendiary rhetoric. And why don't you do more to condemn this incendiary rhetoric? Well, because he supports it. Because he is the one implementing and pushing forward the policy that they want to see. I mean, we're talking right now as Gaza City is being invaded.

You had another security minister who said that Gaza City itself should be exactly like Rafa, which we turned into a city of ruins. Like, again, this is not some random fringe character. These are people in the security cabinet who have power. We also can talk about the moving forward of a critical number of settlements that will completely destroy the idea that there could ever be a two-state solution. So to frame this as like a rhetoric or a messaging issue at this point is frankly disgusting. But, I mean, it is, at least he pushed him on something, you know, certainly was more prepared. You got to give the guy more than, yeah, the Nelk Boys.

That's true. More prepared than the Nelk Boys. Right. They did set the bar like in the. basement, but they were more prepared by the not boys. But I don't know, Sagar, what can you get out of these type of interviews with Netanyahu? You know, because we know, we can predict his answers before he gives him. The American Western media is full of Israeli Hussbarra propaganda. We know exactly what their line is all the time, because we get it from every single news outlet. So I'm not sure

what you really get new out of hearing Netanyahu for the thousandth time, you know, gas litus about what's really going on and what his position really and truly is. I don't know. I mean, I still think it is worth it. It would, there's a lot of issues with this. In general, part of the reason, you know, that Netanyahu agrees is because Constantine has just been so massively pro-Israelis displayed, you know, in his question. At the same time, getting people on the record is good. And actually asking them even about the word ethnic cleansing is good. Because what did he do? He denied ethnic cleansing. That's not even a question that has happened currently from the Western media and or inside of Israeli media

because they're not going to push it because, frankly, a lot of them support it. And so at the very least, you get it for the historical record. You're not going to change policy. That's a fantasy for most journalists. But, you know, challenging, actually getting to the heart of it, I think he could have done a better job, but he did better than a lot of other people. So you've got to give credit where it is to. You ask the question, look, I mean, nobody's going to sit there and be like, you're a war criminal

and be like, you know what, you're right. I am a war criminal. That's the fantasy. But at the end of the day, getting the reaction at the very least pressing on the security issue, it can make an impact. They could have made more. I mean, if they were better prepared, they could have specifically gone through the actual – because the challenge of the question is the premise was that it's BB's government and not BB himself. When it's like, no, actually, I mean, even if you compare his original answer on, quote, civilian government and occupation, it's like your government is currently engaged in a plan to force other nations. to accept Palestinians.

How is that non-actant cleansing? Right? And I'll be like, that's something you are doing. And even if you just want to stay in the lane of rhetoric, pull up BB's own comments. Oh, totally. You know, Amalek. Yeah. And what are the children of the darkness and all this other crap that he's said?

I mean, you can pull up direct statements from him that it's like, no, you're not really any. You may couch it more for, you know, English Western media, but you are on board. You sound very similar to how all of these guys sound. And his life mission has been to make sure that there is no Palestinian state. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal.

Apparently the explosion. Actually impelled metal, glad. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and Order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop.

Listen to the new season of Law and, and order criminal justice system on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts welcome to pretty private with ebonye the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free i'm ebonye and every tuesday i'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you on pretty private we'll explain the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side.

My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network.

Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases. But everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime.

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Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go and get to the very latest with regard to what is going on. Let's put this image up on the screen, just so everybody knows what we're talking about with Gaza City here. So this is the before and after already Gaza City is, you know, so much of it is destroyed and just turned into rubble and unlivable by any reasonable standard. Nevertheless, the invasion of Gaza City, the re-invasion of Gaza City has begun. The latest that I saw was that the Israeli army had reached the outskirts of Gaza City, which of course is the largest city in the Gaza Strip. you know, many hundreds of thousands, we don't know exactly how many, but many hundreds of thousands of people have returned now to Gaza City. You'll remember, the way that this, their initial

invasion occurred sort of went from north to south and people kept getting pushed further and further and further south until they were in Rafa. All eyes were on Rafa and then Rafa was utterly and completely destroyed. Now you have, as I said before, high level security minister in the security cabinet saying, hey, we want to do to Gaza City what we did to Rafa. Palestinians are trying to decide whether or not we can put the next element before up on the screen guys as well. Palestinians are trying to decide whether they're going to move yet again, you know, be displaced yet again. Many of them have had to relocate some five, six, seven, eight different times. They're utterly exhausted. They have little resources in terms of

food or money or anything else. Most of the structures in the entire Gaza Strip, not just in Gaza City have been destroyed. So it's not like you can go and like rent an apartment. Everything is bombed to pieces. In fact, there's a drop site did a piece on the dystopian real estate market that has sprung up where people will rent even something that has been bombed, you know, and is effectively like a shell if it even has any sort of roof that is intact. That's what we're talking about. So, you know, I remember Senator Slotkin told us that the sort of conventional military attack had finished, that is very much not the case. It is escalating. There are already horrific images which are coming out. And so, you know, I mean, I think this dovetails well with

the interview that was done here by the guys over at Trigger Anatomy where Netanyahu's trying, oh, no, ethnic cleansing, I would never. We don't want to occupy, blah, blah, blah. And meanwhile, this is what's actually unfolding in the real world. Yeah, no, it is crazy, especially because we were saying, you know, we don't even have a lot of images from it. And there's kind of a reason why. A lot of it is because most of these journalists are dead. That was the... Yeah, that's right.

Unfortunately, that really was the impetus. It appears behind some of these killings. That's what Ryan was emphasized. Yeah, that's why they murdered that whole Al Jazeera crew because they were planning to stay and cover the re-invasion of Gaza City. And now they can't because they're dead. Yeah, and, you know, in continuing with the expansion on this settlement question, it is...

By the way, we're going to have a very interesting interview, hopefully soon. But there was a man who was a top press officer at the State Department who was just fired because he wanted to release a statement from the United States expressing condolences about the loss of life for journalists in Gaza. And he was fired for that. Now, keep in mind, not only was he fired just for that, but also because he pushed back and said that the United States State Department should not refer to the West Bank and Gaza as Judea and Samaria. And it appears that he was knifed by Mike Huckabee's most senior aide, David Milstein. And so, yeah, hopefully we're going to have an interview with this gentleman soon. But I just want people to see, too, about, like, that settlement question and about the adoption of their own language and rhetoric here in our government is now basically open for, you know, it's open for business. That's right.

Has been, I know, from a policy level, but look, this stuff still does matter. How about U.S. government refers to the West Bank as Judea, you know, and West Bank, as Judea and Samaria are not. That stuff matters. Yes, the ambassador says it, but when Maine State and the Secretary of State says stuff like that, that's a declaration of policy at a government level. Yeah, that's right. And it seems like Milstein has been an important... Massive force behind the scenes. And he shouldn't be. He's just like, you know, an aide to the ambassador to Israel. Right. But he is really taking control of a lot of the Israel policy and he is extremely hard line. And, you know, to your point about like, yes, the U.S. obviously under bipartisan presidents has always been very... pro-Israel, no one is denying that. But there used to be, you know, the official line was that we support a two-state solution and we are opposed to the illegal settlements. That's all out the window at this point. You know, they don't even pretend. There's not even a pretense.

And in fact, Ambassador Mike Huckabee went on Israel's Army Radio drop site pick this up and said that, you know, this new settlement plan, which is incredibly significant. It's called E1. It's east of Jerusalem. The UN has long said for years that moving forward with construction of this particular settlement would, quote, drive a stake through the heart of a two-state solution because the way that it severs Palestinian communities in the West Bank. In any case, Mike Huckabee went on Israel's Army Radio and said that Washington does not oppose that plan. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little of that. It is not a violation of law for Israelis to live in the land. And to say that they can't would be rather bizarre to say that anyone else could live in regions, but Israelis could not.

Whether or not there should be a massive development in E1 is a decision for the government of Israel to make. And so we would not try to evaluate the good or the bad of that. So there you go there. On board with it, no problem. I mean, this is, you know, Miriam Madelson, presumably getting her money's worth from her massive investment. The minute that Huckabee was put in as ambassador, I mean, he is a religious zealot when it comes to Israel. You know, we knew that was an extraordinary significant development. And our friend Jasper talks about how the annexation of the West Bank, which was Miriam Adelson's main priority with her investment in Trump, with her campaign contribution to Trump, that was her main goal.

And it is effectively accomplished. So this is, you know, this is what she got for her money effectively. No, you're right. And those settlements are the ones that we've covered here extensively because they're the ones that historically were never pursued by any even right-wing Israeli government because it would block the establishment of the Palestinian state. So that's what the symbolism of this is. And of course, it was approved by one of those cabinet members inside of BB. So just so everybody understands it. Let's go and put the next one up on the screen just about the State Department. This one is important. So they say that the U.S. State Department will now further, number of sanctions in response to the ICC's, quote, ongoing threat to Americans and Israelis. So what they say is they are designating several members of the ICC. Now, why? It's because, quote, these individuals are foreign persons who are directly engaged in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel without the consent of their either nation. Now, let's make it very clear. It's about

investigation, arrested, and detention of Israeli officials. has nothing to do with American officials. And to the extent that it does, it's about support for Israel, just so we're all very clear. And, of course, this decision has been hailed by the Israeli cabinet members and others, even some ex-cabinet members, who ironically are not right-wing enough for BB, but still, you know, whatever, under arrest warrant by the ICC. And it's, I mean, look, it's the classic case,

the full force of the U.S. Empire being used to protect the Israeli government. You can't make the shit up. It's like an anti-Semitic conspiracy. Yeah, no, truly. And let's jump forward to B-8, because I know Sager really enjoys this particular element and dynamic. You've got 225 new immigrants from the U.S. and Canada landing in Israel here, you know, going to, to, they won't renounce their U.S. citizenship, but they will become dual Israeli citizens here. Yeah, I know you love this. Yeah, absolutely, of course.

Very patriotic Americans who have made Alia, more than 1,000 immigrants, quote, have arrived from North America, according to the Ministry of Aliyah and, quote, integration in Israel. Keep in mind that many of these people end up becoming the most psychotic and settler regime, like settlers, who end up occupying some of the areas inside of the West Bank. There's that famous video of that guy from Brooklyn berating a Palestinian woman, and he's like, if I don't steal your house, then somebody else will steal it, you know? I mean, it's something I actually noticed when I visited the Western Wall, and, you know, before you get there, there's these people who greet you, and I He was talking to them, and he's like, where are you from?

And I was like, oh, I'm from Texas or whatever. He's like, oh, I'm from Boston. I was like, oh, okay. I was like, got it. I was like, do you live here? He's like, yeah, I live here. I was like, oh, all right. Well, you know, got it.

So this is a comment that he was an Orthodox too. So there you go. Yeah, I told you, it's quite easy to me. I looked it up. My kid's dad is Jewish. And typically, you know, it passes through. It's supposed to be the mom that's Jewish, but in some reform, reform, um, Judaism, then it can be either.

And sure enough, Yeah, they could, they could move there. They could become Israeli citizens. Palestinians aren't allowed to have rights there, but my kids who have no connection to it, I mean, it's just utterly insanely preposterous. One more piece that I just found interesting that I wanted to flag for everybody. This, again, is drop site B7. Let's put this up on the screen.

Apparently, this Palestinian businessman, Samir Hulele, he's claiming the U.S. approached him to be the governor of Gaza. They describe him as a little-known Ramallah-based businessman and economist who's taken on various roles in the Palestinian Authority and as a cabinet secretary to the PA for several months in late 2005 and 2006. Anyway, he is alleging that he was approached about, you know, being sort of installed as a governor of Gaza. So I guess they have been doing some reachouts to find their chaliby. He looks just like him too. And he also, he spent some money on, like, a lobbyist here in D.C. Because, you know, it doesn't matter what the Palestinian people want.

It matters who you can convince here in this town, apparently, to rule the Gaza Strip. This is classic. If you've ever spent enough time in Washington, the suit with the quarter zip is a dead giveaway. That means something is not right here. It usually means somebody with too much money and bad taste, which is, of course, exactly who is welcomed here. Just look at the White House. Terrible combination. It's not a good, not a good combo, usually.

And so, yeah, we have our Akhman Chalabi for what the future may hold. We'll see. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free.

I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perception and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more. And found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner.

He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. he was shot in his house unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey, sis, what if I could promise you you never had to listen to a condescending finance, bro, tell you how to manage your money again. Welcome to Brown Ambition. This is the hard part when you pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem a year from now. When you do feel like you are bleeding from these high interest rates,

I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with your local credit union, shopping around online, looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here to judge. It is so expensive in these streets. I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt when it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand.

Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, let's go and get to what's going on here in D.C. So Tim Dillon has some thoughts about what's going on here in D.C. And around the country. Let's go ahead and take a listen.

They've already got the cops on the street that are, I mean, that are not cops or the military. They've already got the National Guard on the street. They already have all your information in D.C. And now they just get to decide what is and isn't over the line. That should scare everybody. You're fucking nuts,

dude. If this doesn't scare you, you're nuts. All of these things in Alex Jones, you know, and I've had Alex on I like Alex, but all these things that Alex Jones was like worried about when I listened to him in the late 90s, early 2000s are coming to fruition. And he, you know, I don't know where he is on all of that stuff. But like, I know he's a big fan of Trump, but like this is everything Alex Jones always talked about, military in the street, the FEMA camp, the tech company that monitors everything,

the surveillance. This is all of that. I mean, not to sound like a fucking nut. this is everything a crackhead and I don't even mean a crackhead like crack but a guy smoking weed in a room with a fucking black light he'd be like bro

bro there's gonna be military in the street they're gonna put you in jail for fucking your fucking thoughts man if you just say them bro you're gonna be in fucking jail there's gonna be a fucking company that monitors everything you do, bro.

Like, this is literally the wet dream of every conspiracy theorist that has ever lived and it's happening now. Making a lot of good points there. I mean, the Alex Jones call on in particular, it is so true that all of like sort of the wildest theorizing about what a government crackdown could look like, like a lot of it is unfolding before us. You know, you have the kidnapping of people for wrong thought, wrong think on Israel. and the crackdown we're going to cover the fact that they're going to now screen everybody's social media

before they come in the country for quote-unquote anti-Semitism using the Department of Education and HHS to make sure you're cracking down on that as well. The National Guard, six different states, national guards here in D.C. to like, you know, we actually put C-4 up on the screen. You had an M-Rap that T-boned a civilian regular vehicle here in D.C. It's something similar that happened in L.A. by the way, where you had, I think it was ICE agents in a regular vehicle that, like, T-boned somebody as they were speeding around the city. Just absolutely dystopian. Then you add in, like, the Palantir contract and what all of that is going to look like. The deportations with no deep process in a slave labor camp. And, you know, I mean, Alex Jones has expressed concerns about a few things. But you can imagine if this was being done by a Democrat, it would be complete hair on fire. Because it really is a lot of the. conspiracy theorizing, worst case scenario over the years, just sort of playing out in front of us in real time?

I think it's fair. And, yeah, I mean, it pains me to say it, but I do think it is fair. And one it is, especially because if I think back to January 6th and the federal occupation of our city, which I thought was ridiculous. Yeah, we both said so at the time. And, you know, it's very hard because on the one hand, I cannot stand people talking about how, oh, D.C. is safe. And, it's great. No, sorry, ridiculous. Like, the violent crime is still bad. Yes, it's down. It's still much higher than it was five years ago. Union Station is a shithole. It has been a shithole for five years. I've lived here since 2010, which, by the way, in retrospect, was the best year to ever live here, is the lowest of the violent crime rate has ever been. By 2014, it's gone downhill. There's a lot

of reasons for that. The crime situation is bad. I used to live, I lived on the block, literally, where big balls was assaulted or whatever, somebody was murdered, shot in the head, innocent bystandard exactly one block away. The restaurant I took my parents to was the subject of a gunfight less than three days later where somebody was shot and almost killed bullet holes that were sprayed in the way. So I'm not exaggerating. Like, it's bad and it's been bad. There are different ways to fix it. And this is generally not the competent way. And I think that's kind of been my, if you were to say my break with the Trump administration, it's that they have, in many cases, I think, points about illegal immigration, about crime in D.C. But what they choose is the showmanship

versus the execution. And that's actually bad for two reasons, and I'll explain, which is it negatively polarizes the entire country about the point that you're actually trying to make. And the point that you make doesn't even get fixed. So you kind of pair those two things together, where, Yeah, it's fun to do your little press conference, you know, at Union Station. And what you do is you troll the liberals into trying to say that actually Union Station is safe. When in reality, it's like, look, if you live here, we have two huge problems here in Washington, D.C. Number one is juvenile offenders and basically lack of prosecution. That has been a, that is a literal Biden policy that was adopted and led to widespread crime throughout the entire city, carjackings, etc.

That is an attorney general problem, which is very easily solved. In fact, actually, and I'm curious because this is where the libertarian and everything aligns. Janine, is that her name? Judge Janine just announced yesterday that D.C. will no longer pursue firearms charges against people in the city. And I'm like, well, the libertarian in me who's like, yeah, good. But the other hand is, like, if we're all being honest, like gun charge is the easiest way to get most of these people off the streets. Well, that's what the black 2A advocates often say is that gun charges are the way that... Yeah, it's how you go federal.

That's how the criminal justice system is that's the entry point. Yes, it's the easiest way to get somebody locked up. Yeah, a bunch of people, disproportionately black people. And I mean, I do think part of... So, zooming out from D.C., this country has much higher rates of violent crime in cities across the country than similarly situated, like, developed nations around the law. No question. No doubt about it. I think if you look at, you know, the differences between those countries, one of the things is we are awash in guns. That is a big part of the, that is not something

that Republicans want to do anything about whatsoever. And like you said, Piro is going in the opposite direction here in D.C. in terms of actually, you know, cracking down on the firearms here. D.C., comparatively has relatively tight firearm restrictions, but obviously it's, you know, a city with Virginia on the other side. Virginia, you can get any gun you want, basically, anytime with very few restrictions. But this is the, the DC has the strictest gun laws in the entire country. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. There's Virginia's right there. Sure. And so it makes it Yeah, but Maryland has some of the, Maryland has the same standards as California. So it, I guess, the country as a whole is a wash in firearms. And that is certainly, now it may not be all of it.

I think the mass inequality, you know, the fact that you have this like entrenched underclass, very little social safety net. I think that is part of it as well. I'm not saying that it's one thing. But that's part of the conversation. But, you know, some of, to me, the most interesting reporting that's been going on, Sagan, I think you would share this sentiment is the, the journalists who actually went into, you know, Anacosti, across the river, the neighborhoods that suffer the most from violent crime, truly. And talk to residents there. I'm like, how do you feel about this? And there's an openness to new law enforcement. They're like, listen, we're open to it. Yeah, that's true. It's on the record. I mean, they're like, we would like to see more

law. And we would love it if this would help. But there is zero. I mean, first of all, there's very little presence there at all. This has all been, you know, MRAPs on the mall and outside of Union Station and protecting Georgetown cupcakes or whatever, which is, you know, not to say there's zero crime in those places, but much less than in other parts of the, of the city. So that's number one. But number two, if they were serious about wanting to get the, I mean, no, you just can't take them seriously. This is the same. government that stripped a billion dollars in funding from the D.C. budget that is supposed to go to things like public safety. So, lo and behold, we can put C5 up on the screen. They did a poll

of D.C. residents, the people that this is supposedly meant to help. And 8 and 10 are like, no. Of course we don't want this. Eight in 10, Washingtonians oppose Trump taking control of D.C.'s Police and Federal troops trolling streets. You have the question specifically is, do you support or opposed, Trump ordering the federal government to take control of D.C., D.C.'s police department, and ordering the National Guard and FBI to patrol D.C., 9% strongly support, 8% somewhat support, and then you have 79% who either strongly opposed, and by the way, the strongly opposed is 69%. So really 70% of the city is, like, absolutely not. And again, those are the people that they're posturing like they want to help, and everyone can just see through it. And Saga, the thing that

I've struggled with in sort of, like, communicating about. this administration or even intellectualizing this administration and really trying to like grapple with it in a way that's not hyperbolic or hysterical is on the one hand you have these preposterously authoritarian shows a force that are just meant to demonstrate like you know military crackdown and on the other hand they're so like incompetent and buffoonish and so it's hard to take seriously the you know authoritarian nature of what's being done when you call in National Guard from six surrounding states and, you know, MRAPs in the streets and all this graph, it's hard to take seriously that when, on the other hand, they're just, they're like a

bunch of idiotic, incompetent trolling clowns. I would see that is the critique that I am the most sympathetic to. And again, I think is also the one, which is going to land the best because it's about to both. It's very, again, it's hard because the, I literally move. moved out here because of crime. And I know a lot of other people who did. It's bad. And it's like, I can't sit and be gaslit by people who tell me that it's not good. It's just, it's horrible. And I've lived it for so long that I actually watch the decline. It's quality of life, crime and the general feeling of safety. And sorry, yes, that's an actual feeling of safety, which entails vagrancy and general just like the, having to worry about

getting stabbed by somebody mentally ill on the street is a real thing. Same in Union Station. You watched it go from a place of business people to bum showers in the span of two to three years, and it really still has not really returned to how it used to be. Now, there's a lot of reasons for that, COVID and all that one, but this is where I get frustrated, you know, with the Washington, D.C. residents, they don't actually want to do anything about it. That's part of the other problem. There, you know, D.C. City County, the mayor may be pro cop. The city council shoots down every single attempt to try and hire more MPD officers. The juvenile problem is the one that the city council members themselves. are the ones who are fighting for more leniency, which is leading to all this truancy crisis.

And by the way, this city spends more than every other public school per capita than any place in the country and they have the highest truancy rate. Some 30% of D.C. students are truant. Something that Delano Squire said on our show, which, look, uncomfortable, but people always want to whitewash it.

Like, if you have a school district where 90% truant, that's a parent problem. It's true. And people need to, like, no, no, no, no. We have to get real. Like, if you are letting, 90% of you are letting your kids out, but I actually thought what he said was so silly, though. Why?

Because he was like, his answer was like, the mayor should say parents should do a better job. It's like, what the fuck is that going to do? No, hold them accountable. That's actually a more pathetic answer than like what left. Okay, but no, hold them accountable. It's the same way. If your kid is 15 and they use your AR 15 to go and shoot up a school,

you need to be prosecuted for that. I agree with that. But his thing was just like, you know, wag your finger. And I'm like, that's not going to do it. Yeah, yeah, they need to go to jail. Like, if your kid is out there carjacking and you have been had multiple warnings from the school district and all of that, I'm sorry, you need to be held accountable. And the truth is is that they have embraced all of these BLM Ferguson, like, anti-crime policy or anti-police policy since 2014.

Not an accident. That's the year that the city went to shit. But you do have to also acknowledge the crime rate has gone down a lot. It has gone down from the height of 2020. It's still way higher than 2010. I'm not an expert on DC. politics. So I don't know what the city council has or hasn't done or whatever. They block every pro-police measure that the mayor tries.

Especially in neighborhoods that suffer more from violence, residents are open to more law enforcement presence. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And in fact, it tends to be poor blacker neighborhoods where, and those two things obviously, unfortunately America frequently go together, where there's more receptivity to law enforcement presence. So I don't think when you look at the poll that's like 80% are opposed to Trump. I don't think that's like, oh, we just don't want more law enforcement. No. Well, they see this for the foolishness that it is.

A lot of it is also negative. That's certainly, that is certainly true. But they're right to see this as being ridiculous. And not to mention, you know, if you care about law and order, look, it goes without saying that this is the guy that pardoned, you know, all the January 6th or rioters were like beating up cops and whatever. So. Look, I'm with you. It is a fair point to make, especially because that happened in D.C.

But in addition, you don't just have the National Guard. You also have all these FBI agents who are being pulled off, like, aren't they supposed to be doing real work, not just standing around? I watched a video yesterday of some, I don't know, what agency they're with because it's hard to tell in many instances, people just riding up and down the escalator at a metro station. Or picture of people, like, these guys just, like, bored standing around in an empty metro station. That actually was my old metro station. Safest one in the entire city. I mean, there you go. Thank you.

Yeah, there you go. for protecting my fellow drunken GW students, so I'm sure that they needed it. Look, I agree. It is buffoonish, and the way that they execute it is preposterous. It's just about, but the problem has to be acknowledged.

And, like, that is the part where I can't move away from. The city and its residents basically seem to be okay with crime. I will never understand it. It's why I left. I said, this place cannot be saved. Its own population basically is wedded

to BLM signs over people not getting murdered. I don't know what it is. It's the sick psychology of the people who live here. But the thing is, and that's why exit was the only actual option. D.C. is not, it's not like outstanding nationally in terms of the rate of violent crime. Well, there are, you know, in fact, red states, a number of red states have higher crime rates than blue states. I think it's Memphis and St. Louis that have the worst violent crime rates in the country.

And while I'm sure individual policy decisions do make somewhat of a difference, you can also see that a lot of this is national trends. There was a huge national spike in crime coming in COVID and coming out of COVID. And there's been a similar national decline in crime. Well, what happened in 2020, though? In cities across the country. It was also BLM. Like, see, there is a total obfuscation of the role that BLM played in the massive spike on crime. The Ferguson effect is statistically proven.

It's real is that these BLM-style events, Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, led to the Furgness effect, the cooling of crime enforcement. same back in 2020, which led to an explosion in violent crime. The claim of crime enforcement is mostly cops, like, not doing their job as much. Okay, yes, because they're afraid. Now, listen, I, look, I'm not some pro-police fanatic. My response when the police pull up is lawyer. I don't have a fucking thing to say to you. Like, and that should be yours, too.

Don't ever talk to them without a lawyer present. Zero. Even if it's a speeding ticket, don't acknowledge nothing. Just say lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. You don't have to say a word. Even if you pull out your ID, same thing. You can lawfully comply. You don't have to say anything.

It can and will be used against you. in a court of law. Look out for your own rights. I want to make that very clear. But it is also empirically clear that a systematic level, lack of crime enforcement, and specifically soft on crime do-gooder policies like, oh, these poor little juveniles, has led to an explosion of carjackings here in Washington. It's a Washingtonian problem, and it's specifically because of the federal government. Joe Biden and a bunch of like BLM-style leftists said, oh, we can't prosecute these poor kids, and they wreaked havoc across the city. I just don't see how it could be a Washington-specific.

I'm generally, I'm saying the juvenile problem is Washington-specific problem when you see a similar dynamic happening in cities across the country regardless of what they're supposed to do. We have to disaggregate violent crime from quality of life crime. Carjacking is included in violent crime, but vagrancy is not. So San Francisco is a shithole. Can we all agree on that? At least major parts of it, the tenderloin, et cetera. San Francisco has a very low murder rate. They don't have a big murder problem.

They have a high violent crime rate. But it is, in my opinion, the most unpleasant. city in the United States to be in. Why? Because of violent, mentally ill drug addicts everywhere who are constantly harassing you. They may not kill you, but look, we can't just sit here and say it's acceptable. I mean, I recently had dinner in Washington in a place which I have been to. Even those, those stats are down in California as well. But you're talking about violent crime. I'm talking about quality of life. I'm talking about homelessness too, like public visible homelessness is down across the country as well. Part of that is the repeal of the Ninth Circuit in California.

which basically allowed the California authorities to go and clean up some of the areas. It's not just local. This, again, is soft on crime policy, which led to a massive explosion of the permissibility of fentanyl addicts being on every corner. I just can't live in a country where it's acceptable.

So Baltimore is on track for, and Baltimore has historically been one of, in the modern era, one of the worst cities in the country in terms of specifically murders and violent crime. And, I mean, you know, the wire we all watched, like, and it's unfortunately too close to, or was too close to reality in Baltimore.

And they're on track to have their lowest murder rate in documented history. And it wasn't just, we're going to flood the zone with cops. It was a range of approaches, including, you know, more after-school activities and those sorts of things that might be stereotyped as soft on crime. So, you know, there was a model there that has been very successful that I think needs to look at as well. But I do also think, like, you know, the national crime rate is. much higher than other similar countries. And I think a good part of that has to do with guns. I think a good part of that has to do with inequality and socioeconomic. A good part of that has

to be lack of social safety net. Good part of that has to do with lack of upward mobility. And then, you know, you have had these national trends. So again, I'm not doubting. I'm not an expert on D.C. politics. I don't know what's been done here specifically. I'm not doubting there aren't factors that have contributed to some of the specific dynamics here. But it seems like overall the more important dynamics have been like national global trends which have led to all of these cities moving in similar directions. See, I would agree, but my point is that the national trend is BLM. And like that was the singular most important thing in the history of crime enforcement. But how do you just aggregate that from COVID? Because I mean, that's part of the

because the truancy rate, that to me is directly attributable to COVID. But those are two conjoined factors because it's not just truancy. It's the lack of enforcement. And the do gooder, oh, we shouldn't do anything about these poor children. And that's the, it's like, that is the toxic empathy. Everywhere in the country. Yeah, absolutely. But D.C. is an outlier. That's my point. Out of COVID, truancy rate is up across the country because it just became, like it used to be, you go to school every day. And then, you know, the message that was sent was basically like, well, it's kind of optional. And actually, we're doing this thing home. And schools across the country have been struggling with those. Conservatives will be mad at me for

saying this, we should take a lot of lessons from New York City. It is by far the safest, cleanest, and the most livable of the big cities in terms of quality of life. There's a lot of reasons for that. One is they don't tolerate this San Francisco, Los Angeles drug addiction. The vast, vast majority of people who are homeless are drug addicts. It is not a housing issue. That's one of those that I've probably switched on the most. In particular watching it here in Washington. I watched it go from methamphetamine and, like, drunkenness to fentanyl. Fentanyl has wrecked this place. The fentanyl lean and what, you know, just look, anybody doesn't know what I'm talking about, you can Google it. It's horrific. If you ever been to Skid Row, San Francisco,

it is entirely a fentanyl crisis, which has taken over these places, which leads to massive amounts of petty crime, massive quality of life problems, carjacking, or car break-ins, breaking in to cities. I mean, this stuff has like massive cooling effects on commerce, on the ability of people to have children. My own sister lived in San Francisco. I stayed in her apartment. I go out the door. This is a nice neighborhood. And there's a guy literally taking a shit on a stupid 4 a.m. in the morning with a needle his arm. I'm not joking. Like, this is real stuff. And this is the stuff that happens every single day. That is an enforcement problem. Like, clear and simple. New York does not tolerate that, even with all of their, you know, Democratic mayor, etc. New York also has a

requirement, legal requirement, to provide housing for everyone. But they don't accept drug addicts in their house. And they also have major crackdown on home. Like, people, you cannot walk your way out of this with right to housing. If you give, quote, right to housing a drug addicts, they'll rip it apart and they'll use it as a drug den. I hate to talk this way. But the other thing, Zagher, is that there's just not nearly sufficient rehab programs

for people to go into. And I actually, maybe we'll agree on this. Like when Eric Adams shifted the criteria for the ability to, you know, deem someone like a threat to themselves or to others and to be able to put them into an institution, like institutionalize them and get treatment, like I actually support things like that. Because I do think that, you know, I first and foremost, I care about those human beings who are unhoused, who are struggling with addiction, who are clearly living like. really a miserable existence. And I do think sometimes they're in an effort to be, you know, empathetic and not to have, like, often the right just wants to like criminalize or invisibleize or push out or whatever. And so in an attempt to push back on that, there's actually a lack of empathy for what that person is going through and the type of help that they need. And so, you know,

I think I am in favor of more ability to, you know, get people help even. when it is against their will. I know that's a controversial thing to say. But I think if you truly have compassion for people, like, you wouldn't want someone that's your family member to be living in that state. And so in any case, this has gone kind of far afield. But it is important.

Because it is about the show, but remember, you know, the Trump MAGA and all the support for this type of stuff and the reason why a lot of people even went along with it, you know, maybe unpopular here, I need to see a nationwide polling. And yes, I'm not saying they've... It's unpopular nationally, too. It may be in terms of the...

But, like, people in 2024, they were pretty fed up with a lot of this stuff. And I think I will never walk away from that is a good impetus. And even, like, what you were just talking about, the rehab and the confinement, the most important shift that the left needs to make is to going from toxic empathy to paternalism. And yeah, you're going to hate me for saying it. But the countries you all revere, like Portugal, your ass is going to jail. If you sit in a public street corner and you shut up, shoot up heroin, mandatory rehab or

jail, we need to shift to that mentality. If you are in Skid Row and there's a needle in your arm and you're raping women trying to basically so that you can give them fentanyl, you are going to jail. Those fentanyl addicts who have been reduced to that horrific state, you're getting locked up for two years in mandatory rehab. Not some 90-day program. Two years, if you look at the recidivism rate on heroin, and fentanyl, it's already sky high. There needs to be a basic social contract agreement for all

of us where it's like, you have a problem. That problem is solvable, but it is one where we need to take away a lot of agency from you. And I'm sorry. And that is a huge problem because it conflicts with a lot of the current legal system. But this current system does not work. And it has destroyed them and it has destroyed taxpaying citizens, businesses and others who deserve the right to live. live in a safe place. So that would be my main thing. It's like you have to embrace like the uncomfort of telling someone, we are going to deprive you of your rights for quite a long time.

And it's for your own good. It actually dovetails somewhat with the anti-ugenics monologue. Okay, good. Because there was, you know, this progressive era push to institutionalize anybody and everybody who like, you know, were seen as basically based on poverty. You know, and sometimes it would be genuine mental illness or whatever. But there was this mass push towards institutionalizing people. And then there was a backlash against that because it went way too far.

And you were just completely depriving people of rights. And again, it would be someone who just was, you know, their crime was being poor. And then it locked up for life and sterilized, by the way. And, you know, now you're at the point where, number one, I mean, our health care system is shit. There's not nearly enough rehab available. Like, even people who want to get clean and sober, they don't have a place where they can go to try to avail themselves of those services. There are way too few psychiatric beds. There are way too few rehab beds.

All of those sorts of things. But I do think we've also gone too far in the other direction of, you know, sometimes it genuinely is in a person's interest. And you have to have protections in there for civil liberties, et cetera. It's a difficult balance to strike. It's very hard. In any case, what Trump is doing is total and complete bullshit. He doesn't care about crime. It's like, you know, MRAPs, T-boning cars in the streets.

Way to go. Congratulations. And I think not just D.C. residents, but the polling I've seen is like, the country sees through it. And you're right that just like with the, you know, the immigration backlash, there's also a backlash to this policy where people, I mean, they saw what happened in L.A. too. Like, most of what's happening here in terms of law enforcement is, you know, like DoorDash drivers getting like pulled off their mopeds is primarily what's going on.

A lot of them are legal. So let's, you know, not put that aside. And I have a crazy Doordash story, which I hope to tell one day. Get fired up, y'all. Season two of Good Game with Sarah Spain is under. way. We just welcomed one of my favorite people, an incomparable soccer icon, Megan Rapino, to the show, and we had a blast.

Take a listen. Sue and I were, like, riding the lime bikes the other day, and we're like, we're like, people ride bikes because it's fun. We got more incredible guests like Megan in store, plus news of the day and more. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the IHeart

Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner, of IHeart Women's Sports Network. I'm Noah and I'm 13 and I started this podcast because honestly adults don't ask the right questions.

Now You Know with Noah DeBarroso is a show about influence. Who's got it, how they use it, and what it means for the rest of you. It's not the news. It's what the news should be if someone Gen Z or Gen Alpha made it. Politics is wild

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