Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/25/25: Bernie Backs Trump Intel Buy, Zohran Flamed For Bench press, Krystal Exposes Famine Coverup

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Bernie backs Trump Intel purchase, Zohran flamed for bench press, Krystal exposes famine coverup, Trump admin fires Israel dissenter.   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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Let's get to Intel. This is a very interesting story, actually. Lots of perhaps some left, right horseshoe. A lot of the right people are very upset about it. So let's go ahead and put it up here on the screen. New announcement made by Donald Trump, he says, quote, It is my great honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of Intel, a great. American company that has even more incredible future. I negotiated this deal with the highly

respected chief executive officer of the company. The United States paid nothing for these shares, and the shares are now valued at approximately $11 billion. Great deal for America. Also a great deal for Intel, building leading edge semiconductors and chips, which is what Intel does. Fundamental to the future of our nation, make America great again. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And so this has invited a lot of very interesting discourse, just to give everybody some more details. We can put the Wall Street Journal story up on the screen, which gives some of the details. Basically, what it does is it converts Chips Act grants into equity. So they were going to get this money anyways from the government.

What it does is converts to equity in the company. And what it basically says is it's going to be followed potentially by other types of these deals. under the terms, the $8.9 million in grants that had already been awarded to Intel from 2022, but had not yet been paid, will just be transferred to equity in the company with basically a swap of that. They won't even have any like voting direct control in the overall thing. They're paying some, quote, $20.47 a share, which is actually a discount, apparently, from what was recently offered to the Japanese-controlled soft bank, just so everybody aware. But the point is that it's a bigger question about government control

and whether the government should have a say in how these type of companies operate. And this is a big like libertarian, more like Coke Brothers, traditional free market view. And what I would say is an industrial policy view. And it's actually important for everybody to sit and to think about the story of Intel. Intel was the flagship American semiconductor manufacturing company. It remains one of the only major semiconductor manufacturers in the United States today, who creates their own fabs. This is another important thing. A lot of people don't understand this. NVIDIA and AMD, two of the largest shares of market cap chip companies, they don't make anything. They design them and TSM makes all of it. Intel is the only one that actually knows how to make it.

Now, why does that matter? Because if 90% of advanced manufacturing for chips happens on the island of Taiwan, one of the literally most geopolitically unstable places in the world, that seems to be like a little bit of a choke point. and maybe one where America has an advantage in moving away from that. That's why we were both supportive of the Chips Act. Well, everybody needs to understand this. If you leave it to the free market or to American capitalism, Intel is the story. You shut down the fabs, become less competitive. Meanwhile, Samsung, which is a, aka a branch of the Korean government, TSM, aka a branch of the Taiwanese government,

SMIC, aka a branch of the Chinese government, are going to eat your lunch because they don't care about profit and loss statements. on a shareholder, they will subsidize the shit out of the industry to roll it up and to let Intel basically sacrifice itself on the altar of, quote, free markets, because it's easier to outsource than it is to actually build shit, especially here in America. So then the question is, how do you accomplish that? Now, the grants themselves, part of the problem is that they're not stringent enough, in my opinion, to make sure that they do not continue a lot of this MBA-style process. So the question is, how do you actually compete? if it's even possible with TSM, with SMIC, with Samsung, with all of these chip manufacturers

who build actual fabs. One way is the current way with the Chips Act, where we're trying to get those companies to build here in America. I think, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that. But part of the problem is still, you know, it's not an American company. You're still don't have nearly as much control as you would for national security purposes. The Taiwanese are, Taiwan's always going to be Taiwan first. Korea's always going to be Korea first. China, I mean, what? You know, they're the best at being China. first. So shouldn't we have some sort of answer? And so before I get your take, Crystal, we got to put out Senator Bernie Sanders, the goat, as always, sticking to his principle,

let's put it up here on the screen. Here's what he had to say. If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment. And so not only do I endorse that, but I actually would say that if anything, we should have more of control with Intel here. Yes, I know, crony capitalism, whatever. All right, let me, you know, again, spell it out for you. There is no critical national security interests, which should not be under the control of the government. It would actually be irresponsible to do so. Because if you don't, then you're going to end up like America today, which is basically a hollowed out husk of people who

designed shit and then let the Chinese, the Taiwanese, the Koreans, the Japanese actually build all of it for us. God help us if we're ever actually in a bad situation. That's my overall Bernie's principle, 100% agree with. Unfortunately, I just know that Trump is going to use this to do some, like, stupid, corrupt. A gold chip. Well, the first gold chip ever manufactured. I mean, not only that. Like, I think it's also important for people to really sit with.

These chips are incredibly important. They genuinely are, which is part of the case for why we should have a direct interest. And yes, I think Bernie's principle is totally true, that if we are giving these companies all these subsidies and Bernie, I think, actually opposed the chips inside. Act or had some issues with it because of all the, you know, the taxpayer subsidies. So I think it's reasonable to say, yes, the American people should benefit from profits. However, this is such a critical industry we're talking about for defense. We're talking about for aerospace.

We're talking about for EVs for like the industries of future, renewable energy. So critical. You could just see the way Trump would use this way to, you know, punish his political opponents, to reward his cronies, all of those sorts of things. And so that's why it's like, well, we'll see. I mean, it's kind of like with the tariffs, right? In general, do I support some, you know, protectionist policy in key industries? Sure.

Does this man execute that in any sort of like a reasonable way in the American interest? No, he executes all his policies in his own interest. It's all about him having, him personally having more power, money, influence control. And so that's why I can't totally be like, let's go with. this. It's a Venn diagram. And I know you have some of the same reservations, of course. Yeah. Like I said, all they got to do is build a gold chip and give it to them. It'd be like, oh, okay, cool, I'm good. You know, I don't need to make anything else here. Right. But I still think it's worth fighting because all of Wall Street

and all these other people are up in arms. They prefer the NVIDIA AMD model, which is paid for play. And I think that's ridiculous, which is basically grants NVIDA and AMD. As long as they pay their 10% to the U.S. government, they get to do business in China. No, we decide whether you do business in China or not. And again, the question is, this is the value problem and the American problem in a nutshell. Have you ever noticed every time you buy a laptop and you open it up? What does the word say? It says, designed by Apple in California. Designed by Apple in California. Manufactured in Guangzhou, Shang, you know, whatever. Same thing with all these chips. The reason NVIDIA and AMD are so massively profitable is because they take the service sector part of our

economy, which we're great at, right? We have all the world's talent and we design all this stuff, but Taiwan makes it. Over 80% of NVDA chips manufactured in Taiwan. I think it's 90% of AMD manufactured at TSM. The actual nitty-gritty of the manufacturing, we don't do it. Why? Super expensive. If you look at the history, there's a acquired podcast, if anybody wants to go and listen, I highly recommend, on the history of TSMC, 48% of initial startup capital for TSM, Taiwanese government. People don't understand. This is not an industry which you can compete by the, quote, free market. It will not happen. You will get crushed by state capitalism. And in fact, this is, again, I would ask all these conservatives and all that, let's look at the

model, because their claim is state capitalism can't work. Really? BYD doesn't work. That's news to the largest, one of the most profitable car companies in the world. BYD doesn't work. SMIC isn't a juggernaut in terms of chip manufacturing, look at their battery manufacturer, look at their airplane manufacturer, all their high-tech manufacturer. None of it makes any actual profit. All of it is subsidized by the government, and all of it is frankly creating, in many cases, much better products than so-called free market capitalism here in America. This isn't to say a whole endorsement of the Chinese model, but you cannot sit with a straight face and say it doesn't work. It obviously works. I mean, the number of people that China has

is lifted down in poverty. That's what I'm saying. Right. Yeah. It's crazy. It's genuinely an economic miracle. However, do we think that Trump with Howard Lutnik and these people are going to be, have the long-term interests of America in mind?

But that's a good news about that. And even if they did have the capability to like plan strategically and execute on a, you know, a whole industrial policy, of course not. And so on the one hand, look, I hope that. there are some, you know, bold Democrat out there somewhere who's looking at all of this and can say, okay, well, they sort of laid down the marker here, we can take this model and we can expand and we can actually do it in the American interest. I hope that maybe that exists.

Am I confident about that? No. In the meantime, like, we know this is going to be less of the China model and more of the Russia model of like, you know, let me use the state control to, like, reward my cronies and lock in this, you know, group of oligarch. who surround me and bring me gold bars in the Oval Office or whatever and pad my own bottom line and use it in order to make sure I can punish the opposition. If Gavin Newsom wants to do renewable energy projects in the state of California, I'm going to make sure he can't get

the chips that he needs to be able to succeed in his project, etc. Like that's more like, much more likely to be the direction that we go in with this. Well, let me give a defense of the Russian model is whenever the sanctions hit, what happened? Their GDP grew. They actually survived because the Russian model, if correctly executed, is yes, we will be massively corrupt and give it out to our oligarch friends. But at the very least, it's all here because we're the worst of all worlds. We're oligarchic and we've outsourced everything. So we have a Russian-style pay-for-play system without any of the domestic manufacturing,

domestic capabilities. And watching people freak out about this, you know, about socialism and the scary word and all of that. Well, it is funny to see, like, people who freaked out about Zoron's five grocery stores. Totally right. And then turn around and be like, oh, this is fine, you know. So here's a good taste of some of it, shall we. This is from C5, Eric Erickson, one of the classic, you know, Never Trump style original conservatives.

Here's what you had to say. There's no national security justification for this. In fact, I had some anonymous account on Twitter say, yeah, there's a national security justification for having control of Intel. Really? We don't have control of Raytheon. We don't have government control of Invideo. We don't have government control of Apple.

We don't have government control of Boeing. We don't have government control of Lockheed Martin. We don't have government control of any major weapons developer or defense contractor. But you want 10% control of intel in exchange for money the government already promised to give them. That's socialism. You may be comfortable with socialism. You may decide you like socialism because someone from the Trump administration wants socialism. But my God, people, what have we been fighting for for the last decade?

You want smaller government, this expands it. You want the government not to go woke? Well, what happens when the Democrats get in charge and they become the largest shareholder of Intel? Good luck stopping that from happening. You know there's no such thing as permanence in politics in the United States of America. You're not going to stop a Democrat from one day winning re-election or getting into the White House. Having the government take control of a private corporation in exchange for government funding, First of all, they shouldn't even get government funding.

You should let Intel fall flat on its face for having a bad business decision and let the creative destruction of the marketplace pick them apart. Let other companies buy up their pieces or let them regroup. A government bailout? You know what this does is it causes a distortion in the marketplace, something called a moral hazard, where more and more companies realize they can take extraordinary risks and fall flat, irresponsible risks, not extraordinary risks, irresponsible risks.

and the government will just say, well, give me 10% of your company, and I'll make you right. That would be national suicide. That's literally a case for national suicide, is we should flat. It's like the auto companies. Don't bail them out. Let them fail. Okay, yeah, great. That'll be awesome.

For the people of Detroit, for any sort of manufacturing, during World War II, the U.S. took control of a – literally the war production board set the actual amounts that every company in the America had to produce. At many times, they would come in, seize the mines, seize the actual. factory floor. No strikes, none of this bullshit. This is the amount that we're pumping out today because we have actual national security concern. The idea there's no national security concern, again, on chips, is preposterous. We are in the opposite where we, it is one of the most glaring problems that we face as a country. It's like a slow moving crisis. Every single day that we move forward and we come to some sort of, quote, solution as the Chinese

like to call it to the Taiwanese question, we are so screwed. We literally, as a country, we would have to turn our laptops in. We'd probably have to stop broadcasting. We'd turn all of these computers in because the government would need to rip the chips out of them for missile production or any of that. People do not understand how vulnerable we are. Fabs and all that takes five, ten years to come online. It is so difficult, massively capital intensive. Again, the only reason the Taiwanese are where they are is because they subsidize the hell out of it, it's because they knew that we were so dumb that we would let our companies fail. And the best part is, Morris Chang, where do you think he learned everything that he got?

Here, from Texas Instruments. He came to America. He learned our system, and he's like, yeah, these guys are idiots. Went back to China. Went back to Taiwan. Game over. Killed us. Same with, you know, I mean, with the Koreans and more. So anyway, look, I understand your concern, but the benefit, actually, is, sure, three and a half years of Trump, it's probably going to be dumb, all right? Let's all be honest. But it's staying, and that's a good thing. We'll see. I think it's a good thing.

We'll see how it all pans out. I will say, at least Eric's is consistent. You know, the number of Republicans who, you know, panic over the five grocery stores and then they have nothing to say about this is pretty funny to me, pretty entertaining. Nobody actually believes that for its national security industry, they should leave it to the free market or creative destruction. Some people do? That guy does. I mean, this has been like, but you know a lot of people do in this town.

Because that's been the de facto policy for years. It's like, let's let all of the, you know, pharmaceuticals go overseas. Let's let, you know, also any sort of critical production. Let's not have any sort of a national strategy or, you know, and let's not care certainly at all about the way that we're destroying the lives of the working middle class in this country. I mean, that has been the policy. What Eric Erickson is describing, that continues by and large to be the policy of America.

And that's the issue. Right? I thought that we all fought against that. I thought that we, I mean, if you look at a poll or whatever, they would be like, it's preposterous the idea that you should not have a chip manufacturing or frankly, pharmaceutical manufacturing. Oil refineries, nuclear reactors, anything that sustains something. We are so, we are so outdated and increasingly embracing national suicide. And it's like watching it all happen every day is discussed. I just recently was talking when someone about the old, just the old, just the old. model of America in World War II, which a lot of people want to look at and venerate as a production, the country, the B-17, Boeing, and who we are. One of the benefits that we had as America was we were a country that was able to churn out all of this weaponry and these tanks. We did it with machines and with a population and a troop force, which knew how to do that to mobilize.

And what we were fighting were the Germans and the Japanese, who were people who didn't have mass production, but had highly special. like almost artistic types of manufacture, where for the Japanese zero or for the very first jet engine that the Germans were ever able to create, we're the Germans now, where are the Japanese? We have these crazy expensive B2 bombers and all this stuff. Do we have the fuel to fly them? Do we have all of the bombs or the ammunition or the chips to actually put into them? No, we're the Germans now. And putting it in that terms is really important for people to understand. Like we have moved away from that mass production economy to this highly specialized one that actually in a crisis would never be able to function. And that's really, honestly, it's scary. Like, Russia today is a much better model for a country who's able to survive as a result of a crisis. And so anyway, this puts us, hopefully, I think, on a better direction. Well, if it all ends with, you know, a Democrat coming in and nationalizing pharma, I will retrospectively say, yes, this is a good thing.

I mean, look, what Dem would be dumb enough not to at least say that on the campaign trail? Seriously. All of them? You really think so at this point? Maybe you're right. I don't know. Name one that would be like nationalized pharma. Somebody's got to say.

Or somebody's got to say something about it. I mean, yeah, maybe right. Maybe we're so captured. You think Gavin Newsom is going to say nationalized pharma? I don't know if there's that many farming countries. Gresh and Whitmer. These people are... I wonder where they all...

I didn't need to look into it for where their manufacturer bases are. Because, I mean, most of them are European anyways. Screw them, all right. December 29th. 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.

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go away just because you're avoiding it and in fact it may get even worse for more judge Management free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Moving on. Zero. That's a good segue to our socialist friend up in New York. So he's catching a lot of heat for this particular video of him. I guess this was something called Men's Day in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn, where they had all the weightlifting stuff out and a bunch of guys bench pressing, et cetera, on the sidewalk.

So they convince him to come in and give his go at, this is apparently 135 pounds that he is attempting to bench press here. Let's take a look. This is how you move up in the pole. This is how you move up in the pole. Yeah. Two, three. One, one.

Yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Let me get one more. Let me get one.

Let me get three. Let me get three. Let me get three. Yeah. All right. I look at that. I'm like, every time a good time, what's the problem? But this became a whole thing. Unfortunately, amongst fit bros, he's getting, but I am not a fit bro. I'm simply an observer. I would never claim that's stolen bowler. That is a, it's stolen valor. But anyway, I'm aware of the discourse in the fitness community. And he's getting ripped apart. Now, I did ask my trainer. And my trainer, and my The trainer says it's unfair because they didn't really give him a chance. So we didn't fully get to see whether he could actually do it.

For people who are just listening, the spotter is holding the bar the whole time. And so he doesn't fail, but he also doesn't really try, like, because the spotter is holding the bar the whole time. Yeah, exactly. So look, I mean, at the same time, politically, it hasn't ended up well, at least for him yet. Eric Adams and a lot of others are capitalizing on this. Here we have Eric Adams was put this on the screen. he says, quote, a lifetime of hard work versus a silver spoon. The results speak for themselves.

The weight of the job is too heavy for Momskrani. The only thing he can lift is your taxes. And I believe Andrew Cuomo has weighed in as well. D3, please. Let's put it up there on the screen. What have we got? Andrew Cuomo, it's easy to talk. It's hard to carry the burden.

This guy can't bench his own body weight, let alone carry the weight of leading the most important city in the world. I actually do want to know how much Cuomo can bench, because if you'll remember, his nipples were often very prominent in his shirts during COVID. Remember that comment that Trump made? Of course I do. Yeah. Listen, it was right. You know, he's right and right. It's protruding. Yeah, it's true. It's gross. All right. It's great. Put a damn, you know, put a jacket on, man, if that's your physique. Uh, anyway, this is, this has gone quite viral for Mr. Zoran. So anyway, I am curious. I do want to know what Cuomo can bench. I mean, it's, and whether Adams is on TRT. Because 64, lifting a lot, I mean, I'm skeptical, personally.

There's a whole dynamic in this campaign. It's also like a meme of them trying to like come up with the silliest scandals for Zoron. Like there was that whole remember thing about like his college admissions and the box he checked and whatever, all that sort of stuff. Or the other thing that like the New York Post loves to do is they love to pull the DSA platform and like find something in that and be like, Zoron supports this, even when he didn't say anything about that. I literally just fell for that. The headline was like, Zoron against misdemeanors. And I was like, man, what an idiot. And I started reading it.

And I was like, wait, this is the DSA platform. It's not the same thing. I was like, come on. He didn't say anything about that, but they'll just pull anything from the DSA platform. Anyway, so I do think this fits a little bit in that vein of like finding the silly as possible things. They're flaring. No, it's just funny.

I mean, it's personally fun. By the way, I don't bench press at the gym. My trainer doesn't have me do it because he thinks it makes him very injury prone but I have spoken to him and I will be doing the 135 challenge even though I don't think I've done a bench press in two years but I'm going to do it.

It would be pretty embarrassing if I couldn't consider my body. Yeah sure, I'll post a video. I'll do it here. I'll do the bench press challenge. I happily will. That's just one plate on each side. I mean, for my size and body weight, I believe I should be able to do 225.

That's like the you're supposed, isn't that the metric? You're supposed to be able to bench your own body weight. The one guy who is the goat in this is Jamal Bowman, who we've had in the show. Because he bench 400 pounds. That's impressive, man. He's very strong.

That is genuinely, like, shockingly impressive. He is very strong. Maybe we should book Jamal to give us a breakdown on all of this. He's a Zoran supporter, too. Zoran supporter who can bench 400. Yeah, actually we should, especially on his form. Because, again, I don't know enough about his form or whatever to see if it is. Jamal Bowman also, we had him on KKF, and we had him on our live stream when we're on one of the primary.

And he's just in his like giving zero fucks mode too. So he's fun to talk to right now because he will just spill all the tea about what he saw in Congress and his interactions with APAC and all of that. So in any case, it'd be fun to hear his thoughts on the race more broadly. The same time there, we've got a yet another genuine corruption scandal with regard to Eric Adams. the details of this are so preposter as we can put this up on the screen so um he has this lady who's affiliated with his campaign who does outreach to the chinese american community in the city and so apparently after some event she said you know she said oh meet me over at the whole foods because i want to give you something and so um this reporter walks over with greco

is the chinese american lady who's the advocate um for adams and And it says, while inside the store, Greco handed the reporter an open bag of chips with the top crumpled closed. The reporter thought it was an offer of a light snack and told Greco more than once she could not accept the chips, but Greco insisted that she keep them. The two parted ways before entering a nearby subway station, the reporter opens the bag and discovers a red envelope inside stuffed with cash. At least one $100 bill, several 20s. Reporter then called Greco and said, I can't accept this money. Asked if she was still nearby so she could give it back. Greco said she left the area. Reporter told her she had to take the money back. Greco said they could meet at some point in Chinatown. Reporter then texted Greco. I can't take this. When can I give it back to you? She did not get a response. In an interview later Wednesday, the city, that's this publication, asked Greco what her intention was in handing money to the reporter. In response, she'd said she'd made a mistake and apologized over and over.

And actually, her specific comments are really funny here. I don't know if we have them, but I'll just go ahead and read them because her explanation was kind of entertaining. She says, quote, I make a mistake. I'm so sorry. It's a culture thing. I don't know. I don't understand.

I'm so sorry. I feel so bad right now. I'm so sorry, honey. Then she called the city back advising that we call her attorney, Stephen Brill and adding, quote, can we forget about this? I try to be a good person. Please, please, please don't do in the news. nothing about me. I just wanted to be her friend. I just wanted to have one good friend. It's

nothing. So, um, there you go. Um, another interesting. Let's put Eric Adams response. If I'm this guy. You just can't make it up. D5. So there were some other issues with the same Chinese American lady. There was like, she roped a campaign volunteer into helping her remodel her home. She lived at some hotel for months at a time that was supposed to be for formerly and incarcerated people. There's all kinds of stuff going on with this lady. In any case, when Mayor Adams was asked about these findings previously, he deflected and downplayed his relationship to Greco, saying he hadn't spoken to her about the allegations. When I see her, I say, nihau. You know, that's hello, he told the press. So that was his explanation of all of this.

Well, wasn't her defense also? She's like, I'm Chinese. That's just part of our culture. Yeah, just like Cuomo is Italian. So he's not. He's not. a sexual harasseries, just to tell you. A little dicey there. Also, if you're going to bribe somebody, you got to do more than $140. I mean, what are we doing here? These are, you know, these are local reporters. It's tough times.

You know, it's tough times. The news industry is in free fall. A couple hundred bucks? I don't know. I can make a difference. Adams, yeah, he's just one of the greatest ever do it. I'm going to miss him. He really am.

He was great. So the cartoonish level of corruption with this man. I long ago lost count, Ross Barkin could break it down for us, of the number of AIDS who were indicted, under investigation. This lady herself had previously been under investigation. I think she had like an FBI where her stuff seized previously if memory serves correctly. But it's just, you know, he's just, it's like a throwback, you know, to old school decades ago levels of

big city, machine level corruption. And there was one other thing that was interesting about this, which is after the city gets their bag of cash and reports it all out and reports her to whatever the Ethics Commission is, et cetera, or law enforcement, then the New York Times publishes this piece that's like, yeah, reporters also saw cash being exchanged in these envelopes from the campaign. And it's like, why didn't you report that? Totally, I agree. That is the sketches. It's so weird, right? I don't know. I just, it's just so assumed to be a part of the Adams campaign that they didn't even find it newsworthy. I've seen a lot of corrupt shit here in Washington, I actually have never seen cash change ends. That's the one thing where everything is

supposed to be, you know, oh, here's some free drinks, and here's a free dinner, and you get to come to this, and oh, you know, if you're on your way there, you can ride on my jet. If you want, everything is supposed to be soft. Like, you're not supposed to be able to prove it. Actual actual cash exchanging hands is wild. That's like Tammany Hall level stuff. Adams needs to, he just needs to launch his own shit coin. Yeah, exactly. I know. That's much smart. People can just fuddle him cash via that because that's apparently a thing that politicians can do now, no problem whatsoever. So Zoron, as a little tongue-in-cheek response

to this latest scandal from Eric Adams and also just, I guess, because they came up with this idea, he actually did a citywide scavenger hunt over the weekend, and here is how he announced that. Hello, my friends, I have to come clean. I have something to hide. Many things, in fact, because we're doing a scavenger hunt. No, no, no, no.

Actually, we are doing a scavenger hunt across New York City. when you arrive at the location, look for a campaign volunteer who will mark off your card and give you a clue to the next location. At the first stop, you'll get this card. At the final stop, you'll find a special surprise. Not a lot of cash.

So make sure you go all the way to the end. So for those of you, again, are just listening, he starts with, like, the bag of chips. And he's like, oh, I've got something to hide here. And it's the same type of chip in which the envelope of cash had been stuffed. So that's a reference there or whatever. But I love the scavenger hunt thing.

I don't know. It's like millennial cringe, I guess. People are saying, but I support it. I love the celebration of New York. That's really a key ethos of the Zoron campaign. It's personally making me very nostalgic for the city of New York and for the time period that I live there. And apparently there's a huge response. We could put this up on the screen the images while you say what you thought about it. On the one hand, thousands of people who showed up for this freaking thing. On the one hand, Scavenger Huns, Pokemon Go and all of this stuff is deeply cringe. millennial. On the other, we do have a crisis of community and people going outside and doing things. So I guess that's important. It's kind of like, it's kind of like, what's it called? Like pickleball. You know, the people in the tennis community really hate pickleball because it's taking over the courts and all of that. Yeah. But it's the fastest growing sport in the country. I agree. It looks silly. Every time I play it, I feel a bit silly. It's kind of fun. It has zero-barrier entry. And, you know, anything that gets people moving gets outside is probably a good.

good thing. So anyway, sorry tennis people. Your courts, we're seizing them. We're taking them over. And I feel similarly about this. Personally, I do think scavenger hunting is cringe. I would not engage. But, you know, if I was there, I would have done it. It gets people to, if it gets people outside, it gets people doing something, go for it. One of my favorite things to do when I lived in the city was just to explore New York. Because you could explore that city and five boroughs for your entire life and constantly, every time, find something new, interesting, unexpected, etc. the spirit of that, I am a full supporter of the Zoron scavenger home.

I mean, look, you know, we didn't say that everything wouldn't be cringe, but it can also be good, so, you know, you never know. 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. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline,

physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Super Secret Festi Club podcast season four is here. And we're locked in. That means more juicy cheesement. Terrible love advice. Evil spells to cast on your ex.

No, no, no. We're not doing that this season. Oh, well, this season, we're leveling up. Each episode will feature a special bestie, and you're not going to want to miss it. Get in here! Today, we have a very special guest with us. Our new super secret bestie is the diva of the people. The diva of the people. I'm just like text your ex.

My theory is that if you need to figure out that the stove is hot, go and touch it. Go and figure it out for yourself. Okay. That's us. That's us. My name is Curley. And I'm Maya. In each episode, we'll talk about love, friendship, heartbreaks, men, and, of course, our favorite secrets.

Listen to the Super Secret Bestie Club as a part of the Mycultura podcast network available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Last week, UN-backed experts with the IPC or integrated food security classification system, officially declared Gaza City in a state of man-made famine. only the fourth such declaration made in that organization's history. Here you can see the steady rise in those facing emergency levels of food insecurity and catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Already, Gaza City has reached that organization's metrics for an official famine declaration with 35% of households at that catastrophic mark

and another 55% at the emergency level. The other regions of the Gaza Strip are also on track for famine if a ceasefire and surge in aid. is not immediately achieved, with conditions worsening everywhere. The authors of the report sounded a dire warning saying, quote, if a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies and basic health nutrition and sanitation and water services are not restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially.

Now, will Israel use this official report to take a step back, reflect on how they could have lost their way so badly, as to go from genocide victims to genocide perpetrators in just a few generations, or even just to consider with shame the way that they've torched their reputation as a civilized nation with the entire rest of the world. Obviously not. Instead, they waged an immediate all-out war to try to deny the veracity of this assessment. Pseudoscience propaganda reports were crafted. Netanyahu, of course, called it a blood libel. and official Israeli Hasbara influencers were dispatched to debunk the claims. But the real high- IQ genocide denial take came directly from the Israel Twitter account.

Here, they claim that the IPC lowered their standard to 15% malnutrition in order to unjustly smear Israel. In other countries, the IPC declares famine at 30% malnutrition. In Gaza only, the UN-backed IPC lowered the bar to 15% and it is based on unreliable data. They didn't find famine, so they forged one. This, of course, is total and complete bullshit. A made-up lie to deflect and to confuse you. Refugees International President Jeremy Conundike posted an excellent thread to explain the trick that Israel is trying to pull here. He points out that, first of all, the exact same metric was used for declaring famine

in Sudan just last year. So right under the gate, this whole blood libel anti-Semitism double-standard claim from Israel is completely blown up. The TLDR is this. There are two different assessments which can be used to determine famine conditions, both of which have been used by the IPC in the past. One is weight for height, which is basically a BMI metric, and the other is MUAC, or mid-Upper-Arm circumference. Conn-Dyke writes that both are valid ways of assessing global acute malnutrition in a population and in line with IPC guidance. Mid-upper-arm circumference is often used when assessors have limited access, as is the case in Gaza due to Israel's decimation of the health care system and attacks on international aid workers.

These two different metrics also have two different thresholds for famine designation. Here, so you know, is the relevant chart. You can see that for the BMI wait-for-height metric, 30% of children must be bounderish for it to be deemed a famine. For the mid-upor-arm circumference test, the threshold for failure. Phase 5 famine is 15% of children, which is what was met in Gaza City. As to why the different tests merit different thresholds, Conndyke writes the following, quote, because they measure different physical characteristics, weight for height, and MUAC often manifest at different levels within the same population.

A lower MUAC usually equates to a higher weight for height gam, that's a famine measurement. Hence the different thresholds of 15% and 30%. So essentially, mid-upper arm circumference is a more stringent criteria. So if you're seeing 15% in trouble using that criteria, you would likely have measured more than 30% if you were able to do a full wait for height assessment. The Israelis are not stupid. They know all of this.

They're just hoping you are stupid and that you won't look past their surface-level assertions and that the process is rigged or to be so terrified about being accused of anti-Semitism that you will back down at the first challenge. There are other high acute genocide denial claims, though, and they are similarly dishonest. Israel claims that Gaza City did not yet actually cross even that 15% assessed child malnutrition threshold as required in July. In fact, the report breaks July into two halves. In the second half of July, the threshold was in fact breached, clearly demonstrating the trend is towards

worsening conditions and that the most recent data is, in fact, indicative of phase five famine. Israel also claims that Gaza has not met the threshold for famine based on the number of deaths from starvation. Here, too, they are lying and they are gaslighting you. The IPC standards take into account all famine-related deaths, not solely those in which the sole cause is starvation. As Nirhassen writes for Horowitz, quote, mass hunger is not only a medical issue caused by food shortage. It is a total collapse of the systems that sustained life. Elderly people and infants die because their immune systems are weakened. They suffer infections from living in tents without sewage or clean water. Chronically ill patients die because they cannot

access treatment or special food or are too weak to travel to clinics. Premature births and pregnancy complications are rising and this is only a partial list. In other words, ignoring those deaths in which starvation was a contributing factor is the equivalent of claiming that there was no Holocaust because actually Anne Frank died of typhus. But this is far from the only area where Israeli propagandists echoed the despicable claims of Nazis and Holocaust deniers. The Israeli government has been busy pushing their influencer cutouts to back up all of their genocide denial. According to Harats, the Israeli Diaspora Affairs Ministry sponsored influencers to take PR trips to the GHF aid massacre sites, where they, of course, dutifully reported back that all was well and no one was starving.

Propagandists like A.L. Yakobi have been busily reposting videos purporting to show Gaza grocery stores chock full of food and Palestinians out there enjoying lavish spreads of food. You should be very skeptical of all of these photos and videos. There have been a bunch of instances where they were actually old videos or for somewhere else entirely. But even when they are actually from Gaza in the present day, they prove nothing. And as Zed Jalani writes, they come straight out of the playbook of Holocaust denial. Drawing the parallel, Zed rights of the way a few restaurants in the Warsaw Ghetto were used to claim that Jews were not only just fine, but they were actually gluttonous. Quote, the Nazis didn't have access to social media, but they did have cameras. They used these restaurants in the ghetto to portray an image of Jews getting fat off of plentiful food, ignoring the mass hunger and violence that gripped ordinary life in the ghetto.

The following is the recollection from Samuel Puderman, who was there. The guests were supposed to eat a lot, voraciously, and washed down the food without. alcohol, he said. They were filming waiters, bustling around the tables, laden with trays on which gourmet delicacies were piled up. They photographed the general view of the crowded room, single ladies who were ordered to lift up their dresses high, Jews eating sardines from the can with their fingers, Jews playing under the table with the bare calves of the female companions of the libation, Jews throwing half-eaten goose quarters under the table. The film reel did not show fainting women and the black and blue faces a people hit with a whip. Yacobie and his elk

are pulling the same detestable trick, showing a few decadent-looking scenes and claiming this is remotely representative, daring you to disbelieve the doctors, the experts, Palestinians themselves, and what you can see with your own eyes on your own timeline every single day. Heretz did a virtual tour recently of Gaza hospitals, and they found exactly the horrific conditions you would expect among a trapped, starved, bombed population. Child after child, with bones jutting out, abdomens distended, full body rashes from the diarrhea caused by malnutrition and poor sanitation. There's little Amar, an infant whose hair was faded to a reddish brown,

whose mom was too starved to breastfeed and too poor to purchase the $100 per tin formula, so she fed him all that she had, corn starch in water. Doctors say if he survives, his brain will be permanently damaged, and he will suffer lifelong, severe retardation. There's Shamm, a tiny two-year-old, weighing less than 10 pounds. She was a healthy child just before October 7th. Now her body is wasted.

Her face is that of an old man. Her family, too, could find no milk substitute for her. The doctor caring for Shams said, quote, as you can see, she's in a miserable situation. She's always crying. She's always suffering. Tell me they aren't real, you see. sick freaks, you disgusting monsters. Tell me I'm an anti-Semite for believing that their lives

matter too. Your lies, you're gaslighting, your number games are so paper-thin, I can't imagine you even find them convincing yourselves. I hope that these babies whose lives you've stolen haunt you for the rest of your days. You are utterly disgusting and a disgrace to humanity. Saugger, I have lost words to describe how despicable I find this game that they're playing. I hate that I had to spend... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breaking points.com. 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. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life.

That was my dad. reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who live through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us.

going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance, and the tools we use for healing. The unwanted sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's lock in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Super Secret Festi Club podcast season four is here. And we're locked in. That means more juicy chees-me. Terrible love advice. Evil spells to cast on your ex.

No, no, no, no, we're not doing that this season. Oh, well, this season, we're leveling up. Each episode will feature a special bestie, and you're not going to want to miss it. Get in here! Today, we have a very special guest with us. Our new super secret bestie is the diva of the people. The diva of the people. I'm just like, text your ex.

My theory is that if you need to figure out that the stove is hot, go and touch it. Go and figure it out for yourself. Okay. That's us. That's us. My name is Curley. And I'm Maya. In each episode, we'll talk about love, friendship, heart breaks, men, and, of course, our favorite secrets.

Listen to the Super Secret Bestie Club as a part of the Michael Thura podcast network available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Very excited now to be joined by Shahed Goreshi is a former State Department employee who was summarily fired recently. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Fired this official over internal debates over Israel. Garaci recommended expressing condolences for slain journalists in Gaza and exposing the forced displacement of Palestinians, according to documents reviewed. He was then fired days later. So, Shide, thank you so much for joining us on the show. We appreciate it. Glad to be here. All right. So let's start off with the top. You were recently fired from the State Department. The State Department says that they won't comment, but they're basically accusing you of leaking.

It appears that a lot of this comes down to internal debates over Israel. First and foremost was about this journalist statement. So why don't you describe this statement what it was and why you think it got it got you fired? Sure. So Sunday, August 10th, we got the breaking news that Anas and his colleagues were killed in Gaza while sleeping in a tent. It's very common when you're in a press officer to receive one-off questions from reporters. Right. So we got what's submitted is what's your response, the general open-ended.

Somebody like me is like, hey, what's the government's response? Exactly. And when you read an article, you'll often read a state department spokesperson said X. That's usually us emailing, one of the press office emailing the op-ed or the journalist. And so in that specific instance, I drafted, we're still gathering information, just still true. Like, it just broke. And my second bullet was we are sharing condolences, which is, I think, a human and, response that's also in line with U.S. interests.

We do want to have that line out there. And immediately, I was told that we don't know what happened and we don't know what he did, so to pause. And then by tomorrow, by the next day, August 11th, which was the Monday, Israel said that he was Hamas and then that was the line we ended up going with by the press briefing. Okay. And so that, how did that lead to your firing?

I think this is the first. Right. I think it was a buildup. So that was the Sunday. Monday, I drafted a line saying we were against forced displacement of Ghazans to South Sudan. Okay. They cut that line out. And I think that was some sort of flag for them as well.

And then by day three, I think the nail in the coffin was me removing the line in reference to Judea and Samaria in my press guidance that was not in line with anything the State Department had been saying at the time, but it's something that the senior officials at Embassy Jerusalem wanted. So at that

point, I was flagged up and by Sunday I was gone. Okay. Which senior officials? And What is your, did they directly sort of confront you about these, about you, you know, expressing condolences for journalists and saying, hey, it's the West Bank, not Judea and Samaria, by the way. What is your, how did you gain the understanding that those are the reasons why they let you go? Sure. So some of it's obviously the Washington Post reporting, but from my end, it was David Milstein that was often pushing a particular agenda in the building. And this is Ambassador Huckabee's

senior advisor. Okay. And he would often, uh, ask for certain lines or certain statements. I know the Washington Post reported on the Ireland statement, and he would go around the building and try to get this through. And it was, in a more basic level, it was very annoying to, like, navigate his request. In that particular instance with the Judean Samaria line, that's not a line. Ambassador Huckabee is using it, but it wasn't common for anyone in D.C. to use it.

Explain why. What does that matter? Judean Samaria versus West Bank and Gaza. Because that was erasure for the Palestinians living in, in the West Bank. And it also really undermines our relationship with our partners in the region. And third, it's for an Israeli audience. So it makes sense for Ambassador Huckabee to want to use those terms. Sure.

And at that point, I wasn't the only one in the building that wanted that removed. And so I went in, cut that line. The line we had been using for the West Bank, which was a very general response. It was like we support stability in the West Bank, which protects Israeli. security and like saying we support stability in West Bank could be perceived with someone who is a pro-Israel hardliner as like somehow maybe if you're in that mindset condemning Israel because like oh you're saying that we're not we're making unstable by doing this thing I think that's how it's perceived even though I think it's a very standard kind of simple line and by the next day Wednesday I was asked by

people in the spokesperson office that who draft who tried to draft that line and they want to connect with Milstein to discuss it around me. So if they're having discussions with Milstein on Wednesday and those three events happened in a row, and then on Thursday and Friday, which happened to me the last two days, I didn't know, it was odd. The question I was receiving from a number of people in leadership in NEA twice, once Thursday and again Friday morning was, where did that line of Monday come from about forced displacement? I was like, that line on Monday, that was like four days ago.

Why are you, why are people asking about it four days later? And I was asked to compile, like, an entire history of where, like, the evidence of how I cleared it. I was like, I have evidence of clearing this. And Special Envoy Whitkoff and President Trump technically said something similar in the spring. So I'm very in line with what the administration had been saying. But that seemed to be the excuse at that point. Can you explain what is your understanding of what the administration's policy is vis-a-vis Gaza? Well, that's, it's a good question because I'm moving forward with my firing, I think it's going to become even more radical, which is, I know, shocking, but I think the language is going to lean into terms like Judean Samaria or maybe more passive on these forced displacement ethnic cleansing rumors that are coming through.

So that's my concern moving forward. Now, in the past, on West Bank or Two-State Solution, we didn't really have a straight response. It was always, hey, what's a review on a Tuesday solution? And it would be something like President Trump understands how, I don't know, I can't, I don't use the right words, but it was like something like, it's messy, so we're not there right now. We need things, we need to release hostages and get a thing settled. So basically a deflection. A deflection.

Yeah. Okay, so now that you have been fired, you can speak freely. How long have you worked at State? How long have we worked at State? September 2024 was when I started. Okay. I started as the, this is not what I was technically hired for, but because of capacity issues, I ended up covering Lebanon Jordan Press right off the bat, which was a very quick start because Lebanon was very hot at the time. Got it.

And then in January, I was officially asked to cover Israeli-Palestinian affairs, which was odd as a contractor I had just started. You don't typically put that person covering that file. Because it's very sensitive. So for your own person, so basically what I heard is, oh, he's a Democrat, of course you fired him. Yeah. So what's your response to that? That's not true because day-to-day, if I was an activist in the building, even the quote that Tommy used in Washington Post piece, that I was some activists, I would have been fired much quicker, if this is to be short. Like, if I was going in fighting on every single line, that would have hit up really quick red flags.

I did, there were flags I did make. I would go up to leadership and be like, hey, like on the podium, because I'm only controlling press lines. I have no influence or policy. I'm just controlling language, right? So give me an example. of like the yeah like what something you would flag on the day-to-day lines it was difficult because I'm going through a clearance process but I would look back I was look at the guidance and I'd be like

this is pretty hard line and I would brief it like I was doing my job at the same time I would go behind the scenes and be like hey these lines are at the very least they're not very empathetic like when we're discussing fame and a month ago it was worried that the language was just like you can if you want to do a hard line language on the podium you can acknowledge that you're seeing horrific photos before you make your argument, but that wasn't even happening. So I was like we at the, on the strategic level, there's a moral imperative, but on a strategic level, it just looks parable at the podium.

Let's talk a little bit more about that moral imperative. We can put this next element up on the screen. I suspect you probably have seen this news this morning. This is just horrific video of these are a combination of, these are a combination of journalists and medical work personnel and people who are there trying to rescue people who are on the scene. This is a double-tap strike. There's been a documented history of the IDF using these double-tap strikes, not only to kill whoever they originally wanted to kill, but then to kill any rescuers who are coming to the

scene, something that's been reported out. You obviously, part of what got you in trouble was just the very basic, hey, we express condolences for these journalists who were killed. And we know there have been hundreds of journalists who have been killed in the context of, you know, of the Israelis targeting them inside of Gaza. How is a professional, did you grapple with your own, you know, sort of moral standing on this topic?

And I don't say this to put you on the spot. I'm just genuinely curious, like, day-to-day, as someone who's trying to go in there and do the best you can and figure out, okay, what is the administration saying and what is our line for journalists? how are you absorbing those images and how are you thinking about your own sort of role in this capacity? No, it's a very good question. And in terms of like my personal views, they're not

wrong. I just didn't show it as often a day to day when I was doing my job. So it was, it was an issue. And it was something that like particular colleagues that we would discuss because I wasn't the only one because it could be an, the Israel file could, but could be another one too throughout the building. So there was, there was two, I think, response to that. One, like I said to the last thing, was I was like flagged with people in leadership that I would trust that certain try to make small changes. I do think those small changes do matter, not just because you're an activist in the building, but because it's in line with U.S. interests. Because you can just be outside protesting, but you're just outside, right? So I think that's important to have that balance.

And then two, this is a very more strategic response that I stepped back and looked at, President Trump's words. And if you look, we started with a ceasefire in that context. And in the region, we were talking with the Iranians, for example. So I had on a macro level some hopes that even though these lines are difficult right now in this moment, there could be a chance that something could come about. But it was getting worse, not better by the summer. Because by June, we're bombing Iran.

And now the embassy Jerusalem really took over. the pushback that I did see a little bit. Let's talk about that, because that's what I'm curious about. There has been a flippening, right, in the initial policy, from ceasefire, talking with the Iranians, talking with Putin, to now it's like the opposite. So you talk about there, the embassy in Jerusalem. What was your observation having seen that from the inside? How did we go from Steve Whitkoff, constantly going to Doha, talking about ceasefires,

or meeting with the Iranians, so then using that as cover to bomb them? and then also for basically allowing my cockabee to have carte blanche over the Israel policy. That's good question. So on the White House level, I can't say because President Trump, I don't know what phone calls he's having day to day, that like that's shifting his direction. Yeah. But on my end, what I'm noticing is people were, I remember people when President Trump was elected inaugurated, people were happy that the Pompeos and the Bolton's and Nikki Haley's were gone. All true. These are all positive developments.

And then you would see, you know, Elon was talking to the certain, like, the Iranians in one end. And so they're really small. And the Bikoff wanted to make deals on to end the war in Ukraine, wanted to end the war in Gaza, wanted to make a deal with Iranians. So I do think that the personnel is still an issue. Like, people are glad that John Bolton might not be there. But having Secretary Rubio and Huckabee is kind of the same thing, but a more sneaky level, right? You don't, it's not as in your face as Bolton. But Secretary Rubio does kind of mirror some of President Trump's language.

Like he wants peace. He wants to end wars. But if you look at his team, it's all like a number of Heritage Foundation guys. Now, you can say it's his prerogative. Of course, it's President Trump one. He's going to have Heritage Foundation guys on his team. But on foreign policy, that's not in line with what his agenda was supposed to be. And the same thing goes with Ambassador Huckabby there.

So they're going to say that I was some political activists. I think they're the political activists that are undermining what President Trump claimed to have wanted and campaigned on initially. Got it. With regard to Huckabee, we saw one moment where there was a little bit of pushback from him on the Israelis after they had, what was it? They had, like, bombed a church, right? Yeah, it was Christians. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And there was some sort of statement that went out. And then after that, he just went back to being, you know, totally on board with the most extreme versions of the Netanyahu government. from the inside, what were the issues that were most difficult for this administration to grapple with? Because it seemed like, yeah, when Christians were being killed and attacked, that was one that was hard for them to ignore and hard for them just to accept. Were there other things like that that you saw that were like, you know, a little bit difficult for them to just totally do the pro-Israel spin on? The Christian thing was the only, like, Christians being targeted in a, by settlers in the West Bank and the church in Gaza was the only time I saw some verbal accountability. He even had a statement, like, I was shocked at the time that was like houses of worship must be protected, like in, I don't remember the exact language. We brought up mosques.

I'm like, well, but, yeah, right. Like, there's more you can say there. So that was the only accountability that I saw. What was frustrating is that every time there was a settler attack that was horrific, or the case with a, the. with the journalists, or just your, like, terrible air strike that killed X number of Palestinians and Gaza, it was always defer to Israel. And so it was like, well, we can defer to the government of Israel to explain their air strike. Well, okay, so then here's the question. So did you work on any other countries while you were in a state, any other portfolios? It was Lebanon. It was

Lebanon Jordan. I started for a few months, but that shifted by. So based on your observation, is there any country else in the world that we treat with the same level of? deference inside of the state department. Give me an example from on the inside. No, no. So if someone had an issue, we would, we would always have our own intelligence or our own commentary on every issue. Now, I can't think of one off the top of my head, but like in the Lebanon-Jordan-Jordan case, maybe we would have a lot of our lines had accountability. Like we would say, again, it's a different administration. And again, there are issues there too, obviously, but just in terms of language, and again, I'm working with words, not with policy.

So I'll use that as an example, but there would be airstrikes against, like, these Roman ruins in Lebanon. Then they would be like, oh, these sites need be protected or journalists must be protected. And we would have those lines built in very easily. It was very, like, made sense. But we're immediately, like, even in the case with Anas, the line that our response was, like, don't respond. We don't know what he did. You're already preempting the refer to Israel line. It's not like, oh, let's check.

You could say... Before they even came out. Before they even came out. Before they even came out. Yeah. Yeah. They were even, yeah, they're already saying, what did he do? And so it's like, okay, let's say you want to, you're the government, you're the

U.S. government. You wanted your due diligence. You don't want to go out. You don't have to respond right away. You're not tweeting your policy. If you want to say, hey, let's give it 48 hours. We'll check our sources. And then on Tuesday at the daily press briefing, then we'll give condolences.

That I would understand. But they already been doing that. It was like, he probably did something, you know, and then. next day, Israel comes out with those. So it's just total deference. Total difference. We witnessed some of this publicly in the context of the decision to join Israel in striking Iran.

Tulsi Gabbard famously testified, hey, you know, we don't see any indication that they're pursuing a nuclear weapon. Then the justification given by the Trump administration was actually reliant on Israeli intelligence versus our own intel assessment. Were you witness to any of that and how that played down internally. Right. Well, it went from third people like, I mean, I'm not, I wasn't working on that file per se, but obviously you have your colleagues are in the building, you talk to you were working on it and whatnot. And what I would hear is that from, it went from certain people

being like, oh, we're close, what the next steps were, the negotiations, to all of a sudden, like, oh, well, even certain people were closer to the administration. Oh, well, Iran didn't respond to are the deal we have on table. That was like, like, two weeks ago, those same people might have said, like, over, we might get a deal done. So it was quick to follow. It's a very, like, on a more macro level,

it's more like a MAGA thing, right? You're kind of like, you're there with them when it's the talks are happening, they're with them when the bombs are dropping. So, but on the level of the intelligence and Tulsi, just on the personal front, that was ridiculous because she, because they were automatically

you were undermining her own words from the, I think was a congressional, discussion. Yeah, from just months earlier. Were there people, so we talked about some of the problems and how could be effectively taking over a lot of policy vis-à-vis Israel, were there people who you worked with or who you interacted with who were really trying to take a different approach who were upset about the, you know, using diplomacy with Iran as basically cover to allow Israel to bomb them, who were, you know, looking to acknowledge journalists shouldn't be murdered during a war, were there people who were looking for that different approach and who were committed

to it and, you know, sort of fighting that fight on the inside? In general, I think the, like, the political appointees do have the lead, so it's difficult to make those changes. But when you're, when you have influence, I'm just doing it even on a mid-level, like, me as a press officer, you can have those discussions. There are people that, like, yeah, we're political appointees that you can have a sit-down discussion with and be like, hey, this isn't right. And there were actually people that were easier to talk to than others, right?

knew who to talk to. It was a bit of a tightrope constantly of like, okay, like even saying this with this person might be what might be a flag, but with this person, I can have this discussion. And it was sometimes it was, it could have been effective. And I think those small changes, I know people on the outside might be like, like, why were you there or whatever, but those small changes do make a difference. Because then someone says something about, hey, this airstrike was wrong or we have provided condolences. That leads to then journalists being able to provide accountability because they'll say, hey, you said X then. Right. When if you go a full hard line, then, that's your policy. So is that your assessment now with your firing?

That's where you think things. I mean, it's already kind of was the policy, but you just think it'll be even more matters. Yeah, like, it is. So if, if my replacement or whoever goes in front me, who knows, I'm not sure what's going to happen. I think they realize that, like, I mean, it's going to be a political point here, whatever. I'm not sure. But no one's going to want to push back after what happened to me. And I wasn't someone who was like a random press officer. Like I was pretty well established. I was the guy not only was like was doing the longest briefings.

I made my colleagues in the room. I had to do a full like 20 minute briefing with the spokesperson whereas someone else might be much shorter. I was also the person who was going on social level, organizing the happy hours with just internally or reporters. I was like in a position of I felt very secure and I was close with a lot of colleagues. And so to go from that and in fire. firing me very quickly, I think it sends like a chilling effect through the building and an

NEA of tow the line. And now, what's the spokesperson going to do? They're going to listen to the next press officer, or are they going to call the David Milstein's of the world, or him specifically, before he goes to the podium, to make sure he's covered? Right. And do you think that was part of the intent in firing you was to send that chilling? Oh, I do. Yeah, send that message. 100%. Well, Chad, we appreciate you joining us, ma'am. It's a lot of insight. I think the audience we'll find it very insightful. Yeah, I certainly did. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks so much for watching, guys. We appreciate it. See you tomorrow. We're not doing that this season. Oh, well, this season, we're leveling up. Each episode will feature a special Bestie, and you're not going to want to miss it.

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