Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/28/25: Graham Platner Vs Susan Collins, Ana Kasparian Stuns CNN, Alleged Israeli P3DO Skips Court, Jeff Sachs Dire Warning

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Graham Platner challenges Susan Collins, Ana Kasparian stuns CNN panel, alleged Israeli pedo skips court, Jeffrey Sachs dire warning on Israel.   Graham Platner: https://www.grahamforsenate.com/ Jeff Sachs: https://www.jeffsachs.org/    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.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hello, it's Danielle Fischel. Rider Strong. And Will Ferdell from PodMeets World. We are back in Las Vegas and giving the people what they want. A full week of Y2K content. Tell me why. Well, for the Backstreet Boys residency, it's fear, of course.

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Then everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. Terrorism. 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. Why are TSA rules so confusing?

You got a hood of you. I'll take it off. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do.

Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No such thing. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist.

anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. We are very excited to be joined this morning by Graham Platner. He is a Democratic Senate candidate in the state of Maine, challenging. Ultimately, if he gets through the primary, Susan Collins, who obviously been there for quite a while. In addition, he is a veteran and he is an oyster man.

And he joins us this morning. Great to meet you, Graham. Oh, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, of course. So let's start with what made you jump in the race? I mean, at his core, I really love the state of Maine. I was born and raised here. I got to come after here or come home here after my time overseas.

We've got a really unique way of life up here, I think. There's a lot of kind of hard scrabble making it work. Most people I know have two or three jobs, lots of seasonal work, lots of non-traditional stuff like clamming, oyster farming, lobster fishing. And it's just a, it's a really unique place and it's allowed me to feel very grounded and connected. And I love it. And right now it feels like a lot of the underlying structures that allowed us to

live the way that we do up here are really beginning to fall apart. And, uh, uh, uh, U.S. Senate race is pretty much the, uh, this is the place. This is the way to get in the fight if I want to really be able to fight for this place. Yeah. And people who've been talking to the media who've known you for a long time have been saying, um, that you've been the same Graham, you know, basically your whole life. But and now, and now you're taking that to the kind of Senate race level. And so I want to ask about that, but I want to preface it with a crazy story, uh, which, the audience should know you would be maybe the second bartender

serving in Congress but you would be the first one that I knew when he was a bartender so Graham for people who don't know Graham bartended at the Tune In which is a bar on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol went while he was a student at GW

which to your great credit you didn't finish which I think is a feather in your cap and while there you worked Friday Saturday Sunday nights at the Soon in, I was off and there, I was there basically every Sunday night and some Fridays and Saturdays with some other city, Washington City paper crew, and then later Huffington Post crew, back before we had kids.

And when you jumped in, I reached out to Ned, who was another bartender there, who had gone to college with my brother and my brother and I went to the same school. He was better friends with my brother. But I know Ned well. I was like, Ned, is this the same Graham? And he's like, Graham is running for Senator. He sure is. I was like wow that's that's amazing um so I hope I tipped well I hope I left a good impression

no I have nothing but good memories Ryan so excellent I have very I have very few memories but so so to the to the point of you being the same guy your whole life this is something I've seen people ask and I wanted to get your your story on it which is so you're you're in high school I think when you went and protested Bush's speech and Maine. You went and protested in 2002 in the run-up to the war in Iraq. You know, in your yearbook, you've got free Palestine, free Kashmir, free Tibet, you're most likely to lead a revolution. And then you enlist. And so a lot of people have been like, why did you do that? Like you were kind of eyes wide open in a way that other people who enlisted weren't. And so walk us

through your decision to enlist out of, was it right out of high school? Yeah, I took a quick break to go work in the Appalachian, in the Appalachian Mountains. But, yeah, I mean, I graduated, went to the woods for a while and then joined the Corps. All right. Well, why? Like, what, what drew you to that, given that you were already a little bit skeptical about U.S. adventurism abroad? Yeah, I mean, it's really, it's, I think it's two things.

On one hand, there was the, you know, I've all, I don't know how to quite explain this, but I'd always wanted to take part in something much bigger than myself. I'd always wanted to take part in, yeah, like big things. Like I do believe in service. I very much believe in doing what you can for your community. And, you know, the United States, military service is just culturally a big part of that. There was a draw there, but as you mentioned, I was clearly skeptical of certain bits of American foreign policy. And the other part of it, though, was that, like, I was 19 and I was looking for an adventure.

And I certainly got one. Tied into that, though, was this idea back then, and I've been mostly disabused of it by now, but this idea that if you go out there on the cutting edge, I joined the infantry. I was a machine gunner in the Marine Corps. if you're out there where all the bad things are happening, if you're a decent person, if you can maybe bring a little bit of decency into an indecent thing, I did believe that when I was a kid. It is true to an extent, but inside of a much larger failed policy, failed strategy. You know, it's obviously there's only so much you can do. And, and I had to learn that the hard way. I, yeah. So it's my, it's been funny. A lot of people have asked me about this, about my military service. And it's kind of like how it runs up against kind of my, my politics in some ways. And, you know, to me, it never really did. It was all kind of the same thing. I wanted to go out there and see, I wanted to see the reality. I didn't want to read about it. I wanted to know if I was, going to be opinionated about things.

I wanted to make sure that I actually knew what the hell I was talking about. And sadly, with war, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to just read about it and feel like you've gotten all of the information. And that was one of the things that took me there. Where were you deployed? And what was that experience like? What did you sort of learn through that experience? Yeah, I mean, I joined the core in early,

2004, and I deployed within a year. My first deployment was to outside of Fallujah in 2005. Did that for seven months. Came back in August of 05, immediately began preparing for our deployment to Ramadi, which we went to, I think, five or six months later. Back then, I mean, home time was limited. We were just rolling from deployment to deployment. Went to Ramadi in 06. That was incredibly violent, incredibly, I would say, complicated. It was a hard one. After that, we got back. A number of us who'd been around the block at that point,

all extended our enlistments so we could go on a third deployment. We felt a real sense of duty to the younger guys who had come in. And so we stuck around myself and a number of the other NCOs for our third deployment, which wound up being a marine expeditionary unit. So we wound up primarily bouncing around the medical. Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, doing stuff in support of OIF, but not, we didn't go into Iraq. Not that time. And then I wound up getting out briefly, frankly, getting kind of bored.

I went to GW for a brief moment, and all my friends were still deploying. So I re-enlisted, and I tried to go back in the core, but I had forearm tattoos, which at the time was not okay. and so I wound up join the United States Army who did not care about my forum tattoos and I became a long-range surveillance company I became a reconnaissance team leader and I deployed to Afghanistan in 10 and 11 with the army.

And then many years later, 2017, 2018, I went back to Afghanistan as a security contractor. That was short-lived. My disillusionment had become quite pronounced, announced at that point. So do you meet a lot of veterans out on the campaign trail and like how have they responded to your, you know, A, your criticism of the genocide in Gaza and B, more generally, your criticism of a reckless American foreign policy?

Yes. And the response is always very positive. I mean, look, when you've been out there and you've seen it for what it is, when you come home and you see like you know you see kind of a system that just kept on rolling along you know people always talk about this kind of bitterness that a lot of combat vets feel when they come back and like society doesn't understand them that's true there's also an element where you come back and you realize that you got really taken advantage of and and all of your ideals and your beliefs your willingness to put yourself out there um to put your life on the line to to to to to to

see your friends, frankly, get sacrificed, and you come back and you realize that it was all for nothing, that's hard. That's a, I still struggle with this. It's a, it's an emotionally complicated situation. And a lot of guys turned to an immense amount, sorry, men and women, uh, I was in the infantry, so I apologize. I, that's still, that's still a hang up of mine. Um, a lot of young, young men and women who returned, you know, like that, you have to layer on top of all of the trauma this deep sense of like none of it meant anything. And I know a lot of vets who are conservative and progressive, Republican and Democrat, who have the same critique that I do, that it was all bullshit and it was all meant to make somebody else very, very wealthy. And when you just say that

out loud, a ton of people understand that that's the truth because they feel it too. And it's gotten a lot of, I think, positive response because it's just, I'm just saying stuff that everybody kind of knows already. I'm not inventing anything here. Graham, how much interest has there been in your outspoken opposition to the genocide in Gaza? Less than I expected. I will say, I mean, from the obvious channels, you know, that's expected. Susan Collins said something about it like on the second day. You thought you would get hit harder, do you mean? Yeah. Right. Got it. And I, because, I mean, I was right out the gate. I mean, for me, there's no, there's, it's not worth mincing words on this. You're going to have to talk about it eventually. I like the fact that people still try to hem and hawn this is both, I mean, I think it's morally horrific, but I mean, on the flip side, it also doesn't make any sense. Like, you can't, you can't hem and ha on it and you're going to get asked about. it. So you may as well just rip the Band-Aid off and just deal with the reality that we are looking at.

I do firmly believe that even within the last month, the conversation has changed significantly. And I mean, it does seem that history is, in this case, at least when it comes to public perception, trending a little bit towards justice. It's going to be, I mean, it's, we will never be forgiven for what we. We have helped make happen here. I think people are starting to realize that, though. Graham, why do you think that Susan Collins has been so uniquely difficult to supplant? You know, everybody thought she was going to lose last time polls look like she was going to lose. Her opponent raised tens of millions of dollars and then nothing.

What is it that Mainers think they're getting out of her? And do they still feel that way, do you think? So, I mean, the big question, I mean, the big answer to this is that things have changed. You know, Susan Collins has relied on an immense amount of Democrats in the state of Maine to vote for over the years, which a lot of Democrats in Maine were willing to do, myself included. I voted for Collins in the first election I could ever vote in. And, you know, but there was like this, the moderate charade did last a long time, but it's gone now. I mean, nobody believes this. Even Republicans don't believe it. I mean, it's nobody, nobody thinks you really stands for anything. So there is, I think that's a truth. Let me actually, Graham, let me actually, to your point, this will back you up. She recently went to just like a ribbon cutting kind of thing and got protested.

And people were chanting, you know, what we need to do is vote for you. So you clearly made quite an impression on a lot of people in the state in a short period time. Let's go ahead and play D1, guys. But I'm so recessive with the cuts the Republican Party has made to this big, big, up with bill. So, now, if you let me celebrate with no. There's no celebration to remit.

There's no celebration. You're going to bet, Jamie? So could you just... You're not so slim yourself. Could you please just listen for just one? We'd like you. No! No!

You never listen to us! You got to do your job. You have voted for our Supreme Court. You refuse to have townhouse for his own menus. Why are you going to Jess? You have voted for our in Israel. Every vote. I have a suggestion.

Would you listen to the suggestion? Vote Graham Linder. Yeah. Graham, were you surprised at all to see that? I mean, I'm not, I mean, obviously it's quite, the reaction to all of this has been quite flattering and in many ways very surreal. I'm not surprised. I mean, Susan Collins hasn't held a town hall in, I think, 25 years. Wow.

She is uniquely inaccessible to her constituents. And so it does not surprise me that at this point, when her constituents find ways to access her, they're going to, take advantage of it. Um, so no, I'm not, I'm not surprised. Um, how's the, uh, how's your fundraising been? Because in, in Washington, you know, that's, that's the thing that people like, uh, the Democratic Senate committee, if they're trying to talk to Janet Mills about whether or not she should run, are looking at, like, have you, have you seen an influx of, uh, small donors from around the country? Or, you know, what's, can you give us any details? So, uh, it's for the record, I just made to put this out. I,

I've never done this before. I have no real benchmarks. Mostly what I say is sounds good is because somebody who knows what they're talking about told me this is good. We hit a million dollars today. All small dollar donations. We've taken, no, we're not taking A-PAC money.

We're not taking corporate-pack money. We're not taking super PAC stuff. We launched last Tuesday. So, I mean, that is a pretty solid. Um, the, we have, despite that fact, uh, and I'll just plug this right now, uh, gram for Senate.com, if you can give even a dollar, we can use it. Um, the, we need to raise a lot more, but we've, we have been able to, I think, tap into a, a fundraising mechanism that I think, you know, we saw a few years ago explode with Bernie, with AOC, with a lot of the kind of

small dollar stuff. And it seems in some recent races, it hasn't been able to be tapped into as much, but there's just an excitement that I think is born from an angst and an anger, that people really did start to feel like, I think some people started to give up. Not because they're apathetic. not because they don't believe, not because they're politically disengaged. I think there was an element of a lot of people just looked at what's happening and started to feel like, Jesus, like what can we do? And now we're talking about building working class power.

We're talking about building a movement. We're talking about, frankly, doing what needs to be done, which is rebuilding movement politics here in the state of Maine. and that is speaking to people and they are getting in the fight they're signing. We have 300 volunteer signups a day which is, I mean, wild to me.

I mean, it's overwhelming and it's humbling. I saw very strange for me personally because two, three weeks ago, I was still very much living a very quiet life. So, but I think on the fundraising front, we've been able to show that this mechanism still works and it's still powerful and we can still do this. Graham, last question for me.

I saw you on CNN say, I'm not voting for Chuck Schumer for leader. I suspect you probably have some critiques of Hakeem Jeffries as well. Apex Chikor, as Charlemagne the guy is calling him. But where do you think the Democratic Party leadership went astray? I think it's actually pretty simple. The Democratic Party leadership a long time ago. I'll just, I'm going to say it's very quick. I don't actually blame many of these people as like individuals.

I think that they have grown up in a system that showed them a way to success that was not actually tied to reality. It was tied to massive amounts of money. And in some ways, I think that because of that, like they almost are like emotionally and ideologically. incapable of understanding the moment that they're in. And so I mean, that doesn't excuse anything. I'm not trying to make excuses for people. But I do think that there is, that's why we need different leadership. We need leadership that does understand that we, that does understand that when they send out text messages saying we're in a fight for our democracy, we actually are. It's not, it's not a fundraising message. It's a legitimate thing that is happening and we need to be

acting, we need to be acting like the language we are using. And I think the fact that our leadership has not done that just shows that we cannot continue with this kind of leadership in the party. And last question for me, your campaign put out a poll or shared a poll with the media yesterday that they had done internally that found Janet Mills, who would be 79 when she's sworn in, which would make her the oldest freshman senator in American history, which is amazing considering how old the Senate is in general, had her neck and neck with Susan Collins and had you up something like 16 points.

Now, Poles in Maine have been bad in the past. Sarah Gideon was expected to win by like five. So you got to take them all with a grain of salt. But when you dug into those numbers, when it came to independence or Republicans, what jumped out to you? What jumped out to me is that like my theory is holding true, which is that here in the state of Maine

we have 30% Democrats, 30% Republicans and 30% unenrolled slash independence slash third party you need to appeal to those unenrolls and independents you need to appeal to those Republicans who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted big structural change

and what they've gotten is just getting robbed more and they're starting to realize it. It doesn't surprise me because my theory from the get-go has been that not only can we beat Susan Collins, but we can crush Susan Collins if we build a legitimate working-class movement that's based around fixing material issues in people's lives. It's very simple. Down here in the real world, pretty much everybody's got the exact same problems and they all pretty much blame the same people. We just need to harness that. We need to tap into it. And we just need to point all of that energy in the direction it needs to be pointed, which, frankly, is just up. We have not been doing that.

And if we do that, then we're going to win. And we are going to win. Well, Graham, congrats on a massively successful launch. Please keep in touch with us. We're certainly going to be following the campaign. And it's a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure, guys.

I really appreciate it. All right, and we'll see you with the tune in next time you're in Washington, D.C. Yes, indeed. Hello, it's Danielle Fischel. Writer Strong. And Wilfredel from Podmeet's World. And we're bringing you Viva Las Content. That's right.

We are back in Las Vegas, the city of Sin, and giving the people what they want. A full week of Y2K content. Wait, we're back in Vegas? Tell me why. Well, for the Backstreet Boys Reservoir. residency at Sphere, of course. We sat down with Kevin Richardson and A.J. McLean just minutes before they took the stage, and our very own Wilfredel basically became the newest member of the band.

Boy band, please. Plus, the man who has the longest running comedy show on the strip joins us and gets his props. It's carrot top, baby. And finally, we all L-O-V-E-Hur, Ashley Simpson-Ross, joins us to talk about her upcoming sold-out Vegas residency. It's a full week of nostalgic. interviews you don't want to miss. Listen to PodMeets World on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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 turn. 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. and 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. 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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. CNN recently had Anna Casparian of T on a panel, wide-ranging discussions, but in particular on Israel, she just absolutely cooked them. And there was a moment that really stood out, Sagar, where she brings up this situation that we've been covering and we're going to continue to cover actually in the next block of this Israeli alleged pedophile caught up in an FBI sting in Las Vegas who is allowed to post bail and flee the country, who happens to not just be any old Israeli, by the way, top aid to Netanyahu. She brings this up on the panel and there's just basically like silence and then they change the subject. Let's take a look at that.

The problem with Trump, though, is I think crime is the cover story. I think this is a power grab. And the reason why I say that is because look at these specific examples of crime that he allegedly wants to go after. I mean, just recently, his FBI did a sting operation in Las Vegas, and they managed to catch through the sting operation eight separate pedophiles that were trying to have sex with minors, okay? one of those pedophiles is an Israeli government official who his government allowed to fly back to Israel after he had been charged in that sting operation for using technology to lure a minor for sex.

And when it comes to the immigration issue, he loves to go after the undocumented immigrants, but not the employers employing the undocumented immigrants. You mentioned that Trump, you described it as a cover story, but I think it's also worth... Oh. And then Abby Phillips just... It picks up on the immigration point and moves on.

And Sagar, I don't know how much you've watched this show. I haven't watched it a lot. But these panels are famous for like, you know, they're meant to be kind of a melee. The cross talk and they're jumping on each other or whatever. I love how she says this and everyone's just completely silent. Scott Jennings is just sitting there stone-faced. I'm quite sure it is the first time it has ever been mentioned on CNN since the storybrook. I know that it has.

And, you know, I mean, you know, when you're in this job, one of the fun things is that I talk to some of these people behind the scenes, they all know that it's messed up. They want to cover it. In fact, many of them congratulated me and us on all of our reporting around the subject. And I was like, thanks, but when are you going to cover it? I was like, I'm just, you know, a YouTube guy, silence, nothing. They know, all right? I mean, I don't know if the order has come from the top or whatever, but this is very, like you said, the very first mention of it on their air, I believe. It's clear. Jennings and, you know, what's the guy's named Kevin O'Leary and all that, they either had heard about it and they're totally shutting up or they'd never heard about it

before. Both are indictments, actually, if you ask me. Same with the overall news panel. And it's one of those where, guys, I mean, this is a genuine story. It's actually a scandal the fact that he hasn't been returned. We'll get to it in a little bit and give everybody an update. But I thought that broadly, I mean, look, props to her free going on because this, that is like the only way that their viewers would ever even be exposed to this type of information. Because one thing you can say at the very, look, the internet, we've spent done a lot almost an hour now on the show about all the problems with that. But one thing I generally appreciate, at the very least, people who watch the show or others, you're going to get exposed to a lot of information.

You are going to get exposed to information from not just both sides, but like even in general, if you're on Twitter, blue sky, whatever, wherever you are. Like, your information diet is such that you probably had heard about this or you had some sort of inkling. But that's just so not the case with the Fox News, the CNN, or the MSNBC viewer. And that's why, you know, having people like Anon, or at least in this particular case,

like that view just never gets represented. Otherwise, you're just going to get these shibboleth, you know, mantras and be like, but what about the hostages? What about the hostages? Or, you know, Israel is a right to defend itself and a right to exist. And you're like, bro, what are we doing here?

Like, it's not October 28th, 2000, 23, you know? Well, I love when they have her on. She's really excellent on these panels. They've had her on a few times. And she's just so effective in the way she communicates. And she's so fierce when it comes to Israel and just does not pull any punches. And to your point about, you know, the internet, which is both, you know, incredible promise and incredible peril, I guess is sort of the theme of this show today. This story would never have seen the light of day in a pre-online media environment. This is a purely, like internet, independent media or like non-traditional media, I guess we'll say, story that got picked up on and all the reporting that has been, I shouldn't say all, there's been some local news reporting, but, you know, most of the reporting has been like you and Village Crazy Lady, the Twitter account online, you know. And otherwise, this would have been just completely vanished and disappeared. Instead, it really is an international scandal. I mean, Netanyahu's had to address it. You've had Trump administration.

officials who have had to address it. And CNN, there's now enough sort of, there's enough problems with the mainstream press and they can see their ratings decline and they see the writing on the wall that they have to, they feel like they have to bring on some figures like Anna onto their panels just to remain any sort, you know, maintain any sort of relevance and competitive, you know, ability in in the marketplace. And so these things start to seep in to the conversation there in a way that they never would have in a different era. So there's another moment here that I want to play for you, where Anna's going back and forth with Scott Jennings about the man-made, the Israeli-imposed famine in the Gaza Strip. Let's go ahead and take a listen

of that. Why are they holding a hostage? What is your view about this? Because this is a talking point that comes up a lot. It's not a talking point. There's 50 lives down here. It is definitely a talking point. When you block humanity, the Gaza Strip for three months straight, It not only impacts the Palestinians, which I know you couldn't care less about, but it also obviously is going to impact the hostages. They're going to starve to death as well. You're saying Israel is starving the hostages? I'm saying, yes, yeah.

When you block humanitarian aid for three months, where do you think they're going to get the food from? Max, Israel and Hamas have been. Why is Israel annexing the West Bank right now? Why is Israel annexing the West Bank, which of course is not governed by Hamas at all? Why are Israeli settlers allowed to just run Palestinians out of their legal homes, build thousands of illegal settlements, West Bank has nothing to do with Hamas. Why is Israel annexing it? Why did Netanyahu say that his stated goal in an interview with I-24 news and Israeli publication say that he has a religious need to pursue the greater Israel project?

I'm going to let Scott answer quickly and then we've got to go. Go ahead. Go ahead, Scott. My view is this. The hostages have been there for almost 700 days. There's a reason that Hamas is not released. Are you going to answer her question, though? I don't know. I don't work for the Israeli government. All I really care about is that the hostages come home. And I have no belief that Hamas that took the hostages that murdered all these people are ever going to let them go unless they're totally eradicated. Except they have let them go during the same. Man, Anna just cooked his ass in both those exchanges. And I don't work for the Israeli government. Brother, you got a lot of connections there, though. You remember during the Iran war, whenever you were down there in an Israeli bunker?

You can ask them if you want to. You got you got your little pin on, you know, you're in the system. You could call them up. Are you sure you're not working for this Israeli government? Because if you're not, maybe you should be collecting a check because you're certainly doing the dirty work for them. But again, having her there, those are points that very few other CNN guests would be, I'm not going to say none, but very few would be willing to make. And he just tries to laugh off this idea, oh, what you think Israel's starving the hostages, L.O.L. It's like, of course they are. Of course. It's been so clear. It's really been clear from the beginning, but it's been undeniably clear for months at this point that Netanyahu and his government,

they don't care at all about the hostages. In fact, the hostages are a problem for them because, you know, when they come back and, you know, when they are brought back alive, then they're able to speak about how they were terrified that they were going to be bombed and murdered by their own government. So, no, they don't give a shit about the hostages. They know they're starving the hostages. Of course they are. When you blockade the whole Gaza Strip, that includes the hostages that are being held there.

So it's amazing to watch him have to even grapple with that point, not to mention the point about the West Bank. It's like, okay, well, if this is all about Hamas, and I think this is a really important point that needs to be made more often, if this is just all about Hamas being bad guys, tell me about the West Bank. Tell me about why they are going forward with this aggressive, illegal settlement plan. Tell me why all of these, you know, violent settlers are attacking and murdering Palestinians in the West Bank with the backing of the IDF, with the backing of the government. Tell me about that. Tell me how that has anything to do with Hamas. Because when you put all of those pieces together, not to mention the whole greater Israel and the attacks on all of their surrounding neighbors by and large, then you start to see the bigger picture and the broader plan. and you can no longer stick to your dumb-ass talking points about like Hamas and the hostages because we are so far beyond that holding any water

if you actually have the facts at your disposal. Hello, it's Danielle Fischel. Rider Strong and Wilfredel from Podmeet's World. And we're bringing you Viva Las Content. That's right. We are back in Las Vegas, the city of sin, and giving the people what they want. A full week of Wants,

Y2K content. Wait, we're back in Vegas? Tell me why. Well, for the Backstreet Boys residency at Sphere, of course. We sat down with Kevin Richardson and A.J. McLean just minutes before they took the stage and our very own Wilfredel basically became the newest member of the band. Boy band, please. Plus, the man who has the longest running comedy show on the strip joins us and gets his props. It's carrot top, baby. And finally, we all, L-O-V-E-Hur, Ashley Simpson-Ross, joins us to talk about her upcoming sold-out Vegas residency. It's a full week of nostalgic interviews you don't want to miss. Listen to PodMeets World on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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. Let's go to the next part here because I do want to give everybody an update on Tom Alexanderich's case. Can we go ahead and put this up there,

please, on the screen. Media was allowed in the courtroom yesterday, where some extraordinary stuff happened. So basically, as I'd said before, yesterday, Alexandervich had a court appearance, basically to respond about the criminal complaint that was just recently filed against him regarding this case where he effectively got caught in an FBI joint operation with the local police department where they posed as a 15-year-old girl online and which he showed up basically to meet with her with the intent to have sex with her. Basically admitted it. He waived as Miranda rights during questioning, as you can all see in the arrest reports, which I exclusively reported over here. Well, since then, after he fled the country some 20 days ago after being caught up

in this sting, he has hired the literally the most powerful lawyer in the state of Nevada. And there was a showdown between that lawyer and the judge. So yesterday, his lawyer, David Chesnoff, quote, told the court that on Wednesday his client, he told his client not to attend the meeting. Quote, he was instructed by me that he did not have to be there. The judge very quickly shuts down David Chesnoff says that suspects released on bond have to, quote, make every court appearance. I am looking at his bond documents to indicate court appearance that he was ordered to appear was today. So your oral request without anything before the court to waive his appearance today is hereby denied. What eventually came, after some back and forth with the judge, is that Alexandrovich will be due for a virtual appearance next week in court.

Apparently, that's the compromise. But remember, all of this is about the showdown between whether he is ever going to return to the United States. Because one of the things that Chesnov actually said is that the state attorney and him had, quote, come to some sort of an agreement. That's what he alluded to from the reporting here in the story. And the judge was like, I don't care what kind of agreement you have going on with the state. I'm the judge overseeing this case. This guy has got to appear in my courtroom. So that's the only update that we have so far. But already we're seeing the signs of like some sort, basically a corrupt bargain. Okay. Most powerful lawyer in the state of Nevada who donated

to the state's attorney. This is a verifiable fact. You can go and look. It was actually a scandal on Vegas. Back in 2021, they called it pay-to-play justice, where they had somebody like this, the high-powered lawyer, who, by the way, went and, quote, volunteered at a hospital in Israel after October 7, got an award for being a friend to the Jewish people, you know, a high, like, by his own account in the Las Vegas Review Journal, which is owned by Miriam Adelson, the most powerful pro-Israel donor in the United States, who's written pro-Israel puff pieces, about this lawyer. So let's start with that. He's hired by this guy, Tom Alexandrovich. You know, by the way, I'd love to know who's paying his bills. And I have sent those questions over to

the Tessnaw's office, and they have not returned any of my calls or my request for comment, just so people understand. But in the courtroom, it's clear that the judge wants Alexanderich to appear. He has now agreed to appear virtually. But the question around this is about the conditions of release. because previously the cope from the pro-Alexander's side was he was bailed out, which he were allowed to, after 2020 bail reform laws in Nevada, without ever appearing before a judge. That's why there was the open question, why was he allowed to leave? It's like, because you can just post bail and get out of there. Well, what's now clear is with the filing of the criminal complaint and now of having to appear before the judge,

this is when the type of restrictions that could typically be imposed on an individual for a potentially leaving the country, that is when. But the complicating factor is he's not here in the United States of America. He's in Israel. And so it very much opens the question as to whether the state's attorney and the lawyer have reached some sort of agreement and plea, which will very likely, in my opinion, lead to probation. The reason why I'm saying that is that an interview that the state attorney actually gave to the Las Vegas Review Journal, he floated that, yes, well, technically it's punishable by one to 10 years in prison. Probation is also an option. And he said something like, well, I don't really know anything about extradition. I presume that we have extradition

treaties. So I dug into that. The extradition treaty that we have with Israel is one of the most insane things I've ever seen. Prior to 1999, they just didn't, they did not extradite anybody, Anybody. What happened is that a 17-year-old murdered another kid, actually nearby from here in Maryland. His father was Israeli. They flew to Israel. They fled to Israel. This guy butchered this other person. The Israelis, because they wouldn't extradite him, came up with some novel solution after crazy diplomatic pressure from the Clinton administration, where they would try him for the crime and he would serve out a sentence there. But after that, they were like, look, this is done. We have to have something done and dusted. In the interim period, there's been a number of cases where high-profile pedophiles here in the United States flee to Israel. And because they're Jewish, they can claim the right of return in Israeli citizenship and they can fight extradition in Israeli court. Crystal, the most recent example I found of a prolific pedophile charged here in America was it took 11 years to go through the Israeli justice system before he was returned to the United States to face trial.

11 years. Even that sham extradition treaty that we have with Israel basically gives defendants in Israel the right to drag this out out in Israeli court for as long as humanly possible. And that's in the case of somebody who was an American citizen. In this case, we have somebody who is an Israeli government official. So it is a major question where without massive diplomatic pressure from the United States, I don't think we will ever see this guy again on U.S. That's my own personal speculation, but all of the facts currently indicate that with the sham extradition treaty that we have with Israel, it's effectively not one. It basically might as well not exist because 11 years of dragging through justice, especially in a case like this, one to 10, what's a prosecutor to say? Is it really worth the millions of dollars to try and fight all his case, or should we just give him a slap on the wrist and probation?

That's most likely, you know, affected what's going to happen. And what everyone needs to pay attention to is let's compare his sentence or his eventual outcome. to what happens to the seven other individuals who were all caught up in this. One of them was a pastor, by the way, just so we're aware. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. I mean, there's not even words for that. But the point just broadly about the justice is that all of those people had criminal complaints filed against them almost immediately after the case was made public. Alexandrovich's criminal complaint was not fired up until a couple of days ago, almost a week-long delay.

There's still a major—I haven't gotten my hands on that. yet it's still inside of the court. If anybody has access to it, please send it to me. But my point just broadly is that the special treatment that this guy has gotten already is crazy. Fled to Israel. Now his lawyer is saying, well, I told him he didn't have to show up. You know, I've got some deal with the state's attorney. So everything here stinks. It stinks to high heaven. And, you know, all of the, just the, the fact that he's gone, it almost ties the hands of our justice system at this point. Yeah. Well, and it's crazy too because in those, you know, interview notes that you were able to obtain, he's in there like, I got to catch my flight

on, right? He's not like he hit it. He's like, I've got a flight. I'm going to get out of here in just a few days. And still he's allowed to, allowed to leave. I think last note on this, and then I know, Sagar, you've got to run, so we'll let you go. We have another piece on Epstein that we'll kick to the Friday show. That's also very interesting.

They released a bunch of emails between him and a former Israeli prime minister, Ahou, Brock. So you definitely want to just, you definitely want to be there Friday. to take a listen to that. But just as a reminder to everyone, when this all unfolded, Netanyahu and his government just utterly and completely lied, like, provably lied about it now. They were like, oh, there was some issue, and then he returned. They did not admit that he was arrested. They certainly didn't admit that this was in the context of an FBI sting to catch pedophiles who were pursuing, you know, what they thought to be young girls for sex online. So just,

One more indication of how they will lie about absolutely anything, even when they know that the information is going to come out and going to be made public. So to me, that's also just an extraordinary piece of this. And this guy's position in Israel, he's in charge of like cyber security kind of stuff. And he's out there serving the internet allegedly for young girls to exploit. He created their cyber iron dome. He is the head of the, was the head of the cyber division. I mean, remember, in the notes I released, he was like, hey, by the way, I'm meeting with the NSA tomorrow. You know, he's like, I was like, oh, okay, got it.

I'm here for a black hat hacking conference. The information that he likely has access to on. Can you even imagine? The number of people, probably you at this point, Zagher. I mean, you know, that's part of what makes this story. I think that's the other reason why mainstream media has no interest. in touching this one. Hey, Tom, bring it on, brother. All right. Okay. Don't say that. Yeah, you're actually, I don't know. I mean, at a certain point, it's like people need to stand up

and to speak out. It's the worst type of crime that you can commit, in my opinion. And yeah, I mean, the fact that he's currently, he's on the glide path to a slap on the wrist, and everybody in Nevada just wants this case to go away. Props to the judge at the very least for saying, no, no, no, no, no, that's not how this works over here. So, Who, you know, who knows? She has to get reelected. Wouldn't want to be her because I'm sure some anonymous donation is going to come in for some election that, like, 600 people vote in and miraculously, you know, something, a nice big check will hit for the opponent. But that's the way that our system works. All right, we got Jeffrey Stack standing by.

Let's get to it. Thanks, guys. I'm sorry that, you know, things are a bit disjointed today. Just as I said, personal matter came up. I got to head out a little bit early. But thank you, Crystal, as well, for holding down the fort. Yeah, of course. And guys, we are going to take Labor Day off.

So we'll be back, Soccer and I'll be back on Tuesday. And with that, we'll get to Jeffrey Sachs. Hello, it's Danielle Fischel. Rider Strong. And Will Ferdell from PodMeets World. And we're bringing you Viva Las Content. That's right. We are back in Las Vegas, the city of sin.

And giving the people what they want. A full week of Y2K content. Wait, we're back in Vegas? Tell me why. Well, for the Backstreet Boys residency at Sphere, of course. We sat down with Kevin Richardson and A.J. McLean just minutes before they took the stage, and our very own Wilfredel basically became the newest member of the band. Boy band, please.

Plus, the man who has the longest running comedy show on the strip joins us and gets his props. It's carrot top, baby. And finally, we all L-O-V-E-Hur, Ashley Simpson-Ross, joins us to talk about her upcoming sold-out Vegas residency. It's a full week of nostalgic interviews you don't want to miss. Listen to PodMeets World on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To talk about the very latest with regard to Israel and Gaza, we are very fortunate to be joined this morning by economists and professor at Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs. Great to have you again, sir. thank you wonderful to be with you of course so let's go ahead guys and put this first element up on the screen axios got this scoop that apparently now we've got tony blair and jared kushner involved in some sort of trump gaza quote unquote post war plans um there is a meeting which is uh which is set to occur with regard to this as well what did you make of this well who knows what to make of uh anything when

Blair, Kushner, and Trump get together. That is really an unholy, unholy alliance. But this is not the way to any solution right now. The way to a solution lies in immediately ending the genocide that's underway, the mass starvation that's underway, which the U.S. again, denied yesterday in the UN Security Council, which Israel has denied, but which the whole world sees before our eyes that at least half a million people are being starved to death right now before our eyes. And so this has nothing to do with Kushner and Blair. This has to do with ending a genocide. It has to do with creating a state of Palestine immediately. And it has to do with this absolutely fascist government in Israel being stopped by the United Nations.

As somebody who follows global South politics pretty closely, including Russia and China, India as well, India is a separate case here, when is the world going to do anything about what's happening in Gaza. I think the UN obviously has the United States sitting on the Security Council and will veto it, but it feels like there's been very little pressure brought to bear from the global south. And South Africa obviously took Israel to the ICC and was joined at some significant risk by a number of other countries from the global south. But that's about it. Like, is there no countervailing force that exists on a kind of just moral and ethical level willing to push back against this genocide?

In other words, if the Chinese and the Russians don't see it in their specific national interests, are they okay to just sit back and allow a genocide to unfold? Is that the realist politics that we live in? Am I too naive to expect that I'm like there's got to be somebody that's going to do something about this? but there isn't. Like, what have you seen from? I think that there are probably three arenas that we should consider. First is the battlefield itself, where Israel is mass murdering the Palestinian people. I don't expect any of the regional powers to land troops or to be in a direct war.

over this issue, so I don't expect Russia or China or any of the Arab countries to land troops and open a war with Israel. The second area is on the diplomatic front. Every single day, there is a worldwide condemnation of Israel, some of which gets reported in the U.S., most of which does not. The Security Council meeting yesterday was an overwhelming condemnation of Israel's genocide and starvation, but it doesn't get even mentioned. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation had a meeting in Jeddah on August 25th condemning this. That's 57 Muslim majority countries. De Bricks condemned this routinely. China, Russia, Brazil. In India condemn this routinely.

It doesn't get picked up. So they don't intervene on the battlefield, but they are not sitting back or complacent or winking at Israel, but they don't do more, let's say, than condemnation. The third would be an increasing set of measures that I think should be taken. I think Israel is hoarding suspension from the UN General Assembly. I would recommend it because I believe that this is a completely lawless, murderous, genocidal regime. I don't think there's any other country in the world remotely doing what Israel is doing

in terms of the violence and the mass murder and the mass starvation. So there could be Israel's suspension from the UN. at least raised at the OIC meeting, there could be a break of diplomatic relations, which I think should be in the cards. There could be a suspension or end of the so-called Abraham Accords. Remember, of course, I think everyone knows the U.S. military is all over the Middle East. In a way, the Middle Eastern countries often feel more like occupied countries than they do with sovereigns. They worry that if they are too vocal, the United States will do something, overthrow their regimes, foment unrest, do the things that the United States covert operations do for a living. So I think that there is some trepidation there.

But the fact of the matter is both the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and most other groups in the world. And I would say the UN General Assembly, more than 180 of the 193 countries, are openly aghast. But I think stronger measures are needed right now. And these are measures that might be blocked if it's through the UN but could be taken by dozens or well over 100 countries on their own breaking diplomatic relations, putting on boycotts and sanctions. Israel is completely out of control. Mass starvation is not an acceptable policy for the world. It should not be tolerated one moment longer.

And what do you make of the American politics? There's just a poll that came out yesterday. I want to have an element for it, but I don't know, and I don't know if you saw it or not. but 77% of Democratic voters say this is a genocide. You know, I mean, it's a, it's an overwhelming consensus among the Democratic base. And yet you only have a handful of Democrats who are willing to say it. The leadership of the Democratic Party, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and the like, are still very much, you know, anything for Israel and whatever APAC wants us to do. And look, I don't expect these people to be moral actors, but you would think at some point

there would be a political calculation, like a cynical political calculation that occurs. And it's genuinely perplexing to me at this point that that hasn't happened. Obviously, I understand, you know, the money of APAC and their affiliates, Democratic majority for Israel, et cetera. But it still doesn't seem like that would be sufficient to keep them from seizing what is a genuine, wide open, obvious political imperative and political opening in the landscape. What is your assessment of what keeps these politicians so tied to the status?

with regard to, you know, Israel and their commitment to allowing Israel and facilitating Israel's commitment to this genocide? This is an excellent and very important question. And it starts with the fact that in foreign policy, public opinion plays almost no role in the United States in general. That's true across wars. That's true across almost all of the issues that we have of foreign policy. This is an executive branch, largely covert. It's very heavily CIA and national security driven rather than any publicly driven decision making. Congress is pretty much useless across the board in foreign policy and has been for a long time. Of course, the Congress, is suborned by the military industrial complex to begin with, by the military contractors,

and then there are the specific issues of Israel. So you mentioned, of course, the biggest one, which is the Zionist lobby, APAC, and others. There's just a tremendous amount of buying of votes and corruption and threats against individual Congress. I'm sure that the Epstein files play some role in this. Epstein was a Mossad agent and there's no doubt that there's blackmail involved in this in some way or another that we don't fully know. The CIA Mossad relationship dates back many, many decades. Mossad does murders on behalf of the CIA. They deeply share intelligence. The CIA is the single most powerful agent of our foreign policy. And so this is not only the Israel lobby, because after all, by the way, the Jewish community is profoundly unhappy with what's happening. Of course, there are Jews that support Israel, but there's a vast community of Jews that is completely aghast and disgusted.

and also reviled at what Israel is doing because Israel claims to do it in the name of world jewelry. That is an obscenity, I would say. Israel is doing it in the face of opposition of world jewelry. So this is another element, the CIA Mossad linkets that go quite strongly. very powerful in Silicon Valley right now. Palantir is the AI Murder Inc. company of the world. It does the targeting. We know that Microsoft and many other companies are deeply involved with Israel. There's a lot of money in all of this. The Israeli stock market has been up during this war. So there's a lot of corruption, blackmail, campaign finance.

deep state CIA Mossad relations. But I have to tell you, saying all of that, it's still shocking. It's still shocking because we don't have genocides before our eyes this way, all recorded day by day, all with the thank you of the Israeli ministers, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, every day explaining that it's a genocide, making no bones about it, being very explicit about. it. So your question hangs there, even after all of the explanations, it is a puzzle. How corrupt can America be? We're plumbing new depths, basically. Truly. While we have you, I wanted to ask you about the newest piece from you that I read that may not be the most recent piece that you wrote, but called a new foreign policy for Europe in Horizons magazine, taking a look at the historical

relationship between Europe and Russia and envisioning a new kind of path out that doesn't involve Europe constantly invading Russia and then at the same time having this fear that Russia's going to invade them. Can you talk a little bit about what do you lay out this vision that you presented here and what's been their reaction to it? Basically, Russia for more than 200 years, going back to Napoleon, certainly including Hitler, including the remilitarization of Germany by the United States after World War II, in the years immediately following Nazism, and by the way, bringing a lot of Nazis to leadership of West Germany, including the new intelligence agencies led by the chief Nazi intelligence official for Hitler for Eastern Europe,

Galen, the Russian said, what are you doing? Again, we just lost 27 million people. But the Western idea, going back absolutely to Napoleon in his invasion in 1812, going to Palmerston and Napoleon 3 in their invasion of Russia in 1853, going to Germany. attack and war on Russia in August 1914, going to Hitler's invasion in 1941, and then going to the creation of this military machine of Germany after World War II. There's never been an honest moment of discussion about what a real security arrangement in Europe would be that respects Russia's security as well as Europe's Western Europe security. Russia is to an important extent Europe, but I'm talking about the non-Russian Western part of Europe. And that's what

has been needed all along. But the United States has refused. The British, which ran the world up until basically World War II, were completely russophobic from the 1840s onward. And then the United States took over in 1945, and our goal from 1945 onward was first to defeat the Soviet Union. And then I watched with my own eyes in shock, by the way, after 1991, that our goal continued to be, even after the Soviet Union was over, communism was over, and so forth, our goal continue to be, now we defeat and divide Russia. Well, eventually, after so much provocation, with the U.S. being the major impetus to a coup in Ukraine in 2014, expanding NATO, dissing a peace agreement called the Minsk Two agreement in 2015 and so forth, eventually

it came to full-scale war. And then when it did in February 22 after, maybe you could say 180 years of provocation, or maybe you could just say 30 years of provocation, or maybe you could say eight years of provocation from the Maidan coup. Then we said, you see Russia unprovoked expansionism? It's unbelievable how primitive this discussion is. I once counted in between February 2022 and February 2020, I had an assistant count the number of times that the New York Times used the word unprovoked to characterize the Ukraine war. And it was 26 times that we were able to count that in the opinion pages of the New York Times. So basically, there's a propaganda war. Now Europe is so devoid of sense and diplomacy. Trump, this is not exactly Mr. Diplomat.

There's just confusion and the war will continue until the confusion is sorted out. So what I've been saying to the Europeans who don't like my saying it, but I'm going to keep saying it, is they need diplomacy with Russia, not through the White House. They don't have to meet Zelensky, who rules by martial law in a complete contradiction to the real interests of Ukraine and to the public opinion in Ukraine, which wants this war to end because they're suffering in Ukraine. The Europeans meet with Zelensky a thousand times, but they don't meet with Putin once. and this is what passes in this pathetic way for foreign policy right now.

So my article is, do something different, talk directly with your counterparts, understand that there are real security issues that need to be solved. One other thing I might add, which is almost never mentioned, but absolutely at the top of mind for Russia for more than 20 years, is that. in 2002, the United States unilaterally abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty. From Russia's point of view, that was a threat of a decapitation strike by the United States because the idea of the anti-ballistic missile treaty was to prevent a decapitation strike by making it plain that there would be a credible deterrent second strike.

But with the anti-ballistic missiles, a decapitation. strike becomes a possibility. So the Russian said after 2002, you have completely destabilized the nuclear arms control framework. It's in that context that the United States was pushing missile systems in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, these Aegis anti-ballistic missile systems, overthrew the government in Ukraine, built a one million person or man-armie. in Ukraine. Under Trump, by the way, he calls himself the man of peace. He armed Ukraine in the first term to a million man army, the biggest army in Europe. And then in 2019, Trump walked out of the intermediate nuclear force treaty, basically destroying the nuclear arms control

framework while also pushing missile systems and U.S. military bases up to Russia's nose. This is why we're in such a dangerous, unstable mode, and there's such lack of clarity and honesty for one moment in any of this. Trump, by the way, one of his many, many weaknesses, but one of his great weaknesses is the confusion of speaking truthfully to the American people in a speech, for example, which he never gives, versus a truth, social post with eight exclamation points in capital letters, which is not the same thing as trying to explain what is happening and how we get out of this. He probably doesn't have the capacity to do what needs to be. done just at an individual level. But we lack any clear understanding. And that's why there is

so much instability. And Washington is completely incoherent because there is no clarity of policy from one moment to the next. Professor, last question for me, let's say, you know, going back to Israel and Gaza, let's say the world does nothing and this final solution is allowed to just unfold. What does that mean for the future of the world? The world is in the most dangerous state since the end of World War II. And the doomsday clock, which portrays how close we are to Armageddon, puts the clock at 89 seconds to midnight, the closest that it's been since the clock was unveiled in 1947. We have no rules of the road right now. We have no clarity. We have no consistency of policy. And Western values has been exposed to mean open genocide.

So I would say that we're in an extraordinarily dangerous world, and Trump, who, in his delusion, calls himself a president of peace, is a, is complicit in an open genocide that the world sees. and I travel all over the world all the time. Everybody knows what's happening right now. And this is a tremendous, tremendous risk to global security and to any place of the United States in the international system, which is being squandered. I think it's also a fundamental risk to Israel's survival. Israel banks entirely on the United States for its survival because virtually every other country in the world is aghast at the crimes that Israel is committing.

And because, as you pointed out, the American people are also aghast, it's a pretty slender and fragile thing to depend on the United States when public opinion is against you as you. your sole source for survival. So I think Israel has put itself at absolutely mortal risk. Of course, it's mass murdering the Palestinians, so I'm not expressing that in sympathy. I'm just stating a fact that this is wildly against Israel's security interests. Well, Professor Sachs, it's always a privilege to get to speak with you. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. A pleasure to be with you.

Likewise. Thank you. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching today. Ryan, thank you for jumping in last minute, hanging out with me for a few of these blocks. Yeah, my pleasure. Always happy to hop on for a saga crisis moment. Did he say anything crazy that we need to clean up, by the way,

in the first hour? Need to talk shit about while he's not here. Yeah, yes. I don't think so. I think we kept it on the rails, more or less for today. We can fix it tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. Friday show tomorrow and then long weekend,

And we are going to take Monday off. So everybody enjoyed that. And then Sagar and I will be back here Tuesday. Everybody have a great day and we'll see you soon. Hello, it's Daniel Fischel. Writer Strong and Wilfredel from PodMeets World. We are back in Las Vegas and giving the people what they want, a full week

of Y2K content. Tell me why. Well, for the Backstreet Boys residency at Sphere, of course. We joke and say this is our second marriage, but it takes a lot of communication. Plus, it's

carrot top, baby. And finally, Ashley Simpson-Ross joins us to talk about her upcoming sold-out Vegas residency. Listen to PodMeets World on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. November 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys.

Then, everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcasts. Why are TSA rules so confusing?

You got a hood of you. I'll take it all! I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

No such thing. This is an IHeart podcast.