Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/26/24: Mayor Eric Adams Indicted, Kamala Dodges Softball Questions, Biden Humiliated By Israel Lebanon, Overdose Deaths Plummet, Diddy Nightmare Stories Revealed

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Eric Adams indicted, Kamala dodges questions in softball MSNBC interview, Biden humiliated by Israel in Lebanon, overdose deaths plummet in US, Diddy nightmare stories revealed.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. We got some big breaking news this morning. Mayor Adams of New York City is indicted. Right now, the charges are sealed.

We are awaiting them being unsealed, but we still have a lot of details that we can get into on that. Kamala Harris yesterday made a big economic pitch. She gave a big economic speech in Pittsburgh. She also sat for a hard-hitting interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle. So you have something to say about that, Zach, before we jump in? I was forced to watch the whole thing, forced to suffer through pharma commercials, and I didn't even get anything out of it. So I'm salty. Disappointing. And I went to bed late. So there's too much going on.

Speaking of salty, though, salt tax did come up. That's right. But no answer. But no answer. We'll get to it. All right. So we'll show you highlights, lowlights, all the lights from that. We're also keeping a close eye on Lebanon.

Israel is threatening a ground invasion there. So very serious and significant developments, deeply troubling, of course. We're taking a deep dive this morning into the Senate map, which has some interesting developments on the Democratic side, which races they actually think are the most gettable and which they're kind of given up on. So we'll get into all of that. We've also got some rare good news. Overdoses are down. Overdose deaths are down significantly. So nobody knows exactly why.

There are probably confluence of factors that go into that. So we will discuss. And looking forward to speaking with my friend, journalist Torrey, who has some exclusive details for us about the abuse of Diddy. He's got a new piece up about Cassie in particular, but he also has a personal family member who had a run-in with Diddy that was, to call it a red flag would be a major understatement. So he'll give us all of those details. But before we get to any of that, we also have, for you lovely people, a new discount. Big announcement happening over here. We've only got, what, 40-something days until the election. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. We've got an election discount that will be live throughout the election.

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Everything we know about this indictment of Mayor Adams, this came down late last night, at least late in my book and in your book, Sagar. It was 9.30. I mean, it's late. That's pretty late. Yeah. So in any case, he has been indicted on federal criminal charges. We have some indications it may be a FARA violation. I'll tell you more about that in just a moment. But officially, the charges are right now sealed. There was also a search by federal agents of Gracie Mansion. That is the residence of Mayor Adams in New York City this morning early. Unclear specifically what charges or when he will surrender to authorities. Federal prosecutors are expected to announce the details of that indictment on Thursday. So we can put the next element up on the screen, actually, which goes through some of the timeline.

I recommend if you haven't been following the story, go back and watch the interview we did last week with Ross Barkin, breaking down what the hell is going on here. Because there has been a long, more than a year buildup to this moment. First of all, you had his phones, Mayor Adams' phones, seized in what appeared to be an investigation. They raided the home of his chief fundraiser. And this particular investigation, it appears to be around the allegation that Mayor Adams took money from Turkish government sources. Yes. And then intervened with the fire department as the Turkish government was trying to build a consulate in midtown Manhattan, and the fire department had safety code concerns. And reportedly, allegedly, Mayor Adams intervened and pushed them to okay the opening of this building in spite of those safety concerns.

That is the best that we know about the allegations that he is facing. But in addition to the focus on him, his administration has been besieged by four different federal investigations. Just in the past number of weeks, he's had four separate high-level officials resign. He is himself facing calls to resign and was even before it became official that these indictments were coming down. So AOC actually got a little bit ahead of the curve just yesterday. She called for his resignation. He sort of alleged that she was racist for suggesting that. But he will be the first sitting New York City mayor to actually face federal criminal charges. So this is quite significant. This is someone, Sagar, of course, who was once talked about as the future of the

Democratic Party. He's a former cop. He won the mayoralty. Of course, all the action in New York City at this point is on the Democratic side. So it was the primary that was the big deal. Pretty crowded primary field. It was against Maya Wiley and another woman who was even further left. Her campaign kind of imploded there at the end. I don't know if you remember. What was her name? Oh, God. Garci?

No, Garci. Yeah, it was something like that. Cynthia Garci. Something like that. It was something like that. My brain. Sorry. Whoever you are.

In any case, I remember the primary quite well. It was a big deal that he won. He ran on this very, like, fund the police thing. And a bunch of centrist Democrats absolutely loved that and thought this guy was the next, you know, the next democratic superstar. They apparently hadn't dug much into him, both in terms of previous allegations of corruption and also just in terms of basic competence.

One thing I've enjoyed about him is some of his like really bizarre content that he's produced. Just go and look at, you know, Eric Adams being asked what was the best part of last year in one word, or go and look at the compilations of him saying New York City is the Islamabad of America, New York City is the Kuala Lumpur of America, et cetera, et cetera. But these are very serious allegations and a very serious situation for the city of New York, which even

putting aside the corruption, this is one of the points that Ross Barkin made, it's not like he's done a good job as mayor. So it'd be one thing if you had a corrupt mayor, many big American cities do, but he was actually delivering for constituents. Ross pointed out, there is not one major initiative that you could point to that has really been a success under Mayor Adams. So there's nothing, so to speak, to sort of offset the clear swirling corruption throughout his administration. There are some other countries we've learned a little bit about this morning that the mayor is embroiled with. But before we get to that, let's look at his response. Very classic, maybe Trumpian,

some might say. Yeah. Let's take a listen. My fellow New Yorkers, it is now my belief that the federal government intends to charge me with crimes. If so, these charges will be entirely false based on lies. But they would not be surprising. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target. And a target I became. I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit. If I'm charged, I know I am innocent. I will request an immediate trial so the New Yorkers can hear the truth. I have been facing these lies for months

since I began to speak out for all of you and their investigation started. Yet the city has continued to improve. Make no mistake, you elected me to lead this city and lead it I will. I humbly ask for your prayers and your patience as we see this through. God bless you and God bless the city of New York. Thank you. All right, there you go. So Adams is, now he's a Republican. He's basically like, because I courageously spoke out against the migrant crisis, that's why they're coming after me. Probably a little bit inconvenient that the investigation probably long predates a lot of at least the migrant situation in the city of New York. As we said, it's not just Turkey. Turkey seems to be the most ironclad one, but there are six

other nations that they are looking into. And those include Israel, Qatar, China, South Korea, and Uzbekistan, that the mayor's dealings with those five countries are also- He doesn't discriminate. I was going to say, he's an equal opportunity. He's equal opportunity corrupt, allegedly, for the lawyers. And, you know, I almost would have to respect that. Now, as you said, he is the first mayor to be federally indicted while in office. Probably not the first mayor who should have been indicted, but this will be very interesting for a variety of reasons because I think what it comes

down to with Eric Adams is not just the FARA violations that they seem to be exploring here. And the allegation specifically is that they funneled money, not to himself personally, but to his campaign, which is actually worse because FEC law is so ironclad that if you really did mess that up or if they have evidence to that regard, you're dead, you know, in a federal court. It's almost impossible to beat a charge like that. Yeah. The weird thing about FEC laws is that on the one hand, of course, we know money flows like wine throughout our campaign election system. Like if you follow the available loopholes, you can do almost anything you want.

One of the red lines is foreign government cash. And so, yeah, it's, you know, and of course, this would be governed by New York state laws and New York City regulations as well. These are federal criminal violations that we're talking about here. FARA, we've been throwing this term around, Foreign Agent Registration Act that speaks to the interactions with Turkey and other countries potentially allegedly trading campaign contributions for favors for foreign governments. That's the core of what we know is likely to come out here. I was mentioning before he's had four major resignations in his administration. This investigation is far from the only one. There's all kinds of other alleged corrupt dealings going on. So it just seems like the whole thing is kind of rotten to its core in a variety of different ways. His chief counsel

resigned. His police commissioner resigned. His education chancellor and health commissioner have both said that they are also resigning. So you also get to a point where it's like, okay, dude, even if I believe you, which I don, dude, even if I believe you, which I don't, but even if I believe you, how are you going to function? Your administration is crumbling before our eyes. How are you going to be able to run? This has got to be one of the toughest jobs in all of politics, being New York City mayor. How, when you already weren't doing a good job, are you going to continue to execute on this very high level, very weighty, difficult position? And so, you know, that's one of many questions that he is now faced with.

I'm trying to get a sense of what could happen here. So voters in New York City don't have an option to recall him. So that's not on the menu. He, of course, could resign if he does. Jumaane Williams, who's the New York City public advocate and who's more of a left-leaning figure and who has been a critic of Adams and has been calling for him to resign and is also a likely mayoral candidate in the event that he does resign and there is a special election. He would fill that post until they do have a special election. There are a number of other people who also are likely to throw their hats in the ring. One of the people who is high profile, who may use this as an opportunity to make his political comeback is Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York. So that's something to watch for here as all of this unfolds. There is this code on the books in New York that's

been used very rarely and not since FDR was governor of New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul could actually force him out. There's a somewhat complicated procedure that she would have to follow. Like I said, it's almost unprecedented, but that is a theoretical possibility that exists as well. So those are some of the directions that things could head in next. But as you heard from him, as of now, defiant and not planning on resigning. Yeah. And I've even seen the other people in the New York City machine. Bill de Blasio was on CNN late last night and he was like, well, just remember, innocent until proven guilty. And I was like, hmm, interesting. So, you know, de Blasio, I guess, is somewhat coming.

That kind of surprises me. I thought it's the same. I thought he would have been an enemy of his. But hey, listen, you know, he was also mayor of New York. So maybe he doesn't want to normalize those people getting indicted. So anyways, from what we can tell so far is that, of course, he is fighting the charge or whatever, the eventual charge of this comment hasn't actually happened yet. All we know is that the mayor has been indicted, that his residence has been searched, his phone has been seized. There's widespread corruption allegations surrounding every person that is around him. And this really does just seem like a network of just complete chaos because he's facing, at least from what we see so far, this discreet

far charge. But many of the people around him are facing far more serious corruption allegations in terms of the police commissioner involved in being some shakedown scheme with his brother. His twin brother. Again, you need to go and watch our segment with Ross Barkin, who does a good job of breaking all of this down. It just does seem that it flowed from the top and there was a loosey-goosey attitude. And this is something that has characterized Adams from the beginning, this whole like, did he even live in New York City question, which is a legitimate question for a while, whether he actually even lived in the city itself from the beginning. And then he has,

he, what he, I think he's going to do, no mayor, as I understand it, has done a more serious job of trying to cultivate the wealthy elite of New York City. So there's famous pictures going around now of him and Diddy, whatever. Isn't he the one that gave Diddy the key to the city? The key to the city. Yeah. He literally gave him the key to the city. Not that long ago, obviously, since it was in 2021. Yeah, by the way, there were some widespread allegations around that time. Already at that point, yeah. But I mean, he's got pictures with famous people.

He really relished the ceremonial job. He obviously traveled the globe as the mayor of New York. And so I think he's going to try and leverage some of that fame and some of those contacts itself. I will be curious to see if he does become a Republican kind of ceremonial figure because he's trying to use immigration as the reason for why he got himself indicted. It'll be fun. It'll be fun to watch. No, that's the move. Deep sleep is coming after him. Yeah, it was smart. I mean, that would be the corner to run to. Democrats are not gonna defend you at this point. They're done with you.

And so, yeah, Republicans will believe the, like, oh, it's the deep state targeting me because I spoke out about them. They will, a good number will buy that. So if his political career is done in New York City anyway, that would be a good way for him to get a new sort of, you know, national influencer gig or whatever on the right. Yeah, he'll be on Fox. Definitely. Guaranteed. Oh, you could. Guar gig or whatever on the right. Yeah, he'll be on Fox. Definitely. Guaranteed. Oh, you could, oh, they would eat that up all day long. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

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I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions

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It was approximately a 25-minute interview. I always say it stayed up late and it happened at 7 o'clock. It did happen. That's late. It's late. You shouldn't have a television on at 7 o'clock, all right? If you go to bed at 8 o'clock,

the TV's not supposed to be on. Two hours on, red light glasses. Anyway, we move past that. So Stephanie Ruhle, she has the interview with Kamala Harris, like I said, approximately 25 minutes. The focus of the interview was on the economy. Now by and large, this was about as softball as it gets with some mix of serious questions

in there. There were no follow ups or any of that. Nonetheless, there were still some interesting moments. Perhaps the most interesting moment was, hey, you say that you're better for the economy. Polling shows that Trump still looks like he's the one better to handle it. Why do you think that is? Let's take a listen. The last four years, there have been tremendous economic wins.

And you've just laid out a big plan. But still, polling shows that most likely voters still think Donald Trump is better to handle the economy. Why do you think that is? Well, here's what I know in to handle the economy. Why do you think that is? Well, here's what I know in terms of the facts. Donald Trump left us with the worst economy since the Great Depression. When you look at, for example, the employment numbers. It was during COVID and employment was so high because we shut down the government, we shut down the country. Even before

the pandemic, he lost manufacturing jobs by most people's estimates, at shut down the country. Even before the pandemic, he lost manufacturing jobs by most people's estimates, at least 200,000. He lost manufacturing plants, asked the auto workers how he lost auto plants. We have grown over 20 new auto plants. He has an agenda. Let's just deal with right now going forward, not to mention what happened in the past. He has an agenda that would include making it more difficult for workers to earn overtime, an agenda that would include cutting off access to small business loans for small businesses, an agenda that includes tariffs to the point that the average working person will spend 20% more on everyday necessities and an estimated $4,000 more a year on those everyday necessities to the point that top economists in our country from Nobel laureates

to people at Moody's and Goldman Sachs have compared my plan with his and said my plan would grow the economy, his would shrink the economy. Some of them have actually assessed that his plan would increase inflation and invite a recession by the middle of next year. So the facts remain that Donald Trump has a history of taking care of very rich people. And I'm not mad at anybody for being rich, but they should pay their fair share. But tax cuts for the billionaires and the top corporations in our country, and then not really paying much attention to middle class families. So obviously it was more of a dodge and it was like, well, here's what I would do on the economy.

Here's why I'm better. Yeah. I don't think it's like the worst thing in the world. I am glad that she at least was like, well, look, on unemployment, they love to use this Great Depression line. It's just ridiculous because we're in the middle of a pandemic. And that was the government policy was to furlough people and put them on unemployment. Whatever, we'll put that aside. The truth is, is that that is probably the best that she can get. Another thing I took notice of is the word Biden was not mentioned once out of her mouth. I actually went back and checked just to make sure. Basically, she is running as far away from Joe Biden as you can without hurting feelings, I think, at this point. She didn't actually mention any of the signature Biden administration

policies that have been put into place. None of the American Rescue Plan, nothing about the IRA. It was purely like looking forward. I think that's smart, actually, just because people do not look fondly at the Biden administration, and they really do blame them. So she's trying to present herself as new blood. Something that I think that it comes back to in the debate was that it always felt like Trump was the incumbent, and it still feels like that right now in this interview. And I think that's what's been a strategic thing that the Trump people have had difficulty with, where they need to try and put her as the face of incumbency and remind people that she's been in office now for three something years. Sure, she didn't have any power, she's the vice president. But tying her to Biden is the best thing that they could possibly do.

Yeah, for sure. And I strategically, I mean, obviously the press, Stephanie in particular, is like in her camp. So she's not going to do that. But that was the framework that I saw that. And I was like, it literally feels like Trump is in office right now. And she's running against that. Yeah. When you're not running, you've been in the White House for three years.

Yeah, that's a good point. And yeah, you can point to the media all you want, no doubt about it. And, you know, obviously, Steph Rule, and we'll talk more about this. We will show you the evidence. They knew that Kamala could get away with dodging almost all the questions. Especially on Salt. She'd be like, do you support it or not? And she just moves right past it.

I'm like, Stephanie, what are we doing here? Yeah. And I mean, Kamala's good at like delivering the talking points she has. She did perfectly fine there with here's why I'm better than Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs is my economic plan is better, et cetera, et cetera. But what a more flexible or skilled politician will do when they're dodging a question is not just like from the outset avoid answering it. They'll give some quick nod to an answer and then they'll move into what it is they want to say, right? Like you could say at the beginning of that, listen, he's a businessman and I get it. People just instinctively think that that makes you good

on the economy, but here's why they're wrong, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And those are the sorts of things that someone who's a little bit quicker on their feet and a little more comfortable in these situations can pull off. And that's why they're very careful about who they put her on with and how often they put her out. Because if you did have an adversarial interview, obviously they're going to follow up. Obviously they're going to try to hold your feet to the fire. Okay, well, what about salt? You didn't answer my question. Well, why do you think it? Okay, that may be fine. You may think you're better than Donald Trump. The voters right now don't agree. So you didn't answer, you know, why you think that that is.

But she knew that, you know, on MSNBC with any of the hosts on MSNBC, she wasn't going to get that. And so she was able to just kind of go through her talking points. And so overall, like she did fine in this interview. There were no catastrophes because it was a comfortable landscape on turf for her to operate on. One of the things I'll say about the media strategy is it is a little perplexing why, given that it's pretty clear the number one issue that voters have, the voters are still undecided.

The biggest issue they have with her is they're still not totally sure what she's going to do. So you would think it'd be like, okay, if you're not comfortable with calm, at least put Tim Walls out there like every day on cable news. He's comfortable in these settings day after day after day saying, here's our top through item. You know, it's going to be housing. It's going to be the child tax credit. It's going to be the small business, whatever the three like things they want to hit again and again and again. I don't know why they don't do that, at least with Tim Walz. I kind of get it with Kamala because they're just nervous that she's going to screw it up and she lied, right? But to me, that strategy, it's way too cautious. And then it makes all of these settings so much higher stakes for her when she does actually give an interview, even with a

friend like him. The entire media was watching this interview. Why? Because there's not that many interviews. So that's the risk, is that Trump does the flood the zone strategy. He's constantly, even though he's doing way less rallies and all these other things than previously, he still does a decent number of rallies. Last night, he actually made major news on Ukraine in his speech. My point is only just that people are not glued to the screen

every single time Trump talks, because Trump talks a lot more than her on average and will eventually do media, press conferences, and all that. With Kamala, she's the one where it's a self-inflicted wound when you set up set-piece events and it just goes okay. And that's kind of how I would characterize this. I think it was okay. But if the number one reason that these uncommitted voters are wondering, should I vote for you or not, a lot of it comes down to policy and actually answering questions, feeling you have command. And I didn't get a lot of that, especially if we look at the specifics on some of her

flagship proposals. She has a few memorized. She's like $25,000 down payment assistance, $50,000 small bills. But then Stephanie Ruhl's like, so what about the SALT deduction? Nope, we're not talking about that. On taxes, she does the totally vague thing where she's just like, nobody under $400,000 a year will have their taxes raised. I'm like, well, what does that mean?

It's like, do you mean you're going to increase the individual rate over $400,000? Does that mean you're actually, then she said 100 million Americans will get a tax cut. Well, a tax cut, how? How from the TCJA? Which specifically do you think you want to do? On the manufacturing stuff, she's like, against tariffs, but she's very pro-building American manufacturing. I'm like, well, that's pretty, you know, it doesn't really work out. And actually, even Stephanie Ruhle was like, come on, even Joe Biden has kept a lot of tariffs and increased tariffs while he's in office.

So there's a lot of weird, like ideology does not mix. There's a lot of talking points. I saw some of that in the price control answer where again, basically zero specifics on any of this. It was a lot of just righteous indignation, which is fine. I mean, look, you're a politician, but I still think Americans are asking you for something. So just to show you, this is what she had to say. But a serious problem over the last few years has been inflation. Luckily, it's cooling, but prices are still high. Yeah, I agree with you. You've said you want to take this on by going after those who engage in price gouging. Yeah. But as somebody who supports free markets, who's a capitalist, how do you go after

price gouging without implementing price controls because once we get in this zone people start to get worried and they say i don't know what she stands for so just to be very frank i am never going to apologize for going after companies and corporations that take advantage of the desperation of the american people and as attorney general i saw this happen in the midst of an emergency, whether it be an extreme weather event or even the pandemic. We saw it where those few companies, not the majority, not most, but those few companies that would take advantage of the desperation of people and jack up prices. Yeah, I'm going to go after them. Yeah, I'm going to go after them. Yes, I'm going to go after them.

And that is part of a much more comprehensive plan on what we can do to bring down the cost of living, including housing, including the everyday needs of the American people. So what did you think of that, Crystal? Because the way I would answer that question is when a lot of undecided voters say that I think you're too liberal

and somebody tees it up for you. She should have said something like, do you think Arkansas are socialists? Because they have price gouging laws that are on the books. And that is the framework that I will use to make sure that people pay less at their grocery store. This was just, I don't know, there was just, there's nothing going on there. I mean, your answer is good, but to be honest with you, I thought this was a great answer. Because normally I would expect her to kind of back down. Oh, well, you know, I'm free market and do the whole like, oh, and Dick Cheney endorsed me. Don't worry, I'm not a socialist. We'll get to that. That was in the speech. I actually thought that this was a fantastic answer. It was like, because Stephanie Ruhle

is like CNBC on MSNBC, very closely, like Wall Street Align. I don't know if you guys remember she was so mad at Joe Biden for going after Park Avenue in one speech where he sounded some populist notes. That's her orientation. So I was worried in this interview that Kamala would be looking too much to cater to that Wall Street orientation. And this answer, while yes, vague, and as someone who's wonky and wants to know the specifics, et cetera, doesn't get into that whatsoever. But as a political answer, I actually thought it was fantastic. I'm not going to back down. I'm not going to be cowed. When people are taking advantage of the American people, I'm going to go after them. I'm going to be tough on them. That's what I did as attorney general. And to me, that's not even like really a left-right thing. It's more of just like

squarely leaning into a populist orientation. So personally, I thought this was one of her better answers, to be honest. Yeah, I don't know. I just keep coming back. I understand where you're coming from. The more that I look at that and people are like, I think you're too liberal. I do think that this, and the Dick Cheney stuff, I don't think that that works for the whole, I think you're too liberal. That's not something that people who are concerned about that are. What they're kind of looking at is probably both cultural and I think that the Arkansas framework or even some sort of specifics you could allay those concerns. She did show a lot of ideological flexibility in her speech. I'm not sure if you caught that. Yeah, and we'll get to that in a little bit. But this answer would pull it like 80%.

Sure. I mean, if you look at the price gouging, her price gouging policy, it was literally supported by like 80% of people. So I don't think people think of this as like a liberal issue. I think they see it as like, you're standing up for us, you're taking on, and it's been the case throughout the pandemic, even at the height of inflation, the American people are much more likely to blame greedy corporations than actually the Biden administration was. So for me, for her to lean into that than actually the Biden administration was. So for me, for her to lean into that and actually, you know, put some oomph behind it and not back down even in the face of a somewhat adversarial question from Stephanie Ruhle, you know, I was heartened to see that and I thought it was a great answer. I thought, politically, I thought she was

on very, you know, strong ground there. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne

from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator

to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sticking with the MSNBC thing, regardless of how maybe one answer or not, one reason that they decided to pick Kamala Harris was, or sorry, Stephanie Ruhle was because literally just days ago, she was on Bill Maher's show defending Kamala for not doing interviews. And by the way, after the interview was conducted, gave a glowing spot about how incredible she did in the interview.

So just to give you a taste of who the interviewer herself was and what she most recently said, here it is. It's not too much to ask Kamala, say, are you for a Palestinian state if Hamas is going to run that state? Okay. Yes or no? And let's say you don't like her answer. Are you going to vote for Donald Trump? No, I'm not. I just said I'm not going to vote for her. Kamala Harris is not running for perfect. She's running against Trump. We have two choices. And so there are some things you might not know her answer to.

And in 2024, unlike 2016 for a lot of the American people, we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and the kind of threat he is to democracy. I don't know. So it's unclear to me how that could be. The problem that a lot of people have with Kamala is we don't know her answer to anything. OK, you know, and I think everything. And that's why I would never vote for him and people shouldn't vote for him. But people also are expected to have some idea of what the program is of the person you're supposed to vote for. You're just not supposed to say, well, you have to vote for Y because X is this, that and the other.

Let's find out a little bit more. And I don't think it's a lot to ask her to sit down for a real interview as opposed to a puff piece in which she describes her feelings of growing up in Oakland with nice laws. Then I would just say to that, when you move to Nirvana, give me your real estate broker's number and I'll be your next door neighbor. We don't live there. So there's your taste. Basically, not only does she openly support Kamala Harris, she was defending her for not doing interviews and for not having specifics.

As a journalist, that's so embarrassing. It's humiliating. The best part, Crystal, is that afterwards, there was this weird, after the interview aired, Stephanie was on with Chris Hayes. And of course, I stayed up. I was like, okay, I'll keep watching this. And she was like, you know what you had there? It was a real interview. It was a normal interview. If you're worried about taxes, you got your answer right there. I'm like, no, you didn't. Saying I won't raise your taxes under 400K is the most meaningless sentence in all of politics. Joe Biden said that. I'm pretty sure Donald Trump has said something, a version of that. Why should I believe you?

What are you even talking about? So for her in particular, to be a financial journalist whose entire job is literally about the specifics and all of this, to have done this spot and then get the interview confirmed with you, what, two days later? That's humiliating. And it's also humiliating for the network because they were touting this as like some big newsmaking event. And I was like, this is ridiculous. The whole thing is a farce. I mean, okay. If you're just a political analyst and you're saying, you know what, I don't know that the voters really care that much about like the white paper on his policies. That's fine.

You know what? That might be true. That might be true. If you're Quentin Tarantino, that's fine. Although I do think that she's not even really right on that because there is still this lingering sense of I really want to know what the priorities are. Right. I need to know. It's not even so much about the policy details.

It's just like a who are you at your core, what are you going to fight for? What is the day one agenda? What is it really? That's the thing that still needs to be filled in. So I don't even totally agree with the political analysis. But as a journalist, as someone who's supposed to actually care about what are the policies that are going to be enacted, what's it going to mean for business? What is it going to mean for small business? What is it going to mean for regular people? How can you not push to get those answers? Because remember, this isn't someone who went through a primary process where we got to see debates, where she got to be pressed by other would-be contenders on a debate stage. None of that happened. So all we have are these little glimpses of whatever it is they're gonna, you know, they deign to give us.

And those answers can end up being very consequential if she is actually elected president. Even if it isn't what everybody in the country is, you know, checking off their list, as Stephanie Ruhl talks about at the end of that video, if you keep going. Even if it's not that, you know, student debt is a perfect example. Biden made certain promises on student debt that once he got in office, he clearly did not want to do anything on student debt. But because he had repeatedly promised certain things on the campaign trail, activists had a cudgel that they could wield to at least force him to try to do something. And they did alleviate some student debt.

Now, he still didn't go as far as his campaign promises, and there's a whole reason, you know, they would blame it on the Supreme Court. We won't get into all of that. But it's pretty clear to me, if he hadn't been forced to make those pledges on the campaign trail, he wouldn't have done any of it because he clearly didn't want to. So, yeah, it matters that you get her on the record on some key issues so that that can be used if she is president, where you can say, hey, you promised to do this. You promised you wouldn't do that. Why are you proposing this now? And that sort of pressure can actually

effectuate some kind of change. So to just like throw up your hands like, oh, I don't even care. Why should we even try? I mean, the opponent's Donald Trump. It's just it's it's pathetic. Like I said, it's embarrassing. And, you know, I suspect that this interview with Stephanie Ruhle was probably already in the works before this Bill Maher appearance happened. But it's illustrative of why she's chosen. Right. It's illustrative of why she's chosen. And then the other reason she's chosen is because Kamala Harris realizes, okay, I think people who are gonna vote on abortion, they already know who they're voting for. People who are gonna vote on immigration, they already know who they're voting for. The remaining undecided voters, by and large, sure, there's exceptions, but by and large,

it's gonna be about the economy. She has somewhat closed the gap from where Joe Biden was vis-a-vis Trump. We actually have a Washington Post tear sheet we can put up. This is A7, guys. So Trump had a 12-point lead over President Biden on who would be better suited to handle the economy. He now averages only a six-point edge on the economy, which is actually pretty solid for a Democratic candidate, especially handle the economy. He now averages only a six point edge on the economy, which is actually pretty solid for a Democratic candidate, especially against Donald Trump. Fox News poll found 51% of registered voters favor Trump on the economy compared with 46% who favor Harris. There's a

number of other polls they cite here that show similar shifts towards her, even though he still holds somewhat of an edge. So the other reason Stephanie Ruhle gets chosen is because she is a financial journalist. She does have more of an economic focus. And it pairs with this Pittsburgh economic speech that Kamala Harris delivered on the same day. Yeah, that's right. Let's get to some of that speech. We have one clip of it here on manufacturing. Let's take a listen. Now, look, my opponent, Donald Trump, well, he makes big promises on manufacturing. Just yesterday, he went out and promised to bring back manufacturing jobs. And if that sounds familiar, it should. In 2016, he went out and made that very same promise about the carrier plant in Indianapolis. You'll remember Carrier then offshored hundreds of jobs to Mexico under his

watch. And it wasn't just there. On Trump's watch, offshoring went up and manufacturing jobs went down across our country and across our economy. All told, almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during his presidency, starting before the pandemic hit, making Trump one of the biggest losers ever on manufacturing. Not bad. I thought it was overall like a fine enough answer. I won't, you know, go into all the specifics, whatever. But I think what it comes back to is not just the lean in of the speech. Keep in mind, that was the Economic Club of Pittsburgh. That interview was also conducted in Pittsburgh. This is what they're leaning into, especially there. They had the steel workers endorsement. There was actually an interesting question to Kamala on the steel workers and whether that US steel plant should have been sold to Nippon Steel, which the Biden administration has decided to block.

That's a policy that she came out in favor of. So I thought that was interesting. We have one more section here that we can play from the speech. Let's take a listen. As president, I will be grounded in my fundamental values of fairness, dignity, and opportunity. And I promise you, I will be pragmatic in my approach. I will engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called bold, Persistent Experimentation. Because I believe we shouldn't be constrained by ideology and instead should seek practical solutions to problems. Realistic assessments of what is working and what is not. I thought that was interesting, the practicality access of, I mean, that is actually what I

expected more from her. And listen, I mean, put my own politics and how I think about things to the side, I think that probably is on the mark of what people want to hear from her. The undecided economic voter is like, oh, I'm not ideological. I'm practical. People like that idea. Practical often meets billionaire, like brother-in-law who's the counsel for Uber, but whatever. We'll put that to the side. My point is that rhetorically, I didn't think it was the worst thing. And that is something, of course, you also get a lot of elite donors and other people who have been in her ear who are like, this is what you need to say. So it was an interesting little flash in terms of the interview, particularly the price gouging answer, like you said, but then also the way that she talks at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh. By the way, anything Economic Club is like full on the business community.

Chamber of Commerce type of vibe. And that's typically where these types of speeches are given. I mean, it gives a little bit of Hillary Clinton, like I'm a progressive who gets things done. That was a great moment. It does give a little bit of that. I mean, listen, if you're going to nitpick, you'd say like, okay, FDR is representative.

She's citing FDR there, and he is representative of a very specific, like, ideological frame, one that I wholly support, and one that a good number of her policies also are quite in line with, and some of the Biden-era policies as well, in terms of domestic economics. But then she's also claiming, like, oh, I'm not ideological. I mean, you can see the poll testing of some people say you're too liberal. You need to position yourself as this sort of like tough, pragmatic, just competent figure. And so that's what she seeks to do in that speech. I watched the whole speech. I thought it was I thought it was pretty solid.

She threw on it in terms of her contrast with Trump. The clip we showed you vis-a-vis manufacturing was a kind of a good example of the contrast she seeks to set up. We saw a lot of this in the debate and her DNC speech, et cetera, where it's like he's for the rich, I'm for the middle class. She had this line about he's for the people who work in the skyscrapers, for the people who build the skyscrapers, which I thought was a pretty good contrast. And so that's what she's trying to set up. With regard to what she talked about there with the carrier plant, I don't know if you guys remember that at the beginning of Trump's term in office back in 2016. And there was a whole, he made a big show of trying to save these jobs at the carrier plant. And then after all the fanfare dies, they get outsourced anyway. And there's a few failures you can point to like that.

Lordstown being another one where a lot of promises were made to people and he didn't care enough to really follow through and pay attention. And that fell apart. The Foxconn facility in Wisconsin is another one. Her numbers are correct in terms of manufacturing under him versus under Biden. And it's particularly relevant right now because, Sagar, you probably saw this. Right now, Trump is doing, it's a very carrier-esque move. Sort of trying to recapture some of those 2016 populist vibes where he's threatening John Deere with a 200% tariff if they move war production to Mexico in particular. And so she's trying to point out like, yeah, we've heard this before, but it never actually works out the way that he says because he doesn't follow through, he doesn't have a plan, he doesn't actually

care about this stuff, it's just a show. So anyway, that's a contrast she's trying to set up. The one thing I'll say about the limited media strategy, which I think is important for democracy, one thing they might be betting on is because there's like a scarcity of Kamala, it does mean that those speeches, this interview with Stephanie Ruhle, etc. Become flagships. Become flagged, get more coverage. Like we watched it and we covered it, you know, in a way that, oh, another Trump interview on Fox News would be like, if something really pops, we'd cover it. But because there is such a scarcity of Kamala, all of these things become

bigger events and become a bigger deal. That may be part of the calculus that's going into this as well. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case,

bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line

at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we've been tracking closely the escalating war, Israel versus Hezbollah in Lebanon, and some deeply troubling news coming out just recently. Let's put this up on the screen.

It appears that Israel is preparing for a potential ground invasion. This is from the Financial Times. They say Israel on Wednesday told troops to prepare for a potential ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as Joe Biden warned an all-out war is possible, but pushed for a ceasefire deal. Let me just continue to read some of the details here from the Financial Times. The IDF's chief of staff told troops airstrikes on Lebanon were not just aimed at degrading the Lebanese militant group, but to prepare the ground for your possible entry. Quote, we are preparing the process of a maneuver, which means your military boots, your maneuvering boots,

will enter enemy territory, enter villages that Hezbollah has prepared as large military outposts. They also said that they were calling up two reserve brigades. Although, Sagar, this is less of a show of force than prior to the ground invasion of Gaza. However, we've already seen massive carnage, somewhere around 600 Lebanese people killed. The Lebanese health ministry is saying that a majority of those, if not all of them, those are their words, were civilians. We know quite a number of children and women are among those who were killed by the Israeli airstrikes already. So we're looking here at a very likely potential even further escalation. Very, very, very possible. And even

worse is that we have basically a total failure of U.S. diplomacy. We're already getting embarrassed on the national stage. So, for example, we have here Tony Blinken getting asked about the situation. Let's take a listen to what he said. Does the U.S. support what Israel is doing right now in terms of this escalation in order to later de-escalate and get to the negotiating table? What we support is solving the problem of making sure that people can go home, but we believe the best way to solve it is through diplomacy, not through war. Why does the U.S. not have or use more leverage over Israel, its ally?

We are the supplier of the bulk of its weapons of war, and yet there are countless examples, and you probably know them better than I, where Israel seems to flout what the U.S. is asking or suggesting. Why is that? We have a longstanding relationship and security relationship with Israel, including making sure that it has what it needs to prevent the many enemies that it has from attacking it, to deter them. And that's important to avoiding war as well. And in this instance, there is a real problem that needs to be solved. Again, from our perspective, the best way to do it is diplomatically.

We're engaged with Israel on that. We're engaged with others in the region on that. And we need to, I think, find the opportunity now to stop any escalation, prevent a full-scale war, get people back to their homes. So that's what he has to say. And yet, just this morning after the US and France released some sort of ceasefire proposal, they tried to intimate that the IDF was on board. The prime minister at Israel's office in the middle of the night puts out this statement. The report about a ceasefire is incorrect.

This is an American-French proposal that the prime minister has not even responded to. The report about the purported directive to ease up on the fighting in the north is the opposite of truth. Think about that. So not only, so our secretary of state goes on television, we're about to get to this. Our president also went on television, basically touting this ceasefire proposal and almost implying that they had agreed to it. And then the Israelis come out and they're like, no, we're not going to agree. And by the way, not only do we not agree, we're actually not agreeing at all to any lack of escalation in fighting. So our troops are already on the way. We've got 40,000 at a minimum. There's probably going to be 50, 60,000 that are going to be somewhere in the region. And things are just very, very close to popping off full scale. And meanwhile, you know,

Tony Blinken is on television just talking about how great it is to supply Israel with weapons. The president's on TV downplaying this entire thing. It's crazy. The whole situation is nuts. It truly is. Forgive my language. I mean, Bibi has turned Biden and Blinken et al into his little bitches. From the beginning of this war, Biden has said, Blinken has said, all of them have said, the top priority is to keep it from escalating into a regional war. By the way, we crossed that bridge a long time ago. But now we're talking about massive bombing campaign in Lebanon,

Lebanese civilians being killed, threats of turning Lebanon into Gaza, which means utter and complete annihilation, and now a ground invasion. No end in sight. And the best they can do is go on television and say, well, they have the right to defend themselves. But I mean, I guess I kind of wish they would do it diplomatically, but like, we'll support him no matter what. It's like, what do you think you're going to get? By the way, these guys want, Bibi in particular, want Trump to be president. They would love nothing more for a big, messy Middle Eastern disaster in September and October to hand Trump the White House again.

I just, I mean, it's so absurd. It's so stupid. It's so morally depraved. I have no words for it whatsoever. And yet here we are. I don't know what happened with the ceasefire proposal. If the U.S. really genuinely thought Bibi was on board with it and then his ministers freaked out and he backed off of it. I don't know. But the truth of the matter is, because the far right ministers in his government are willing to wield what power they have and threaten to collapse the government and for Bibi to pay a political cost, they have much more power in the situation than the superpower of which Israel is supposed to be the client state that is arming and funding all of this because they're not willing to use an iota of pressure. And I don't want to lose sight either

of the fact that the willingness to continually ship arms with absolutely no conditions on Israel is a dramatically unpopular position. New poll, only 23% of Americans, this was written up at Responsible Statecraft, by the way, only 23% of Americans want the U.S. to send unconditioned aid to Israel, including a majority of Republicans are opposed to sending unconditioned aid to Israel. And yet this is treated like you can't even float it, like it's impossible to even put on the table. And so the results are entirely disgraceful and entirely predictable. Going back to like the utter humiliation here, you had Biden on The View yesterday talking up this theoretical ceasefire that Bibi's already, you know, come out and shot down. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say. An all-out war is possible, but I think there's also the opportunity, or still in play, to have a settlement that could fundamentally change the whole region.

And look, one of the things that I found is the Arab world very much wants to have a settlement because they know what it does for them. They're willing to make arrangements with Israel and alliances if Israel changes some policies. And I've known Bibi Netanyahu for a long long time and I'm a very strong supporter of Israel. I make no bones about it. I said years ago I was a Zionist. All a Zionist. All a Zionist means is that there needs to be an Israel. And they have a possibility. I don't want to exaggerate it.

But a possibility if we can deal with a ceasefire in Lebanon, that it can move into dealing with the West Bank. But we also have Gaza to deal with. And so, but it's possible. And I'm using every bit of energy I have with my team, and you know from the Defense Department, you know it well. So, I mean, we already know the answer to that one.

That didn't work out. I mean, the idea that he still thinks that there's some broader solution here, within the absence of him forcing it to happen and using pressure is just, like, you can't even believe that he believes it at this point. And so- Oh no, I can't actually.

Really? You think he's that foolish? I don't know. His brain is shot. Like he lives in a fantasy world. Also we're the laughing stock. I'm watching this British show right now called Industry. And they have this scene of the American president of the treasury secretary being like, and

we have a president who still thinks at war with Japan. And the world is laughing at us, laughing. Bibi is laughing. Look at this. Meanwhile, and you caught this, I don't even know how I missed it. You see that little Ukraine pin there? Our president is wearing the flag of a foreign nation on his lapel. Okay, these are the types of things in the Obama era we actually used to care about. But the whole thing is just so insane because it's a client state, like you said. We're the superpower. Our Secretary of State, which used to mean something, goes on television and is just humiliated.

Our president goes on television whose brain is shot and he's like, whoa, it's so possible to prevent an all-out war. And at the same time, like look at the actual things that are happening on the ground. Tens of thousands of American troops already there and or on the way to the region with 100 percent commitment to defending them against whatever situation that they get into. I mean, there's only one pact for all of America that that applies to. That's NATO. We don't even have a security guarantee with Israel in that regard. Why do we do this? There's no reason for us to get into this. Yeah.

Ryan and Emily covered yesterday what should be also a massive scandal, which is that the State Department produced a report saying, which is kind of obvious, but anyway, saying that, hey, Israel is blocking our aid. Like, they are the reason why our aid isn't getting to the people we want it to get to. That is extremely consequential because if that finding is determined, then you are not allowed by U.S. law, forget about international law, by our laws, you are then prohibited from shipping arms to a nation that is blocking your aid, which I mean, seems kind of logical, right? Tony Blinken came in and said, no, I don't believe that. I don't buy it. And I'm just going to make my own determination. And then disregards that report and goes to Congress and says, no, we think they're doing

their best effectively to enable the continued shipment of arms. This is a violation of our laws. It is illegal that we are shipping these arms to Israel. Forget about morality, forget about strategic interests, forget about all of that. They are violating our own laws blatantly. In any sort of a sane society, this would be a massive, explosive scandal. And instead, because the mainstream coverage and the corporate press is so ideologically aligned here, you'll barely hear anything about, I believe it was ProPublica that broke the news on this. And so here we are, and Gaza's already annihilated. The West Bank is on its way to be Gaza, and Lebanon's now on its way to be Gaza. And the best that our president can go out and do is meekly float a ceasefire proposal on the view that immediately gets shot down.

Barack Ravid reported on this theoretical ceasefire deal. I can put this up on the screen, even though it's sort of pointless at this point. The idea was for some quote unquote pause, I guess a humanitarian pause in the fighting in Lebanon, resumption of negotiations on a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. It has been apparent since October 8th that Bibi has no interest in a long-term ceasefire deal, that he would have to be dragged to it through the force of U.S. pressure. And never along the way has the U.S. decided, hey, maybe we should switch strategies here. Maybe if we want a different outcome, we should try a different approach. Lastly, just in terms of some of the broader context of what this

is going to mean, Let's put this up from Times of Israel, which is more of a right-leaning English language publication in Israel. The headline here is Israel's pounding Hezbollah, but in war, the Iran-backed force will be a lethal foe. You know, they're still outmatched, of course. We're arming Israel, so superpowers arms to Israel. They've got a lot going for them. But they have quite a bit of capability. And they also have the inherent advantage of being the defending party. So, you know, it allows them strategic advantage just from the jump. Some of the reporting here, Hezbollah now has 40 to 80,000 short-range unguided rockets,

some 60 to 80,000 long-range unguided rockets that can reach 100 kilometers. Ballistic missile arsenal is smaller but can reach much further into Israel. We saw a missile that was shot down, headed towards the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. In an all-out war, they say Hezbollah could use its firepower in a number of ways. They could use unguided rockets against population centers to erode the public's will and trust in the government and to disrupt the functioning of the country. They also talk, and this was interesting, Sagar, about the way that, how important drones are, but not the really big, sophisticated drones. It's the fact that they have all of these smaller drones that they can use to potentially like swarm and

overwhelm Iron Dome. And that they've been testing out some of this and you know, since 2006, they haven't been just resting on their laurels. They've been trying to figure out, you know, how they could be more effective. So you know, this is a much vastly more sophisticated adversary than Hamas in Gaza. You know, They have real weaponry from Iran and have built up their capabilities. Yes, they suffered a blow in those Pager and Waki Taki attacks, which not only took out a number of their people, but also has, I'm sure, made communication very difficult. But this is a much different adversary than what Israel has faced up to this point.

I keep saying this. The drone point is very important. Russia is getting drones from where? Iran. Hezbollah is sponsored by who? Iran. Also, Hezbollah fought, what, a decade in the Syrian civil war? Syria was the real experimental ground for the beginnings of this small Chinese drone warfare.

ISIS, Hezbollah, all of these other organizations. You can go watch it if you want. It's all right there on Telegram. But then in Ukraine, gasoline was poured on the fire. The technology got better. And then the widespread application of these and the use of them by the armed forces and at the industrial state level in terms of launching them towards Ukraine, it's been a real way that they've been able to penetrate air defense systems. This is a massive problem, not just for Israel, for all of us, actually, if you think about it, because we have these super sophisticated systems, which are supposed to against ICBMs,

but it turns out these tiny little cheap drones are a very easy way to defeat those systems. And we don't have a particularly good answer. This is exactly what they would have to face, a much more technologically advanced enemy, a much more capable fighting force. It's been battle tested, far more battle tested than the IDF has. And the people in Israel who actually have to fight, they know this. They have to call up already multiple reservists. It would devastate their economy even more than it already has. Don't forget, I mean, this war has been a disaster for them. It's cost them hundreds of billions of shekels and decimated their workforce. They still have all that

controversy where like half their population doesn't even have to fight. So this would be huge. I mean, they haven't lost all that many soldiers in Gaza relatively compared to what they would in a real Lebanon conflagration. So I'm worried about it. I really am. And already they shot down this ceasefire proposal, even though you have what the US, Japan, the UAE, like all of these major powers that have signed on to it. It doesn't matter. They just don't care. They don't care. And why should they? Why should Bibi in particular? Because, you know, when he sees very clearly what his political imperative is. And so, listen, it's one thing, you know, Israel just using their air force to go in and bomb. That's, you know, warfare on easy mode.

But if there's an actual ground invasion, they're going to suffer losses of, you know, the sort that they have not yet had to suffer in the context of this war. And it's just, you know, then you're inviting, okay, or is Iran getting pulled directly into this? How are we impacted? How are troops in the region impacted? How much more directly do we get pulled in? And then the, you know, the level of suffering is just unending. And as I keep saying, no end in sight. So that's what we're looking at today. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really,

really, really bad. Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone,

I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So apologies, guys. We talked too much. We got too into the other stories. So we're going to do

the Senate breakdown of where things stand next week in the show. But we wanted to make sure to get this rare got too into the other stories. So we're gonna do the Senate breakdown of where things stand next week in the show. But we wanted to make sure to get this rare good news into the show. We can put this up on the screen. Overdose deaths after a rapid escalation and a terrifying trend, we finally see a downward decline and it's quite significant. So far this year it looks like there's been a roughly 10.6% drop in overdose deaths and actually some

researchers think that when the data is completely in that it's going to show an even larger decline than that 10%. One researcher thinks they may see 20%. In some areas, they're seeing as much as 30%. In fact, specifically in the state of Ohio, which is a state that has been heavy hit by, hard hit by opioid deaths, overdose deaths are down 31%. Missouri seeing a similar trend. They've seen overdose deaths in the beginning part of this year falling roughly 34%. That builds on some progress that was made last year as well. And Sagar, there's a lot of, nobody really knows why, right? There's a basket of potential plausible causes. One of them is just COVID is behind us. The pandemic was part of,

but you have to look, the deaths were skyrocketing before COVID as well. So that can't be the entire explanation. You had the Biden administration making a lot of moves to make the overdose reverse drugs. Narcan is the sort of most common brand name. Naloxone is the name, I believe, of the actual drug itself. And Suboxone, which is meant to reduce opioid cravings. They've done a lot to make that more widely available and to make Narcan in particular available over the counter and also pressured a lot of businesses and whatever to have it on hand, etc.

I think that's certainly a part of what's going on here. There's also a study that came out this morning that said it looks like Ozempic may lead to reduction in opioid overdoses. So that's interesting, something to look into as well. And then there's also been a difference in the mixing of street drugs. Fentanyl is now being cut frequently with a different drug that doesn't lead to those cravings and that sense of withdrawal kicking in quite as quickly. So part of it may be people are going longer between their dosages, leading to fewer overdose deaths.

But, you know, whatever the pieces are, certainly good to see a little bit of good news on this front because the numbers have been so devastating and so catastrophic. Well, it was the number one cause of death, I believe, for even surpassing car accidents for younger people in America. So it was a total disaster. I'm of a couple of minds. I'm very happy that people are not dropping dead.

But unfortunately, all the data says that most of these people are still using drugs. And if you're using fentanyl, opioids, or whatever, yes, it's great that you're not dropping dead, but you're going to die very, very soon. I mean, the data is clear about infection, about HIV, about hepatitis, about that life that they're living. It's almost certainly going to lead to crime. It's almost an inevitability from what I've seen so far in terms of like long-term usage, committing petty crime, you're going to end up yourself in prison. You're going to ruin your life and ruining the lives of a lot of people around you. So I'm of two minds of it. I'm very, very happy that people are not dying of fentanyl drugs. It does appear that fentanyl reduction in supplies appears to have played some part in this.

But naloxone and the wide availability and all this. But America is still sick. You know, the number of drug users has not gone down. If anything, it actually probably gone up. And if you look at the fentanyl usage and all that, it's almost even sick because now people are not dying. They almost seem to be like managing it, right? But that's what all I'm saying is there's no managing just not dying. Like there's a whole other realm of misery and all that.

Go to the downtown of any major city and you'll see it for yourself. People are really bent over, you know, doing the fentanyl lean. It's everywhere. And it still makes me really sad. Of course, the problem is not solved. No one is saying that. But I mean, the idea of harm reduction, which I certainly support and which certainly played, you know, at least some role in the reduction in deaths is that you just you live to fight

another day. You live to have that opportunity to get into recovery and to get your life together and to get clean and sober. You just, you know, you're able to continue that fight. And, you know, the fact that that played a key part in this, I think is really important, but it's of course not the end of the story. I mean, still recovery programs are dramatically, you know, underfunded. There are not enough beds available and, you know, you still have the underlying, whatever the underlying

problems of despair and inequality and housing unaffordability and homelessness, those things have not gone away. So obviously, that's not to declare mission accomplished. But when you see a significant drop like this, I think it's important to stop and take a look and say, okay, well, what worked here? What's repeatable? What can we say about how we're able to accomplish this reversal of a trend that until just two years ago seemed like it was just on a continual literal death march forward.

So that's why I wanted to make sure that we talk about it because even if, you know, obviously, like I said, no one's declaring mission accomplished, but when you see a 30% drop in certain states in Ohio and Missouri and other places, 20% drop, 10% drop, and potentially more overall. That's something significant that is happening. And that is a lot of lives saved by some confluence of factors here. And I think the availability of naloxone being one of the factors that's contributing for sure. Unfortunately, one theory I saw floated is that harm reduction may not have had to do all that much with it, is that the drug cartels have just remixed because they're like fentanyl is bringing too much heat to the drug industry. That was a theory I saw

floated by some law enforcement. I don't know. It actually seems very plausible. Another very grim theory is just that so many people already died. Oh, yeah. That the super users are dead. The most likely to be vulnerable have already died, which is incredibly dark. But so there'll have to be a lot of research about what contributes to this decline. And just like with the rise and fall of violent crime, which we're now on another major downswing in terms of violent crime, sometimes the causes are debated for decades. There still isn't a consensus about why crime declined so suddenly in the 90s. There's a variety of contested theories, but there still isn't like

something rock solid that people can point to. Some people point to the removal of lead from gasoline. I was going to say, my favorite theory is actually lead. And I actually think there's a huge, there's a lot behind it. I actually think there is too. And the reduction in violent crime right now, again, it may just be like, oh, we're not in a pandemic anymore. Well, people are contesting those numbers. From what I understand that the violent crime, because this is a big, big, I've been thinking about doing a monologue on this just because I love crime statistics, is that allegedly FBI reports that there's been a 3% drop in 2023 from the year before in terms of violent crime. So that is the official FBI number. But there

apparently has been a reduction in the number of cities that report crime to the FBI. So the FBI crime stats themselves can be very easily juiced. If people remember, I've done multiple monologues about mass shootings. If you classify a mass shooting as three people as opposed to four, it all changes. And then if you're like, is it really a mass shoot? All I'm saying is be careful in terms of citing that. I do think crime has gone down relative to where it was, but some of the drops that people are talking about, I'm saying is be careful in terms of citing that. I do think crime has gone down relative to where it was. But, you know, some of the drops that people are talking about, I'm not so sure. But my point is only just that, I don't know, I have a hard time. Like I said, I'm worried about it.

Because if you still have hundreds of thousands of people who are addicted to street drugs, like just because you're not dropping dead today, like your life is over to a certain extent. If you keep using for the next four to five years, just from what we see with the infection data and all of the other horrible diseases that you're likely to contract with living this lifestyle. So this is my general problem with harm reduction is that most people who are for it do not support the regime that they have. I don't think that. No. I mean, most people who are for harm reduction are also for a broader expansion. No, but they're not for punishment. Like I said, in Portugal, if you shoot up heroin- No, I'm for treating it as a health crisis.

But that's my point. In Portugal, if you shoot heroin up on a bench, you're going to jail or rehab. You don't have a choice. You should be locked up if you're using street drugs on the street. Most people are just not for that, who are, quote unquote, for harm reduction. You need a significant punitive regime. People who are addicted- We've had a significant punitive regime, and who are addicted- We've had a significant punitive regime and that has not been effective. But I mean, you have to have some, if you want to have a legalization regime, you can't have it where it is right now, where people are just on the street using drugs. Even if you give them a hotel room, they're still going to use drugs in the hotel room and they're going to ruin their life. They're going to burn through all of their savings. So,

I mean, the truth is, is that in Europe, they have a very paternalistic attitude toward this, where they're like, yeah, it's fine. You can use. But if you're using in public and you're causing disorder, it's over for you. You're going to rehab or you're going to jail. We don't have that. We have the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. That's also part of harm reduction because you're right.

If you're just buying street drugs, you're at greater risk because unless you're testing, and that's actually another thing that they made more available testing strips, but unless you're testing to know what's exactly in those drugs, you are putting yourself at greater risk. But, you know, as I said before, step one is just keeping people alive, but it's only step one. That's just the beginning of the journey. But to see this significant downward decline is something definitely to be encouraged by. Yeah, I'm happy about it. I'm happy about it, but at the same time, I don't want to just be like, oh, that's mission accomplished. You should give out free needles. It's like, no, you people need to go to rehab. We've got to clean up our streets and make sure that this is not acceptable. A lot of the drug addicts who are quoted in that NPR story

are like, yeah, we use together now. I'm like, this is horrible. We're creating fentanyl circles so that people can just use together. The reason they say that is so that if somebody overdoses rather than dying, someone can administer Narcan, which is an improvement. Right, but they're still using fentanyl and street drugs and living this horrible lifestyle. That is something that needs to end. And so that's just what I think that a lot of people think that this is the correct end state where we're just like, oh, just give everybody Narcan. It's like, no, we actually need to get people not addicted to opioids. Opioids got an 87, 80 something percent recidivism rate right now.

Like the level of punitive measure that needs to be put into place to actually force people for withdrawal and even 90 days is not even close. So anyways, people are getting an insight into the big debates around this. But do you do you support the wider availability of Narcan? Yeah, absolutely, of course. But it has to be paired with, again, just giving Narcan to a 16-year-old McDonald's employee and being like, hey, if somebody overdoses in the bathroom, just hit them with some Narcan. And then everyone, county police is like, oh, we got another one. And then even if you do go to jail for petty crime, you get released and you're back on drugs

and you're very likely to overdose. It just doesn't work right now. Part of this program is not just Narcan. It's also the increased availability of Suboxone, which reduces cravings for opioids. Do you support that? Absolutely. So anything, methadone, Suboxone, Naloxone, all of those other things, great management programs have mixed results in terms of how they actually lead to long-term lack of recidivism. My point is that there needs to still be much more punitive measures on forcing people to go to very extensive rehabilitation, not of their choice. 90 days is simply not enough. There's not enough state resources behind this. And then the other flip side of that

is that people just let these people live in squalor in these like crime ridden, you know, like Skid Row in Los Angeles. And just because they're not dying in Skid Row does not mean that that's still not like an imminent crisis. That's the point that I'm just trying to make is that there still needs to be a significant change in the justice system to actually force a lot of these people to go through to have the choice. But is that the justice system or is that a health system, health crisis? No, it has to come through the justice system.

Because if you just give people like, oh, you can go to rehab if you want, a lot of these people like using drugs. I mean, the sad part. Again, drugs are still criminalized. So we have the system that you seem to want to have. No, it's not. Drugs are still criminalized and we don't have enough rehab. Well, they're criminalized or they de facto legal in the state of California, which they are, which is these people just live in complete squalor and they don't get arrested.

I mean, well, for one thing, Gavin Newsom is doing a lot of the things that you would want him to do. Not yet. But we're also not just talking about California. In fact, California isn't one of the states that has the highest rate of overdose death. Those are primarily red states. It is the Appalachian states. It's Tennessee, West Virginia, and Ohio, I believe, that have the highest rates of opioid overdose. I don't think anyone would accuse them of being like, you know,

coastal liberals with their drug policy. Well, in fact, they have a worse attitude, right? Like I just said about somebody like, oh, these idiots are doing it again. And they just let them live in basic squalor in these houses and shoot up. And nobody really does anything about it. I think, look, I'm not saying it's the only answer. I'm saying that you still have to have a lot more punitive measure. And that's simply just celebrating the fact that there's still hundreds of thousands of people addicted to street drugs is bad. But it just seems like you're like not really encouraged at all by the fact that there's been something implemented that actually worked to keep people alive because it doesn't fit with what you want them to do. Because I think this is the end state that a lot of the pro-drug people

want. They want people to just not die of drugs, but they're fine if people are addicted to drugs. I don't think that's an acceptable outcome. I don't think that's true. I think what we've seen is that our regime of criminalization hasn't been effective. And, you know, we've had this regime of the war on drugs and the criminalization of drugs for, you know, 100 years. You know, that regime was in place as the spike was going on. There are plenty of places where drug use is very much punished and there is a punitive approach to it. And this is the first time we've seen something that has really worked. So to me, that's encouraging. Well, but they legalized drugs in the state of Oregon and it was a complete disaster. And they literally had to reverse it

because the population saw what the results of that were. So I'm just saying, you know, it's not all rosy on the other end of that too. I think the current drug regime is trending very much in this direction. I'm just perplexed because you seem angry by the data. I'm not angry by the data. And it's like, I thought this would be something that would be like, wow, it's something encouraging that happened. Like, what happened here? I think I watched with great dismay at the celebration of just the fact that it's like, oh, it's great. This is it. We basically problem solved.

I just, has any, who has said that? I've literally not seen anyone be like, this is great problem solved. It's just like, okay, we made one step forward. What worked? What can we build on? How can we continue this trend? I have, I don't, maybe you can name some names, but I don't see anyone doing like a mission accomplished banner right now. You're right. It's not mission. I guess it's more about the trend and the overall project of the so-called harm reduction movement, which is just something I really don't agree with in terms of the philosophy of it just needs to be safe to be able to use drugs. It's like, no, using drugs is bad. Living this lifestyle is bad. There's no safe heroin addict that lives out there. Like just if you're getting clean heroin in Portugal, you're still ruining your life.

But it's good that people are staying alive. Absolutely. Of course. And you support harm reduction. You just want it to be compared with more criminalization? I mean, again, you seem to- I'm just trying to get where you're coming from. If you support the Portuguese model, you support a highly punitive system, which is one where drugs are legal, but if you are outwardly using them in public where they are right now, you have serious legal consequences that you're going to face.

Well, I don't, where's the serious legal consequences? That's what I'm saying. Well, but in Portugal, there's managed state administered sites. Yes. Where you can go and basically get your dose. Yes. Do you support that? No, not really, especially right now with the current system.

If we got to a place where we had the punitive measures in place, then yeah, I've said this before. If we were gonna legalize drugs, we'd have to actually do the Portuguese model. What I see right now is instead of preference for the so-called harm reduction, which is not paired at all with any of the punitive measures of the forced rehabilitation that they have in the countries where they do have a much more relaxed drug regime. Well, again- So we can't have one or the other. And right now, I think we have the worst of all worlds.

But I actually think it's not the worst of all worlds because at least people are staying alive. So do I think it's the end all be all? Are there more things I would like to see done? Of course. But do I think it's a significant step forward that fewer people are dying? Yeah. And if harm reduction alone and again, I think it's too simplistic to even say that that

was the only factor here. But I think it clearly was a factor in what's going on here. Do I consider that progress even just alone, even if you don't do the whole comprehensive? Yeah, I absolutely am very pleased to see this. And I don't see it as like a double-edged sword or anything like that. I just think it's better that people are alive and have that chance for another week, another month, another year, another decade to be able to get clean and get their life together, et cetera. Yeah, no, I'm very glad that, I'm glad that people are alive and they're not dying and it's not the

number one cause of death. The dismay that I have is that this would, what is happening right now, for example, cocaine, cocaine use is actually quite down right now and it's because people are afraid of fentanyl. So are they going to read this study and they're like, oh, it's cool, we can just start using cocaine again. It's like, no, cocaine is bad, actually. Like, I didn't think you'd have to say that. And so it's- It's not always bad. Well, no, I think, okay, you know what? Go out there, try it for yourself. 10 years, let's check in and let's see who's doing better in life.

Look, alcohol is an incredibly dangerous drug that is completely societally sanctioned. So some of the judgment that we put on different drugs is more about like our conception in society than the reality of the dangers and risks of them. But in any case, harm reduction was effective here. I'm glad they're doing it. I hope it continues. And it's one step, but not the whole program. Well, we'll leave it there. Okay. We'll switch.

Let's get to Diddy. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to

Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her.

And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into,

call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So guys, of course, we've been covering the downfall of Sean Diddy Combs, including the new indictment that we've learned a lot of details about, but we're lucky to be joined this morning by a longtime friend of mine and fantastic journalist,

Torrey, who has a new substack. Tell people where to find your new work, Torrey. Culture Fries is the name of the sub stack. It's torrey.substack.com, doing a lot of reporting on the Diddy situation there. Amazing. So Torrey has a new report up this morning that looks specifically at some exclusive details of how R&B singer Cassie was trapped in what you describe as a 10-year nightmare. In the headline, you say, how did he use her album to control her? And you were able to speak with some folks who were close to Cassie. So talk to us about some of these new details that have yet to be revealed. Yeah, I had a long conversation with a longtime friend of Cassie's. She was working on an album

for 10 years. This is an incredibly long time to work on an album. She thought she was really working on an album. She had songwriters. She had hot producers. She had big artists coming in, rappers and singers to collab with her. They made a lot of songs. But there was never a release date. There was never a title.

It was never intended to come out. It was a giant pacifier to keep her happy in between the times when Diddy was ready to do freak-offs. And it became this carrot of, if you want to continue doing the album, which you love, then you got to do the freak-offs. It has to be both. It can't be one or the other. And this is a way that he controlled a lot of people. If you want to stay around me, you got to participate in this over here, whatever it is that I want you to do. And that way you get to continue pursuing your professional dream. So it's really tragic. The best years of her creative life were spent thinking she was working on her sophomore album and about to blow up.

Great label, Diddy's behind me, we're going to be huge. But it was all a sham. Yeah. And just so people recall, I mean, first of all, Cassie had some certified bangers, some great hits, super talented, beautiful. I mean, she had everything that it took. And then she also is, in part, the person who helps to kick off this whole series of events that leads to the federal charges against Diddy because they had that look-back law in New York that allowed her to file civil charges against him. He settles quickly, but not before a lot of the details emerge of her allegations of years and years of torture and abuse by Diddy. She also is the woman who appears in that horrifying hotel security camera footage where he is beating her and dragging her back to the hotel room. So Cassie is really central to this. And I think part of what's been important about your reporting and your reporting here in particular is that it centers the survivors here as well and really

helps to share the level of abuse and trauma that they went through over years. Oh, and she also is the one who possibly did he may have blown up her boyfriend Kid Cudi's car in the driveway too, because we have the arson charges in this federal indictment that haven't been detailed yet. Part of the thing is that people are saying, how did this happen? How did Cassie rise up to stand up to him when so many other people wanted to and didn't feel comfortable because Diddy was so powerful? She's able to escape from him when Kim Porter suddenly passes away. He's so bereft and upset about that that he's not really paying attention to anything. And so she's able to escape. Within a few months of basically running away from him, she's pregnant. She's in a committed relationship. She ends up marrying

this man. At the end of the year, she has his baby. And by then, she's in a whole thing. She has a whole new life and she is too far gone for Diddy to be able to get her back. And in that moment, going through rehab, going through therapy, having her parents, her friends, a husband who's supportive children, she changes and she grows. And she's saying to herself, I want to be the stand up person that I want my kids to be. I want to be a good example for them. And that leads her to say, I have to stand up for the girl I was because the girl I was who he controlled and beat up. I'm not that person anymore. And I need to stand up for her.

And at that point, she says, I'm going to stand up to him. And so many people were afraid to do that. And she breaks that, she says, I'm going to stand up to him. And so many people were afraid to do that. And she breaks that glass ceiling and pushes in there. She says to him, look, I wrote a book for $30 million. You can have the book. You'll have my silence. Nobody will have to know what happened. But this person, Puffy, is surrounded by enablers. And nobody around him who might, anybody around who might say no is pushed off. And so he's surrounded by enablers and nobody around him who might anybody around who might say no is pushed off right and so he's surrounded by enablers he has an this is an obvious deal 30 million is nothing to him he's a billionaire at this point he says no and then she goes forward with the lawsuit

then everybody hears what happens then the federal government's like wait wait wait wait what what happened and then all And then all this starts. But he could have stopped this, but he never thought that she was strong enough to actually stand up to him because she never had. Well, yeah, it's the decades of the abuse that he had. Tori, you got quite a bit of attention. You put out a TikTok that detailed the Diddy story and how it was actually personal to you. Why don't we take a listen to some of that? That's going to be F2, guys, and we're going to get your reaction.

The Diddy situation is personal for me. I take no joy in the man's downfall. I just want to see justice. But I, too, felt his wrath. I knew this man for decades. I interviewed him many times. I went to some of his PG rated parties. We had a professional relationship until something happened.

So tell us a little bit about that. Can you expand on what happened? Yeah. You know, I had a family member who was trying to break into the entertainment business. I felt like this is a situation where I should use my connections. I called Puff. I had never asked him for a favor. We didn't have like a personal relationship. We didn't hang out, but we had a definite years-long professional relationship. Will you please, you know, hire my family member to be an intern in your situation? Because I thought that would

be good for him. Break into the music business. For about three months, it was very exciting. You know, they had a great time traveling around, go to the mansions, whatever. And then the whole internship suddenly stopped. And I'm calling and saying, hey, what's going on? How come you're not going to the internship? You're not going to work. And it was silence for years. I did not find out until years later that, uh, Puffy had said to him, you know, either you come home with me tonight or the internship is over. And at that point I was blown away that that had happened, that that had been said. You know, my family member said no, which ended the internship.

And, you know, I was shocked. I was hurt. I was blown away that Puffy would do that. One of the questions that's emerged now is if this was just like an open secret in the industry. I mean, the number of people who were likely involved, the number of other individuals who had stories similar to the one that you were privy to or worse. I mean, you know, you have been around this scene. You've interviewed a lot of the major players. Was that your sense was that this was sort of an open secret?

Had you heard other rumors within the industry? I mean, to a certain extent, surely if I thought that I was putting my beloved family member, who I'm very close to and love immensely, if I thought I was putting them into any sort of danger of the sort we now know is possible, I wouldn't have done this at all. Right. So I could not have known the extent of what we're talking about at all. Yeah. Did I hear? I mean, I don't I don't know. I don't really remember feeling like, oh, my God, I know. I know everybody is saying, oh, my God, I heard back when I was in

middle school, this is going on. I really don't know how prevalent this was as far as the rumors getting around. We knew about his violence. We knew, you know, he threatened me. He threatened Danielle Smith at Vibe. He threatened, he beat up Steve Stout. You know, I mean, like we knew that he had this massive temper. He threatened you? Yeah. I mean, there was a record review that I wrote where I criticized one of the lines that he said. And he called me and he was very nice in saying, can you please remove that line? Because that is annoying and hurtful to me. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to remove that line. And then he starts screaming and yelling at me and like, I'm going to ruin your career and all this stuff. And I kind of stopped listening because it was a very loud, angry volume.

Like, oh, my God. Like, whatever. And then he sort of, and I'm not really responding to that. And then he sort of comes down emotionally. And he's like, so can we remove that line? And I'm like, no, no, we cannot just remove that line. And that ended that. But I thought that we had gotten back to a place of equanimity.

Like he pushed me, challenged me. I stood my ground. And then and not long after that, I got invited to a white party in the Hamptons, which was this fabulous daytime affair. Everyone wearing white. It was very cute. But this is, he ended up, he was sitting right next to me and dressing me down quite forcefully.

And he was very upset with me. And, you know, it was one of those things that I was like, wow, like he's got quite a temper. Wow. So he invited you there basically to like humiliate you effectively or to have a chance to yell at you in public. I don't I don't know. I don't know if it was that, you know, this is a person who's very mercurial and changes.

He could have screamed at me in a way that caused others to look. I don't think others who are at that party would remember or were conscious of, oh, Puff has given it to Toray. He may have said, all right, forget it. Let's move forward and embrace him and help make him think like he's still cool with us. And then saw me and got mad. And then, you know, I mean, I saw multiple emotional reactions in the phone conversation, right? Like, so I don't know that it was a setup. I mean, that would be a long way to go for a setup. I don't think it was that. I think that he just changes emotionally from moment to moment. There's so many moments when

he does something, he gets super triggered and explodes. And then next thing you know, he's on his knees begging someone to please forgive him for what he did. So there's rapid emotional changes coming from this person. And Tori, there's obviously a lot of chatter about who could potentially be caught up in this next. Are there other big name celebrities who may also be implicated, who may also go down? Because, I mean, the federal government is alleging this is a racketeering scheme, like this was a criminal enterprise. Do you have any insight into who's getting nervous, who should be nervous, if anyone's nervous, any of that? I mean, there's one name. I mean, you know, Cuba Gooding Jr. did some things that should have him nervous. These are in a criminal complaint. That's already a lawsuit.

That's already out there. But here's the thing. A lot of people seem to think that. Puff will be able to snitch on others. And thus reduce his time. Or get out of this entirely. And that completely misunderstands. The situation that we are in.

And what it means to cooperate. With the government. He would have to say. completely misunderstand the situation that we are in and what it means to cooperate with the government. He would have to say, I can tell you about a massive criminal conspiracy far bigger than the one that I am involved in and one that you need me to help you. Like if he's a mid-level mobster and the government is like, we don't know how to get the top guy. And he's like, I can explain to you how to get the top guy, or I can explain to you how to take down this other family. That is something. But Huff cannot say, hey, you know what? This rapper, this basketball player, this governor, whatever, came to my party and he did X, Y, and Z.

Okay, that's a year off your sentence. No, no, no, no, no. You are the rig leader of this. You are the facilitator, creator of the situation. There's no way that he's going to be able to talk his way out of this. Gotcha. Got it. Well, guys, go give Tori a follow or subscribe on Substack, Culture Fries, and also over on TikTok

where people have been very interested in what you have to say as we are here as well and very grateful for your time. Always great to see you, my friends. Thanks, man. Thank you. Our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. Take advantage of our discount if you can, BP2024 at BreakingPoints.com. We've got that discount going on where you basically get free coverage of the election and you get to support all of our work here on top of our exclusive content. Otherwise, we will see you all later. where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming.

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