Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/29/25: Eric Adams Drops Out, Trump Calls For Portland Invasion, Shane Gillis Calls Out Riyadh Comedy Festival
Episode Date: September 29, 2025Krystal and Saagar discuss Eric Adams drops out of NYC election, Trump calls for Portland invasion, Shane Gillis calls out Riyadh comedy festival. Ken: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/ &n...bsp; To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years,
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Eric Adams, dropping out of the mayoral race in New York City. He is the current mayor.
As you know, he has been enmeshed in so many corruption scandals.
I can no longer keep track.
He was indicted.
Then he was unindicted by the Trump administration and what appeared to be a corrupt quid pro quo.
His approval rating was like the lowest in mayoral history in New York City.
He was polling incredibly poorly.
He didn't even try to win the Democratic primary.
Just decided he was going to run on these like on a separate party line, which is allowed for in New York City.
In any case, after much rumor and speculation, he is officially dropping out.
Let's take a listen to a little bit of his announcement.
Who would have thought that a kid from South Jamaica, Queens, growing up with learning disabilities,
could one day become the mayor of the greatest city in the rural?
Only in America can his story like this be told.
It's not always easy to see the impact of good policy in just three years.
I also know some remain unsure of me after the unfortunate events surrounding my federal case.
I was wrongfully charged because I fought for this city.
And if I had to do it again, I would fight for New York again.
And yet, despite all we've achieved, I cannot continue my re-election campaign,
the constant media speculation about my future,
and the campaign finance board's decision to withhold millions of dollars have undermined my
ability to raise the funds needed for a serious campaign.
So he was polling in single digits here, quite a fall from grace from a man who once hailed
as a potential future of the Democratic Party.
And now he didn't even try to win the Democratic primary, had to withdraw before Election Day.
There had previously been rumor saga that the Trump administration was trying to get him out of
the race. They want him and Sliwa
to drop out of the race. So it's a
head-to-head between Zoran and
Cuomo, because Cuomo pulls the
strongest against Zoran, even though even in the
head-to-head Zoran is still beating him. So that's
what they were trying to make happen. Apparently
the reporting suggests,
I can't remember if I saw this in New York Post or where I saw
this, but that
the Trump administration was really only willing
to offer Adams
the Saudi Arabia ambassador
job if they were also getting Slewa
out of the race. Since Sliwa was
unwilling to get out, then they were not willing to offer him that job. Hence why you stayed in
longer after there were all these rumors that he was going to take that job. But I guess it just
became, you know, it became clear. He was going to be absolutely humiliate. He was polling in
the single digits. Sliwa seems to be legit in terms of, he's like, look, I'm lifelong in New York.
I just want to run for governor or I want to run for mayor and like, that's what I do. I'm not really
interested in anything else, which I kind of like. He doesn't have some qualities to him. He's
just like, this is who I am. This is my thing. Right. I like it. By the way,
breaking news literally just happened.
Trump just tweeted about Zoran Mamdani.
I'll read it here.
Self-proclaimed New York communist Zoran Mamdani,
who is running for mayor,
will prove to be one of the best things
to ever happen to our great Republican Party.
He's going to have problems with Washington
like no other mayor
in the history of our once-grade city.
Remember, he needs money from me
as president in order to fulfill
all of his fake communist promises.
He won't be getting any of it.
So what's the point of voting for him?
The ideology has failed.
Always for thousands of years,
it will fail again.
That's guaranteed.
Don't know why he thinks that that is helpful
in any way, considering that
I mean, that's like a campaign
campaign cut for Zoron to be like, Trump says don't vote for me. So you should, what?
I mean, it's New York City, bro. The smartest thing you could do is stay the hell out of it or be
like, yeah, actually Zoron is great or something like that. You know what I mean? I read it as an
admission of defeat, basically. I mean, because he's like, listen, the pretext of the, the subtext
of that tweet is like, Zoron's going to be mayor. And then think about how extraordinary it is.
I know with Trump, we just like take these things for granted. But for the present of the
United States to be like, I don't like who the voters chose for this city. So I'm just
going to cut them off all funds. Like, that's insane. That is insane. Any other president, we would be
talking like impeachment. I mean, we'd be losing our minds about it. And with Trump is just like,
oh, yeah, of course. Trump doesn't like Zoron and voters picked Zoran. So he's just going to like
try to screw over an American city. Crazy, crazy stuff. But, you know, I think the writing is pretty
clearly on the wall now. Sliwa doesn't look like he's getting out. Even if he did, Zoron still has
a commanding lead over Cuomo, roughly the same lead that he had when he beat him in the primary.
And remember, the primary polls underestimated Zoran support because he remade the electorate.
He genuinely brought out a different electorate than had previously been seen in Democratic primary
Zoran in general election.
Way more young people came out to vote.
So it's actually possible that they're underestimating him once again.
We got a Cuomo reaction to Eric Adams dropout.
We can put up on the screen as well to see how he is responding.
He says the choice.
Eric Adams made today was not an easy one.
I believe he's sincere in putting the well-being of New York City ahead of his personal ambition.
We face destructive extremist forces that would devastate our city through incompetence or ignorance is not too late to stop them.
Mayor Adams has much to be proud of in his accomplishments.
Only in New York can a child raise an attendant in Bushwick, who once worked as a squeegee boy in a mailroom clerk arrives to become mayor.
Whatever differences we may have, Eric Adams story is undeniably one of resilience, a testament to the spirit of the city.
I'm sure Cuomo would like to get Eric Adams' endorsement on his way out at the door.
Not that it would make that much of a difference, but he did, was commanding, you know, some single digits of support.
He had some base, a small lingering base of support that Cuomo would hope to be able to inherit from him.
And I think largely will, largely will inherit that base of support.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to Zoran's reaction.
What do you think the impact of his dropping out will have on your electoral prospects?
I think it's very much the same race.
We have seen over the course of this race, especially in the final week,
weeks and months of the primary that Andrew Cuomo wanted nothing more than a one-on-one
fight with me. And we gave him exactly that, and then we beat him by 13 points. And we
continue to be just as confident. And yet what separates us from these other candidates
is that we're not focused on them. We're focused on New Yorkers. New Yorkers deserve
leadership that is thinking about how to benefit the people of the city. And too often
politicians, be it Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams, the meetings that they have or the phone calls
with someone like Donald Trump, they're only speaking about themselves. It's time to actually
think about New Yorkers. So he is relatively unconcerned. Interesting response to from Hakeem Jeffries,
which we didn't pull as an element, but I'll just read to you. He says Eric Adams has served courageously
and authentically for decades as a member of the NYPD, the New York State Senate, and Brooklyn Borough Hall
and as our 110th mayor. During his time in office, violent crime is down. The building of affordable
housing units is up. New York City has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. As is the case in any
major city, there are challenges that remain, particularly as it relates to lowering the high
cost of living. It is clear that meaningful progress has been made in several important areas
during the term of Mayor Adams. Thank you for your service to our city. Over the next few days,
my entire focus will be on addressing the Republican health care crisis and funding the government.
I will publicly weigh in with respect to the remaining candidates in the mayor's race well before
the start of early voting. This is so insane to me on so many levels. First of all, there is a
Democratic nominee. You are the Democratic leader in the House, and you still don't which of the
remaining candidates should I choose? Like, are you serious? Second of all, this stuff he said
about Eric Adams way nicer than anything he's ever said about Zoron. And again, this man is so corrupt.
Eric Adams, he was indicted. So many of his officials were either under investigation or themselves
indicted or had to resign in disgrace. One of his supporters was just caught handing over a bag of
cash and a potato chip bag to reporters. And this was apparently like common protocol. It is,
insane how corrupt this man was. And not only that, he appears very much. I mean, they basically
came out in a minute to have struck this corrupt deal with the Trump regime to get out of his
indictment. And you say nothing about that, all just rainbows and puppies and flowers and sunshine,
about what a great mayor he's been. If he's been such a great mayor, why is he at single digits
in polling? Why was he unable to even run in the Democratic primary? Why is he having to drop out in
disgrace and be one of the only New York City mayors in history, I believe the second in all of
New York City history, to fail to win re-election. Why? You have nothing to say about that. I mean,
it's just actually insane. It's actually insane, and I cannot, it can't begin to wrap my head
around it. Yeah, I find it very funny. They just won't admit what's right in front of their faces.
Almost weirdly, never thought I would say, credit to Kamala. She was like, hey, he's a Democratic nominee,
So whatever, you know, it's one of those.
This is where, you know, the partisan loyalty only goes one way.
It's obviously just because of Israel.
I don't know.
I don't get it.
What do they have on these people?
I just, I'll never understand it.
How can you be so just like militantly attached to, you know, sacrifice your own personal political ambition,
just about the question of Israel.
But listen, potentially this, what we're about to show you is part of it.
Let's put this up here on the screen from the ADL,
Jonathan Greenblatt after Zoran, quote,
I'm absolutely blown away by the sheer brazen audacity of Zoran Mamdani
telling all of us in the Jewish community who does and does not represent us
because Zoran said the ADL does not speak for New York Jews.
We don't need anyone a political candidate or any non-Jewish person to tell us
who should speak for the Jewish people.
Obviously, no marginalized group is monolith,
but I am stunned by his arrogance in telling a minority community
who should or should not speak to them.
The vast majority of American Jews consider themselves Zionists
and have strong ties to the state of Israel,
attending religious service at a synagogue
known for anti-Zionist activities
does not show that you understand
the overwhelming majority
of the New York City Jewish community.
I love that part because what he's saying at the end
is actually that if you go to a synagogue,
which is not pro-Israel, then they're not real Jews.
And that he's the real Jew.
You see the circular logic that we're all doing here?
No, that's right.
I mean, there is so much to say about this exchange,
about the ADL.
So he says that attending this service
doesn't mean that you understand all Jews
or that it can speak for Jews.
Well, what does it say that he's winning a majority of Jewish voters in New York?
What does that tell you about between the two of you who actually is responding more to the needs of Jewish voters in New York City?
I mean, that's what's insane here.
Like, Zoran is just factually correct at this point that the ADL does not speak for New York Jews.
That is abundantly clear.
It's clear in the way they vote.
It's clear in what the polls say.
Not to say that there aren't any Jews that support the ADL position.
But the other piece that is so, I mean, it's not even ironic.
It's almost intentional.
No one has done war to actually stoke anti-Semitism than the ADL and other outfits like it
that demand that all Jews be associated with the genocidal state of Israel.
Yes, that is actually going to cause and is causing genuine anti-Semitism.
I'm sure you've seen we've been passing around some of these videos of him talking about
what they're going to do and these extraordinary efforts they're going to take in order to make sure
that they stamp out anti-Semitism and it's on the rise and it's spiking and it's on the
control. It's like, then shouldn't you resign? Like, isn't it your whole job is to fight and combat
anti-Semitism? Like, if anti-Semitism is up 3,000 percent or whatever nonsense numbers you've come up
with, isn't that an indictment of your leadership? That happened on your watch. So, hey, you know,
the proof is in the pudding here. And I don't think it's like, obviously not fair to weigh at all
at Jonathan Greenblatt's feet, but when you insist on tying every Jewish person to the horrific
acts of the war criminal
Benjamin Netanyahu and the genocidal
state of Israel. Yes,
you are going to be stoking
anti-Semitism because people are going to look
at that in horror and you're
insisting, oh no, every Jew is a so-s,
every Jew supports this, every Jew
wants this done. It's
insane to me, completely insane.
Well, I mean,
some would say maybe the ADL's entire point
was to increase anti-Semitism at a certain point.
Because it's like they want
it to go up so that
they can fight back against it.
I've always thought about that with the ACA or the human rights campaign or any of these
other people.
Like, I remember thinking about them.
And, you know, when gay marriage got legalized, they have this huge building here in D.C.
It's like, oh, shit, now what do we do?
And so, you know, they created all these new campaigns or whatever.
You could say the legitimate, I think most of them are bullshit.
But my major point is, without the opposition, what do you do now?
And actually, we saw the collapse of this in 2022 where a lot of the pro-life groups didn't
come out to vote Republican because they're like, hey, we got what we wanted, you know?
I've always thought about that with sometimes you need the issue to be live and in some cases you want it to be worse in order to increase your funding and keep it circular.
Well, and even when you consider the ADL being so tied in with the state of Israel, Ryan was making this point.
You know, nothing benefits Netanyahu and his political project and the state of Israel more broadly than when there is this sense of rising anti-Semitism around the world.
Because this is why we need the safe haven for Jews.
And that has been true from the beginning, from before the founding of the state of Israel in terms of, you know, even some early Zionists, like they did not want the U.S. and the U.K. to take in Jewish refugees because they thought that that would undermine the case that they were trying to make for this, you know, Jewish national project.
So even on a bigger level outside of just like interest group politics, since he's so tied in with the state of Israel and the Zionist project is, you know, clearly an ideological like touchstone for him.
That's what drives all of his views, the sense that anti-Semitism is rising, he and Netanyahu feel benefits the state of Israel and creates more urgency around the project that they believe in.
That's right. Hey, we've got Ken Clippenstein standing by, so let's get to him.
All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie.
For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl.
from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved,
until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls,
came forward with a story.
I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know.
A story that law enforcement used to convict six people,
and that got the citizen investigator on national TV.
Through sheer persistence and nerve,
this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.
My name is Maggie Freeling.
I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer,
and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.
I did not know her and I did not kill her,
or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said.
They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.
They made me say that I poured gas on her.
From Lava for Good, this is Graves County,
a show about just how far our legal system will go
in order to find someone to blame.
America, y'all better work the hell up.
Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed
on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
And to binge the entire season ad-free,
subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some good true crime podcast episodes,
then have we got good news for you.
Stuff You Should Know just released a playlist of 12 of our best true crime episodes of all time.
There's a shootout in broad daylight, people using axes in really terrible ways,
disappearances, legendary heists, the whole nine yards.
check out the stuff you should know true crime playlist on the iHeart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Jorge Ramos.
And I'm Paola Ramos.
Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time,
as uncertain as this one.
We sit down with politicians.
I would be the first immigrant mayor in generations,
but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country.
Artists and activists, I mean, do you ever feel demoralized?
I might personally lose hope.
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But there's an institution that doesn't lose faith.
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So President Trump has announced full force, if necessary,
to the city of Portland, Oregon, to break down that
and also a lot else that's going on in the national security world.
We are joined by Ken Klippenstein, fantastic independent journalist over on Substack,
who gets all the scoops.
Great to see you, my friends.
Good to see you, Ken.
Hey, guys.
All right. So let me first get you, before we get to your reporting, let me get you to react to this Trump truth about Portland. We can put this up on the screen. Pretty wild that he puts this out. And he says that the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noam, I'm directing Secretary of War Pete Hagsette to provide all necessary troops to protect war ravaged Portland and any of our ice facilities under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists. I'm also authorizing full force, if necessary. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
What did you make of this?
What are we likely to see, Ken?
Well, it's striking how many times he's done this in states
in which the governors don't actually want the support.
The mayors of these major cities don't want the support.
And so what you really have here is federal government pitted against states,
but the president has the power to federalize these guard forces
and do these kind of things.
So seeing his account of what he sees is going on in Portland.
And then the locals, it's sort of surreal, how different what the two.
Group C is. Yeah, Ken, I know this fits into some of your reporting, so why don't we just go
and get to it? We'll put this up here on the screen about the National Security Memorandum here,
NSPM 7 by administration insiders. For those who are not familiar, national security memorandums
are often a statement of administration policy previously used by the Obama, administration,
Biden administration, et cetera, to kind of set the scope for terrorism and or general policy of
how all government should flow. So here you say it, quote, NSPM 7,
labels common beliefs as, quote, terrorism indicators. Can you just tell us a little bit about
what you found in that and what the broader implications are of the memorandum?
Yeah. So what NSPM 7 does, unfortunately, no, because NSPM 6 is classified as are many
of the national security presidential memoranda. This is completely separate from the executive
orders of which we've seen over 200. And I think that might be part of why people missed it.
I think the major media got it mixed up with the designation of the presidential executive order
designating anti-fuzz domestic terrorist organization.
This is completely separate from that.
And these national security memoranda are kind of big picture, strategic realignments around whatever it is that they articulate.
So in my view, they're much more significant than executive orders.
But what this does is it basically authorizes what are called joint.
Terrorism Task Forces, these were mostly established after and in response to 9-11, that is
thousands of troops, or sorry, thousands of FBI agents and local police who can be deputized
into these Joint Terrorism Task Forces. It's kind of similar to the deployment of the National
Guard in that you are kind of federalizing what would be local and state troops and assets.
And what's interesting is this can be done even without the knowledge and in some cases consent of the state authority, the state legislature and the state governor.
So what this does is it sets them on this, you know, target, which in this case is domestic, the phrase used repeatedly is radical left extremism and terrorism.
And, you know, throughout the document, it says, oh, we're just focused on, you know, instances of violence.
But what it does, when you have a, when you adopt a counterterror approach, where you're essentially doing is your, you're,
You're getting into pre-crime because what you're trying to do is you're trying to preempt the next big attack.
And if that, in the case of a biological weapons attack or a nuclear attack, that might make sense.
But short of that, what you're doing is you're trying to preempt things that might not be necessary to do so.
And when you want to preempt something, you have to try to predict that it's going to happen.
The way you do that is by looking at speech.
And so it has this list of different, you know, ideas that they consider it indeed.
Dicia is the word they use. It's like Latin for indicators that are supposed to tell you that one of these attacks might happen. And when you look at them, these are huge groups of people, anti-Christianity, anti-family, anti-government. Let me read the, let me read the lifts because I have it in front of me. So you don't have to remember all like 12 things or whatever. Because so this is their definition of when they say, oh, this is radical left extremist terrorists. This is their definition of what they're talking about. And it appears basically to be anyone who has been critical of Donald Trump.
Period. So they're looking at these indicators. Anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity,
support for the overthrow of the U.S. government, extremism on migration, extremism on race,
extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility
towards those who hold traditional American views on morality. What's more, you talk about
the fact that the Trump administration, it's not like they're only targeting organizations or groups,
They're also targeting individuals and, quote, unquote, entities that can be identified with any of those ideologies, which, as I just read off, are extremely broad and vague.
Yeah, exactly. And it's important when you talk about individuals, because ordinarily when you approach counterterrorism, the idea, at least post-9-11, is you're supposed to map out these organizational structures like al-Qaeda or ISIS, which really do have resources and really do have funding to be able to do operational things. But the fact that they say individuals and entities, I thought was a little bit chilling.
Because, again, the whole point of the counterterrorism approach is you're supposed to be responding to something that poses a profound threat to the stability of the state.
If it's just an individual and if it's this whole list of different ideologies, is that really something that can carry something out like 9-11?
I don't think so.
And so, you know, I think the response is wildly out of proportion to what the entity's piece?
What does that bring to mind for you?
Why is that a particular sort of red flag for you?
Well, if you look at the domestic terrorist organization executive order last week, targeting Antifa, that rightly caused a lot of concern because, you know, you're supposed to, foreign terrorist organizations are supposed to be what's designated because it's understood that when you treat something as terrorism, that is a direct threat to the First Amendment.
Because, again, you're getting into this business of how can we use ideology and belief systems to try to anticipate and monitor and attack?
that might happen. So it's supposed to be treated with a lot of caution. So they're completely
throwing out the idea of the organization. That's not even necessary anymore. In the case of
Antifa, there was this whole debate about, well, does it even exist as a coherent, organized
entity? Now they're just done with that. And they're like, well, now there's individuals. And it's
like, how much threat does one individual oppose? Like, do they have the operational capacity
of Al-Qaeda to be able? I mean, we just saw, you know, on 9-11, some more records got released.
We were looking at the amount of coordination that had to happen between the different cells.
It's not trivial to carry out something big enough that can create a mass casualty event like that.
And now it's like even that standards are not at the window.
Well, let's push a little bit here, Ken.
I think we all agree here.
Antiva is not an organized force.
And I'm not some, you know, oh, left-wing organizations or whatever are the ones behind this.
I largely think it's kind of bottom up very relative to the, let's say the terrorism craze of the late 2010s, so-called lone wolf terrorist, people like the San Bernardino, Pulse shooter, right?
These are people who were living normal lives, started getting into al-Qaeda propaganda, went mentally ill, and killed a lot of people.
And so I think most people would say, yeah, I mean, there should be some sort of federal government type response to it.
I think you're basically saying it should be a local matter.
I'm not sure I'm entirely there, although I am very uncomfortable with the way that a lot of the 9-11 post-terrorism state was used because for all of the Pulse in San Bernardino, stuff that they could point to, there were myriad cases, many of which we covered here on the show, which were basically entrapment, like not legally entrapment, but basically entrapment.
Although at that time they had a material support for terrorism charge very easily at their disposal, I don't see how practically they could go down that road.
So I know I threw a lot out you, but threw a lot at you, but what do you, how do you grapple with that?
Yeah, I would say that if you wanted to respond to it, using the counterterrorism apparatus,
a more effective way would be to have more focused indicia or indicators than like anti-capitalism.
That's huge.
It's got to be millions of people.
So even just from the perspective of efficacy, you know, that's going to lead you down some paths that are probably not going to turn up much in terms of, you know, you.
You know, actionable.
Yeah.
I mean, some 30 plus percent of Americans I just saw a poll identify as Democratic Socialists at this point.
So are they all, you know, anti-cap.
And, you know, they used an example in the Antifa executive order of anybody who said, quote-unquote, celebrated the killing of the health care CEO by Luigi Mangione.
So I think that's the other important piece to get is what is material support for terrorism?
because this administration is really pushed to make it so that even just speech, even just
rhetorical support for things that they find to be terroristic could constitute material
support for terror.
Right.
And on this point, I guess I should acknowledge, like, you know, you're right.
My general view is that it's preferable to accept some amount of, like, tragedies happening
in exchange for the First Amendment.
And that's not a very popular position, but I guess I should be honest in, uh,
transparent about that is my position because in this case I largely share that about the second amendment
i think it's important to say stuff like that yeah and in this case you know i've already spoke
i'm going to have a story shortly based on um lawyers and legal experts who are now working with
non-profit organizations and they're already hearing that they're going to start curtailing stuff
they're saying out of fear of the implementation of this um order so the the chilling effect on speech
is already happening and to me um that that is something that that should be of of paramount
concern to people. But if you look at the media coverage, on some level I understand it because
in the case of Charlie Kirk and these shootings, it's horrifying. And I understand that people want
some sort of response to happen so that those things don't happen again. But I guess my view is
that we should just proceed with caution about how you go about doing that. Because this memorandum in
particular, it just feels like this sledgehammer approach to the problem. When you look at the
language, I mean, it is so broad. It's crazy to me.
But that's my, yeah, that's essentially my position.
I mean, it's also just very much aimed at whoever is their political opponents.
You know, I mean, it's, you know, using this moment of heightened public anxiety and concern about left-wing violence to, you know, further try to crush their political opponents and hate them all as terrorists.
And you had Stephen Miller, I can put this tweet up on the screen, saying we're witnessing domestic terrorist sedition against the federal government.
the JTTF Joint Terrorism Task Force has been dispatched by the Attorney General, pursuant to,
and he name checks this memorandum, NSPM 7, all necessary resources will be utilized.
And so when I first saw this, I was like, what the fuck is NSPM 7?
And then I saw your reporting.
And I was like, thank you, Ken.
Now I understand.
But, you know, just can you sort of sketch this now?
Like, they're already putting this into effect.
They're already, he says, all necessary resources will be utilized.
Like, what does this actually look like and mean in society?
Do we know, actually, at this point, how it'll be really used?
Well, in regards to the intelligence collection and the monitoring of those indicators that we were describing, a lot of that will happen on the intelligence side, and so we won't see that.
What we will see is the tapping of these JTTFs, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which I think is going to be a kind of more extreme example of the deployment of the National Guard.
Because in the case of the National Guard, and I said in the story, I really don't want to sound like I'm being hyperbolic or overstating things.
But this really is what some of the more exaggerated reporting on the National Guard has been
because the National Guard, the military, can't engage in law enforcement.
They don't actually have the authority to do that.
When you talk to the troops, as I have in both L.A. and D.C., they're under strict rules of engagement orders.
That's not to say that I think it's good that we're deploying it.
I don't think it's healthy for society to have troops stomping around even if they're limited in what they can do.
That being said, they're quite restricted in what they can do.
A lot of the National Guard are just regular guys, locals that are integrated in the community.
And so I think some of the reporting around the idea that they're just going to open fire on people,
I don't think that's really, you know, I don't think that's the concern.
I think the concern should be more what is the effect on the democratic culture.
But in the case of the joint terrorism task forces, they can engage in law enforcement directly
and they can be federalized by the president without the support of the state legislature and the governor.
So I really think that this should be something that a lot of the critique that has been leveled at the National Guard should be focused on.
To cope a little bit maybe here, Ken, material support for terrorism was a real thing because ISIS was a foreign terrorist organization.
Even this whole Antifa, Trump said he was going to designate Antifa in the first term.
It didn't happen because you actually can't designate a, quote, domestic terrorist organization.
You can't, you know, supporting the Open Society's Foundation is just like not is not material support for terror.
Now, I mean, you could use tax rod or you could say, you know, some sort of other weaponization of government for sure.
But does that allay any of your concern?
More just about how much of this is just for show?
How much of this is just to placate a lot of right-wing influencers on Twitter who are calling for blood when in reality, like, U.S. jurisprudence is, like, pretty clear about what actual terrorism means.
Now, you can employ a lot of other types of laws to make their life hell.
I'm not disputing that whatsoever.
but how much of this is for theater?
I would say that, you know, I'm on record saying that a lot of the National Guard deployments
were theater, creating these images of guys stomping around.
And then you actually watch the videos and they're picking up trash and things, you know,
because of that ROE that I was just talking about.
They really are limited in what they can actually do.
In this case, you know, charges that they levy are going to have to stand up in court.
And so that's an important form of oversight that is not changed by the executive order.
That said, I'm more concerned about the subtle effects on speech.
that I was just describing, which is not NGOs and organizations and groups saying, you know,
maybe we wanted to say this thing, but with all this heat in the form of the memorandum and
not just the joint terrorist and task forces, but the IRS auditing these organizations and
trying to find things to say that they're, you know, supporting whatever. Maybe we're not
going to go ahead with this project or say this controversial thing. So that's kind of a more
nuanced concern, I guess, than like the black helicopter sort of thing. But it's a
real one that we're already seeing in the case of how the JTTFs are going to be deployed to make cases
against people. That has yet to be seen, and I don't know the answer to that yet. But Stephen Miller's
comment, I was amazed by how quickly he said, we are activating them. And that says to me that
they're taking that part of the memorandum more seriously than one might expect. And lastly,
just in reporting all this, I was curious myself, do they really believe this stuff? Not just
this specific thing, but like the kind of general approach to stuff is terrorism thing. And I've been
struck by how much. And to some extent, I feel some empathy. I think something traumatic,
a friend of theirs got killed and they're responding to it. And what I found is like, in large
part, they really do think that there's some network orchestrating these things and that we're
going to find the network. So it struck me as pretty sincere a lot of it, where I expected it to be
more along the lines of political signaling in theater. Yeah. I mean, last thing from,
from me, just in terms of its implementation and reading the tea leaves and whatever. I mean,
you have this back and forth with Gavin Newsom and Stephen Miller, where Newsom calls Stephen
Miller a fascist. And then you have people who are saying, this is incitement to violence,
right? Effectively, like, this speech is out of bounds and it's incitement and it should be
criminalized. You had Pam Bondi saying this thing about, like, there's a difference between
free speech and hate speech. She sort of backed that up, like, walk that back, because there was
backlash and then Trump comes out and says basically the same thing. So this is their view is that
this sort of speech should be out of bounds. It should be criminal. You should be viewed as a
terrorist if you say these sorts of things. And we know the way that the, you know, this government
has worked to make that reality. We saw it first and foremost with student visa holders in
particular and the crushing dissent of them for, it's crushing of their dissent for things like
writing op-eds, et cetera. But, you know, it seems like this is an
attempt to expand that to also direct those powers at American citizens. And the last thing to get
from you, Ken, is this is something you've said to me before. It's like, you know, part of why we're
in a more dangerous era than post-2001 is because the technology is much more effective. Palantir is
a thing now. Like the ability to, you don't have to have individual FBI agents like searching
up people's social media history, you can have AI troll through everything all of us are
saying anywhere online and flag who's saying something anti-capital, who celebrated Luigi,
who said something untoward about Charlie Kirk. And that can be done automatically in a way
that requires almost no human beings to be involved. So I think that's part of how people
need to process this dystopian moment is that the technology has progressed much
further. So it's much easier for the federal government to act in authoritarian ways.
Yeah, totally. I mean, we're in a position where because of large language models and things
like that, the state is able to process things on a scale that we couldn't even imagine 15 years
ago. And so this historical protection that we had against government incursion and
interference into you know like fourth amendment rights you know unreasonable search and seizure
which is that the NSA can collect everything but good luck going through all of it that is increasingly
melting away they will be able and increasingly are able to go through all these things and what
we need to have is an attendant response by the congress by the legislature um to try to enshrine
those rights in a way that they're protected from these breakthroughs in technology. And I've
seen nothing of the sort in the last couple of years. So that's really going to be the challenge
of the next decade or so, I think. I totally agree. The AI question powered with government
and is really scary. It also is one where is anybody in the future going to give it up? No.
These contracts are all going to stay for the power. So I really appreciate your answer earlier
about chilling. I think that is very poignant. And one, that is the cleanest and easiest
is that government action, which does chill speech, even for people, it's like with the FCC
thing. You know, they were arguing, oh, we didn't directly get involved. It's like, yeah, but at the
end of the day, like, you know, everybody's going to think about it. You're on network TV.
I think that's very well said. And I think that, you know, I'm sitting with that. I really am.
Ken, can you tell people where to where to support your work? You've been doing an incredible job lately.
Thank you. Not just lately.
Yeah, I run a newsletter at Ken Clippenstein.com. You can find me there.
Nice. Next time, we're going to fight about your trans piece, but we didn't have time today, okay?
All right. All right. We'll get to Rion.
All right. Thanks, Ken.
All right, bye, guys.
All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie.
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All right. Let's get to Riyadh. There was a great confab currently taking place, the Riyadh Comedy Festival, made famous to much of the internet by Tim Dillon, which we'll get to here in a little bit. But nonetheless, many of America's best and brightest flew to Riyadh, accepted large checks for their comedy festival. And we have a little bit of a preview of what we can show everybody. Let's go ahead and put it up here on the screen. What do we have exactly? We've got probably the best stand-up comedian in the world, Dave Chappelle, who joined.
the Riyadh Comedy Festival, Chris DiStefano,
much of the biggest, you know, comedy influencers, I guess,
you could say who joined over there.
Not a particularly big audience, but yet Kevin Hart
rocking his whoopsdrapped just like I am.
So shout out to Kevin, who also, by the way,
appears in a lot of Draft King's commercials.
I've certainly noticed that.
But the point being broadly that many of the biggest,
you know, comedy stars of the U.S.
decided to go over there.
And why I think it's interesting from a broad question of culture is how much can money buy in terms of your ability to say what you want?
Because the thing is, I think, if you would put some of these people together, many would be, I think, quite critical of the Saudi government.
Now, the Saudi government realizes that, which is why a literal kingdom monarchy is holding a, quote, comedy festival to try and whitewash their image, just like they do with LiveGolf and all.
that. Some people in America are like, hey, who cares? I'm like, well, you know, 9-11, but whatever.
I guess we're going to move past that. But the point about their snowflakey remains very important.
Let's put this up here on the screen. You'll recall, Tim Dillon famously was like, hey, I took the bag.
I'd made $300,000 for Saudi Arabia from Saudi Arabia to go and speak at this comedy festival.
And then he told jokes where he said, quote, they heard you said about them having slaves.
Dylan recalled his manager telling him in a previous conversation. They didn't like that.
quote, I addressed it in a funny way and they fired me. I certainly was going to show up in your country
and insult the people that are paying me the money. But I mean, he was doing it certainly on his
podcast, but it does kind of make you think here about, well, what is the price of all this Saudi
money? And what is the purpose that they're doing it? And should we want our best and brightest
in comedy or whatever to be involved? Shout out to Shane Gillis, who, you know, he's a history guy.
So here's what he had to say. Let's put it up here on the screen.
screen, he said, quote, I took a principal stand, you don't 9-11 your friends after he turned down, quote, a significant bag for an appearance.
You know, nice that Shane actually has read a book here and obviously knows what he's talking about.
But yeah, I just, I don't know. For me, it's like the live golf thing. By the way, I had friends, you know, at the comedy festival.
I guess I don't begrudge people taking money. But what it is for me is you got to look at the purpose of like why they're doing this. And they want, you know, they want to.
basically use their billions to make the entire country forget about 9-11.
And by the way, it's working because there's only one or two people who basically decided
not to do it on those purposes.
You can go back to the days after 9-11 where the Bush administration stepped in to try
to protect the government of Saudi Arabia from pushback.
There's all these articles from the New York Times and others.
I encourage people to go and read about the amount of money that the Saudis spent on a PR
campaign to make Americans forget about 9-11, 15 and the 19 hijackers are 9-11.
and we invaded who? Right, Iraq. And so it's one of those where you, at the end of they won,
from LiveGolf to Uber, I mean, their money is so, it's so ever present in venture capital
in Silicon Valley. You'd be hard, you know, people talk about silent speech on Israel.
People, I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find one or two venture capitalists who run big funds
who would say something about Saudi Arabia. Uber CEO, right, for example, huge amounts of Saudi
money involved. Twitter previously, Facebook. I mean, many of these companies have huge amounts
of Saudi money influence that they, it's like a convenient cash cow, not to mention politically.
Think about Jared Kushner, who went to the Saudi royal family for their sovereign wealth
fund whenever he was raising money. And internal documents later came out that MBS personally
greenlit the investment, even though the Saudi managers were like, hey, this is, he's not going
to give us a good return. He's like, oh, it's not about that. He's like, this is about politics.
This is what we're paying for.
So I look at within that, and it's scary because you watch how easy the money is able to penetrate now from LiveGolf, UFC, right, with all the Emirates and all these Gulf monarchies.
They have endless amounts of cash, and I think they've read us very carefully, which is if you throw money of these people, eventually they will forget and we'll all just move on.
And yeah, it's been 24 years and they won.
So for the Saudi side, I mean, 9-11 is one thing.
You also have, obviously, the murder and chopping up with a bone saw of Jamal Khashoggi, who was a journalist, wrote for the Washington Post, columns that the Crown Prince didn't like.
And so that was the fate that he was met with.
Widespread human rights and labor abuses, mass crackdown on free speech.
And that may be the, and, of course, the enforced famine in what many call a genocide in Yemen.
So, but the free speech one is worth pausing and sitting with.
here for a moment. Comedians should be and have been at the vanguard of standing up for
freedom of expression and free speech. This regime is the polar opposite. And that even bleeds
into what these comedians had to agree to as a condition of their employment here. We can put
F5 up on the screen. So this is from a comedian who was offered, you know, given an offer to
attend this Riyadh comedy festival, some significant amount of money was ultimately offered,
and they published some of the restrictions that artists were required to adhere to. So it says
content restrictions. Artists shall not prepare or perform any material that may be considered
to degrade to fame or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or
ridicule, A, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture, or
people, be the Saudi royal family legal system or government, and C, any religion, religious
tradition, religious figure, or religious practice. So they all, every one of them, including
the, you know, ones who code more left wing like a Bill Burr, they all accepted this set of
criteria and curtailed their own freedom of speech in exchange for money. And you're right,
Saugher, like, these comedians are not the only one. They're Mariah Carey's performed there.
Justin Bieber's performed there, and in every, there's, they put their money into golf,
they put their money into tennis, they put their money into race car driving, into e car driving,
like electric sports racing, on and on and on, hosted these major entertainment festivals,
major artist fairs to bring in the top artists from around the world, et cetera.
And the hope is that people will forget about all of that other stuff.
And that's actually, Tim Dillon, I did a monologue on this, you guys can go back and watch,
when he originally accepted the cash and did his bit that ends up getting him fired,
his whole, the whole schick was, you're paying me enough to look the other way.
And that's it.
That's, and that is the deal that these comedians have accepted.
That is the deal that's being offered by Saudi Arabia is basically,
we're going to pay you more than anyone else would pay you.
I mean, these are big pay days, especially for certain of these comedians.
We will pay you more than you're actually worth.
And in exchange, you're not going, you are going to look the other way.
you're not going to say any of the things we don't want you to say,
and you are going to help us launder our reputation.
And the sad, this is actually the biggest backlash that I've seen to one of these things.
I hope so.
The sad truth is that in every instance, as artists have weighed this deal, like, is it worth it?
Will the backlash to my reputation?
Will I be stained with this in a way that is more consequential than the payday I'm getting on the other side?
In every case, the answer has been no.
The answer has been in favor of taking the.
blood money and doing the performance and in Tim Dillon's words looking the other way.
Yeah, I know. Well, you know, at the very least, he said what he thought and they fired him
for it. I mean, he ends up because apparently he got to keep some of the money. Oh, really?
And then they have to perform. So, and I want to say, too, I think it was, so Rogan also said,
you know, and I think it was Tim Dillon that he had on, that he was kind of ridden. He talked about it.
It was before Dylan had been canceled from it. And he was giving him a hard time about, like, taking
this money. Yeah, I hadn't listened to the full thing. Look, my problem was, I don't know why,
but somehow in this country, we all just started giving people a pass. I remember, remember the
live golf thing? Yeah. Our position was so unpopular. In the golf, I don't watch golf. I'm not a
golf guy. I'm more just saying, though, from what I understand, in the golf fandom community,
they're like, hey, brothers, get your bag. And I was like, oh, really? Like, what, you're making
hundreds of millions of dollars? And it's like, now you have to make $500 million or whatever. And
we all just get to look the other way because you're accepting this for open, like, naked
interference in American culture, and we're not supposed to have a take because we're all
just supposed to sit and worship at the altar of golf so that you can make as much money
as possible.
I'm like, no, that's not the deal I signed up for.
But I think this is a broad kind of problem is we don't hold, look, if we hold American
comedy, Hollywood, and all of that, to a high standard, which I think we should, especially
in terms of the effects of globalization.
It's kind of analogous to what's going on right now with the NFL,
but the NFL right now this year is playing a number of international games.
And that's because for them, they've hit the ceiling in America.
Football is the most American sport.
Of the top 100 broadcasts, 93 out of the 100 are NFL games.
Like, it's ridiculously dominant.
So do you know what they do?
They're like, well, we can't make more money.
This thing needs to grow, grow, grow.
So let's play in Brazil.
Let's play in Dublin, like they just did.
Let's play in London, in Spain.
And because they want to grow the fan base
and make it more international
so they can make more money.
But part of that is that what they're trying to do
is use, like, globalization,
kind of in the same way that the Saudis are,
to make American culture not beholden
to American standards.
And I think that's one of those
where we really should hold
these higher echelons of culture
to the same standard
that I think some people held
the Riyadh Comedy Festival.
And it's important.
It's important to say, no,
like that's not happening. You don't just get to, you know, use the country as a springboard as a cash cow or an ATM. Same with the Saudis. You don't just get unlimited access to our capital markets. And yeah, I just think broadly, like, we've lost. Everything is degenerate and it's just all about the bottom line. And at a certain point, like, people need to stand up and be like, no, we're not doing this anymore. Yeah. I mean, that was Dylan's thing was like, the world is ending, so get your bag. And I feel like that is a disgusting view. But I also feel like that is a very prevalent.
view. People feel like
the collective project is kind of
failing, so you just got to get yours.
I mean, at the national
federal level, Naomi
Klein talks about, like,
she calls them sort of like,
like, I can't remember, end times,
end times
preppers, but at the national level, she has a
great, I'm blanking on like the phrase she uses,
but basically like, we're going
to suck up all the resources, whether it's the energy,
whether it's the water, like, it's a
free for all, a smashing grass,
And that's the, that's at the, like, national level.
And then individually with each of these creators, influencers, comedians, people in their daily lives, like, that's the message that's being sent.
It's just, you got, like, forget about the collective.
You got to get yours.
And this is an expression of that.
You know, with the live golf thing, I will say there's one slight silver lining, Kyle could update on whether this is still holding true.
But because the level of golf, for the guys that took the bag and went to live golf, the level of golf is not quite the same.
the PGA tour. And the length of the tournaments is shorter. So they have been struggling at like
the major events because they're not used to the level comfort and they're not used to the length
of play. So there's been some backsliding for some of them at least in terms of the level of
their play, which is a little bit of like a nice like a little bit of comment for the guys who
sold out and took the bag out. Like I said, I had to check with Kyle whether that's still the case.
But there's also a whole separate storyline we can talk about too about the Ryder Cup over the
weekend, the Americans of the Europeans and how that all went down.
Who lost? America?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And Trump went and made a visit.
The American fans were absolutely outrageous assholes, like, in a way that was actually
unacceptable.
Oh, no, no.
A lot of Americans were, you can't be, you can't be screaming.
Troll them, screw.
Yeah, I don't know.
You can be screaming and yelling on the back swing.
Like, okay, some level is a ribbing or whatever.
He's Irish, right?
He's Irish.
Yeah.
Oh, famously, the most, the famously a fan base, which would never troll or yell at anybody.
Come on.
Listen.
Get over yourselves.
Everyone, including Americans, we're acknowledging this was, like, of a different level than what has been seen before.
So even a lot of Americans were, like, cheering for the Europeans because the American fan base were such incredible assholes.
And you had Trump make a visit as well, which made it, like, instantly partisan.
In any case, I do want to get to Mark Marin, circling back to Riyadh, and what he had to say about all of this.
I mean, he's funny and self-deprecating because he's like, look, I didn't get invited.
It's very easy for me to be moral on this issue.
But let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say.
Riyadh Comedy Festival.
I don't know if you heard about that.
This is true.
There's a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia comedy festival.
I mean, how do you even promote that?
You know, like, from the folks that brought you to 9-11.
Two weeks of laughter in the desert.
Don't miss it.
I mean, the same guy that's going to pay them
is the same guy that paid that guy to Bonsaw Jamal Khashoggi
and put him in a fucking...
suitcase but don't let that stop the yucks it's going to be a good time so there you go um him
weighing in so in any case i i do wonder because mark for people who don't follow all this mark
has famous beef i think with many comedians mark is look i mean i think mark is big i don't think he
would dispute this he's woke he's like a woke comic oh yeah he would definitely accept
yeah i think he would probably accept that label all right so mark marron's woke and he hates
the quote anti-woke uh comedians and so look i don't know
I think a lot of it was personal for him, too.
He's also famously a personal prick, so how much of that is motivated.
But at the very least, he wasn't wrong in his set.
So that's what we can say.
I will say to Mark Maron, he was the OG, or at least one of the OGs on podcasting.
And apparently he is retiring, which is kind of sad.
I remember listening to his interview with Louis C.K., where they made up.
I mean, this has got to be more than 10 years ago.
And that's when I really got turned into the podcast medium.
So I do want to give him his due.
He did a lot first.
bang, man. He's been throwing, he's been throwing bombs. He's been getting attention, like, gaining, um, I feel like he's having a late career resurgence in terms of his relevance.
He's just a shit-lib, and he's just, like, voicing the same shit-lib stuff that he always has, but it's just that shit-lips are very angry.
I mean, so much of comedy has become more right-coded that for him to, a lot, a lot of it has.
It's only right-coded to you because you don't agree with it. I mean, it's just one of those where, like-
I mean, they all supported Trumps, longer. They also supported Trumps. That's what I'm talking about.
Okay, but that's...
I would consider that to be right-wing.
But that's my point, is that it's more about countercultural.
And the culture for the last 15 years has been explicitly left wing.
So let me finish my thought here.
So, I mean, you had a bunch of comedians support Trump, right?
And endorse him and go to Zanogorri, all that crap, right?
And then...
So Marin, now coming out and being very vocal against them, like, one of the few has, of course,
gotten him a lot of, you know, a lot of attention and a lot more than, you know, he had been
in recent years. So it's almost like
the culture now has shifted, the vibe
shifted the right, and now he's the
one who's sort of like more counter-cultural
in being a critic of them. Oh, I agree with that.
That's what I mean. I agree. I would, I would,
that's my take with Marin is
that he's basically the exact same kind
of extremist shit lib that he's always
been. Look, it's not
denigrating. I appreciate some of the guys' podcasts.
He gets some good interviews and all
of that, but it's now that what's
happened is that because the country
is explicitly run by the Republicans,
And there's been effectively like a total, or at least 2024 post-fives was like total decimation of a lot of, total cultural victory in every way.
Now it is like vaguely countercultural.
I saw a funny tweet that the most countercultural thing someone in Silicon Valley could do would be just be anti-Trump and put pronouns in their bio.
And you're like, wow, you know, five years ago, that was literally the dominant culture.
So, yeah, it is actually interesting from like a, you know, kind of counterculture.
point of view. And I do think he's got some clean hits in some ways where he's like, you guys won,
so why are you still telling the jokes about the counterculture as if things have not changed a little
bit? And I think he is correct in that way. And so I'm curious to see where, you know,
kind of where the wind blows and who gets elevated with some of the new comedy. But anyway,
that's just me. I don't know anything. All right. So that's my take broadly on the whole Riyadh
situation. We will see you guys tomorrow for our Tuesday show and we're about to do our AMA.
So there you go.
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The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years,
until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story.
America, y'all better wake the hell up.
Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
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Hi there, this is Josh Clark from the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
If you've been thinking, man alive, I could go for some.
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