Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Publish 2/20/24: NYT Sounds Alarm On Biden Age, Hunter Biden Star Witness Indicted, Wild New Sora AI Videos, US Backs Temporary Ceasefire, Houthis Most Damaging Attack Yet, ICJ Hears Israel Occupation Case, MSNBC Horrible Best And Worst Presidents List

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss the NYT and Nate Silver sounding the alarm on Biden's age, Fox News humiliated as Hunter star witness indicted, Trump unveils new sneaker line, Krystal and Saagar react to Sora AI videos, US backs ceasefire proposal, Houthis most damaging Red Sea attack yet, The Hague hears case on Israel occupation of Palestine, and MSNBC releases horrible list of best and worst US presidents.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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 Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. Extra amazing. Crystal, you're back. What do we have today? Yes, nice to be back. And I'll be in for Ryan on CounterPoints tomorrow. So you're getting the full dose of Crystal this week, whether you want it or not. All right. So in the show today, we have Nate Silver joining the chorus of insiders calling on Biden to drop out. Is that actually going to happen? We will talk about that.

An FBI informant was indicted for lying about Biden. This is someone that the Republicans and Fox News have really been relying on for their allegations against him. So that's an interesting one. Trump launched a sneaker line and Sagar has some sartorial commentary that was really important to get into the show. I don't know if you guys have checked out the capabilities of this AI text to video generator called Sora, but it is pretty mind blowing, especially the progress year over year is just like. It's astounding. It is insane. It's insane. A lot going on with regard to Israel. The US is actually proposing a temporary ceasefire resolution to try to pass to Israel. The U.S. is actually proposing a temporary ceasefire

resolution to try to pass through the U.N. Security Council. So that is noteworthy. And it calls for them not to invade Rafah, at least not right now. So we'll take a look at that. I'm also reviewing the ICJ hearings yesterday with regard to Israel's illegal occupation. And Sagar is taking on a list of presidential rankings that he vehemently disagrees with. So a lot to get into this morning. I was so angry about this. I spontaneously sat down and wrote a monologue. So anyway, I think you guys will enjoy it.

The things that trigger you are interesting sometimes. Listen, there are some times just things happen. The record cannot stand. All right. Before we get to that, we are making big plans here at Breaking Points. March 7th is going to be the State of the Union. We are going to have a State of the Union livestream. And so as an incentive for our subscribers who are going to be able to support our work,

we're going to allow our premium subscribers to submit questions that us and the team will be able to answer. We'll have special guests and others all here at the desk as we go live before and after the State of the Union for a special show that you can join us on. As we said, premium subscribers will be able to submit questions that we will all take a tackle at here at the desk. So breakingpoints.com, if you can go ahead and sign up. We've got our election discount going on right now. So now is the time to do it, breakingpoints.com. All right. So let's talk about what is going on in some elite circles with regard to our

current president, Joseph Robinette Biden. Nate Silver, he's independent now, but he's still very much an insidery, respected kind of a guy. Yes, that's right. Very much respected in insidery circles. So quite noteworthy that he joined Ezra Klein, and we'll get to that in a moment, in actively calling on Biden to drop out because primarily of concerns over his age. Let's put this up on the screen. Nate wrote out a lengthy piece explaining his thinking and explaining how his thinking has changed with regards to Biden and the need for him to drop out of the race completely. So he writes in part, personally, I crossed the Rubicon in November, concluding that Biden should stand down if he

wasn't going to be able to run a normal re-election campaign, meaning things like conduct a Super Bowl interview. Yes, it's a huge risk. And yes, Biden can still win. Go on to the next part. But he's losing now. And there's no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong or that voters look at the race differently when they have more time to focus on it.

He concludes, put this up on the screen, the only option now is for Biden to step aside, perhaps in response to peer pressure from Democratic leaders and people inside the White House. This is a real option, however. Don't let anyone gaslight you into believing otherwise. The Democratic Convention is not until August 2nd. This is an option that Biden, the White House, and Democratic leaders need to seriously consider. As I mentioned before, this was in response to a podcast essay that Ezra Klein released. Ezra Klein now being a columnist at The New York Times, or I guess a podcaster for The New York Times. Ezra also having a lot of sway and influence in elite circles, especially from his perch at the New York Times. Let's take a listen to a little bit of the argument that he made with regards to why

Joe Biden should drop out of the race. I think one reason Democrats react so defensively to critiques of Biden is that they've come to a kind of fatalism. They believe it is too late to do anything else. And if it is too late to do anything else, then to even talk about Biden's age is to contribute to Donald Trump's victory. But that's absurd. It is February. Fatalism this far

before the election is ridiculous. Yeah, it's too late to throw this to primaries, but it's not too late to do something. So then what? Step one, unfortunately, is convincing Biden

that he should not run again, that he does not want to risk being Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a heroic, brilliant public servant who causes the outcome she feared most because she didn't retire early enough. That in stepping aside, he would be able to finish out his term as a strong and focused president, and people would see the honor in what he did in putting his country over his ambitions. The people who Biden listens to, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Mike Donilon, Ron Klain,

Nancy Pelosi, Anita Dunn, they need to get him to see this. Biden may come to see it himself. I take nothing away from how hard that is, how much Biden wants to finish the job he has started, keep doing the good he believes he can do. Retirement can be, often is, a trauma. But losing to Donald Trump would be far worse. So it's very interesting because Ezra is like the ultimate neoliberal. I mean, he was, you know, came to prominence as like the Obama guy. He's at the New York Times making this argument. If you listen to the whole thing, which I recommend because it's interesting the reasoning he lays out, he goes out of his way to spend like a third of the essay being like, Biden is great and he's done amazing things and I think he's fantastic.

And, you know, as a president, I really think he's delivered and I think he could continue to deliver. My issue is if he's not able to, you know, run a normal campaign, if he's not able to sit for interviews and he goes through the metrics of how few interviews and how few press avails Joe Biden has actually done, that he worries he won't be able to beat Trump. And also, I thought noteworthy and important here, Sagar, is that he doesn't just leave it up to a hope and a prayer. He lays out specifically, okay, here's what would need to happen. You would need people like Nancy Pelosi, Ron Klain, Anita Dunn, whoever, to convince Biden to drop out.

Then it goes to the convention at the DNC. And we've had in the past, it's not in either of our lifetimes, but in the past, these things were decided at the convention. There is a process for picking a candidate on the convention floor, and they could do that at the DNC, and that could work out and would make for a lot more compelling and interesting campaign TV than just the anointment of this. These are my words now, tired old man that everyone, you know, is concerned about, can't even make it through another four years. No, it's very well. I mean, look, I when I say well argued, I just mean not the parts about how Biden is so fantastic. He knows his audience. You're right. But I mean, it's interesting to me

that both Silver and Ezra both point to the Super Bowl as such a massive jump off point. They're like, how in good conscience and you as a sitting president of the United States pass up the opportunity to speak to one hundred and twelve million people. You know, we had the ratings afterwards, Crystal. It was the most watched event in the United States since the Apollo moon landing. That's the truth. I've said it before. The very last thing that unites this country at all is the Super Bowl and football specifically. Why would you not go out of your way? The point that he also makes is that Biden has given fewer than 100 interviews. Quote, most of them are softballs. He'll go on Conan O'Brien's podcast or Jay Shetty's Mindfulness.

The Biden team says they need apolitical voters, the ones who are not listening to political media. You know a great way to reach apolitical voters? The Super Bowl. But if you do that, you got to go sit down with Face the Nation. You got to be asked questions about Israel. The other thing that he points to, which is just so obvious, and again, it just bears mentioning, is, quote, go watch a speech he gave in Pennsylvania kicking off his campaign in 2019. Yeah. Now go give a speech he gave last month. It's not close.

There's no comparison. They're on YouTube and you can see it. The way he moves, the energy in his voice, Democrats denying his decline are only fooling themselves. He's right. And yet, why is it that, what, lone voice? Silver can say whatever he wants. He no longer works for ABC.

It's true, you know, to a certain extent, it took some Silver can say whatever he wants. He no longer works for ABC. It's true, you know, to a certain extent, it took some courage to say something like this. But I just want to underscore exactly what you said. The modern campaign as we know it really was born throughout the 1960s, specifically 1968 or so with Hubert Humphrey and Robert F. Kennedy. And the way that the primary system as we kind of currently know it really stemmed really from the JFK campaign. Prior to that, we had a very similar system through which he lays out here. In many cases, Crystal, we would not even know who was really running for president until the convention. I mean, think about it. It was only six weeks out or whatever from election day. These two-year-long elections, I mean,

in some cases, it really is only 08, you know, the Iowa caucus battles that began a year before that. How recent, you know, the current insanity really seems for a year before that, how recent, you know, the current insanity really seems for all of us. So there's no reason, you know, given his age, why we can't revert a little bit back to tradition. Yeah. I mean, listen, I never thought I'd be in a position where I'd be cheering for the DNC to just like take control and pick a candidate at the convention, but that's where we are. So I think it is very noteworthy for this case to be made publicly in the pages of The New York Times, given how much elite circles pay attention to what is written at The New York Times and what is said at The New York Times. I mean, I wonder what you think,

do you think there's a chance that he does drop out, that these people do, you know, have some sort of come to Jesus moment and really put pressure on him to leave the race and that he's ultimately persuaded by that. Absent a major health event, and I'm not talking like a stroke, something debilitating, he's running. That's what I think. I think that, I mean, look, the party system is also very weak. He is the commander in chief. He's the executive. The people around him have been in Biden indoctrinated. They've been preaching the tune that he's completely fine. You can't just flip on a dime.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, like they've all given their shibboleths about how he's the smartest, you know, most sharp man to ever live in the Oval Office. How can you reverse? You would look like an idiot. So this this is all played out. The system, the architecture and all that would be needed for something like this. It just doesn't exist. Yeah, really what it is it comes back to, and he even points to this, is at the end of the day, the candidate is the person who matters the most. Biden is an egomaniac

and arrogant. And if anything, what do we always know about age? It only makes you more of what you already are. He was stubborn in 88. You think he's going to be less stubborn when he's old? I don't know a single old person who became less stubborn with age, especially one of the most common characteristics is they cling to what they can control as they get older and older. That's where he is, and he's decided to put all of our fates with him. Like you said, it can sound mean and all of this, but most people who are his age are in very peaceful retirement. We're hanging out with our grandchildren and others, and to the extent that he feels any responsibility to the American people, he's decided that he's the sole judge of his character and he'll leave it up to the voters. So it's up to him. Yeah. I did think it was noteworthy that Ezra pointed not to, you know, here's a performance of Biden when he was vice

president. But here's just a few years ago when he was launching this campaign and how much he's declined, like notably, clearly declined. And they both basically made the case that the reason he's not doing these interviews is actually rational. Like from his campaign team's perspective, from his aide's perspective, it is their best possible bet because they think the performance would be that bad. And, you know, I mean, that was demonstrated in the press conference that he attempted to give to try to assuage concerns that he was old and basically losing it and then mixes up Mexico and Egypt within the course of 15 minutes. And as we've said before, it'd be one thing if it's a one off, like everybody misspeaks

sometimes it happens regularly. But the fact that it happens in this way, basically every time he's in front of a camera is pretty telling. And obviously, the American people have already decided, 86% of them have already decided this man is too old to be able to really run and serve again. The other issue that I can't remember if one or both of them got into it, but part of the challenge for those around Biden, too, is they don't have confidence in Kamala Harris. And she is the next most likely person to take up the mantle. I mean, if Biden were to drop,

she would have the inside track to replace him as the Democratic nominee. And the fact that her approval ratings have consistently been below his, and she has not proven herself to be an able campaigner. She herself has not done all that many interviews and has not been all that comfortable in front of the camera either, and has a tendency to say weird, rambling, nonsensical, word salad-y mumbo jumbo. So I think that's another reason why people around Biden have convinced themselves that he is the best bet. There was an interesting piece over at CNN, though. I'm curious what you think about this one.

Of course. I think this one was very much planted by Kamala's team about how she understands that there are problems with the campaign. And she's trying to ride to the rescue. She's trying to work it out. She's having all these meetings behind the scenes trying to save this campaign and adjust course and make it better, make it responsive to voters, et cetera. Put this up on the screen. They interviewed two dozen sources, CNN did, and they said that Harris has been gathering information to help her penetrate what she sometimes refers to as the bubble of Biden campaign thinking,

telling people she's aiming to use that intelligence to push for changes in strategy and tactics that she hopes will put the ticket in better shape. There were some specific concerns from prominent politicians that were mentioned here. The fact that they had these specific concerns on the record was kind of interesting. So they said Representative Debbie Dingell has pushed Kamala repeatedly to get the White House to take more seriously how hard Biden's response to the Gaza war is hitting Arab Americans in her home state of Michigan. Steve Horsford, the Nevada congressman and congressional Black caucus chair, urged Harris to get the administration to talk more about housing affordability rather than the triumphant and often disconnected talk about Bidenomics. At a session around Harris's dining

table last Saturday with six Democratic governors and their chiefs of staff, according to multiple people who were there, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer slammed the way the president and the campaign have been talking about abortion. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker hammered Biden's response to the migrant crisis and insisted they need to quickly get much more aggressive about attacking Republicans and Trump for tanking the bipartisan immigration bill. Maryland Governor Wes Moore complained that the campaign has been failing to get through to voters under 35 years old. So interesting that all these concerns are being made known. But, you know, the one thing that you like, you could adjust your strategy or what you're doing on any range of number of issues, but you aren't going to be able to change Biden's cognitive abilities or, you know, his age and how old he will be if he is once again sworn in as president. Right. And that's what they're like, talk about housing affordability. It's like this is the

ship has sailed on this stuff years and years ago. How many people can go roll the tape? How many discussions, Chris, do we have in 2021 about you need to be active about fighting inflation? If you let it just continue, then you're going to lose the narrative. You're going to show people that you don't particularly care. And then they just caught up and they're like, no, everything is actually fine. They want people to just, you know, erase their eyes and not realize there's been a 20 something percent year over year inflation from 2019 to where we are right now. That's insane. One fifth price increase. People don't just look quarter by quarter. They experience their life, you know, on a very different timeline. So there's so many things within this that are just stupid. But the real one, and we just can't go away from is people hate

Kamala even more than they hate Biden. So it's one of those where how are you supposed to save anything on an interpersonal level? People cannot stand you. It's not like they're waiting for you to come in as a savior. That's also, by the way, a huge part of how we have a very weak Democratic Party, where you don't have the ability for someone like Gavin Newsom, who, look, I'm not a Gavin Newsom fan. You cannot deny he's very politically talented. He's very politically talented. And more importantly, he loves the fight. He's itching to be able to get into the ring. He just simply is constrained both by media and the criticism that he'd be usurping a black woman and the most successful president or whatever. And that's actually a sign of tremendous weakness in the American political system to not allow somebody to come in the other way, especially when the base.

The thing is about Trump is Trump is strong. The base likes him. Now, you know, the rest of the country may not. But as a party, it shows that he is in control. The Democrats don't like Biden and yet he's still somehow in control. That's actually nuts. They have affection for him. Yes. They do not want him to be the nominee or the president again. They would like to have other options. You know, just to play sort of like political fantasy football here for a minute. I do think if it came down to convention because of like political fantasy football here for a minute, I do think

if it came down to convention because of the reasons that you just cited with Gavin Newsom, I mean, he is like the ultimate political animal, not only in terms of his capabilities demonstrating like his debate versus Ron DeSantis, his comfort going into, you know, difficult spaces, et cetera, but also he is the ultimate behind-the-scenes back-slapper and networker. I guarantee you, many of the DNC delegates feel like they know him personally, have had some interaction with him. He's the type who has been for years and years and years at this point, flying around the country to go to different Democratic dinners and make sure he's pressing the flesh with whoever the key, you know, state party chairs are in different places.

And so if it did come down to that, and especially since he's from the same state as Kamala Harris, you know, if it was looking like the California delegation is going for Gavin over Kamala, which I think they would if he had the balls to do it over, you know, over the historic first black woman vice president. If he had the balls to do it, I do think the California delegation would go with him. And that would be a pretty devastating blow to Kamala Harris. But I mean, we're getting way over our skis now, just imagining all of these things. But I can't help but thinking, think about how this could potentially all play out. Other thing that I would say about that Kamala Harris writing to the rescue piece, which,

as I said, paints her in a very favorable light and I think was very much planted by her, her team, et cetera. I think she is also trying to burnish her image as a credible alternative if something was to happen to Biden or he was to drop out. So I also see this as a little bit of shadow maneuvering from Kamala to try to rehab her image so that people feel more comfortable if Biden was to step aside with go ahead and, you know, pick the next in line vice president as the next Democratic nominee. So I read a little bit into that.

You know, the other thing that was interesting that we wanted to touch on here from The New York Times is this piece about how resistance liberals are feeling, how they described as crisis stout. They're exhausted after all these years of Trump and the existential threat and, you know, every single election being completely existential and the energy they've put into that now for, you know, a long time. They are feeling very burned out, which is not a great thing that even the most faithful of the Democratic Party base are feeling kind of exhausted. Put this up on the screen. The headline here from The Times, anti-Trump burnout. The resistance says it's exhausted. Bracing for yet another election against Donald Trump, America's liberals are feeling the fatigue, quote, we're kind of like crisis out, one Democrat said. Let me read you the lead of this piece.

They say in 2017, they donned pink hats to march on Washington, registering their fury with Donald Trump by the hundreds of thousands. Then they flipped the house from Republican control, won the presidency, and secured a surprisingly strong showing the 2022 midterm elections, galvanized by their conviction that Mr. Trump and his allies constituted a national emergency. This year, anti-Trump voters are grappling with another powerful sentiment, exhaustion. Quote, some folks are burned out on outrage, said Rebecca Lee Funk, the Washington-based founder of The Outrage, a progressive activism group and a purveyor of resistance era apparel, LOL. People are tired. I think last election, we were desperate to get Trump out of office and folks were willing to rally around that singular call to action. And this election

feels different. We're kind of like crisis down, said Shannon Casper, 36th security guard in Pittsburgh, who called the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch a dumpster fire. She added, it is crisis fatigue for sure. They have some poll numbers here to back up the anecdotal comments from the people that they interviewed, indicating that there are more Democrats saying they are exhausted by the political process and sort of dispirited by the whole situation than Republicans. That could be a problem for them come election day. Although I have to say, these people are going to vote for Joe Biden. They're not going to stay home.

They're certainly not voting for Donald Trump. The question is more that activist energy. Are they going to get out there? Are they going to knock doors? Are they going to organize? Are they going to send in their $10, et cetera? I think that's more the issue here. And if you have a base that's dispirited, depressed, exhausted, not excited about the candidate and crisis downed, that's obviously not a great thing. What I find hilarious about it is that in 2017, when they were the most activated,

it just compare that to the Trump of today. Ask yourself, which should you be more worried about? Shouldn't you be more of a resistance person like post January 6th or not? If anything, they kind of blew it early on when they conjured up this like Hitlerian image, which wasn't real. And then it became like this cartoonish, whatever you want to call it right now. But unironically, unlinked, at least from whatever forces were keeping him moored at the time. You should probably if you were a resistance person, you should be way more afraid of Trump, too, than you should be if Trump won. But they've been exhausted. They tapped their coffers, you know, as much as they could back in what was it, the 2018?

That was like peak resistance, I think, for the election. Now, that said, I don't want to underestimate it. Even if they're exhausted, it doesn't mean that you won't come out and vote on election day. I will not ever sit here and underestimate the actual power of an anti-Trump vote. It doesn't just have to be resistance. A lot of people who are not resistance people will not vote for him. They may come to the ballot or they may still hold their nose and vote for Biden. But as Silver put it at the very beginning of this block, what a risk, what a risk for the whole country that you're putting this all through. That's right. You know,

it's like, what are you doing? What are you doing to us? Yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's exactly it. So, you know, fascinating to watch these machinations. I agree with you. I think that's I think that's exactly it. So, you know, fascinating to watch these machinations. I agree with you. I think it is highly unlikely that at this point Biden is actually convinced to step aside. But, you know, you do see some some sort of palace intrigue, a little bit of, you know, behind the scenes drama with regards to Kamala Harris trying to bolster her image with regards to a variety of insiders actually coming out and saying, all right, you need to drop out and here's what the path looks like. So, you know, we'll wait and see if there are additional developments, but I also am not hopeful that anything will actually change. Yeah, no, I think you're right. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began

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Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker,

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terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing.

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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. Let's move on to the next part in terms of the election and what could have been a major turning point. The FBI waited specifically to cover this with you, Crystal, has now charged the same prosecutor who charged Hunter Biden with tax evasion with the gun charge,

has now began prosecuting actually, or charge and will and intends to prosecute a witness that came forward and alleged that the Biden family had approached the Ukrainians for a quote $10 million bribe. If you are familiar with this, this was subject of a Chuck Grassley letter that was leaked about last year that came forward from an alleged witness that had all this incriminating information. I actually covered it also at the time, although unlike Fox News, I've not been clinging to it for over a year now as evidence of quote unquote Biden family corruption. And while there certainly may be some, this particular instance, this man has now been charged with lying, which is a bit of a problem for some people over at Fox News, which have

been beating the drum on this. Let's take a listen to the credence that they gave this gentleman. A veteran FBI informant alleging both the president and Hunter Biden each took $5 million in bribes. The details come from an FBI informant who is very trusted. A highly reliable informant that has always checked out all the information he's ever given us has checked out. We have determined that Whistleblower is extremely credible. This is a very crucial piece of our

investigation. A confidential human source that had been reliable previously to the FBI. A confidential informant that they had on the payroll. Documented allegations of bribery from a trusted FBI confidential human source has now finally been released. Now its contents are devastating. So as you can see, didn't work out so well for them. Let's put this up there on the screen after the news went and leaked, quote unquote, GOP lawmakers used to claim him to President Joe Biden is corrupt. FBI source now charged for allegedly providing false information on Biden's, which was then cited by Republicans. We're talking about Russian individual Alexander Smirnov, one count of making

a false statement and one count of creating a, quote, false and fictitious record related to statements that he made to the FBI on a Form 1023. The charging documents say that we approached the FBI as an alleged confidential source, but fabricated and provided false information to the FBI, which was then leaked specifically to Senator Chuck Grassley, who took the step of then releasing that claim several years ago, as we said, to say that a Ukrainian oligarch had pushed the president, the Biden family had approached this Ukrainian oligarch to pay them $10 million. Now, this was a key part of like the Ukraine corruption story that was kind of ancillary to Burisma and some of the other verified claims there, Crystal. But nonetheless, I mean, it's a terrible look because they're hanging all of their hat on this. And while it

was not the central part of the prosecution, you still, that's exactly why you are supposed to not be totally credulous about all of this. One of the reasons I You still, that's exactly why you are supposed to not be totally credulous about all of this. One of the reasons I feel credulous, quote unquote, about Burisma is A, Hunter admitted it. And you know, the money is verified. It's right there. We can literally see it in wire transfers that have been verified now by the IRS, the FBI, house investigators, et cetera. With this one, all you ever had was the claim of this single individual, which is the problem from the very beginning. Well, they're trying desperately to make a connection between the money that Hunter was receiving and money received directly by Joe Biden.

Because rightly, people say, OK, yes, what Hunter did was corrupt trading on the Biden family name. It's very clear he's doing that. It's very clear that Biden's brother has done that. Like and we're talking about over decades that this has been longstanding Biden family name. It's very clear he's doing that. It's very clear that Biden's brother has done that, like, and we're talking about over decades that this has been longstanding Biden family practice. But that doesn't directly implicate Joe Biden. And also, I mean, honestly, that like pales in comparison to what Kushner and Trump himself are doing in terms of cashing in on the position, their name, the presidency, et cetera. So they really, really wanted to make this direct monetary connection. And so that's why they relied so heavily on what was just basically an unvetted

allegation made at the FBI, which if I recall correctly, you covered as such at the time. The irony here is that, I mean, that's exactly what the quote unquote Steele dossier was. It was someone who had been an FBI informant in the past, as had this individual. And that's part of why they gave him credence as like, oh, well, he's said stuff that was true to the FBI in the past. So this must also be true. Well, the same could be said of Michael Steele. And of course, they spent years rightfully lambasting Democrats for completely hanging their hat on this one dude and the stuff that he, you know, clearly like made up out of thin air. And now they're in the same situation.

Now, the people who are leading the Biden impeachment over this allegation and other allegations of corruption, they claim the House Republicans, Jamie Comer et al, that, oh, no, this wasn't really central to the impeachment. But that's a lie. Like, clearly they had hung a lot on this dude's allegations. Well, they were hoping for it to come true. Yeah, exactly. And Comer himself went on Fox News no fewer than 200 times to talk up this story with this dude's claims at the center of what he was saying. Sean Hannity was a primary culprit of like relying wholesale on what this individual had to say. And, you know, it turns out and the evidence is pretty compelling that he just made it up. It was just a lie. He hates Joe Biden. He had like an ax to

grind and he decided to try to push this claim and see where he could get with it. And it looks like where he's going to get is probably some prison time. Right. Yeah. I mean, look, he should go to jail. People who, you know, lead people on goose chases and all of that. And also we should do at the Steele dossier point is fantastic. And it's also very important. There also is something we wanted to kind of roll into this because it does kind of thematically fit. Let's put this up there on the screen. There has been a massive wave actually of highile Republicans who are quitting the House GOP. And kind of what it comes down to is that the vast majority of these people who are leaving, it's almost unheard of to leave whenever you have the majority and whenever you are likely projected to continue the majority whenever you are the chairman, in many cases, of the Energy

and Commerce Committee, or you have a high-profile position on the U.S.-China Committee, like Mike Gallagher, who recently just announced that he would retire. You have Mike Pence's brother who said he would retire. Many of the people who are announcing their retirement were people who had not only decades-long careers left in the House, but in the immediate term would have had power in the committee system. And one of the reasons that they're leaving is like, listen, you know, we don't do anything. We don't pass any laws. We had all this Kevin McCarthy nonsense. We keep going down these impeachment or whatever rabbit holes. And that's fine, you know, as long as we get to continue any serious work. But they just feel as if it's completely irrelevant. And they're like, yeah, why should I have to fly back and forth between Washington and my district or whatever,

just to come here and do fake votes that don't actually mean anything or matter at all? Even my committee work, for example, it's not like bills are being reported out of committee these days. They just get drawn up by the leadership three days before. They send it to you and they're like, hey, you got to vote for this, or you're out of the Republican Party. What do you do? I mean, it's a terrible job in many respects for a lot of these folks. Most of them are rich, you know, so for them, they're like, why should I stay? I'll just leave. I don't blame you. I'll go be a lobbyist. I'll go cash in, et cetera. Yeah, why wouldn't you? I would do it too if I was stuck in there. I mean, let's be clear. Almost all of what these people want to quote unquote accomplish

and govern is bad. So it's not like I'm not mad at the House GOP dysfunction. But the thing that I also think is interesting, so just to give you some of the numbers, 23 Republican lawmakers decided not to seek reelection or resigned early. That includes, and this is the part that is kind of astonishing just based on history, five committee chairs. Right. Yeah, that's crazy. You guys, I mean, it's hard to explain how coveted these positions are. People work their entire careers to climb up the freaking ladder to be, you know, in these various committee positions. And so at the point where they've actually, like, achieved the goal of their many years of ambition, they're like, it's not worth it.

Like, I'm just, it's not worth it. None of this is worth it. And I think it is noteworthy that, listen, they can read the polls. They see it's very likely that Trump is going to be back. And you would think in an ordinary political moment that the fact that you are going to have an ally back in the White House as president of the United States would make you more likely to stay because then you say, oh, well, then, you know, we're not far

from being they have a very good shot at taking back the Senate. They have a very good shot at holding on to the House, although it is precarious i mean their majority is balanced on a knife edge but they have a very good shot of having the house the senate and the presidency and so to have that situation and have this many people especially especially committee chairs being like i'm out i think that is actually really quite extraordinary and so it speaks to the fact that having trump in the White House for a lot of Republicans is not a benefit. It's a pain in the ass. Right.

Because then what happens? I mean, they're still not governing. Everything they're getting asked is just questions about, like, the latest bullshit that Trump did or said or, you know, tweet or truth that he sent down or whatever. And they just don't want to deal with it. So I think that part is also really fascinating that they are very, they have a very good shot at having the trifecta of the House, the Senate in the White House. And they're still like, in fact, because of the fact that Trump is likely to be back there, that is part of the motivation for them wanting to get out of town and snag their corporate board seats and lobbyist gigs while the getting is still good. Like you just said, I mean,

in the Trump era, when a Republican senator, the vast, and I know some of these people, but here's mostly what your job consisted of. You do nothing while you're here. While you walk down the hallway, you get accosted by these reporters. And they're like, have you seen the latest Trump tweet on Mika Brzezinski's facelift? Yeah, exactly. And you're like, well, I don't condone what the president says, but I'll see him in November in my district. It's humiliating. It is humiliating. It's absolutely humiliating.

I wouldn't do it either. Yeah. So, look, I do not begrudge them for leaving, but it is certainly—I mean, whether it's a crisis or not, I don't know. I mean, they will all be replaced. All of their jobs will continue. The people replacing them probably believe the same things. And most of all, these people are in safe Republican seats. Right, exactly. So it doesn't particularly further imperil the GOP majority, but it just is a very unusual situation to have people who are

this many people who are this highly placed facing the prospect of a continued majority to be like, I'm out. I'm done. Well said. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight episode series, we're unpacking and

investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fat phobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John,

who's not the father. Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the okay. Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my

son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying

her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your 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. Speaking of Trump and some of the things that he imposes on the GOP, Trump made a surprise appearance at Sneakerhead Convention. He's declared himself a member of the community and he has now unveiled for many of his supporters one of the grail items, a golden pair of Trump high tops that people literally wept in order

to be his president. They've paid thousands of dollars to acquire a pair. So he certainly is still making money off of some of his supporters. Let's take a listen. Yo, check out these Trump ones. $400 retail on these. Check these out. Check the box too. It says Trump, friends and family. Then when you open it, it comes with like a gold wrapping paper Look how many Trump's and on the friends and family Congratulations You're all sneakerheads Let's see the signature. All right. Congratulations. Thank you.

You're all sneakerheads. You're sneakerheads, right? Does everybody in the room consider themselves a sneakerhead? I think so. Yes, we need him. He's a Christian. He's a good, honest man. They're after him for no reason.

Go out and vote for Trump. Vote Trump. No paper. Go out and vote for Trump. He's a good man. Look at his family. They're all good kids. All right. So a lot of passion in the audience for the sneakerheads. The shoes, the Never Surrender high top, sell retail for $399. As you saw, that gentleman paid $9,000 for a signed pair. Oh, my God. Two of the low top sneakers actually also come with a $99 bottle of Victory 47 perfume and cologne, which is also available for sale on that website. Trump says that he's been wanting to do this for a long time. And in a typical Trump fashion, he actually did not manufacture the product. He simply registered the trademark to CIC Ventures LLC in the way that he's done business there in the past. So assuming he's getting a decent, a little bit of a cut

of something that's going on along with this. Here's my issue with the sneakers. All right. So high top sneakers in general. I don't really wear sneakers as much anymore. I've been trying to only wear traditional shoes. But if you're going to wear a high-top sneaker, I would generally request that it be a classic, like a Converse style, the Nike. I'm blanking on the name exactly for what they look like.

These are gaudy. They also, Crystal, you know, you remarked this, they don't look very well made for $400. They look like shit in every way. Think about what you could buy for $400. They're so ugly. Yeah, $400 is a lot of money. You could buy a pair of Aldens for like boots for $400. So this is not what I personally would be spending my money on for somebody who's interested in shoes and in clothing for men. And yeah, I mean, I cannot imagine a scenario where this would be appropriate. Maybe Walmart, you know, wearing something like this, even then,

not really sure that's what I would want to be wearing in there. So yeah, I'm honestly flabbergasted by the entire thing. But guess what? They all sold out within hours. So it's not like it didn't work. Just like his trading cards or whatever. The NFTs. I mean, a good sneaker design is a beautiful thing. Like some of the Jordans, you know, are, I mean, they really put a lot of thought into the design and inspiration. And they truly are like pieces of art.

This is some schlocky, ugly craft. It's bad. And the gold ones are the worst ones. There are these other ones that are like red, white, and blue that are just sort of very standard, but also just look kind of like cut and paste. Nothing special about them.

Nothing like that really pops about them. They're just, they again look like something you, you know, might get at Walmart. No offense, Walmart, but I've purchased many shoes at Walmart, so no offense. My first suit was from Walmart. I was a George customer back in my debate days. But anyway, yeah, they're quite hideous. And I mean, the other context, obviously, this guy needs to make a buck apparently because he's got facing an almost half a billion dollar judgment against him that he's got to either pony up or, you know, post enough collateral to be able to get a bond and get someone to agree to that. So I guess he's in the market for new money making ventures.

And who better to go to than to further squeeze and rip off your own fan base, which is exactly the people who will pay the $400 price for these hideous things. Yeah, look, I mean, I guess part of merch, you know, fan merch and all that stuff. I will say, you know, at least in our merchandise, Union made, and it's actually nice. High quality. Yeah, our stuff is actually genuinely high quality. I don't feel bad charging what we do because, A, it's made in America. It's made with Union labor, and it's nice. It's actually nicer than most of the stuff.

But when you mark your stuff up by several hundred percent and it's an inferior product, like I said, so I looked up the names. I was blanking on it. They're the Nike mid blazers. That's a very classic shoe, as you can see here. Yeah, those are nice. Very, very classic. I actually own a pair. And then the Converse Chuck Taylor, obviously that's one of those, you know, the most classic designs in all of men's wear. You can mess around a little bit with some of the ancillary details. Doesn't necessarily need to be Converse, Nike, or any of that. But really what you're going for is like a clean aesthetic that's something you can put together that is not going to draw too much attention down to the shoe. All great outfits should draw attention to the face.

Part of the reason why wearing a gaudy pair of faux leather sneakers would violate some of the fundamental rules. What do you think the cost of goods on these monstrosities are? It depends. I mean, it depends on how many he's made, if they're being made to order. It doesn't sound like they made all too many of them. Maybe $20, $30, something like that, unit cost. Whenever we're factoring in shipping and all of that,

maybe $40, something, you know, at best. Insane markup. Insane markup. It's a decent amount of pocket that's going into the, for the big man. But hey, that one lady seemed really happy. The other guy, at the same time, you know, what, he paid 9,000 bucks. There's a Trump, there's a crazy Trump boat guy out there who will buy some of those on StockX. Like we know that they exist. So from an investment point of view, he's not wrong per se to be able to buy them. I wonder what they are reselling for right now.

Let's look. I will look it up right now. Okay, so with some research on eBay, here's what we've got. We've got one pair going for a size 9 crystal going for $45,000. Another one here with 11 watchers on eBay and $50 in shipping. Man, the galls on this guy. $23,500. Another one going for $17 in shipping. The man, the galls on this guy. $23,500. Another one going for $17,000.

The cheapest gold pair that I can find on eBay right now is $2,500. And these are all, oh, $8,000 here. Yeah, so it looks like this man made a good trade. Good trade to him. The signed ones, if a basic pair can be listed for $45,000, imagine what some weirdo out there is going to pay. So I guess that dude that bought the $9,000 pair wasn't a bad deal, I guess.

It was a good deal. It was a good deal. Now, you know, it's still risky. You never know. Still a questionable financial decision if I was his partner or somebody like that. But, hey, you never know. And good luck to the man in his eBay Avengers. I certainly wish him luck.

What a world we live in. All right, let's move on to the next part. Speaking of what a world we live in, we wanted to cover this and just give a general reaction. We haven't been able to do that one yet from Sora, the new product that is being released, at least being red teamed currently by a select few that's been released by OpenAI. This is text to video and some of the most stunning imagery from AI that we have seen yet. We have a couple of prompts that we wanted to show everybody. The first one, let's put this up there on the screen, is just amazing.

This was the first really one that they released. It says, for those who are just listening, a beautiful snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the snowy weather, shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous Sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes. I mean, it really does appear real. It's only whenever you get really close in, Crystal, to some of their faces that you can tell that it's fake because it's a bit blurry and it's still in that uncanny valley. But if you are, you know, a decent enough away from their profile, it would pass the smell test, I think. It's no

longer really there. The next one, too, is quite adorable. Let's go and put this one up there. Two golden retrievers podcasting on top of a mountain. What gets me is the realistic way that that golden retriever is panting. Now, here we have a white and orange tabby cat seen happily darting through a dense garden, chasing something if eyes are wide and happy as it jogs forward, scanning the branches, flowers, and leaves as it walks. The path is narrow as it makes its way

between all the plants. The scene is captured from a ground level angle following the cat closely. This one does appear to fake to me. I'm not sure about you. This one's in the uncanny valley for the cat. The other two, they look real. The golden retriever one is the most real.

I agree with you. And the thing with the dogs, first of all, they're adorable. Yes. On their little red and white picnic blanket on the mountain with the little headphones on. And the way that the wind is rustling their fur. Right. It's like, how do you do that i mean you know and it's just based on that text prompt of two golden retrievers podcasting on a mountain and you get

the scenery is beautiful the thought of like putting them on this little blanket and the microphone looks in the headphones and the way that they're interacting with each other it's it's pretty wild i mean it is incredible. The number of scenes that I've seen, especially the ones that are like scenery or landscape, I mean, those seem very, very real and very accurate. We have that one next, Crystal. This is amazing. When it does come out, this is what I'm going to use it most for, which is historical footage. Let's put this one, please, up on the screen. Historical footage of California during the gold rush. What's amazing about this is not just like the Deadwood style architecture, the horses and everything is also like the patina color on the camera as if it's old footage and the

landscape reverting it back to where it was. The oxen, you know, people pulling just, I mean, the shadows there, like in the saloon. For me, that is just absolutely amazing. And again, you don't get in far enough to realize the uncanny valley. Here also, just to show everybody the progress that's been made, here's one from 2023 of Will Smith that there was an original prompt. It was like, show Will Smith eating spaghetti. Now compare it to where we are now. It was like, show Will Smith eating spaghetti. Now compare it to where we are now. Look how awful, you know, his features, his eyes and everything. It's terrifying. It's terrible. Yeah. I mean, it's just not, it's his mouth, you know, barely opens and then look at the realistic nature. I'm not sure what the prompt

is on that other one, but it's like old man with a beard sitting in a cafe, people moving behind him. I mean, it's, it's, it looks based it's almost – the only reason that we can tell it's not real is because his features are a little bit too perfect. It's like things are just a little bit too smooth. It's like if somebody hits airbrush or something on Instagram. Well, yeah, I agree. I agree. But I do feel like, you know, we have the luxury of knowing that it was AI generated. That's true.

I think that if I just saw that video and didn't know, I don't think that I would pick up on that. Because like you said, it could easily just be a filter. It could just be the good lighting, making him look in the most ideal way that he could possibly look. So I mean, we have passed a significant Rubicon now where it is not just Rubes and people who aren't very sophisticated and people who don't have a good eye or whatever who can be completely 100 percent tricked by these.

Because especially depending on the prompt and depending on what you're talking, I think the human beings are still the most challenging. But that old man, like I said, I mean, that looks very real to me. We are in a new phase now. And there's a lot to say about, I can't even wrap my head around all of the implications of not only where this technology is right now, but as you were just pointing out, the fact that it developed and progressed so quickly in one year is mind-blowing. It's extraordinary. And I also feel like it's kind of terrifying because I don't know what all the implications are

and neither do these people who are developing it and putting it out into the world. And certainly neither do our lawmakers have any sort of a grasp of what the risks and what the potential implications are. So I am in the camp that is amazed by this, but also very, very unsettled by what it could mean. Some of the implications so far that I've seen, commercial application, what you might see in our producer Griffin floats that all commercials may basically be over now, or you can get decent

enough stock footage and other things that you can use in the past. You no longer have to hire actors. One of the immediate implications I thought of for people who work in film is think about how much nicer it will be for storyboarding an idea. Like if you're working on a project and you want to just get to roughly what it should look like in your vision, you can use something like this instead of having cartoon artists and others sketch things out. Secondary is we can think about animated film, what something that could look like, the ways that Disney, Pixar, and all the other magic that we've seen. This was revolutionary technology. It's why Pixar was such a valuable part of Disney that Disney even purchased them. It's a huge part of childhood. You can think about using a product like this to dramatically lower the unit cost, move things over to YouTube.

In terms of voiceover and all that, it just takes a lot of the work out of it because then you just have to put that in there. You don't have to do any of the animation. Those are just things that immediately come to mind. I'm trying to think about circumstances that we may use it. So from what we understand right now, our team will use AI stuff mid-journey, I believe, for thumbnails, like in retrospect. But I'm trying to think about maybe a circumstance that if we want to recreate something that had happened and explain it to our audience, maybe we could type something in here. And especially if it gets good enough with

politicians, you could create a scenario where somebody can literally have it come to life. I'm just thinking out loud. Imagine Gavin Newsom at the Democratic National Convention giving his acceptance speech after he's just vanquished Kamala Harris. What would it look like? Yeah, I mean, I struggle to really understand what the implications would be for us in particular. The thing that is very clear is just we're at a point now, guys, where you just you can't believe your eyes, you know, just because you were seeing a video, a picture, whatever audio and it looks real. It sounds real. It feels real. Does not mean that it's real. And that is, I think, a very difficult thing for human beings to struggle with. I don't think we're

ready for it. I don't think our politicians are ready for it. The most clear, as you're pointing out, Sagar, implications in terms of industry and workers is in Hollywood, as you guys know, because we covered it extensively at the time. Both the actors and the writers and the directors, they were all on strike. And some of the key things that they were concerned about were implications of AI. And for the actors, this rapid development in technology has the largest implications. The contract that they just agreed to and signed does not have great protections in terms of AI. It has some provisions, but even at the time, there's a reason why many of these contract deals, once they're crafted, they get overwhelming like 98% support. This one had more reluctance associated with the rank and file specifically because of concerns over AI protections.

Wired had a good write-up at the time. I can put this up on the screen. So one of the people who worked directly on the AI provisions and was sounding the alarms about some of the language in the agreement, she said that she was worried primarily about, quote unquote, synthetic performers or AIs that resemble humans. This gives the studios and streamers a green light to use human-looking AI objects instead of hiring a human actor. It's one thing to use generative AI to make a King Kong or a flying serpent. It is another to have an AI object play a human character instead of a real actor. So how do you regulate that? And there are some provisions in here that's like, you can't just take Denzel Washington and AI generate him and put him in your thing. However, what if you take someone

with a lot of the characteristics of Denzel Washington, who's sort of giving Denzel Washington, but isn't actually exactly like Denzel Washington? Where do you draw the line of where the boundaries are legally? I feel like we see this already in some of the legislate the the lawsuits over music and whether or not some, you know, beat or rhythm or part of a track was used illegally by another artist. And you have to go through the courtroom process of like, is it similar enough to count as being a ripoff and infringement or not? So we're moving into a realm where that will have to be legislated in court too. Like, how close can you come to a known actor before you're over the line and you're ripping off that person's likeness? The other thing that they expect is that this will further increase the

sort of inequality in Hollywood in terms of the acting profession. Because if you are an A-list star, you have the money and you have the brand awareness and the media attention, et cetera, to fight back if you and your likeness are being used in these ways that are potentially over the line. If you aren't that person, if you aren't the Denzel Washington, you don't have the resources to fight back.

You are expendable and AI is very cheap. So they can render someone who looks very much like you and sounds very much like you and plug you in in the background of films, plug you in as an extra, and you don't see a dime. So I do think for a lot of actors who aren't, you know, the top, the top, the top, this is a quite an existential threat to their industry and to their work in the same way. And they make this parallel in the wired piece in the same way that automated truck driving is a threat to teamsters and professional truck drivers.

This is already an existential threat to many acting professionals. Absolutely. I certainly think it does in terms of what we should do about it, I honestly don't know. I'm still in a wait and see mode just because something I always talk about full self-driving technology for Tesla and all that. Listen, you know, it can get you on the highway, but like if you're asking it to turn left or something in a crowded street, good luck. It's not, it's not there. And this is billions of dollars that have been thrown at it. Everyone's like, oh, this is going to replace Hollywood. I just don't think so. I continue to come back to the Noam Chomsky op-ed, remember, that he wrote in the New York Times about how LLMs fundamentally misunderstand the evolution of human language, of thought, of creativity. And look, Noam,

you can think whatever you want about his politics. I happen to agree with some of it. But he is a world-renowned linguist. He kind of knows what he's talking about. And the point that he makes is that syntax, the construction of language, and all of that itself, simply compiling that in the database just misses the deep human evolution of language over, what, 6 million years now. That's been happening. I happen to have some faith in that. That doesn't mean that this won't be a very, very useful tool. I don't see it as a replacement. Maybe the AI will roll this and laugh at me,

you know, 10 years from now or whatever. But I could be wrong. We'll see. Well, the thing is, in a scripted production, though, you're not depending on the AI to generate the human-like speech. Yeah, true. You have screenwriters, although, I mean, potentially they're heading in the direction of also using AI, at least for first drafts or polishing or whatever. But, you know, in terms of the video piece, I think the technology is already at a place where for extras it's done. Like if you have, you know, your primary actors in the front of the scene, you've got people behind you eating and walking and walking the dog and talking to their kids or whatever. This tech is already good enough that you could do that and no one would notice that these aren't actual real human beings.

And there's other stuff like that. I'm not 100% familiar. I believe the term are like secondaries, like things that you film away from the main cast. Sometimes it can be like tracking shots or extra stuff. If you could use AI for that, you just save money on a drone, you save money on a helicopter, you know, there's all kinds of scenery shots. And then all the crew that would be responsible for filming that and editing that, etc. I mean, it would also impact their industry greatly as well.

So, like I said, the fulsome implications, I don't think anyone can really wrap their head around what it's going to look like and where the technology is going to end up. But I think already there are clear, huge implications for Hollywood in particular. And, you know, I'm not sure that I don't feel like we are ready to grapple with the fallout for what this incredible technology is going to mean for that industry in particular, but more broadly as well. I agree. Totally. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children

was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back.

Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret,

even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your 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. 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. All right, guys, we have a lot of developments to get to with regard to Israel. First of all, just breaking really today, the first news came out yesterday, but fully being picked up by the press this morning. The U.S. has decided to push its own version of a temporary ceasefire resolution through the U.N. Security Council. We can put this up on the screen. It has some of the details.

This comes as Algeria had offered a separate resolution that the U.S. is intending to block. So the headline here from Reuters is U.S. proposes U.N. Security Council oppose Rafah assault back temporary Gaza ceasefire. We have proposed a rival draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would call for a temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and oppose a major ground offensive by Israel in Rafah. According to text seen by Reuters, the move comes after the U.S. signaled it would veto on Tuesday an Algerian-drafted resolution that would demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire over concerns, this is according to our people, that it could jeopardize talks between the U.S., Egypt, Israel, and Qatar that seek to broker a pause in the war and the release of hostages held by Hamas. Until now, Washington has been averse to the word ceasefire in any U.N.

action on the Israel-Hamas war, but the U.S. text echoes language that President Biden said he used last week in conversations with Netanyahu. It would see the Security Council underscore its support for a temporary ceasefire, this is all in quotes right now, in Gaza as soon as practicable based on the formula of all hostages being released and calls for lifting all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale. I also want to call your attention to what they're reporting the proposed draft says specifically about RAFA because they don't say, no, you can never do a ground offensive in RAFA. They say that they have determined under current

circumstances, a major ground offensive into Rafah would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement, including potentially into neighboring countries. Let me go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen because with regard to Rafah, this is incredibly critical. Israel is imminently threatening a full-scale Rafah invasion. For the first time, they set a specific deadline of the beginning of the Muslim holy day of Ramadan, which starts on March 10th. That is per Benny Gantz, who is a member of the Israeli war cabinet, delivering effectively an ultimatum at a Sunday event. He said, and I quote, the world must know and Hamas leaders must know

that if by Ramadan the hostages are not home, then the fighting will continue, including in Rafah. I don't have to tell you guys, but I will remind you again that Palestinians have been pushed south multiple times until now you have the bulk of the population, 1.3 million Palestinians who are clustered right up alongside the border with Egypt in the city of Rafah. There is nowhere else for them to go. The humanitarian conditions are already appalling. The bombing that was used as like a distraction while Israel rescued two of their hostages killed some 60-plus Palestinians. So it's not like Rafah is safe right now,

but what they're talking about, Sagar, would be another order of magnitude. So, I mean, listen, I don't know what to make of this U.S. move. It is noteworthy that they are going to allow something through the Security Council that that something includes this forbidden word of ceasefire,

that it at least expresses concern about a ground invasion of Rafah. But as always, the question is not just what are you going to say, but what are you going to do? What is going to be behind this Security Council resolution to actually try to get to Israel to stop the slaughter here? Yeah, but obviously the UN Security Council resolution has no like authority or ability to enforce anything. It comes down to the member states. What's his name?

Bibi has said repeatedly, if you are saying that we can't go into Rafah, you're saying we can't defeat the enemy. You're saying that we cannot prosecute the war. So which is it? I mean, he's made it very clear that this is something that they're going to do. At the same time, I'm not sure. I mean, maybe this could have some move because it does show the first time that the U.S. is saying, no, you can't go into Rafah or at the very least allowing a resolution or something like that to go through. Apparently, the president told Bibi that on the phone. This is a direct contradiction, apparently, of what the Israeli war cabinet wants.

In terms of the Wall Street Journal story that I know we read about the Israeli plans to go into Gaza, they say in the coming weeks. There does seem to be some ambiguity here about whether this is going to be allowed through. I was floating a theory with Ryan. I wonder what you think. Yeah. I'm wondering if the Israelis and the Egyptians are almost talking a bit behind the scenes

as to why the Egyptians would have built that large fence around Rafah for some sort of refugee containment zone. It could be that they're waiting until something like that has occurred. I genuinely don't know. I haven't seen reporting or something like that to effect. I would not put it past the two governments to do something like that in response to this. So I don't know what all of the chess pieces here mean. Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm skeptical of the U.S.'s intent here. I do pick up on the fact that they're not saying you can't go into Rafa. They're saying under current circumstances. Oh, interesting. And, you know,

Bibi is already they're already floating like, oh, you guys can build a tent city. And, you know, then I guess the circumstances would be different and then we could go ahead. So I see a lot of wiggle room here. I thought Ryan made a great point in you guys' show yesterday. He said, you know, they're pushing Palestinians up against the border and there's all this pressure on Egypt to allow this Palestinian refugee population into their country. And of course, you know, that is, it's an impossible situation that the Israelis have put everybody into because Egypt, first of all, is worried about political instability. Second of all is worried about participating in an ethnic cleansing.

Palestinians in Gaza, obviously very fearful that if they left the Gaza Strip, they would never be allowed to return to their homes. An obvious solution is, OK, Israel, if you want to go into Rafah, you can have the tent city and you're, you know, in Israel and house the civilian population. And then there wouldn't be the fear of you're not going to let us return to our homes in the Gaza Strip. Obviously, in that instance, they would allow you to return to your home in the Gaza Strip because they don't want you in Israel. So the fact that they put that completely off the table tells you a whole lot about their actual care and concern for the Palestinian civilian population, which is not only none, but as we've documented here, I mean, the clear intent at this point is just devastation, annihilation, pain, suffering, collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian

population. And that has been very clear from the beginning of this offensive in the Gaza Strip. So it's interesting development, and I have no idea where things go from here. I really don't know if the ceasefire negotiations, the temporary ceasefire negotiations, have any real shot at coming to fruition. I can tell you the domestic pressure on Bibi continues to be in the direction of continuing this thing indefinitely. There had previously been a poll, Sagar, that we covered that Israeli citizens preferred the goal of freeing the hostages over, quote unquote, defeating Hamas. I saw a new poll that had the opposite conclusion, that they put the first priority of defeating Hamas. Bibi, of course,

knows the war has to continue for him to continue his hold on power. He needs to bring home some sort of victory, which they have not been able to manage thus far. And so that's where we are. Does this resolution really move the needle without also threatening, you know, we're not going to send the weapons that you need to engage in this offensive. There are going to be other consequences if you do these things that we are asking you not to do. I think that would probably be more consequential, but we haven't seen that yet. Yeah, that's right. At the same time, you know, speaking of pressure on Bibi and on the Israeli domestic society, this is quite extraordinary. Put this up on the screen.

The Israeli economy on an annual basis shrank at a 20% rate in the final quarter of 2023. So if you extrapolate out the economic crash of the end of 2023 to an entire year, you are talking about GDP shrinking by 20%. It is impossible to explain what a massive contraction that would ultimately be. I mean, we're talking about even beyond the level of things like COVID. No, it's nuts. Yeah, it is absolutely nuts. Let me give you a little bit of the explanation of what happened here. They say the sharp drop in that FT piece was caused in part by the call up of 300,000 reservists

who had to leave behind their workplaces and businesses. Other factors to hit the economy included the government's sponsorship of housing for more than 120,000 Israelis who've been evacuated from the northern and southern borders. Following the October 7th attack, I think this one is actually really critical. Israel imposed tough restrictions on the movement of Palestinian workers from the West Bank into the country. That move hit the construction sector, causing labor shortages that became an additional drag on economic growth. So they basically use Palestinians as like day laborers to do the jobs that Israeli citizens

don't want to do. And so for all of those workers to effectively be banned and not available for work, I mean, it's been devastating for Palestinians, for the West Bank economy. It also has been really bad for the Israeli economy. In addition, they said imports of goods and services fell 42 percent, while exports dropped 18 percent. So you have had this just massive collapse in economic activity. You also have a huge number of Israelis, estimates are around half a million, who have just left the country and not clear whether or not they're going to come back. So the economic toll of this war on Israel has been really actually quite extraordinary. And this

was worse. People knew there was going to be a drop in economic growth. They did not predict anything like 20% on an annual basis. Well, the imports of the goods falling 42% is also nuts because Israel obviously is a society that is deeply reliant on import-export. Export's also dropping by 18%. So they've got the high-tech economy that can save them in the future. That's if sanctions and other things don't go through. But at the very basic level, like what they need to subsist on and then basically becoming a completely backstopped by government spending, that's not a good situation to be in for their domestic economy. Losing all these people. And it just demonstrates to look for the Israelis.

You want peace. You cannot live this way. You know, having 100000 people or so. If you guys go to war with Lebanon, you're going to have a million people that you're going to have to evacuate. You're going to have to pay all their bills. You've either got to ship them out of the country or you're going to rehouse them or something. And you've got to pay that rent, as we can see, which is bankrupting the government. Not to mention, if you have to recall all those 300,000 reservists, you've got to pay them and you've got to try and replace them when there's a labor crisis and all this. This will basically make you a total war economy. I was talking about this with

Ryan yesterday, but one of the things we were talking in the Russian context too, something that is clear is that when you transition to this, coming out of it is immensely difficult. And you are signing yourselves up for years of inflation, of shortages, of labor disputes. Just look to our own history or any other economy that comes out of this. You want to exit as soon as humanly possible. But I don't think people there have felt it yet. It could actually take a long time before people start to really feel it at that level. But this goes to show that for years and years and years to come, they're going to be grappling with the decisions being made in these more than 100 days.

No doubt about it. And this is why I'm covering today in my monologue. There's multiple things happening at the ICJ this week. On Friday, Israel's facing a deadline to prove that they are complying with the injunctions issued by the ICJ with regard to them plausibly committing a genocide. I think they are very much flunking that test. I'll talk more about that in monologue later this week. But they also are facing these hearings over the illegal nature of their occupation. And, you know, in ordinary times, they could easily shrug this off. Right. And it wouldn't matter because for number one, a lot of the world wouldn't even be paying attention.

You know, this international institutions, they have no teeth. They, you know, had an injunction against them, an advisory ruling go against them in 2004. They didn't care. They were supposed to. There's, you know, the barrier wall in the West Bank. They're supposed to take it down. Not only did they not take it down, they actually expanded it. So it shows you how much care and concern they give and credence they give to these decisions that go against them. But you're now at a time where, you know, the economy is in incredibly dire shape. And so the more that these decisions go against you and the more that you have effectively world pariah status, I mean, this is, you know, this is basically what the BDS movement

was trying to accomplish all these years. And it's part of what put pressure on South Africa during apartheid as well is this, you know, global pariah status that was devastating to the country, to their world prestige, to their economy, et cetera. And so, you know, you are inching closer and closer to that being a reality, which is why some of these things which may not ordinarily matter, like rulings at the ICJ, may have a little bit of a different implication at this particular moment, given the precarity that Netanyahu has steered the Israeli economy and the Israeli society into. For the first time ever, in addition, credit rating agency downgraded Israel. This has never happened before. This was Moody's. We can put this up on the screen. They downgraded Israel's credit rating. This was a couple of weeks

ago, citing material political and fiscal risk for the country from its war with Palestinian militant group Hamas. The impact of the conflict raises political risk and weakens Israel's executive and legislative institutions, its fiscal strength for the foreseeable future. Moody's had begun this review for a downgrade on October 19th, and this just came through in early February. The country's rating was cut to A2. That is still five notches above investment grade, so it's still like a solid credit rating, but it's the first downgrade ever in history. And its credit outlook was kept negative by Moody's, meaning that a further

downgrade is possible. Bibi was furious about this downgrade and always, you know, his level of fury is indicative of how much he thinks these things may actually matter and what the consequences could be. Put this up on the screen. He said the decision does not reflect the state of the country's economy. It is entirely due to the fact that we are at war. The rating will go back up as soon as we win the war. So he responded very strongly to this news when this dropped a couple of weeks back. Well, it obviously matters, like I said, for trade, for your ability to conduct commerce, exports, imports. It's exactly why we freak out whenever our credit rating goes down

and they're not the world's reserve currency. Interest on loans, et cetera. They have way more to worry about from an international financial system point of view than we do. So it's one of those where, look, these are exactly all the long-term concerns that we've laid out here before which remain ever-present for the Israelis. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a

miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fat phobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance.

Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this

terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your 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 Catherine 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. Speaking of long-term concerns, you know, this war has long now spilled outside of the borders of the Gaza Strip, and we have continued tit for tat escalations between Israel and Lebanon. In particular, I can put this up on the screen.

There was some pretty wild imagery coming out of southern Lebanon here of Israeli airstrikes on a town here in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli military and Lebanese state media. So let me go ahead and read you a little bit about this Lebanese armed group. Hezbollah in Israel have been exchanging near daily fire across the border since Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7th. An Israeli army spokesman said on Monday, we targeted Hezbollah weapons depots near Sidon in response to the explosion of an enemy craft whose wreckage we found near the Tiberias area this afternoon. We'll continue to act forcefully in response to Hezbollah attacks. On Friday, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah vowed that Israel would pay, quote, with blood for civilians killed in Lebanon.

He warned the group possesses missiles that could reach anywhere. In Israel, Hezbollah has, around 200 of its fighters have been killed since the cross-border escalation started. So this continues to be an extraordinary area of risk for a broader conflagration, even more so than what we've already seen. More so yesterday. This was actually pretty interesting.

Let's put this up there on the screen. The new attack on a ship by the Houthis appears to have been their most damaging attack that's launched to date. Quote, the crew of a cargo ship was forced to abandon after it came under attack from Houthi militia in Yemen who had been firing missiles at the Red Sea. This ship was called the Rubiamar, appeared to be one of the Houthis most damaged so far. Most of the armed groups, missiles, and drone assault ships have failed to inflict serious damage. These were two anti-ship missiles that were launched from Yemen at 9.30 time, according to the U.S. military. And they said that one of the missiles actually struck the ship, quote, causing damage and making the ship have a distress call.

Don't know much about the ship actually right now. It said that their management office was in Lebanon to confirm that it had attacked. We don't know what a destination or any of that was there. But it does demonstrate that this continues to happen and it's going to dramatically drop sea traffic in the Suez Canal. Crystal, you found this as well. Please put this up there on the screen. And it shows us how a significant hit. Egypt has taken in just $428 million last month, which is nearly half of the $804 million they took in the same period in 2023, causing major fiscal problems, but also just indicative of how bad the situation is right now for the Suez Canal and for global shipping for the cost that the Europeans and us are all

absorbing on behalf of this war. Yeah. And obviously, like the U.S. strategy here of hitting Houthi targets and being more aggressive in the region has failed and never had even the people who instituted this policy knew it was not going to work. They knew from the beginning it was not going to work, as Joe Biden himself admitted in his infamous comments. Are they working? No. Are they going to continue?

Yes. The other thing that is noteworthy here, so number one noteworthy is in spite of our attacks on Houthi capabilities, they just launched their most damaging attack yet. So that's number one, like again, more proof not working. Number two, a new Houthi capability apparently just dropped. One of the things that we struck in our most recent bombing efforts was an underwater drone, so basically like an autonomous submarine. That's something that I don't think we were aware that the Houthis had access to or capabilities

with. That ups the ante once again. And, you know, as I always do when we do these segments about the wider issue here, like the one answer to all of these issues to ratchet down the tensions and make sure we don't go any further in the direction of escalation is a ceasefire. That is the core of the problem. That is what is calling all of these attacks on our own service members, on shipping lanes, the tit-for-tat with Hezbollah. All of these things are because of what Israel is doing in Gaza. And until that ends, we can expect to be in an incredibly, incredibly risky, fraught, dangerous environment.

Yeah, that's right, Crystal. It's pretty scary as we look at all of it, especially with what's happening with the Houthis, the Israeli economy. I mean, all of this is a very precarious global situation, and you never know where it's going to pop off. No, nobody could have predicted it with the Red Sea. Also, even with the Red Sea, you sink one wrong ship and the whole world is going to war. You have no idea. You get one missile, comes from Iran, hits a US flag carrier, hits a US ship, and a couple of sailors die. We already saw a preview in the Jordan attack. We have no idea. Imagine if they sank a U.S. ship. It would be insane. I mean, that's it. Full blown. It's like fireworks are completely off, and that's not a situation that any of us want to be in. Crystal, what are you taking a look at?

It's a big week for Israel at the International Court of Justice. On Friday, Israel faces a deadline for demonstrating that they have adhered to the court's demand that they cease all genocidal activities as they block aid, threaten an invasion of Rafah, and stand by as more than a dozen ministers attend an ethnic cleansing conference, I think it's fair to say Israel has not only failed to meet its obligations, but has in fact doubled down on the cruelty and incitement that led the court to rule they are plausibly committing genocide. More on that one, though, later this week. But yesterday, another case began oral arguments in front of the ICJ, an attempt to obtain an advisory opinion

that Israel's occupation of Palestine is in breach of international law and is therefore illegal. Of course, the illegality of Israel's occupation and settlement policy is kind of hardly disputed at this point. That's why Israel and her defenders are mostly arguing against this court action on technical legal grounds rather than on the merits. Israel has opted not to participate in the oral arguments at all, submitting only a written brief and denying the court's legitimacy on the question. Following Monday's hearings, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry released a statement saying in part that the Palestinian Authority was, quote, trying to turn a conflict that should be resolved through direct negotiations

and without external impositions into a one-sided and improper legal process. They further called on Palestinians to settle the dispute through direct negotiations with Israel rather than through an appeal to international law. Of course, this statement is rather nonsensical, given that Netanyahu and his government have repeatedly made clear they have no interest in a negotiated settlement that would grant Palestinians their basic rights to self-determination. So over the course of three hours on Monday, the Palestinian team made the case that Israel has imposed on Palestinians the horrifying choice of, quote,

ethnic cleansing, apartheid, or genocide. Furthermore, Palestine argued that the Israeli occupation violated a core tenet of the law surrounding military occupation, that it be temporary. In reality, the Israelis have made quite clear to their own people, to the Palestinians, and to the world, that they fully intend to permanently exercise full control of the entire area from the river to the sea. The Palestinian foreign minister opened by using a series of maps to demonstrate this Israeli commitment to total and permanent occupation and apartheid. Allow me now to show you five maps. The first one is historic Palestine. This is the territory over which the Palestinian people should have been able to exercise their right to self-determination. Instead, the General Assembly recommended the partition of Palestine, ignoring the will of our people, as shown in the second map.

With the Nakba that ensued, over two-thirds of our people were systematically and forcibly expelled by Israel. And three-fourths of Palestine became Israel, as shown in the third map. This was the start of the Nakba, the disposition, the displacement and replacement of our people, the denial of rights and discrimination that continues to this very day. In 1967, Israel then occupied the remainder of Palestine, and from the first day of its occupation started colonizing and annexing the land with the aim of making its occupation irreversible. It left us with a collection of disconnected pantostans, preventing the independence of our state, as shown in map 4. Israel wanted the geography of Palestine,

but not its demography. So it kept pushing our people out, out of their homes, out of their land. Here is a fifth map. It was displayed by Israel's prime minister to the General Assembly last September. He called this the new Middle East. There is no Palestine at all on this map. Only Israel, comprised of all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This shows you what the prolonged, continuous Israeli occupation of Palestine is intended to accomplish, the complete disappearance of Palestine and the destruction of the Palestinian people. Netanyahu's infamous river-to-the-sea map displayed there is, of course, backed up by official government policy across successive Israeli administrations. Every single year since 1976, the number of illegal Israeli settlers in the West

Bank has increased. This project has been further accelerated by the current terrorists running the Israeli government. The number now stands at roughly 700,000 settlers, all of whom have been promised by the Israeli government they can stay in these legal settlements forever, annexing Palestinian land. What's more, 2023 was the deadliest year for settler violence in history, prompting even the Biden administration to take some weak actions to try to check the rampaging settlers who face no accountability from their own government, which both tacitly and explicitly backs this entire project. In fact, part of why October 7th was so deadly and the Israeli military response so poor was because IDF soldiers had been moved from near Gaza in order to better aid and abet these violent Israeli settlers. The current hearing also comes at a critical time as 11 cabinet ministers and 15

coalition members of the Knesset have made plain their desire to wholly annex the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse the remaining Palestinians living there at a conference that was dedicated to this explicit aim. 1.3 million Palestinians have already been pushed up against the border with Egypt as Israel bombs them and threatens a ground invasion. So the plans that are being made by these government ministers at the ethnic cleansing conference are hardly an idle threat. In fact, just as in the ICJ hearing on genocide, the statements, explicit statements of numerous Israeli politicians featured prominently in the Palestinian presentation.

As Israel's cabinet secretary wrote in June of last year, quote, Judea and Samaria were not seized from a sovereign state recognized by international law, and the state of Israel has a right to impose its sovereignty over these areas as they comprise the cradle of history of the Jewish people and are an inseparable part of the land of Israel. As purported legal authority, the cabinet secretary invoked the first book of Maccabees, written in the year 100 BC, chapter 15, verse 33. It is not a foreign land we have taken, nor have we seized the property of foreigners, but only our ancestral heritage, which for a time had been unjustly occupied by our enemies. This was followed in August of last year by a message broadcast

on Israel Army Radio by Israel's heritage minister. Sovereignty, sovereignty must be extended within the borders of the West Bank, and the most prudent way to create international recognition that this place is ours. There is no green line. It is a fictitious line that creates a distorted reality and must be erased. In September 2023, Israel's prime minister literally erased the green line in his presentation to the United Nations General Assembly. As you saw earlier, he depicted the state of Israel as extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, eliminating not only the green line, but all traces of Palestine.

This was no oversight. It was an act of the head of government with all the attribution that it implies. The same message was delivered by Israel's finance minister in Paris six months earlier, when he denied the existence of Palestine and declared that Palestinians do not constitute a people. Previously, he said, quote, we are here to stay. We will make it clear that our national ambition for a Jewish state from the river to the sea is an accomplished fact, a fact not open to discussion or negotiation. This has been Israel's consistent position. Here is the map of Israel produced by its armed forces and published by the government in 2021. One state, Israel, from the river to the sea. There is no green line.

There is no Palestine. Instead, Palestine has been replaced by Judea and Samaria, which according to Israel's highest officials, are now integral parts of the state of Israel. As these official statements and maps demonstrate, Israel makes no secret of its intention to retain permanently the entire area east of the Green Line. A whole lot of people aren't there who rightly guffawed at Putin's attempt to justify the illegal invasion of Ukraine by a 1,000-year historical exegesis, will nonetheless take seriously claims about quote-unquote Judea and Samaria based on religious texts written in 100 BC. Now, these hearings are set to continue all week, and we'll see a record 52 countries assert claims and counterclaims. The U.S. is once again

more or less on an island alongside the literal island of Fiji when it comes to Israel. Of the 35 states and international organizations which submitted written statements with regard to this case, only the U.S. and Fiji backed Israel. After this week's hearings, the court will take some time, weeks if not months, to deliberate before rendering a decision. Should be noted that if they do rule against Israel, would not be the first time. Back in 2004, they found that Israel's West Bank barrier wall was illegal and should be dismantled. Not only did Israel ignore the ruling, but has since expanded that wall. So what difference would this ruling make?

Since Israel will certainly ignore the court once again with the full backing of the United States of America. One senior Palestinian official explained that, quote, politically, this will help in achieving a two-state solution. We are using the platform of the largest judicial body to advance our cause. In the hearing, Palestine's legal representative explained the importance of the largest judicial body to advance our cause. In the hearing, Palestine's legal

representative explained the importance of the ruling thusly. Silence is not an option. As the immortal Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote, in silence we become accomplices. But, he assured us, when we speak, every word has the power to change the world. Mr. President, members of the court, your words have such power. By upholding international law, which is all the state of Palestine asks you to do, your powerful words will change the world. The hearings are a timely reminder that history did not begin on October 7th and it will not end after the current annihilation of Gaza is complete.

This is inconvenient, to say the least, for those who attempt to defend Israel's indefensible actions by pretending that nothing happened before the atrocities of October 7th and that those atrocities justify everything up to and including a genocide. The Palestinians who were murdered by IDF-backed settlers prior to October 7th destroy the myth that there was peace prior to October 7th and only Hamas destroyed that peace. In addition, the hearings put the U.S. in an awkward position, since we theoretically accept the international consensus that these settlements are in fact illegal, but nonetheless consistently provide the diplomatic umbrella under which Israel continues its policy and the weapons it uses to enforce it.

It also is possible that at this moment of increasing Israeli isolation from the world and the waning influence of the United States, these ICJ rulings could hit a little bit different. Even as they attempt to appear big and bad with their devastation of Gaza, the reality is that Israel has never been more precarious on the world stage. Remember, as we just covered, the Israeli economy just shrank by 20% on an annual basis. They were just hit with a credit downgrade and negative outlook by Moody's. A reported half a million Israelis have left the country already, a devastating blow for the demographics-obsessed nation. Even the U.S. and Britain are considering unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. And while the U.S. political class largely uniformly backs Israel in all things, they have lost massive ground among the actual

American people. A majority of Democrats now accept that Israel is in fact committing genocide. Another 30% are not sure. Global public opinion has been fully galvanized behind the Palestinian cause. Even the fully self-interested MBS of Saudi Arabia has felt compelled to make clear there will be no normalization of relations with Israel without a Palestinian state. So while the ICJ may not have the enforcement power to actually end Israel's illegal actions, their judgment could still have some teeth. And for the U.S., as we steadily undermine the very international institutions and rules-based order that we endeavor to establish post-World War II, our global influence

and power continues to wane, falls to the rest of the world to pick up the mantle. Looking at you, Lula, in South Africa. Sagar, what did you make of- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children

was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long.

You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father?

Well, Sam, luckily it's your Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret,

even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your 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.

I'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 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.

All right, Tiger, what are you looking at? Well, if there's one thing that really grinds my gears, it is bad use of history. From constant invoking of Hitler for anything we don't like or foreign policy move that we want to smear as appeasement to the invocation of Jim Crow when talking about a local racially inflammatory incident. The reason it makes me upset is it erases the magnitude of genuinely horrible things that happened in history. It insults their memory by drawing a false comparison. This latest incident that inspired this monologue is especially egregious.

The so-called best social science experts in the world have decided that our current president, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., is the 14th best president in American history. This assessment puts Biden before American presidents Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, hero of the republic, Ulysses S. Grant. Now, I have major differences with Woodrow Wilson, with Ronald Reagan, even Grant, who is one of my personal heroes. I will admit he did not cover himself in glory at all times in the White House. But to say that Biden is in any way a better president than these world historical figures Even Grant, who is one of my personal heroes, I will admit he did not cover himself in glory at all times in the White House.

But to say that Biden is in any way a better president than these world historical figures is literal blasphemy. More so, if you read these idiot experts' justification, it is some of the dumbest historical analysis that I have ever seen. They write, quote, Biden's most important achievement may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump. He resumed a more traditional style of leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor's hands this fall. In other words, he is in the top third of America's presidents because he beat Trump. So not anything that he did, but because he beat Trump and is now running against him. That's how low the bar is for these professional historians to try and find some other so-called accomplishments for Biden. This is what the New York Times says, quote, he has claims to a historical legacy by managing the end of the COVID pandemic,

rebuilding the nation's roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, and leading an international coalition against Russian aggression. Yeah, because his response to COVID was such a success. Failed Russia policy, that too. As for infrastructure, time will tell, but I think it is nothing compared to, let's say, the Eisenhower bills of the past, which actually do deserve historical mention. On Trump too, the assessment is crazy. The historians say that Trump is the worst president in American history, by far, according to them. These people say that Presidents Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson were actually better than Trump. Keep in mind, Pierce and Buchanan, at least in my estimation, should have been plausibly

shot for treason in their aid to the South before the Civil War. And that Johnson single-handedly destroyed Reconstruction and likely is the reason that Jim Crow lasted until the 1960s. Sorry, mean tweets and January sticks are not even in the same universe as any of that. And if you believe that, you're an idiot. That's putting it kindly. I mean, even pegging Trump against the insanity of the Civil War period is a dumb exercise.

If you want to ask me who the single worst president of the modern era is, it's not a difficult answer. It's not Biden or Trump. His name was George W. Bush. He took this country to war under false pretenses. He's responsible for millions of deaths in the Middle East, tens of thousands of wounded or dead American servicemen, squandered $7 trillion abroad and blew the financial crisis.

Yet, these historians go right past this. They actually rank George W. Bush 19th ahead of presidents who we can barely name, which is something that I wish was true of that man. The Biden and Trump ranking show how completely bankrupt the establishment mind is when it comes to assessing Trump. Biden is good for beating him and for running against him. Nothing on Israel, Russia, COVID, the economy is considered at all.

Things that affect billions of people, not to mention the actual daily lives of the people that Biden is supposed to serve. Trump, too, the worst president in American history for being mean and for January 6th. Really, what are these historians doing? They are erasing the stakes of real history and they are lowering the bar of our expectations of greatness. Abraham Lincoln was one of our great presidents because he rose to the occasion. He used astounding brilliance and wisdom navigating a task that would likely have ended in total disaster if he was not there. Franklin Roosevelt too willed this country out of the Great Depression and expertly guided us through the Second World War.

They were titanic men who would have honestly we would have been screwed without. Just as we were screwed when we had the wrong men like Buchanan and Pierce and Johnson. All were proven either great or awful because of their actions, not just for simply existing or for saying the wrong thing. None of this, of course, will stop the Biden team from crowing about this ranking. Already his favorite TV show, Morning Joe, favorably covered the ranking. And if that's what helps him get through his day when he's lucid, then I guess it's cool. But when Americans themselves will get the verdict to them in November, but they don't seem to all agree with these professional historians. I mean, Crystal, come on. I mean, we're going to put

George- And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate you. For CounterPoints, we'll have a great show for everyone tomorrow because Crystal will be on it. It'll be extra great. Ryan's at a Phish concert doing whatever the hell he's doing now. Is that what he's up to? I didn't even know.

Yeah, he's in Mexico at a Phish concert. Good for him. I was like, okay. All right. I mean, it's interesting what people choose to do with their free time. All right. We'll, it's interesting what people choose to do with their free time. All right. We'll see you guys later. DNA test proves he is not the father.

Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's you're not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This author writes,

my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son. But I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars. Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. I know a lot of cops. 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. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.