Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Publish 4/4/24: MSNBC Panics Over Biden 2024, Florida Ballot Initiatives Screw Trump, Tulsi Turns Down RFK VP, Biden Scripted Interviews, Stephen A Smith Dismantles Hillary, Jose Andres Blasts Israel For Aid Strike, Jill Biden Angry At Gaza Policy, Teamsters President Calls Out Newsom

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss MSNBC panics over minor electoral college change, Florida ballot initiatives may screw Trump, Tulsi says she turned down RFK VP, Sage Steele claims Biden interview scripted, Stephen A Smith dismantles Hillary Clinton, Jose Andres says Israel intentionally targeted aid workers, Jill Biden angry over Gaza policy, DEI scam exposed, and Teamsters President sounds off on Gavin Newsom.    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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey, guys. Ready or not, 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of interesting stories percolating this morning. So

we have some new, very bad poll numbers for Joe Biden in a series of swing states. We'll break that down for you. We also want to cover this big abortion ballot initiative that is going to be there for voters in November. What impact could that have on a state that was not so long ago a swing state, but it's pretty firmly in the red column now? Very interesting potential fallout there. We also have some RFK Jr. news, a focus group of voters showing which voters are favoring RFK Jr. What are their common characteristics? That's very interesting. We also have a revelation from Tulsi Gabbard that she was asked to be his VP and turned it down. So we'll break all of that down for you. Also, I have a couple of media stories for you. Stephen A. Smith sounding off on some recent Hillary Clinton comments that our friends over at CounterPoints had covered.

So we'll give you the fallout here from Stephen A. Smith, who is always interesting to listen to and charismatic. We also have a former ESPN anchor who is telling all about the dynamics of her Biden interview that she did at that network. You definitely want to hear that one as well. Major fallout after those aid workers were targeted and killed by Israel. Joe Biden losing all sorts of folks on this one, including the folks over at Morning Joe, his favorite morning news program really sounding off. Reportedly, his wife has told him he needs to wrap up the war, so a lot to get to there. Sagar is taking a look at McKinsey humiliated on DEI. And also, we have the Teamsters calling for a nationwide Molson Coors boycott. The Teamsters international president is

going to be here in studio talking to us about that and also about their efforts to organize Amazon and a number of other issues. So very much looking forward to having Sean O'Brien back here in the studio with us. Yeah, I'm excited as well. It's always good to have actual union leaders here in the studio. So thank you all to people who support our work. That's why we're able to do what we do. Breakingpoints.com, if you can help us out and continue to build. With that, let's get to these poll numbers. So absolutely shocking poll numbers for Joe Biden. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Very high quality poll out from the Wall Street Journal. Registered voters in each state that was conducted in mid-March. Margin of error here,

keep in mind, plus or minus four points. But even within that, we can see in the state of Arizona, we've got Trump plus five. In Georgia, we've got Trump plus one. Michigan, Trump plus three. North Carolina, Trump plus six. Nevada, Trump plus four. Pennsylvania, Trump plus three. And Wisconsin remains tied. So obviously, I think we can say that that's not exactly looking very good for Joe Biden. And the reason why it's particularly noteworthy, he's either in the margin of error tied with Trump or Trump is outright leading him, all in very, very critical states.

This does not even necessarily include the RFK Jr. factor. And that is one where when we begin to think about the chaos and we begin to think about the falling apart of the Democratic coalition, on the polls alone, Crystal, we can see that there are such major warning signs that we didn't even see for Biden back in the 2020 election, whenever he was going up against Trump. And overall, actually, if you dig within it, what you see is a crumbling of the Democratic coalition at the exact same time that Trump is actually increasing his vote margin, both with minorities and with younger voters. So headlines both in terms of his overall lead, but also in terms of the coalition of people that Trump is actually bringing to the table whenever he's voting. Keep this up on the screen

for another minute, guys, because they did do a poll that included the options of RFK Jr., undecided, or other, because it's obviously RFK Jr., Undecided, or other, because, you know, it's obviously RFK Jr., but you have other third-party candidates in the race as well, in particular Jill Stein and Cornel West, who are on the left end of the spectrum. And when you put RFK Jr. in, Trump still is outperforming Biden in every state save for Wisconsin. It doesn't change the picture all that much. So the reason I want to keep this up on the screen, I'll go through what the top line is with RFK Jr., undecided and other as a factor. So in Arizona, it's still plus five Trump. In Georgia, it's plus

one, it's plus three Trump. In Michigan, it goes from plus three Trump to plus two Trump. So not a big difference there. In North Carolina, it goes to plus eight Trump right now without RFK Jr. And those other options plus six Trump. In Nevada, it stays at plus four Trump. In Pennsylvania, it stays at plus three Trump. And in Wisconsin, it actually does improve the picture a little bit for Biden. It becomes a plus three Biden lead, which does get into the question of, you know, who does RFK Jr. take away from more? Who will be in the ballot in

which states? You know, these undecided voters who when they're forced to, where do they actually land? So there's still a lot of fluidity and a lot of question marks. But this comes at a particularly bad time for Joe Biden because there was a little bit of a hopeful trend going marks. But this comes at a particularly bad time for Joe Biden because there was a little bit of a hopeful trend going on, whereas approval rating looked like it was getting a little better. People are feeling a little bit better about the economy. There are a number of national polls, we covered them here, that showed a trend towards Joe Biden. But if the national polls are improving, but the battleground states are still going Trump, well, that's the

ballgame right there. There's also been some very critical developments in the state of Nebraska, under noticed, actually, but now very important. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So people will remember that Nebraska does not have currently a winner take all electoral vote system. It's kind of complicated, but it effectively meant that Nebraska was, President Biden was able to capture a single electoral vote from the Nebraska 2nd District because of the previous way that they would allocate votes. Well, the Nebraska Republican governor is now calling on the state to move forward, quote, with the winner-take-all system. He says it will just simply bring Nebraska into line with 48 of our fellow states. It will better reflect the founders intent.

The real intent here, because Nebraska and Maine are the only states which have split electoral college by electoral by election district, means that the blue district, which previously Biden was able to win and which Democrats had normally been able to rely on. You take away that single electoral vote. Now, a single electoral vote isn't usually something that you should be all up in arms about, but it was one that's very critical for some 270 math in a very, very tight race for Joe Biden. Even those over at MSNBC are now beginning to take notice. Let's take a listen. The governor there has thrown his support behind an effort that would no longer allocate the electoral votes by congressional district. Because right now, it's five votes there. Technically, Republicans get four and President Biden, Democrats get the one from Omaha. If that changes, and we don't know that it will, the state legislature is going to look at it. But

if that changes, that takes away Biden's best path to win. Because if you get, if he wins Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, but loses the other swing states and no longer picks up the one in Nebraska, 269. That leads playbook this morning. The alarm among Democrats that this is possible. What do you think? I think this is what the modern Republican Party has become. They're now changing the rules in the middle, trying to benefit themselves. This is the hell that Donald Trump hath wrought.

In the middle of this, changing the rules 200 days before the election is ridiculous. I think you're right. I think there are real simulation problems. When you look at the map, that one electoral vote really matters in the combination of other things. Then you need another state. And so the easiest pathway to victory has always been the Midwestern three states combined with Nebraska. Something tells me they're not going to get away with it this easy and there will be a national outcry

if they're trying to change the rules here. Okay, all right. They're trying to change the rules, middle of the game. There's going to be a national outcry over the Nebraska electoral delegation system. Okay, Jim Messina. It's already weird that they do this. No, it's weird. Can we all admit that? And that's why that they're changing the rules here. Now, obviously, look, I think they're clearly doing it for Trump reasons. But regardless, I mean, it's a single electoral vote. Why don't you worry a

little bit more about maybe holding Arizona or Georgia than you do about whatever the hell's going on in Nebraska because of some strange rule where you could have gotten that one. But, you know, the fact is that they're so worried here because, as he says, quote, the easiest path to victory is the Midwestern three combined with Nebraska. I mean, right now, even those Midwestern three is a little bit of a question mark there, Crystal. But, you know, it is a smart strategy on the Republican side. This is the hell that Donald Trump has. I mean, right now, even those Midwestern three is a little bit of a question mark there, Crystal. But, you know, it is a smart strategy on the Republican side. This is the hell that Donald Trump has. I mean, this is why you can't take these people seriously. Yeah, true. Election rules get changed state by state on a regular basis. Now, personally, I would like to

have an even bigger change and get rid of the Electoral College altogether, which is a preposterous, outdated, ridiculous system, in my opinion. And we can just actually have everybody's vote count in the same manner. And I would wager that Jim Messina would probably support that change as well. So is that a hell that Donald Trump has brought changing the election rules, etc.? Obviously, they're doing it for partisan reasons. How about instead of panicking about that, you actually try to win an election by offering something to the American people. You have an incredibly weak candidate. Your opponent is incredibly weak, Donald Trump. He's a criminal. People freaking hate this guy.

They find him completely toxic. His unfavorables are ridiculously high. And yet you're panicked over one electoral college vote because you are lacking in such confidence in your own candidate that you know the very best he would be able to do is to once again eke out this very narrow victory like he did in 2020. These people are just pathetic. They're just ridiculous. And it's very clear what Biden's problems are. I mean, number one, the age issue, which I guess, you know, since they've decided to stick with this guy, there's nothing you can really do about that. But number two, it's very apparent the polling is a massive issue with the Democratic base, especially among young people because of the Israel policy. So how about you get a little more upset about the genocide this guy is enabling that his own voters are disgusted by,

and we'll have more on that specifically later in the show, versus this one electoral college. They're just ridiculous people. They're just utterly ridiculous people. Certainly. But look, from the, you know, it's just like every data point that we possibly have tells us that this is going to be an uphill climb from the young voter piece, the Hispanic voter piece for Trump, the widening of his minority vote share, the crumbling of the Democratic coalition, RFK Jr. Yes, he does take away from Trump, but Trump has made at least enough inroads with new coalitions of voters. Combined here, the Electoral College move, Republicans seemingly, at least from what I

can tell, have somewhat embraced mail-in voting and some of the other things now that they've decided that they have to, quote, steal the election to by playing within the existing rules of some of these bluer states. You know what? And just to pause, remember last time around in 2020, all the Republican freak out about how Pennsylvania had like and all these other states have made it more permissive to have mail in balloting because you had covid, et cetera. I mean, what Jim Messina is saying here is very much like what they were saying. How dare you use the legislative process in a legal fashion to change the rules? Again, listen, if you want to have a federalized election system where it comes down from the top, I actually am personally

open to some of that because I do think there should be more of a standardized system. That's not the system we have anyway. I just can't get over how annoying and irritating his comments are. I totally agree with you, by the way. I mean, I don't know. I'm not really for total federalization of the elections. I like a lot of the state control that we have. And I think it actually, in general, it gives more trust within the system. That's kind of what the original intent is. It could be. I just personally would be in favor of more uniformity of rules. It seems sort of preposterous that like, you know, in Georgia, the rules are totally different than in California, et cetera. But anyway, that's another fight for another day. I mean, for example, I think Oregon has all mail-in voting, you know, and has for a long time,

and actually a very, very high voter participation. That's something I've always thought about and looked at. And at the end of the day, that's actually what I care probably the most about. Let's go and put this up there on the screen though, because this is another indication of just where things are moving in the overall direction. Currently, the Cook Political has moved the Nevada Senate race from a lean Democrat to a toss-up. Now, obviously, why does that matter? Because they already have three toss-ups, including Ohio, Montana, and Arizona, all seats that they have to hold if they want to retain control. Then you throw in Nevada, which not a lot of people had been paying attention to.

But Nevada, traditionally, I mean, look, Trump never was able to fully compete there, but it's been enough on the razor's edge in the past. And it's one of those where in a so-called red wave scenario, you definitely could see a Republican senator from the state. And most importantly, it's about the balance of power in the overall individual Senate. So just another sign, I think, to me that things are a lot more difficult for the Democrats, both at the sub-presidential level and the presidential level. Really, all they can hope for is abortion. And don't get me wrong, they will and they should bet on that because we're about to talk. But anything else, Crystal, you want to get into?

No, let's just put up this next piece up on the screen, which gives a little bit more insight into how voters feel about these two presidential candidates. And specifically, I think the most important thing to note here is the way that Biden has really lost a lot of ground on some key metrics with regards to just character ratings since the last time he ran in 2020. So they asked this question, can they manage the government effectively? Back in 2020, a majority, 52%, said yes. Now that has fallen off a cliff to only 39%. Is he likable? Used to be 66%. It's still pretty high at 57%, but he has lost significant ground there. Displays good judgment in a crisis.

He was almost at a majority last time, 49%. Now that is down at 40%. Is a strong and decisive leader, went from 46 to 38. Cares about the needs of people like you, went from 55 to 48. I mean, that is like the most core Biden value and strength that he has had as a political candidate throughout his career. And now not even a majority believes that. Is honest and trustworthy has also fallen from a majority at 52 down to 46.

Just keep it up a second so I can talk through the Trump numbers as well. It's not like Trump's numbers are amazing on these metrics either. The only one that he has a majority rating on is a strong and decisive leader. But you can see his ratings have held more or less steady since 2020. The two metrics where he lost a little bit of ground is cares about the needs of people like you, okay, 45 down to 42, and is honest and trustworthy, went from 40 to 35. So a five-point loss on that one, which is actually significant. But overall, people, you know, tend to think Trump is more of a strong and decisive leader than Biden. And people tend to think Biden cares more about the needs of people like you than Trump. That's

always been the dynamic. But I think, Sagar, one of the things that I really noted is that Biden has lost a lot of ground on these things and Trump hasn't. Now, that's probably a result of the fact that Biden is president of the United States. He's in the news every day. People are paying very close attention. Trump has been a little bit out of the limelight for a while. And I think the fact that his ratings on honest, telling the truth, basically, have taken a hit is indicative of the fact that some of these trials and court appearances and indictments, et cetera, are, he is taking on some water from that. But it's interesting to see the way that they stack up in these metrics. It's still that when he's leading,

though, in some of those critical times, one of the things that, you know, the managed government effectively, that's actually a very important question. Another thing I would posit is this. Everybody in the world made up their mind about Trump? Who in this country doesn't have an opinion that is well set now of seven years or so about Trump? Biden, one of his great strengths was people didn't feel a particular way about him all that much. You can project whatever you want in the 2020 election. Well, now he's in the government. People actually do have a very negative view of the way that he is running the country, whereas with Trump, it's so locked in. Biden also doesn't have that level of fervent support of people who are ride or dies and will never leave

him. They're very happy to leave him if they do disagree. And I think, you know, you combine all these things and you could definitely see some strength for Trump there in the numbers. But again, don't get me wrong. Like you said, the convictions and the criminality, you know, in terms of charges and all that, that certainly could be a problem. We don't know. And then finally, abortion. I mean, that's just the blaring red sign for the Republicans because it is clearly one

of those issues that people are very willing, even if they freaking hate the Democrats on nine out of 10 issues, if you're with them on one, they are willing to overlook it. And we have enough data to prove that right now. Yeah. 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 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. Well, that's a good transition of what's going on in Florida. There you go. Let's put it up there on the screen. So this was a major case from the state Supreme Court. So they issued a ruling on Monday that will allow state voters actually to decide whether to protect abortion and also whether to legalize recreational use of marijuana. This rejected the state attorney general argument that the measure should be kept off

of the November ballot. Now, I'll let you guess why they want to keep that off of the November ballot. The court had not ruled on the merit of the measure, only whether they meet the requirement for clarity and don't violate the state constitution mandate that they cover only one subject. That came when the state actually upheld the current legislative ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of presidency, and state lawmakers then tightened that ban to six weeks while that issue is still before the court. Monday, however, makes it so that this will pave the way for the six-week ban to definitely go into effect, but now to give Florida voters the right and the ability to decide said

measure at the state ballot box. So I actually cannot think of a worse possible outcome for the Republicans in the state because now you have legal weed, you have abortion, the most potent political issue of our lifetime, and you have a restrictive six-week ban go into effect, Crystal, in the interim between now and election day. So 15 weeks, look, I think a lot of people can stomach 15 weeks. The polling on it has shifted, but previously Europe and a lot of other countries, that's where they are. I think that's fine. But six weeks, that's a lot more restrictive. That's a lot more in line with Alabama, Georgia, and some of these other states. It's much more directional towards that. It's actually a very, very small amount of public opinion. You put legal weed on top of that, and then you have the restriction come in on top of the overwhelming, like the ability to come to the ballot box and

to change your vote and to change that policy, which you hate. And at the same time, why don't you just mark D while you're there? I mean, I can't think of a greater gift to Joe Biden. Well, it's very motivating for any sort of Democratic supporters because it was very clear that there is a significant amount at stake and important for them to show up and express their opinion on this. I was just recalling the numbers from the last election. Trump got 51.2 percent in the state of Florida. Biden got 47.8. So it's not like it was a total blowout. Yeah, that's right. It's not like it's preposterous to imagine that Florida could go back in the Democratic column.

Now, I don't even really necessarily want Florida to be a swing state because the Cuban politics not like it's preposterous to imagine that Florida could go back in the Democratic column. Now, I don't even really necessarily want Florida to be a swing state because the Cuban politics there have screwed up our, you know, relationships and our policy vis-a-vis Cuba for, you know, decades and decades at this point. So I'm not even that excited about the idea that Florida could come back into being a critical swing state. But if anything was going to make it possible, it would be this abortion initiative. Now, let's recall that last time around, there was a ballot initiative to lift the minimum wage. And there were some other Democratic-leaning or left-leaning ballot initiatives that passed handily, even as Donald Trump won a historic victory in the state. Good point. So the fact that you have a ballot initiative that goes in one direction and voters that go in another direction in terms of the party, no one should find that a crazy idea or put that out of the possibility whatsoever.

Although I do think the abortion issue, there is more fervent emotion around that at this point than there was around the minimum wage last time around. And the support for the pro-choice position on this ballot initiative based on the polling is massive. The support for legalizing weed also quite high. And we've seen the way that abortion has shaped not only ballot initiatives, which the pro-choice position has won in every single state where it's been tested, including places like Kentucky. But we've also seen the way that abortion and other women's issues related to that have completely shifted different, you know, state legislative districts, congressional districts, et cetera, towards Democrats.

So it does have a very potent impact even on, you know, people's choice of candidates outside of specific ballot initiatives. The polling on this is genuinely shocking in the state of Florida. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So it says that over 60% of Florida voters both support the abortion and marijuana amendments. But actually, when you dig into it, it's even more interesting. 62% of voters said that they would vote yes on the abortion ballot measure, meaning that they want to keep the right to abortion in the state. But more than half of Republicans actually in the state said that they would vote affirmatively. When you go to weed, it's actually roughly the same number, 55% of Republicans expressing support and 67%

support overall. Independent voters splitting dramatically in both of those directions, 68.9% on the weed issue, 58% on abortion. So you've got independent Republicans and Democrats, you've got majorities in all three of these coalitions that are going to come out in favor. As you said, let's be real. The minimum wage position passed with over 60%. Last time, Trump was still able to win. But this time around, if you have Biden tie himself to pro-choice in a way that neither candidate did previously with minimum wage, I do think it will have a significant more chance. Now, don't get me wrong. I think Trump is probably still going to win the state. But this is just one of those like spending money where we shouldn't have to be spending money.

It makes it at least a little bit interesting. Whereas previously it was not, the state of Florida was not interesting at all. One of the things that has been extraordinary to watch in the wake of Roe versus Wade being overturned and the Dobbs decision is the way that the pro-choice position has become more and more and more popular. It's not like people had their preexisting views and they just were locked into them, and then now it's the pro-choice side that's just more energized. No, you've seen a dramatic public shift towards the pro-choice position. And also, it didn't all happen at once. It's continued to trend in that direction. When soccer was out, Emily and I actually covered some of the polls with regards to that, that there's a continual trend towards the pro-choice direction. That has basically shaken loose what was a 50-50 divide for decades on this issue, where it really just depended, you know, which sides seem to be more extreme at the moment.

Now you have a very clear majority in favor of the more pro-choice side, and you have a dwindling minority in a very small minority that's in favor of, you know, the most extreme positions, like a complete national ban or abortion being illegal in all or most circumstances. There is a very, very small minority that supports that position at this point. So that's been one of the things that's been extraordinary as well, because I think pre-Dobbs, if you had asked Republicans what they thought about a ballot initiative like this, I don't think there's any chance you'd have a majority on the pro-choice side. So that has been a pretty dramatic and honestly, a shift that I did not anticipate in the wake of that decision. I didn't anticipate that this would be such a central issue,

driving so many electoral results in basically every state across the country, still now, you know, significant amount of time out from that decision. So Republicans, they're in a really hard bind here. We've seen the way that Trump has tried to navigate it. He's trying to shift it back to that rhetoric they used to use about, oh, well, Democrats, they favor these end of late-term abortions and even making up these scenarios of even after the baby's born, et cetera. But it just doesn't land when the landscape that is being fought over right now is on where are the restrictions going to lie. And so in a state like Florida, we have a six-week ban actually going into effect.

So people are going to get to see what that looks like and hear the horror stories before they go vote. It's pretty potent. It's bad. It's bad. Let me just, one word of caution, Miami Beach, you guys were already, you were one of the strictest places in the world, in the world, in America for weed. They actually just put in new measures to go against weed. So I would just, I would urge the voters of Miami Beach, if you want to protect your air down in that city, you may want to think a little bit differently. Let's put this last part up on the screen because this is another flashing red sign. And look, this is the other thing too, Crystal. We shouldn't erase this. It's actually very possible. I would say within the realm of possibility that Biden could win

the state of Florida. It went from Trump plus three to then DeSantis plus what, 20. But that was only two years ago. We don't know. And here in front of us, we have how special election where the Democrats actually flipped a Republican Florida House seat in Central Florida on, this was just what, a couple of months ago. So we have to be real here. This was on January 30th in 2024. Abortion politics, as you just said, has shifted so rapidly and wildly that it's actually pretty difficult to really get a sense of where things will land. The polls were totally off in the Democratic direction in 2022. Nobody anticipated that DeSantis blowout. They thought he would win by 10. It ended up winning by 20. Well, then in this case, too, we shouldn't underestimate that such rapidly shifting parts of the coalition, as we saw in 2016, as we saw in

2022, are so difficult to poll that you really won't find out until Election Day. Biden's highest approval ratings are among the elderly. Yeah, true. They don't really, by and large, have an issue with his Israel policy. So, hey, you never know, guys. You never know. Crazier things have certainly happened in our politics. There you go.

Yeah, we have no idea. 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.

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, let's get to RFK Jr. Some very interesting news with regards to Tulsi Gabbard. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Tulsi gave an interview actually to ABC News, or at least a statement to ABC News, where she says she turned down his offer to be his running mate. Quote, it didn't work out. So she said in a statement, quote, I met with Kennedy several times. We have become good friends. He asked if I would be his running mate after careful consideration. I respectfully declined. She declined to explain why she turned down the offer, which has not previously been reported.

Obviously, she was included on the list, and he eventually went with Nicole Shanahan. He says, a person even close to the Kennedy campaign said, quote, there were definitely meetings, but it didn't work out. She claims we talked to a bunch of people. Tulsi's a rock star, no matter what and all that. But she's not denying it. So affirmatively, he did ask her. I think it was a mistake. I'm not sure that this was, look, I understand that Nicole Shanahan picked purely from a, it takes dollars to get on the ballot. So from an actual, like practical point of view, totally get it. But Tulsi Gabbard actually was elected. I mean, she's much more, I think, I mean, look, Nicole has not given an interview as of yet from what I've looked and by the way, we're asking for it. We'd like to have her here on the show,

but she hasn't, she hasn't been as battle-tested. I mean, Tulsi's the very least she's run for office before. She's been in the public sphere. She knows how to take criticism. You know, she's somebody who, look, you can love her, hate her, whatever. She's given interviews. She goes all over the place, comfortable, you know, more in the public eye. I actually, and given the fact that RFK is trying to especially capture a lot of the podcast space, as somebody who's already been all over the podcast space, continues to go on, kind of be in alternative media. So I think it's actually a blow to the Kennedy campaign. For her, I don't really get it.

I mean, I've seen that she's been on the short list for Trump. I just have a very hard time believing that. I just don't think he'll ever pick her. I can't see it. I agree. Yeah. So I mean, that's the only thing I can figure too, is that maybe she's holding out hope that she ends up being Trump's VP. And so she thinks she's got a better horse in Trump than an RFK Jr. There's just no way that he would pick her. I mean, it would piss off so many parts of the Republican coalition. I mean, look, outside of the online, people don't even know who she is. Those would be like, oh, she's a former Bernie Democrat. I'm not saying that she is, but I'm saying like, that's what the attack would be. It's just a lot easier and safer for Trump to pick Elise Stefanik, Tim Scott, or J.D. Vance, depending on what movie.

Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem, any of these people. Yeah. Traditional box check. You know, it's just about being safe. Everything's about Trump anyway, so. Tulsi is like the hyper online pick. Yeah.

Or like the vague hyper online pick. But yeah, do I actually think Trump has really any serious interest in picking her? No. I don't think so. I'm very skeptical of that. With regards to RFK Jr. and a potential Tulsi ticket, you know, obviously both of them are like former Democrats. Both of them have way higher approval ratings at this point with Republicans than Democrats. I think if you put Tulsi on the ticket, you are locking yourself more into an exclusively like former Trump conservative

Republican right wing base. Nicole Shanahan is a blank slate. She's got more liberal positions in terms of the causes she's funded in the past and things she said and supporting Pete Buttigieg and whatever. So it keeps the ticket a little bit more plausibly neutral. That's true. So in that way, I actually think it might be a better thing. I think actually Biden should have hoped that he would pick someone like Tulsi who clearly codes as right-wing, she's filling in on Fox and they love her at this point. So I think that would have made it more clear that the RFK ticket was going to take more from the Trump column. I still actually think it is going to take more from the Trump column because I just continue to look at the approval ratings.

Actually, in that Wall Street Journal Battleground State poll that we showed, even though once you add in RFK Jr. and other candidates and undecided, Trump actually picks up a little bit of ground in all the states. When you just looked at the RFK Jr. support, it actually did in that poll hurt Trump more than it hurt Biden. It's not overwhelming, but it is a little bit of an edge for Joe Biden. So given where his approval ratings are with Democrats, which are really in the toilet, and you have a majority of Republicans who personally like and have a high approval for RFK Jr., I still think at the end of the day, it probably is more of a problem for Trump than it is for Biden. But the Nicole Shanahan pick makes it a little less clear cut than if he had picked like a Tulsi Gabbard or someone else who really codes his right wing at this point. That's not a bad

point. I still think he wish, I wish he picked Jesse Ventura. I still think that would have been. Oh, that would have been a crazy wild card. I still think he wish, I wish he picked Jesse Ventura. I still think that would have been. Oh, that would have been a crazy wild card. I told this to Ryan. I said, I love that guy because he's all over the place. And he's, he's an OG if you are anti-establishment.

But Jesse is such a big person. He can't be in anyone's number two. He's such a big personality having interviewed him and he just takes over, let me tell you. I love him, man. I love him.

Such a character. I was reading 9-11 conspiracy theory books in college station in my mid-teens because of Jesse Ventura. But I also feel like I kind of doubt that Jesse and RFK Jr. are in the same place with regard to Israel and Palestine. That's a good point. That would be hard for me to imagine. But I haven't seen him weigh in there specifically, Jesse Ventura. But I would imagine that that would be a major rub. And we know that's been a rub for some previous RFK Jr. campaign staffers who were with him when he was against the Ukraine war and wanting to stop funding there and thought he was like, oh, this is an anti-war candidate. And then suddenly October 7th happens and he's on the total opposite end of the anti-war positioning for that. And that was very disillusioning for a number of his staffers who left and who explained that that was the reason that they left. And also for a number of previous supporters who had been interested in him genuinely occupying that anti-war space and,

you know, saw that as diametrically opposed to the way he positioned himself in Israel. Yeah. So the last time that he's made the news in the last six days is he has now joined forces with a local bakery to launch his own brand of THC edibles. So it looks like Jesse's living his best life. God bless. It appears. God bless. I don't support the products, but I will always support you, Jesse. There was one more interesting piece on this RFK Jr. There was a Washington Post talked to a number of RFK Jr. supporters. We can put this up on the screen. This is, yeah, B3.

So they talked to a number of people who said, you know, they're all in for RFK Jr. And they were kind of all over the political spectrum. The one thing they had in common, unsurprisingly, is they all hate Biden and Trump, which, you know, is a pretty common sentiment out there in America. And I think speaks to the wisdom of of the Super Bowl ad that he ran. Yes, absolutely. And the general attempt, like what we've been saying is probably his strongest lane, is to try to be as vague and neutral as possible and just be a vessel for as many people as possible

who just hate both of these candidates and want someone else and aren't too concerned about all of the details. So according to his campaign, here's what he's got so far. He's got New Hampshire, Hawaii, Nevada, North Carolina. They say they're on track for a few others. But are those places, do they specify there that he has actually made the ballot or where he's collected enough signatures. He's only made the ballot in one state. In Utah, right? Yeah.

Right. And that's not going to matter, unfortunately. Everywhere else actually will matter. And when he actually does get that ballot access, that's going to be the big thing. But I mean, that is where, you know, maybe I'm coming back to Nicole Shanahan. She's got a ton of money. She's been given, you know, I think she's got a billion dollars or something like that. $25, $50 million. That'll probably get you on the ballot in a a ton of money. She's been given, you know, I think she's got a billion dollars or something like that. Twenty five, 50 million.

That'll probably get you on the ballot in a decent number of states. That'll buy you the operation that you need. And if we can just project whatever we want onto the Kennedy Shanahan ticket, then you're going to ride at least somewhere to a decent percentage of the vote in this. And at the end of the day, I mean, you know, everyone keeps talking about the spoilerism and all of that. I just he's got he's at this point has had enough, you know, on the record statements against Trump, on the record statements about how he doesn't like others, on the record statements and, you know, always and not necessarily wanting to slip into a lane where he would drop out in order to help Trump, even if you do see polling.

And he said previously, he's going to F Trump. You know, I think it was in the Theo Mabon interview and all of that. Because the Democrats really do, at least from what I've seen, the DNC, they really have this conspiracy theory that he is 100% a spoiler-backed ticket. And I just, I don't see that in the data. And I definitely don't see it in some of the voters that are supporting him. Yeah, I mean, I don't really either. Now, I think it's possible that some of the people who are donating to him, they may have that in mind. I certainly think that's possible. Himself, I don't really see that either. And

if you were going to design someone who was going to be a spoiler for Biden, I don't think you'd pick RFK Jr. at this point. Because like I said, it's really not clear to me that he's going to take more from Biden than from Trump. In fact, again, at this point, even in spite of the Kennedy name and the past positioning, whatever, I do think at the end of the day, his approval ratings are just so much higher with Republicans that it seems like more of a threat to Trump. So if that's the plan, you know, I also think if that's the plan, you wouldn't be asking Tulsi Gabbard to be on your ticket, right? You would be going immediately to someone who had more sort of liberal or lefty cred to try to win over Biden voters if that was really the whole play is just to serve as a spoiler. So like I said, I'm not saying there aren't people who

are supporting him who have that agenda in mind, but I don't think it's the wisest course if that's ultimately your goal, really. Yeah, it's much more clear, for example, that Cornel West or Jill Stein would cut into his piece of the pie. So if you're just looking to move things around nefariously, I think you would put more effort into that end of the ticket. But I don't know. Who knows? Like I said, to me, with him personally, it doesn't add up that that's the whole goal of what he's doing. So, you know, ultimately these Biden and Trump, they got to make their case to the American people and actually win. And you can't cry about RFK Jr. exercising his right to participate in the democracy. And you can't cry about people who hate both of you and really want other options considering the other options that are available to them.

You know, I hadn't even considered the lame duck argument that he makes there. And I was like, you know, that's not a bad point in terms of if you want actual new leadership, you know, you have four year, 10 years on both of these candidates. It actually is a pretty good one. If you think in terms of really wanting something new and it gets to some of the doom that exists in the election. Remember Ron DeSantis was trying to make that argument about Trump. Yeah, he was. Yeah. And he was, I mean, it didn't hit, it didn't really work out. It didn't hit with the primary, but that's a very different electorate. I don't know. I think that if anything, the fact that we would only be, you know, tortured with one more Biden or one more Trump administration is probably a plus for

voters. Not like, oh, darn, I wish we could have him for eight years. That's such a shame. I don't think anyone out there is really feeling that way. So, have some interesting new comments from former ESPN anchor Sage Steele with regard to her previous interview at that network with President Joe Biden. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. Here as we get set for a wonderful day in sports. I'm happy to be.

Opening day for America's national pastimes. This was about two months after he took office. That was an interesting experience in its own right because it was so structured. And I was told, you will say every word that we write out. You will not deviate from the script and go. To the word, like every single question was scripted, gone over dozens of times by many executives, editors and executives. Absolutely. I was on script and was told not to deviate.

It was very much, this is what you will ask, this is how you will say it. No follow-ups. No follow-ups. Next. I knew that this was a lot bigger than just the wonderful editors that I worked with. This went up to the fourth floor, as we said, that we're all the bosses, the top executives, the decision makers are the president of our company. So very interesting there, Zahra. I'm curious what you make of her comments. Now, listen, she's not a Joe Biden fan. So perhaps, you know, there's some motivation behind what she's saying here, but it also kind of tracks. I mean, we know how careful they have been about who and where they give Joe Biden interviews to. I mean, he almost never does an actual mainstream interview where he could be asked those

follow-ups, and it's not just a bunch series of scripted pre-written softball questions. We can put this up on the screen. This is something that Ezra Klein actually pointed out back when he had his moment of being like, maybe we should get rid of Joe Biden before watching the State of the Union and having all of his fears to put to rest and deciding, no, actually, Joe Biden is a great savior of America. Put the next piece up on the screen. He says, Biden has done fewer interviews than any recent president. It's not close. By this point in their presidencies, Barack Obama had given more than 400 interviews. Trump had given more than 300. Biden has given fewer than 100, and a bunch of them are softball interviews. He'll go

on Conan O'Brien's podcast or Jay Shetty's mindfulness podcast. The Biden team says this is a strategy. They need apolitical voters, the ones who are not listening to political media. But one, this strategy is not working. Biden is down, not up. And two, no one really buys this argument. I don't buy this argument. This isn't a strategy chosen from a full universe of options. This is a strategic adaptation to Biden's perceived limits as a candidate. And what's worse, it may be a wise one.

And that trend, of course, has continued of him doing, you know, these exclusively softball interviews. Yeah, and Sage actually just gave an interview recently to Adam Carolla, I think, to clarify this. And she says, actually, the worst part for me is I wasn't even allowed to ask a follow-up question. And look, I don't know whether she's telling the truth or not. What I do know is it's been over 24 hours and ESPN has not denied any of this. So, I mean, as a journalistic organization, a charge as big as this, even I've interviewed

Trump, if somebody came out, no matter how small, and said and claimed that, you know, my interviews or something were scripted, that would be immediately, I'd be like, that is absolute bullshit. I have the tape. You can come and listen to it. Anytime you want, you can come and sit with me. We'll go through it and I'll show you exactly how I prepped it, the follow-ups, etc. They haven't said that. This is a major news organization. So look, clearly this lady has an ax to grind, right? She's been all over the podcast scene. I think she's starting her own thing and that's fine. People have a right and the ability to do that. This is a serious charge. She accused them of scripting her

interview. The other thing is, and why I believe it's scripted is at the very top there, as you saw when she was like America's pastime or something, people don't talk that way. People don't talk that way, period. And especially you and I, we can smell when people are reading off a prompter or not. I was watching a Hot Ones interview, for example, not exactly a journalistic organization, but just give me an example.

It was the wing show that we covered previously. It was an interview with somebody. And the host was like, tell me about this experience that you had in high school whenever I'm told you were – I was like, people don't talk this way. You're literally reading clearly off of a cue card. And for me, even that small snippet, it was obvious that that was a scripted question. I also think it's kind of embarrassing for her, though, that you accept those terms. That's a good point, yeah.

I wouldn't. I would never do that. I wouldn't. No way. And I'm perfectly willing to admit my human frailties,, you know, we're all subject to like the incentives that have systems around us. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a big deal for her to have pushed, like I would be embarrassed to admit that I just like was a good little girl and, you know, did the thing that I was told to do and ask no follow-ups and do their little softball interview. We have the president of the United States there. I mean, look, I get it. You're not a political reporter.

You're not a political journalist. But you did see yourself as a journalist and you have the most powerful person in the entire world there. And you're just going to stay in your lane and, you know, do the thing they told you to do. I don't know. I personally I would be embarrassed about that. But obviously the more important story is if this is actually true about a Hispanic. That's the question. OK, well, was there coordination with the Biden team on what those questions were? Is this the sort of thing that's happening at other quote-unquote news organizations when they are getting Biden interviews on the very rare occasions that they do? Are there some stipulations about

where the conversation can go? What type of questions can be asked? Or is it, and which is, more typical and frankly, extraordinarily common, where these networks, because they want to preserve their access, they know what sort of questions they're allowed to ask and what sort of questions, what sort of follow-ups, how aggressive they can be in their pushback in their follow-ups because they don't want to lose access to the president of the United States or his team or his advisors or top Democrats, et cetera. That's the way the game is usually played. It's not usually so explicit as like, no, these are the scripted questions that you're gonna ask. But hey, it does beg a lot more questions about the overall Biden media strategy and specifically about ESPN and how they handled this particular interview.

I will also say, Sage did have a very weird incident where she appeared to confuse Joe Rogan with Dana White and called him Joe like twice. And by the way, all this was also caught on camera, which makes it more insane. She claimed that she just got their names mixed up, but you should go watch the clip for yourself. That is the only thing that stuck in my mind is that because this is such a recent incident, I was like, I don't know if this is the most trustworthy person because that was actually legitimately crazy,

confusing the two of those. Even if you aren't all that familiar, they don't look exactly all the same. And they're so famous in their own right. So I just wanted to put that out there. All these white guys look the same, Sagar. That's a whole other conversation. All right, let's get to some additional interesting comments that we wanted to cover for you here, which is Stephen A. Smith sounding off on CNN about Hillary Clinton's recent comments.

Ryan and Emily played them for you. But just as a reminder, just so snide and condescending and filled with contempt towards undecided voters telling them to get over it when it comes to their dissatisfaction with Joe Biden. Typical Hillary Clinton stuff, of course. Stephen A. Smith had some real choice words for her, though. Let's take a listen. I don't think it was a very wise statement on her part. How did that work out for her in 2016? I think that's something that we have to recognize. Yeah, she won the popular vote, but at the end of the day, she wasn't the president of the United States. It was him. You can look at her not campaigning in Wisconsin in the last days, not campaigning in Pennsylvania in the last days. You can look at some of the stuff that they were saying about her that sort of distracted things from where it should have been in terms of Comey and his report from the FBI. You can bring up a whole bunch of things.

But at the end of the day, the last thing you need to do is to do anything that could agitate a potential voter in this particular election. What do you make about the actual argument that she's making? I mean, she's basically saying two old people, yes, but they're substantively different. I mean, Trump has 91 counts against him. Well, listen, nobody's brought that up more than me. Four indictments, 91 counts, impeached twice. I'm not voting for him. I've said that to a lot of people. I've said that to you. But at the end of the day, what I'm saying is, is that at some point in time, you've got to take into account what the voters thinking about the voters. A lot of them out there, tens of millions of them out there, by the way, don't care what he's going through right now. They don't care about his guilt or innocence, his perceived

guilt or innocence. They don't care about the 91 counts. They're thinking about their lives. And a lot of times we see politicians taking the positions that they're taking. And while we can respect their candor and their honesty, they do seem a bit detached at times from what the voters are actually feeling and what the voters are actually thinking. Nobody wants to hear that from Hillary Rodham Clinton at this particular moment in time, because especially if you're Joe Biden, what are you really, really worried about right now? You're worried about folks coming to the polls. You're worried about them showing up to the polls to vote for you. You're not worried even about them voting for Trump. You're worried about them not showing up to vote for you. That doesn't exactly encourage them to get up out of their seat.

So how did this man have better political analysis than every other pundit that's currently on CNN? Where did this come from? I love it too when he's like, I mean, clearly he's a partisan. He's like, I don't like Trump, criminal charges, all this stuff. But the wisdom of calling out Hillary, also clearly showing the wisdom of people not wanting to show up to vote. I just think it just confirms to me that if you're outside of the system, you have even somewhat of a brain. It's so obvious what all the problems here are. Yeah. I love when he's like, nobody wants to hear this from Hillary Rodham Clinton at this point in time. And like, God, when is she going to end the grievance tour? Like everything from her comes from this place of like, you know, cope and bitterness and trying to cast blame on anyone

other than herself for her dramatic failure in 2016. I mean, she is the most proximate reason that Donald Trump was ever president of the United States. And somehow she's still held up and applauded as some great, wonderful savior and wise sage of the Democratic Party. Give me a break. So his basic point here, it's actually so heartening to hear it articulated in this blunt way of like, why are you sneering and condescending at these voters who wish they had other choices than Biden and Trump? Why don't you get busy actually trying to appeal to them and actually listening to their concerns instead of lecturing to them about how they should feel about the situation? So listen, Stephen A. Smith is not some like leftist Bernie bro. He really prides himself on being this

kind of middle of the road guy. He's got a friendship with Sean Hannity. They go back and forth. You know, he's not like some lefty, lefty kind of a fella. So for him to have that just like normie instinct of what are you talking about and who do you think you're winning over with this is, it's nice to see. Yeah, I totally agree. I also like Stephen, our producers inform me

he is a fellow traveler in the anti-weed movement. Oh, for real? famous for saying stay off the weed. So Stephen, we appreciate you. Welcome to the Brotherhood.

There's very, very few of us. I vicariously consume a lot of Stephen A. Smith content because Kyle loves this man. He watches everything he puts out. We listened to his thoughts on Diddy last night. What did he say? You know, he's very careful on this one.

Very careful on this. So it was kind of interesting. And he kept raising the point of like, was it really necessary to have all this force and this big show of the helicopters and the boats and everything. He's compromised. So he was clearly, he's trying to be a little careful,

a little more diplomatic than normally Stephen A. Smith is very unbiased on. I was going to say, isn't that his whole thing? I was kind of surprised, yeah. I don't know. I'll be honest. I watched the whole Jason Whitlock back and forth again, vicariously through cock. I appreciate it here in a political context.

I truly do not understand the appeal of watching grown men yell at each other about sports and having full-on major disagreements like who's bad and who's, I'm just like, this is psychotic. I'm sorry. But at the same time, you know, if you're going to live and that's going to make your whole personality and that's the thing that you care most about, I guess I could see the entertainment value. I get it. I used to, I mean, I used to be a really big sports fan. I watched, you know, pardon the interruption and all this stuff. So, and I was really into it. So I totally get the appeal. It's not that different from the

appeal that people get in like the political horse race. It's kind of a similar, similar energy, but his podcast, it's wide ranging. I mean, he interviews presidential candidates and all kinds of different cultural figures and whatever weighs in on things like, you know, Diddy and Joe Biden and whatever else you can imagine. So anyway, he's, the thing that's extraordinary about him is politically he's not where I am at all, but he's so talented of a communicator that you just want to listen to him anyway. That's a good point. And he's so charming that even when he says something that coming from someone else would really irritate me or piss me off. I'm like, eh.

Fair enough. Yeah. So anyway, sign of a talented communicator, I suppose. There we go. 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. It's a 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 got 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. Massive fallout over Israel striking three times that humanitarian aid convoy of, you know, international aid workers trying to feed starving Gazans. We've got the reaction now from the Biden White House. Let's put this up on the screen. Here is from Politico. They say Biden's not changing the Israel policy after a deadly strike on the screen. Here is from Politico. They say Biden's not changing the Israel policy after a deadly strike on aid workers. Some of the senior officials think that is a

blatantly and horrific and stupid mistake. The tweet that they sent out of this article, the headline they put with it was, quote, angry Biden not changing Israel policy, which really kind of sums everything up. He pretends like he's mad. Maybe he really is mad. I don't know. But what does it matter if you're not going to change the policy at all? Because that's the message that Israel gets. Like, oh, we just killed seven aid workers for Jose Andres, who's this famous, you know, worldwide known liberal chef who's very close with many people in the Biden administration. And even that we can get away with. And there's zero change in terms of policy.

You know, this comes at a time where there's just a report that officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development warned that the enclave was now already experiencing famine. They say the level of hunger is unprecedented in modern history. So now you have all of these aid organizations that have suspended work in the Gaza Strip because they cannot keep their workers safe. So huge consequences for this territory that is now where people are starving to death. And you have some quotes here from within the administration. They say in the article, President Joe Biden was privately enraged by the deadly strike and in a public statement, upbraided Israel for calling for accountability to those responsible, demanding more humanitarian assistance be allowed into Gaza. But two senior administration officials say that that is as far as he and the White House

will go for now. They go on to say this has caused some fissures within the administration. It's just rinse and repeat with the Israelis. The American political system can't or won't draw a real line with them, and that is regrettable, according to a senior U.S. official. So, Sagar, same old, same old from Joe Biden. Oh, he's upset. He's angry. He's going to have a difficult conversation with Bibi Netanyahu. But that's it. No actual change to policy, which is the only thing that matters. Yeah, the entire thing is actually insane because what we are watching is the even previous Israel supporters, people like Richard Haass, like Morning Joe, all these other people, even they are sounding off. I will say, I mean, I'm personally just like annoyed at the idea that these people, look, these aid workers,

I have nothing against them, but for some reason they're held up as like more human than everybody else who has died. I think that's an important point. We will get to that. We will get to that. That is just the point to me where I'm like, okay, guys, like, you know, all human beings are equal. And I don't know why a Thai-level Democratic donor, liberal darling staff is enough to ignite an international crisis. No, no, no. You do know why. I do know why. Because they – and this – actually, can you guys put up – which number is this in this block?

Nine? It's the very last – this 12th. Put up the 12th element here, because this is from this Aaron David Miller interview in The New Yorker with Isaac Chotner, who's famous for these sort of like tough interviews. And I'm going to read a little bit more than what is up here on the screen, because this gets to exactly your point, Sagar. 200 aid workers had already been murdered before these seven individuals, not to mention tens of thousands of Gazans. So why is there a different reaction here? Why wasn't this upset and concern, you know, the moment that there were so many innocent civilians being killed?

Okay, so before we get to this quote, they say, Chotner says, you're saying you have no investment in one analysis or another. I could be wrong, but when I was listening to you talk, and this is Aaron David Miller, who's this former State Department official and wise by Beltway, foreign affairs, Morning Joe type of guy, and you discuss the horrors of October 7th, I sense an emotion in your voice that I haven't heard at any other time in this conversation. I don't want to criticize that, but I do wonder if the people who make policy in America don't have that same emotion when it comes to Palestinian

lives, do you think that's fair? Aaron David Miller says, I think it's fair to say yes, that American Americans have a pro-Israeli sensibility. I don't think there's any question about that. Clinton wrote in his memoir, he loved Yitzhak Rabin as he loved no man, rarely loved any other man, which is extraordinary. I watched Clinton grieve in the wake of Rabin's murder, and when Biden gave the speech on October 10th, you watched the tears well up in his eyes. He talked about the black hole of loss. He's conflated the tragedies in his own personal life with what Israelis felt on that day. And then we come to this quote. Yes, that's very moving, Chotner says, but there is another

kind of loss going on now, which he apparently can't conflate with his own experience, to which Aaron David Miller replies, oh, if you're asking me, do I think that Joe Biden has the same depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians of Gaza as he does for the Israelis? No, he doesn't, nor does he convey it. I don't think there is any doubt about that. And that's what it comes down to. Yeah, it's true. For Joe Biden, the Israelis are human. He relates to them. He sees his own life in them. Palestinians, they're not, there's no, I mean, there's no other conclusion you can come to. So it took having aid workers, including an American, who are affiliated with an organization run by a man that he knows who's an actual human being to him. It took them being killed before he really seems to have any sense of the humanity and the loss that's being experienced here.

So I actually think that's a very key point, Sagar, because, listen, I'm glad to see that there is upset about these individuals being killed. But you do have to ask yourself, you know, where was this upset so much earlier on? When you see children starving to death, that doesn't, you know, elicit your sympathy. That doesn't hit in the same way. But this is what it comes down to. I really think those comments are so revealing and so accurate as to the dynamic that's going on here. Oh, I totally agree. Absolutely. But as you were mentioning, Biden has lost all kindsoleezza Rice staffer and worked at the NSC. And she went off with regards to Biden's lack of policy reaction to the killing of these aid

workers. Let's take a listen to that. This has been bubbling up from behind the scenes for a while. President Biden, frankly, is furious at Prime Minister Netanyahu. But yet still, his administration has not conditioned sales, weapons sales, conditioned aid. They haven't done it yet. Now, maybe this is the moment that comes. This also happens just, we think, a week or two, perhaps, before this Rafa offensive, which really could be a flashpoint. OK, I'm so sick of hearing how upset President Biden is. The buck stops with him. If he wants to stop arms sales, if he wants to stop the bombs that are indiscriminately killing civilians, he can. He has the power. We don't need him going and his aides going to reporters and talking all back around about how upset they

are. What happened yesterday is still going to happen. At Mika's conference, the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent spoke, and she was incredibly moving. This was in Abu Dhabi. And she spoke about the difficulty of aid getting in the country, period, from the north or south. And she described a process that was kind of like the TSA changing the rules every single day going through airport security. Until those checkpoints are working and aid is going through, we don't need to be giving any more arms sales or money. It needs to stop.

It needs to be conditional. It's ridiculous that it's going on unchecked and unfettered. And we're sitting around and talking how upset we are while we hemorrhage billions of dollars. It's the worst of all worlds right now for the president. The criticism looks increasingly empty. So there you go. Morning Joe. Yeah, very normally. Joe Biden's favorite morning show program turning on him. And I mean,

Elise Jordan, quite aggressive there saying no more military aid. This is ridiculous. I'm sick of hearing about how upset they are. They need to actually do something. So that was quite striking. We also had Barack Ravid, who is a reporter from Axios, who's actually been, I think, one of the favored reporters of the administration in terms of the information that they've given him throughout this conflict. He also previously served in the IDF. So again, not some big lefty out there, but with some pretty striking comments, made actually multiple appearances on CNN, but this was with Anderson Cooper.

Take a listen to what he had to say about the approach of the Israelis. It is clear to everybody that what happened with this strike was a serious violation of the IDF protocols and rules of engagement, okay? To call it a misidentification or a mistake, you know, that's the understatement of the century.

OK, and this is not an isolated incident. The reason that we talk about it here is because it's WCK. It's a very well-known and famous NGO. But those incidents happen every few days in Gaza. There is a disconnect between how the IDF senior brass is looking at this and how it develops the rules of engagement and the orders and what happens when those percolate down to the forces in Gaza, especially to the field commanders, the lieutenant colonels, the colonels, the brigade commanders, the battalion commanders. They're not in the same place as the senior command. But you say they're not in the same place as the senior command.

But you say they're not in the same place, both literally, they're in Gaza, they're not in headquarters, and they're also the ones fighting and have a different attitude about, let's just get this done. I think each commander on the ground has a different interpretation of the orders. And this is why you see what you see. And this is not... That's a recipe for disaster. This is a recipe for a disaster, not only in Gaza, but for the destruction of a professional military.

Okay? This is not how a professional military conducts its operations. Three Israeli hostages that managed to escape their captors were killed by Israeli soldiers who fired at them, even though they were holding a white flag. Okay. And, you know, I spoke to an Israeli reserve officer who was in the same unit of those soldiers who shot those hostages. And I remember him telling me that the orders are basically

from the commanders on the ground is just shoot every man in fighting age. Shoot every man in fighting age. He also, I mean, he makes a number of comments there that are quite striking. He says to call this a mistake or a misidentification, the understatement of the century,

says this is not an isolated incident. We're paying attention now, as Zagro's pointing out, because of who Jose Andres is. And so it stoked this international outrage. But he points out this is happening in Gaza all the time. And also dovetails Sagar with reporting from Haaretz recently about how the Israeli military has basically identified these quote unquote kill zones, where anyone who enters these areas, they just assume as a militant and they kill them. And they stack them up on their count of supposed militants killed. So when they say, oh, we've killed 9,000 Hamas terrorists, that includes

any military age man that happened to get in their way or anyone who happened to wander into these kill zones, they count them as terrorists. So really important comments there from Barack Ravid. And again, the fact that even someone like him who really has tried to be, you know, a neutral reporter and who has had a direct line to the administration in many instances, that he's saying these sorts of things is pretty extraordinary. Of course. And he has more insight really than any of us. He does some of the best reporting, just like pure info, both from the Israeli side and the White House side. He's got like a direct line to the NSC, seemingly. Just last night, Jose Andres actually spoke about this incident and accused the Israeli government of directly actually targeting his workers.

Here's what he had to say. What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, nonstop, until everybody was dead in this convoy. Here's what he had to say. place or or no this was over 1.5 1.8 kilometers with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top in the roof that cannot be the role of an army that cannot be the role of an army that has hundreds of drones above gaza in any single moment the humanitarians and civilians should never be paying the consequences of war. This is a basic principle of humanity. At the time, this looks like it's not a war against their regime anymore. Seems this is a war against humanity itself.

Very extraordinary comments there for him to say something like that on top of the op-ed that he was written, Crystal. But look, I do think this will be a change in U.S. policy or will be a big change. But we have just turned to, look, we've been covering this stuff day in and day out. And it's like if this – it's really – this is what it takes. I mean, look, at a certain point, I do, of course, care that an American citizen here was killed. But it's like all of this, the patterns that people have been able to observe American citizen here was killed. But it's like all of

this, the patterns that people have been able to observe now for almost six months. Yeah, it's like April 4th. So we're coming up on the six month anniversary of October 7th. That's been present for several, several months, you know, for a lot of people. But, you know, if anything, you know, if that's what it takes to break it, so be it. Well, and what Jose Andres is speaking there, too, is really the obvious and ultimately unavoidable conclusion that they were directly and intentionally targeted. When you look at the facts, three cars, three separate drone strikes,

the cars clearly marked, the cars in a deconfliction zone, the cars having coordinated directly with the IDF, we're leaving our warehouse now where our food is stored. We are traveling up this road. And still, they are hit not once, not twice, but three times. The first car that is struck, the other two cars stop, and the survivors of that strike get into one of the other cars and continue down the road. Then they hit again, and once again, the third car stops, and the remaining survivors move to the third car, and then they hit that third car. And you expect us to believe this was misidentification and complex circumstances.

Anyone with half a brain can see that is total and complete bullshit. And by the way, the story that's coming out from the IDF, you know, as told to Haaretz and others has already been changing. You know, originally there was a supposed someone who was armed that was at the warehouse. Well, yeah, you're in a war zone. First of all, the fact that there's someone with a gun doesn't make them Hamas when you're trying to escort an aid convoy. Second of all, is it really justified? That's your rules of engagement? Is even if this was some Hamas person who was in this convoy at some point, that gives you license to murder everyone in this convoy?

So that was disgusting and preposterous to start with. And now we're getting into like, oh, well, it was confusing and it was complex and it was a mistake and it was accident. And as Jose Andres here himself is saying, that just does not hold water whatsoever. By the way, it's not just people like him or the folks on Morning Joe or Barack Ravid who are sounding notes like that. But this up on the screen, there's a report from Al Jazeera that UK's Rishi Sunak, prime minister, has informed Netanyahu that the UK is now considering declaring our administration in terms of actually acknowledging what is at this point, I think, undeniable reality based on the facts that we've all been witnessing now for months at this point. And I also don't want to lose sight of, you know, the American citizen who was killed here. And Biden previously said, you know, when American is hurt or injured or killed, we will respond. Let's put this up on the screen.

This is Jacob Flickinger. He was the U.S. Canadian citizen who was killed by the IDF while he's delivering food aid in Gaza. He was a retired master corporal, served 11 years in the Canadian Army, including a tour in Afghanistan. He was a father, and he was the sole provider to a one-year old baby boy. So, you know, a real loss to him, to that child, to, you know, his family, his loved ones, our hearts go out to them. And let me put this next piece up on the screen because this speaks to the shifting stories that we've heard at this point from the IDF. The latest report from Haaretz, as explained here by a great journalist, Demi Reader, is that the bombing of the convoy was not a communication mishap, buteder, is that the bombing of the convoy was not a communication

mishap, but commanders and units in the field ignoring instructions and disobeying orders, not for the first time. One IDF intelligence source says, quote, the general staff know exactly why World Central Kitchen was bombed because in the strip, everyone does whatever they like. It's unclear whether the commanders asked for more senior officers' permission to target the convoy as they were meant to be doing per standing orders. Same sources dismissed the line taken by the chief of staff, Herzli Halevy, and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who suggested the bombing was the result of coordination issues. Quote, this has nothing to do with coordination. They can set up another 20 coordination hubs, but if someone doesn't put an end to how some

forces in the Strip have been operating, We'll see this happen time and time again. And quote, one of the perplexing things perhaps here at Sagar is, you know, Israel has very aggressively, you know, sought to undermine the UNRWA, which was the primary aid organization on the ground. The U.S. has all, you know, completely gone along with that, by the way. And so, and they also have been trying to do a propaganda effort to deny what has been, you know, made clear by the photos and images coming out of the Gaza Strip and also by the analysis of aid organizations on the ground, that the people of Gaza are starving. They're starving to death and it's because of Israeli policy. So interesting, they'd actually been using World Central Kitchen as like a propaganda point to say, look, we're working with that. We don't need UNRWA.

We've got these guys. Look, they're feeding people, etc. And World Central Kitchen was genuinely doing fantastic work and was important. They were not a replacement for UNRWA. Obviously, it is wildly inadequate for the amount of need. But that was part of what was so wild about this targeting and this killing was the fact that the Israelis were actually propping them up as this, like, propaganda piece. So, you know, on the one hand, this report that, oh, well, it's just because of these, like, rogue units on the ground seems to be a bit of a blame-shifting

and ignoring the fact that, you know, you've had 200 aid workers killed and it's clearly the Israelis certainly, at the very least, don't care and you've had this targeting of the entire civilian population through the policy of siege, you know, destroying civilian infrastructure, destroying the healthcare system, etc. But in the same respect, you know, it seems it's pretty wild that they went ahead and murdered the aid workers with the organization that they have themselves been propping up as an alternative to UNRWA.

And they have offered no alternative explanation as to why anything like that even happened. Final important piece here. Let's put this up there on the screen. Haaretz actually issued an editorial saying that the war must end in Gaza now. They say the incident in which seven people were killed, among them various citizens were killed in Israeli attack,

cannot end with a comprehensive and transparent investigation, as was promised. What happens and that we will do everything that's so-called not to happen again. It is not sufficient. They say that an end to the war is the only possible way to move forward. And I think that's where people like Barak Ravid and any others, people who are supportive of Israel, are seeing is they're like, hey, our nation is not going to recover from something like this for a long time. In terms of international legitimacy, it's basically scrambled the board in a way that very least has not happened since the 1970s.

And it took a long time for Israel to climb itself out of that. Obviously, a lot of stuff has changed. So I do think that those will be very significant. watching the UK, the European Union, some news coming out that Spain and the EU intend to officially recognize a Palestinian state sometime in the next few months. That too could actually significantly change things up and change relations with Israel as well. So we'll see. It's going to be interesting.

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. Let's talk a little about a little more of the political fallout for Joe Biden. So really in recent years, there's been a tradition at the White House of hosting a Ramadan Iftar dinner, inviting prominent Muslim Americans to that dinner. Well, this year, that Iftar dinner had to be canceled because no one

was willing to show up. Let's put this up on the screen. This says, White House Iftar canceled after many Muslims declined invite. And if you read the article, they say that several Muslim Americans declined to go in protest of Joe Biden's support for Israel's war on Gaza. The sources who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, and this reporting is backed up by Washington Post and other outlets as well, said the cancellation on Tuesday came after those Muslim community members warned leaders against attending the White House meal. Quote, the American Muslim community said very early on it would be completely unacceptable for us to break bread with the very same White House that is enabling the Israeli government to starve and slaughter the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Both CNN and NPR had previously reported the White House was preparing a community iftar, so they had planned to do this and had to back out of it when they couldn't get anyone outside of their own staffers to attend. Hours later on Tuesday, the White House announced instead it would be hosting a meal for Muslim government staffers and holding a separate meeting with a few Muslim American community figures. Apparently, that meeting that was held did not go particularly well based on the reports of those who participated in the meeting. Here is one doctor who said that he was forced to walk out of the meeting because he was so disgusted with the Biden administration. Let's listen to his explanation. You know, we had shown up to this meeting really concerned about what was taking place in the Gaza Strip. And I'm glad that you

mentioned that we were, you know, insisting that there not be any food there. It made no sense for us to sort of break bread while talking about a famine taking place. We had shown up and the president and the vice president, the national security advisor in the room, and there was very brief comments by the president saying he wants to hear from us and he wants to listen to us. And so I spoke first and I let him know that I am from a community that's reeling. We are grieving and our heart is broken for what's been taking place over the last six months. And that the rhetoric that has been coming out of the Biden administration, that's been coming out of the White House, it's frustrated a lot of people, especially people who are Palestinian Americans, Muslim

Americans, Arab Americans. We are not satisfied with what has taken place. There has been no concrete steps. But keep in mind, we're very concerned about the people that are over in the Gaza Strip that are in Palestine right now, who are not just starving, but are facing the threat of a looming Rafah invasion. And so I was able to share that with the president and let him know that out of respect for my community, out of respect for all of the people who have suffered and who have been killed in the process, I need to walk out of the meeting. And I want to walk out with decision makers and let them know what it feels like for somebody to say something and then walk away from them and not hear them out and not hear their response. Wow. I mean, what did how did President Biden respond to that?

You know, there wasn't a lot of response. He actually said that he understood and I walked away. So pretty extraordinary for that to be that interview to be occurring on CNN. Also, NBC News had additional reporting of some of the commentary from inside of meaning other indications this did not go particularly well. Another doctor, I can put this up on the screen, who attended, was taken aback when she showed Biden prints of photos of malnourished children and women in Gaza, to which Biden responded he had seen those images before. The only problem, the doctor said, was that she had printed those photos from her own iPhone. So there was no way he could have seen those photos before, Sagar,

which speaks both to the fact that, you know, to him, all the starving Gazans that he'd say, I was all the same. And it also speaks to like an age befuddlement issue as well. So you got a double whammy there. And, but I think it just, it speaks to what we were discussing earlier, which is just, you know, to him, Israelis are full human beings that he has full empathy for and Palestinians are not. And, you know, the only reason he's at this height of anger, but still not changing his policy, by the way, right now, is because he has a personal connection to Jose Andres. But all of these images of starving children, children who are being buried under rubble, you know, body parts strewn about a hospital courtyard, none of this is really

landing for him. It's not really impacting him, certainly not in the way that the atrocities committed on October 7th did. And there was one other interesting piece of reporting that I just saw this morning from this meeting, which is according to what Joe Biden said inside of this meeting, his own wife has begged him to stop this war, saying, quote, stop it, stop it now. This was from a report in the New York Times. Again, per Joe Biden and what he said in this meeting. So interesting that even his own wife potentially is very distressed by what she is seeing coming out of the Gaza Strip and begging him to put an end to it. And Jill Biden herself has faced, you know, plenty of protesters when she's tried to go out

and campaign as well. So, you know, those people who are out there, activists who are forcing Jill Biden, Joe Biden, Karine Jean-Pierre, all of these officials to have to reckon with what they're doing and what they're enabling every single day, potentially having an impact here on Jill Biden, at least. Yeah, I think this is definitely significant. The fact is, is that, I mean, this is part of what is annoying too. It's like, they're like, it's a Muslim problem. It's not just Muslims, you know, that object to this. They, in general, from what we can see, is that I think that he in particular has this emotional connection, plus he's stubborn, plus he's old, and it's a media issue where at the end of the day, you know, Biden doesn't even live in reality. He lives in basically like 1990s America.

He watches a little bit of cable news, a little bit, and then he reads like hardcover newsprint. That's not how the vast majority of people are experiencing news around this conflict. And I think that when you think, you know, considering that informs the worldview that he brings to this, and it also, I think, probably informs us as to just why he is so steadfast in refusing to change the policy,

even if his advisors may tell him different. He's a stubborn old man. He's not gonna listen to them. I think that's a huge part of it. Completely ideologically committed to Zionism, period. End of story. He's willing to listen to them. I think that's a huge part of it. Completely ideologically committed to Zionism, period. End of story. It is, he's willing to risk it all to maintain that commitment. I mean, at this point, I don't think you can really come up with any other explanation because you have so many members of his administration leaking at this point that they're upset with

the direction of the policy you've got. He's lost Morning Joe. He lost the Pod Save Bros. He lost Jose Andres. He's losing the UK. Doesn't matter. And we continue to have significant uncommitted vote. There was a larger uncommitted vote in Wisconsin this week than the size of his margin against Trump last time around. There was reporting about how Biden himself is seeing the poll numbers, is upset about how much of an impact this is having on his reelection prospects. We've brought to you so many polls about how the Democratic base is disgusted with this policy, but he apparently doesn't care. None of it really lands. He's even lost his own wife, apparently, and even that isn't having any sort of a real impact. There you go. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, over the last few years,

it feels like DEI has become a meaningless buzzword. I see it thrown around by conservatives all the time. It's unfortunate because it actually is a term with real meaning. I say this as someone who hates DEI, been warning about it for years. So I thought it would be fun if we dug into some of the origins of DEI,

defined actual terms, and then we check to see how's it doing about a decade or so into implementation. Let's start with the basics. What is DEI, defined actual terms, and then we check to see how's it doing about a decade or so into implementation. Let's start with the basics. What is DEI? DEI is shorthand for diversity, equity, and inclusion. DEI is the ugly sister of the lean-in movement of the early 2010s, where corporations and the media became obsessed with twin concepts. One is that women make less than men for exactly the same job, and two is that diversity of color, gender, or any other cosmetic attribute is an inherent good in and of itself as long as it's a minority. The reason that I've always hated these movements is specifically because they are cosmetic.

They are the embodiment of the meme showing a female pilot dropping bombs and the victim saying, at least it was a woman who killed me this time. If the corporation itself doesn't change and just the makeup of who runs that corporation does, why should we care? Nonetheless, the financial elites embraced lean-in DEI in the 2010s specifically to dispel ruling class consciousness and especially to weaponize identity. Thus, effectively legalizing sexism and racism became legal in corporate America, where people were specifically hired and promoted for the color of their skin, their gender, or any actively legalizing sexism and racism became legal in corporate America, where people were

specifically hired and promoted for the color of their skin, their gender, or any other cosmetic attribute. Now, obviously, when you put it that way, it sounds illegal and awful. So what corporate America had to do was twofold. One, they had to legitimize the racial and gender-obsessed worldview through the media. Two, they have to prove why this is actually an inherent good for the business. This is where the corporate consultants come in. As the Fortune 500 CEOs clamored to justify DEI, they had to answer to their shareholders, of course. And so they do what they always do. They turn to McKinsey to justify their decision. McKinsey is, of course, happy to oblige and for the first near decade has been churning out research after research propping up

this false religion. From 2015 to 2023, McKinsey published four studies that titled, quote, diversity matters, delivering through diversity, diversity wins, how inclusion matters, and diversity matters even more, the case for holistic impact. As the spectator writes, quote, the core claim of each study is that DEI leads to better corporate performance. Thus, more DEI, more profit. It's the same logic as past ESG studies from the last decade. Hilariously, though, just like the collapse of ESG, there has been actual now independent review of said studies, and the results are not as clear-cut as McKinsey may have led us to believe.

In fact, a new paper from the Econ Journal, which tested the data within each one of these studies, has concluded that they cannot be replicated at all independently. In fact, they find these studies, quote, should not be relied on to support the view that U.S. publicly traded firms can expect to deliver improved financial performance if they increase racial and ethnic diversity of their executives. So basically, diversity of executives has no impact whatsoever on whether you make money as a company, which means two things. Corporations just paid billions of dollars to race huckster consultants who set up entire firms guiding DEI policies at these

companies. And two, most importantly, they discriminated against people based upon the color of their skin or gender when making hiring decisions. We have proof of this definitively. Bloomberg in September of 2023 ran data to show that in 2000 and 2021 alone, the number of so-called people of color hired at 84 S&P 500 companies had a 94% increase than the year previously. So there was a 94% increase possibly in the number of qualified applicants, or there were a whole lot of people who were hired explicitly because of the color of their skin over others. Now, keep in mind, this is a data set of 9 million people who work at the largest and most lucrative firms in the U.S., including, per Bloomberg, Apple, Walmart, Wells Fargo, major Fortune 500s across the board, sector by sector.

In 2021, that revolution in hiring occurred, and it is certainly a direct violation of equal opportunity provision in the law, which dictates specifically that people should not be hired on race alone. And of course, keep in mind, that's just 2021 data. We have no idea what insanity has been wrought in the last three years. This is all done for the sake of diversity itself, with no discernible impact that we can now show on the bottom line. And that's why I'm doing this monologue. If you want to defend the merits of hiring people based purely on the color of their skin or whatever pronouns, then be my guest. But do not hide behind fake studies that are trotted out at these shareholder conferences. If you want legalized racism, stand up and defend it on its own merits. I suspect that they will not, and they will ignore the results because when you do, it's just abhorrent to the

American character, which is founded in a fundamental belief of actual equality before the law and in striving for equality of opportunity. The farther that we have strayed from that, the more we have only exacerbated and expanded the very class consciousness that DEI was invented to try and to destroy. Very interesting, isn't it, Chris? And if you want to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. 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 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. Very lucky to be joined in studio today by the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Sean O'Brien, who is here to update us on a variety of important organizing issues you all have been focused on. So welcome. Great to have you back. Thank you very much. Yeah, of course. So first, let's start with this. Guys, put this first element up on the screen. Calling for a nationwide boycott of Molson Coors. So just tell us what's going on here. Do they use an influencer you guys didn't like, something like that, or maybe something a little more significant? No, so we just settled a historic Anheuser-Busch contract. And it was a tough, long, contentious negotiation. But at the end of the day, we got what our members deserved and

demanded. And this company is very profitable. And they actually But at the end of the day, we got what our members deserved and demanded. And this company is very profitable. And they actually recognize at the last day how important that our members were. They're an American company, American brewed beer. And they're very, very, they recognize who makes them the success they are. And we want to set industry-leading standards with all our contracts. So next up was Molson Coors. And they have had their way with concessions over the last several contracts. So we took a

strong position that if it's good enough for Anheuser-Busch, it's good enough for Molson Coors. Molson Coors is very, very profitable. CEO makes a ton of money. Typical story. And they wouldn't do it right. And they chose to strike themselves. And our members have been on strike well over 40 days right now, holding strong. And we're not going to concede until we get the best deal for our members. Very good. Well, we wanted to make sure we highlighted that. I know. It is a national boycott.

Okay. Well, there you heard it. You heard it here. Not first, but you definitely heard it here as well. I wanted to reach out to you, sir, in particular about you heard you heard it here. I get not first but you definitely aren't heard here as well I wanted to reach out to you sir in particular about this self-driving car issue I know this bubbled up a couple of months ago. We could put this up here, please on the screen This is just about the you know, they say self-driving semi trucks coming to America's highways I know that there was a split here with the California governor Gavin Newsom and I was wondering if you could break some of that down for us because I know that this is something that bubbled up and really bothered you guys in the past.

It bothers us still. Or today, yeah. And the one thing that Governor Newsom has proven that he's bought and paid for by big tech. And he fails to remember when there was a recall who supported him the most, and that was organized labor. And look, we don't want autonomous vehicles. We're all about protecting jobs.

More importantly, it could be a major public safety issue. You know, you have an 80,000-pound vehicle, you know, going up and down these roads, a family of four. You know, the best computer that I know is your gut instinct and your mind. And if you have a human operator, they're going to react a lot quicker to a potential safety risk and everything else. But, you know, it's unfortunate that Governor Newsom has bought and paid for it by big tech, and he chose the wrong side on this one. And we are going to do everything in our power legislatively to fight autonomous commercial vehicles and autonomous vehicles in general.

And we have to do that on a state level. We have to do it on a federal level. We have the ability through collective bargaining to protect against autonomous vehicles and we've been very successful in all the negotiations that we have had with major corporations like UPS and others. So we have that ability to limit them during collective bargaining, but we want to make sure that we protect jobs as a whole nationwide in the safety. Where are we in the trajectory of the adoption

of this technology? Is this a state-by-state issue? Is it a federal issue? Is it both? And how much of a threat is it to your membership? It's a major threat. All technology, whether it's AI or autonomous vehicles, is a major threat to jobs. And it's a major threat to the infrastructure that we're investing as taxpayers day in and day out for roads and bridges. It's a credible threat. It's state by state. We've got to fight it, and then we have to take it on at a national level. Something I'm curious about in the way that you guys think about it, obviously I agree in terms of job protection and all that.

I believe that the justification is they're like, oh, well, you're standing in the way of progress. You, of course, rise safety. How do you and your members, how do well, you're standing in the way of progress. You, of course, rise safety. How do you and your members, how do you guys think about things in the future? Is it accommodation? Is it just fighting it back against it? Like, how do you think about, with the role of technology, your own jobs,

and what I believe is one of the most critical things that you guys do? So put autonomous vehicles aside from that. Technology is coming, it's here. And companies wanna utilize it for efficiencies, and that's all well and good. But there's other jobs that can be created as a result of technology, and that's what we've been focused on. It's like technology is coming, it's here. We can either do one of two things.

We can either pout about it and do nothing and or be creative and find a way to who's programming this technology, who's maintaining this technology and create jobs. And we've been successful in the warehouse industry, grocery warehouse industry, where there has been implementation of technology, but we've created just as many jobs as a result of finding ways to service this technology, finding ways to program this technology, finding ways to program this technology, help and design this technology. So there is opportunity as a result of technology. Can you talk a little bit about the sort of overall organizing landscape? Because for really the first time in my lifetime, labor seems to be securing some big wins. You know, I'm used to the 90s era of all these concessionary contracts after concessionary contracts. You all had big wins with regards to UPS.

We saw significant contract improvements from UAW. There seems to be a lot of energy in terms of organizing new shops. What are you seeing in terms of what's possible for labor right now? Well, I think we have a great opportunity. We have been taking advantage of it. We have a younger workforce that is passionate about organizing, passionate about the unions, which is, you know, very, very encouraging for an old guy like me. You know, we always fourth generation. I always want to leave this organization better than we

found it. But organizing is key right now. We're organizing in the TMC's union and traditional industries like construction. But we're also looking at, obviously, Amazon's our biggest target. We are focused on cannabis, where there's 425,000 W-2 employees that are cultivating, warehousing, and there'll be distribution. So we are focused. We have been organizing, getting contracts there. So yeah, I mean, we have to look at every opportunity. When you look at these young workers, like at Starbucks, you look at Chipotle, it's encouraging

because, you know, we have proven our value through the pandemic, organized labor, how we provided, our members were essential. They provided goods and services to keep this country moving. And now, you know, with this opportunity with the younger generation who is thirsty to fight and not afraid to stand up, it's great. I think the sky's the limit moving forward. We just have to keep this momentum going. How much has the more pro-worker Biden administration LRB helped to enable some of those victories and expand what's possible? Clearly, when you make a change from the previous administration, who was anti-worker,

anti-union, it know, has made a lot easier. I mean, elections have gone a lot smoother, there's a lot more due diligence and violations and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, it's about getting our message out. What can we do for workers? What can we do as far as representing people? And I think to your point earlier, we've negotiated as teams as the strongest contract, 30 billion at UPS, DHL, record contract, Anheuser-Busch. The proof is in the pudding.

And this new generation of workers, when it comes to organizing, they want to see what they're actually going to get. So what we've been focused on as an organization is getting the best contract. And that's a true template

to what we're doing moving forward. People want to see, this new generation want to see actually information. And, you know, social media has played a huge role in getting our messaging out, has played a huge role in, you know, basically bringing solidarity, connecting people. So, again, I'm very excited about the direction of the unions and American workforce. You made a reference there to the previous administration. I know you went down to Mar-a-Lago. You met with former President Trump.

Did you tell him any of this? How was he thinking about the 2024? Look, the reality of it is this. We had roundtables with every single candidate. And, you know, our message is clear. You know, you have to earn our endorsement. And you have boxes you need to check off, whether it's not supporting national right to work. we need to have a PRO Act where it makes organizing

easier, but more importantly, it mandates arbitration to get a first contract. We need bankruptcy reform when these companies just run from their obligation and our members don't get their benefits. We've got antitrust. There's a lot of issues out there that are important to us. Autonomous vehicles, technology. And the one thing we said is the government, for some reason, when you deal with a company like Amazon, for example, why do we reward a bad employer? We know they're a bad employer. We know they skirt all kinds of obligations with this independent contractor model.

There's 150% turnover ratio. They focus on distressed communities. Why would we as a government, as a nation, keep rewarding bad employers with lucrative contracts? So, you know, we've gotten our message out to everyone. President Biden as well, former President Trump, RFK. Everybody knows our issues. And those issues and that script, when we brought them in,

was not tailored towards any one candidate. It was just focused on our issues that our members face every day and that script when we brought them in was not tailored towards any one candidate. It was just focused on our issues that our members face every day and the potential risk. All right. The point about the contracts is so important because, you know, it's easy for politicians to make an excuse about the pro. Oh, we tried really hard. Sorry, guys, we'll give it another shot again. But, you know, we had these opponents in Congress. We just couldn't get across the line. Well, you're talking about the contracts. That's something the president can do unilaterally. There's no excuse for rewarding a company, a union busting company like Amazon, that is bad to their workers, as you point out. And if you

look at the injury statistics, much higher than industry average. I wonder if you could just give us an update on where you guys are with Amazon organizing, what's the latest progress and what's the big picture? So we have been working on Amazon. I mean, you see what's going on in Southern California. We've committed to invest $300 million organizing Amazon. It is going to be a, we're working on some affiliations that are going to position us to go after the direct employees. But look, we need to put pressure on Amazon from all fronts. And people have to understand that, you know, although it's a convenience and it's, you know, Amazon is everywhere, they are not good employers. They are not good people. And they do not treat their work as well.

We are going to, you know, spend every resource we have to make certain that we organize Amazon workers. And, you know, the best part about it is, you know, again, we talked about that young generation. They are all in on this, which is very, very important to us. So you're seeing a lot of receptivity? Absolutely, we are. Especially after the UPS contract. Right. Of course.

They do the same work that UPS workers do. Our part-timers are making well over $21 an hour. They get full medical. They get full pensions. But more importantly, they get a path to a career. There's no path to a career at Amazon. What's the next thing that we should be looking for in terms of that organizing drive? Well, you're going to look for us turning it up, focusing on major cities, and getting

out there and continuing the spread of the word. We have a great volunteer organizing committee of peers that work at UPS, that work at DHL, where we've had another huge victory at CVG, where we organized 1,100 members. We have another 1,500, got a first contract there right at that hub, right next to where Amazon has a million square foot warehouse on that facility. And that's going to be our next target. All right. The last question I had for you is a number of unions have put out statements with regard to Israel's war in Gaza, specifically calling for a ceasefire. To my knowledge, you all haven't put out anything of the like.

Just wanted to ask if that's something that you all are considering and more broadly what your philosophy is with regard to the role of unions when it comes to those sort of international solidarity look We all know that this world is in a very difficult time and it's unfortunate that you know Innocent people are being victimized but by by this terrible situation not only there but also Ukraine Russia I'm focused on fighting the war that I've been fighting for the last 34 years of my life. That's the war on corporate America. It's a war on politicians that don't support us. And look, it's unfortunate. And hopefully there'll be a resolution. You know, people talk about the genocide and, you know, there's a higher court, higher power that's going to decide that. I'm just focused on, you know,

the labor movement, focused on my members and focused on, you know, making certain that work is taken care of. That's my war. Fair enough. Well, we really appreciate your time, sir. You're welcome back here anytime. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time, sir. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.

We'll see you later. This is an iHeart Podcast.