Pod Save America - J. Edgar Boozer

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

FBI Director Kash Patel sues The Atlantic for defamation after they publish a well-sourced article alleging he's frequently drunk on the job. Donald Trump celebrates the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — only to watch Iran close the strait and fire on two ships. The administration tries to win back Joe Rogan and his audience by fast-tracking a series of psychedelics for FDA approval. Potential 2028 contenders, including Jon Ossoff, Pete Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris, make high-profile appearances on the campaigns trail. Plus: J Street's Ilan Goldenberg talks to Tommy about what progressive, pro-Israel policy should look like.

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That's half off at SimplySafe.com. There's no safe, like, simply safe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favre. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today, wow, I was enthusiastic. Let's go.

Well, on today's show, we're going to talk about Trump's premature victory lap on Iran. His attempts to win back Joe Rogan with psychedelics and Cash Patel suing the Atlantic because over two dozen people basically said he's a paranoid idiot who drinks too much. We'll also cover what was a big weekend for potential Democratic presidential contenders who are very much stepping up their public appearances. honing their stump speeches. Then Elon Goldenberg of J Street talks to Tommy about how pro-Israel progressives are trying to make

their case. Speaking of progressives trying to make their case, if you ever wondered what you could be doing to fight back against the right-wing propaganda that's clogging up all of our feeds and our screens, do we have an idea for you? You could become a crooked media subscriber. How's that? Yeah,

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Check it out. It's great. We'd love to have you. head on over to cricket.com slash friends and subscribe. All right, let's get to the news. Donald Trump spent Friday counting all of his chickens before they hatched, firing off a series of manic all-caps posts where he announced that Iran had agreed to, quote,

never close the strait of Hormuz again, would turn over all their enriched uranium, would receive no money for it, would remove all sea mines, and that Israel would be prohibited from bombing Lebanon any longer. Trump then continued his premature celebration at a TPUSA event in Arizona, where he said this. Iran has just announced that the Strait of Hormuz is fully open and ready for business. This process should go very quickly and that most of the points are already negotiated and agreed to.

You'll be very happy. The USA will get all nuclear dust. You know what the nuclear dust is? that was that white powdery substance created by our B-2 bombers, those great B-2 bombers, late one evening. Seven months ago, no money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form. So right after this, maybe as he was speaking, everything appeared to fall apart. The Iranians said that all of Trump's claims were false, closed the straight, and fired on two ships, which led Trump to threaten war crimes again, fire on an Iranian ship that tried to try to

run the U.S. naval blockade and seize the ship, which in turn led the Iranians to threaten retaliation. And yet it seems, as of this recording late Monday afternoon, a second round of negotiations in Pakistan may still happen. The latest is that J.D. Vance and the U.S. delegation seem to be planning to go. And while the Iranians haven't publicly confirmed their attendance, two Iranian officials told the times that they'll likely attend if J.D. Vance goes. Still some confusing... First time in history. Anyone says, I'm not going to that event unless J.D. Vance is there.

Maybe the last. Other than his literal wedding. So it seems like Trump was either lying or heavily exaggerating on Friday about the progress they'd made on a deal, or he pissed off the Iranians by spiking the ball before the deal was done. Or maybe a little bit of both. I don't know. Tommy, what do you think? What happened here? I think he was just making shit up.

He was tweeting out his wish list of outcomes for talks that had not. yet happened. And then he kind of elaborated there, TPA USA, with the golden dust. The dust. Created by our B2 bombers. The nuclear dust is his way of squaring the circle between we obliterated the program and we have to fight a war against them. It's all about the dust because it's just dust. RFK is going to snort it off the total seat. But yeah. But even last week, it was clear Iran was saying in their tweets that the Strait of Hormuz was only partially open. minister Abasarachi said that straight of four moves is declared completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire on the coordinated route that's very important which is like their little

part that goes close to their shoreline so they can control everybody that was what was open and trump was saying oh it'll never be closed again uh that Israel will never bomb Lebanon again it was all they're going to turn over their stockpile which is the dust um it was all just made up and then the other problem is within Iran itself there's all these reports of like an ongoing power struggle between elected officials, the IRGC, the nationalists versus the Islamists. It's not really clear who's in charge over there. It's like 1979 in the kind of first few months. And the way you know that was manifesting was the economists had a great piece today where they talked about how the Islamabad talks, the Iranian delegation had 80 people in it, including

30 who were described as decision makers. That's rolling deep. That's like a state that you know. Too many cooks. A lot of cooks in that kitchen. Yeah, too many cooks. So, um, who cooks, not enough dust. Yeah, who knows what's going to be. Keep them all going, but it was a mess. Yeah, apparently the Trump administration officials told Axios today that there is this genuine, they kind of blamed it on this genuine split between the negotiating team and the IRGC. They also, though, admitted to Axios. They said that the Iranians never, ever at no point agreed to give up enrichment permanently.

They certainly never agreed to do anything for free. They also said Trump is willing to lift sanctions, give somebody even though he's not saying that publicly. release a bunch of frozen assets, billions of dollars. Yeah, there was also a story about the six cruise ships that had to like sneak through the straight-of-hormoos during this opening, which I just, there's something so funny about this. It's like, no, honey, we're not, no ports to call. I know, it's such a bummer. It's such a bummer that they're empty. We just be like, we're going through the shato-hormoos.

It's like a cannonball run of cruise ships. That's something you just don't tell the passengers. Just look out the window, wave. On your left. That's not a rocket launcher. Is that a drone? Those are just fireworks. Look at the beautiful golf.

Yeah, I'm like, I think increasingly we just need to look at whatever Trump is posting about this as a completely separate. Like, is he lying? Is he telling the truth? It's a bit. It's not even, it's just. It's just, it's just, it's not even tethered to what he's hearing or not. Maybe it's in some way a version of what he hopes the outcome will be. But based on this and more of the reporting that we'll talk about.

And it just, he treats, the social media has, is basically just about what he wants to vent about how he's feeling and what he wants the public to believe is going on. It bears absolutely no resemblance to what he's hearing internally, to what conveying to the Iranians, to what the internal discussions look like. It is just a separate track. It's just like he's journaling. Yeah. He's just, he's just doing therapy. Some, and sometimes, sometimes, sometimes it's what he, sometimes it's like a vision board. Did you guys read all the, the truth today? There's a lot today. There's like a lot.

Some of the, the couple of things that stood out to me there, uh, you know, he says, I'm winning,

I'm winning a war by a lot. And then goes on to like mock Iran for losing again. Uh, he attacked Obama on the JCPOA. He said Obama gave $1.7 billion in all capo letters. Green cash. He emptied out all the cash from banks in D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

Those bankers said they've never seen anything like it before. He's just, uh, he's always got to be. some made-up detail. Like Tony, like Tony Blinken was going bank to bank with like to sort of like

all the banks. Like in the movie Assassins where you have to wait for a couple hours where they count all the money. He did one that started, he said, despite World War I lasting and then he goes on and talks about

the exact length in years and days of World War II, World War I, Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq. And then he said, I promised six weeks. And by the way, I am under no pressure whatsoever to make a deal, although it will all happen relatively quickly. Time is not my adversary.

Oh, I would say that. I would say, yeah, exactly. Time, time, time. Time is the actual aerial tables called Democrats traders, bragged about building the greatest military our country's ever seen, including adding the space force. That's something that we had to get in today. And then also Israel never talked me into the war with Iran. Sure, buddy.

My, yeah, my Israel never talked me into the war with Iran t-shirt. It's answered a lot of questions. I just, like, as is giving a speech, I'm meant to be a kind of political booster speech, and you say, great news, everybody, the straight of Hormuz is open. And it was like, that wasn't a problem two months ago. So, so like, he, what he, the lesson he took from the Iraq war was that, um, the one most successful episode in the whole war was the mission accomplished banner. Because he basically has been doing that every single day since the war began.

Yeah. Every day it's we won the war. Every single day. It's, we won the war or we're going to destroy civilization. That's it. I'm not pressure to end it soon, but I'm going to end it soon. But I don't care when I end it because we've already won. Then we're going to, well, we're going to accomplish all this stuff.

Do you see that Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff are being referred to as Whitkush? It's so embarrassing. In diplomatic circles. Whitcush. According to playbook. Kushwit. Kushwif. Jerkhoff.

Jerkhoff. Jerk off. Jerk off. Jar off. That works for me. Anyway. There was also an incredible Wall Street Journal story over the weekend about how Trump has been, quote, grappling with his own fears about this war. Namely that if too many American troops were killed or captured, his presidency could end up like Jimmy Carter's.

seemed to be the main takeaway for him. I also found this part notable when a White House advisor asked Trump about his, remember the Easter Sunday post that threatened war crimes and ended with, quote, open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards or you'll be living in hell. Praise be to Allah. Because of Happy Easter. So Trump said about this post, quote, he came up with the, with the Allah idea himself. He said he wanted to seem as unstable and insulting as possible, believing it could bring the Iranians

to the table, senior administration officials said, nailed the first part, I guess. Did you guys make it the piece? I'd quibble with the analysis a bit. I don't think you needed the praise Bita Allah tweet for the Iranians to think you're unstable and insulting to them. That's pretty well established.

I think with the crazy bastards mark. Yeah, and all the bombing. Do you guys think that telling people that you're just pretending to be a lunatic to get a deal kind of ruins the point of pretending to be a lunatic? Yeah, the madman theory. Well, yeah, you read the piece,

oh, he really was just, yeah, right. Well, all right, you are what you pretend to be. But he's just sort of jerking everybody around. And I look back to like that concern, which I was completely legitimate, given what he was threatening that day. And then you read the piece. And he was also meeting about the ballroom and doing fundraisers and kind of doing normal business that day.

And there was a little bit of like the alarm that wasn't going off and the dog that wasn't barking. Like there was no, we weren't getting reporting that he was in the situation room laying out the final parts of the plan. And so it confirms what we were just talking about, which is what he is posting publicly is not coming out of a conversation with the negotiators. It's not some part of some like public-facing strategy and private-facing strategy. It's just his separate stream of consciousness. He has a kind of whatever contractor's mentality about negotiations. He clearly, like as I think the Iranians have assumed,

as a lot of people have assumed, does not want the economic pain that comes with a long-term conflict. So he has to counteract that with by seeming unstable and issuing these big threats and seeming blustery. But behind the scenes, that's all just a show, which is what the Iranians do, because they called his bluff that day and, you know, didn't relent to what he was saying in the lead up to this civilization destroying threat. Yeah. The story, I think, really drives home that the whole war is just an exercise and ego and narcissism and stupidity, right? There was the Venezuela operation. That was easy in Trump's mind. He was told by all these sycophans like Lindsey Graham and Pete Hex-F that Iran would be easy to and that he could be an historic figure and reshape the geopolitical order and be better than Obama. And so here we are. And so, you know, there's also more detail about how in the opening days they were presenting him hype videos of explosions. And he was like, this is cool.

Why isn't the press just reporting this? Look at all the things blowing up. And then it also sounds like Hegzath told him that Iran wouldn't close the Strait of Hermuz or the people around him. Or at least Trump was telling them that. So I assume someone told him that they wouldn't respond in the most obvious way possible. And so Trump was shocked when it happened and when global. oil prices spiked. And that ultimately, though, like, what is upsetting him about what's happening with Iran is not the death and the destruction or the high gas prices. It is being compared to

Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden. That is what is terrifying him and what he cannot summit. And so, yeah, he's changing the subject. He's talking to his architect about the ballroom or like anything he can to get away from this. Multiple meetings a week on the ballroom. He refers to he that he sees himself as, quote, the general contractor of the ballroom. Well, I think in his mind, he would see a successful outcome in Iran as a legacy item. He puts that on the same plane as the ballroom as a legacy item. Like, it's all just one level for him, you know. And look, if the reason he is worried about U.S. casualties and chaos in the Middle East

is for reasons of self-preservation and legacy, like that's a fine motivation. But because at least the outcome could be the same. But his other problem is he can never risk seeming like he is not completely dominating and winning at every given moment. Like, I don't know if the negotiations would be further along right now if he just simply shut his fucking mouth and stopped posting about stuff. But I certainly think he's made it worse. Like if you, instead of saying that you won all the time and just pissing off the Iranians and say, oh, they did this and they're destroyed. Imagine if every time someone asked about the negotiations, Trump and the White House were just like, when we have. something to report, and we have good news to report, we'll let you know. Otherwise, we're just

engaged in negotiations. He's not a big under promise over-delivered guy. Well, it also, like, what is the endgame of this? Any actual deal, not when he's describing, but a real deal will involve, you know, puts and takes. It'll have compromises on our side, compromises that will in some way, like resemble the parts of the deal. He's been mocking for years that the Obama administration did with Iran. There's only so many levers that this kind of an agreement will have. And so the hope to me is you come to some sort of conclusion to this that results in a deal that he pretends is some kind of dominating victory and it is understood by everyone that Donald Trump is going to call this the greatest deal in human history even if it resembles in many ways the Obama deal

that's the hope right and he wants to give himself the Medal of Honor so that was in there too he's kidding but it keeps coming up but it was a joke talk about that who got the story was the times the other day about how the arch he's building for himself went from like 70 feet to 150 feet now it's 250 feet yeah you got to reroute the planes they're gonna have to go even like the architect that was for it was like no this is crazy you can't do this it's gonna dwarf like you know a bunch of veterans memorials and monuments um before we move on i just i want to call your attention to a political piece from friday that has already become to me just an incredible artifact from a simpler time uh the headline is big sigh of relief republicans finally get some good

news can it last and i was like i saw i'm like what is this about and the lead is Republicans are breathing a little easier this weekend, cautiously optimistic the Trump has finally found an off ramp to end the war. With oil dropping below $90 a barrel, the stock market making new all-time highs and gas down $0.8 a gallon this week. Some feel the slightest bit of a wind at their back for the first time since February. And then it's got Representative Carlos Scrabalo saying, big sigh of relief from congressional Republicans today. It's so funny to like do that story and for Republicans to like go on the record. for that story when there's been like an hour after Trump said, everything's open, everything's great. It just goes to show that it's like, it's not just Trump, like, this is how, this is like how

Washington operates. Yeah. The DC media operates the whole thing. And there's some, you know, like, oh, this is, they're trying to say, they're trying to, their wishcasting to Trump. See, like, this is, this is, this is, this is will be something that you'll get positive press about from your congressional. But it's also a window into like the second, no matter what the deal is, no matter how bad the deal is, no matter how different it is from the JCPOA, no matter what it is, it's going to be like, like the second there is any kind of a deal in the war's over, it's going to be like, all right, now Republicans are feeling bullish again on the midterms. Great. Yeah, good for that.

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Vast majority of Americans still hate the war. I think Trump's doing a shitty job. A brand new NBC news poll looks just like all the others. Trump is at 37% approval, 63% disapproval, including 50% who say they strongly disapprove, record lows all around, and his numbers are even worse on Iran and the cost of living. Probably not helped by his energy secretary telling CNN over the weekend

that, quote, it could be next year before gas is under $3 a gallon. again. Republicans are starting to panic. They may lose the Senate as well as the House. And you can tell the White House is nervous because they're making public overtures to win back a one-time ally Joe Rogan, who's been saying things like this about the war. Most people that voted for Trump or wanted Trump to be in office, one of the things that was attractive was there's no more wars. Sure, of course. And now we're in one of the craziest ones. What the fuck are we doing? Like, how is this still going on? Well, over the weekend, Trump made a surprise announcement that he's fast-tracking FDA review of psychedelics as a medical treatment on issue Rogan is passionate about. And you can tell Trump is too from his mastery of the

terms involved. It's called i. Bogain treatment. Ibogane. Remember the name. Is that pronounced relatively properly? What you said? I don't want to get it wrong. I bogane because it's so important and experienced an 80 to 90 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety. within one month. Can I have some please? I'll take it. I'll take whatever it takes. I don't have time to be depressed. You know, if you stay busy enough, maybe that works too. That's what I do. That's how like that's how the question works for sure. I sent President Trump some information. We have a gigantic opiate problem in this country. I sent him that information. The text message came back sounds great. Do you want FTA approval?

Let's do it. For 56 years, we've lived under those terrible conditions. We're free of that now. We're free of that now. Thanks to all these people that we see next to me, and thanks to President Trump. We all respect, Joe, and it's a little bit more liberal than that's okay. I have a lot of friends that are liberal. Interesting window into how the sausage gets made, huh?

You just text the president something, and suddenly the FDA independent regulatory agency just fast-tracks it, no problem. Yeah, this is a good outcome on this specifics here, but Joe Rogan texting Trump some medical information and so being like, cool, let's do it. That's not a good process for us. Because you're pissing me on the war, and so I'm trying to get you back. So whatever you want, I don't know what this drug is. It sounds great. I'll take some, but, you know, I just stave off depression, but I just keep moving. Hobbies.

I just keep posting. Never be alone with, if you don't want to feel sad, never be alone with your thoughts. Just keep moving. Just keep moving. Or your family. That's why it's what it's what Trump thinks. For sure. Just get out there.

Just just just turn the TV on, turn it louder. Keep posting. Got to post through it. Post through it. Yeah. Like I do think like what wrote like, I think it's worth saying that this is something people like about Trump, the idea that it doesn't have the red tape and the sludge of the normal government, that there's stuff that should be happening that isn't because government is slow and stupid.

And there should be a president that just says, oh, this is a good idea. There's good studies. Let's do it. And there's two big problems with it. It's real abundance coded there. A little bit. Well, there's somewhere between being able to build a train in California and Joe Rogan being bizarre for magic mushrooms.

But the problem with it with Trump is, A, it becomes about, it's not about like, oh, doing good things faster based on any kind of a process. It's just who knows him and who has access. So, yeah, Rogan can get this done and maybe that's a good thing, but it also means the CEO of United can give Trump a million dollars for the inaugural and then soft pitch creating the biggest airline by two in the world and potentially get. it done because Trump knows him and it seems like it's a big fun deal to do. And when the, and when the resulting merger sucks for people, Trump's like, well, I don't

have to deal with that. I have my free guitar. That's a guitar plane. They're pretty, they wish they hadn't made that gift. Right. Oh, you're mad about the things I did before I left. Get in line. I'm trying to stay ahead of depression.

But the other, and the other part of it though, and I think it's like actually just as important is he actually doesn't, other than, other than the, like, he can break things very quickly. He can do that with Doge. He can shut down agencies. But when he finishes these events where he is moving fast and doing things that other people couldn't do, nothing fucking happens. Joe Biden was really fucking slow on getting marijuana off of Schedule 1. He put out an order to review it in 2022.

Trump says, I'm going to fast track it, right? That gave him a real opportunity that he shouldn't have had. But it hasn't happened. It didn't. It's not marijuana remains a schedule one drug as we're sitting here and talking. It has been held up ever since he signed that order over a year ago. Pam Bondi couldn't get it done. There's an opening for the administrative law judge that could be the one to approve it.

And by the way, even if it does happen, there's a bunch of Republicans who are lined up to sue to prevent it from going into effect. So he gets the press event about how quickly he can do things. But meanwhile, he actually stops paying attention, doesn't really focus on it, doesn't really give a fuck, gets the good headline and never really happens. I do love the events where you can tell he's learning the details in real time. And he's like kind of does a meta commentary on himself as he's reading the facts about, oh, that sounds good depression. I don't need that.

I'll take one. But on Ibegain, there was a great piece in New York Times about Ibegain treatment by Robert Draper that's worth reading. He did an episode of The Daily that you could listen to it too. It's helped a lot of people. It's helped a lot of people struggling from PTSD depression, truly debilitating mental health challenges, especially veterans. And the cause was picked up by Rick Perry, Kirsten Cinema, some interesting people. Sean Ryan, who's got a huge show on YouTube, a bunch of veterans. He's a veteran himself and former Navy SEAL has talked about using Ibegain to shake his

addiction to drinking drugs, a lot of stuff. So Rogan had a bunch of conversations about this with people impacted, including Sean Ryan, including Rick Perry, including a couple people at that event there. And it just, it did not, I think there's actually a really good outcome because it didn't make sense that you couldn't do medical trials on people of PTSD, but you could, like, go to Mexico and get treatment, like what, that's stupid. So I'm glad Trump cut through the red tape here. Like, I'm sure Joe Rogan will kind of like give Trump his flowers on this issue, rightfully. So I doubt it changes his concern about Iran or the fact that he's talking about it.

Yeah, I think it's important for people. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't short circuit the actual reclassification process or the approval process for the for the treatments themselves, but for this, for the studying. And it's not just for the medical studies. And it's Ibegain, but it's also MDMA and psychedelic mushroom. So it's like a whole, yeah, it's a whole whole category. I was at a fish concert recently. I think a lot of people were in that study. A lot of studies. A lot of people doing some of tense. A lot of study in there. That's right. The sphere is a number one place for studying this stuff. Good place to study. Yeah, on the Rogan, like I think if Rogan's smart, he will realize that this was, he got Trump

to do something he wanted him to do. And he will go back to continue. He will can criticize him when he wants to criticize him and not criticize him when he thinks he's doing something good. Like, it could just be like that. And I don't think it'll change anything big. I think it's smart politics, probably on on both parts, on Trump's behalf and on Rogan's behalf. Good for Rogan for just saying, fuck it. I'm, I'm, they think they need me because they see that I'm critical of them. Like, let's get something good to happen. Like, great good for him. That's an amazing thing to do. But if you're a Rogan listener and have heard Joe Rogan talk about Donald Trump in Iran and the Epstein files and all the other things now that Rogan has criticized Trump for, I don't think this is changed it. You're not an idiot. This doesn't

change anything for you. This is a thing I don't get. Like the Rupert, Burdock approach to Trump is always a smart one. You've got like Fox News doing the propaganda, but then the Wall Street Journal is kicking the shit out of him. Like reserve some optionality, man. Like show him you can throw a punch. He respects that. Yeah, that is very true. All right. Speaking of infamous podcasters, we should talk about the FBI director, who is suing the Atlantic over an absolutely brutal and somewhat terrifying story about his management style and personal behavior that's sourced to more than two dozen people, including quote, current and former FBI officials and staff at law enforcement and intelligence.

intelligence agencies. He is called, quote, erratic, suspicious of others, prone to jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence. Always a great quality in an FBI director. That's what you want. You always want the top cop just jumping to conclusions before you have evidence. He's also accused of, quote, conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences and described as a national security vulnerability. He's reportedly been so drunk so often that his meetings have had to be rescheduled for later in the day, and his security detail has had difficulty waking him up. This is from the piece, quote, a request for breaching equipment, normally used by SWAT and hostage rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings, was made last year because

Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors. Anyway, Cash is handling this well. Here he is announcing his lawsuit on Maria Barteromo's show. You want to attack my character? Come at me. Bring it on. I'll see you in court. So you're going to sue them? Absolutely. It's coming tomorrow. Tomorrow you will be dropping a lawsuit against the Atlantic magazine. Yes, yes I will. For defamation, and because you know what, Maria, we have to fight back against the fake news. He looks drunk. Put a tie on you. Yeah, I'll be filing it tomorrow, but don't expect it before noon.

I'm going to roll into court. That's right. File this bad boy. I heard the problem is he's actually down a podcaster after Bongino resigns. Oh, yeah. That's why he's kind of struggling. Yeah, he needs more podcasters. Yeah, send more podcasters. Blockhead, Dan. What did you guys think of the Atlantic piece?

Far, I mean, look, just worth saying, Cash Patel shouldn't have this job to begin. He's not remotely qualified to be FBI director in the first place. He was a low-level DOJ lawyer, then a Capitol Hill staffer. Then he got, like, sucked into the Trump orbit, and now he's the FBI director. This is crazy. It's crazy. There's been a lot of reporting about how we treated the job like a joke, like it was fantasy camp. There was, he was focused on the image and the perks.

Like he used the private jet to fly to the Olympics. He's flying around to see his girlfriend. Remember, he went to a place called the boondoggle ranch for a weekend off of hunting with a big GOP donor. And then also there's reports that he just, him and Dan Bonjita would just freak out about like what Twitter thought of them and plan their tweets, not like investigations and things. Look, that's understood. Yeah. But this story does make him sound like a genuine danger to the country. Like he is paranoid, prone to emotional outbursts, impulsive.

He's so bad at managing. the building that good people are leaving. And like he is drunk. And let's just speak, he is drunk on the job. His FBI director is a 24-7 job. You don't get a night out from the terrorists or the bad guys. And so the question is, why is he's still there? And the answer is because he will go after Trump's enemies and Trump knows this. And now that he's even more damage, he's probably going to step that up and go that extra mile to prosecute John Brennan or, you know, whoever. And that's, it's scary. Yeah, Trump likes his, his cabinet secretary's weak and dependent upon him. But this, I do think, crosses a line into probably two weak and two dependent in the same way you saw

Pambonian, Christiom, kind of sweatily trying to regain their good graces. It kind of crosses a line that you can't come back from. I'll say, honestly, no one's sweating harder than him. No, this guy's, yeah, well, it was. And just, it's just, it has a smell, yeah. I had a different reaction, which is I saw this a little bit the way I saw ice at the airports. Like the more ice at the airports, the fewer of them that are in American cities. And look, I think it is terrible to have someone like Cash Patel in charge of the FBI. There's no meeting he is in that he makes better, sober or otherwise. And so the idea that he's, according to the report in Vegas in the poodle room atop the fountain blue hotel, I went and looked up how you get into this private club,

the poodle room. Yeah. And it is so exclusive for American Express card holders. It is available only to private members, people on a certain level of the hotel in a certain kind of suite and exclusive to certain holders of American Express credit cards, charge cards. So that's interesting. The part to me that is the most alarming is not how he is absent and drinking all the time. It is the way through firings and attrition. The FBI has lost a lot of key people. There was this story.

There's also a story last week by ProPublica, about 75 people that were part. of different public integrity units, cyber units, election units that have all been forced out and left, replaced by Trump diehards and people that are part of the election interference operation. And now you have career people and people in the states on phone calls with DHS and the people representing the federal government are the cooks who they used to be suing from the outside. You go from as a secretary of state or a lead, a law enforcement, an official in a state trying to fight some of these people.

and you know they're the people representing DHS on the calls. And so senior serious people are leaving and kind of cooks and cranks and Trump anti-election zealots are coming in. That to me is the biggest and most dangerous part. Who's going to want to fucking report to this guy who apparently had a panic attack because his email wasn't working and he thought he'd been fired. That's what they report here. That's the opening anecdote.

And by the way. It's amazing. Can't get into some part of the system. But probably his password was didn't, couldn't remember his password or something. And then he was like, he called everyone, I've been fired, I've been fired, I've been fired. And then like, news goes around the FBI headquarters. All these people are like, oh, he's gone. He's gone. And they were like, no, no, it's just technical difficulties. He's fine. And then the, the, the, the lawsuit clearly put together by some whoever kind of lawyers that are going to still be, that are going to be working for Cash would tell at this point. They, they, they referred to this in their, their lawsuit as a made up rumor, basically confirming that the room, that he was locked out of his computer and the rumor did. at some point exists. And then in the lawsuit, they say, Director Patel does not drink to excess at these establishments.

The Ned something in the poodle room doesn't drink to access there or anywhere else. And this has not and has never been a source of concern across the government. They are claiming in their lawsuit against the Atlantic that no one in the government is concerned about Cash Patel's drinking, quite a claim to make from a Sunday to a Monday. It's just also a claim. that has nothing to do with proving the lawsuit or the allegation itself in order for them to win this lawsuit because this is they're doing defamation based on what over a over two dozen sources told the reporter so basically the way that you win a lawsuit like this is basically the reporter

has to say that that she didn't believe any of her sources at all the over 24 that she talked to and yet she published it anyway because she had because she was had a she she hated cash Patel and wanted him to suffer. Yeah, and she got all this information, and she's like, I don't care that all these people are telling me this information. It's all wrong.

I don't have published it anyway. We have video of him drinking to excess at the fucking Olympics. He chugged the whole beer. He chugged a whole beer. We have proof of him flying off half-cocked because he posted crazy things

that we all saw that went beyond the investigation. The proof is publicly available. Forget showing that it wasn't true or that the sources didn't say it. She could just point to the actual public videos that he himself has been in. This is also like the 10th story about him being a clown.

There was an article in the Times earlier this year about him going to a Five Eyes conference in the UK. It was like our closest intelligence allies. And Cash Patel's team said he wanted to go to a Premier League soccer games. He wanted to go jet skiing in London. He wanted to go on a helicopter tour. And everyone was like, this is an absolute joke. This guy is a laughable. You know, before Noam and Bondi, I would have said like,

Trump's just going to keep him like he keeps all of them. But he seems to be on a bit of a tear recently. And I feel like, what's her name too? Yeah, yeah, I want to mention that. Lori Chavez to remember. So right before we recorded, the news broke that Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Duramer has resigned. She's the third cabinet member to do so in the last month and a half. And she was under internal investigation from complaints about her conduct and how she treated her staffers. Also an alleged affair with a security staffer, also using taxpayer funds for personal travel. And also, like, cash, Patel drinking. Also, texting your staffers to be like, SAVB, question mark? Savi B, my room? Asking the staffers just to bring up a bottle of wine to the hotel room? I don't know. Is that the worst?

Maybe it was the end of a long night. Maybe. Part of a pattern, perhaps. Yeah, so she's gone. She's gone now, too. That's another. She resigned, although I'm sure it sounds like she was pushed out, and she's, and then the White House isn't it, she's going to the private sector.

just like Pam Bondi. Is she going to be one of those? What is it the shield for the Central Americas or whatever Christine Nolmes' fake job was? They didn't even give her a fake It sounds like with Pam... It sucks.

They decided to stop giving fake jobs after a note, right? Like Pam Bondi's just getting private sector. She's getting private sector. It's been the case of death recently if somebody at the White House says that the president has utmost confidence

in his cabinet secretaries because soon after they're gone. But Caroline Levitt put out a statement about Patel in this article that doesn't even say that. As part of it, She says, Director Patel remains a critical player on the administration's law and order team. It's basically the equivalent of like a valued member of our law enforcement operations,

which sounds like he could be put fucking anywhere. He's going to be the deputy to know him at the shield of the Americas in the next like 48 hours, maybe before we're done recording. Wild, wild. Somehow Pete Higg said still has his job. Yeah, that really sucks. Potsave America is brought to you by Hymns. Boner time.

For that. A nickel every time Tommy said that, you know. At the time, at the point. You stop blaming stress, sleep, or just getting older. If bedger performance is in question, it's probably crossed your mind to do something about it. The good news, you don't have to jump through hoops to fix it. We do nothing for you to jump through a hoop to fix it. In fact, yeah, although it's easier to do without a owner, I'd say.

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ramping up their public appearances and attending events alongside their potential opponents. This last weekend was particularly busy Kamala Harris, Andy Bashir, and Corey Booker. We're campaigning with other Democrats in Detroit. AOC and Kamala Harris were in Chicago. Pete Buttigieg held an event in Tulsa, and John Ossov held another Senate re-election rally in Georgia. We thought it would be useful to just react to a few clips from the weekend that caught our attention. So we can talk about how Democrats are thinking about shaping the party's message ahead of 2026 and, of course, 2028. First up, John Ossoff in Georgia.

The faithless president depicts himself as Christ while he plunges the nation into wars of choice. While he and his family raking billions from foreign princes. While he plunders our health care to cut taxes for the rich. Meanwhile, rent, power, groceries, and health care have all hit all-time highs this year. While you pay more for everything, the first family's wealth is growing by billions of dollars. Because they're crooks. I just love that. I like that.

They're crooks. What do you guys think? I think because they're crooks is the message, right? He brings it all back to corruption. I think it's smart to mention the story of the week, the Christ imagery, and they kind of wrap that into this broader message of the day about corruption that he has. my little nipick was I want everyone to stop saying war of choice that's what I want that to I have the same point I've done it to it's just the phrasing doesn't make sense like people don't really know you're talking about it's like this war is immoral it's illegal it's a strategic disaster like any other way it's it's too too light for me yeah war of choice it's like it's like it's like it's like oh I just made the bad choice it's like no no you launched an illegal war that's killing a whole bunch of people and fucking up the Middle East and the world yeah I think the problem with it I I noticed it too he he says it Kamala also says it in her they all say they all say everyone says it and it it is a lingering thing from

from from from post Iraq and it sort of like we did not it was we it's we preemptive we did this preemptively we chose to go to war it was where we didn't have to fight and it feels like it's a legacy of a different kind of a way of talking about it I had the same thought when I heard it was like literally the one thing that to me rang very political in the whole speech it's an excellent speech the other thing I appreciate it about it I just I just watched the whole thing does not just gets up there and he jumps in it is it is made to be it is first of all it's tight it is made for people with low attention spans it is he does not waste up there's not a lot of filler there's an argument there's a lot of facts he moves quickly through it he is into the

meat of the speech into the message of the speech within about a minute or a minute and a half from when he takes the mic maybe a little bit faster and he has a great indictment to me like a broader indictment that's a that's sort of a bipartisan indictment of the current way politics is done and i thought it was a great quote which was there's a lazy cynical expedience, politics unmoored from fixed moral principles, and incapable of inspiration or great national achievement. All of this gave rise to a depraved president

who exploits this rot to empower and enrich himself. And that to me was as clean a way of critiquing the Republicans and Democrats and a style of politics that's depleting and enervating that I just really liked it. There's a way that he, it wasn't in this clip, I should have put it in, But there's a way that he brings the crowd in just very so that he's not just speaking at them.

Because I think the risk of a, the risk of just giving big rally speeches is that you're just talking to people. And when he gives his speeches and he talks about like something like what Tommy was saying like, oh, the story of the week, he'll always be like, did you see that? Did you see how that happened? I'm interested if after the Senate race and he feels a little looser because he just won re-election, if he's like a little more, you know, informal in the way he's, because I do. think like he's he's really nailed I think the rally speech better than almost any of the other potential candidates right now and what I'd love to see from is like how does he do in an interview how does he do when he like sits down and just talks about stuff because like message wise in a rally speech it's great and you don't see you don't see really good rally speeches anymore

the tone when he was in here was pretty similar it was pretty serious sober kind of i know and i can't tell if that's like i'm running for reelection in georgia and like i got to just focus on that and i'm not i'm not here to opine on you know national presidential politics But I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, we should play it because it's interesting to how Pete's event was just a different style. Yeah, so here's Pete. He's answering a question from an Oklahoma voter about how to talk to people who disagree with you. We all live in Oklahoma, or a lot of us do.

Lots of people that are on the other side. What's your advice to engage them when we seem to be in such echo chambers and are so divided? Step one, I think try to do it offline as much as possible. And if you go into that encounter with an open heart, you do it, knowing that you might have some of your own values and views challenged. And that's okay. That's why I developed this very unexpected specialty to go into places like Fox News and other conservative outlets. How can I blame somebody for not embracing my point of view if they've literally never even heard it? I always imagine that I'm talking to people like people I grew up with who I disagree with and also actually like.

Which I think is really important too, because we've been made to feel like we're just ought to be like snarling at each other. And I think there are so many people who maybe have a different world view than we do, but just like us, they're tired of the sense that politics is just punching you in the face every time you look at your phone or turn on the TV. Headline, Pete opened to speaking with Hassan Pike. Was he on the list? Did he get that question? I don't remember. I don't know. Everyone did, I think. I mean, I think he's good. Like, I think by the time we get to 2028, my hope is that people want the opposite of Trump and that they'll be betting on like a more unifying tone and, message. I think Pete is betting on that. Um, and he's trying to argue that I'm the guy who can best reach across the aisle and convince people. I think that the reality of what he's good has a little more nuance. Like, he is really smart and can debate anyone and can beat anyone in

debate, which is why Libs like us are like, yeah, you gave it to Joe Kernan on CNBC. Fuck that guy. Or like, he goes on Fox News and he's great or the all in podcast. He was really good with them. You can fight back with everyone. That is a little bit of a different skill than being able to reach every community and like, you know, like connect with people. I'm not saying he can't do that. It's just it's a different thing than they're kind of trying to sell by going to Tulsa for a town hall, if that makes sense. It makes it. It's like intellectually, he knows and can articulate why it's so important to connect with people who are different and why and how he, and what he just said there and like it helped persuade you and stuff like that.

But there's like another step when you're fronting to be the president, which is you, actually have to do that connecting yourself. And I do think that's different. And a lot of it is, like, he does deliver maybe the smartest analysis of politics and message and most Democrats I've seen. And then, but then is that enough or do you need to actually show and just tell? And look, I think this is, but like, I thought the clip you referenced with Joe Kernan, like, that's the one that got me even more excited, even though this is more my style of message.

but like what him going back and forth with Kernan. And he wasn't a dick either. No, like, he beat him in that debate, but he wasn't like attacking him. And that is red meat for my silo. And I loved it.

Yeah, right. So Pete opened this up with, like, a nine or ten minute speech, just on mic, which was great. And he's,

he always, they've got that shot that too. From below. The same thing for Aosop. It's like from the below, kind of leader shot. Asop looks like, Osop also is like,

is he getting bigger? No, they're tailoring the shit out of those shirts. Unbelievable. Slim fit for days. Yeah, we got, listen, he's not missing chest day, but what's he doing, what's happening with leg day, all right? That's what I want to know.

Where's our, what's happening with the, uh, the glutes? Yeah, how are the glutes? No, people are posting picks of the fucking Asaf glutes now. Oh, no. Yeah, no, he, they're, there's not like, you know, back there. Everyone's four you feet is different. Yeah, that's right.

That's what's coming to my silo. But, no, I, I, so it's, with Pete and, and Asoff, it's funny. It's interesting to see them, like, what that would be, like, competing against each other. Well, they're both, they're both, like, I was thinking about the sort of, what are the lessons from what happened to Orban and the people writing about what are the sort of the message lessons from it. And there's a pro-democracy anti-corruption. Here's how corruption at the top has hurt you message that was galvanizing and unifying. And both of them are doing a version of that message. I think right now because Aosov is in the middle of a reelection, he's trying to show, not tell. He's trying to make the biggest argument he can to get to the most people and that'll be a proof point later. Pete can be more intellectual because he's not. running for anything so he can say he says this a lot when he's up there which is hey you're not alone a lot of people feel the way you do no matter what you're seeing on television you're trying to make that same argument around a lot of the same issues i was thinking about p because some people

ask me all the time i'm sure they ask you like what do you think about p p p p's so good on fox and i don't really have the answer to it but to me it's the difference between pete's selling voting for democrats democracy whatever he's a he's an incredible salesman for it goes to these hostile places and he sells the fuck out of it. And the question is, why is it with Pete sometimes? You maybe agree with what he's saying, but you don't come away thinking, that's my salesman. You know, you're like, what a pitch. I agree. Right. But it doesn't, in politics, you can't just make an argument for the car. You're making an argument for you as the person selling the car. And there is a gap there with him that I think this is the kind of event he's trying to kind of feel out. I don't think he's trying to just

prove it. I think he's literally out there kind of getting reps. I think where he gets, where he gets shit from the left in particular is people question whether the bio and the lived experience kind of matches up with a reality. Like when I had Peggy Flanagan in here the other day, Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota running for the Democratic nomination in Minnesota for the Senate seat, she was talking about growing up and living on Medicaid and living on SNAP and how that informs all her choices and the people she fights for. And when someone talks to you like that from that lived experience, it's impossible not to be moved by it and to connect and to believe it. And I think like the criticism Pete sometimes gets is like, well, you know, you were in the military and you

worked to McKinsey and you did all the things that kind of like check the box on the way to being an elected official, but does that mean you were like really connected with the people you represent? I'm not like, I'm not questioning him or trying to be a dick about it, but I think that is the hit. And I agree, but I also think that is a- Newsom will deal with that as well. Yes, but for both of them, that is an intellectual, logical framework for trying to understand a feeling, right? Because Trump is worse than all of them, right? But there are people that think that he can connect.

And there's a way in which he has an ability to overcome that. And so I think when people go to that, like, what people look for facts and figures or sort of story to explain it. But then there is something that, like, what is it that prevents Pete from connecting to big parts of the Democratic base, which we talked about a million times? Like, what is that gap? I don't think it's just resume. I think it's something else that he's trying to figure out. Yeah. Finally, two clips from Kamala Harris.

One from the Detroit event where she was talking about the war. And one in a place she posted that was actually from her trip. to North Carolina last week. He entered a war, got pulled into it by BB Netanyahu. Let's be clear about that, entered a war that the American people do not want, putting at risk American service members. Since the start of Trump's war of choice, it's $15 more dollars every time you fill up your tank of gas. The price of diesel has now gone up 80% since the start of.

the war. And you best believe that's going to carry over to how much you're paying for all the goods that are being transported. Who let her do that? I would love to just know how that gas station video came together. Because it's like, my friend, you live in California, the prices are much higher here. If you want some like sticker shock and the backdrop, it's like, it's like they got out of the car on the way to the airport and we're like, let's just let's just look the same suit as the Chicago event. So I was like, is that the same day? I don't think it was a day. Because I remember wondering what the hell that was a couple days before. No, I agree. It came out. Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

I don't know. But anyway, I wanted to put both in because I do think that she is at her best when she is doing the prosecution of the administration as she was in the first half of the clip. The gas station, look, she's not the only one who's done this, but it is such a, talk about, like, signaling that you are a throwback from a different era of politics. There's a Chuck Schumer event. Yeah, even Chuck Schumer would give a little, you know, like, she literally driving in North Carolina, gets out of the car, there's a gas station. She's like, all right, vertical video. here I am, and I'm just going to be like, the cost of this war is, blah, blah, blah, it's just so like, it's very Senate. You could see a whole bunch of Democratic senators who would maybe not run for president, probably do that.

We all know gas prices are really high. Like when Chuck Schumer would do the gas station press conferences because gas station, he was, prices were high. And it was the 90s. And it was the 90s and 2000. He was trying to signal to people that he would want to be his voters, the parties, constituents that he cares about the things he cares about. He was trying to do a hit to get him on, you know, CB. has two and ABC 7 and have like a moment so people see that he cares about these issues. He introduced some kind of like a like a message bill that would address gouging or whatever

it was. And it was just a message hit to stay in front of his voters to show that he's fighting for them. Kamala is essentially not running for anything. And if she is, it won't be for some time. She happens to be in North Carolina. We all know gas prices are high because they're on the fucking signs when you go to the gas station. That's the beauty of the issue, honestly. So look, who doesn't know that?

We all know that. Yeah, it just sort of seems random. You know what I mean? And I think that's sort of what I'm looking for from political leaders, all of them right now, is I want you to be leading on things in a full-threaded way early. You know what I mean? Early on, let's take on the argument against the Iran war, not once the prices are way up. Like, it's okay to do it then, but I don't know, I just sort of felt like you've been here, you've been L.A., you could have done these events or. We have some big political issues here. Yeah, you know, it's just the the choices of when to speak out and on what, um, just. confuses me a little bit as a strategic matter, I think, is what I'm reacting to. Yeah, the challenge for her is, so she was the last nominee. She is leading in the polls right now for, if you look at polls of national Democrats, she's especially leading with black voters. So she's going to get a look, right? And she's going to have, if she decides to run, she's going to be like a real formidable

candidate. But that's not going to last long if she doesn't back that up with, okay, here's why I'm running. Here's what I have to say. Here's what I have learned. And here's my thoughts about not just where we are, but like where we have to go. And in a way that is like personal to her and that no one else can copy. Yeah. You know, which I mean, they all have to do that. But I do think even though she was only nominee for 100 days, she's already been there. So like the burden is even higher for her. You know, the bar is even higher for her to like come up with something a little new and different. And she was vice president in the administration for four years. I almost think that's like more important to the challenge that she has and I watched but I even I saw her I've seen

her do the like she's tried to do the like well you know we need some I've I've had experience I've sat in these rooms I've had these jobs and I do not think the experience argument is going to carry any Democrat very far in 2028 yeah well it's also that that was we already know that argument part of it was part of the argument she made when she was running the first time I watched her the full event that in which she's both and and I got you know she spoke out about the war and the way that you clipped. But then, like, when asked about, like, what do Democrats have to do differently, you end up with, like, I think is something I agree with. We can't just be nostalgic for the past. We have to have a different vision. But she does what I think a lot of Democrats have

become accustomed to doing, which is say, Democrats need to have a vision. Democrats need a vision for what we're going to do about affordable health care. We need a vision for affordable housing. It's like, I know. I completely agree. I do think that's exactly what we need. I know. It's a lot of translating pundits beat that we, that we, all do into rhetoric for an audience, right? Yeah. Like, it's not enough to be against something. We have to be for something. We can't just go back to how things were. That wasn't good enough for people. We got to figure out a new way forward. Yeah, yeah. It's like, this is what people, this is what people are

saying in the focus group. So now I'm going to say it. And again, this is a problem a lot of them have. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so we'll do that with a couple. We'll do that with different candidates as they pop up, you know. I know there was some other ones out there. I only saw a little bit of Cory Booker's speech. I didn't see much of it. I didn't really see Andy Bashier's, but You know, they'll be out there more. We've got time. We'll take, yeah, we'll look at a lot of them. When we come back, Tommy speaks to Alon Goldenberg of J Street about how pro-Israel

progressives are trying to make their case. Potsave America is brought to you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol. Let me tell you, if there's a surefire way to wake up feeling fresh after a night of drinks, it's with pre-alcohol. Zbiotics, pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a top.

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when you use the code Crooked at checkout. Zbiotics is backed with 100% money-back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions. asked, remember to head to zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for 15% off. My guest today is senior vice president and chief policy officer at J Street. Elon Goldenberg, welcome to positive America. Thanks for having me. Great to see you. So over the last couple of years, probably longer, there has been an intense debate about the war in Gaza, the U.S. Israel relationship, especially U.S. military support to Israel, and the line between anti-Zionism,

anti-Semitism. Now, thanks to President Trump, you can lump in the role Israel may or may not have played in the latest war with Iran and Lebanon to that debate. So most recently, in the Democratic Party, this debate manifested as a fight over whether Democrats should go on a Twitch streamer show, a guy named Hassan Piker. There's this think tank called The Third Way. They said that Hassan should essentially be banished from the party. This was in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. So John Favro talked through a lot of this with Hassan for an episode that came out about a week ago. Folks should check that out if they want more. But you wanted to provide a different perspective on how you believe one can still be a supporter of Israel and a liberal Zionist and a Democrat all at once. So we want to

talk through that and maybe I can poke and prod your arguments. Here we go. So let's just start with where you disagreed with Hassan on his definition of Zionism and kind of we'll go from there. Sure. So the problem with, I think, Hassan's argument on that, and thanks for having me, Tommy, was, you know, he talked about Israel and Zionism as essentially an ethno state with superior, you know, essentially looking at what you'd call a supremacy ideology. And if you actually look at the founding documents of the state of Israel, for example, and you look at the history of Zionism, you know, Israel is intended to be a Jewish democratic state. It was also to be in its Declaration of Independence, described as a state with equal rights for all of its citizens. That's what the vision of the state was. Now, that's been incredibly imperfect and huge efforts still need to be made to move them in the right direction. That's one of the reasons Jay Street exists, right? I mean, we exist because the view before us was, you know, you just kind of support Israel and everything. Israel is the perfect democracy in the Middle East, the only American democracy in the Middle East,

the only democracy in the Middle East, really. And our argument was, no, there's all kinds of problems that need to be worked out. And we need to be honest and critical with a friend of ours in Israel. But the answer isn't to tilt all the way in the other direction and to say, well, you know, Hamas and Israel is a lot better than the Israeli government. And I'd much rather have Hamas than I would the Israeli government and treating it as you, uniquely evil because, look, Bibi Netanyahu is a fascist, potentially authoritarian.

Donald Trump is also a fascist and authoritarian, right? Do I call America a fascist state, an authoritarian state? No, I don't. I recognize that there's huge problems here, and I operate from within that very kind of basic understanding. So this, I think, was kind of my problem with Hassan, right? which was, the argument was this state is uniquely evil.

This state was founded purely based on ethnic cleansing. I mean, we have terrible ethnic cleansing in the founding of the history of the United States and in so many different countries around the world. And so I think we just need to pull back and have a longer conversation about what is wrong and what is right and within the context of the state of Israel and how to move it to a better place. So look, I don't want to, I'm not going to try to speak for Hassan or anybody else. frankly. But let me just offer what I think kind of the pushback to your argument would be, which is not that I think anyone was saying Israel was uniquely evil. It was just sort of whether or not there's a supremacy ideology in the sort of the founding documents. I think what he would say is Israel was founded after the mass displacement of I think 700,000 Palestinians. Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza. And there has been groups of people living under permanent occupation. And the reality today is that it seems like Israel is has chosen to be a Jewish state and not a democratic state.

And so I guess like I can't, it's fine to debate what like David Ben-Gurion and others had in mind in the 1940s. You know, I'm not an expert on this stuff. I would never pretend to be. But I think people would just say, look, the reality on the ground is that it's this much darker version of whatever that intention was of permanent occupation. And then some would argue apartheid or at least very clear instances

where there are different rules for Jews and Palestinians that we can unpack that as well. What would you say to that? Sure. Well, I'd say, I don't disagree with that, right? But the answer is not Hamas, right? I mean, this pull back a little bit. You know, I also worked, you know, on the presidential campaign in 2024. I spent a lot of time talking to American Jews.

I spent a lot of time talking to voters. And I think most voters are not in these two extreme positions, right? I mean, I think at the end of the day, you know, you have those who are from the beginning inside the Democratic Party have said, here's the APAC position. We're going to support Israel no matter what. And then there's where Hassan is, which is to argue that Israel is this kind of uniquely evil or deeply, deeply problematic state. Where the reality is, I think, you find most, at least American voters, I would argue. And you can look at polling that shows this that can say, hey, you know, what I really want is for all Jews in Israel and all Palestinians to have freedom, security, equality, a state of their own.

That's what we're arguing for at J Street. I can be horrified by the acts of October 7th by Hamas and I can be horrified by the horrific actions that the Israeli government has perpetrated in Gaza against Palestinian civilians. You know, I can really hate Bibi Netanyahu and I can have some sympathy for the Israeli people at the same time. I can recognize that anti-Semitism is a real problem. and I can also recognize that criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism, and that even very sharp criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

So this is where, you know, a guy like Hassan Piker, I don't necessarily think he's anti-Semitic. I just disagree with his views. And I think this is the kind of nuanced, hard conversation that I think we need to have in the Democratic Party and in the sort of Democratic coalition. Because I also think that's where most Democratic voters are. That's where I would say most normie.

voters, Democratic voters are. Certainly American Jews that I talked to, and that's what Jay Street was founded to represent, was that this is where most American Jews are. They're not where APEC is. But it's also, I think, just not where, even if we have some folks on the base who are going further left, I think that there's just a huge constituency for this very common sense view that I'm expressing. Yeah, look, my view on Hamas is that what they did in October 7th is evil and unjustifiable and fuck them and that they're bad for the Palestinian people and for the Jewish people and that's fine. I think what Hassano is making kind of an inflammatory point of when you look at the death toll in terms of the number of people that Hamas killed on October 7th versus

the IDF, but I think you get in trouble when you're when you're doing comparisons. I'm also been someone who's not a fan of BB Netanyahu since 2009 when I first was in the same room with the guy. I think you're getting at this middle ground position. I want to push you on that a bit because I think every elected official in the United States basically pays lip service to the idea of a two-state solution. And I think for decades, the U.S. government made a very sincere effort to facilitate talks that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. But for basically his entire career, Netanyahu has worked to block the creation of a Palestinian state. And these days, he brags about it. You know, he says, like, throw my adept statesmanship.

We've predated this from happening. He calls it a terror state. And in reality, I think the peace process has been dead for a long time. And then since October 7th, both Israelis and Palestinians have lost faith that it will ever happen. I think like one-fifth of Israelis and Poles think there's any hope for a Palestinian state. And that number is kind of propped up by Arab Israelis. So, you know, meanwhile, the situation on the ground, it's the West Bank gets further annexed every week. Gaza is now even further occupied by Israel. So I think the critics would say this liberal is vision of a support for Israel and a two-state solution is kind of delusional in a way of just avoiding the obvious reality that Israel long ago chose to be a Jewish state and not a democracy. So full democracy for all people who live there. So what's your response to that argument? So look, again, I don't disagree the situation is grim.

And also I'll say I worked on some of those negotiations that John Kerry led in 2014. I was part of that process, you know, that during president, you know, under President Obama, And yeah, some of the assumptions in those in that old way of doing things were deeply problematic. For example, the idea that we couldn't touch security assistance for Israel, and we need to give them a blank check because if we start to, you know, enforce or threaten or just basically say, forget even threaten or leverage, just say, you know what, if you're not behaving in a way that is consistent with our policy and our interests and our laws, we're just not. going to give you these weapons and not sell you these weapons, which is really what my position

is now and where J Street is and has been for a long time. We're advocating last week for 40 senators to vote against these kinds of weapons. So I'm not arguing for that the liberal Zionist old position of let Israel do whatever we wants and let's just work this out, right? We can use leverage. We do have leverage. And at the same time, I also don't think the answer is, well, we should support Hamas or we should be No one's saying we support I know you're not. Let's just I feel like it's a straw man that we're leaning on here

to make a silly argument. Fuck Hamas. Everyone agrees fuck Hamas. Okay, well let's just say this. I actually think what you do have a problem is you have extremists on both sides. You have Netanyahu and you have Hamas, right? And let's not forget, in the 90s when we actually almost did get to a peace deal, it was Hamas bus bombings

that then brought Netanyahu to power. These two guys, these two sides are two sides of the same coin. They're thriving off and building off each other. You know, and similarly in the 2000s, right? Like, Netanyahu actually has millions of dollars in cash from Qatar landing in Ben-Gurian airport and being pushed into Gaza, you know, to pay off Hamas and empower Hamas and keep it quiet while he's purposefully weakening alternative moderates on the Palestinian side.

So the point is what J Street advocates for and what we do when we talk to Israelis and Palestinians on the ground is there is a, I think, still a strong, mind. who wants to work towards that alternative vision, both on the Israeli and the Palestinian side. We don't call it a two-state solution. We actually call it. We started calling it a 23-state solution, because we don't think it's just going to be a deal that gets a new Palestinian state and Israel's living side by side. We think it needs to be part of a regional integration that actually has Israel at peace with all of its neighbors, which creates a lot of incentives for the Israelis. And part of that is a new Palestinian state.

Now, when you do polling like that and you present Israelis with the president of the United States were to come to Israel and say, here's a plan, end all the wars. This was done during the war in Gaza. We're going to end the war in Gaza. We're going to get the hostages out. We're going to pursue a plan that ultimately ends with Israel at peace with all of its neighbors. And as part of that, you can have a Palestinian state. Like that kind of proposal still gets 60 percent in Israel.

Isn't that a lot of hurdles to set up before the Palestinians. I just want to live in peace and with self-determination. Suddenly, like, Israel has to make peace with every single neighbor before they can have that opportunity. No, it's actually not that complicated. You just do that both processes at the same time. And at the end of the day, it's really about peace with Saudi Arabia and everybody else goes along. Hasn't that been pretty complicated, though? It is complicated.

But so is a Palestinian state on its own. You're trying to create it. And by the way, I should say the problem, like you said, there's a lot of non-believers. on the Palestinian side too. Polling in the Palestinian public is also pretty terrible right now, right? On both sides, but at the same time, on the Palestinian side, again, if you actually offer them a pathway, those numbers change dramatically. If you just say what makes the most sense now, I mean, the overwhelming majority is still for armed resistance, but there's still 40% who are pushing for this two-state solution. And the other thing I'll say about this is,

you know, this goes back to my days, again, working at the State Department on these, When you present both sides of the public with, here's a deal, would you take it? And you present it to the Israeli public. You know, when you do polling, you get to about 40%. And you present it to the Palestinians and like, here's a deal. Would you take it 40%. Then you say, here's a deal and the other side has already agreed to it. The numbers jump to like 65%, 70%.

The point is, I still think there is a desire on both sides to get there. And I think what you have to start doing slowly, and it's going to take time, is get away from this dynamic where it's Hamas on the one side representing the Palestinians and Bibby Netanyahu on the other side representing the Israelis. And they're playing off each other and they're strengthening each other and they're weakening all of the alternatives. You're going to have elections in Israel later this year. That's a real opportunity. We just saw what happened in Hungary. And there is an opportunity that those elections aren't. going to necessarily bring you the most left-leaning government you could ever imagine.

Israel, the alternative to Netanyahu is probably kind of a center-to-center-right government, but it's one where at least you have people you can work with. Well, let's talk about the Netanyahu piece of this, because, look, again, I greatly dislike Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Ninjahou. I have for a very long time. I think he's corrupt. I think he's racist. I think he's bad for Israel. But I do, I feel like in the U.S. people talk about him sometimes as if getting rid of him might, it's like a quick fix and we'll fix everything. And I just like it seems very unlikely to me. As you mentioned, like the country is lurched to the right. You've got like violent extremists, like literal terrorist sympathizers like this guy, Itamar Ben Gavir, who are now in government. And by the way, his support for his party in polls is going up and up and up, not down. Even the moderate candidates, though, they're not that. liberal on the Palestinian issue. Like the head of the moderate Yashar party just visited a North, West Bank settlement and that was like tied to some really horrible abuses. Yair Lapid seemed to

back Mike Huckabee's bizarre claim that Israel is like a right to take over the whole Middle East because of biblical claims. So like again, it would be great to see that in Yahoo gone and like preferably in a prison somewhere. But isn't there a lot of evidence that for the Palestinians and for the Palestinian issue, the even more moderate parties are not going to be all that much better? I think what you will see is, first of all, you're going to stop digging, right? So going back to Ben Gavir, for example, yeah, his numbers have gone up, but also Smotrich's numbers have gone down these two parties together. His numbers is terms of support. Two extremists currently in the government. Exactly. Two extremists currently in the government basically stays the same. But exactly, guys like Smotrich and

Ben-Gavir aren't in this new government, right? And Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, these extremists, play this unique role of essentially being kingmakers, which gives them huge amounts of leverage in Israeli decision-making and pushes the government to more terrible and terrible places. Whereas if you had, instead, guys like Yair Lepid or Yai Yer Ghoulan, who are not ideal, but these are kind of the Israeli center left playing the king-maker role, that's a meaningful difference. Yeir Golan being a retired general who ran down to southern Israel on October 7th and saved a lot of people just basically got up and went down there, but also is very much arguing for a two-state solution and is arguing for some of these things. And what you could get then

at least as a government that at least starts cracking down on things like what we are seeing in the West Bank and extremist settler violence in the West Bank. we're at J Street pushing for legislation actually on Capitol Hill called the West Bank Violence Prevention Act that at this point has, you know, overwhelming support of Senate Democrats more than 40 and 130 or so members of the House, which would start to impose sanctions on these guys, on these extremist settlers, but could actually make a real profound difference because all these things, the violence and the settlements and all of it is tied together, all these institutions are tied together.

going to actually start to apply a real pressure and change behavior. And so I think there's opportunities to, we're not solving this problem anytime soon, but if you have a government that is at least more restrained and also cares about the U.S. Israel relationship because it's very clear now. And this is also another thing that started happening in Israel in the last couple weeks in particular. You've seen it with some of the polling that's come out about Israel and you've seen it with, you know, what's happened with this vote last week in the Senate, there finally is a questioning

that's coming to the center of Israeli politics of like, what's happened here? How is our relationship with the U.S. collapsing in such an extreme way? And as that happens, I think there's, you're going to have a government that is more centrist, not great, but is going to care more about that. And that gives us more leverage and also creates a situation where they start to potentially at different moments say, well, yeah, maybe parts of the party of our government would like to do this thing in the West Banker in Gaza, but we're actually worried about the Americans and their opinion. And we care about, for example, what Democrats also think of us. And so we're going to restrain ourselves more. And you start to move, not, we're not solving this problem immediately, but at least start to

change the trajectory of this whole conflict. Yeah, look, I hope that's true. I don't know. I guess I just worry that, look, when I see this effort, it's a very misguided effort by the third way, to like just to try to declare that Hassan Piker, a Twitch streamer is sort of like out of bounds, it seems to me to be part of a broader effort to silence critics of Israel in the U.S. and chill debate about policy that frankly happens all the time in Israeli media. For example, right, like if an American politician was like Israel is an apartheid state, that is, that's, you know, language that is treated as outrageous or potentially anti-Semitic all the time. But as you know, I mean, in 2021, the most prominent Israeli human rights organization

in Israel called Israel an apartheid regime. And I was just like, that was in 2020. And I've just sort of pushed back on this idea that, you know, maybe the Knesset is growing increasingly concerned about like sort of U.S. views of laws and decisions like that because pretty recently Israeli lawmakers passed a lot to expand the death penalty, but only for Palestinians, which seems like a pretty like egregious example of the kind of law or policy that Betzelam was talking about when they wrote that paper several years ago. So, I mean, aren't those pretty clear-cut examples of kind of apartheid? or unequal treatment of individuals based on religion. And shouldn't we be having a more honest conversation about that kind of stuff in the United States and not like doing what the third way is doing here? Yeah. I mean, we should be having an honest conversation about these things.

You know, I will say, I'm not saying that the Knesset's moving further to the left. I think if you look at the Israeli public and you like it polling, we have elections in October, you're going to have a different government. This government in Israel is horrific in all the different ways. But it's not just this government. There's a lot of systemic and deeper things. And that's exactly the conversation I want us to be having. And I, 100%, we were out there as an organization sharply critical about this.

But I think we just need to be careful when we have that conversation to not, you know, and like I not sway too far in the other direction to the point of, you know, essentially casting Israel as this, you know, okay, there is ethnic cleansing in Israel's history. there's probably ethnic cleansing in cases of, I'd say, 50 or 100 of the countries that exist in the world today, including some very recent as well. And so what we just have to be careful to do is not turn Israel into, we need to normalize our relationship with Israel, right? That's one of the things we've argued for a long time. That means no more blank check. Let's treat Israel like a normal country, right? And let's have those hard conversations.

also means let's not treat it as this uniquely evil or sinister thing, which I think is happening in some far extreme places. So I think I agree with you with the whole third way conversation here of like turning Hassan Piker into some kind of measuring stick for all this. You know, I don't think the, you know, I listen to the interview with John Favreau. I don't think Hassan Piker's anti-Semitic. I just think his views are misinformed. And in many ways, I just, I just, I just, you know, I just think we need to be careful to not go in that direction because if you want to ultimately in the United States build a political coalition that's actually going to win in 26 and more importantly in 28 I don't think that most people are are where he is I think most people are kind of in this

middle in this position it's not the middle ground of Democrats versus Republicans I'd argue it's the middle ground of where the Democratic Party is which is just kind of like yeah there's all kinds a horrible stuff happening there and we should do something about that instead of just letting them use our weapons. But also, I don't think these people are the devil necessarily, right? And so that's what I'm arguing for. I hear that. I don't think people, I don't think Cassan is arguing that like Israel is the devil or that Israeli people are evil in any way. I think what's happening and what I think the sort of political class can sometimes miss because they've been having these conversations for years. You know, people like you are genuine experts.

in the founding documents of Israel, right? And maybe sometimes we make a mistake when we kind of try to pull from history. Like, I think the average Americans' experience of what's happening in Israel right now, especially young people, if they started paying attention to politics a couple of years ago,

they just see intolerable amounts of killing by Israel, first in Gaza, now in Lebanon and Iran, and they're doing it with American weapons. And then if you're my age, you've been kind of watching, you know, Netanyahu since 2009, sort of doing his best to prevent the Palestinian state from being created, come into Congress to insult Barack Obama and try to blow up the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and then just wrapping

his arms around Donald Trump in the biggest kind of bear hug ever. And so it's like, it's not that people have deeply held views about the origins of Zionism or because they're anti-Semitic. They're just like, why is this really strong country bombing the shit out of Gaza over and over again? And why are we giving them weapons to do it? Why am I paying for that? Right? And they're just horrified by it. And like, it's a visceral reaction that I think, you know, like Jonathan Greenblatt will try to like scold me if I use the wrong words to try to prevent this conversation from happening. But it's happening no matter what. Yeah. No, I look, I can't disagree with a lot of that in terms of the fact that, I mean, Bibi Netanyahu is an asshole. And I've also been living with him for 15 years, right? I mean, my first government job was working on Iran and the past. Pentagon in 2009, just literally starting about a month or two after he came into office. And he's been the problem since then for years and years. And so we're not in a different place on that at all.

And I think he's the one who's done the most damage to this entire nature of the relationship. But I agree. It is bigger. The history is longer. We can have those honest conversations. I mean, it's one of the reasons now, like, I don't know if you've paid attention. We've taken a I'm out of flack floor at J Street. We've been advocating for years, right, for this position of you can have both, you know, a support for Israel and no blank check. Let's ask all the hard questions. So last week we came out with a new position that's flared up a lot of interest, which is basically to say there's three pieces to the U.S. Israel security relationship, right? The first piece is, you know, we, you know, we do operational calls.

operation on certain things. When it's in our interest, we should do that, whether it's our militaries working together, whether it's sharing intel, which they do help us with, with everything from ISIS to Iran, to all kinds of other challenges. When it makes sense, we can do that. Two, basically, they get $4 billion a year from us, right, and have been for years and years and years. And J. Street's position is, it's time for that to end. It's basically a financial subsidy, right? Yeah. And there's no reason that they don't need this financial subsidy for anything anymore. this point, it's a country with a per capita GDP similar to

France or the UK or Germany or any of these very wealthy countries. They don't need this money. They have a $45 billion budget. So let's just kind of phase that out relatively quickly. And by the way, I'm not the only guy saying that.

Rahm Emanuel is saying that. Bibi Netanyahu is saying that. Lindsay Graham is saying that. AOC is saying that. It's one thing everybody agrees on. It's time for that money to go. And then The third piece is when it comes to arms sales, there's some things that really do make sense, like Iron Dome, for example, right? Missile defense system that protects Israeli civilians from attacks.

There are some people who argue that the Iron Dome enables, you know, more militarism by the IDF because they know that they can repeatedly bomb a country like Iran and then just be protected from incoming fire. I'm just sort of laying out the other side of that debate for listeners. No, for sure. And my argument on that is if you go back, for example, and imagine, there are moments where that might be true, but if you really think about it in totality, imagine if on October 7th, Israel didn't have those systems and hundreds of more

in the aftermath when Hamas and Hasbullah and Iran started launching, and the Houthis started launching missiles at Israel, if Israel didn't have the capabilities to protect civilians, first of all, just on a human life perspective, we're talking about somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 American citizens living in Israel. That's a real issue. but also, what do you think the Israeli response would have been if a couple of thousand more people would have been killed, you know, as a result of these missiles landing in their cities? I think they would have been more killing of Palestinians and Lebanese, for example. But, you know, but even, you know, so I would argue for Iron Dome. But I also think when it comes to other weapons systems, let's just apply, you know, the laws that exist on the books already and uphold Israel to the same standard.

as every other country, which means there's certain things they wouldn't get. You know, especially, you know, there's a law called the Leahy law, which reviews unit by unit, what is what partner countries are doing in the world. There's a special process for Israel that is different than, and it's pretty much the most lenient process that any country in the world gets. We don't need that. Israel doesn't need that. That's not good for U.S. interests.

It's not good for Israel. There's, you know, other laws which look at if you're preventing aid from going in, American aid from going in, you should be cut off from certain weapons. Again, we should have done that. Biden administration should have done that. I was part of the Biden administration. It didn't do that. I disagreed with that at the time. I kind of evolved on that as I will admit, I evolved on that as the, you know, as the war went on. And I certainly am there now, right, where it's time to cut off some of these weapons. So you can be just discerning and nuanced in all of this is my view. I totally hear that. Look, I think I'm really glad that J. Street

is part of this conversation and was lobbying senators to cut off certain types of U.S. military. I think the votes last week were what for 1,000 pound bombs and like armored bulldozers. There's absolutely no reason the U.S. needs to be providing those systems to Israel, especially given the context right now. I think you're right that we absolutely should not be giving a rich country $4 billion a year for no reason for military support. By the way, is fungible and that money can then be they're using that to fund a universal health care system that a lot of people here would love to have um and so i i'm glad that like this conversation has become more nuanced and more rational and that uh people are less scared of getting like slapped down if you sort of break from the apac party line or orthodoxy going forward i do think the challenge the democratic party leaders are having is um the base of the party

young people have moved way further, way faster than the Democratic elected officials have, even if Democratic Party elected officials have moved really, really fast, historically speaking, on this issue. Yeah, no, I think that that's true. But I also think we need to balance that with the sort of independent voter and the non-base and majority sort of normie voter, right? And I think you're right. If you look at young people and their view on this, you know, somebody like me, I imagine somebody like you were probably roughly the same age, right? You know, we both grew up with kind of Israel of Itzhak Rabin, which was not the, you know, Joe Biden grew up with the Israel of, I should start with, Joe Biden grew up with the Israel of

really the post-Holocast, scrappy country came out of, you know, essentially underdog. And every event he would do on this always started with this story of going to Israel in 1972 in Golden Mayer. So he had, it was brutal. One mentality, right? Yeah. Like, folks like you or I grew up with a liberal Israel that was powerful, but was looking to make peace, right? At least I did. And then you look at, you know, people, you look at my kids and you look at just everybody, again, anybody under the age of 25 or 30 doesn't remember a world without Bibi Netanyahu. And it's a huge problem. But I also think, you know, there's still the majority of the Democratic Party that's not necessarily there, despite those being the loudest voices, right?

And certainly it's not the majority of, you know, American voters who are kind of at this as far left as the base, as far as the base has gone on this. And so we're going to have to find, I think we just might, is a danger of going too far. I think you're right. I also think politicians haven't moved far enough yet. But I think the 27 will be a really interesting dynamic. I hope that there can be, that can be a unifying moment for politicians and Democratic Party leaders and candidates to be able to essentially express a position of not throwing the U.S. Israel relationship in the garbage and still recognizing that there is potential value

there, while at the same time saying the way this has been done in the past, needs to end. And for me, the answer is, again, it goes back to treat Israel like a normal country, treat Israel like a normal ally, whether you want to call it an ally or not. Someone say ally, some, you know, others more opposed can just say normal country. That means on both sides, right? That means no more blank check. It also means there's some things we'll work with them on because we have an interest in doing so. For sure. I think that's right. Look, I think I think the normie voter, the most powerful, have not thought about this for what. one fucking second and the most powerful argument to them is going to be let's stop spending

money on wars or giving it to other countries and spend it at home. And right, so like, that is really going to be the, the people are going to have to sketch out thoughtful nuance to use of foreign policy because that kind of like nationalist isolationist view is going to be the the siren song politically that is incredibly powerful that frankly works on me in a lot of instances and is, I think, something we all just have to keep in mind as we are seeped in this stuff and have more nuanced views that might not, you know, kind of gets the average. voter on a on a random day. But either way, like, Alana, I really appreciate you coming on and talk about this stuff. I imagine this will not be the last time we'll be talking about this.

Maybe we'll pop back on to talk about another round of talk tomorrow in Pakistan with the Iranians. Hopefully they're not as terrible as the last one, but we'll find out. I think I told you before we started is I kind of feel like we're just in, it'll be fine. Trump will make something up and we won't go back to war, but we also won't be in a position where we've made any progress in the street of where moves will remain closed. That's kind of like my guess and all that. Wonderful. Well, could be worse, I guess.

Thank you so much for coming on. Where can folks find J Street to work and what we guys are up to? Sure. You can look us up on jastreet.org. We also have our substack that Jeremy and Jeremy Benami, our founder writes, myself, word on the street. But really, the website and sign up for, you know, we do a lot of different things. We do, you know, we work with candidates.

We do a lot of lobbying on the hill. We are going deep into American Jewish community trying to change a conversation and have this nuanced conversation. So there's ways to get involved all over the country, 20 chapters around the country who are doing this kind of work to really build at the end of the day a liberal alternative to, you know, that conversation that until recently was just an APAC conversation. And this is what we're trying to build. Really democratic politics with the Jewish community overall. Excellent. Well, thank you again. That's our show for today. Thanks to Alain Goldenberg for coming on.

Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday from D.C. How about that? If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production.

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