The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 2724 - Trump Infuriates Ranchers; The Failing Efforts To Save Zionism w/ Séamus Malekafzali

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

It's an Emmajority Report Thursday On today's program: Trump suspends tariffs on imported beef from South America at a devastating cost to American ranchers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the plan to flood the markets with foreign beef was influenced by a Brazilian billionaire, Joesely Bautista. Bautista just happens to own a stake in JBS, one of the world's largest meatpacking companies and also just happened to have donated $5M to Trump's inauguration. Cattle producer Jim Hertzog speaks to Farm Journal to express his outrage over Trump policies punishing American farmers and ranchers. Donald Trump tries his best to promote Ken Paxton but cannot stop himself from repeatedly commenting on Ken Paxton's fashion choices and how bad he is in interviews. Seamus Malekafzali, journalist providing in-depth analysis of the Middle East and Global South at his self-titled Substack, joins for a conversation about the failing efforts to save Zionism. In the Fun Half: Brendan Sutton and Matt Binder join. Attorney General Todd Blanche joins Laura Ingraham to announce that the DOJ is going after schools providing "secret gender transitions", claiming this is a pandemic affecting children across the country. Maria Bartiromo has been abruptly fired from Fox Business as explained in a very terse press statement from FB. Jeanine Pirro is trying to be a MAHA influencer, posting a scary clip of her using a Smith Machine Joe Rogan sounds like a beauty pageant contestant as he asks his audience to imagine how much safer the world would be if no one was starving. James Talarico wishes the government would go after pedophiles in the way they go after brown men on their way to work at 6am. Jesse Watters fumbles through a racist segment about James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett. All that and more. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: ONESKIN: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code MAJORITY at https://www.oneskin.co/majority SUNSET LAKE CBD: Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order. @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's YouTube channel: https://ww.youtube.com/Th3Discourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here: https:/www.youtube.com/@avaraiza

You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this show at join the Majority Report.com and get an extra hour of content daily. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Thursday, September 3rd, 26. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar, and this is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Seamus Malacossaly joins us to talk about why these multi-pronged efforts to save Zionism are failing. Also on the program, the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is considering,

ending the Iran war, and yet Hegzeth has quietly extended Middle East troop deployments through 27. They can take it. I was a little Clint Eastwood, less Trump. I'm going too guttural. You feel lucky? The Iranian Red Crescent Society asked the ICC to investigate the U.S. bombing a wedding in Iran over the weekend. Israel's defense minister asked for Trump's approval to officially expel the remaining Palestinians from Gaza

because it's what's best for everybody. Meanwhile, after bombing Gaza's desalination facilities, Israel has once again cut off water to the strip creating a crisis of thirst. North Carolina's mail-in ballots are supposed to go out tomorrow, but the Supreme Court still has yet to rule on Trump's extreme voter suppression guidance to the U.S. Postal Service. House Republicans decide to end their final legislative session before the midterms.

Two weeks early. More vacation. They deserve it. Also, things must be going great. Don't get us on the record with anything more before the midterms, okay? Trump's DOJ intervened to block Minnesota federal prosecutors from bringing civil rights charges against that ice officer Greg Abbott's protecting down in Texas. A career ice official submitted a whistleblower complaint in August of last year over the vetting process or lack thereof for new hires.

Three people killed in the shooting in downtown Minneapolis yesterday. DSA's LA chapter endorses Nithia Rahman for mayor. Mamdani issues a one-year ban on AI for elementary. and middle schoolers in New York City. And lastly, rest in peace, Gloria Steinem, writer, activist, and leader in the second wave feminist movement. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show, everybody.

It's an M Majority Report Thursday. RIP Gloria Steinem, although I will say that I'm still in an extended morning period about Dolly Parton. I tried to talk about it with Sam. He was less than sympathetic. And in fact, I told him, stop talking, or I'm going to get more mad. One of the funniest interactions I've seen here around the office. I was legitimately starting to get pissed off.

Because I'm basically, I've decided that since she's passed away to give myself persistent psychic and emotional damage by just watching videos of her performances and interviews at like three to four hour clips. Am I neurodivergent? Emma's going to come back from the Labor Day break with a big giant hairstyle. Oh, gosh. Big blonde wave. I'm right. Pink fringe. I mean, if I could pull it off, I would.

It's just, God, Dahlia. It seems like a lot of effort, girl. I need to finish my makeup in 10 minutes flat, or I'm already so, so impatient. Imagine Emma coming out of the makeup room, like, Dollipart. And by makeup room, you mean that divider there where... Where used to be the two dope boys in the podcast studio. Yeah, yeah, that I've taken over. just with a little mirror.

Anyway, so I don't know why we're talking about that, but hello, Matt, hello, Brian. Emmajority Report Thursday, folks. Let's start here. So there is a cattle supply crisis, beef price crisis right now in this country. You can thank Screwworm in part for that, and Doge. Really thank Doge for it. there's also just right now because of climate change a 75 year low for cattle herds because of the climate impacts of droughts and fires throughout the country

and then of course we have the self-inflicted impacts of the Iran war from the Trump administration where fuel expenses have exploded as well as fertilizer prices And fertilizer, you might think that only impacts farmers, but no, ranchers need fertilizer to grow hay. They need fertilizer to grow grass. And also corn, which most of the beef in this country are fed with corn, unless you're super fancy and you get grass fed. But that's also impacted by the fertilizer.

It also hurts the right-wing separatist bomb-making industry, too. Yes, that's... I'm thinking of. them. Timothy McVeigh would not be able to do what he did in this economy. He would not. And frankly, I am still waiting on every white Christian to disavow Timothy McVeigh, like every Muslim politician apparently has to condemn 9-11.

But I digress. So for ranchers in this country right now, it's just a higher cost of doing business as well as lower supply. And you might think like, hey, well, if prices are rising, would that be better theoretically for the ranchers in the way that, or U.S. ranchers rather, in the way that, say, U.S. oil and gas has benefited greatly from the Iran war, because as those prices go up, they raise their own. And we're now seeing that U.S. oil and gas companies are taking home record returns because their capital. capitalizing on the fact that the supply is choked in the Strait of Hormuz and raising prices to make more money themselves. But that's not the case for ranchers in this country because they are at the mercy of monopolies in the American economy. And so we've talked about the corporate concentration in this industry in particular with grocers and meat.

packers that screw ranchers over. But to understand beef in particular, you have to look at the big four, the big four beef packers. You have Tyson food. You have Cargill. You have the national beef packing company. And then you have this Brazilian-backed company, JBS, which is central to this story. And those four together comprise 85% of beef purchases. It's just out of control. It's just out of control. And this makes it so that they're so concentrated that they can basically price fix, even in normal times, and screw the consumer over, but also screw ranchers over because they're not able to get the value, fair value for what they're providing. Because with 85% of the market being controlled by these monopolistic buyers, they can basically screw the ranchers

if they want to. And I mentioned that last company of the four, JBS USA, because that is relevant. This is a Wall Street Journal article from two days ago. The Brazilian billionaire who shares control of JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, lobbied President Trump to lower tariffs on beef imports as a way to tame rising U.S. prices. Josalie Batista met with Trump in the Oval office on August 20th, and they discussed how additional beef supplied from Brazil could help if Trump dropped a 26% import tax, according to people familiar with the meeting. It couldn't be learned who organized the meeting between Batista and Trump. Next day on social media, Trump announced a plan to temporarily allow more foreign beef imports

into the U.S. Trump said the imported products would be sold at a 25% discount to market prices. Now, if we scroll to a little bit further down to this paragraph, here. JBS has played a key role in shaping Trump administration views even before the recent executive order. Pilgrim's pride, the nation's second largest chicken processor, which is majority controlled by JBS, contributed $5 million to Trump's inauguration, making it the biggest donor

for JBS importing more of its Brazilian product into the U.S. would give the meatpacker a bigger share of the American market. Brazil sent about $1.5 billion worth of beef to the U.S. through the first six months of this year, up 10% from the year prior, according to the Agriculture Department data. And what's interesting is that you'll be shocked to learn that Batista, not, no relation to the one you might be thinking of, but this Brazilian Batista and his brother, Wesley, they're currently board members and majority shareholders of JBS, but yeah, they're also crooks, it sounds like.

They were nearly sidelined after a corruption scandal in Brazil almost a decade ago in which they admitted to bribing politicians and spent several months in jail. They separately settled U.S. corruption charges. Now, they, so this guy met with Trump, met with him in the Oval Office, and turns out, now they're going to be able to get a tariff exemption to import their beef from Brazil. But how about those U.S. ranchers that I just mentioned that were already squeezed because of low cattle supply, because of higher costs of doing business, well, they're not happy.

Here is a local, I guess, farm journal is what it's called. Farm Journal covers ranchers and farmers across the country. The YouTube channel is Farm Journal. Farm Journal. They spoke with this cattle producer here, Jim Herzog, about Trump, his supposed solution to this, and ranchers are not happy.

They're going to wait. So one post by the president spooked sellers enough that these pins won't be as full this Thursday? Because of the speculators in Chicago that drove the board down. That truth social post came last Friday. President Trump announcing his decision to pause higher tariffs on ground beef imports for 90 days, allowing up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef into the U.S. Out of quota, tariff-free. The president saying, quote, this deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for great

American beef heard to grow again, end quote. When you saw that, what was your reaction? Typical Trump, I couldn't believe it. This is the third time that he's attacked the cattleman with three major tweets. And this one seems to be more devastating than any of the others. And the board has crashed. The August feeder board is down almost $40 now, which is several dollars per head. Yeah, we're getting ready for fall run.

So how is this going to impact producers that are getting ready to sell in this room? Right. So we're not a cowcat producers, but we're a backgrounder. But our producers that we sell for, they're going to be taking considerably less for their cattle than they would have if he just kept his mouth shut. That frustration echoes those of cattle producers across the U.S. Herzog even took to X posting this, saying he thinks the latest effort by Trump to bring beef prices down won't accomplish anything, but keeping the beef herd low. It's about a half of $500 million. And you take that $500 million, and you spread that across the ranchers and the cattle in the United States that want to retain and build the herd back, that would, and give them $200 a head to do that. That's $2.5 million head of cattle.

And we're helping our producers right here in America. We're not helping producers overseas like the president is doing right now. Yeah, so the president's plan to help bring ground beef prices down. Do you think that hinders herd rebuilding? Yes, 100%. I mean, you can look at the board and, you know, the value of a calf has dropped dramatically in the past 30 days. You know, everybody's losing confidence in rebuilding the herd. Right.

I mean, it's gone. So it's gone. When he says that it's underscoring what I was trying to say earlier, which is like, in theory, ranchers could maybe have more power here because the supply is so low. But yet, Trump is siding once again. with big business over regular people and undercutting the rancher's power even further by importing 300,000 metric tons of ground beef

from a guy and his company based in Brazil. It's the largest meat packing company in the world who coincidentally made the largest donation to his inauguration fund. I mean, it's insane because it's not even just like siding in a impersonal way with big business. It's literally the guy comes and lobbies you, and this is how we're setting industrial policy is,

oh yeah, that guy was pretty nice, and he donated to the inauguration $5 million only, which is like, okay, that's corruption. We all know why these companies paid for the inauguration, but like a $5 million bribe, and now you get to determine policy for an entire agricultural sector. And ranchers are very upset, like, even Pete Ricketts, who is from Nebraska and is a little bit worried about Osborne,

had to come out with some sort of tepid statement about, about like how this wasn't good for the state and all of that. And being a Republican that goes after Trump like this, it's just pretty unheard of. But Trump's Ag Secretary, God, is she the last woman standing? That's allowed even in the building who isn't chasing his golf cart through through the course Linda McMahon

is hanging on strong yeah she's got what's a wrestling move that she's got Trump in put a yeah put a steel chair to his back yeah yeah I guess she's she's focused on privatizing

public education and then she's hanging around I guess she's aged out of Trump even being able to pay attention to her I think but he his initial firings were all women Brooke Rollins though was hanging on despite

having, I don't know, maybe that was actually the Labor Department woman who I think did resign. Regardless, Rollins here has to address this on Fox business and listen to her excuse here as to how things would be much worse in a different scenario for the ranchers that are upset. That no one has fought harder for these ranchers than has President Trump. I want to talk just for a second about what a president. Mr. Kamala Harris would have looked like for farmers and ranchers. Ranchers would have been in prison. Just ask Heather and Charles Maud of South Dakota over things like fence line and pivots.

There was a massive push under the last administration to eat less meat. Could you imagine? Don't stop eating meat. There was a massive push under the Democrats to eat fake meat and lab grown meat. They were working to regulate underwaters of the USA, every pothole, every ditch on every American farm and ranch in America. You contrast that to President Trump and this administration, opening up 5 million grazing lands, opening up the markets around the world.

All right, I think that we got it. We got the- Opening up the markets to the world. Right. To Brazil. And by the Brazil, I mean one particular company in Brazil that also donated to my inauguration fund in the world. Isn't that what Trump ran on opening up U.S. industry to the world?

Girl, I mean, when she said, I have a Glock, that's what she meant. That's what she meant, that she's going around and terrorizing ranchers. She's the prosecutor on the prairie. She's going to make sure that you are in line. She's going to round you up like you would cattle and put you in jail. That's what. Kamala's a cop and her beat was terrorizing ranchers. What is this story from South Dakota, Matt?

I'm looking into it. It looks like some sort of property line dispute going back decades and decades. with the Forest Service. So I'll be honest, I don't think it was really a broad attempt to roll up and start incarcerating en masse ranchers. I think it looks like a pretty specific thing that was going on. Interesting. Okay. So in theory, Kamala Harris, let's just say, well, she didn't end up winning and she wasn't able to fulfill her top campaign promise of rounding up ranchers and putting them in prison got that. But now we have to maybe deal with the reality of Trump being in office for close to two years at this point.

What's happening now? Ranchers are being sped run out of business so that his big buddies in big ag and in these meatpacking monopolies are able to buy up these cattle ranches and farms on the cheap and consolidate even further. That's the reality that we're living in right now. And it does present a very interesting dynamic in Iowa, in Nebraska as well, perhaps even in Montana.

Hannah, when we're looking at such horrible numbers for the president and the incumbent party, I like to think anything is possible. And that's the posture I'm going with, you know, two months before the midterms at this point. Let's just quickly cover this before we speak to Seamus. The Senate races are obviously enormously important. Texas is, perhaps where everything hinges. I mean, we've been talking about Democrats flipping a seat in Texas for a very long time. But I'm not sure conditions have ever been better right now. Better or work got close.

And he didn't end up winning. But he wasn't facing a candidate like Ken Paxton here, who is a crook, a criminal. has major character concerns. Recently biblically divorced, as his ex-wife puts it, in a pretty ugly way, and had been in London, which, you know, shout out. I'd also been in London the summer. But it wasn't while I was campaigning for a statewide office in Texas,

and I wasn't very obviously with a mistress. Yes, and frankly, these are the least of his crimes. The guy's on camera stealing an $1,000 pen. He was impeached by Republicans in Texas. In Texas. He owns 15 homes. I mean, that's normal, right? Trump's like, that's middle class, right?

But, and Tala Rico, I think, is hitting a lot of really good notes in the way that he's campaigned, not dropping the billionaire thing into the general. You're saying it's not enough? I mean, he was just on stage with Mark Cuban, so he's kind of dropping the billionaire thing a little bit. At least, yes. At least the rhetoric is still hanging on. And again, in Texas, there are statewide races that have very different dynamics, but this also has an impact down ballot with House races, as Jasmine Crockett well knows, because the Republicans in the state gerrymandered in a way that was based on the Latino swing towards Donald Trump in 2024. And if we look at other parts of the country, the outrage over the ICE Gestapo as well as his broken promises on the economy have shown massive.

massive Latino voting swings back towards Democrats. So this has, this race is, you know, obviously one of the most important in the country. And, you know, you mentioned the Paxson thing about how out of a candidate is. I've seen Poland that has Tala Rico up and every other statewide race going to Republicans. Which are the ones that Crockett says she's working on, right? Yeah. I guess that's where you need to put the effort or something. I mean, it's just.

on Seth Myers to talk about it. And frankly, like the divisions between Abdul al-Sayed and Haley Stevens ideologically were so much more stark than Crockett and Tala Rico that it's just... Yes, absolutely. I have a million problems with Haley Stevens, even though she makes me laugh. But she's gone as soon as she lost. She was going hard for Abdul al-Sayed because she recognizes at the very least, like where her bread is going to be buttered in the Democratic Party in the future.

But I would like to think that some people around her recognize. the fascist threat of the Republican Party. I wish Crockett could get on board there. But regardless, she's endorsed him lightly. Perhaps things will change before election day. Because this is going to be a really big problem. We headlined this earlier this week, but Tarrant County, which is one of the biggest counties in all of Texas and has a much higher concentration of black voters than the rest of the state, just decided to reduce it's polling locations by 30% what we're seeing all across the south in this country

because of the Supreme Court decision, racist gerrymandering all across the south. And I do think it's activating people, but it's going to have an impact. With all of that said, because things are so close and because this is so important to the Republicans if they want to retain the Senate,

you would hope that the president of the United States, who really made Paxton the nominee by endorsing him over Cornyn, who was a career Republican in the Senate, you would think that he would be going into this with like a forceful push for the candidate that he's been so bullish on, that he would have his back and be doing the hard sell because this is politics, baby. I don't know about that. We're going to go to Texas and work for Ken Paxton, who's a great guy.

I mean, so Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses. And I say this. It's so insulting to him, but I might as well say it. You might not like the way he looks. You might not love his look. You might not love his television interviews. But he was the best Attorney General in the country, perhaps. He was one of the best in the entire country.

And that speaks a lot louder than the suit he's wearing that doesn't look so great. than anything, frankly. He was maybe the best attorney, and everybody admits it. He was a great attorney general in Texas. He looks like shit, though. Well, I do agree with Trump on the fashion thing because I have been interested in this.

Brian Teller Cohen has the tweet here, but Ken Vaxon was out on the campaign trail with a $40,000 watch on and this ill-fitting polo shirt. I mean, this is, This is how every rich white guy who goes golfing dresses, though. Like the ugliest polo you've ever seen and a watch that I'm sure they just cared what the price tag said. He has 15 homes.

He was an attorney general, right? Like, where did he get this kind of cash? Um, I mean, that's the open question here. That's the open question. Like, it's literally like he is a mobster that is hiding his money. Yeah, yeah. but has enough ego where he's got to have one little piece there that lets you go. There's no point unless you're going to flash.

Come on. Come on. Show them once. Like, okay, hide your money in the 15 homes or like get a car wash or, you know, buy a strip club or something like that. But you've got to flex on them.

You got to londry it a little bit. But it'll have a little bit for yourself. Oh, it's unreal. Well, um, there you have it. That's Trump's pitch for the sort of a suborial. The satorially challenged Ken Pax.

I can really see what Trump really feels about him. Not central casting. Oh, right. This guy? Well, Shlubby. I mean, I think Lindsay Graham had said it before that, like, he figured out how to get into Trump's good graces that is that you can't just be a sycophant.

You can't be a suckup. He has to respect you to a certain degree. And Paxon is just such a scumbag scum bag sycophant. Like, like, I don't, I don't think he respects that at all. He belongs in like a pool hall doing scams. Yeah, right. Right. Like 1940.

I mean, truly, truly. I mean, I would be shocked if he hasn't received a bag of literal cash. Kava bag? Kava bag. Style. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Seamus Malakasili, friend of the show, about his, he's been writing like crazy, his many pieces addressing all the ways that the efforts to save Zionism are failing. But first, a word from one of our sponsors.

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For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code majority at OneSkin.co slash majority. That's 15% off OneSkin.com with code. majority. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. We will put a link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority.fm. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code majority at Onskin.co.co. C.O. slash majority. Quick break. And when we come back, Seamus Malacofsili. We are back and we are joined once again by friend of the show, Seamus Malacofsli, journalists covering the Middle East

and the Global South in his self-titled substack, but also writing in a bunch of different places. Seamus, welcome back to the show. Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure to have you. I mentioned this. You wrote three different pieces in a week or so, or were published in a week,

all with, you know, a theme of how Zionism is kind of crumbling, but there are these efforts to try to reclaim it and save it, to fortify around Zionism. You look at liberal Zionism in the Democratic Party, Kibbutzim in the West Bank and the UAE sort of cozying up to the U.S. and Israel. I guess with that theme in mind, what has been on your mind as you see these kind of like multi-pronged attempts to make, to salvage Zionism in the face of like mass global opposition to it or at the very least outrage?

I guess, I don't know if I should register a surprise or I guess, a lack of surprise, but I am disheartened by the fact that there still continue to be all of these very concerted attempts, you know, against everything that we saw in Gaza, all of these very obvious manifestations of these failures to continue with this project, to try to adapt it to different things that maybe if we change things around, maybe if we, you know, send letters out of the goodness of our hearts, if we engage in good faith debate. that somehow this thing can be saved, salvaged, adaptive for different scenarios. And my fear is that we are going to just continue with this in perpetuity for years from now.

People dying, countries being sent in a disarray, just not wanting to abandon this particular way of thinking. And I guess that's a good way to talk about the Democratic Party more broadly. broadly, you wrote a piece about this in Verso, Liberal Zionism and the Democratic Party. But I wanted to get your reaction to some quotes from earlier this week. Frank Lowenstein, who was the U.S. Special Envoy under Barack Obama for Israel and Palestine, spoke to the New Yorker. He's now at J Street. So he's with the liberal Zionist group. And he basically spoke about the the fiction of the two-state solution with more clarity than I've heard any Democratic politician

do so so far, including some of our furthest left members who we deeply appreciate. But he was in charge of kind of showing the maps for the Obama administration, the reality of the settlement expansion on the ground. And Lowenstein said to the New Yorker that the evolving maps have drained the meaning from those Obama-era debates about the viability of a Palestinian state, forcing a revision of the vocabulary that American politicians used to talk about the conflict. More than 500,000 Jewish settlers already reside among the more 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, which has been designated as a part of a future Palestinian state since the 1947 United Nations resolution that proposed the creation of the state of Israel.

And the article also cites how during the eight years of the Obama, administration, Israel approved just three settlements in the West Bank. But since the start of 2023, they've approved 104. So since the beginning of the genocide, they've approved 104 in the West Bank. And this, finally, this quote from Loenstein here is, the conversation has gone from, what can we do to get to a two-state solution to what can be done to stop Israel from literally taking all of the land? Your reaction, Seamus? Well, yeah. Yeah, we are at that point. There used to be a real chance for a firm disengagement from the West Bank in a way that would be, I guess not, I don't know what the word would be, very palatable to the Israeli political sphere, but it was possible within the Overton window of Israel.

I mean, there were the tons of settlements in the Sinai Peninsula on occupied Egyptian territory that were militarily. disengaged from and completely demolished. I mean, this was a scandal that had rocked the administration, but it was something that was done. Similarly, certain West Bank settlements in the north were disengaged from, and in Gaza, there was this massive disengagement from Gushkativ. That was possible then. I mean, this is still something that can physically be done, as in, like, of course,

the IDF has this ability, but I would say that this is something that Israel would be willing to do itself to disengage and to allow for peace to happen. That's over. And this idea that a two-state solution could bring about some sort of new Yitzhak Rabin, some sort of new Oslo Accords, that whole period of Israeli political history is gone, it's dead, it's buried, it's never coming back, which is why when we talk about the reality situation, the fact that there are still people who believe this to be possible again, that it's possible to make the Israeli public more liberal, more left-leaning when that has never been the case for the past like 20-some years. I mean, yeah, I mean, but also it makes me confused as to why this person is in J-Street.

Like, what is the answer to state is going to happen? I am confused as well. But I mean, it's important to emphasize that because currently, say the fantasy that liberal Zionists have, let's just say we were in an election year for Israel, right? This would be when their fantasy would come to pass, when the political pressures on Benjamin Netanyahu would be so overwhelming that he would just have to listen to outside voices about treating Palestinians with certain amounts of dignity, humanity, and not violating international law. Well, the opposite is happening.

Right now, because elections are coming up in October, the coalition that Netanyahu is attempting to fortify politically is that with the settler movement. He's giving the settlers basically the keys to the car. And between, I don't know, the Kusra siege, the news from this morning that two Palestinian teenagers, children were killed by. Israeli settlers, the full demolition of homes that's being sped run in the West Bank. I mean, you can see the reality on the ground of what the political incentive is within Israel. It's to give the settlers whatever they want. And that's pretty much what Netanyahu's doing. No, I mean, the embarrassment that is felt by the president or by the prime minister, Mike Huckabee, who essentially just acts as an extension of the Israeli state at this point, like all of it is the fact that these people are

acting outside of Israeli law, not international law, but they are doing all of these things outside of the proper permits, the proper procedures, and those proper procedures is to let the military handle it. Like, I'm sure you saw that member of the Knesset, Zvi Sukkot. He went into that West Bank locality, took a sledgehammer and sort of destroying that monument. And of course, there was all this cacophony from opponents of Nanyahu, but their problem was not that he, you he did that necessarily, it's that he didn't let a soldier do it. He didn't let a proper agent of the state do it, and therefore it looked like Israel was not a country of laws. But of course, if someone with a patch on their shoulder, the proper one did it, that would be fine.

There is no real opposition within the Israeli system to what is happening right now. And even when you speak about leftists or socialists within the system who are polling at maybe like 0.5, percent, one percent of the vote, they still fundamentally believe in the state, even if they have maybe more radical ideas, radical quote unquote, than liberals or conservatives. And by the state, we mean the apartheid and the segregation. So these, some of these liberals, or more, the dwindling numbers of those, what would you say, who identify as leftists within Israel, still are committed to, for the most part, a two-state solution? Yeah, I mean, there was something that got cut out of the Verso piece just because of blank concerns, but like standing together, they had constructed a party to run in this year's elections.

And one of the plans that they had said, you know, quote unquote, a place for us all was that Israel and Palestine would be able to be two states, but it would be open borders and Israeli settlers would be allowed to live in their original settlements if they submitted to Palestinian law. and Palestinians living in Israel could be like total nonsense idea about what citizenship should be, borders should be, it's not based in any sort of any, any sort of reality. It's still a fundamental belief that Israel as a state can be salvaged in some way if you just do this fantasy. Like there is no real opposition to this way of thinking inside of the Israeli political sphere. Yeah, I mean, that almost sounds more unrealistic. than the forcible expulsion of the half a million Israeli settlers. Like, you know, that it's both of these options that we're speaking about for two states are

fantastical. And you spend a good time, a good amount of time in this particular piece in Verso, speaking about a few different Democratic Party politicians and their rhetoric on this. You talk about Dan Goldman. You talk about my future representative in Brad Lander and that district. and how central their conversations about Zionism were, how it presents kind of two different visions, even though I would say Brad Landers' version of liberal Zionism

is like pretty much the best we can hope for if you're going to identify as a Zionist. But you also talk about some of, you know, Rokana's response to what he experienced in the West Bank. When we had Jasper Nathaniel on this program, I think Conner responded directly to us and some of our criticisms. but what do you make of the state of the Democratic Party,

even on the progressive side, about how Zionism is dealt with? No, I mean, it makes me feel very bitter because there has obviously been a shift within the Democratic Party on the ground over what is now permissible to say. I mean, as we said, I mean, Bradlander is still someone who identifies liberal Zionists, but he acknowledges not only that there is,

There's a genocide in Gaza, but there's also one in southern Lebanon, which I have to be frank. I haven't heard from anyone else, which, I mean, shows where things are now that such a person can't be elected. But you also see these routine compromises from other people. I won't say compromise on Blanders part because he's always believed this thing. But still, you see people trying to recant previous positions, recanting previous things that they have said. I mean, this is even starting to happen with Adela Sayed, who otherwise is extremely good on Palestine. But now he can definitely feel this pressure in order to abscond from this previous support, or I guess not even support, just aligning himself slightly with Hassan Pike or campaigning with him,

needing to apologize to the Jewish community for things that he has said, even though I don't think he's ever said anything. He said absolutely nothing, nothing anti-Semitic, nothing even close. No, no. It's, what I fear is that this opening is going to be very small and that not only are we going to have to continue to compromise all these things in very severe ways, but that this thing is going to be very temporary. And that once Gaza is something that is off of our television screens, which to some degree it largely is, when the war with Iran is either reduced to this low burn or it maybe ends, I mean, we can discuss this, we're going up to the 60-day mark again in which Trump is going to need to end this particular operation once oil prices go back down. The Democrats have not articulated as an institution or even to a certain degree among like individual candidates what a larger strategy is that is outside of the framework of maintaining empire. We need to be frank about this.

Their opposition to these wars is most of the time about execution. financing, lack of, lack of strategy. It's not about the larger moral problem that is being executed here. Right. And in the war in Iran, that's absolutely true. It's also true, of course, with their acceptance of the idea that Israel should be this ethno state, that we should define states based on ethnicity,

and that that is in some way more moral than a multicultural society, which is supposed to be what we care about here in this country and think in gender's understanding and is the best and safest place, safest way for people to live as they don't fear one another. You know, you write about this in your sub-sac piece. Your West Bank settlement is not leftist

where you analyze the kibbutz seem, the kibbutz is, and the settlements and the liberal justifications for these settlements. But you also talk, Mike Huckabee just came up. U.S. ambassador to Israel, how he's calling these, the most violent settlers right now, who are seizing Kusra, who are killing children in the West Bank. He calls them unsettlers, trying to distinguish between the overwhelming number of settlers who are doing this violence

just less gratuitously and the handful of bad apples, trying to distinguish them from the quotidian settler violence that Palestinians experience on a day-to-day basis. Talk a bit about Mike Huckabee's position there. Mike Huckabee is such a fascinating character. I mean, he really seems to believe, I mean, he's expressed this pretty plainly. I'm paraphrasing here, but, you know, the United States would not exist without the Jewish people, without Israel, you know, connecting these, you know, Judeo-Christian. beliefs to the support for Israel and so on and so forth.

But his primary idea is just like the Israelis, that this stuff needs to be done properly. This stuff can be done properly, and it is in America's interest for it to be done properly, to expand Israel's borders in this way. I mean, the State Department has started doing diplomatic operations within West Bank settlements for American citizens who live there. He's called the Judea and Samaria.

which is the official Israeli term for it, which I don't believe any American official has done prior to this. Only on campaigns, Bill Clinton, going to Michigan to say such a thing. Yes, only to try to win votes in Michigan. Oh, God. Did I remind you of that? Did I send you doing early? Can I imagine why that didn't work out.

Yeah. No, I mean, there's this very strange idea that I don't think is expressed as often in Israel, but is certainly expressed by American supporters of Israel, where these hilltop youth, where the right-wing settlers, are portrayed as this total aberration that, you know, they need to be reined in, like there's no justification for what they're doing, they're not doing something that is in Israel's interest. And then Yahoo is, of course, of the opinion that this is something that is harmful

to Israel's image as a country of laws. But like this stuff was happening in the 1880s. Like some of the from the from eight like the first settlers, Zionist settlers get to Palestine in 1870 and 1882 and the first violent battles between other Arab farmers have it's at 1886 and by 1892 a Russian Jewish journalist Ahed Ham is writing about the fact that hey it seems like you guys treat Arabs in a really harsh way and you don't seem to want to learn

language and it's bizarre how poorly you treat the inhabitants of this land. Even if he's coming from the position of being a Zionist, like this stuff is built into the country's DNA from the very, very, very beginning. You cannot distinguish these two. Like the Hilltop youth, you can see it in the crop of people around Petzelav Smutrich and Edomar Bengavere. These people are the future. They are not just going to go away.

I mean, and you write about this in your piece. on your substack about how the more like socialist approach to settling Palestinian land was always met with derision by the true settlers and like liberal Zionism more broadly it gets completely eclipsed by

the violent inclinations and the more expedient ways to remove Palestinians from the land that they're trying to take No, I know. Like all of this stuff is the way that they try to portray it is, okay, we're nicer. We want coexistence. We want to be, I mean, the word, the phrase that keeps getting pulled up is a valley of peace,

that we can make the Jordan Valley into a valley of peace by building these settlements there. But when the rubber hits the road, they are totally in favor and willingly are participants in everything that Israel does. I mean, that anecdote that I had found about, like, this group that had suggested this left-wing, West Bank settlement, back in the 1940s, one of these kibbutzim, which had been built in 1940, they get an order to not only go to this nearby Palestinian village to expel all the residents, but they are told to, I guess, collectively, as a collective settlement, pull the roofs off of their homes so that they are not able to. to return. Like, this is grim stuff, but they can justify it under the idea of, well, you know, we gave them a chance, we want to give coexistence a chance, but now we're in a war. And that's how they justify these further occupations of the West Bank and Gaza. And, you know, in that op-ed that the leftist leader had written in Haretz, she maintains that

we need to be in Gaza because we need to have protection. We need to be in the West Bank. We need to be in the Sinai. because there are smuggling roots that need to be protected against. Like everything can be justified. Right, right. And it's the Gaza piece is also interesting because to bring it back to the elections in Israel, that's another kind of wish right now from the settler community.

We covered this some weeks ago, but that there was a demonstration at the border of Gaza of settlers. coming from the West Bank, who were demanding, and I think others who were aligned with them, who want to settle the Gaza, demanding that this process begin now. And this was an attempt to politically pressure Benjamin Netanyahu from the right. And this is also the same coalition of people that he is appealing to by allowing them to do whatever the hell they want in the West Bank. Yeah, I get the impression that this is mostly political theater, mainly because, as Smokic has said, there are already preparations made for a reestablishment of the settlements, I mean, Israel cats. They've got to clean up the evidence. They've got to destroy the evidence. They've got to ship out all of the bodies. There's all this rubble. They don't want carcinogens being inhaled by Israelis. That's just for the Palestinians to live the rest of their life with, right? Exactly. And also, I do, there is a very concerning abandonment now of the previous language of voluntary migration.

Like, even within the Hebrew media, there was an attempt to say, well, if any of the Ghasms want to go, like, of course, will facilitate whatever they want. And the understanding was clear. But now Israel Kats, the defense minister, only a couple days ago, had said that he will, like, people out of Gaza need to move by, any means necessary. They're asking Trump. He's asking Trump permission to allow this. Exactly. Like, they're abandoning already that justification, that, that pretext. And I do, like, they want to make it so there is a political incentive to do this. If there are already people going to move in, there's going to be NahaL outpost, IDF outposts, it can be civilianized. Like, it's a very, like, all of this stuff happened before on the Westmec.

and now it's going to happen in Gaza and the routine, the formula is very clear. It's all being telegraphed ahead of time. I wanted to turn to the final piece that you wrote in just a week, so I mean, can you stop overachieving

here? It's making the rest of us look kind of bad. This is a convergence of schedules. Again, people should be following your work. But this is in the Drift, which is a magazine. It's entitled Brothers and Arms on the UAE's Israel model. The UAE has been of the Gulf states the most amenable to the West, to the United States in particular, and is, you know, has a rivalry with Saudi Arabia. And I think you can describe

the UAE essentially. One, the UAE is very small compared to Saudi Arabia, which actually has like landmass and is a nation state for the most part. The UAE is perhaps a, um, you know, better described is less of a country and more of a place for Western shady people to park their capital and for the U.S. to launch missiles out of there. Would that be fair to say that about the United Arab Emirates? I mean, I think in this current war, they've been more firing it from Kuwait. But I think generally, you're a second. Yes. I mean, just talk a little bit about that history then.

Because, like, talking about it, the UAE's Israel model, right? The fact that their close coordination with the Israeli and U.S. arms industry, how would you characterize that to people who are just learning about it? Well, I mean, it's as you said, Saudi Arabia is, as much to criticize it, it does function as a nation state. It has a individual, very identifiable culture. It has political capital that it can expend addition to economic capital. While the UAE is an amalgamation of all these different Emirates in the area, it is a very recent confederation only in the 1970s. And it has had to sort of produce a national identity out of whole cloth. And Israel represents a model for it to follow in this.

respect because obviously there was not a global Jewish uniform culture before Israel came in and gave them a central language, sort of a central historical narrative from which they can pull from. And the UAE wants something like this for itself because it recognizes that it can mobilize people. It makes it a force to be reckoned with. And because it lacks many central things that Israel has, mainly a mobilized population, citizens in large numbers, abilities far beyond its reach, then it has to rely primarily on military technology

and intelligence in order to gain a certain edge that Israel might have that it can produce on its own. That is why that relationship becomes so important in the 1990s and now has become, this completely central aspect of its national identity, this relationship with Israel. You describe the Abraham Accords and the UAE's quick acquiescence to that partnership or, you know, agreement with that partnership as a period where it kind of accelerated the ideological alignment with Israel. But can you back up a little bit to talk about the UAE's history and how we got to that point?

I mean, the UAE had started up in the 1970s, and at the time it was much more of an Arab-aligned power. It wants to give its support to Arab causes. It wants to give its public support to Palestine and to the fight against Zionism and Israel. But that is not something that gets it a lot of money. It doesn't get a lot of leverage in order that which you can use against other people. its main foe is Iran, the revolutionary ideology that is being espoused from Tehran. And eventually that relationship forces it, you could say, into Israel's grasp, into its network. And the Abraham Accords in the 2010s brings forth this great opportunity for it to bring this relationship.

for it to bring this relationship with Israel into the foreground. And the Abraham Accords allows the UAE to get what it has been desperate to have, which is leverage over other countries. And it can say, well, we stopped the annexation of the Jordan Valley, that same area where that leftist West Bank settlement was supposed to be. We stopped this. We saved the Palestinians from further harm. We're a player.

Saudi Arabia didn't get to this, but we were able to. to do this and it allows them this massive amount of political capital with which you can spend in the United States and other countries inside the Middle East. It was very, very beneficial to them for a very brief amount of time, but it was very beneficial to them. So they had every reason to accede to those accords. And then the UAE's close relationship with the, the U.S. and Israel, has that been strained at all

because of Iran's ability to respond in this war? Like, you know, where is the U.A.E. at right now in perhaps assessing its options given the... It seems like that the U.S. has basically said, like, yeah, we have these military and strategic partnerships, sure, and we'll sell you things,

and we can share tech. But when it comes to really defending, a state in the Middle East, we're pretty much going all in on Israel and you're shit out of luck. I don't get the impression that it has caused real substantive strain. I mean, they're very bothered when Nanyahu says,

I visited the UAE in secret and, you know, the monarch drove me around personally because they still want to at least portray that they support Gaza. And they do all of these very public charity works inside of the Strip still. But they have had really no choice other than to continue deepening this relationship. Because obviously Saudi Arabia wants something to do with them at the moment. Other Gulf states like Kuwait and Bahrain, which have received military support from the UAE,

they are not terribly beneficial. I mean, their militaries can't really do much. They don't have any other choice other than to continue deepening their relationship. with Israel and the United States because they have no real indigenous military capabilities of their own. They have no real ability to mobilize their citizenry in order to go forth militarily against Iran, even though that's what the Americans want. They don't have another choice.

They've kind of, like, this is a prison of their own making, essentially, and they can't get out. Right. And I think you could describe a lot of some of the hospital. followed out states in the Middle East that have aligned itself slowly with the United States in a similar fashion. It's just the UAE is such an extreme example. I'm just curious, though, then, in the overall theme of what we're talking about, as we're talking about the efforts to sort of fortify the Zionist project, how you feel the UAE

plays, the role the UAE plays, and if you think it's enough given kind of the retreat that we're seeing with other Gulf states and the fact that China is starting to flex its soft power in the region as well. I think the UAE wants to be this extension of of Israeli power, but it also simultaneously wants to be independent as its own, you know, veritable thing. It wants to export the UAE model to other places. I mean, this is something that I don't know what a Gagash has said. But when you bring up China, when you bring up all these other places, like it is indebted to so many other countries to simply function. Like, it made this whole hay about cutting off all trade and relationships of Iran a couple

of weeks ago. But Dubai and all these other countries rely very heavily on Iranian trade. They do not have independent oil wealth like Abu Dhabi does. Dubai does not have almost any oil as an emirate. So it needs tourism. It needs economic relationships. and like, quite frankly, it's the country that is right across the straight. Like, they cannot just isolate it and hope that it goes away forever.

It tried to do something similar like this at the beginning of the war, and that it was forced by circumstance to re-ignite trade and restart these relationships because it can't function independently. It can't function on some. So it can be a wrecking ball of sorts. It can destroy. It can. really negatively affect the world around it.

I mean, not just in Yemen, but in Sudan and other places. But it is unable to actually change relationships permanently to create facts on the ground in the way that Israel, unfortunately, is very easily able to in many places. Well, Seamus Malakoffseli, I'm sorry, a journalist covering the Middle East and the Global South. You can check out his work on Sub. but you can also read the pieces that I reference in Verso and in the Drift.

Seamus, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of this program and head into the fun half in just a second. As a reminder, the show relies on your support. Join the majority report.com. You can get access to said fun half. Get access to the podcast version commercial free and you get to IAM the show.

And potentially I'll read. I can read your I am. on air. Also, I guess it's like a month away now almost. I will be in Los Angeles on October 4th with Francesca Furentini bituation room matinee. Think of it as a Sunday brunch fest in L.A. I forgot the name of the venue. Lodge room. Thank you. We'll put a link down below to that if you want to go check us out. And we should have some special guests announced soon. We're figuring that out. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning? Yeah, left reckoning we had a show on Tuesday, Sam Russick talking about the Mayor Whitmire in Houston and why his moderate approach to taking on the Trump era has failed.

And also we talk about Mark Cuban and James Telerico talking about good billionaires. And Mike Rogers, who claimed to see Bin Laden's body. and also his support of of Bender. Hey Matt Binder's here. We hear his mic. But yeah, Mike Rogers' support for Israel goes back

and including when Obama's president saying, hey, if Israel decides to start a war with Iran, we need to make sure that we join them and let them lead us into that. And here we are. So check that out. Patreon.com says left reckoning. Check it out, folks.

And yes, we do have Matt Binder. Hello, hello. Hello, my mic arm is very noisy. It needs to be like oiled or something. I was just turning it towards me and made that noise. Yeah, it was like, right, cranking like the tin man. More oil. Oh, well, time to get a new mic arm maybe.

Geez. I guess. Well, you sound good otherwise. What's happening in your neck of the woods? Tune into YouTube.com slash Mapbinder. Subscribe if you haven't already. and 8.30 p.m. Eastern Time tonight. See you all there. See you there. We don't have Brandon quite yet, but of course, check out the discourse.

He's been streaming. His show's been growing. He does it before our show, so there's no conflict. You can feel guilt-free when you turn it and tune into the discourse. Check it out, folks. All right, with that, we will see you in the fun half. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking in the news. majority report. Wait, what? Look, Sam is unpopular.

I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday. Yeah, I think you need to do it over for Sam. Yes, please, sir. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this.

And I'll tell you why. So it was offered a tour, sushi, and poker with the boys. Tour? Suci and poker with the boys. Someone offered a tour? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys. What?

Twirp. Sushi and poker. Tim's upset. The boys. He was offered a twirp, sushi, and... That's what we call it. This is... I just think that what you did to Tim Poole was mean.

Free speech. That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here. Twirp? Ugh. Sushi and poker with the ball.

Oh my god. Twir? Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. So it's offered a twir? Yeah.

Sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Dwerp. Sushi and poker. Like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. A little kid. I think I'm like a little kid.

I think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate. You just don't understand. I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not. It's not a fun.

job. It's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet. Left is best. Violet twir? Don't be foolish and don't bunch it. The way Emma has cucked all of these people.

My honor's thesis. Like to you now. You are to the right of the outside. We already fund Israel, dude. Are you against us? That's a tougher question. I have an answer to you. Incredible theme song.

I bumbleer. Emma Viglin, absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game. Like, period.