The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3589 - FBI’s War on Trans People; Trump’s Pro-Israel Enforcer w/ Ken Klippenstein, Connor Echols
Episode Date: September 25, 2025It's Emmajority Thursday on the Majority Report On today's show: Trump has been "Triple Sabotaged" at the UN as the escalator fails to work as he and the First Lady entered the stair well, fortunately... Melania was not hurt. Then his teleprompter cut out, and he was forced to "speak from the heart". If that wasn't horrible enough, it turns out his microphone was significantly quieter than others. Trump wrote a heart-wrenching account of the tragedy on Truth Social in which he spares no detail. Jesse Watters suggests that we bomb the UN over this devasting attack on our president. Investigative journalist, Ken Klippenstein joins the show to discuss the Trump administration's manipulation of recent shootings to bolster their war on trans people. Follow Ken's work at here. Reporter at Responsible Statecraft, Connor Echols joins us to discuss his new piece, How a Little-Known Embassy Aid Hijacked US Isreal Policy. In the Fun Half: We are joined by Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder. Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters resigns to take a position in the private sector as union buster just a day after announcing TPUSA chapters for every High School in the state. Adam Friedland hypnotizes all the other panelists on Piers Morgan while asking for empathy for the oft bullied Donald Trump. The daughter of a New Mexican state senator calls out her father for accepting Israeli money and peddling their propaganda. All that and more. Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join 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 AMQuickie 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: MAGIC SPOON: Get 5 dollars off your next order at MagicSpoon.com/MAJORITYREPORT GIVEWELL: For trusted, evidence-backed insights into this evolving situation — and information about how you can help — follow along at givewell.org/USAID FAST GROWING TREES: Get 15% off your first purchase. FastGrowingTrees.com/majority DELETEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech 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 show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey folks, did you know that Magic Spoon makes high-protein zero-sugar cereal and treats reinvented from your childhood so you can experience the nostalgia?
I love those high-protein treats, and I knew I was going to love them because the cereal is so good.
And what makes you feel good about it is that you know that they have 13 grams of protein in terms of the high-protein cereal, zero grams of sugar, and four grams of net carbs.
and they come in nostalgic flavors like fruity, cocoa, and frosted.
Magic Spoon's high-protein treats are crispy, crunchy, airy,
and an easy way to get 12 grams of protein on the grow.
They come in mouth-watering flavors like marshmallow, chocolate peanut butter, and dark chocolate.
That marshmallow one is really my go-to pre-workout.
I need something in my stomach a little bit, so I'll usually have that marshmallow protein bar,
and I pack these when I go on trips and think.
like that because it's very easy to just grab, snack, and feel like, you know, you have some
energy. Magic Spoon is available in many different places, but if you want to get $5 off your
next order of Magic Spoon, you've got to go to MagicSpoon.com slash majority report, one word,
or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. That's magic spoon.com
slash majority report for $5 off.
MagicSpoon.com slash majority report for $5 off.
Again, can't say enough about MagicSpoon.
They have been a sponsor for quite a while at this time,
and they are a go-to for my breakfast and also for my pre- and post-workout snacks,
and you don't have any of the crash from those sugars.
So again, get $5 off your next order at magic spoon.com slash
majority report one word or look for magic spoon on amazon or in your nearest grocery store that's magic spoon.com
slash majority report for five dollars off link down below in the podcast and video descriptions and at majority dot fm
and now time for the show the majority report with sam cedar it is thursday
September 25th, 2025.
My name is Emma Vigland in for Sam Cedar,
and this is the five-time award-winning majority report.
We are broadcasting live steps
from the industrially ravaged Gowanist Canal
in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA.
On the program today, Ken Clippenstein
will be with us to talk about the FBI
targeting trans people and leftists
and also Cash Patel's supposed evidence about this shooting at an ice facility in Dallas.
And later in the show, Connor Eccles will be with us to talk about
the State Department advisor calling the shots behind the scenes on Israel policy for the Trump administration.
Also on the program, a gunman yesterday shot into a Dallas ice facility
killing a detainee and themselves.
and once again, the federal government rushes to blame the left without evidence.
Trump is pushing his hand-picked prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia
to press charges against James Comey because the statute of limitations is about to expire.
Jimmy Kimmel's return episode quadrupled his average nightly audience with over 6 million viewers.
Fake news, fake news.
even with 20% of ABC affiliates not airing it.
For no talent, Jimmy.
Jimmy, Jimmy, you know how they mess up those numbers, but not for me.
Democrat Grealva wins Arizona's special election handily,
sending her to Congress to serve the remainder of her father's term
and a key vote in the Epstein files,
which could help send it to a floor vote.
Trump declares he's been triple sabotaged after an escalator broke at the UN and demands an investigation into that darned Antifa escalator.
Trump threatens mass firings of government officials if Senate Democrats don't agree to a government funding package that they were shut out of.
Elon Musk's SX AI, the one polluting Memphis,
signs a deal with the government to integrate its AI into federal agencies.
Meanwhile, the IDF pushes further into Gaza City,
killing at least 40 Palestinians with bombs since dawn.
Macron says Trump assured him that West Bank annexation is a red line.
But it's Trump.
So, Italy and Spain deploy military ships to protect the aid flotilla as Israel continues to threaten to bomb them.
Dron strikes from Yemen injure at least 22 people in southern Israel.
And lastly, Starbucks to lay off 900 workers as its workers' unionization campaign grows.
By the way, Starbucks had its love.
largest, the largest CEO to worker pay gap in 2024.
All this and more on today's majority report, also known as Em Majority Report.
Welcome to the show, everybody.
Say hello to Matt. Say hello to Brian.
Happy to be back. God Karu writes in, please tell us you sang Pink Pony Club at full volume
at the show the other night. Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
longtime viewers of the show may
remember when I found out on air
that I was supposed to see Chapel Rhone that night
and she canceled this festival
and I was pretty devastated, you know?
I don't care if I die at all.
It was a national tragedy,
at the very least, a podcast tragedy.
In fact, I think I was triple sabotaged by that.
But I ended up finally getting
able to see, was able to see her live. And my friend and I, we were dancing a lot. And I think
we may have pissed off the people right next to us. So, yes, I had a very good time and sang at the
top of my lungs. I hope none of that was caught on video, because I'm sure it was shrill. I'll
say that. I'll be misogynistic against myself. Only I can do it. All right, let's start
here. So, um, I, I can't get over the story. I know we have like meteor things to talk about,
but it's just a new level of whininess. And we keep, I keep thinking that we're, we, we can't go any
further with Donald Trump victimizing himself until we get a story like this. Because, uh,
yesterday, I'm not sure if you heard about this absolute national tragedy, but that in front of a
gaggle of reporters at the United Nations,
an escalator broke.
And if you haven't been paying attention to this story,
it's time to check your privilege.
It could have been really bad for Melania.
Exactly. That's who I thought of first.
You know, I mean, she is responsible for keeping him upright.
And it's quite difficult if you're going up the stairs and you have to walk.
Well, also, Trump thinks you only have a finite amount of sort of vigorous activity in your life.
Yes.
And having to climb stairs.
It clearly takes years off your life.
I mean, for all of his talk of cities and urban crime, how, like, in total, how many city blocks, like, on the city streets do you think he's walked since the 1990s?
Probably 20 blocks in total.
Oh, I'm being too generous.
Just going straight from the front door to the car.
From the limo to the SUV, to the back entrance, to the limo, to the...
He does one sort of segment of sidewalk.
Which they put carpet on.
Right, it's padded.
When do you think the last time he ever entered a subway station was?
Ever?
Ever?
Ever?
The longest amount of distance he's walked in one sort of like go has been, like quarter mile?
I wouldn't be surprised if he's never ridden the subway ever.
I would not be surprised either.
I mean, and in fairness to him at this point in his life, it's quite difficult to walk with cancels.
That he, you know, that kind of swelling that he's experiencing.
Shout out to Jennifer Welch and her nickname for him, Can.
banks. But trigger warning. There's some footage here. We'll start with Maria Bartaromo, who's
on the case. She shows some footage of the broken escalator, and it may be hard for you to see a
senior citizen getting so confused by something like this, but we have the footage here.
And he descended down the escalator to announce his candidacy. And now he cannot ascend. Is there
a metaphor there? Is that, did he descend to hell and then that's heaven at the very top? And he would
have to walk there and do the work to get up to the top, but he's not capable of doing it.
Anyway, I could write a poem about this, but Maria Bartaromo's got it covered.
This is like this is a pruder film for them.
Well, it also takes no analysis.
Like, you need to know nothing about politics to talk about a broken escalator.
Happened this week at the UN.
I want to get your take on this because President Trump says the Secret Service is investigating,
what he is calling triple sabotage after his time at the United States.
United Nations on Tuesday. The president wants answers. After the escalator, a stop, as soon as he and the
First Lady stepped on it. Look how great Melania was. She is unfazed. She walks on it. It stopped.
She turns around to the president. And she just leads the president up and walks. So she was
unfazed by it. But this was, this could have been a massive, massive issue.
All right. Pause it for a second.
The president being frozen there. So for the podcast audience that, you know, isn't seeing this
horrifying footage.
Do they not see
that there is a second escalator
next to them
that appears to also be
going upward
that is functioning?
Oh, wow.
See?
That's going up.
There was a second escalator.
There was a,
talk about the Zapruder film.
It is right as Trump steps on it.
Okay, it breaks.
Walk back.
Can he just not walk backwards?
It's unbignified.
To go to the other escalator
or was the other escalator not secured?
Yeah,
it can't.
handle his weight. Right. This
God, imagine what it sounds like with him
huffing and puffing behind. Okay, it's only 20
stories, I guess, oh. I mean,
they must be treating this
like some real problem
too, because he's in such poor health that that might
actually cause an issue for him. I mean, I wonder what
his heart rate did. Yeah. Just
curious and just want to know for
yeah, future reference. Keep going.
Happened this week at the U.N. I want to get
your take on this because President Trump
says the Secret Service is investigating
what he is calling triple sabotage after his time at the United Nations on Tuesday.
The president wants answers after the escalator stopped as soon as he and the first lady stepped on it.
Look how great Melania was.
She is unfazed.
She walks on it.
It's stopped.
What do you mean how great she is?
She just leads the president.
Handled it with grace.
I mean, when I see an escalator, that's out, I started a massive, massive issue.
When I see an escalator out, I start tearing all my clothes off and scrubbed.
screaming and spitting, foaming at the mouth.
She handled it much better than that the other day.
She's from the Mitch Hedberg School of dealing with escalators that are out.
Yes, yes.
And, you know, the president being frozen there in one place makes him vulnerable.
Later, the same morning, the telepronical dark in the middle of his speeches,
and then, you know, in the middle of his address, rather.
then the president also said that the sound was off during his remarks and only the people
with interpreters speaking into earpieces could actually hear his address the u.n reports that
they've had they ordered a thorough investigation and are quote ready to cooperate in full
transparency with relevant u.s authorities congressman do you know if we're going to get answers on
this i surely hope so and if the secret services opened up an investigation and the
u.s doing an investigation obviously all of those things could not
be a coincidence and thankfully
what do you mean could not be a coincidence
with the president of the united states making a big fucking deal about it
i mean if matt and i were in charge of it all these three things would have happened
is it sabotage whenever we can't flush the toilet in this yeah it's sabotage when the
phones don't work triple sabotage occasionally yes and then sometimes the camera gets blurry that's
the triple sept trump spoke for over an hour at the u.n people were comparing it to castro's speech
in the 60s.
And the only takeaway they have of it
is all of the stuff surrounding it.
I think that kind of shows how they feel
about his performance there,
which is to tell the entire world they're going to hell.
Oh, and by the way,
not you have Vera Malay,
who's destroyed his economy with libertarianism.
We're going to give you $20 billion of a backstop.
But everyone else, you guys are,
you guys suck,
and actually we're the hottest country in the world.
Yeah, it's great.
um and here is trump's uh truth about this that initially expressed his outrage a real disgrace took place
at the united nations yesterday not one but not two but three very sinister events i mean these
things come in threes first the escalator go into the main speaking floor came to a screeching halt
it stopped on the dime it's amazing that milani and i didn't fall forward onto the shh i mean those
escalators,
they go like 25 miles an hour.
It cuts his head off.
Can you imagine if Trump got sucked into the gears of escalating?
That's how he died.
His long,
his long time.
I know.
That's how to start his campaign and actually gets ground up in the gears.
I've never,
okay,
I've been on escalators that have stopped working before.
I don't know if he's ever been to a mall or anything.
but when it stops
It's very slow
It stops very slowly
The idea that the force
Of the escalator would make you fall forward
Is amazing
Melania wasn't having an issue
Melania went right ahead
He does a speech in a neck brace
Seriously, it's a slip and fall lawsuit
Then you finally have some pretext to sue people
He should have faked it
Like you know anybody trying to do an insurance
and scamp. It was only that we
were each holding the handrail
tightly or it would have been a disaster.
This was absolutely... Too much information.
Like, forget why you didn't fall.
The play-by-play.
The London Times said the UN workers
joked about turning off an escalator
shore. Then people that did it
should be arrested.
Okay.
20 years.
Yeah.
Lock them up.
For each step a year.
I mean, that's how many
probably...
Each step took a month off of his life.
I mean, we could only hope, again,
we want him to die of natural causes
and nothing horrible to happen to him.
I don't want him turned to sausage by an escalator.
Absolutely, not.
It wouldn't be funny.
Then, as I stood before a television crowd,
capitalized television,
of millions of people all over the world,
okay, relax.
And important leaders in the hall,
my teleprompter didn't work.
It was stone cold dark.
I immediately thought to myself,
wow, first the escalator event,
Now the bad teleprompter?
What kind of a place is this?
I then proceeded to make a speech capitalized
without a teleprompter,
which kicked in about 15 minutes later.
The good news is the speech has gotten fantastic reviews.
Oh, good, even though they couldn't hear you, according to you.
Maybe they appreciated the fact that very few people
could have done what I did.
And third, and after making the speech,
I was told the sound was completely off in the auditorium
where the speech was made,
that were leaders, unless they use the interpret
governor's earpiece couldn't hear a thing the first person I saw at the conclusion of
oh my god was Melania was sitting right up front I said how did um how did I do and she said
I couldn't hear a word of you well I think she's probably not listening to um I this of
whatever what I mean like I could not believe that this went on longer than the first slide I
thought it was just one thing this is longer than his post about the government shut down
but again like this is like this is Trump at his sort of best because it's like this
huge thing happens where actually
Trump embarrasses America in front of the entire
world and
but there is a low common
denominator thing people can like
engage with in this discussion
which is it takes no information
about the UN to know about
you don't even know about like what a veto is
at the UN or anything like that or what the
security council is you can know that
did someone do a rude
prank on the president of the United States
with the escalator and the sound
and then you know hogs have a way to
feet on it. Right. And, you know, we were talking about locking up, obviously, the escalator
technicians or the people at the UN responsible for this outrage. But Jesse Waters thinks we should
go a step further. What's going on with the escalator? What do you think? Yeah, they sabotaged
them. Yeah. And they could have hurt the first lady. Yeah. Trump would have fallen and it would have gotten
back up. But, you know, they would have laid out of his rhetoric. The idea that, pause, pause,
the idea that Melania is more vulnerable than Trump for a fall is insane insane and such
obvious like truly state propaganda that you would see like the leader is not sick why is
Melania around all the time right now this is just something to note when Trump was absent for
a week and totally didn't have a severe health issue suddenly Melania was seen in DC suddenly
she's by his side all the time suddenly she's walking with him when he's having trouble
keeping a straight line.
Like, sometimes when you're a wife and a strange wife
and someone's coming to the end,
you want to secure that bag,
might want to spend a little extra time
with that husband that you kind of hate.
Speaking of wives, a bit rich...
I love you so much, maybe.
Yes. I've seen the light.
A bit rich of Jesse Waters,
who met his wife by sneaking into the parking garage
and letting the air out of her tires,
so she needed a ride to talk about
putting women in danger.
Yeah, they sabotaged them.
Yeah.
And they could have hurt the first lady.
Trump would have fallen and would have gotten back up.
But, you know, they would have blamed it on his rhetoric.
And then they sabotaged the teleprompter.
Yeah.
I mean, this is an insurrection.
And what we need to do is either leave the U.N.
Or we need to bomb it.
It is in New York, though, right?
Yeah, there could be some fallout there.
All right.
Yeah.
It's using the same logic that like ultra-Zionists say when or even actually it's not even ultra-Zionists.
It's like the liberal Zionists in Israel who will be like, we can't nuke Gaza because we're too close to the radioactive ways.
Qatar though.
Yeah.
I mean, this overgrown frat boy says anything for attention.
It is interesting to see him, I don't know, try to do this egg.
edgy thing, like in the veins of Tucker Carlson, whose time slot he took over while Tucker's going in an entirely different direction.
Yeah, I mean, he's a hog.
Just for folks who do want something substantial out of this, the Finland's president, Alexander Stubb, calls for a reform at the UN.
He doesn't call for bombing it or the U.S. leaving it, but an actual reform, which would make the body better, which is there shouldn't be any veto.
The United States shouldn't be allowed to veto stuff on behalf of Israel.
Israel, Russia shouldn't be allowed to veto stuff, these countries, China, whatever, whoever, but mainly America, to be completely frank, shouldn't be allowed to veto things like, let's have Israel, let's like condemn Israel's genocide slash Holocaust that they're conducting right in front of our faces. That's a real reform that should happen. And the U.S. is already making a joke, has already made a joke for decades out of the U.N. I mean, bombing it would just make that more formally recognizable.
In a moment, we're going to be speaking to Ken Clippenstein, but first, a word from our sponsors,
Delete Me, is one of our favorite sponsors.
It makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at the time where surveillance
and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable.
It's easier than ever to find personal information about people online.
Having your address, phone number, and family members' names, hanging out on the internet
can have actual consequences.
in the real world and makes everyone vulnerable.
More and more online partisans and nefarious actors will find this data and use it to target
political rivals, civil servants, and even outspoken citizens posting their opinions online.
Or if you're, say, a host of an online YouTube show, podcast show.
Without Delete Me, I don't know what I would do.
Delete Me has protected me, I believe, from a lot of some of the harassment that has come
my way when I've said things that some of the right, you know,
finds controversial, and I was recommended to delete me before I even started here at the
majority report. So when I found out that they were a sponsor, I was already using the service.
It's quite easy for me to endorse Delete Me. With Delete Me, you can protect your personal
privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can
be exploited. The New York Times Wirecutter has named Delete Me their top pick for data
removal services. Thanks to Delete Me for sponsoring the Majority Report. Take control of your data
and keep your private life private by signing up for delete me now with a special discount for
our listeners get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to join delete me dot com slash majority
and use promo code majority at checkout the only way to get 20% off off is to go to join
delete me dot com slash majority and enter code majority at checkout that's join deleteme dot com
slash majority code majority link down below in the video description and episode description
and at majority.fm.
And lastly,
Givewell.
The massive cuts to foreign aid
are in the news a lot right now,
but it's hard to know what's actually happening
or how to help,
given the fact that our government
is not being exactly transparent
about what they're doing
to the rest of the world with these cuts.
Givewell does not claim to have the answers,
but over the past 18 years,
the nonprofit research organization
has helped guide more than 130
thousand donors and two and a half billion dollars to highly cost-effective aid.
Givewell's researchers are analyzing the impact of the cuts to USAID in real time and sharing
what they're learning with everyone for free through research updates, grant write-ups, and
candid podcast conversations.
Givewell has already committed tens of millions of dollars in response to this year's cuts,
and their researchers are working to forecast, find, and fund other new cost-effective
needs. Give well, I really love
in part because so much of
like when there are charities and things like that
that they're asking for money, you don't know how much is going to
overhead and all this stuff, you don't know how much
it creates certain
like, I don't know, strings attached for the recipients of it.
Give well, make sure that
you know, you know where you're
money is going and you know that you're able to get it directly to people.
For trusted evidence-backed insights into this evolving situation and information about how you
can help, follow along at givewell.org slash USAID.
Again, that's givewell.org slash USAID, and we will put a link to this down below in the podcast
and YouTube descriptions.
Again, follow along at give well.org slash USAID.
Quick break, and when we come back, we'll be joined by Ken Klippenstein.
We are back, and we are joined once again by friend of the show, Ken Klippenstein, investigative reporter, formerly of The Intercept and publisher of the, of Clip News on Substack.
Ken, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
Hey, good to be back.
Yeah, great to see you.
And, I mean, it's been busy for you.
You've been all over the place reporting on the Trump administration and particularly the FBI and some of their efforts to create a new threat category, looping trans people into it, and it's under this subsection called nihilistic violent extremists.
Can you take us through how this began and how the Charlie Kirk shooting was used as a pretext for this new classification?
Yeah, so the Trump administration, this second administration anyways, as soon as they came in, they started removing from a certain federal agency websites and materials reference to trans and LGBT.
They just drop the T and just say LGBT, in some cases, LGBT, in some cases, LGBT, and I reported yesterday that that has spread to the national security state agencies, the FBI, the local law enforcement, that kind of thing.
So they've been working on this pretty much since the beginning is when you saw this change from the Biden administration.
But what the murder of Charlie Kirk did was it supercharged.
Trump administration you meant, right?
Yes.
Oh, change from.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
And so the Kirk murder supercharged this effort.
And my sense from talking to senior officials, particularly in the Justice Department, is that they feel as though they have a broader hand
to do this kind of stuff and push it farther than they had in the past,
where initially maybe it was focused on some of the language stuff
that I was describing for LGBT.
Now when you talk about designating trans suspects as extremists,
you're basically saying that this phenomenon should be viewed
when a person is either motivated by what the administration calls trans ideology
or as a trans person himself, you're saying that that is an act of terrorism.
And so when they're trying to slot that under,
nihilistic violent extremist, which is another new Trump category that they introduced a couple of
months ago, what you're doing is you're trying to obscure the data that's going to end up being produced
at the end of each year or at the end of every six months because you have to testify before Congress
and say, here's the breakdown of what we did. And if you're able to hide that under nihilistic
violent extremist, then it's harder to ascertain this crackdown on the trans community or at least
conceiving of violence as terrorist and trans-driven in nature.
And so that's what I'm trying to draw attention to, because they're so good at this kind of thing,
not just the Trump administration, but the FBI generally.
Cash Patel, the FBI director, just testified to Congress last week.
And the testimony was really revealing because he said there has been a huge increase.
I think it was like 300% increase in their domestic terrorism caseload.
So they're dropping the hammer on what they perceive.
to be terrorism. And when the subject of nihilistic violent extremists came up, he revealed that
that is a, quote, large chunk of what they're focused on. So the question is, what are these
nihilist violent extremists? Because the majority of these cases have not been made public yet.
They get made public when they're brought to court. So we still don't have a good sense of what the
breakdown is. And I am still struggling to understand how they are able to use the shooting of
Charlie Kirk as this pretext because initially they were sending information, there were leaking
information to the Wall Street Journal claiming that trans ideology was on the casings and then it was
discovered. Seeming like Stephen Crowder was behind this at one point, but it was discovered that
no, that's just like TR something. It was like the name of the manufacturer of a bullet, a TRN.
and then, okay, the bullets are not, the shooter's not trans, the bullets aren't pro trans.
Oh, I guess the shooter had a relationship with somebody who is trans, and now they are using that to categorize this kind of attack as a part of this nihilistic violent extremism.
It's not even a trans person that did the shooting.
It's someone who was associated with trans people.
That came from a deeply gun culture also.
Well, that's what they're trying to obscure, exactly.
Yeah, and when I talked to the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson's friends,
it quickly became clear to me that in, you know, small town in Utah, politics does not reflect
the kind of Republican-Democrat divide that we see, you know, in maybe major media or national media,
if it does anywhere, because things have a very libertarian strain.
people that are pro-gun, as I'm told Robinson was in his personal life, who also are pro-LGB
as Robinson was described to me.
But what the administration is basically taken from that is they've said, okay, so he had a trans
lover, which I was able to confirm talking to his friends.
And in addition to that, you know, cares is pro-trans rights and didn't like what Charlie
Kirk had to say about trans.
He obviously had very, you know, negative rhetoric about trans.
They've taken that and they've said, oh, clearly, this is some left.
wing ideologue and that just doesn't match the facts at all like you can care about trans and not
necessarily be engaged in other aspects of politics or even have a coherent um political world view
you can be trans you can be trans like kately jenner is infamously a trans woman who is a diehard
republican it's really that's it the idea that they're drawing this link says a lot about what they're
trying to manufacture here exactly and
And it's like they don't even care because Sebastian Gorka, who is the senior director
of counterterrorism in the White House, basically in charge of the entire counterterrorism
portfolio, he has been tweeting about all these acts of violence involving trans people
and suggesting that there's some kind of contagion that's happening and it's spreading and
they're all inspiring each other. And, you know, you go back and look through the data.
Like there definitely are several cases that he points to that are real, but it's like the idea
that that represents any significant, you know, statistically significant percentage of the trans
community is outrageous. There's just no truth to it. And the reality is the violence, if you're
looking at the question of violence, the violence is committed against them overwhelmingly.
They're the recipients of acts of violence and even politically motivated violence more than any
other member of the LGBT community. So there's a kind of sad irony to all of this. But yeah,
the Trump administration is, it's foot down on the gas pedal. You saw Vice President J.D. Vance
yesterday I gave a speech about the left-wing terrorism. Trump just designated Antifa, a domestic
terrorist organization first time ever that that term has been used. Ordinarily, you have to apply
that to foreign terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS. And then after this most recent
shooting, the ICE facility, Trump announced he's going to have another terrorism designation.
And so one of the hardest parts reporting on this is teasing out this kind of, like, myasma of boogeymen that they've created and they think are all working together, Antifa and trans.
They even have a word for it.
They call it Trantifa and, you know, the radical left, the far left.
And it's like they are convinced.
It's kind of scary.
I thought it was rhetoric at first, but as I started interviewing people in the FBI, DOJ, became clear to me.
they actually believe that these guys are working together and they're getting funded by foreigners and just all this crazy stuff you hear they really internally at least how they're running the agencies they really are acting on that and it seems like they believe it i guess it doesn't even truly matter if they believe it or not right like they they also see it as a way to further their political agenda there's also of course the usage of uh drone strikes in our own backyard
claiming things like terrorism using that designation.
And yes, this is more traditional in that it's technically people, you know, folks from Venezuela or whatever, other groups in Latin America that they're saying are responsible for this so-called terrorism.
But it is the merging of the like war on drugs militarism with the mostly Middle Eastern focused anti-terrorism.
of our government that has been responsible for the largest and most expansive rollback of our civil liberties in the 21st century, bar none.
And that should be extremely scary to people that they are turning that language inward, let alone the fact that it's targeting one of the most marginalized groups in our society without evidence who are a minimal percentage of the kinds of shooters that do mass shootings.
Yeah, it's really frightening. I mean, the global war and terror has basically been declared over in the sense of a lot of the authorities that they're deploying in the Middle East and conflict that they're prosecuting.
And so what happens is these agencies are in need of a purpose. And Trump comes along and says, oh, look, actually maybe cartels are terrorists, maybe Antifas terrorists. So they have an entirely new reason for being. So I think on some level, the bureaucracy is okay with having this new job where they might have.
have faced being out of work. And then in addition to that, a lot of the principal figures in the
Trump administration from Hegsef to FBI director Cash Patel and Director of National Intelligence
Tulsa Gabbard, they all came up during the war and terrorism. And so they have this framework of
we're going to map out the networks and find out who's funding al-Qaeda and where they're working.
And maybe that worked in the Middle East in terms of understanding how ISIS operates, how Al-Qaeda
operates. But to then apply that, you know, as you and I know, to like protesters or quote-unquote
Antifa is ridiculous.
Like, as we know, like, a lot of these guys are just sincere people that, like, believe
whatever they believe.
And you can agree with them, disagree with them.
But the idea that they're on some payroll is just ridiculous.
But that's how you can see the world if you've been trained to look at everything
as though it's ISIS.
What do these designations mean in practice?
And secondly, Trump's executive order on Antifa being a domestic terrorist organization,
I've seen some conflicting reports on how much teeth it actually has or if he has the authority to do it.
A lot of these executive orders are like, it seems like, you know, scratching some itch for him where he gets to feel important and then it's not necessarily enacted later.
I'm hopeful that perhaps that's the case here, but do you see this having an impact in practice?
It's about authorities and resources.
So when you have something like that, it says to the agencies, now you can prioritize this.
Every agency has a list of intelligence collection priorities, targeting priorities, that kind of thing.
Something like this is going to tell senior principals who, of course, are being led by political appointees,
hey, guys, we got to start making cases around this.
The way you're going to get promoted is, are you making, or do you have a caseload that's reflective of the priority list?
And this is just one priority.
There will be other ones.
But suddenly there's more of an incentive for the bureaucracy to create counterterrorism cases and investigations and deploy things.
I think a lot of this has been pretty misreported because national security is very complicated,
and so they look at this and they say, oh, actually, you can only designate foreign terrorist organizations.
So that's true that under the law, there's only a law for foreign terrorist organizations.
But at the same time, administratively, within the agencies, they can still treat things as terrorism.
That just means you can't bring up terrorism charges against them under that law, if that makes sense.
So it's a subtle distinction where there's something to what you're saying about that Trump is not going to get everything he wants here.
And they're not going to be able to treat this the same way that they would say when they're going after al-Qaeda.
But just like any business, when the CEO says something, the executive management, management across the country is going to look at that.
And say, okay, well, to get ahead, I've got to really create stuff that's going to look like I'm taking this seriously.
And that means something.
it's hard to know with specifics what it will mean but it will mean something and i think it's a mistake
to just um as you know i saw story after story when i was warning initially when he started saying i'm
going to design antifa washington post had some sort of where he's like well actually you can't do
that because there's no law and i'm like trying to explain it's like okay yes you can't prosecute them
on that basis however the way these they're they're already treat things as domestic terrorism all the time
We know this.
It just means that's how they approach it.
That's the framework they're using to go after them and look at them.
It just means that in front of a court of law, maybe that's not how they're going to frame it.
And in terms of the question of priorities, I mean, we've already seen it reported that they're diverting all of these resources away from human trafficking.
Shocked that this administration isn't prioritizing human trafficking.
I mean, I'm being sarcastic, but it's just insane to have them run on that over.
and over again and Jinup, you know, it's not even conspiracies, but using the issue of Epstein,
for example, for electoral gain, and then turn around and do the cover up, but also gut the ability
to go after the kinds of people that are acting like Jeffrey Epstein in practice. I mean,
it really makes you think in terms of a question of priorities. So Cash Patel here, he tweeted
this out, and you wrote
about this, I guess it was either yesterday
or this morning,
where you also, like
the Charlie Kirk shooter,
you were able to speak to some of the friends of
the shooter here at
the Dallas Ice Facility,
who shot into the facility,
killed one detainee, and then
also, I guess, himself.
Now, Cash Patel
has this long thing here. We don't even
need to read it fully,
but I want to get to the photo he posted.
so this is his claim
his claim is that
this is what was found on the scene
these
I don't
can someone who's better at ammunition
tell me exactly what that is
those are like shell casings
so it's like one spent
two to three rounds right yeah
shell casings
and anti-ice is written
on them and cash Patel who
you know like a good
law enforcement officer
tweets out evidence
before presenting it in a court of law,
you know, to get ahead of stories.
The anti-ice thing is so fishy to me
because of what we just talked about,
the Antifa domestic terrorist organization.
It looks ludicrous. I'm sorry, it does.
Like, if you were to, if we were, it was a real,
we have a joke on the show,
left as best as our little, you know, kind of saying,
and that was taken from a right winger
who did a bunch of false...
Who broke into a playground in the middle of the night
and started spray paint and stuff
like, I think like killed Trump and left
his best. Right. It was a right winger. It was a
right winger trying to blame the left for the
rhetoric. And
anti-ice seems very much
like left is best. Like they
maybe started writing Antifa.
Right. And it would be, if it was
somebody on like the left, I would
guess it would be saying F ice, you know,
like like screw ice or whatever.
Anti-ice sounds like you're trying to connect
it to Antifa. I mean, just
put an anti-Ace message on there.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but I'm just saying it looks ridiculous.
It would be insane not to be conspiratorial about Cash Patel at the FBI.
The cover-up FBI, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's a little like that boomer that spray-painted Black's rule on his garage store.
I don't think that's how people talk to you.
When I said put an anti-ice message, I didn't mean literally write anti-I ice.
It's like when the Russians, they did some obvious propaganda thing where they were trying to frame up the,
the Ukrainians, and so they laid out like a Nazi flag and like, oh, this is like really
over the top stuff.
And then they put a box of video games for like the Sims, like the game.
And clearly some guy told them to put in SIM cards to look like they had stolen SIM cards,
but they put the Sims the game.
So this is the level that leaders all over the world operated on.
That's what I would stress is the amount of incompetence.
But I think the skepticism was well taken, certainly around, uh, uh,
Cash Patel, I absolutely think that the photo and the bullets are real, and so did all of his friends.
I asked them about this specifically, but they had an interesting take on it.
They said, it actually seems like something he would do, not in terms of him being anti-ice,
but as a joke that would precipitate exactly the response we're seeing now,
where everybody's like, what the hell, that can't be real?
Because what every friend told me, they disagreed on some things, but the thing they all agreed on
was that this guy was a troll, this guy was an ironist, this guy was a huge 4chan guy who was into just
like edgy jokes, triggering people, just causing mayhem. And they were like, that is exactly the
kind of thing that he would do. They don't have any inside knowledge about the plot or anything
like that, but it was the same response from all three of them that I talked to. And I asked for
evidence of that because I just thought, you know, if you're going to make a claim like that,
what so they sent me post that he had done making rape jokes and just the stuff that you would
expect just like edge lord humor and they were like that's what this is he's trying to get a rise
out of people and knows that there's all this political tension in the wake of charlie kirk and it was
reported this morning that they pulled from forensics in his phone that he was looking at charlie kirk
that doesn't mean he was inspired by whatever politics that's his friends would say that that's him
looking for what is the most sensitive issue that i can get the biggest response out of people from
But when I hear Edge Lord and 4chan and stuff like that, like, I mean, I understand that there's a level of nihilism that can be somewhat apolitical, but it's quite concentrated in young right-wing circles, like some of this.
I'm not trying to ascribe, say he was right-wing explicitly, but, I mean, I'm just wondering about your take on some of the incoherent ideology of some of these people.
how they're getting radicalized is
pretty scary
and
it seems like a new crop
or a new chapter
in this never-ending saga
of our country having way too many weapons
and you know
us being in a very desperate time
and that increases the likelihood
of these kinds of events
because our economy's falling apart
for example and people
it leads to this level of isolation
and mental illness and things.
But how would you describe this ideology,
the people that are just like maybe viewing this
through a traditional right-left spectrum?
It's tough because there's definitely like right-wing strains in it,
no question.
But that almost gives it too much credit to call it right-wing
because it's just not internally consistent.
So much of it is driven by, I get the impression,
that he wanted to feel something
and the only way he could feel anything
is by making people angry,
or making people shocked or making people upset.
And, you know, are, you know, aspects of right-wing politics a vehicle for that?
Absolutely.
But it's almost giving him too much credit because I don't think he cared.
That was almost the most chilling thing about all this is the extent to which he didn't
seem to care about anything.
But then how does that get you to the point where you do something like that, I guess?
If nothing matters, then you're at then you might as well do the ultimate provocation.
But I'm not trying to shy away from like moral panics.
I'm not trying to do the video games, make people violent argument 20 years later about the internet.
But there is something about these communities that is creating some sort of like, I don't know, disassociation or psychosis that, I don't know, makes these kinds of events easier for people to commit.
Yeah, there's no question that isolation was a huge driving factor in this.
Because the story I heard from all three people that was the same was, you know, we all used to talk to them.
And then four or five years ago, he starts pulling back, withdrawing, spending lots of time on the computer.
And then we start hearing him talk about this 4chan stuff.
And he sort of became difficult to tolerate.
And it was kind of interesting because it was a range of opinions.
Like some of his friends were like, oh, I couldn't stand how he was becoming.
Another friend was more sympathetic.
It was kind of like, yeah, you know, he's like a little eccentric, but I didn't think too much of it.
And then he just, the same story I heard from everybody was, you're not going to find anyone who knew him in the last few years because he was completely withdrawn from all.
society. He was just completely locked away playing games. And again, I asked for evidence of
this. And I was sent pictures of his Discord, which I was able to confirm, showing individual
games, like 6,000 hours that he was playing things. And I want to be nuanced about this because
I don't want people to, I think one of the dumbest responses we could have to this is just have
another video game moral panic. But the question is, what is compelling somebody? That's a lot of time
to spend alone on anything, not just games. Like if you're spending that much time reading or
anything. That's a little bit weird, you know. So I look at the numbers and I was just shocked
and it mapped with his friend saying that he lost all social contact with basically everybody.
And at that point, you have no ties to anyone. You have no skin in the game in terms of society.
And so sadly, when I talked to his friends, they didn't seem that surprised that something like
this happened, like maybe surprised by like the political environment which took place and the reaction
and everything, but they didn't seem shocked that some kind of denouement to all of this
ended up happening.
Because I guess as was described to me, he enrolled in college and thinks to be okay.
You know, he's always sort of polarizing figure in high school, they said.
But then once he dropped out of college, then that was when he sort of spiraled and
he started spending more time online.
And it sounds to me like he lost his community by no longer, because you know in college
you have your roommates and your friends and everything.
I mean, it's impossible.
It's really hard to be socially isolating college.
And so I guess he didn't really know what to do after that.
And then he just fell out of touch with everyone.
Well, it just, you know, it speaks.
We've been talking a little bit about community on this show
or why, like, cities are such a threat to Republicans.
And it's because you have a lot of opportunities to be involved in your community
or to be in close proximity to other people who may be of different background
and those kinds of things.
And, like, not to be corny, but connection is, like, the best.
antidote to this stuff. And our society and capitalism makes it really, really difficult,
really difficult to connect. And I think COVID kind of supercharged some of those methods of
isolation. And maybe that's part of what we're seeing. But of course, it's the guns. It's the guns
too. Yeah, I tend to see gaming is like not, if he didn't have that, the strong impression I get
is not that he would find something better. The impression I get is he'd find something worse.
it's not like that's the only way that you can you know remove yourself from society and
become a shut-in exactly well um i wanted to read you this i am before we let you go from
molotov burrito saying hard to put the importance of ken's work into words thank you so much for
all you do have to echo that uh you're you know a muckraker in the traditional sense can keep
up keep up the great work uh and you know speaking truth to power thanks so much for coming on the
Thank you for having me again, Emma. Nice seeing you again.
Great to see you.
All right, quick break, folks.
And when we come back, we'll be joined by Connor Eccles to talk about his piece and responsible statecraft on this little known State Department aide who is hijacking, according to the reporting, or at the very least, putting his finger on the scales of Trump's Israel policy.
Be right back.
We are back, and we are joined now by Connor Eccles, reporter at Responsible State Craft, the Quincy Institute,
whose piece is entitled How a Little Known Embassy Aid Hijacked U.S. Israel Policy.
Connor, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for coming on.
Thank you for having me on, Emma.
Absolutely. So you spoke to some State Department staffers who told you a bit about this man named David Milstein, who you describe in your piece as something of a pro-Israel enforcer in the State Department.
Tell us a little bit about who David Milstein is and what his role is in the State Department.
Right. So David Milstein is a very interesting figure. His official title is a senior advice.
to the U.S. ambassador to Israel, which is, of course, Mike Huckabee, who is a former governor
and a prominent sort of pro-Israel member of the Republican Party.
And Milstein's influence is interesting.
He's also the stepson of conservative commentator Mark Levin.
He used to work for Ted Cruz.
He used to work with Ron DeSantis on a campaign.
So he's very well plugged in to the world of pro-Israel politics.
And he's taken on this really interesting sort of position as.
an advisor to an ambassador, but who's constantly sort of reaching back, trying to influence the
types of press statements that are being put out by the State Department, trying to insert
controversial terms, trying to remove criticism of Israel, and on one occasion even appears to have
gotten someone fired. The thing that I lead the piece with, and that I think is one of the most
striking things that he has done sort of in his time in the State Department is that since
there's no separate embassy to the Palestinians, all of the cables that come from diplomats over there
have to go through the U.S. Embassy to Israel, and so there's often some political sensitivities.
Some of the people that work on Palestinian issues were trying a couple months ago to send back
cables about, you know, the growing famine in Gaza, and Milstein stopped those.
And in its place, he sent one that one official told me sounded like an advertisement for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
and I'm sure your listeners don't need too much of an explanation of why that's not ideal.
Right.
I mean, we're seeing reports of really, I mean, explicitly like Islamophobic kind of far-right
volunteers almost heading over in the Ghazi Humanitarian Foundation, enjoying the very fact
that they can shoot at Palestinians who are hungry for aid.
I mean, that's direct U.S. complicity in this genocide in addition to, of course, our support
for Israel. So I mean, can you actually expand a little bit on the state of the Gaza
humanitarian foundation if you don't mind? Because people may need a refresher. This is the
BCG consultancy backed, like mercenary led, supposed aid distribution facility in Gaza,
but they've been responsible for killing all these Palestinians waiting for food. Right. So, yeah,
I mean, there's questions, you know,
from a legal point of view about who's actually pulling the trigger in terms of these things.
But the broad thing is that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is, of course, the organization
that's been set up with support from the United States and from Israel to provide aid
and theory to the Palestinians in Gaza.
They've been widely condemned by humanitarian aid groups for a few reasons.
One is that one of the core principles of humanitarianism is independence, independence from
either side of the fighting.
And that's not like a woo-woo thing.
It's not just because they care about this or that.
It's because it gets people killed, right?
When you are associated with one side or the other,
it just encourages fighting around aid distribution points.
And that's what we've seen, right?
We've seen a bunch of Palestinians being sort of shoves towards these aid distribution points,
given 15 minutes of actual aid distribution and getting hurt, getting shot at by the Israeli
military that's on standby nearby or even, you know, hit with tank shells, things like that.
It's continued to be just a series of, I think you can call the massacres around these sites.
And those continue to this day.
And that remains really the main group that Israel and the United States are allowing to distribute aid within Gaza.
So it sets up a very bleak situation.
But it's actually interesting, too.
So Milstein is the subject of this piece, and he's a very important figure.
People should know more about him.
But another person who's interesting that came up sort of in passing sort of played Milstein's role.
in the first Trump administration, a guy named Ariya, let me find his name, a guy named
Ariya Goldstone, I believe. And he in the first Trump. Lightstone, I have written down here.
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Arii Lightstone basically has in the second term administration been
working with, you know, the peace ambassador, whatever you want to call, Steve Whitcomb, and has been
sort of serving as a go between the GHF and trying to convince the UN that the GHF's
work is legitimate. It hasn't been very successful this time, but worth noting. Well, especially
because you have whistleblowers coming out and explicitly saying what the GHF is doing here.
How is Milstein kind of intercepting these cables and filtering them through a pro-Israel kind of
perspective? How is that unique when you compare it to the Biden administration? Because
I know that there was reporting about Jack Liu, who was recently interviewed by Isaac Chaudner of the New Yorker, revealing many things he probably didn't want out there like that.
It's okay to, you know, bomb Hamas members if their children are in there, he alluded to.
Also, he was saying things like accidentally admitting that they wanted the Netanyahu government to stay in power, which was very revealing.
but he also was, I believe, blocking some of his staff
from reporting things that are critical of Israel.
But according to you, reporting, this is a step further.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, God bless anyone with the confidence to talk to Isaac Schatner.
I do not have that confidence.
But a very good reporter, obviously.
But no, so the one thing that's interesting,
so I talked to Mike Casey, their quotes from him in the piece.
He worked in sort of the Palestinian Affairs section of the U.S.
embassy in Jerusalem from 2000 to 2024. So he saw, or 2020 to 2024, rather. So he saw a lot of
the ways in which this developed. What's interesting is that basically when Trump moved the
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, there used to be a separate consulate in Jerusalem that
sort of acted as the pseudo embassy to the Palestinians. They had their own ability to send
reports back to Washington. But then once that was combined and once it was made into one facility,
that group was no longer able to send its own cables without consulting with the U.S. ambassador
to Israel. Now, under Biden, they ended up actually giving some of that independence back,
and they renamed, I think it was the Palestinian Affairs Unit. They made it at the Palestinian Affairs
Office. Sounds boring, but these are the things that make a difference in a bureaucracy like
the State Department. And essentially, what changed there was that you have,
a group that could send cables specifically about the Palestinians, right, during that period.
But the trick there is that Jack Liu, in his role as the U.S. ambassador to Israel,
was still able to block reporting related to Israel, for example, reporting on potential war crimes
committed by Israeli forces, right?
So those types of things are not the remit of the Palestinian section.
They're only the remit of the Israeli section.
So he was still able to keep a pretty tight lid on information that could be explosive.
for you know potential arms deals um and so uh there's also this story you highlight in the piece
about um when when ireland uh was trying to uh take action against settlements in the west bank
um and it pissed off to people in europe talk a little bit about that incident yeah for sure
so this one's interesting this one uh i'm relying on reporting from the washington post so credit
to john hudson for this part
as well over there does very good reporting on these issues.
But so basically, Milstein wanted to draft a state or did draft a statement,
just condemning Ireland sort of flatly for even considering this type of move.
But then when, you know, got to some American officials in Europe and they were like,
hey, what the hell is this, right?
We don't usually just condemn our allies or condemn our partners for things that they
haven't even done.
this is the type of thing we usually talk about them behind closed doors with, right?
And in the end, they were actually able to stop him from releasing that statement.
So that's an interesting example of where something was sort of so outrageous that other
members of the administration were able to step in and say, like, hey, we really can't do this.
But there's a lot of other cases where it didn't go that way, right?
You've got the case of he sort of took the State Department Human Rights Report for Israel,
Palestine, and he cut all of the criticism that had already been approved by the Biden administration
that had already been filled out by career officials. And then, you know, Milstein sort of takes it,
takes a really long time to return it. And when it comes back, it went from 103 pages long,
full of all types of criticisms in the year before, down to nine pages long and basically
entirely emptied of criticism of Israel. So you can see those concrete effects.
Right. And I mean, even the other part, like, he wants to have the United States recognize the West Bank as Judea and Samaria. Now, it seems like he has that in common with Bill Clinton, who was sent by the Harris campaign to D.C. to echo the, I mean, to Michigan, sorry, to echo those comments. But we don't need to bring up the election just yet, because it just pisses me off still. But like, that's extreme. I mean, moving the embassy to Jerusalem is a huge.
huge reason that October
7th even happened because
Palestinians felt like
all diplomatic channels to their
kind of self-determination were being
cut off and Hamas committed
that, you know, killed
so many people in
part to kind of jolt
Israel
into engaging with them again and of course
we've seen the genocide since then but like
when you're talking about Judea and
Samaria and an official
context with the
context
the United States, you are admitting openly and foreclosing the possibility of the U.S. being
involved, really, in brokering peace talks. This is just, this is him endorsing a one Jewish state
from the river to the sea, essentially. For sure. For sure. And he, you know, he's just a big,
he likes to battle with the Palestinian Authority. I mean, I don't think anyone here is a huge fan
of the Palestinian Authority either, right? That's obviously a corrupt institution. But he sort of
sees it as a goal to sort of isolate them and not deal with them. He's not someone that's
interested in a two-state solution. I think that's totally clear. And even, yeah, like you said,
the term Judean and Samaria, especially when it's used in English, is used by people who want to
annex the West Bank for Israel. I don't think that there, I don't think that there's too much
question about that. So he's continuing to really exercise a pernicious influence. And you see,
I mean, it really, it's such an interesting example of what happened.
happens when an administration sort of waffles on policy issues, and it's often sort of unclear
in interesting ways, and it allows these factions to fight with each other. And, you know, he's kind
of won internally, because you've got these MAGA people that don't have particularly
strong, you know, sympathies for Israel, but they've sort of lost out. Trump doesn't seem
particularly interested in this. And, yeah, like one concrete example on that is that he,
milstein allegedly got one of his colleagues shahad geraci fired over disagreement over whether
the administration opposed the forced displacement of gossens trump and wickoff have not really said
that much concretely about that they've gestured in in directions but you know that was something
where there was clear possibility for debate within the administration but that was not enough
milstein you know according to shah had went ahead and called up marco rubio's office and got him
fired. Well, Trump is now apparently giving assurances to Arab leaders and to Macron that he's not
going to allow for West Bank annexation. So that, I mean, can't trust him at his word, but like,
that's a pretty direct contradiction also to the reporting we saw about Miriam Adelson's role
in Trump's reelection, the amount of money that she donated to actually achieve West Bank
annexation. You mentioned him being the stepson of Mark Levin. For many of our viewers are probably
familiar with Mark Levin, although I guess he would have to be a long-time viewer because he's
he's been around the block for a while. He's a Republican commentator in the vein of like,
you know, he's a Fox News old school pro-Israel guy. You know, he's not the Tucker Carlson,
Candace Owens, uh, isolationist version. Um, the fact that he's his
Seps on this crazy, but Levin might be the biggest Israel hawk on the right in media.
Yeah, I think that's basically true. I mean, the thing, if people want to go back and see
sort of the ways in which Levin tries to make his influence felt, a lot of it was over the debate
earlier this year over war with Iran. You really saw him coming out very strongly and saying,
you know, we need to bomb the hell out of Iran. We need to destroy these nuclear sites, really
throwing caution to the wind on potential escalation, on a new forever war for Americans in the Middle
East. He's really just a guy who, yeah, he's a really emphatic supporter of Israel. He wants the
U.S. to go along with not just like Israel in principle, but with specifically the policies
of sort of the further right governments in Israel with Netanyahu with some of his further
right ministers. So, you know, you're seeing just, again, the pernicious influence of some of these
different parts of the conservative movement. And it's interesting to see, you know, you've gotten
the response from the more MAGA types responding to my article online a little bit and talking
about, you know, well, this is the Levin influence. You see the fighting happening outside,
but this is happening inside the administration as well in interesting ways. It's just that,
you know, the pro-Israel side is pretty decisively winning. Right. And I guess lastly here,
what is your view on the State Department's role in the administration more broadly? There
was some reporting under Biden that especially towards the end, the State Department was largely
sidelined in favor of some of like the direct White House national security and foreign policy
consultants that, you know, that has grown as the D.C. blob has grown in terms of like the
importance of some of these people that are outside of traditional foreign policy and diplomatic
structures. Is that a consistency from the, from the Biden administration that perhaps the state
department is more sidelined or is it too soon to say? I mean, it's hard to say if the entire
department is, I mean, the career officials are sidelined. They're thoroughly sidelined, right?
That is the thing that you hear consistently, people who have been working for a long time.
I mean, it super depends on the issue, right? I know that they have brought in technical teams for
like some issues related to Russia, Ukraine, at times, things like that. So there are some people
with experience, but by and large, it's the political appointees at the highest levels that are
really making these decisions. And when it comes to Israel and when it comes to sort of these
issues that are particularly politically salient, that's where the political decision makers
are the ones are the ones that are actually in the room. And yeah, I mean, you know, when I was
talking to people for the story, they said, obviously, I mean, that's, when it comes to Israel,
that's not dissimilar from the Biden administration. Like you said, that was down to maybe a handful
of people by the end that were actually making all the decisions and that were sort of hanging
their hat on a lot of these controversial moves. But in the Trump administration, you're seeing
a repetition of that in many ways. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Connor Eccles,
reporter at Responsible Statecraft. You can read his latest piece on this very topic entitled
have a little known embassy aid hijacked U.S. Israel policy, and we will put a link to that down below
wherever people are listening to or watching this. Connor, thanks so much for your time today.
Thanks for having me, Emma.
Of course. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of this show and head into the
fun half, where we will read your IMs, we will take your calls. We will have some fun.
Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning?
Left Reckoning will have a Sunday show for you this Sunday.
Patreon.com slash left reckoning.
Also on Tuesday, we talked with Devin O'Shea about Vineland, which is the book that the, I think,
coming out tonight or tomorrow.
Tonight.
Tonight.
One battle after another, the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie is based on.
So we went for 45 minutes.
I was a little bit indulgent.
Made left reckoning into literary hangover for a week.
But yeah, go check that conversation out if you, or maybe after you watch the movie.
I'm going to do it after I watch the movie.
I'm going on Saturday.
I'm trying not to get spoiled,
but I did see some right wingers
are already freaking out about it.
Well,
I'll be doing stand-up in Nashville this weekend
at Zaney's five shows with Kyle Benning.
And if you guys,
I never plug anything.
Yes, yes.
I want to out,
I'm opening for my friend Kyle
and I want to outdraw him.
Everyone is so meaning
you want all the people listening
to leave when Kyle comes on stage?
Yes.
Stand-up and walk out like they did
when Trump was talking at the Charlie Kirk Memorial.
Yeah, yes.
You said Zanies in Nashville?
Yeah.
All right.
Tell me if you came from the majority part.
Tennessee gang show up.
You should have like a little special like signal that they can say it.
Like a little type of clap or something.
Yeah, I suck when I want to say.
Yeah.
All right.
Check Brian out in Nashville.
When is that this weekend?
Yeah, Friday, Saturday, two shows each night.
Amazing.
Awesome stuff.
Brian's funny.
Not sure if you guys have noticed that yet.
Hey.
Yeah, it might be hard to tell, but.
If you did it a little bit deep, Brian, you've got to listen really hard, but Brian's pretty funny.
It's rare.
Brandon, hello.
Hello, I'm not very funny.
I try not to be.
I think it's a sign of weakness, no offense.
To make other people laugh?
It's a sign of weakness to need to make other people laugh.
It's a sign of a spiritual dullness.
I agree 100%.
Brian's like, I'm dead.
dead inside. It's a pathetic
meaviness.
No, no, no, no.
I wish I was in Nashville,
that hot chicken, man.
Oh, what's hot chicken?
Nashville hot chicken. I don't know. I've never been there, but I've
heard of Nashville hot chicken. It's just spicy chicken sandwich.
It's really good. Oh, really good. I've been to Nashville, but I
have not indulge. So,
that sounds good to me. I love
anything, any spicy
chicken thing, I put a lot of hot sauce to
on my eggs, and I am
struggling these days because of my
acid reflux, but I love it
so goddamn much. I don't know what I'm going to do. If I have to really give up spicy things
and acidic things, like, do I have any reason to live? You're like 10 years younger than
how are you dealing with this? I don't know. It's concerning. Should I see a doctor? Maybe.
Brandon, what's happening, though, on the discourse? We've been digging into the right-wing's
Charlie Kirk assassination conspiracies for the past few days.
Candice has been on a tear, so it's been really fun watching her perform for her audience of, like, conspiracy addled right-wingers.
So we've been digging into that.
You know, we've been digging into like tunnel theory, thick-neck discourse.
It's a whole lot of stuff.
The neck thing is right.
So you check it out.
Oh, my God.
Right.
Thick-neck discourse is the name of my band.
Hey, Matt Binder.
happening on your end
sure hey how are you
tonight youtube.com
slash matt bender
leftist mafia
check us out and
subscribe to the channel
subscribe to the newsletter at
disruptionist.com
and yeah
looking forward to having a show with you guys
right now
all right
we will see you in the
fun half and we will open up the phone lines
on the other side
bye bye
okay Emma please
Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report.
Wait, look, 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.
I think you need to take over for Sam.
That's good.
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's offered a twerk, sushi, and poker with the boys.
Twerp, sushi and poker with the boys
Who was offered a tour
Yeah
Sushi and poker with the boys
What?
Twerp, sushi and poker
Tim's upset
Twerp
Sushi and poker with the boys
He was offered a tour
sushi and
That's what we call
Bids
Tward
Sushi and poker with the boys
Right
Twerp
We're gonna get demonetized
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.
Twir? Ugh. Sushi and poker
with the boys. Oh my God.
Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind.
So what's offered a twerk? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys.
Logic. Twerp. Sushi and poker with the boys.
Boy, boy, boy.
I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid.
Dwer? I think I'm like a little kid. Twer? I think I'm like a little kid.
Add this debate 7,000 times.
A little kid.
I think I'm like a little care.
I think I'm like a dude.
I'm losing my fucking liar.
Some people just don't understand.
So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S.
should be providing me with life and kids.
That's not what we're talking about here.
It's not a fun job.
That's a real thing.
That's a real thing.
Willie Walker.
That's a real thing.
That's a real thing.
That's a real thing.
Offered it.
That's a real thing.
That's a real thing.
That's a real thing
Real thing
Boy, that's
The twerbord
A real thing
That's a real thing
That's a real thing
Ladies and gentlemen
Joe Rogin has done it again
Offer to twer
That's a real thing
That's a poker with the boy
I think he might be
Bloken out proportion
Real thing
That's a poker with the boys
That offered it twerk
That's a real thing
That's got the poker
Let's go Joe
Turr
Shushi and poker
With the boy
Take it easy there
Touche and poker
Things have really gotten out of hands
Sushi and poker
with the boys
Illusional
You don't have a clue as to what's going on.
Live YouTube.
Sam has like the weight of the world on the shoulders.
Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore.
It was so much easier.
When the majority report was just you, you were happy.
Let's change the subject.
Rangers and Nick are going great.
Now, shut up.
Don't want people saying reckless things on your program.
That'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 fucking tweet at me, and don't get changed.
The way that I just cucked, all of these people, love it.
That's where my heart is, so I wrote my honor's thesis about it.
Oh, she wrote an honest thesis.
I guess I should hand the main mic to you now.
You are to the right of the non-form policy.
We already found this real, dude.
Are you against us?
That's a tougher question.
I don't have an answer to you.
theme song i bumbler emma viglin absolutely one of my favorite people actually not just in the game like period