The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3609 - Netanyahu's War to Remake the Middle East; AI's Data Center Lies w/ Andrew Arsan, Ed Zitron

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

It's an Emmajority Report Thursday on The Majority Report On today's program: Donald Trump admits that his war in Iran is violating the constitution at a fund-raising dinner where he said, "they don't... like the word war because you have to get approval, so I'll just say military operation". Trump lashes out at reporting that he is desperate to find a way out of Iran and claims that Iran is begging him for a deal. Andrew Arsan, Professor of Arab and Global History at the University of Cambridge joins Emma for a conversation about his piece in Equator entitled, "Tearing up the Map - Netanyahu's War to Remake the Middle East". Ed Zitron, publisher of the Where's Your Ed At? newsletter and host of the Better Offline podcast join the program to discuss his piece "The AI Industry is Lying to You". In the Fun Half Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder join. Emerson Polling shows Graham Platner with a massive on Janet Mills as well as a solid lead over Susan Collins. Melania Trump introduces a robot meant to replace teachers and childcare providers. Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security dodges questions from Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) on whether or not Israel has nuclear capabilities. Former Secretary of State under Biden, Antony Blinken is confronted by a student at an event at Harvard Law School over his role in the genocide in Palestine. Blinken responds with his usual smarmy condescension. Adam Schiff has a hilarious exchange with the child lawyer that Donald Trump nominated for the U.S. District Court in Montana. all that and more   No Kings Protests across the country this Saturday, March 28. Check out NoKings.Org to find the protest closest to you.   Check out longtime MR listener Jim Di Bartolo's new graphic novel F*ck Billionaires   To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. 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 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: LIQUID IV: Go to LIQUIDIV.com and use code MAJORITYREP at checkout for 20% off your first order. SUNSET LAKE: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @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 show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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, March 26th, 2020. 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, Andrew Arson of the University of Cambridge, joins us to talk about his piece in Equator, tearing up the map Netanyahu's War to remake the Middle East. And later in the show, Ed Zittran, back with us to talk about AI data centers.
Starting point is 00:00:58 and how the industry is overstating how far along they are. Tech would never do that. Also on the program, Trump's military briefings on the Iran War apparently begin with two-minute montages with big explosions for boss baby. Meanwhile, Iran has hardened their demands, and a thousand U.S. soldiers with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division are prepared to deploy. to the Middle East.
Starting point is 00:01:31 In a few days, Iran is worried that renewed peace talks are another ruse to lull them into a false sense of security. Because, of course, why would they not be worried about that? That's been what's happened the last dozen times. Nancy Mace publicly breaks from her party
Starting point is 00:01:54 and says she'll likely vote for the Democrats' war powers resolution. but many believe that Democratic leadership is dragging their feet on this. We'll talk about that in just a second. The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee apparently is getting a little queasy about troop movements. The DHS funding lapse is severely hitting airports leading to the highest wait times in the history of TSA, as unpaid officers cause a staffing crime. The UN votes 123 to 3 to condemn the transatlantic slave trade.
Starting point is 00:02:39 The three no votes are the U.S., Israel, and Argentina. So I like to call that the Axis of Epstein and the Nazi Haven. If you want to see these jokes before I make them on the show, follow me on social media. A new Emerson poll shows Graham Platner leading Janet Mills by over 20 points, and Susan Collins by seven. Trump's DOJ to settle with Michael Flynn, another taxpayer-funded payout to a MAGA lunatic. Mikey Sherrill signed a trio of pro-immigrant bills in New Jersey, including one barring local police cooperation with ICE, which I'm very happy to hear about.
Starting point is 00:03:23 They were on Phil Murphy's desk, and he did not do so. The White House is delaying its nomination for a permanent CDC director, keeping that anti-vaxer anti-masker baticharya as its acting one, And lastly, Florida's Attorney General warns that the NFL's coaching diversity rule, the Rooney rule, violates civil rights laws to say you have to interview one black person. Yeah, it's racist against white coaches. Duh. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Hello, everybody. It isn't a majority report Thursday. I am back and once again, the camera is just doing amazing stuff this. morning here on the show. Does it look as bad as it looks on my monitor? Not as bad, no.
Starting point is 00:04:13 Okay, good, good. But either way, I am back. Had a nice little jaunt out to California. If people want to check out the recorded live show of the Bituation Room with myself and Francesca Furentina, you can become a patron. It was really fun. We had Van Lathen, Ida Rodriguez, as the other guests. And, you know, Van kind of stole the show and was making making, making the people laugh in the crowd. Everyone had a really good time. We did this little pageant segment with some of the local DSA candidates in L.A. That was pretty great. Camera's still acting up. All right.
Starting point is 00:04:54 All right. Do we need to... No, it'll sort itself. Okay. All right. It's just lovely the return right back to my favorite, my favorite parts of the show, the tech issues. What's the definition of sanity? And the visuals. So NBC News is reporting that at the beginning of the briefings on the Iran war, the U.S. military officials that are responsible for briefing Trump show him a two-minute video montage
Starting point is 00:05:26 of the biggest big booms and explosions in Iran. Any word if that's a vertical orientation or if that's a standard 1080P format? They've got to, they do. One for the toilet, one for the situation room. It's on TikTok. I'm scrolling. Meanwhile, a thousand soldiers with the Army's 82nd Airborne are heading to the Middle East in coming days. Now, this unit was also sent after Trump assassinated Soleimani. They're a rapid response unit.
Starting point is 00:05:54 So this in and of itself doesn't mean that the ground invasion is inevitable, but you're also seeing signs from the Republicans in the House that they're getting a little bit freaked out about troop movements, which is. is more of an indication to me than the public deployments. Iran is also now admitting, yes, okay, we're finally, we're talking to the U.S., peace talks are ongoing, but they also are warning mediators that peace talks might be another ruse for the negotiators to be assassinated. It's been a longstanding practice by the Israelis that they will target the more reasonable mediators in these instances. Trump alluded to like not wanting to say who they're talking to because they, I mean,
Starting point is 00:06:42 we've killed a bunch of their top people. Yeah. Yeah. Like it basically admitting that if we admit who's who's reasonable here, Israel might kill them. Like they've done in the throughout the like this Middle East conflict in the past couple of years. Right. Um, so, uh, you also in the house have, uh, Axios is reporting that Democrats,
Starting point is 00:07:04 think that they have the votes on the war powers resolution, which could finally restrict Trump, the Mad King waging this criminal war of choice. Mike Johnson can only afford one Republican defection. And Nancy Mace is already saying that she's going to support this. Plus, you have some kind of similar, I guess, freakouts by some Republicans or they're getting queasy about this. because, I mean, this is absolute insanity. You have the New York Times reporting that Iran's attacks on the U.S. bases have been so successful that the 13 bases in the region are largely uninhabitable at this point because, and so U.S. personnel has had to move to hotels and other civilian areas to do their work.
Starting point is 00:07:55 So that's also probably how they're selling this ground invasion to members of Congress, although, We'll play this clip of Trump in the second. He doesn't really feel he needs to use Congress here. Because we can't even really station our troops in the traditional way that we would because they've been rendered uninhabitable. So how do we get a troop presence around Iran if we can't be around there? Might as well be in Iran. So here is Trump yesterday, I believe, talking about how he's going to break the law. But they're doing it for two reasons.
Starting point is 00:08:35 Number one is they want to deflect from all of the tremendous success that we're having in this military operation. I won't use the word war because they say, if you use the word war, that's maybe not a good thing to do. They don't like the word war because you're supposed to get approval. So I'll use the word military operation, which is really what it is. It's called a military decimation. But they don't like the good publicity. They don't like to see us succeed. They want to see our country fail.
Starting point is 00:09:06 So just basically admitting, hey, I'm violating the Constitution. I can't call it a war because that would be illegal. So it's not a war. Trust me on this. How does his staff not figured out that he's going to say everything they say to him? Well, there's no... There's going to be a better way to deliver that news there. I mean, we're at like base level here.
Starting point is 00:09:28 We're at base level. It's just like, don't. incriminate yourself publicly, but we have to give you the broad contours of how we're trying to avoid the fact that Congress is supposed to be the body that declares war. And like this war powers fight, Ryan Grimm's been on top of this. I've been seeing some other reporters. I think it was like Ida Chavez, I believe, covering this on Twitter. But these Democrats are potentially dragging out this vote on the war powers resolution. They have the votes, apparently.
Starting point is 00:10:04 The last four defectors are going to vote with the rest of the caucus. So they're whipping votes to a degree because they know how unpopular this is. That's Henry Quayar, that's Jared Golden, Greg Lansman, and Juan Vargas. And it seems like they're going to be whipped into shape. But there are Democrats who feel,
Starting point is 00:10:25 and this is incredibly cynical, that this could be a win for them. that they can oppose this war with a vote at this point and keep the caucus together potentially, but they can drag it on a little bit because, one, it hurts Trump, which they do care about. But perhaps more importantly, they can have it both ways with the Israel lobby, that across the APAC and the more liberal Zionist factions, they've been wanting war with Iran this entire time. You have the liberal centrist opposition leader in Israel endorsing the greater. Israel idea. So this is like a genuinely
Starting point is 00:11:02 it's a project that that Israel Hawks have wanted for quite a while. So if you can delay this war powers vote, which they have until Friday, and then there's a multi-week recess, and then the earliest that they can vote on this war powers resolution to stop this criminal war of choice in Iran would be April 13th or something like that, April 11th, April 13th, around there. It seems like Hakeem Jeffries and Gregory Meeks, might be trying to do that kind of two-step there, which is unconscionable.
Starting point is 00:11:35 I mean, it makes you wonder how upset they really were that Kamala Harris lost the election last time. If they're willing to play this kind of game to say, okay, we can we can kind of slow walk our resistance to this war, make it on procedural grounds, and let Trump be responsible for it. And we can posture, I mean, similar to kind of the Iraq war, where, you know, of course, a lot of Democrats were against it, but belatedly. And a lot of them at the top were for it. Here's Trump's this morning, basically saying that Iran is begging him to make a deal. That is not the case. But he's trying to look tough, even as gas prices explode. like there was another story. I didn't even get to headline this morning. The USPS is going to
Starting point is 00:12:27 start charging surcharges for the first time ever on some of these packages because the fuel prices are so insane. Just talk to any, I was talking to my lift driver in L.A. Like you see $6 a gallon. This is going to really impact everyone across the economy right now. $4 is the national average at this point. Here is Trump talking about how we're actually winning this thing. I set the record straight because I've been watching the Wall Street Journal's fake news and all these stories that get printed like, oh, I want to make a deal. They are begging to make a deal, not me. They're begging to make a deal. And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal.
Starting point is 00:13:11 But they say, oh, we're not talking to them. Anybody would know that. And only a total. And they're not fools. They're very smart, actually, in a certain way. I like how he surprised. I say they're lousy fighters, but they're great negotiators. And they are begging to work out a deal.
Starting point is 00:13:30 I don't know if we'll be able to do that. I don't know if we're willing to do that. They should have done that four weeks ago. They should have done it two years ago. Or they should have done it when we first came into office because two years ago, they had free reign under Biden, Sleepy Joe, worst president than the history of our country. Oh, gosh.
Starting point is 00:13:52 Um, so as I just mentioned, Iran, which is not the global superpower that the United States, uh, is specifically militarily, um, has essentially decimated every U.S. military base, save for a handful in and around the GCC states. And U.S. forces are being forced to, uh, work out of hotels. Hmm. But apparently... Save for the other people in those hotels. else? Human shields. Yeah. The Israelification of everything. I mean, let's just be real.
Starting point is 00:14:30 Like, we're bombing schools like our colony in the Middle East does. These are just kind of the normalization of the tactics that we normally outsourced to our subcontractor in the Middle East. The largest aircraft carrier in the Middle East, as I believe Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State fondly referred to Israel. Iran is able to win this war of attrition. It's just going to be a question of what head on the spike Trump can get so he can claim this is some sort of rhetorical victory. You keep seeing that the timeline for this war keeps getting pushed back. Dave Rubin said about two more weeks.
Starting point is 00:15:10 Oh, cool. Well, the Wall Street Journal says now mid-May is the new deadline because Trump wants this over before his meeting was Dijan Ping. Okay, so that's about six weeks. Okay, I guess Dave Rubin might be a little bit off. I'll just want to make one comment on, you know, 3,000 or so troops being sailed over there at a great expense to the American taxpayer. And Representative Ryan McKenzie, a Republican out of Pennsylvania, a vulnerable incumbent is from Politico. Republican up for reelection said he's wary of ground troops, but he expressed hope that the latest Middle East deployment is a tactic by Trump meant to foresee Iranian regime to the bargaining table.
Starting point is 00:15:49 Is it good when you're in the middle of a war? And members of your own party say, yeah, I hope he's just bluffing. I hope this is just a bluff that's happening right now. Does that undermine maybe like even the strategy you're taking? Like, this is a complete cluster fuck. Yeah, exactly right. In a moment, we'll be talking a bit more about what the implications are for the map of the Middle East with our guest Alex Arson.
Starting point is 00:16:20 But first, a word from one of our sponsors. This episode is sponsored by Liquid Ivy. It's really important to stay hydrated, especially as we're getting into springtime. You don't know how the seasons are going to affect your hydration, but I also like to use Liquid IV when I'm traveling. You got the science-backed live formula that helps you trust that you are staying hydrated, and it's very tasty as well. This spring, we're looking forward to longer sun-drenched days, and that means we need better hydration to keep us hydrated with liquid IV's mix of electrolytes, essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients.
Starting point is 00:17:05 And right now you get 20% off your first order with code majority rep at checkout. I love liquid IV. Sam is a daily drinker of it. I'm basically a daily drinker of it. I love the assailles. I love the strawberry. I love the frutier flavors. But you can also, there's like lemon lime.
Starting point is 00:17:26 There's a bunch of different flavors. And you don't have to worry about some of those other drinks that promote hydration, but have all of those chemicals and stuff in it. Just one stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates, faster than water alone. Powered by Live Hydroscience and optimized ratio of electrolytes, essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients that turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration. Liquid IV is a science-backed hydration you can trust.
Starting point is 00:17:57 Pour, tear, sorry, tear, poor, live more. Go to Liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first purchase with code Majority Rep at checkout. That's 20% off your first purchase with code Majority Rep at Liquid Ivy. link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority.fm, go to liquid iv.com and use code majority rep at checkout for 20% off your first order. Quick break. And when we come back, we'll be talking to Andrew Arson. We are back and we are joined now by Andrew Arson, a professor of Arab and global history at the University of Cambridge, whose latest piece in equator is entitled, Tearing Up the Map Netanyahu's War to Remake the Middle East. Andrew, thanks so much
Starting point is 00:19:32 for coming on the show today. Thanks for having me, Emma. Of course. Yeah, it's great to be here. Of course. So Equator is a new magazine. People should really check it out, doing some great work over there. You write that the Middle East is never going to look the same after this. Let's just start from a broad strokes perspective, if you could expand on that. Yeah. I mean, first things, first, just a little shout out to the good folks at Equator. As you said, it's a new publication, online publication. Some wonderful editors, Jonathan Shainan, who used to work at The Guardian, a bunch of other great people like Rattuck, Asokan, who worked on this piece. And they're trying to give a kind of decolonial
Starting point is 00:20:11 alternative to, you know, publications like the New York Review, the London Reviewer books, you know, really spotlight voices from the Global South and experiences from the Global South from places like the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa. So you're asking about the Middle East and how it will change. Broadstrokes, I mean, not to sound like a policy, This is an incredibly fluid situation that's changing day by day. But I think if you look at the public statements that are coming out of, you know, Israeli officials in particular, there is a very clear ambition to redraw the map of the region and to try to assert Israel's regional hegemony, not just vis-a-vis Iran, but also when it comes
Starting point is 00:20:52 to relations with the Gulf states, the GCC states, and also Israel's immediate neighborhood, immediate vicinity, states like Lebanon and like Syria that border Israel. Let's talk about Lebanon. There's been just absolute carnage there. Israel appears to be setting up some sort of prolonged occupation, specifically in the areas south of the Latani River. Your piece goes into the history of, you know, U.S. policy of dividing the region. Perhaps you can talk about that present situation and put it in the context of your peace as well. Yeah. I mean, that certainly is the fear that Israel is returning. to the occupation of South Lebanon. Of course, it occupied much of that region between the 70s, 80s and 2000. And Israeli officials have been very explicit
Starting point is 00:21:43 and their desire to push far into Lebanese territory, 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, from the SESFAR line, all the way up to the Littani River. And ground operations were ongoing at the moment. They're trying to push closer into areas, very close to the Littani River. So there's a very long history of this of trying to create a kind of buffer zone in South Lebanon,
Starting point is 00:22:02 trying to empty the region of its population and of what Israel sees as threats to its security. First, the PLO and other Palestinian organizations in the 70s and 80s, then from the 80s onwards, Hezbollah and other kind of elements of the Islamic resistance. And, yeah, to put it in a regional context, I think there has been, I mean, I think this war very much shows the kind of attempt to frame this in a regional context and to try to break the power of the so-called axis of resistance that emerged from the 2000s onwards, centered on Tehran, but with obviously with branches in Gaza, in Lebanon, and also up till 2024 in Syria in the Assad regime. Let's go back to the 1970s and the 1973 oil shock, which is where your piece kind of really begins. It all comes back to Kissinger, does it not?
Starting point is 00:22:59 But let's speak a bit about the history and how kind of this modern attempt to divide the region in came to be during that period after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Right. So, yeah, that's one of the things that my piece was trying to do was to think historically about this, not just in terms of Lebanon or Syria I've written elsewhere about kind of. about Lebanon and about Israel's wars in Lebanon. But to think about U.S. policy in the region and the way that from the 1970s onwards, and especially after the 73 Arab-Israeli war, the Yom Kippur War, the Ramadan War, and the old shock, the old crisis of 2003, the way that successive U.S. administrations tried to devise a new kind of regional policy that was very much about splitting the region
Starting point is 00:23:52 into, I call it in the piece, kind of thinking about the region like a diptic, of two distinct parts. On the one hand, trying to secure Israeli security through normalization, what Kissinger called step-by-step diplomacy, working with governments in Cairo and Damascus, in Beirut and Haman, to try to secure normalization with Israel, and to try to sidestep the Palestinian question and the Palestinian and Palestinian political actors, and to try to kind of really suspend the question of Palestinian statehood, and very much linked to that, trying to neutralize the potential threat of another oil shot coming from the Gulf states. So effectively, not to put too fine a point on it, kind of buying off the Gulf states,
Starting point is 00:24:35 buying off Gulf capitals, Riyadh, but also other states like Qatar, like Kuwait, like Bahrain, by providing military assistance, by selling weaponry, by training their security forces and their armies, and by trying to provide a kind of security blanket. And in that way, to guarantee that they wouldn't ever again use the oil weapon, as it was called in the 70s, to try to put pressure on Israel and on the U.S. to find some kind of just and comprehensive regional peace. And would you say that that strategy was successful? Because we're seeing Iran throttle the straight, obviously, and use the oil weapon, as the United States would put it, to their advantage. the Gulf states largely have been brought under the United States' umbrella via security guarantees, but we are seeing the limits of that. And perhaps we can talk more about how the Gulf states are
Starting point is 00:25:31 going to be responding to this chaotic and destructive war that's already costing them billions and billions of dollars. Right. I mean, it's, in some ways, it has been successful by Washington's terms in terms of kind of, at the very least, kind of, you know, for, several decades neutralizing the potential of an oil threat. You know, it's secured some measure of normalization over the course of the 70s and 80s and 2000s, you know, the Camp David Accords with Egypt. More latterly, of course, the Abraham Accords, you know, in 2020, the Trump administration. But it was always a very fragile, you know, one of the things I try to say is it was always a very fragile, very precarious kind of balance, this attempt to kind of split the region, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:19 always an artificial separation. And there was always, of course, under running it the threat that the Gulf states or that Iran, the other states in the Gulf could use oil as a weapon. You know, that happened in the 80s to an extent. I mean, you know, in some ways, the current, you know, Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz was foreshadowed in the Iran-Iraq conflict. You know, Washington from the mid-80s onwards was backing Saddam Hussein. Let us not forget. that until he invaded Kuwait. But Iran kind of very effectively at that point used the so-called tanker wars to put pressure on Baghdad and to shut off Iraqi oil exports and put pressure on the Iraqi economy. So there are some kind of precedence here that suggests that this is always a kind of
Starting point is 00:27:06 fragile balance that the US was trying to broker. And we're now seeing the consequences play out, kind of the inherent kind of incoherence of that policy really being drawn out by the war at the moment in the ways that Iran is trying to use its leverage in this kind of very asymmetrical conflict with Israel and with the US. However, the consistency that is throughout all of this is even when you go to the Carter administration, Carter gets credit later in his life for speaking empathetically about the Palestinian cause. And he, but even his presidency was a continuation of a project of sidestepping Palestinian sovereignty. Right.
Starting point is 00:27:52 Yeah, he talks about, you know, his desire to see a Palestinian homeland. But, yeah, the Camp David Accords, you know, infamously don't talk about a Palestinian state. You know, it's just another instance of U.S. administration, kind of avoiding any kind of talk of Palestinian sovereignty in Palestinian statehood and Palestinian self-determination and using terms like self-governing authority to kind of talk about a kind of, you know, zombie sovereignty that we really see embodied in the Oslo Accords after 1993 and then in the kind of, you know, Trump and Kushner plans after 2020. It's kind of, I call it a mutilated kind of sovereignty, you know, no real control of your borders, no control of your airspace, over your security, no contiguous territory.
Starting point is 00:28:38 and this idea of kind of, you know, a governing authority, not a state. And then this war here, you know, the Abraham Accords, that effort was pursued across Trump 1.0, then Biden, and now today. you see how and bringing up Carter in your piece too how consistent these foreign policy objectives are across administrations and like how little divergence
Starting point is 00:29:12 there is except towards hawkishness at least in this instance I would love if we had consistency from Obama's second term to Trump's first term for example but Trump came in and ripped up the JCPOA but do you see this war as Trump's kind of impatience showing through in his ability or in his fixation on trying to
Starting point is 00:29:36 bring the Gulf states under the Israeli umbrella via the Abraham Accords. And I shouldn't just include Trump here, of course, because Netanyahu's prominently featured in your piece and we know what his objectives are. Right. I mean, I think one of the, weirdly, perhaps the one U.S. administration that moved away from this to an extent was the, you know, George Bush, the elder, you know, during the Madrid process, it sounds strange saying this on the majority report, but kind of you had a Republican president and a secretary of state who
Starting point is 00:30:07 were speaking to APAC and to other kind of, you know, and to Israeli policymakers in a way that seems unimaginable now, calling London to kind of come to the table, calling London to stop settlements, putting kind of financial pressures on them to stop settlements. But even there, the continuity, the thread was that, again, the Bush administration, really saw the Palestinians as having to take the first step towards peace. Rashid Khalidi talks, writes very eloquently about this, and again, being worried about talking about statehood or stopping short of speaking of Palestinian statehood.
Starting point is 00:30:44 Now, in terms of the Abraham Accords, I think there was, yeah, on the part, I think, both of the Trump administration in the White House and it seems Netanyahu as well, this sense that, in some ways this would be a way of unlocking reluctance on part of some of the Gulf states to come into the Abraham Accords. By breaking Iran's power, by breaking the access of resistance, they could bring the Gulf states on board.
Starting point is 00:31:12 So you have this kind of first part of the Abraham Accords coming on stream in 2020, Bahrain, the UAE. But Saudi Arabia in some ways is the jewel in the crown. and it was maybe coming close to a security arrangement with Israel and with the US and the lead up to 7th of October. Of course, that fell apart. And so Saudi Arabia especially remains outside the Haberuncords, but it's not the only one. Now, whether those hopes are kind of well-founded, I'm not sure. Clearly, you know, there's been talking the last couple of days of MBS, you know, the White House has been briefing the MBS, the Saudi Crown Prince, has been on the phone to Trump asking him to you know, send ground forces into Iran. Of course, MBS has got a track record himself of kind of, you know, interventionism and misadventures in Yemen. Whether that's true or not, I wouldn't be
Starting point is 00:32:05 able to say, but it's certainly the case that kind of the Gulf states are certainly angry with Washington and are worried about the lack of protection coming from Washington and the lack of security guarantees. You know, they're at the front line, they've been exposed to the drones and to the missiles coming from Iran. And they're feeling that quite acutely, I think, in the last few weeks. So we can't judge the sincerity of Muhammad bin Salman saying sending ground troops, right? Because he's trying to appeal to Trump in whatever ways that he can. But in terms of like overestimating the Gulf states desire for war here, you wouldn't know that if you listen to Rachel Maddo on MSNBC, who's doing monologues about how it's the Gulf State lobby that's dragging
Starting point is 00:32:50 the U.S. into this war. Conveniently, she also did the monologue about how it was Jeffrey Epstein's Russia ties that need to be focused on in its influence of Trump. It feels like we're leaving out this very significant country in the Middle East that is dragging us all to hell. So, I mean, if you could just speak a bit about that perception, because the damage that these Gulf states, we touched on it earlier, but that they're absorbing is significant. And I can't imagine that they want this conflict to continue. Yeah. I mean, I think on the one hand, clearly,
Starting point is 00:33:29 you know, they do perceive Iran and the Islamic Republic as an existential threat. There's been a diplomatic reprosh more in recent years between Riyadh, between Saudi Arabia and Tehran. But that, notwithstanding, I mean, there is a history of kind of animosity and antagonism of suspicion, going back to the 70s and 80s. But at the same time, I don't think they wanted to be dragged into this war. And I think there is a real kind of sense of anxiety about the war and about what this means for their future, not just in terms of energy, but also for a state of Dubai that tries to project this image as a haven of tranquility, as a kind of safe place for expats and for crime lords and for all kinds of kind of vagabonds.
Starting point is 00:34:11 there is a sense that, you know, the war has kind of really hit that image. You know, you see it in the kinds of social media output that's been there since the first days of the war, kind of really trying to reassure people that Dubai remains a safe place, a safe place for expats to go and to kind of make their living, you know, to. So there's a real sense of frustration. And I think to come back to your question, you know, Netanyahu, there's a quote in my piece, the Netanyahu kind of, I think, told Fox News that he foresaw many, many treaties to come. and I think maybe he was talking about the Gulf states, but also about the kind of pressure,
Starting point is 00:34:44 the kind of military pressure that he and Washington could bring to bear on Beirut and on Damascus. But I think, you know, here I'm going with reporting of, you know, people who know more about Israeli politics than I do somebody like with Marguer and the New Yorker, for example, who has kind of, you know, pointed out that, you know, the Gulf states are not necessarily quite so keen to kind of join the Abraham Accords precisely because of the ways in which Netanyahu and Trump have kind of unleashed this regional war and again has have exposed them to two attacks from Iran. Well, yeah. China's got to be pretty thrilled. Just sit back and watch your opponent punch themselves in the face.
Starting point is 00:35:25 Andrew Arson, professor of Arab and global history at the University of Cambridge. You can read his latest piece in Equator entitled, Tearing Up the Map Netanyahu's War to remake the Middle East. Andrew, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Of course. Quick break. And when we come back, we'll be joined by Ed Zitran to give us an update on the latest lies coming out of AI and how far along they are with things like database construction as they try to get investment. Be right back.
Starting point is 00:35:58 We are back and we are joined now by Ed Zitron, a friend of the show, publisher of the Where's Your Edat newsletter and host of the Better Offline podcast. Ed, thanks so much for coming on the show today. What's up? And not much. Yeah, drive time. So you on your newsletter that everyone should be checking out, the Where's Your Ed at newsletter, have a new piece about how the AI industry is lying to us, not nothing new. But what's interesting is how they are lying, and they appear to be lying about the capacity of these data centers, which is really important because right now across the U.S., there's like this grassroots outrage about construction of data centers in different areas of the country. So how is the
Starting point is 00:37:39 AI industry lying about this and why? So you've probably heard all sorts of announcements of like gigawatt data centers, 100 megawatt data cents, all this. So based on my analysis, it appears that only about three gigawatts of actual capacity got brought on online last year in America, which sounds like a lot. But there's over somewhere between 190 and 240 gigawatts of planned capacity worldwide. A great deal of that is in America. A lot of that's actually like Northern Virginia, Southern Virginia, Columbus, Ohio. The first new thing in Ohio in 100 years, a lot of people are going to love that.
Starting point is 00:38:14 Can I just say when you say Virginia, Mark Warner, Senator from Virginia, called AOC and Bernie AI data center moratorium bill like really stupid or idiotic or something like that very very harsh words from a democrat to other democrats might have something to do with it it's shocking to hear a democrat who's growth obsessed but anywho sightland climate also found that despite there being 16 gigawatts worth of data center capacity it's meant to come online this year worldwide only five gigawatts is in construction which is can mean everything from a single steel beam to a near complete data center. So to give some context, Nvidia sold about $62 billion in its data center segment last year,
Starting point is 00:38:57 which is GPUs in the associated gear with them. The current rate of installation, we are running about six months for a quarter worth of data center sales from Nvidia going online. Every six months takes a quarter to bring that online. This is a data center package that gets upgraded every year. So right now, it's taking so. long for these things to get built. And I went and looked into all of the major constructions, all of the big ones. Fermi America is a great one. 11 gigawatt thing out in Amarillo, Texas.
Starting point is 00:39:30 Turns out that it's just on pause. Turns out they didn't have the permitting or the funding. Just not happening. Stargate Abilene. Not going to get done this year. May not get next. Only two buildings out of eight. The story they want you to believe is that all of this is inevitable. when in reality of the 190 to 240 gigawatts of planned data centers, five gigawatts are actually being constructed. And I actually think it's way less based on everything I've seen. For the most part, I've struggled to find a data center above 10 megawatts that's actually completed.
Starting point is 00:40:03 Now, I think a lot of that capacity coming online was smaller data centers around the country. I mean, 310 megawatt data centers equals 3,000. There you go. Simple maths. I'm not that smart. But they're talking in terms of hundreds of gigawatts.
Starting point is 00:40:16 They're talking in terms of all of this stuff. At this point, I don't know if we're going to be able to install last year's GPUs before the year 2028. So the largest company on the stock market, Invidia, is selling gigawatts and gigawatts of chips that are going to take years to actually digest, which brings me to the question of why we're still selling them. Why people are still buying them? Why what's happening with these data centers? And I think it's going to turn out that most of these data centers are just vaporware. They're construction slush funds. They are tax abatements, three tax abatements in a trench coat.
Starting point is 00:40:55 And it's very strange because the story that local governors will tell you is data centers, they bring a bunch of jobs. What data centers actually do is they bring a lot of jobs into the state from outside the state. The economic boost is temporary, and it's brought by people that do not live there. For the most part, data centers have very small teams when they come online, whenever that will be. And on top of all of this, there is a real civic risk to these data centers above and beyond the environmental problems. Find the New Jersey data center has a vague humming sound coming from it that people have been playing about. And that's the fact that if these projects get mothballed, if they just run out of money, which is very likely, all that's going to be left is this construction field full of crap that probably never gets cleaned up. It's going to be a bunch of promises to local authorities that things are going to happen, things that never get built.
Starting point is 00:41:48 And a bunch of people, construction workers that were feeding money into the economy, who will leave? It's happened in Amarillo and it's going to happen elsewhere. Well, then it begs the question, what does that do to the economy that is completely right now over-saturated or over-leveraged when it comes to AI? and Trump's big bet on the economy is AI. If this is as overvalued as you say and that like the capacity just is not there but there needs that, but chips are continuing to be bought
Starting point is 00:42:24 is like when is the market going to figure that out? So the market right now feels a titch manipulated. I feel like just like 50 minutes before market, I was like, we've just Iran has given up. It's beautiful. with no more Iran. They've joined America. They're a new state.
Starting point is 00:42:41 And then the market goes up and then Iran comes out and says, no, that's not true at all. And the market goes down. But putting all that aside, the actual economic effects of AI are very small. Based on data from the Department of Commerce, I think it is like there was only about $28 billion worth of construction in data centers in 2025. It's very, very small compared to how many actual GPUs were sold. Outside of hardware manufacturers like Nvidia or Sandin, who does the hard drives and such and the solid state hard drives or, I mean, Micron as well, like the RAM manufacturers like SK Heinz and Samsung.
Starting point is 00:43:17 Outside of them, AI companies are not making much money. Anthropic, they had to reveal this in the Department of Defense lawsuit to try and get that supply chain risk designation removed. They had to admit they've only made $5 billion in their entire lifetime, and they spent $10 billion on compute. The biggest economic effect here is Invidia, and after that there's very little else. The data center projects, I think, are just slowing to accrual because construction is slow and expensive, and most of these things don't appear properly capitalized.
Starting point is 00:43:46 So what we are seeing is a mirage economy. We are seeing something that is a hypothetical built on another hypothetical, the ultimate speculative economy. And the problem with that is at some point, you run out of things to speculate on and also somebody's going to need a real dollar. The reason I pick on Fermi America and Amarillo is because when the money was, wasn't there, the construction workers just got dumped. When you start seeing that happen, that's how you know the party's over. AI, they want it to be a big thing because they run out of hypergrowth ideas. They don't have the next big thing. They haven't had one for a while. So they
Starting point is 00:44:21 need AI to be big. But the problem is, it's actually quite hard to make anything good happen from AI. The services all lose money. And even the money they make is quite small. I have suspicions over the revenue with open AI and Anthropic anyway. But everyone wants this to be a thing badly because once they accept isn't, they have to accept that the tech industry has hit a wall and hit one quite a few years ago. Yeah. And instead, they've decided to spin up these fucking data centers for no goddamn reason. But AI demand that does not exist.
Starting point is 00:44:50 The demand is not there. The biggest consumer of compute is OpenAI, followed by Anthropic, followed by hyperscalers that are just running their own services that people don't like. Can you explain what hypers mean? Because there's another section of, no, it's okay, of your piece where you're basically talking about how these hyperscalers are forcing their employees to integrate AI and the employees and the customers hate it. So a hyperscaler refers to a hyperscale company like Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, or Google. Oracle is kind of on the borderline there. We could talk about Oracle. They're one of my
Starting point is 00:45:26 favorite things to make fun of. But nevertheless, so the story there was companies like Meta and Microsoft are saying, like, you have to use generative AI. You have to use LLM code. And you need to also ship code faster than you've ever shipped it before. This is already creating situations where Amazon lost hundreds of thousands of orders, because the part of the website went down, Amazon Web Services went down as well as a result of someone using AI code. You have people in hyperscale companies, I can't say specifically which, where you have non-technical people, like designers, even writers in some cases, shipping code that eventually makes it into the product itself. This may seem magical. Doesn't mean the code's good. You've got some poor-assed.
Starting point is 00:46:07 asshole, some software engineer who has to look over this slop code and go, is this good? Is this okay? But I also have all my own work. So it looks fine. Things are already breaking. You had a massive incident at Meta recently because some Dick Ward used OpenClaw, which is a whole thing. If you hear someone say OpenClaw, just dial 911. They've probably committed some kind of crime. But OpenClau is just this insane thing where people buy Mac minis and spin up a bunch of users to sell them services and spend hundreds of dollars a day. Anyway, somebody did that at Meta and leaked a bunch of sensitive data that shouldn't have been out there.
Starting point is 00:46:41 That's good. We love that. So I think we're approaching a point where these services are going to start to degrade. And we're kind of already seeing the signs they are. And I think as more of this slop code gets pushed in by people that can write software, that people that can kind of write software and the people that can't write software, you're just going to have this situation where reams of code are being written and shipped without anyone reading them and things are going to start breaking. And when things start breaking at scale,
Starting point is 00:47:11 they're quite hard to fix, especially when you keep laying people off. So you have mountains of code that no one's reading. You're laying people off. So the people that might have actually prodded the LLM so you could see why they did it. Instead, you've got a bunch of code written by a machine with no intention. And that whole code is being shipped. And the people that ship that code have been fired. You've got smaller teams looking at more code. What do you think is going to happen? It's going to get built poorly. It's all going to fall apart. It's already falling apart. It's going to be very funny for those of us who critique it. But it's also going to be bad for the users of the service. I worry about how many of these companies are very sensitive data about people,
Starting point is 00:47:50 credit cards, social security numbers, private emails, that kind of thing. People were saying and being alarmist, but Amazon's losing orders because of AI coding tools. Well, why would you be, I mean, Ed, like, we are in the midst of seeing this lawsuit over Doge. I mean, they, they very likely stole Social Security numbers, sensitive bank information, credit card information, and threw it into Grok. I mean, like, this is, these are companies that are explicitly, well, they're trying to outrace China because American capitalists have intellectual property over AI, but they're stealing everybody else's intellectual property in the process. which I mean I'm not an IP. The Doge thing was they took the data and just fed it into Grochma. Like what are the most based social security numbers?
Starting point is 00:48:39 Yeah. Like bullshit like that. What I'm talking about is the major software companies are building or have to have many, many coding people who are just letting the code be written by the machines. Codes do not have, that code is written by LLMs that do not think, do not have intention. So you just have this unintentional code slop and they're like, yeah, it looks fine. Right. Nothing's broken yet.
Starting point is 00:48:59 It's fine. which means that when you're working with sensitive systems that may have social security numbers, well, things are just going to start breaking. And that stuff leaks. We already have data bridges before this. It's terrifying. Yes. I'm just trying to,
Starting point is 00:49:13 I get what you're saying. The fast and loose nature of the move fast and break things means breaking the open the safe and stealing all of your sensitive information if necessary, because they're all racing one another as well. Or just leaving the door open. That's it. The China thing is so funny as well because it's like the pants shitting competition. Like, wow, who could waste the most money? Who can make the machine that's the least popular?
Starting point is 00:49:40 Who can violate the most copyrights? Who can make a video that makes goofy say, gorse, or fuck anything moves? Like in blue velvet? Who is going to do? Like, what's the next big thing that we can do that nobody likes? Which company will be the next to lose billions of dollars? Like, what are we doing? why are we doing this? Oh, AI's replacing coders. No, it's not. It just factually isn't. You may have people
Starting point is 00:50:05 writing all their code with LEMs. That doesn't mean they're being replaced. People are being laid off. It's not because of AI. It's because these companies overhired and they are spending so much on AI that they need to save money by firing people. It just feels apocalyptic at times. And I think China is absolutely goading America with this. I think that they just go like, ooh, oh, we're going to, well, I mean, They've already got the latest generation GPUs. Ooh, what they're going to do with that? Ooh, oh, the big scary China's going to, China's going to do. Xi Jinping's going to come in the computer and he's going to steal your models.
Starting point is 00:50:40 Ooh, to what end? To what end? Minimax, big Chinese AI company. They made tens of millions of dollars of revenue last year and lost over 200 million. When you actually look at the economics and you actually look at the outputs, all of this is just kind of shit. Yeah, right. And I mean, the China piece, can you expand on that a bit more just because there is obviously more collaboration than is being advertised for nationalist ends here in the United States? Well, it's weird because, so to be clear, I cannot tell you for sure, but it's the latest generation GPUs keep making it to China.
Starting point is 00:51:23 The latest one was Super Micro, which is one of the major AI server builders, major Nvidia partner. There was a picture of Wallyao, who was one of the guys who was arrested, like two guys away for Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia. But of course, nobody's asked Nvidia about it. No one's got a comment. People have talked to Jensen Huang since and just nothing. Anyway, Super Micro shipped at least half a billion dollars worth of GPUs, the latest generation to China, like taking cereal numbers off with hair drives. It's kind of sick. kind of just like finally some real crime.
Starting point is 00:51:54 But before that, there was this Neo Clouds, just an AI compute company in Singapore, called Megaspete. And Bloomberg did this story last year about them. Now again, can't say anything for sure. But Megaspid had an investor presentation that was saying we're building data centers here and here, and we just have a secret one up here in a named, unnamed place.
Starting point is 00:52:13 Then there's a completely different company based in China with an identical investor deck saying, yeah, that was in Beijing. This company also mysteriously had missing GPUs. It was not clear where they were going, and they've definitely got, definitely seems like some of them have made it to China. And also there was a picture of the CEO with Jensen Huang of Vindia. So it's very obvious that something is happening that gets these GPUs to China.
Starting point is 00:52:38 Now, I truly don't know whether Jensen Huang knows. I would be a fool to make a statement that would say for sure. But it's a little bit suspicious, a little bit suspicious that this keeps happening. It's a little bit suspicious that Nvidia declaratively denies it every time and then hundreds of millions of dollars of these fucking things get over there. I think it's going to turn out that someone knew.
Starting point is 00:53:00 I don't know who knew. Who knows? Who could possibly be the person at Nvidia that would know these were getting there? I just also think it's very unlikely that no one had any idea they were in China. These things do phone home. Like it's very obvious that they do.
Starting point is 00:53:15 And I think, I don't know, I truly don't know how it ends, but it sure looks like somebody invidia must know. And if that's the case, that is criminal. But I also think that this whole thing with China is just an imaginary fight. Yes. Well, it's like a space race. Yeah, I mean, it's just an excuse for more kind of investment or giveaways to corporations
Starting point is 00:53:39 using the guys of national security to overinflate a sector as has been done. I mean, gosh, for weapons, for, uh, you know, different kind of industrial policy for quite a while for obviously the space race. This feels like an attempt to recreate that. But what's coming out of it is so impractical and actually detrimental to the American public via the labor market. Like, I mean, you've touched on it, but what are we looking at right now with the ramifications for all of these people that are going to be laid off? And of course, they're overselling the ability of AI to replace them, but it doesn't mean that the shock isn't going to be this intense. But the thing is, AI driven as in like AI replacing layoffs are not happening at scale.
Starting point is 00:54:31 You have contractors, you have art directors, translators, transcribers who are bright merchant of blood in the machine, pardon me, does a great job covering this. But at scale, like these massive companies like Block, they are not replacing people with AI. in every example of someone claiming they do like clana for example they fired a bunch of people saying they can replace customer service with AI and then had to rehire people it's just like every single one of these stories is just a falsehood just an utter lie so the ramifications will be layoffs that were going to happen are going to happen I've been saying for years that layoffs are going to happen in big tech because AI costs so much money that they have to lay people off whether or not I can replace them or not is irrelevant. So what's going to happen is the pressure on people at these
Starting point is 00:55:17 companies, the pressure internally is only ratcheting up. I've already heard this is happening in Microsoft. Microsoft, I actually heard, is doing token austerity. You're being encouraged to use different models and not burn as much money. Very nasty, very bad. It doesn't sound good to me. But nevertheless, workers are just going to get treated even more like shit as a result of these layoffs. But AI is not the reason. Business idiots are. They're assholes at the top. and I think by the end of this, one of these hyperscalers is going to lose their head. I think we seriously are looking at the end of Oracle. I think Larry Ellison could be reduced to rubble and I'm quite serious.
Starting point is 00:55:51 I think Satchina Della gets fired by the end of this. I think that Sam Altman tries to blame a woman called Fiji Simo, who became the CEO of Applications OpenAI. Of course, the woman takes the fall for a man's fuck-ups. Nice, very nice, Sammy. I think that we're going to all look back on this with an insufficient amount of shame. I think that there is so many people are going to need to feel ashamed here
Starting point is 00:56:14 because so much of this, so many of these actions have been taken based on mythology and ghost stories. The idea that we need to do this to stop China, to stop China from doing what? Generating sexier Garfields, generating more copyright violations. Like, what are we stopping China from doing? They've got the Blackwell GPUs now. Now what?
Starting point is 00:56:34 What has China done with them? What are we so scared of? What are we so scared of? What are we so scared of? Like, what is it that China's doing that's so scary? Oh, no, China's distilling models. Well, it's interesting, and we can wrap after this, because I'm seeing some frustration even.
Starting point is 00:56:50 We have it on our sound sheet. We may get to it later, but AOC and Bernie's bill to put a moratorium on the construction of these data centers, Bernie Sanders here in the United States seems to have kind of bought into the idea that AI is this existential threat to humanity. I've seen that that perhaps isn't the best, some people being critical, skeptical of that angle,
Starting point is 00:57:13 because it just kind of reinforces what the AI investor class wants people to think, because that this is so powerful. What's your assessment of his framing on this? I like Bernie, but the video he did talking to Claude was one of the most embarrassing things I've seen in my life. Someone on Blue Sky posted that it was like that scene from Simpsons where March went home, look, it's that bird you like arguing with. I think that Ewan Higgins actually had a really good point about this, that Bernie keeps framing AI in the terms that they want it to,
Starting point is 00:57:45 that the industry wants to do is this ultra power thing. We should stop before it gets too powerful. The data centers, they have plenty of compute. The whole, if we get more compute, it will be more powerful thing, is just kind of a myth at this point. It gets better at benchmarks that are rigged. I think a data center moratorium is unrealistic. Like, sure, if they do it,
Starting point is 00:58:05 but like it will never go anywhere. It's just a big stupid package that if they actually wanted to stop these things, they would create something more. I know this sounds centrist, but it isn't. This is a genuine thing. The way to stop these data centers is to slow them down. All of them are funded by debt and their interest-only payments until they are fully constructed. Slow them down.
Starting point is 00:58:24 Force an environmental review on every single global national data center. That is very anti-abundance of you. I fuck the abundance of people. I'm sick of fucking tired of it. Ezra fucking Klein needs to stop talking about AI. He sounds like he has a fucking concussion. Pardon me. I apparently have to need to call my therapist about Ezra Klein.
Starting point is 00:58:41 But it's this like the polyamory of AI. It's just this thing of like, oh God, it's so important. We need more of it. We already have plenty. We have plenty. Well, what if it becomes AGI? What if the Grinch appears in New York City with a time bomb? Like what if a giant bird carries me away and drops me from 5,000 feet in the air?
Starting point is 00:59:01 These are all more realistic than AGI. And I think that Bernie's brought into it. I think that it's AI exploits ignorance and fear and jingoism. And it is perfect for imperialism. It allows the imperialist to generate big ideas that are very scary sounding to sell to people that don't think for two seconds. And I'm frustrated because if Bernie actually fucking listened, if AOC actually fucking listened to that,
Starting point is 00:59:26 actually focused on the real problems, they would find the ways to actually stop this, which is to slow it down, not because of the powerful AI might become, more powerful, but because these data centers shouldn't be being built, they're not going to have good economic effects, they don't create jobs. They need to be, really, throw paperwork on them, make them go through the paperwork. If they're valid businesses, they'll survive it, but they're not. Every data center is pretty much unprofitable, especially with the debt. Slow them down,
Starting point is 00:59:52 fucking stop them, but don't do so in the name of some boogeyman, AGI.I. Well said, I do think, yeah, it reinforces framing that gives them way too much credit for the, the product that they're creating here. Ed Zitrin, the newsletter is Where's Your Ed at? Obviously, and of course, the better offline podcast. Essential works during this time. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I'd really appreciate it.
Starting point is 01:00:19 Thanks for having me. Of course. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the first part of the show, the free part. Although, one quick plug here, actually. So, you know, I was out in California on my way. I'm at the airport. You guys know I'm popping an edible before I'm getting on my flight.
Starting point is 01:00:47 Having a good time. It's better than a Xanax. Yeah, it is better than that. I switched from Xanax to edibles when I fly, and it's way healthier. Having a good time. feeling good. I'm wearing my Democratic DSA merch or it's Dream for NYC and I posted this picture. And it like started trending because people were comparing me to that guy that wore the like indict Joe Biden or something t-shirt on the plane. Convicted felon Joe Biden. And unfortunately, yes, it is like a funny comparison because this was a bit corny for me to tweet out.
Starting point is 01:01:27 but like, I don't know, I was in a good mood, laughing, having a good time off my, on the, my alone at the airport. And I tweeted out this picture and people were just like losing their minds about me pretending like I thought this was some sort of revolutionary act. Like, I go on Twitter after I get off my flight and I see top, today's news, Emma Viglin's anti-billionaire sweatshirt draws online fire at airport. Move to Cuba. Yeah. Has Emma landed yet? I was in shock, okay? But then I'm trying to plug the sweatshirt because it is so comfortable.
Starting point is 01:02:08 I love, I like love a good comfy travel outfit. And it's now kind of been my staple. And I'm tagging DSA, but then I'm also getting messages from them like, no, you're tagging the wrong people. I'm like, okay, great. It's a dream for NYC. This is way too overstimulating for the selfie, okay? So I now have, but this is for a good cause. So I now have like the actual information here and the dream team reached out to me.
Starting point is 01:02:32 And I wanted to read this because this is from the don't rank evil Andrew for mayor dream campaign. We can pull, we can take my stupid face off the screen now. It was don't rank evil Andrew. But first it was don't rank Eric Adams. And then it was don't rank Eric or Andrew. And then it was don't rank evil Andrew. So it worked through three different iterations. It's resilient.
Starting point is 01:02:57 as an acronym. So this is the information on this. If you guys like that sweatshirt, or if you hate it, like so many people seem to. I want to buy it and burn it on a Twitter TikTok video. You show them. So this is an email I got from the Dream team. Last year we created the Don't Rank Evil.
Starting point is 01:03:17 Andrew for Mayor dream campaign. Our goal is to turn anti-Quomo ranked choice strategy into common sense with a culture first strategy that would break out of the political bubble. Our don't rank Cuomo shirts became a defamation. finding part of the race doing something so much political comms fails at looking good agreed and i just like it that it's really cozy so after the election we turned our focus to the next stage of the fight making kathy hokel tax the rich in new york to fund the affordability agenda we voted for that includes merch like this it's union printed and made in the USA so it costs a little more than the kinds of
Starting point is 01:03:49 horrible quality sweatshop material basically every right wing product uses but it's worth it all proceeds go to funding the campaign to tax the rich the same way a candidate's merch funds their election campaign ours funds our policy campaign it's how we can pay for our amazing designers and filmmakers and run a massive physical ad campaign from new york city to albany that we know is freaking the governor out if you want to support the fight and get one the link is shop dot dream for nyc dot com shop dot dream for nyc com and get more people talking about socialism we will put a link down below it's i got this one free because they were everyone's they were being nice to us. I got one too.
Starting point is 01:04:30 Just saying, me too. Yeah. You, did you go viral? No, I didn't go viral. Because some ex-in-cell intern decided to pump me to the top of the algorithm. This was me yesterday on the floor. Looking for trouble. You think that shirt was union-made?
Starting point is 01:04:50 Who wore it better? Oh, God. Bipartisan shit. from America. So, there we go. With that, Matt,
Starting point is 01:05:06 what's happening with your shows? Yeah, I don't know where the rest of our Thursday is, but on Left Reckoning on Tuesday,
Starting point is 01:05:13 we had Maximilian Alvarez on to update us on the East Palestine poisoning and just the decisions made to, you know, for instance, set all that stuff on fire
Starting point is 01:05:24 instead of cleaning it up, which was a decision I found out that was taken because Texas, a little bit long to clean stuff up. Why clean it up when you can just light it on fire and poison the local community? So check that out.
Starting point is 01:05:39 Max is great. And we'll have a Sunday show for our patrons on Sunday and a Jacobin show tomorrow at 3 o'clock, Eastern Time. Check it out, folks. I also should say I was on a few shows while I was out in L.A. You can check out my episode of Pod Save America. Also, Higher Learning with Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathen. Got to meet Rachel in person this time. Tell her how cool she was on The Bachelorette.
Starting point is 01:06:04 And, you know, also, of course, check out the bituation room, as I mentioned earlier. What's up, Matt Binder? What's happening on your shows? Hey, how are you? It's a, it's, it's opening day. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. Gosh, I can't believe it's almost April now.
Starting point is 01:06:21 Yeah. So tonight, leftist mafia, 8.30 p.m. Eastern time at YouTube. dot com slash mad bender all right check it out and we will have Brandon Sutton at some point but check out the discourse all that good stuff
Starting point is 01:06:38 we will see you in the fun half okay Emma please well I just I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report wait look Samma's unpopular I do deserve a vacation at Disney World so ladies and gentlemen it is my pleasure
Starting point is 01:06:54 to welcome Emma to the show It is Thursday. I think you need to take over for Sam. Yes, boys, sir. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage how much to live like this. And I'll tell you why.
Starting point is 01:07:08 So it's offered a twerk, sushi, and poker with the boys. Boys. Who's offered boys? What? Twerk? Suzy and po-uh, that's what we call biz. Dwar? Sushi and.
Starting point is 01:07:31 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 boys. Oh my God. Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. Someone's offered a twerk. Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys. Glogic.
Starting point is 01:08:02 Twerk. 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. A thousand times. A little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. 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 a life and kids. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job.
Starting point is 01:08:33 Twirp. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Like the weight of the world on the shoulders. It was so much easier. One of the majority of report was just you. You were happy. Let's change the subject.
Starting point is 01:09:28 Rangers and Nick's going right. 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 kind of we bury the hatchet. Left is best. Trump.
Starting point is 01:09:41 Violet twerk. He fund is real dude. Medible theme song. I Bumbler. Emma Viglin, absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game, like, period.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.