The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3659 - How Israel Came to Dominate US Foreign Policy w/ Noah Kulwin & Brendan James

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

It's an Emmajority Report Thursday on The Majority Report. On today's program: Trump's $1.8M taxpayer funded "anti-weaponization" fund has received so much backlash that acting AG Todd Blanche has announced the fund has been rescinded. It should be noted that Blanche refuses to commit to put this reversal in writing, so we'll see. Brendan James and Noah Kulwin of the Blowback podcast join the program to discuss their new miniseries, No Daylight, which focuses on the turbulent history of U.S.-Israeli relations. In the Fun Half: Brenden Sutton and Matt Binder join. Norman Finkelstein reacts to criticism he's received over his comments on Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Donald Trump commissions a confusing graph that compares the size of the Washington monument reflecting pool to some of the tallest buildings in America. It is unclear what the graph was meant to indicate. Trump's pick to be the head of the Director of National Intelligence, Bill Pulte, has a long history of being a sick freak. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) calls out Marco Rubio trying to propagate lies that Hamas was stopping aid from entering Gaza. All that and more. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: ZOCDOC: Go to Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY and download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE and book a top-rated doctor RIDGE WALLEt: Get up to 40% off @Ridge with code MAJORITYREPORT at https://www.Ridge.com/MAJORITYREPORT. SUNSET LAKE CBD: 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.

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. Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Thursday, June 4th, 2026. 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 Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Noah Coleman and Brendan James, hosts of the Blowback podcast.

We'll be with us. They're out with a new mini-series, No Daylight, About the U.S. Israel relationship. That's kind of important. Also on the program, the House passes a resolution. to end the Iran war with four Republicans joining all Democrats, largely symbolic,

but still, very good, at least. And six Republicans join all Democrats to push through a new military aid package for Ukraine. In the Senate, they're voting on a motion to bar Trump from creating his $1.8 billion

slush fund. Even though the Attorney General or the acting Attorney General said, don't worry about it, we dropped it. We'll get to that in just a second. Senate Republicans also officially dropped the $1 billion ballroom portion of the budget bill. It's just what are we doing? Screwing it. Exactly.

Trump derangement syndrome is spread into the Senate. Can't even tango. It can't be political. That's tangoing is way too ethnic for that crowd, bro. You imagine that's tan-gall. He's just doing the jerk-off dance. Trump strips job protections for thousands of federal workers via executive order. The oil industry is warning the White House that the inventories are running dry,

and energy prices are going to get even worse in the coming weeks. Israel kills at least nine Palestinians in Gaza and continues to pummel Lebanon. Trump officially nominates personal lawyer Todd Blanche to be Attorney General. Who could have seen that coming? The CFPB's website has deleted, or at the least, the CFPB has deleted thousands of pages off its website as the administration tries to gut the consumer watchdog agency. John Bolton to plead guilty in his classified documents case, not war crimes charges, which is what I personally preferred.

And lastly, Republican Representative Max Miller rebuked over comments accusing Rashida Talib of advocating for terrorists. So that's a sign of some changing times at the very least. All this and more on today's. majority report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It's an emmajority report Thursday. I am in quite a good mood today.

I was at the Bradlander fundraiser last night where Zoraamamani made an appearance and did a let's go Nix chant. And let's go Nix is what happened. That was not very hard. I'm so articulate. It's a good thing I don't like talk for a living or something like that.

bang bang baby I'm trying not to get ahead of myself but uh I'm surprised you're even saying this much I yeah it's it's tough you and Trump must be very happy yeah long time

Nick's fan he's the definition of a bandwagoner I cannot believe he's going to be there apparently at game three but Zoron will be so hopefully that even some things out in terms of the the the karmic part of this.

Let's start here. So the Senate is, as I mentioned, currently considering this motion to block Trump from creating his $1.8 billion Sush fund for him, his buddies, for the January 6th rioters. They're considering many bills today, including this $70 billion immigration bill from the Republicans. They're going to try to circumvent the filibuster for that one. But, you know, it's interesting that the Senate would have to consider such a motion because earlier this week, Todd Blanche said, under oath, testified, under oath, that the slush fund was dead. Hmm. But that wasn't in writing. That was just under oath. And the Trump administration, these

officials seem to make a real habit out of lying under oath and don't care about doing it at all in front of these House and Senate committees. But here is this exchange with Todd Blanche, who Trump just formally nominated to be Attorney General from acting Attorney General to the real thing. Here's Representative Grace Meng asking Todd Blanche about committing to rescinding. the weaponization fund and doing so in writing? Your Attorney General, I want to thank you for verbally committing to not moving forward with the so-called anti-weaponization fund. I just want to make sure, are you going to issue a new memo in writing, rescinding that

May 18th memo? I'm not committing to putting anything in writing. I'm going to set it over and over again. I mean, I don't know what the purpose of putting something in writing. I'm telling you what we're doing. like, why do I need to put something in writing because I'm telling you what we're doing? Well, you started it.

You established it in writing, so it just makes sense to rescind it in writing. I think a lot of Americans, both sides of the aisle, are concerned about it, and it would restore a lot of trust about this issue. Okay, I'm not committing to doing anything in writing. No. Okay.

I mean, I'll take it under advisement. I'm just concerned because you're not under oath, and I want to trust you, and I want to believe you. We all do. but putting it in writing would settle that issue. I have one minute left. Feels a little shady to say, I'm not going to commit to putting that in writing.

And he will take it under advisement. He hears Representative Meng. He sees her. He acknowledges her. That's all he needs to do. There's a famous JFK quote about never writing things down back when they were doing sort of covert CIA operations, and it comes from the Kennedy family

who has a history and organized crime. Like, never write it down as a very, that comes from a very particular place. I mean, this is actually policy from the administration more broadly. I mean, remember the scandal of them using signal for all of those communications in the beginning of Trump 2.0? These are gangsters. Absolutely.

And, I mean, it's even more explicit than that, though, Matt, because there's this great piece in popular information. I want to give credit to the writers here, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims, where they break down the language in the settlement agreement between Trump and the Department of Justice, which says here, this settlement agreement may be modified only with the written agreement of the parties. That is what it says in the actual settlement agreement. So Todd Blanche, not committing to putting that in writing,

is really important. He's like, I'll lie in front of Congress. Who's gone to jail for lying in front of Congress, I mean, in recent decades? It's ridiculous. They just, they know that they can get away with it. But with the actual text of the settlement, including that, saying that it may be modified only with the written agreement of the parties, means that they're going to try to revive this in some other way.

Here is Trump yesterday. this was another completely unhinged press conference, by the way, where he told Caitlin Collins she needs to smile more. Cheer up, it might never happen. It's just the old-timey sexism and misogyny from him, it just creeps out more and more as his health deteriorates and his dementia gets worse. Like, both, you know, who he is at his core is coming out, coming to the fore.

He hates women. You got to smile more. And all he cares about. our buildings and reflecting pools and ballrooms. It's the only thing that can keep his attention. But here he is when Caitlin Collins asked him yesterday about this weaponization fund. The weaponization fund, as far as I'm concerned, was a beautiful thing. It was something I didn't make it, but I was, I heard that.

I thought that was the greatest thing because people like you have abused. I love how passive he is. So you're like, it's like, oh, this is. interesting thing coming up. Right. And what do you mean? Again, mafia language. Also, how this even came to be was Trump settled with himself,

with the IRS. Oh, that's interesting. They want to settle with me? I'm a tough negotiator. I really put myself through it. Exactly. What a surprise the IRS has for me. Do you think he sat on each side of the table

walking back and he argued with himself? Or he just looked in a mirror, which I'm sure is something he loves to do on a regular basis anyway. It's like when you play Madden, but you're playing offense for both. Like Jack Donahy, remember? Yes.

Negotiating. I literally was going to do a 30 rock reference, and I stopped myself because I hear how much of a stupid millennial I am. I did it for you. Thank you so much. I keep going. Stupid elder millennial. People like you have abused our people so badly.

The fake news like CNN, like the New York Times and like others, have abused our people. Wait a minute. Be quiet. Have abused our people so badly. and you should be ashamed of yourself. You used to be a conservative. She was a conservative from Alabama, can you believe it?

But CNN, in particular, CNN does such false reporting. But now they have new ownership. She's smiling there. I doubt it. But it's hard to straighten garbage out. But CNN has abused and others have abused so bad. These are people that are great people that would destroy. Their families have been destroyed.

Many suicides, they committed suicide. that people that went there to with love they went there with love you know what i'm oh he's talking about the january sixers he's a tin-pot dictator if he was speaking a different language everyone would understand exactly what this is yeah um of course you know hurling abuse at at cailan collins who yes despite the fact that she did used to work for uh a conservative publication yeah is probably like the best mainstream reporter right now holding the administration accountable I think she has, Sam and I have said this before, but like it's almost the reverse incentive where there's so many, uh, reporters that they're self-conscious about like being so-called liberal or from institutions like that. She's almost able to act this way because of that very dynamic. She has to be concerned about looking too conservative. Exactly. Yeah, right. She, she, she, she, exactly. Because I'll get on her. Yeah. But it just the, the fact that he's speaking about these January 6ers like this, we, we, we played another exchange.

And I think it was Chris Van Hollen asking about this very case where there was a man who, a January 6er who's now in prison for child sex abuse. And he had said that he was going to get money from the Trump administration. And that was a big, God, I'm forgetting the exact specifics of the story. Hush his victim. Hush his victim. Exactly. Yeah. Right.

Right. to hush his victims. He said, I'm going to give you a cut. I'm going to get a bunch of money from Trump, and I'm going to give you a cut if you keep this quiet. I mean, like, these are the people that we're talking. He came with love. He came with love on January 6th.

And it's not just about the January 6th, though. Let's be real. Like, that, I think, is what makes headlines. But Trump's going to try to enrich himself with this, you know, slush fund, this weaponization fund. So it's not dead yet. If Todd Blanche isn't going to put it in, writing, the actual settlement agreement gives them the wiggle room to revive this.

And so we'll see how this vote goes in the Senate. But I was, I'm a little surprise. I've heard from like kind of normy people about this story. It's really traveling because it's a potent message. Trump is stealing $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to give to his allies supporters and to himself. And not like his jet as like overall supporters. Like I voted for him.

I might get a kickback. It's actually people who like, tried to overthrow an election for him, like a true psycho. So even the people are like, well, can I get some of this? It's like, well, unless you committed crimes on January 6th, no. It also reminds people of January 6th, which was before this, you know, recent string of Trump's high levels of disapproval was the lowest point for him in terms of public perception. That was a problem. You had Republicans in the Senate turning on him. And now those are the same Republicans that are getting ousted because he's endorsing their primary challengers. Like, but

For the general non-Maga cultists, the January 6th stuff was a real problem. And I think like Epstein and how that's such an issue for Trump, because it placed him within the group of powerful elites and the cover-up, it's like almost an emerging class consciousness when people talk about the Epstein class, they understand that. It doesn't make Trump look like an outsider. It makes him look like a part of the club and a part of the group of people that are a part of the group of people that's a miserated. you. Not insurgents. I mean, January 6, I'll just remind people that APEC endorsed 35 Republicans that voted to overturn the election.

There you go. But like the Epstein stuff, this also makes him look like a corrupt, rich guy ripping you off. And so I think it does have salience. And if they continue to try to pursue this, good luck selling it to the public. We're going to be talking to Noah Colwyn and Brendan James in just a second. But first a word from some of our sponsors. We all know health issues don't follow a 9 to 5 schedule.

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It really is the perfect father's day gift. So check out Ridge Wallet and we'll put that link down below. Quick break and when we come back, we will be joined by Noah Colwyn and Brendan James. We are back and we are joined now by Noah Colan and Brendan James, hosts of the Blowback Podcast, whose new miniseries

No Daylight focuses on turbulent times in the U.S.-Israeli partnership during a variety, the Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan administrations, amongst others. Noah and Brendan, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having us. Thanks. I have waxed poetically about Blowback before. People should check out all of the seasons. of blowback. They're excellent. And this is new for you guys, this mini-series. It's really unique

because, as I mentioned, it explores moments of turbulence in the U.S. relationship with Israel. And I think you could also kind of describe those points in history that you're talking about as pivot points or potential off-ramps as well to the situation we're in today with, you know, the Zionist lobby having this. incredible outsides control and of course our material support for genocide. So I guess let's start there thematically and either of you can take this. Yeah, I mean, we were excited to do this new version of the show. We're still going to be in case there's listeners who, God forbid, have never heard blowback before watching this right now. Usually we do longer seasons that are about

10 episodes and we are working on season seven. We'll be announcing that very, very shortly. But we were excited about a mini-series here because it allowed us to be a little bit more nimble and kind of pick three, like zero in on three specific moments about this subject matter, which, you know, it won't escape any of your viewers notice that there's been a lot more scrutiny on the U.S. Israel relationship over the past several years. We're in the middle of a war with Iran because of it. We're in the middle of a continued extermination campaign in Gaza with U.S. support. And we thought it would be interesting to put the magnifying glass on that relationship because we don't want to editorialize too much as usual in the show. But I certainly, I'm not as plugged in as you guys are day to day on the news cycle or NOAA as much either for that matter. but I've seen some sort of left-leaning or left-wing argumentation about the U.S. Israel relationship and its nature that seems to be arguing Israel is essentially an appendage of U.S. Empire or, you know, U.S. power.

And I won't speak for Noah too much, but I don't find that persuasive. I don't see. I mean, of course, it can function in concert with the U.S. But as for the claim that Israel is merely a proxy or puppet for the United States, yeah, I don't find that persuasive. I don't know in that case why they steal secrets from the U.S., why they have more spies than most other countries concentrated over the decades at the U.S. I don't know why they sabotage U.S. policy so often. And we look at moments like that and the distance between the daylight between the two countries in this series in order to sort of test some of these hypotheses. And it was a fascinating thing to do because you go from a period where Harry S. Truman, as we can talk about in a bit, didn't even want to support a Jewish state to all the way into the end of the Cold War where George H.W. Bush, was happy to withhold billions upon billions of dollars from Israel to try to get them to do what he wanted.

And he succeeded in that limited moment. So I think this is something that's worth discussing as an isolated issue, the nature of that relationship. Yeah, and maybe Noah you can take this because I have described it, I think, maybe in those terms myself, in part just because I think it's useful in disaggregating some. of the more anti-Semitic conspiratorial arguments on the right, where they're trying to essentially claim that, and the underpinning of their argument is that Jews control foreign policy, like they control the financial system. And they're dragging the United States into wars in the Middle East because of their own interests. Obviously, as your podcast illuminates, it's more complicated than that. What do you think is a better framework to describe the relationship?

I think it generally helps kind of resisting the binary, right? So the classic metaphor and one that is, you know, comes out of the mouths of U.S. officials themselves is to describe Israel as the unsinkable aircraft carrier, that it is an appendage, as Brennan was describing, that it is this incredibly powerful weapon that we're able to wield on behalf of American interest in the Middle East. And then on the other side of it, you have, you know, the white supremacist kind of like, like literally comes out of neo-Nazi circles the phrase like Zog, Zionist-occupied government, which is to explain the idea that like actually no, Israel's like driving all the foreign policy.

Like they're ruining everything and their agents are ruining everything. And that extreme is, you know, not to say that they're equal in fact value, but just to say that like those are sort of like the two polarities of explanation. And I think in our story, what we sort of illustrate is that actually it's, you know, it's much more complicated, that there are moments in which one set of interests matters more than another. There are other moments when American interest and Israel's, a strong Israel, actually align. And the daylight happens on either side of that, these moments of turbulence.

I think one of the, you know, a really great example, and Brennan can speak to this, is about the foundation of Israel itself, where a large part of why Israel was created had to do with why the U.S. ended up accepting the creation of a Jewish-only state through partition was because of both domestic political concerns about his reelection, as well as international political concerns about where were all these refugees of the post uh you know the remaining jews of post holocaust europe where were they going to go um and so there is to me one of the things i guess i would emphasize is sort of the power of uh what historians call contingency and that the story of you know the u.s israel relationship is itself like you know of all these moments and all these

things that are kind of dependent on other interrelated factors and that it it just sort of helps to you know, like resist like the simplest explanations while acknowledging that like, yeah, there is, I think, like some real truth to both of like the dominant frames. Yeah. And I think we could also, yeah, maybe tell a story too if this, if you guys agree with this, of integration of the Zionist project into American foreign policy, you know, accelerating rapidly because of the lobby, which we will get into in the 21st century. You know, I really think that there was a point of acceleration after the Iran deal as well,

where you had Obama leaving office and Trump coming in and scrapping the JCPOA immediately because the Zionist lobby wanted it to. And then they also were able to double dip and get the new leader of the Democrats in the Senate to be a complete zealot. And he was opposed to. to the JCPOA at the time. So it's almost, I think it's hard to tell the story, I guess, without mentioning, I think, how over the past decade or so, the integration with, I think, U.S. foreign policy and, you know, Israel, they're trying to formalize it in the House in terms of our military and the IDF. Would that be fair to say? Well, I certainly think that the, recent that the Trump administration and of course the Biden administration which you know the

Biden administration essentially gave Israel a blank check to do whatever it wanted to do in Gaza the aforementioned genocide or extermination campaign. Trump took it one step further and then opting to also sign on to a war with Iran which has long been described as you know the kind of holy grail of Israeli you know which of the of the Israeli wish list when it comes to getting America to sign on to its local wars and campaigns. One of the marks against, I'll just defend myself from the right-wing white supremacist camp identification for the moment, I agree that it does not make much sense to understand this as a turnkey control Israel has over U.S. foreign policy, let alone the intelligence.

entire U.S. government's policy. One way you could quickly disprove that is by pointing to the fact that it is taken until 2026 for Israel to get America on board with Iran. And that has happened under a particularly demented and, you know, half-conscious president. Of course, they got the genocide in Gaza, the cooperation with that with a, I would say about equally senile and decrepit president as well. So there has been obviously some form of resistance and, you know, independence that the United States government, which isn't to cheerlead the United States government, as I think white supremacists conceive of this binary as. America could be great if we weren't being ruled by these Jews in Israel, which is already

kind of getting away from, I think, their original idea, which is not that Israel and nation state controls the U.S., but an international shadowy cabal, not a nation. state, but a global octopus, et cetera. So, you know, Trump has proven that there is a attention and a and indeed daylight that has existed between the two countries for a long, long time. And what I think Noah brought up the Truman moment. And Truman felt while he tried to project this image as a political street fighter, he was under immense pressure not to ruin the New Deal coalition that was made up of, at that time, especially, you know, a very fresh and promising coalition of ethnic minorities, which included Jews. And any time that his domestic advisors said, whether they were Zionists

deep in their hearts or because they saw it as something politically useful, you really just should sign on to this. He resisted. He resisted. His foreign policy apparatus completely almost down the line completely opposed it. George Marshall, who was a decorated and celebrated general from World War II and the Secretary of State at a certain point in the Truman administration was completely against it. His cold warriors were completely against it, it being the foundation of Israel. So we can see that there is the oil industry was against it. And the Zionist lobby nascent, though it was at that point,

accused the Truman administration of being in the service of big oil, utilizing progressive rhetoric and utilizing what you might think of as anti-imperialist rhetoric to say this is why we're not getting our state. They're sucking up to the Arab states that control oil. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that from the very beginning, there was a clear difference in ideals and in the agenda for geopolitics, but also the independence America should have from domestic considerations like what Jewish people in America. I may feel about this idea of a Jewish state. And Truman resisted for a bit. And even after he recognized Israel, we weren't really close allies. We really weren't close allies.

Noah, did you want to jump in here? I think the only thing I would sort of add is, you know, asking about the lobby is important because the lobby is, and it should be emphasized, the Israel lobby in the United States is a historically influenced, so sorry, historically significant, discrete political influence on American policy and political life. at all levels. And it is like it as a phenomenon unto itself is clearly deserving of like some just like major power of explanation for why it is that like the daylight gets smoothed over so

successfully. And as Brendan describes that, you know, in 48, we see the kind of like proto-Israel lobby as we sort of know, you know, the forces that existed before the Israel lobby, as we know today. It's forerunners. And in the story we tell in this mini-series, we show how in the 50s, A-PAC and a lot of the cornerstone organizations of the Israel lobby were formed in the 1950s in response to the bad PR that Israel got from a particular massacre during the Eisenhower years. And then in our third episode, it really picks up, and that's our second episode. And then the third episode, it picks up in the 80s where we have an account of the Israel lobby in the Reagan years, where the Israel lobby begins to, an APAC, in particular, begin to discipline political figures openly,

intervening to make sure a, you know, I wouldn't even say anti-Israel, but like a politically moderate Republican, Charles Percy, to deny him re-election. And APAC exploited the fact that Democrats had Jews and Jews were more likely to be pro-Israel, you know, whatever the rest of their political profile is voters, or is a pitiful. political block were. And I think it is like a real, you know, one of the things in sort of putting the story together has been sort of accounting for how it was that like this group and these forces emerged and what were the political opportunities that they took advantage of. And I would agree with you. And it's from my last point on this is that like I do think that there was a qualitative

change even between this 80s and early 90s period and now. And that even in the 35 years since, you have even phases of that where what is experienced now and the role and the influence that the Israel lobby has on American public and political life is so much vaster and so much more normalized than it was 40 years ago when, you know, these kinds of efforts were considered pretty novel and, if anything, frankly, controversial. And I want to back up then really to the first episode because we can talk about about these chapters. And it's fascinating, you know, your show describes Truman as kind of being overwhelmed by the presidency. He's very much in the shadow of FDR, who has died. And how, as you

mentioned, Truman was initially opposed to the Zionist movement and the foundation of the Zionist state. But part of the FDR coalition, including as you say, like, you know, this diverse kind of group of, of, of people, but that included Jews and Jewish organizations. And Zionism at that time was considered a part of the American left. Do you, what was FDR's position and how different was Truman from him on that? And what were the conditions that got Truman to cave here? FDR, because of course prior to the revelations of the Nazi Holocaust, Zionism, was something that has certainly been growing in the early 20th century, but had not yet become this imagined solution and restorative justice sort of idea for the Jews of Europe. So Roosevelt didn't have to deal with Zionism in the way that Truman was. was really forced to post-war. He left it very open-ended. We recounts an anecdote where he was met by two rabbis who were very pro-Zionist, and he was sort of taken aback by how bold their request was for him to, you know, in his view, ripped the Middle East apart with this creation of a new

state by taking other people's land. And he didn't end up coming down very hard on the question one way or another. He was very close with the Saudis in not only during the end of the war, but long before it, FDR sort of solidified America's relationship with the Saudis for the purposes of oil access, obviously. And that didn't make him predisposed to just suddenly come out swing for something like Zionism. So Truman was left with a very ambiguous inheritance. from FDR when it came to Zionism. And as we say, he through 45, 46, and 47 was trying to steer things toward a binational or federated system. Because he thought that an ethnic or religiously codified state was not a good thing to do.

And it was, it's striking maybe for some people to hear that coming from Truman, who is not beloved in the, anti-imperialist camp of America, obviously. And other cold warriors saying that they opposed it because, if anything, it would drive the Arab states to the Soviet Union, which in the long term did happen. But also to hear progressives, the Nation magazine, the pre-Murdock, New York Post, Henry Wallace, who was viewed as a pinko, you know, soft on communism guy at the time, which in a sense he was. Some Soviet agents, we didn't go into this in the podcast, but Alger Hiss was

was saying nice things about the Zionist movement. So listeners might be quite fascinated to hear how that played out as a political, domestic dispute in a way that seems flipped from today. Yeah. One story that actually comes from that time that I particularly like is about Truman's, and it sort of, I think, gives an insight also to the pressure that began to shape Truman's attitude on this was a meeting that he had with one of his top advisors, Clark Clifford. where Clifford sits him down and essentially says, look, if you want to become the president,

you have to win the state of New York. Nobody since like the late 19th century has been elected president without getting New York except for Woodrow Wilson once. So you got to get New York. And if you want to get New York, you got to get New York City. And if you want to get New York City, you have to have the Jewish vote. And in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust with this massive refugee crisis and the lack of any, you know, Western Europe and the United States weren't about to taken all those refugees. Zionism as an immediately attract, and, you know, again, like, these are also, like, Arabs were not viewed as politically enfranchised populations, you know, worth much politically.

The Palestinians had zero diplomatic presence in Washington. They had zero weight to throw around. Consequently, I think, you know, what you then see then is like, all right, like, Truman sees all this. he sees a lot of domestic political pressure building for Zionism. And, you know, I think if anything, I found that this was a bit thematic with stuff that we find all the time in our other seasons of blowback, which is that very often domestic politics and domestic political considerations are what drive foreign policy strategy. Not particularly well thought out theories of the world. Like, yes, like politicians slot these, you know, like how they respond to these political situations within, you know, They have an ideological framework or something.

But to me, it was a really, it was really interesting to see the extent to which it really does appear that Truman was also quite motivated. And others at the time were quite motivated by fear of, as Brennan put it, you know, breaking up the New Deal coalition. So you, that it's just, it's fascinating. You have these domestic political considerations, as you say, driving Truman here. And at the same time, you also have the British that are, you know, evacuating from Palestine. and they've been deeply damaged by the war and can't extend themselves in the same way. And so they handed off to the UN, which is just basically the Americans. Can you talk about the British and their, you know, that that handoff and how that came to be, you know,

which I think is important as a parallel track that we're in analyzing it as we look at the domestic U.S. considerations? Yeah, I mean, it's a it's, there's probably. a series there in and of itself, the American British back and forth. I should say one book we're really indebted to for a lot of this. There's a couple, including our interviews in this series, which we've done with Rashid Khalid, Doug Rossinow, and Seth Anziska, a lot of the actual research we were doing involved interviewing them. But there's a great book called Genesis by John Judas that people should check out that was very helpful on questions like these. the British were looking to get out of the Middle East. They had presided pretty rudely over mandatory Palestine. And both the Palestinians and the proto-Israelis, the Jewish settlers, while not having very fond feelings of each other, both had reasons to hate the British. And the Israelis, as Professor Collity later told us, you know, the Israelis inherited a lot of tactics from the British Empire in subjugating the Palestinians once they were the top dog and the British had been driven out.

out. But the Americans and the British were trying to come up with kind of an inter-imperial solution, but they kept stepping on each other's toes. There were committees. It would be a little exhausting to go through the number of times there was a committee created to solve this question, but there were all these work groups to try to make this handoff happen. And the British were caught in a tough place because they didn't trust the Americans to not create more problems in the Middle East. They realized that the Zionist lobby was really making its moves from Europe and Britain because some of the most prominent Zionist advocates like Weitzman was doing all of his work in Britain until things started to move over into the

American sphere of influence. They didn't trust the Americans and they thought the Zionists at that point had too much influence. But they also didn't. want to keep presiding over the Middle East. They saw that their, that their bandwidth had reached its limit and they wanted to get out. Truman got ahead of the British a couple of times and ruined what was a kind of delicate diplomatic moment so that the British would then walk away from a plan. It was very messy. It was very messy. And so what ended up happening was, it was an opening for the Zionists and their friends in the Truman administration to fill that gap of direction and political vision. And of course, as Noah mentioned, the Palestinians were completely overlooked in this entire

process. And if you think about it, what I just said, you know, it makes a lot of sense. You don't need a protocols of the elders of Zion type mindset to understand that the Zionist movement, its leaders came from Europe. Its leaders came from Europe and Britain and then moved over, of course, and created new leaders in the United States. They had an assimilation. They had a common language, a lot of stuff that gave them a real leg up when it came. to settling what could happen in Palestine, that the Palestinians, who were the people who were being dispossessed in that area and had no reason to have that type of presence in America or Britain or Europe, just did not possess. So they weren't at the table in these very crucial early moments

of decision making. Yeah. I would add one other piece of that, which is also that the Zionist lobby very quickly, very quickly figured out that the way in which Israel would be, be successfully integrated. Not, you know, its creation wouldn't just be a favor to the Jews, but the way that Israel would be able to sustain a long-term partnership with the United States was if it began to fashion itself as a weapon in the fight against Soviet communism. And I think that that, to me, is another piece of the, is like sort of the final piece of that puzzle, which is to say that, like, it wasn't, it's not the, and it is not certainly not today. Now, the Soviet Union doesn't exist. It's not like the only vector along which Israel,

began to kind of integrate itself and understand, you know, try and situate itself within the universe of American strategic partnerships. But it was like the succeeding paradigm after 48 in the 50s where Israel became for most of the next half century, you know, part of the American, you know, a subtle part in this regard, but an important part of the American strategic front against fighting communism around the world. Right. And that integration into the kind of Cold War framework, you talk about that and how Nixon and Kissinger were so essential. I just also want to shout out, like, Rashid Khalid's book on all of that stuff, like the foundation in 1948 and the lack of, I remember that so clearly from the book, the lack of presence for Palestinians in terms of like the domestic U.S. lobby versus the Zionist one.

and how that was such a key pivotal point. It's really important, and people should, of course, read that book, obviously. But you mentioned Eisenhower a little bit earlier and how in the 1950s, Eisenhower, after coming in, was going to cut off aid to Israel because of their misbehaviors. And that led to the formation of APAC. Maybe, Noah, you can take this one. Take us through that period of history. Sure. So APAC, you know, the, or rather sorry, the formation of APAC comes out of a very specific crisis, which was the 1953 massacre of a village called Kibya.

And it was not the first such massacre of a Palestinian village, but for a number of reasons, including timing and the proximity of media, it was the first such massacre to get this kind of global news coverage. and Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, used it as a pretext to do something that they were already planning to do for other reasons they were angry with Israel about to suspend aid. And this was not much aid at the time. It was not, you know, the aid that it became in the later years.

But Israel was in the doghouse. And the pro-Israel lobby in the United States began to, you know, the forces, that had been the Zionist lobby, they got together and they brought people together and they brought money together. And they began to create, you know, to kind of network, to develop, you know, sort of political influence cells, you know, just sort of the basic building blocks of like interest-based organizing in the United States, developing relationships in Congress and so forth. But it was also about putting out statements to the press, making sure, above all, that the American

Jewish community spoke with a pro-Israel voice. So a lot of what the Israel lobby was up to in this period was not even necessarily going after influence in Washington, although there was that. But it was about making sure that the American Jewish community was speaking up and defending Israel, even if at this time, you know, in the pre-1967 period, Israel was not really yet like a kind of constitutive part of American Jewish identity. So APEC is sort of born out of this, you know, need for a strong muscular PR response to an Israeli human rights atrocity, if that sounds familiar. And then in the next summer, you know, number of years, it began, you know, it's sort of built brick by brick over a number of years, influence that would then become much more substantial in the 1970s and 80s.

And the 1970s is a good place to go here because then we can talk about. that approach from Nixon and Kissinger and how they saw Israel as an opportunity to in their Cold War, in the Cold War, and there was this influx in weaponry and Israel kind of became the aircraft carrier or started to become the aircraft carrier that we describe it as today. Brendan, talk about that period. Well, I mean, obviously, the irony won't be lost on anyone that easily our most openly anti-Semitic president was the one who presided over the most, I think, dramatic increase in cooperation up until that moment and really did lay the tracks for everything that came after. Not only among, you know, politics within the Republican Party, but really more broadly. broadly a deeply close relationship with Israel that we recognize today.

And I just to interject quickly, it is helpful to remind people that, you know, the anti-Semitism during this time period in the 20th century where what are we going to do with all these Jewish refugees, we don't want them in our society, was a major driver for many of these, you know, white Christian men that were in power both in the U.S. and, of course, we know Balfour's anti-S., in the U.K., but like I just want to put a you know emphasis on that. Sorry. This is funny when sometimes the philo and anti-Semitism are this weird blob that you can't quite disassemble from one another on the part of those Christian Zionists. But yeah, the Nixon move in 73 came about during the Arab-Israeli War of that year, the October War as the Israelis pitched at the Yom Kippur War. and essentially we just airlifted 20,000 tons of material to them because there really was a fear that Egypt and Syria were going to reclaim the occupied lands from the 67 war.

And Israel would, as one congressman, almost a teary-eyed, asked Nixon, is Israel going to lose? And he said, no, it's not going to go down the tubes, as he put it. So it was a rescue operation that then launched an incredibly, like, engorgeed commitment to Israel. And the Israelis knew how to pitch it to the Americans, especially someone like Nixon and Kissinger, as we're a Cold War ally. You know, I play a clip from Mad Men in the show. It's a great moment where there's an episode where they have an Israeli client. And Pete Campbell is like, have you read about these kibbutzs? It's positively Soviet.

And as we discussed, Henry Wallace, a lot of these American progressives were seen as the ones who were friendly to Israel. So there was a sort of breaking of that presumption in politics that Israel was some kind of suspiciously socialist, you know, quasi-socialist state. No, they were going to be, at least they pitched this. I'm still one to say, was this actually an aircraft carrier that was obedient to America or not? But they pitched it as we're going to be your anti-Soviet Katzpaw in the Middle East. And that did complicate things with the existing partnerships with the Arab monarchies, Gulf monarchies, and any inroads that the Americans were trying to make with other Arab states. It was always a balancing act, as FDR could clearly see before there was an end.

Israel. I mean, it's, it really is, it's fascinating. Would you then, I mean, how would you say that it transitioned then between Nixon and Reagan, who did, as you cover in the show, stand up to the Israelis in ways that seem completely foreign to us these days? And you also, we can talk as well about the George H.W. Bush threat to withhold aid. Sure. So the Reagan years, which are really the relevant years for his policy on on Israel and Palestine, are really 1980 to 84. 80 because as a candidate, he was extraordinarily pro-Israel. In fact, he had probably, he was the presidential candidate who, a major candidate of any party, save for maybe, I don't know, Bobby Kennedy in 68, who,

was like so readily identified with the Zionist cause. And when he got elected, however, he was immediately confronted with some real problems. The first of which is that by this point, Israel's government had gone through an ideological transformation. For the first 25 years of Israel's existence, or yeah, about 25 years of Israel's existence, it had been led by the Labor Party. But after the October war and the Arab oil embargo crisis of the 70s, there had been a realignment in the Likud, the radical right-wingers from whom Netanyahu's descended, took over.

And they pursued, even after, you know, sort of using the political cover granted by making peace with Egypt to Camp David, they began a campaign of territorial expansion primarily in the north along the Lebanese border. And there had been, in fact, a particularly brutal invasion in 78 under Carter. And Reagan, you know, he was pro-Israel, but he also had, you know, it was like he had other political considerations. And so originally his administration took the task of like, we're going to sign a new unprecedented strategic partnership with Israel. We're going to get in bed with them as aggressively as possible. But then that became, that was a political miscalculation once Israel committed to its Lebanese. invasion because the Reagan administration had given it a green light, but they, you know,

they hadn't expected Israel. You know, they said, you know, go ahead, you know, limited operation. Have fun. You know, go nuts. Take out the PLO. Because by now Israel's pretext for attacking Lebanon had been that the PLO, the primary Palestinian resistance and political, you know, the political resistance organization and, you know, recognized international political infrastructure.

the PLO had relocated to Beirut and, you know, waged campaigns against Israel from there. And so all of which is to say that, like, Israel begins this incredibly protracted, messy, bombing intensive campaign in Lebanon. And, you know, there are photos of dead babies everywhere. There's a press that is in Beirut that is witnessing this firsthand and that is based primarily out of the areas, not where Israel is itself, but Israeli forces are bombing. And, you know, the president is, he's all sick about it. And so they, you know, he gets Began. He threatens him on the phone, says it looks like a Holocaust. He says this in his diary.

And Began backs down. But the, you know, the fallout of this is that there's this protracted diplomatic process. Peacekeepers get sent. And then in 1983, you know, the, there's this bombing of the Marine barracks. The largest loss of life for the U.S. Marines since World War II in a single incident is this bombing of the Marine barracks. and dozens of French soldiers are killed as well, a peacekeeping force. And it's a direct response, too, even though Reagan had been so horrified about what Israel had been doing, he had also been helping, the U.S. had been helping Israel attack Lebanon,

and have been participating in those operations. And so you see in this moment, like, kind of like the full spectrum of, you know, Reagan takes Israel across the coal, rakes Israel across the coals in ways that I think that even today, you know, we hear like, oh, Biden or Trump calls it in the Iowa a bastard or a crazy guy on the phone, you know, Reagan said, like, you're committing a Holocaust, knock it off. Yeah. And, and, you know, like, there was a qualitative difference in the rhetoric. But ultimately, Reagan made the calculation that Nixon had before and that successive presidents did too, which was that, you know, even if these guys are causing us headaches on the ground.

And this is without going into Israel lobby stuff and what's going on to D.C. This is just going on events on the ground. You know, he's like, well, it's better to be with them than against them. And so he pivots back to Israel and a very widely reported on pivot to Israel. from that time as well. And so it's this really, like, the Reagan years are most interesting, I think, because they have all of the contradictions. They show that, like, Reagan is being pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed by the Israelis

and quite tested. But he is naturally a pro-Israel guy. His administration, you know, is, like, their ideological engine is neo-conservatism. There's a lot of forces that are pushing them back there. And so it's this very uneven, again, sort of bumscious, contradictory time. And then, you know, George H.W. Bush withholding billions of dollars from the Israelis because of settlements, which, I mean, it sounds insane. And when we're looking at the arc of, you know, Israeli influence over U.S. politics, like they will have these setbacks. And again, these are moments where we could have had off ramps to this horrific relationship that we have with Israel.

But as time goes on, they gain in power and they continue to notch more like significant wins politically. But you as you as your your series goes into, there like were moments of resistance that we just don't see these days from presidents like Biden and Trump. I don't care what they're leaking to Barack Ravid. It's ridiculous. But in 91, talk about that incident with H. W. Bush. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't exactly aid. It was a series of loan guarantees to absorb Soviet Jews, which were called refugees, to Israel, because Israel was, as it always is, looking out for its quote-unquote demographic time bomb, that is to say, to retain numbers over the Palestinians within its dominion. And so taking on a bunch of Soviet Jews and giving them this new home,

and Israel seemed like a great way to do that. America, was like that sounds good to us, but George Bush, the first, wanted to have a peace conference after triumphing over the Iraqis and the Gulf War. And he was very surprised and alarmed when James Baker, his Secretary of State, said, the Israelis won't promise that the monies we give them through these loan guarantees, essentially, aren't going to settle people in the West Bank, which would, of course, undermine the very foundation of any new peace conference that Bush was looking to set up in Madrid, which was soon to happen. And so there was a real showdown where Bush, he was trying to be, he felt very overwhelmed

as Truman did, I think, is a comparison to the APEC, to the Israel lobby. There's a great clip of him where he's like, I see a thousand lobbyists running around, and I'm just one little guy. And it was, it was alarming to him, but he actually, I wish we had highlighted this in the episode, but he's at the podium explaining how he's going to stave off these loan guarantees until the Israelis come to heal. And he slams his fist on the podium. And you can hear him do it because he's so exasperated by why everyone is asking him,

why he's being so mean to Israel, when they're the ones who are trying to build new settlements before he was trying to get a peace conference going. Eventually he brings Yitzhak Shamir, who was the prime minister of Israel at that moment, who ended up losing, by the way, his next election. He brings him to heal, but Bush also loses for myriad reasons. And Bill Clinton ran to the right on Israel and accused Bush of not being a true friend to Israel. And I think it won't be hard to notice that actually, of course, it goes both ways every now and again,

but the toughest presidents on Israel that we've been talking about, and you could go further, a little bit further even into the future, have been Republican presidents. Yes, Nixon and Kissinger were the ones who got things tighter. But with the exception of Truman, you have Reagan, Eisenhower, and Bush 1, who were really, you know, unafraid to pull up the stops. Now, that's because obviously they had a smaller percentage of their key voter base who were Jewish. But it, I think with Clinton, you really get probably you're set down a path that is very difficult to see, you know, anything getting better after that. And, of course, the Cold War ends. Israel's value is a supposed

of Soviet chess piece against the Soviets, that's gone. However, they do at that point still have nukes. I think nuclear blackmail is under-discust as a reason for their continued sway, disproportionate sway over U.S. decision-making.

And, of course, when the war on terror arrives, it's a huge, huge boon to their ability to make a new pitch as to why they are an indispensable ally. And then by the time you're at Biden and Trump, we'll probably come back to this and do a no daylight part two so i won't spoil everything of course but when you get to biden and trump america is so far down the road of decline that in my opinion uh we have to flesh this out

but they're going to take whatever ally they can get even if it's one that's constantly uh sabotaging them and isn't strategic if indeed it ever was um also one other thing i'll add is that like you know these days especially like israel like like the the deep pockets like the American political infrastructure to resist, like, special interests is, like, weaker than ever. There have been foreign interest lobbies throughout, you know, like, that even precede the conventional start of the Cold War, the most famous to which is the China lobby, which is sort of the set of interests who were seeking to expurgate supposed communists from the State Department who had supposedly lost China to communism.

I think that you have, though, now, again, like this real, rather, you know, it has become, and part of why, like, there is in general, I think, Democrat or Republican, I mean, at least until now, where it seems like sort of this is beginning to shift, perhaps, at least among popular sentiment. But, like, you've had just, like, all of this consistency is because they have through resources and through a system that has become more permeable to this resources over time, as it has with other special. interest lobbying forces, like crypto, obviously, being another huge one, or the AI folks, you know, it's it's had this crazy distortionary effect on the politics. I think the Obama nuclear deal is to me the best example of this, where like, like we're literally about to, like this war is not ending evidently. You know, I don't know if it'll ever end the Iran war. It's, I, you know, but it does seem that like when it does end, it's going to be at best for the US like a restatement of like a lot of shit that was in the JCPOA.

And you know, it's like that was a strategic high mark for the US in like this whole standoff with Iran. And like the Israel lobby is completely blown it up because of their like short-sighted interest in their own goals. And I think they, you know, there is a real, the way, the only reason they're even able to achieve the self-destructive stuff is because of like the resources that they're willing to leverage. and that our system lets them leverage.

Yeah, I mean, I think when we're looking at Democratic presidents, the JCPOA and Obama negotiating that was the biggest way that we've seen in, you know, decades standing up to the Israel lobby. And then they got a major win, as I said, to start our interview when Trump scrapped it. And then they got, you know, like an APAC plant in Chuck Schumer and a zealot, a fundamentalist or maybe not a fundamentalist. or maybe not a fundamentalist, but a Zionist zealot in the leader of the Democrats in the Senate who opposed the deal. And I also just think we can call him a fundamentalist after that Israel day per age stick. I think maybe you're right. Maybe you're right.

You know, it also strikes me and we'll wrap shortly, but how H.W. Bush was a CIA guy, right? And when you're looking at the strategic interests of Israel and how Israel, looking at the strategic interests of the United States in the region and how frequently Israel's belligerence can cause problems for the intelligence community and like their objectives. You see this kind of repeatedly when we were going looking at Biden's complicity in the genocide, how you'd have like reports about how internally they were worried the intelligence community about how Israel was messing things up for them. but you have the State Department and the political apparatus of the Biden administration fully, you know, supporting it and being as Zionists as humanly possible.

So I do think that's important to note that like the Republicans that are coming out of the deep state were might have had skepticism like H.W. Bush did because of how Israel can mess things up for us. Indeed. And I don't think you have to be a cheerleader for America or have this, as we mentioned earlier, this sort of premise that, if it weren't for the Israelis, America would be, you know, everyone's favorite. To understand that it is typically, as far as people that go public, it is typically intelligence spooks, sometimes DOD guys who speak more reasonably about it than the more political. I will say the State Department in Truman's time, the State Department was completely, was, its leadership was completely opposed to. the founding of the state of Israel.

Even at the very end, George Marshall said, Mr. President, if I were voting, I'd vote against you, you know, based on this. But nowadays, yes, there's been a lot in between. So it's typically the deep state guys who don't like it because it interferes to my sort of, you know, shades of argument here about whether it's strategic. You know, we talked to Doug Ross now as a scholar. He's said a lot of the same things that are rather compatible with the Mearsheimer Walt thesis, that it's just not ultimately, on average, a strategic relationship.

And that's what those CIA guys care about because they're doing the wet work. They're doing the dirty work. And they get to see the skin and bones and, you know, gnarly shit underneath. The State Department people can live and speak and get careers in the world of, you know, lofty ideas and, you know, conferences in Berlin and stuff like that. but they don't run up against how frustrating this can be as much as the the wet work guys do, I think. Right. I think that's an accurate assessment. Then how if we're, you know, dispelling with the notion that this is a strategic relationship with Israel,

what's the best way to characterize it? That's maybe how we can wrap here. Hmm, right? I guess to me, well, I think, I think it is, I mean, look, I still think it is a strategic relationship. It just strategically sucks. Yeah. You know, for a variety of ways. I think what makes it, you know, it's, look, the phrase that Israel defenders and Israel lobbyists and Zionists love is the special relationship, which is also typically applied to the U.S. UK relationship. But I think the idea that U.S. and Israel enjoy a special relationship is qualitatively true. We do things for that country that we would not do for any other country. You know, diplomatically, politically, we stake a lot on them. And there is stuff that we get from it or have gotten from it in terms of, you know, military cooperation, technology sharing, surveillance in particular.

At the same time, though, we can acknowledge that, like, for all of the, you know, potential benefits, like Israel has, like, it has had a fracturing effect on the American polity. It is, you know, complicated our ability to get oil at different times or another. You know, the free flow of goods through the world is, like, becoming less and less of a settled fact, you know, more quickly all the time. time in part because like we went to war in Iran at Israel's you know insistence essentially if the New York Times you know is to be believed on that front and the Houthis and and the Houthis were

holding up commerce because of Israel's actions as well so it's like it all you know it's you know and it should be said like a lot of that those not you know effects are not just like oh those are like the fruits of the U.S. Israel relationship there in many ways the fruits of October 7 and the fact that like you know, Hamas fighters on that day by like completely upsetting this, the apple cart, by completely upsetting the security balance in, in, in, in the situation there, like, this is, you know, like they, they, they lit a match and this is what's come, you know, like years later at this point. Um, all of which is to say that like, you know, this relationship, whatever it is,

it is, it is defining the character of what, you know, American Empire, like, does next. Um, like, what it is and like where it's going. Like, whatever its trajectory is, I'm not saying that, like, Israel sets it, but it is, like, whatever we're doing, like, this is the dominant story. This is, like, how people are, you know, it's the benchmark that people are using to understand what we mean and we say things like America's declining or America's rudderless or America's willing to pursue, like, bullshit punitive policy because, you know, it's what they know, because we have stupid dogma.

You know, all of that, like, when you think of it, the first thing you come to mind are the killing fields of Gaza and, like, the slavery. with which our political system, you know, seems quite devoted to protecting that relationship. Well said, we have someone writing in ostentatious. Are there gift subscriptions available for the Blowback podcast? This would make an excellent gift for dads and grandpas who enjoy history. Is there? 70% of our audience, I'm sure, is our granddad's. We have gift certificates. Yeah. If you go to Blowback. That's supportingcast.fm, they have, like, options, I believe.

for like they in the FAQ and elsewhere they tell you how to do the gift subscription. You could just enter in somebody else's email though. So because what you get with the subscription, I should say, is that for $29, you get the mini series, which will only ever be behind that paywall. And then you get the full ad-free catalog.

And when our seventh season comes out later this year at the end of the year, you'll be able to get it all at once and bingeable with no ads. and we're re-launching our merch store. We're doing a big digital revamp this year. It is just me and Brennan, however, so everything takes a little bit longer than we'd like it too.

But that's the way it goes. It's not my fault. It's all my fault. You know, this is division of labor. This is how it's supposed to work. But yeah, and, you know, the more people sign up, the more we can commit to doing more stuff like this. We added a mini-series this year, you know,

if a whole bunch more of you sign up, you know, maybe next year, we'll make Brendan record in like a hamster ball. You know, there's just like a, there's just like a lot of stuff that we've been discussing that I think we. No, I don't remember that at all. But I, you know, it's like the hamster ball has been like, it's like a, that's a big one. That's, that's the number one idea. You know what? Working on some others.

If it gets subscribers, I will do that. But I, I, I don't like that it's being proposed publicly before I signed off on it. I mean, this is how you, we, we talked about this. Yeah. Well, or, I mean, the people are going to demand it. Noah's setting it in motion. And so now that it's been set on the majority report, you're going to have to. We get plant a seed.

Planted seed in a hamster ballcrows. Well, I mean, you guys are awesome. Amazing work, as always. So informative and so important for people to listen to blow back. We'll put a link to the site down below. and if you want to get access to this particular mini-series, you can subscribe on the site, and it will only be behind a paywall.

So if you want to check out the no-daylight miniseries, you should do that. Noah Colan and Brendan James. Thanks so much for coming on the show, guys. Thank you, Emma. Thank you. All right, with that, we're going to wrap up the free part of the show. Head into the fun half.

Kowalski from Nebraska says this is a great interview today. I would argue a best of. I do not agree with his politics, but George H.W. Bush, in my mind, was probably the last U.S. president that believed in the idea of actually governing in a country or statecraft as opposed to managing capital. It cannot be understated just how much Bill Clinton destroyed the normal functioning of the United States government and how we've never really come back from that. Destroying so much of the welfare state plays in capital interest before state interest, which allowed for unmitigated national. the hard right pivot of the Democratic Party destroying a left opposition for 20 years. HW had written to the Chancellor of Germany how we need to ensure a soft landing for the Russians to make sure we bring them into the New World Order. Didn't quite succeed at that part, I will say.

But if you read the recent Zubak piece on that, but not at least he acknowledged it. I mean, it was actually, to be fair, yeah, actually, Kowalski's right. It was the Clinton administration. That's like, go fuck yourself. Yeah. Crash. As opposed to exploiting them. while they're vulnerable and ending up with the Treaty of Versailles,

revanchist Russian situation, which ultimately Bill Clinton's spearheading with the shock doctrine. Yep. And shock doctrine's right. There's a really great chapter in the book, the shock doctrine, on that particular topic as well. So we're still dealing with that influence in the Democratic Party.

That, you know, not only like NAFTA, but also like welfare reform, which just accepted all the premises of the racist right-wing, sort of welfare queen's thing and ended up basically destroying a lot of lower income families that were dependent on what was our relative to now generous welfare state that helped people live more lives of dignity and like the results of that in terms of poverty are huge and disgusting and it's crazy to me that Bill Clinton was invited even even the Israel stuff

completely aside even with even just domestic policy that they're still inviting this mother or two conventions to speak for president candidates after Epstein I mean you don't even need to it's it's astonishing but yes but I'm saying like even the Epstein or Israel stuff all that stuff aside right his domestic

policy were harm that he put into place was Republican shit and and he has a huge part of the Democratic Party that has been defending it this entire time I would argue like the Obama administration like the weak parts of that

The big parts of Biden, we're all taking those freaks from the Clinton, I mean, including Hillary, Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State. Yeah, exactly. Hello, Brandon. Hello. Hello. Welcome to the show. What's happening on the discourse? Well, I have been doing a bit of a recurring series for the past week, week and a half that I like to call Twilight of the GOP boomer Slop.

And so we've just been going around like the Daily Wire and Daily Wire, a J.E. like old guard of GOP content creators to see what they've been up to see how they've been dealing with this new era of online right wing content creation we've been looking at Dana Loche remember that remember Dana Loche I do remember her she's uh yeah she's still around the NRA lady yeah yeah yeah she's one of like um rush Limbaugh's kind of like successors his radio empire got split into little like fiefdom by a few right-wing commentators like Dana Loche and, oh my gosh, Bongino, whatever his name is. Yeah. Shiny, Bongino. So we've been doing that.

I think tomorrow we're going to check out Megan McCain's podcast. I know you said, like, to give them a reason to watch the show. But I think I have to be perfectly up front that we might be watching Megan McCain's podcast tomorrow, Citizen McCain. And so, like, if you, that's what it's called. I know. I know. We've watched some.

Yeah, and no one seems to be watching it, but we did watch a portion of it. We also watched the Katie Miller interview with John Fetterman that just aired. Wow, a meeting of the minds. Yeah, he shared what his favorite condiment was. Hines. Is he in kindergarten now? What's your favorite color, John? He used Hines interchangeable.

with ketchup. Also, Heinz makes other condiments. I wasn't sure if he made like the brown sauce that sometimes just has like the Heinz name really large on it.

But yeah, I kind of think that he just was engaging in a little bit of like, you know, conflation, Heinz with ketchup. He got a donation

from the Heinz. Yeah, he was just trying to be local. I like Pennsylvania sauce. Exactly. Exactly. And then Hershey's also. I love Hershey's for chocolate. All right.

Well, that's got to be some simulating stuff. Check out the discourse with Brandon on YouTube and Twitch. We're on the road to 25,000 on YouTube, 10,000 on Twitch. People are consistently saying that the show becomes more tolerable each day. So never a better time to join up. All right.

Do so. Hey, Matt Bender. What's happening on your shows? Hello. Hello. How are you? YouTube.com slash Matt Bender. tonight left this mafia at 8.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We've had a good shows these past couple of weeks

where we've been having random guests join us of all, you know, various backgrounds. And tonight, I don't know who, but they'll likely be another one. So be sure to tune in. All right. Do so. And Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning with The Jacobin Show? Oh, yeah, Left Reckoning. We had a new episode with Freddie G from who does a lot on TikTok and Instagram talking about New York politics we also talked about a Norm Finkelstein clip that both you and Sam want to play

so we have to save it for Friday where he takes issue with people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. We don't have to save it for Friday. I wanted it today. Sam wanted to play yesterday. Okay, well, I'm in control today. Anyway, we played it on Tuesday.

Actually, the secret thing is that I'm holding it as a left reckoning exclusive. Oh, oh. You weren't like looking, you weren't looking out for Sam there? I was putting out, I was looking out for both of you, and I was actually looking out for myself. Everybody here is such an individual. I mean, exactly, but I tried to make it look selfless, and that's really like my secret.

But, yeah, we talked for a half hour about how he's right about Tucker and Candace Jones. Tucker, who just did an episode today about how the whites are dying. I'm barely paraphrasing So yeah Fuck that Klansman And the The drooling idiots that want to take Thing

Like the recent about face on Palestine From that guy seriously As if he's not going to immediately Turn around and use it to justify Further occupation of American cities To save white people All right See you in the fun half

Okay Emma please Well I just I feel that my voice is solely lacking in the majority report. Wait, what? Look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday.

Yeah, I think you need to do a program for Sam. Yes, please, sir, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a tour. Sushi and poker with the boys. Sushi and poker sushi.

And that's what we call. 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. Twerk.

Ugh. Sushi and wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. Someone's offered with twirp? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the voice.

Logic. Dwerp. Sushi and punk. A little kid. A little kid. Add this debate. People just don't understand. So I'm not trying to be a dip right now, but, like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids.

That's not what we're talking about. It's not a fun job. That's a really warm. That's what that. It has, like, the weight of the world on the shoulders. This is so much easier. When the majority report was just you, you were happy. Let's change the subject.

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.

Trump. Violet twir? Don't be foolish. And don't fucking tweet at me. And don't get you. It's an incredible steam song. I bumblers. Emma Viglin.

Absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game. Like, period.