The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3688 - West Bank Pogroms Intensify; Major Primary In Arizona w/ Jasper Nathaniel, Kai Newkirk

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

It's Hump Day and it's another Majority Report On today's program: Another man dies due to ICE, this time in Florida. This is the third person to be killed by ICE in less than two weeks. Tom Homan emerges from his cave to try and clean up ICE's reputation, claiming that body cams will be deployed immediately. Kristi Noem already made this promise back in February, of course it never happened. Homan also announced a pause on traffic stops but Donald Trump took to Truth Social to shut this pause down. Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who covers Israel's occupation of the West Bank on his Substack, Infinite Jaz, joins the program to discuss his recent month-long trip to the West Bank. Kai Newkirk, a community organizer running to represent Arizona's 4th congressional district, joins for a conversation about his platform and campaign. Mike Johnson has a red scare meltdown during a press conference. A farmer realizes in real time that he will not be able to afford the fertilizer needed to sustain his operation next year due to price gouging from the big three companies. Josh Hawley suggests that Russia killed Lindsey Graham. All that and more. Tell your Senators to block the NDAA until it is stripped of the proposal to integrate U.S. and Israeli militaries. 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: DELETE ME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. ZOCDOC: Find and book the right doctor https://Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY 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.

It is Wednesday. July 15th, 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, Jasper Nathaniel

of the Infinite Jazz Substack, will be back with us to talk about his link, reporting from the West Bank. And later in the show, Kai Newkirk, candidate for Congress in Arizona's fourth congressional district, will join a pre-recorded interview with Sam. That primary is, I believe, next week. It is. Thank you, Brian.

Also on the program, ICE has killed a third person in a week. This time in Florida, as the man tried to fly. flee and was hit by a truck. Ice said it was pausing its vehicle stops for the time being in response, but then Trump went on true social and said, uh, no, you're not. The ICE officer who killed Yohan Sebastian Duran in Maine was a new recruit, according to the Atlantic. The U.S. strikes Iran for the fourth day in a row. Senate Democrats did something.

They blocked the National Defense Authorization Act temporarily in protest of the Iran war. Catherine Clark, the number two Democrat in the House, breaks with Jeffries and backs cutting aid to Israel. Mahmoud Khalil has filed a lawsuit against the federal government for being jailed for his speech, brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Get them. Yep. And two advocacy organizations also are suing the administration over its sanctions against the ICC. New York Governor Kathy Hokel signs into law the nation's first ever data center moratorium.

Credit to the DSA Albany elected for pushing this through in many ways. E. Jean Carroll has finally gotten her $5 million plus interests that Trump was forced to. to pay her in damages over her sexual abuse claim. Because maybe this will offset it. Lastly, I'm getting $2 million, folks. I'm abandoning the Trump impression. Trump is being paid, was paid, his holding company, $2 million from the lead investor in a South Korean aluminum company

that the Commerce Department was penalized. Another coincidence, huh? All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It is hump day. Caching, that's the phrase that I've coined, and I get a royalty check in my bank account every time. Unfortunately, it's only two cents,

so it doesn't make a lot of money for me. But what are you going to do? Hello, Matt. Hello, Brian. We're starting off the show. again with another ice killing because in Florida there was another encounter with federal immigration officials that ended in somebody's death. And we still don't know the identity of this man. They have said that he was a man that was in his 20s. That's basically all we know at this point. And in Florida, apparently, Homeland Security Investigations, which is a part of ICE now,

had what they described as an encounter with four men in a vehicle in a parking lot that was near a very busy road in St. Augustine, Florida. And when ICE was approaching this vehicle, the four men, according to the agents, fled, and one of them ran into the road and was struck by, a semi-truck and he died at the scene. So in response to this, ICE went out and said,

okay, we're going to halt traffic stops. That was the directive. Trump goes on true social this morning and is like, no, you're not. There's still been no accountability for the killings of Alex Preti and Renee Good and all of the other people that had been killed by ICE. 11 is the count.

Or no, no, 12 now, if you're including this traffic incident in Florida, it could barely keep track under Trump 2.0, let alone the dozens of deaths that we know of an ICE detention. And this is just kind of, we should step back for a second and talk about the role of traffic stops in this country where armed police, in addition to ICE agents,

are stopping individuals leading to escalatory violence that shouldn't have to, be occurring. You know, there have been studies on this about how police stops that are related to traffic incidents result disproportionately in deadly situations specifically also for people of color, black people in particular. Black people are 12% of the U.S. population and there are a quarter of those killed in traffic stops.

And so, like, this is just a federalizing of, racist policing and it's largely directed towards Latino immigrants, but of course we have Somali immigrants, Syrian immigrants who have been impacted to if you're Muslim black, brown, whatever, you're also subjected to this federalized racial profile. And executed by people who are even less able to do it than cops are. Like this idea that we have these, like you said, the shooter of Joanne was a new recruit. all of the previous stuff was guys who'd been on the force on this immigration sinks for a long time which shows you how good their training has been but now we're getting just the complete live

wires who signed up for the bonus um and right been like actual law enforcement officers or whatever prior to this and they of course they're just getting in there and they're killing people they're flying off the handle um because that that that's like well they joined when it was essentially you know open season and they were seeing those squad. Yeah, mass deportations now. These are the people that got excited by the bloodlust of this fascist administration and joined for that very reason. You know, we don't hear too much about the proud boys anymore. But they were standing back and standing by for an application in the mail, weren't they? And it's like every time you hear about them when they kill somebody, it's like,

oh, well, he wasn't actually the target. We were actually after the Freddie Kruger of the neighborhood. And isn't it so important that we're there? No, actually the cops should do that. Right. Why? That's what we have cops. Like to the extent, like, why do we need even less people less trained than police officers on the job for like six months going out and getting the really scary guys that you say are out there? No, F off. Right. And so this is, as I say, the third ice-related killing in the week. Here's Caitlin Collins talking to Tom Holman, Mr. Kava bag, and talking about these latest ice killings. Homan makes this outrageous claim about vehicle attacks, and Caitlin Collins is like, wait, that is not related to what we're talking about here in Florida at all. I have to consider, do I stop it, or do I wait, wait until he stops, or should I approach him before he gets into the car? I mean, that's a two-ton weapon. The average weight of vehicle is two-toned.

So sometimes it makes sense not to let him get behind the wheel of a two-ton could be a weapon when, vehicle tax drop, like I said, 3,400%. The HHS doesn't say he was trying to hit him with their vehicle in this. They said that he was fleeing the scene and they feared for public safety. They didn't say that he was trying to. Like, look, I can't speak what VHS says. I'll say what I've always said, is that we're going to let the investigation play out

and find out where it lands, because we don't know how many cell phone videos are out there. We don't know if there's city cams and telephone poles. We don't, we, I certainly don't know all the witness statements. I haven't seen the statement from the officers. So, sorry, but this is him explaining to the agents why you can't lie as brazenly as you clearly have been up until now saying like, oh, yeah, you tried to hit me with this car. It's like, well, there's actually all these videos that are coming out of this stuff. Well, I mean, where are the body cameras?

Is then the question we're going to talk about that in just a second because they're supposed to be implementing those. But what's funny, and Brian and Brian brought this up earlier, he cites that outrageous 3,400 percent. increase in vehicle attacks that, you know, the ICE agents are saying is their statistic. That is a DHS statistic. And then essentially goes on to say he doesn't, he can't speak to what DHS says. But you can use that phony statistic to talk about how in danger these poor little snowflakes are from, from people whose families they're breaking up. As a reminder, in that main killing, his three-year-old daughter was a witness and she was

still in her pajamas. But here's a little bit more from Tom Holman. Cams and telephone polls, we don't, we, I certainly don't know all the witness statements. I haven't seen the statement from the officers. I haven't seen the statements from the witnesses. We'll let the investigation play out and where it lands, it lands. If officers acted inappropriately or illegally, it'd be held accountable, just like they were in Minnesota. No, they weren't. Several officers are now under criminal investigation in Minnesota because, you know, evidence showed some things were done improper. And I think, second. term moment is going to do the right thing. If officers acted inappropriate, they'll be,

they'll be handled. But let's wait for an investigation to come out. And when you get back to body cameras, I'm full supported body cameras. I'd like to get them out as quick as possible. Because body cameras actually show an officer's innocent like 88% of the time, if you look at the stats. So they actually help ICE in their operations. Well, that is interesting. And we'll play that second clip in just a second. But you know what? What he's talking. about there. On Monday, state prosecutors in Minnesota said that they finally got information from ICE that had been withheld by the federal government to obstruct investigations into the murders of Prettian Good. Coincidentally, state prosecutors were able to access that information on Monday

after there was this high-profile shooting in Houston. It's funny how that works. So yes, here it is. prosecutors on Monday obtained long withheld evidence of fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Prettie. Who was withholding that, Tom Holman? Convenient timing. Now, Caitlin Collins again asked home in the question here about why ICE agents who killed those individuals in Maine and Texas haven't put body cameras on, despite the fact that Congress allocated $20 million dollars, via their appropriations legislation to do just that. And this is what he had to say. The ICE agents not wearing body cameras

in Houston or in Maine during these two incidents. I know when the Democrats shut down the Department Homeland Security, I was up on the hill as part of the negotiating team to reopen the government and they wanted body cameras. There was $120 million in the budget they're holding up to buy those body cameras. Now since the big, beautiful, bill passed now the reconciliation bill the body cameras have been ordered there's a there's a

deployment schedule on the on the books and right now that is trained to train so officers in each field office can train their officers on the use of the body cam so but don't you see that to be extremely urgent given right now it is or do not have video of these situations beyond witnesses shows they had funding they bottom it the department democrat but it's been two months since april would have been a lot quicker. Yeah. So we don't know if they've used that money from the appropriations to purchase body cameras, but it's been given to them. So either they bought them and they're sitting on them or they haven't bought them and they're not putting them on. We've talked about why body cameras are wildly insufficient because we have endless footage, by the way, of the

killings of preddy and good and the state and the federal government, I should say, only provided the state of Minnesota with that evidence because of, I'm editorializing, but I think one can assume the PR issue here after they'd been trying to bury this investigation for months and months. We have footage of those killings. You know, there are a lot of privacy advocates and people that talk about the police state that say, like, you know, part of why Cory Booker's all behind the body camera thing and Chuck Schumer's behind it is because largely this, this helps, you know, tech surveillance companies. But it's a boondoggle.

But also for ICE, in most interactions that they'll have with the body camera, they're going to be able to capture the face of all the faces of the people that they're interacting with. So, you know, in mass, this is actually more of what ICE wants, even though it might provide footage for their killing sprees across the country. I mean, the truth is it's a complete waste of time and energy. ICE needs to be disbanded. We do not need these people with cameras, with microphones, with any kind of sensory equipment. They shouldn't be in the streets at all. Exactly. Abolishment is the only way. And I hear Democrats talking about it and saying dismantle. And I'm fine with that, too, if it means the same thing. If you're wanting to steer clear of abolitionist language, it sounds maybe more libertarian, like defunded. And I hear that. But no, I mean, you got to get rid of not only ICE, but DHS.

These these these all this stuff needs to be wound back entirely. You can have a border protection, but even like again like the like I said with the scary criminals that DH like they are not the ones equipped to do that. We spend so much money on a police department. They can get off their asses and if there's somebody who's like actual threat to public safety deal with it. And if it's somebody that just undocumented but has happened to been here for decades. I don't care. Leave and be. And and so ICE is then blaming and saying that the government shut down. didn't allow them to implement the body cameras. It's total BS. ICE was still operational in the middle of the government shut down. And in addition to the $20 million that I just mentioned from the appropriations legislation, in July, ICE or earlier, yeah, oh, no, July last year, not this year, sorry.

In July of last year, DHS got nearly $30 billion for enforcement. And that included in the legislation information technology and all this other stuff, which was not a mandate to buy body cameras, but it was a huge pot of money that they could have used to do so. And here is Christy Knoem, whose job, you know, who was fired, but now Mark Wayne Mullen took over. And she claimed in February 2nd, 2026, I just spoke with Tom Holman, ICE directors, blah, blah, blah, effective immediately. We are deploying body cameras.

to every officer in the field in Minneapolis. As funding is available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide. And silly shit. Funding was available two months later. We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country. The most transparent administration in American history. Thank you, President Trump. Yeah, they really rapidly deployed those.

Words have no meaning anymore. They have the von, like even... The other thing is, like, Democratic. Democrats need to shut up about body cameras. Agree. I agree. Talkers, scammers, hackers, but you're not sure what to do. Well, here is what you do. Go to www.deletme.com slash majority.

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Okay, quick break. And when we come back, we'll be joined by Jasper Nathaniel. We are back and we are joined now by Jasper Nathaniel, friend of the show, independent journalists covering Israel's occupation of the West Bank on his substack, Infinite Jazz. And we should say he's currently offering 20% off his subscriptions to his substack because, you know, it's tough out there for independent journalists, especially doing this kind of work. Jasper, welcome back to the show. Thanks, Emma. It's great to be here with you.

Yeah, it's great to see you. I'm glad that you are safe because we're going to play a lot of footage from your reporting in the West Bank. You just got back. And there's a lot of attention right now on Representative Rokane's detention by the IDF and settlers. And we will get to that. But I'd love to start on Saturday, the 12th. This attack is not getting enough attention. You are with CNN's Jeremy Diamond. other journalists as well, and you were attacked by Israeli settlers. This video here was posted by one of the other journalists in your car. Adele Shoko, am I saying that right? And you can see in this video these psychotic Israeli settlers trying to slice CNN's, the car's tires, and then attacking another car.

And then we'll talk about why you were there. But let's watch this video first. Go, Adele, window, window, window, Adele. Fuck. Go, go, go, go, go. On the anniversary of the murder of two Palestinians by Israeli settlers in Masra Sharquir, we together with his senior crew, accompanied Camel Musaled, a father of Saif who was beaten to death by settlers last year,

back to the place where he was killed. I'm being completely honest, the first thing I've heard that actually scared me was the mayor of Sindhil saying there's a guy on the mountain with an M16 who shoots from afar Wow, he's ready to throw rock look He's gonna knife. He's gonna go go Oh my fuck no he's going to go car Go drop move right move move

move move move move move move move move move move move move right go go go right right right Go go watch out watch out No there they are there they are The setters are after us? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're right behind us. They're coming. They're like to see the wonder.

Come on there. Help them to accelerate! Go! There are more of them like... Go, go, go. Oh, fuck! Go! Go, go, go, go, go.

Go, go, go. We fucking did it. Those fucking little bitch-ass settlers fucking sticks and their fucking stones. We fucking got there. There's the following. Are they coming into Sindjo? Yeah.

But this not locking. They're coming. They're coming. We don't function the machine. Go, go, go, go. The ambulance is already here. The attack on us was the further attack on journalists in this area only in the past year.

And the only reason we were able to make this visit is because CNN had a bulletproof vehicle with Israeli license place and we were wearing trespass. Since last April, settlers have occupied this land. They are now literally living in Palestinian homes and everywhere. homes in Area A, which is unprecedented. One last time I was here, we saw a settler outside sweeping the steps. What left us with a broken windshield would likely have manned another Palestinian victim if

Palestinians had tried to return to their own land. Wow, so harrowing footage, Jasper, just tell us about what happened there. And the mention of Area A is also key, if you could expand on that point. Yeah, maybe I'll start there. So the area that we went to, it's in a village called El Mezra al-Sharkia, which if you recall Muhammad Ibrahim, the 16-year-old Palestinian-American kid who was abducted by Israeli soldiers last February and held for almost a year, it's a town where he's from. It's a town where his first cousin, Seifola Musilet, was from. It's one of the wealthier, more privileged villages in the West Bank that's made up of about 80% American citizens. The town about last April, a little over a year ago, settlers for the first time ever entered the village.

Specifically, they went into their olive fields, which are on a mountain, and they just began attacking anybody who came into their own fields. The mountain is Area A. And so what that means is, according to the Oslo Accords, which, you know, divided the West Bank into areas A, B, and C, area A is supposed to be entirely administered by the Palestinian Authority. Israelis are not even allowed to go there, according to Israeli law. So historically, settlers have, you know, built their settlements and their illegal outposts in Area C, and that's where most of the worst attacks are, like Masafriata, the place where no other land is filmed. and that's all Area C for the most part. Which is a majority of the West Bank, we should say, that is under Israeli settler control.

Yep. Right. The thing is they've pretty much swallowed up area C, and they've moved into areas B and A, which a couple of years ago would have been completely unheard of. And so this is just one of many places across the West Bank, including in Janine, where there's a new outpost in Area A,

where settlers have just entered there and are living there now. And it is just a reflection of their, you know, complete impunity. And so they've been living there since April. Last July, a year ago, Saturday, a group of Palestinians from El Mesra al-Sharkia tried to return to their olive fields. And they were set upon by over 60, maybe over 100 settlers, who basically hunted them through their own land for over two hours,

while the IDF pepper sprayed and blocked anybody who, tried to help them. Two people were killed. Muhammad Shalabi was shot dead and Sefahulamu's was beaten to death. So the trip on Saturday was with Sefollah's father, Camel, to try to return to the alifields, to the place where his son was killed. And it was both, you know, a tribute to his son. He wanted to get to the place where his son took his last breaths. But also it was supposed to be a sort of moment of defiance to, you know, show the settlers, we're not afraid to go to our own land. I should say, you know, it's, you know, as your audience knows, I'm sure, things are about as bad as I've ever been in the West Bank right now. I just got back from a month there. I frankly lost count of how much, how many attacks I personally saw how many times I was assaulted myself.

But even saying that, we knew that this particular trip was a very dangerous proposition because the settlers now, are literally living in the farmhouses that the Palestinians built on that mountain. They treat it as if it is their land now. And anybody who goes near is guaranteed to be attacked. It's not even a question. And so that's why CNN was there in an armored vehicle with bulletproof windows and slash-proof tires. And, you know, if we had those resources, we would have done the same, but we didn't. So we were in a rented Kia with no bulletproof vests.

but, you know, we actually got to the place where Safe was beaten to death. And, you know, I was really happy that Camel got to reach that place for the first time since his son was killed. I think it meant a lot to him to be able to get there. But in just the most predictable thing ever, while we were there, we saw this car full of settlers speeding towards us, block the road. They went after the CNN car first. They couldn't get into it. They couldn't, you know, break the windshields.

They tried to slash the tires. it was just too armored. So then they turned on us. And as you saw, you know, they smashed our windshield. And I think it's fair to say that it was a very close call. Because had they gone for our tires, they would have had no problem slashing them. And we would have gotten stuck out there. And that is exactly what happened to safe a year earlier was he got stuck on the baton when nobody was,

the baton is what they called the mountain, when nobody was able to reach him and he was killed. And so, you know, it was a close call. We made it out, obviously. but I think that, you know, the takeaway is this, you know, we as a group of Western journalists went there and we got attacked and we had this really close call. The Palestinians who don't have armored vehicles, who don't have the, you know, benefit of a cameraman following around, knowing that this is going to be in the mainstream press, like the stakes for them are just infinitely higher. And it's just frankly not worth most of them trying to get to their land. And so I think in part, you know, we went there and a lot of the dangerous places that we go as journalists. We go to show this is what it's like to try to get to this place.

If you are a white Western journalist with all the protections that come with that, just imagine what it would be like for a Palestinian to try to come here. Right. And I mean, I know that you've tried many times to reach out to Mike Huckabee, who's the United States ambassador to Israel. Have you heard from him at all about this particular incident, the attack on you yourself as an American citizen? Because also, I mean, we should say their response about the killing of a Palestinian American citizen here has been, I mean, to call it insufficient would be to downplay the severity of the depravity. I have not heard from the embassy and I've reached out many times. you know, Huckabee himself actually, after Safe was killed a year ago, he met with Camel, the father, and they had a long talk, and he promised that he would do everything he could to get justice for him.

Two weeks later, he went on television and he denied that they even knew it was settlers who killed him, and then Camel never heard from him again. He knows that settlers have occupied this American-owned land. You know, the irony here is that a lot of these Palestinian guys are from Florida. and they have stand-your-ground laws there, obviously. You know, this is a private property issue, among many others. You would think that these sort of died in the world Republicans, like Mike Huckabee, like Marco Rubio, like Donald Trump,

would want to stand up for Americans' rights to their private property to be able to stand their ground. But, you know, of course, there's just total deference to Israel. So the short answer is no. There's been absolutely no support from the embassy. I think, you know, the benefit of having a CNN crew there in Jeremy Diamond is that it's pretty much guaranteed to get attention, whatever happens. And so after that incident went viral, they went and arrested four people from the mountain.

Now, I haven't heard of any charges. I would be shocked if they were held for more than a couple hours or if any of them ever did any time. But, you know, this is how Israel does its PR. The same thing happened last year when, you know, I documented this brutal attack in Termesia. They make one arrest, a token arrest. but the bigger issue of the fact that this entire a mountain has been stolen by settlers. They are living in homes that were built by Palestinians. That will just go completely unaddressed.

Yeah. I mean, it's just the depths of this depravity. It's difficult to stomach. And you saw it up close as well. This is an interview you did on the same day speaking with an IDF soldier here. And this is also key, right? because the Israeli government tries to separate the settlers who are given license by the government to settle this land from the IDF, from the official actions of the Israeli government,

and you were here able to speak to this soldier about this attack. This is a longer interview, but it's well worth it to get through the whole thing. What we're doing here? The man who was just with us, one year ago today, the son was a beat into death on his own land up there. That's where we're left. Area A, his privately owned land. Where? Yep, on the mountain.

He wanted to get to his land where his son was murdered on the one-year anniversary. We drove to get to it, and we were immediately attacked by settlers who had slashed their tire, who jumped on a windshield, smashed our windshield, tried to throw bricks into our car, And now we're, I mean, as far as I can tell, nobody's giving the settlers, you know, in interrogation or anything. But like, you see how ridiculous that is. By the way, the father whose son was killed, American citizens, both of them. The father and the son, America. That is privately owned American land in Area A.

The settlers have no right to be there. Because it's owned by private American citizens. The man whose son was murdered is an American citizen who was in Tampa Bay, Florida. He owns land here because this is his ancestral land. He has not been able to reach it in a year since the son was murdered on his own land. Up on that same hill that the settlers are standing right now? Yes. That's Area A, and it's privately owned land by Palestinian Americans.

I mean, you see how ridiculous this is, right? I understand. What settler should really be, I mean, I don't know if this is your jurisdiction. I'm like, they should be evicted. It's not interesting. Okay. I mean, the settlers have no rates. No, that the farm that's on top of the hill. It's privately owned Palestinian land.

No, on top of the hill, it's not area. It's quite far. It's quite far. It's all right. They've taken the entire mountain. They own the mountain now. If I tried to reach it last October, I was immediately attacked with the group of Palestinians. They own this entire mountain. The minute we drove onto it today, we got attacked.

They were suspected of A&U's meat. the accent. No, I agree to, no, I'm on this on the page on that. I agree with you guys is absolutely no good. And to live on this land that's not theirs. Again, for that, I'm not 100% sure that you're right. Because the farm up on there, I'm like... Outposts are illegal.

It's not illegal settlement. The outposts are illegal. The outposts are illegal. Abid Buf has spoken They're not allowed to be there The farms that are being taken That's not That's a little bit of

And by the way, the farm, you know where they're living? They're sleeping in a home That owns to a Palestinian That belongs to a Palestinian Who lives here? They stole There? I don't think that's a Palestinian home

What I can tell They just together some I'm telling you that it's I know for a fact it is Because I know who it belongs to And I've been in El Mezra al-Sharkia Looking out at it He's saying that's my home.

I can't see them. I'm saying this job really sucks then. If you understand that these fucking settlers have no right to be there. They have no right to be attacking people. They're attacking the man whose father was beating. I understand. I understand you're upset. But you can understand what things you're telling me or leagues and leagues above me.

Well, you got a machine gun. I mean. A machine gun? Yeah. What do I do? Shoot them? I'm just saying, man. Like, I've been, I've been reporting from your first.

here for a long time. I've never once seen a settler get to get questions, get arrested, anything like. So, uh, face covered, super proud, uh, Patriot there. And when I say Patriot, I mean, for which country, because sounds kind of American, um, I mean, I guess just reflecting, if you could reflect on that conversation, because it's got to be really jarring to try to make these humanistic pleas to somebody, who fundamentally understands what's going on, but in front of your face has this cognitive dissonance. You know, there's no way to spend time in the West Bank and not have encounters with IDF soldiers,

and you encounter all different types of them. There's the just sort of straight up, raving, racist, genocidal types. This guy, I actually genuinely believe him that he was completely ignorant about all those things. I mean, a lot of these ideas, soldiers think they're in Israel. They don't know that the West Bank is not Israel. They don't actually know what an occupation is. You know, if it wasn't clear, he was trying to tell me,

so he's acknowledging they shouldn't have attacked you. Like, okay, thank you so much for that. What he's saying, though, is I don't think you're right that this is Area A, and I don't think you're right that's a Palestinian home that they're living in. I know I'm right. Like this is not debatable. It's insane that a soldier who works in this area wouldn't know that. It should be insane, but it's not because what they are there to do is protect the settlers.

And so even if you were to like accept all the sort of premises of the Oslo Accords and the Israeli government, even Mike Huckabee, frankly, like there's very few people, Smotech being an exception, Ben-Gabir being an exception. There's very few people who would say, yes, Palestinians, or, yes, settlers should be able to go into Area A and take Palestinian's homes. Like, that is supposed to be one of these just off-limits things, but it just shows how far we've got in that they're doing this now. And a soldier like that just doesn't even realize that we're talking about Area A. It's so, it's like, I mean, it's not funny, but I know the guy who's home the settlers are living in. And the soldier, I don't know if you caught it, but he goes, are you sure? I visited there.

I don't think it's a Palestinian home. I know for a fact it is I know who it belongs to, but that's where we're at is, you know, it is just sort of like taken for granted that they can go wherever they want. What's your assessment of that or what would you infer? Would that be like, you know, what the directive is for the IDF at this point? Like, I mean, these these young soldiers have grown up knowing essentially only occupation. And so comparing that lack of education with directives from the government, would indicate that what you're saying is true?

I think that the, I mean, I don't know what that particular, like that that soldier was part of a unit. The commander was just like one of these complete, aggressive, cruel, sadistic. I mean, while that was going on, he was trying to steal the CNN cameraman's memory card. And I just sort of, you know, this guy was off like throwing a tantrum about the camera. And I was like, I'm going to go talk to this soldier who looks like he does, who looks like he's just scared to be standing there. So I don't know what he, you know, what that unit in, like the units are all kind of different in some ways. What I can tell you is that institutionally, the soldier, the IDF is completely aligned with the settler movement.

The settler movement right now, like I said, they are setting their sites higher. They have gone through Area C and now they're going to area B&A. There's also a feeling with this Israeli government. They don't know if they're going to get voted out in October. So Smotrich and Ben-Gabir and even Nanyahu are basically saying it's time to step on the gas. We need to take as much land as we possibly can in case we're out of here in a couple of months. And the IDF is just fully on board with that. And so, you know, they're like I have witnessed many attacks where the IDF is actively taking part in the attack or they're protecting the settlers.

But in cases like this, you have somebody who just, like, he's just a sort of cog in the wheel. Like, he doesn't even realize where he is or what he's supposed to be doing. He just sort of takes it for granted that, like, yeah, of course the settlers are allowed to be. No, they shouldn't attack you because, like, I was taught when I was a kid that, you know, it's bad to do that. But the more important question here of, like, whose land is it? He's just completely lost on him. Yeah. Matt, did you want to say something?

I was just like, imagine, like, a Russian soldier not knowing that they were on occupying. occupied Ukrainian territory and still marching around it with a gun. Right, right. It's crazy. Yeah, it is absolutely insane. Now, do we have this other interview? Oh, that might come later. I'm just looking here at our sound sheet.

I want to make sure we get to everything. Oh, yeah, this is, okay. So now I want to turn to the day where Rokana was detained by, the IDF if you're okay moving there on to their Jasper. Sure. So this is, I guess this was July 8th. Now, so that video was Saturday. This was Wednesday. So a week ago. Right. We're going a little bit backwards in time. So this is some footage here of you with sellers at Um al-Kahir in Massifur Yata. Am I saying that correctly? Um-Al-Hare. Gotcha. And this is shortly after Representative Rokaneh, left this particular village and this occurred here, your interactions with these settlers,

and by interactions, I mean, you know, you're kind of physically getting in the way of their attempts to commit violence. This is shortly after Rokana left this village, and it occurred at the same time that his bus was hijacked. So you can get a sense here of the settler fervor with Jasper's interactions. I'm I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry What you're doing? What's you're doing? What's your What's your What's your What's the one?

Hey, Hey, hit me, bitch Get the fuck, Yeah, Oh, Let's let me put it. What's back?

So you can see there. Don't fucking touch me. Don't fucking touch me. So you can see there, they're holding Israeli flags. There's some other footage of them holding, you know, hanging Israeli flags. You're in between the group of Palestinians and these settlers who like, how frustrating is it that you can't just deck them? I mean, I don't know.

Like, or you're going to get in trouble? That's my first reaction to that video. Yeah, no, that's what everybody is saying. I mean, look, nobody wants to punch that guy in the face more than me. The reality is if I punch that guy, the minute I'm out of him, El-Hare, he's coming back and he's going to burn the village to the ground or he's going to, you know, beat a Palestinian to an inch of his life. They tell you whatever you do, you know, defend yourself, defend the people, but do not. ever be the aggressor because you won't be the one to pay the consequences. It'll be the vulnerable people. So yeah, it is difficult, though. It takes a lot of restraint to not hit a guy like that.

So then, I guess, just this particular day, what was happening on this day and how did your visit and reporting to this particular area in Massafayata fit into what happened with Representative of Rokana. And I guess Cam Caskey was also with him. Yeah. So I'd been staying in Umehahir for about a week. And I got a call from, you know, Rokana's office that they were going to be in the West Bank, asking if I had suggestions for places they could go, people they could meet. I went and I talked to the sort of village council in Ume al-Hare. I mean, I told them flat out, like, listen, this guy does not have perfect politics in my estimation on Palestine.

And I, like, talked then through sort of where he's at, and they said, yes, like, he should come visit. So I connected him with the people there. He came to visit. He came the morning after. I mean, that last week, there were attacks basically every single day. There are always attacks there, but it was like a particularly violent week. This is also a place where a settler murdered out of Athylene last July on camera. It was never arrested.

So anyway, he came with his little delegation, including Cam Caskey. They showed them around, you know, they, they showed them a home that the settlers are actively trying to steal right now. The, you know, the flag planting thing that you saw there is basically like the settlers come into the village. They try to plant flags. And after they do that, they then come back with a fence and they start fencing off an area. It's the first step in them stealing more land. Rokano was not there when there was any sort of a violent confrontation. They then were going to go to another town in Masafriata, so they left.

Shortly after they left is when those settlers came in and attacked us. And I got a message from Kamkowski that when I looked at my phone after the attack was done, who was saying to me, where our bus has just been hijacked. I don't know what to do. I'm freaked out. And I called him, and at that point, they were. detained by the IDF. Look, like, I want to talk about Rokana's response to the trip after he got home,

but just in terms of like this particular incident, you know, the critics of it have said, oh, it was a stunt, it was set up, it was, you know, this, that, or the other. I'll tell you right now, like, it just wasn't that. They were traveling in an area in Masafriata where you are constantly being confronted by these violent settlers. with machine guns. It is incredibly common for them to block a road, for them to hold up a car.

It's, you know, the fact that the soldiers came and immediately took their side, like this is every single day, every single hour, all across the West Bank. And again, the fact that, like, these two separate incidents were happening within, like, a kilometer of each other just shows, like, it's everywhere.

It would be very difficult for, I mean, it's funny because when Ro Khan's team reached out to me, you know, they were saying, like, we want to make sure that he, really sees the occupation. And I was just kind of laughing to myself. I was like, all he's got to do is get on the bus. And like, come here.

He's like, he's going to see it. And sure not, the bus got hijacked by settlers with M-4s and then soldiers. And I was just not surprised at all. Yeah. So, and then actually, like, I'll leave it there for now because there's more to that, but I'll get into it another time. Okay. I mean, do you want to talk about connoisse?

I'm curious about your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the way Ro Khanna and me started talking in the first place was earlier this year, he made a vote to defund UNRWA. And I called him out publicly for it. And he actually, and the tweet, you know, got, was getting shared a lot. And he responded to it publicly and said, I didn't know that was in the bill. And I was like, well, that's kind of a problem that you're just like accidentally voting to defund, you know, the biggest humanitarian group.

Gaza and the West Bank. And he was like, I agree. I shouldn't have, you know, it was a mistake. He then, like, said, he asked if I wanted to talk sometime. I then interviewed him. In that interview, I pressed him on things like whether the Iron Dome is actually a defensive tool or not, or if it is just sort of a shield for them to commit genocide with impunity. At the end of that interview, I asked him if he would take a Palestinian-led trip to the West Bank. The reason I said Palestinian led is because lots of congressmen go on a J-Stra. led trip to the West Bank and look like I've never been on one I don't know exactly what they're doing but I can say that it's different if you know it is Palestinians versus Israeli activists or you know

Jewish activists or something who are leading it and he said yes and so then when they called me you know I was not going to just like invite him to you know go wherever he wanted I like talk to various people and made sure they understood the situation and they agreed to have him come and I have to say like after hearing what happened to him I thought that he, if anything is going to, you know, get somebody to, you know, what I think is the right position on Israel-Palestine, like, it's something like this. To just get to experience it firsthand. And, you know, this is a guy who has been calling Gaza a genocide for some time now. He calls what's happening in the West Bank apartheid. He then goes home, you know, he, the incident itself sort of goes viral. And then I saw these interviews yesterday where, you know, with Jeremy Scahill, Dropside, and Hassam Piker, where he's sort of hemming and hauling about whether or not to sanction Israel, he is not willing to commit to a full arms and barred at Israel.

He's still referring to the Iron Dome as, you know, purely a defensive tool. and I just got to say like I don't know how you can square the circle of going to a place experiencing apartheid firsthand, seeing the way, you know, violence is used to enforce two sets of laws to know that there's genocide happening a few kilometers away and then go home and not be prepared to say we should not send them another dime, not another bullet, nothing, even if they want to buy it, like absolutely not. I don't know how you go back and sort of maintain this, Israel has a right to defend itself rhetoric. And so, you know, look, like, I am, it's not my job to, like, cast people out, call them irredeemable. I still think it's positive that he was there. I've talked to the Palestinians there again, and, you know, they know what they're watching all this too.

They're following it, too. There's still hope that, like, what he experienced will translate into a coherent worldview, that are a coherent policy set that is actually fully supportive of like Palestinians and their right to resist and their right to, you know, freedom. But it just hasn't happened yet. And hopefully that changes. Yeah. I mean, this is a tactic that Ro Khanna has used before in a different context. In February of 2025, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee wanted to subpoena Elon Musk. Ro Khanna represents Silicon Valley, which I would say also has a lot of investments in Israel with their weapons and surveillance technology. But Kana missed the vote to subpoena him,

and they came up short because he missed that vote. And he later claimed that he was unaware that the vote was happening. Whoopsie. So returning to what you had to say about the UNRod defunding, which to me, like, I think what you're saying makes sense in terms of evolving on this very issue. But anybody that voted to defund UNRWA is understanding that you're completely decimating any kind of civilian healthcare civil society infrastructure in the Gaza Strip in the midst of the genocide you know I think there's more more room for people to grow on things like understanding the role of the Iron Dome but defunding UNRWA is you know that led to thousands and thousands of people dying yeah and I also

also want to just say that like it's actually not a new position for democrat to take to be like fully against the settlers like you know j street is famously against settler violence the same time that o'cona was there maybe a day later like a new york rabbi went and like filmed a video talking about how it was his zionism that like led him to go there and you know speak out against the settlers which i thought was like an absolutely repulsive thing to do but um but the the disconnect that happens is you see these people who are completely defenseless, like literally defenseless, up against people with machine guns, with the full support of the military, with the full support of the army. And the intuitive thing to think should be like, these people need to be protected.

The settlers who are tormenting them and the army that's behind them need to be fought back. The question that Jeremy Scale was asking him yesterday about like, did the fighters in Gaza have a right to go after the military bases in Israel, like, that's a, like, that's not really that different from what we're talking about here. Like, do you think that these people should just, these Palestinians should just have to take it, just get murdered and killed and starved and beat it and have their schools shut down and have their humanitarian agencies shut down? And if they so much as throw a rock in return, you know, they will either be shot dead or thrown in jail. Like, do you think that's how it should be? Or do you think that, you know, Palestinians should have a right to defend themselves? And so,

So I think that there's this sort of sleight of hand that happens with a lot of liberal Zionists, frankly, where it's easy for them to speak out against the settler violence, especially when it's against one of these like really vulnerable Bedwin communities where there's no armed resistance. But you take it one step further, and it's like how or like what needs to happen for the Palestinians here to be able to have a chance to survive. And the idea that like they would possibly, you know, take up arms or that Israel shouldn't be able to, you know, do these things and have an iron dome to make sure they could net. never face a counterattack. That's just out of the question. And I think it just shows that like, even when you have somebody evolving on this issue, we're so far from any mainstream Democrats saying something like Palestinians have a right to defend themselves. Palestinians have a right to have their own military. Like that is just still, I don't think you could hear that from any mainstream Democrat. And that to me just shows that like, look, I think, again, I think it's positive

that he went there. I want to also say to people who are saying, Roe-Kana use these people as props. Like the Palestinian people who we met with, the ones who I know are not naive about this. Like they understood this was a political trip for him that he was going to use this. They chose to meet with them anyway. They thought that it was worth telling their story.

So I just want to like caution people against just referring, like acting as if these people had no agency whatsoever. Like a lot of them know who Ro Kana is. They follow American politics. But again, it just like, I'm glad. I'm glad the trip happened. Hopefully something good comes of it. But like he and everyone else basically is still

so far from like putting the Palestinians on the same level playing field as every other people in the world who has a right to defend themselves who has a right to live in dignity and has a right to not be terrorized every single day. Well, that's the irony of these Democrats saying they support a two-state solution because statehood would necessitate having your own military. And that is part of why this two-state solution fiction is just a way to bide more time. Now, I wanted to play one more interaction that you had here with an IDF soldier. This is in Kusra. Yeah.

Well, let me actually set this one on it because it's sort of like a perfect segue. So this is in a town called Kusra, which is in the northern West Bank. This place has not faced settler violence up until maybe the last two years. And Jasper, can I just ask for a point of clarity? Is the north, that's disproportionately area A and area B, if I'm not mistaken, right? I don't know for sure if that's right. But the north was the area that settlers were evacuated from in 2005, along with the Gaza disengagement.

So there are less settlers in the north, or there have been traditionally, and there's this contingent of settlers who have basically been desperately clawing to get, clawing their way back there, and now they're back. And they've reestablished four settlements there, and there's all these outposts there. And so Kusra is a village that has never seen. seen this before. And suddenly they're finding themselves encircled by settlers who have taken a hilltop and are now launching attacks on them every single day. They killed somebody a couple of months ago in March. And I was there staying with a group of young men who are living in a house

on the hill that the settlers stole that is directly below where the house stolen house that the settlers are living in. I was there for two days or for two nights, three days. We were getting attacked the entire time. They were coming, they were throwing rocks, they were cutting electricity, they were flying drones over us. What happened in this incident is there was like a full-on attack, two trucks full of settlers came flying at us, throwing huge rocks, trying to get in. The soldiers finally came. They spent 15 minutes chatting with the settlers, and then they came in, and they immediately threw four Palestinians up against the wall and started interrogating them. And the interaction that you're about to see is one where the soldiers are accusing the Palestinians of throwing rocks at the settlers.

And I was trying to ask the soldier, you know, I'm not going to like engage with this question of whether or not they were throwing rocks. I was asking, like, what I wanted to say was, is it okay to throw rocks at somebody who has stolen your friend's house and is now attacking you from it? Like, what is the alternative for them? And so this conversation was while they were, they had these four guys up against the while they were interrogating. And they're trying to get the footage from my phone and I won't give it to them. And so that, anyway, that's what you're about to see. Okay, great.

Here is that footage. Can you explain that to me? Like the settlers who came down here are living in a house that belongs to a local Palestinian guy. Why aren't they being arrested for that? You don't know? What are you saying? Okay. the settlers who came down here are living in a home that belongs to a Palestinian in Kusra.

They stole his home, they're living in it, and now they're driving down here and attacking the locals. Why is it, why is that allowed? What? I'm not talking about video. I'm saying about video that I got from this house. Okay, but I'm asking something different. Why are they allowed to live in a house that doesn't belong to them? Why they're allowed to go on the roof and throw up. I'm not asking about that. I want to know why they can steal a house. No, I'm asking about it.

Okay. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer here, so I can't answer your question. I'm not a lawyer too. But you are, are you police or army? No, I'm army. Okay. Why are they allowed to live in a house that does not belong to them?

That's not my answer to give them. Got it. But it does seem a little ridiculous, right? No. No? No? No. Okay.

I know the laws here. I know the laws here. So the army, what's their job? No, no, no, I'm saying it seems ridiculous that, by the way, I'm Jewish, okay? I could move to Israel and, you know, do Al-Awiyah if I wanted to. You're welcome. Thank you. But I don't understand why some Jewish guys, like me, can just decide,

I like this house that's owned by a Palestinian, I'm going to move in. And that's just a lot. That's not a question I can answer. Okay. All right. If you're Jewish, you're welcome. I am Jewish, but I don't think I can just go steal somebody's house. I mean, I shouldn't be allowed to do that.

Still, I'm not the guy to answer that question. Okay. I'm here to ask you something different. Right. And I told you, I saw these guys come down. Like 10, 15. Oh, so just completely not engaging with the substance of your question. And again, I'm sorry, guys, there's been some choppiness with my camera.

I don't know what's going on, but hopefully you can hear me okay. Jasper, just some of your thoughts on that as well. I was listening to it. I was like, man, I really have a shtick with these soldiers, like, you know, asking, isn't it ridiculous? Like, it, I mean, it's so, it's kind of like what I was just saying about Roe. It's like nobody could possibly look at this situation where settlers have stolen somebody's house and are now launching attacks,

look at it and go, the people who are throwing rocks at them or who are, you know, allegedly throwing rocks at them are the ones who should be arrested or questioned. Or question. Or thrown up against the wall. Sorry, that's my dog. Happy to have you back.

Yeah. But these guys, like, whether or not, look, like these guys, I don't know if they understood how ridiculous it was or if they just take it for granted. that, like, of course Jewish people can go live wherever they want here. I can't remember if it's in that clip, but there's a point where he says, like, if you're Jewish, you can go wherever you want.

And I'm just like, no, you can't. What are you talking about? Like, first of all, according to international law, you can't. Second of all, like, just do you hear yourself? That's what I want to ask them. Like, do you hear yourself? You hear the things that you're saying. But, you know, it's, it's hard to, like, be around the Palestinian guys and watch them go through that.

watched the way they were just like humiliated over and over by these people. And they're not, you know, if they say anything back, they might get dragged into jail in one of Ben-Gabir's jails and tortured. And they would never be able to do the things that I was doing there. They can't question them like that. And so it's like I get to go there and sort of like, you know, challenge these guys and, you know, try to make them sound stupid. But the Palestinians there, it's just, you really can't overstate the amount of just,

humiliation and, like, indignities that they have to put up with on a constant basis. I mean, they all, like, the guy whose house they're being attacked from, it, like, it's their cousin or their uncle. Right. And they just have to sit there and take that. Like, they stole our uncle's house, and they can't do anything about it except try to protect the next house and then almost get thrown in jail for it. And, you know, these are the kinds of things that happen constantly.

And frankly, I think that if I was not there filming, it, those guys would have been dragged off to jail. So yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, it just occurs to me how it's like it's this rapacious logic of, of, you're just going to have to sit and take it. And that feels almost like half the enjoyment for them. And it's disturbing to think about that level of inhumanity, let alone see it up close. The power dynamic that's on display.

I mean, I don't know in that video you showed before, the attack of Moucheer. The settlers keep doing this thing where they stick their finger in their face and like wagget at you. Like they really just feel like they. And they're whiny little bitches too. Like they are, they're like like 120 pounds soaking wet. And you know, whatever. This guy was literally going around kicking people in the nuts like toddlers, throwing women and old and old people on the ground. He went and he threw a tamstrum and he flipped a dumpster.

And then they called the, the. police to pointing at us trying to have us arrested. Like, we're talking about babies here. But they have all the power and they have all the guns. And, and, you know, like, it's just, it's a maddening, maddening situation. Well, Jasper, really appreciate your time today. And lastly, I guess before I let you go, if you could just quickly reflect on the difference in this reporting trip for you versus other times in the West Bank, like overall themes about. how bad it's gotten. Yeah.

The main difference is that the settlers have just taken more land now. And there's places that I visited that I visited in the past that had never seen a settler in their life, or certainly not on their land, at least, that now we're facing daily attacks. And, you know, there are places that have had all of their farmlands stolen. A Bedwin community that I visited in October where we got attacked there now is just gone. disappeared. I was not able to track down the two people that I met that lived there. The, you know, a place like Umalheir, last time I was there, it was just right after

Al-Athalian was murdered. And there were two caravans that settlers were living in. Now there's like 12 caravans. There's Israeli flags all over the village. The attacks are every single day. So it's just like, you know, it's a slow boil. Things getting worse and worse and worse and worse. More people are being killed. And, you know, the, I hate to say it, but like, it feels pretty hopeless. It feels pretty hopeless. And it's going to take a radical rethinking of, you know, our relationship with Israel, such as, you know, such as it is, to make this stop. Because we're talking about an entire army, an entire government, an entire government,

entire state that is fully behind the system of violent apartheid and ethnic cleansing and genocide. And when you go to the West Bank, you just see how it plays out in these tiny moments every single day and then occasionally bursts into like an explosion of violence and people die. But even when it's not happening, it's just it's constant. And, you know, I think that hopefully, hopefully like the experience that Roecona had, translates into something that's more substantive than just going home and sort of reciting the, you know, like, J Street. Right. Slightly left of J Street line.

But without that, like, a lot of like these people are screwed. Well, if you want to support Jaspers reporting, independent reporting in the West Bank, we can put up the substack guys, right? This is infinite jazz.com. This is Jasper's substack, and for a limited time, 20% off subscriptions on his substack. It's tough out there for independent journalists, especially if you're doing this kind of work where you're in physical danger as well. So Jasper, really appreciate your time today. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Emma. Take care. Take care. With that, folks, we're going to now play. It's a little bit of a longer first hour for you. What a treat. It might just be a freebie show today. Maybe.

Oh, whoa. Yeah, maybe we will just do a freebie show today. But you'll have to wait and see because after we'll make that determination after you listen to this interview with Kai Newkirk. Sam recorded it. He's a community organizer running to represent Arizona's fourth congressional district. And that election is on Tuesday. July is kind of a, you know, a drive-up. month for primaries, but, uh, well, Arizona's a pretty damn dry state. Uh, the 21st, I don't know

what I'm even talking about now. Um, see you on another time. Yeah, bye. Um, I'm just, I'm like, biding time as I look up on my computer when the primary is. Yes, 21st, which is next Tuesday. Um, that is when, uh, you can vote in Arizona. And Kai Newkirk is running in Arizona's fourth congressional district. Here is that interview with Sam now. We are back, Sam Cedar on The Majority Report. It is a pleasure to welcome to the program. Kai Newkirk, he is a Democratic candidate for the nomination in Arizona's fourth district. Primary is happening on July.

I'm trying to do my math here. 21st. That's right. Okay. So, Kai, welcome to the program. You're running. against Stanton, who has been in Congress now for close to a decade, I think. What inspired you to get into this race?

Yeah, he's been in since 2018. It's always been clear to me that Stanton is a corporate Democrat that will never be part of really flipping the tables of the corrupt status quo and shifting from oligarchy, plutocracy, our rigged economy and corrupt flow. political system towards power for the working class and a one-person, one-vote democracy that creates shared prosperity. But in the last few years, I think just the sense of the cost of having a Democrat like him in the seat has grown.

I was part of organizing to push to end the genocide in Gaza and to hold the extremist Israeli government accountable over these last few years and helping to lead the fight in in Arizona, doing sit-in at Mark Kelly's office and organizing our Democratic Party to pass a resolution and doing our version of the uncommitted campaign here in Arizona. We did a delegation to Stanton's office and then had a meeting with Palestinian and Jewish constituents, and he just didn't move. And he's been so locked into that posture of just endless unconditional military aid, pushing back on any efforts to hold Netanyahu and company accountable that I think it's very fair

to say he's been actively complicit in the genocide in Gaza. and that's just morally disqualifying, in my view. APEC is his top contributor. He also voted for the Lake and Riley Act that gave Trump a green campaign, gave ICE more power to detain and deport immigrants in our country, and he voted twice against impeaching Trump last year. And in this time of just crisis and emergency

in our country and the world, he not only hasn't been standing up enough to fight back against the authoritarian oligarchs and war criminals, but in some cases, He's facilitated what they're carrying out. He's enabled it. And he's out of step with the vast majority of Democrats on some core issues. It's unacceptable.

Every seat in Congress is precious, not just for the constituents of the district, but for the whole country and even the world because our government impacts so many people. So we can't afford to have somebody in that seat who's voting like he is. Many people ask me to consider taking this on. And ultimately, I decided to listen to them and do everything I could to take the deal away and be able to use this seat to fight for in Arizona that we can afford, and America free from ISIS cruelty in a world where genocide never happens. I want to get to some of your background because you've been involved in a lot of activism.

It has landed you in jail literally dozens of times. But just give us a sense of the district itself. Is this a guaranteed Democratic seat? What are the, what's the median income, that type of thing? What are some of the major concerns from that district in particular? For sure, yeah. This is a solid Democratic district. It's rated by a Cook political report as solid dem.

It's a D plus four partisan voter index, but stronger than that in terms of how elections have gone. by seven points in 2024, with two points going to a Green Party candidate and a tough year for Democrats. So this is, every sign is saying this will be a much better year for Democrats, not just historical, but everything that's happening now in the last year and a half. So whoever wins this primary is going to win the general election. We never take anything for granted, right? You've got to do everything you can, but we're very confident. So it's solid in that respect, and we can do much better than,

you know, a corporate Democrat, right, whose top contributor is APEC. Tempe, where ASU is, if anyone's familiar, Arizona State University is almost all of Tempe is in the district. Most of Mesa, part of the city of Chandler, and the Awatuki area, which is part of Phoenix. So often called the East Valley. So it's urban, suburban, depending on how you want to define all that. and district, a lot of educated people, higher education folks that, you know, with the university here. And I think the concerns that we hear on the doors and on the phones when we're talking to voters

and when I'm out with future potential constituents, out of what you would hear anywhere else about the cost of living, about housing, about groceries, about gas, about health care. and ISIS cruelty and a sense that just the violations of Trump's authoritarian tyranny are the things that we hear about the most and that I think is part of why the poll that came out on Saturday

showed us within single digits and surging is because when people compare what Santon has done and his votes in positions and how he's campaigning with where I'm at if they know about that then they're coming with us you know, and by very strong margins. He takes a ton of corporate PAC money.

I reject corporate PAC money. He opposes Medicare for all and takes money from United Care Group and other private health insurance. I've been fighting for that for a long time. And when they hear that I'm pushing for things like tuition-free college, like freezing utility rates, like universal child care, and that I want to disband and abolish ICE and its reign of terror once and for all. And he's just talking about, you know, reforming it, trying to rain it. and that I'm fighting to impeach or move and prosecute Trump and hold everyone accountable who's been participating in these high crimes and misdemeanors, then they're coming to me.

And we've got a huge opportunity to have this be the next big progressive victory after Colorado, after New York. And we're driving toward it with all we got. Tell folks a little bit about your background. How did you end up in jail so many times? That's right. Yeah, I've been arrested over 25 times in non-bion and civil disobedience. The first time, probably in 2001, when I was a college student in Washington, D.C., mass protests of the international.

I've been a community organizer and a leader in non-violent struggles. For many years, a primary founder of nonprofit organizations and social movement campaigns, came out of the labor movement, the anti-war movement as a college student, organizing the immigrant rights movement around health care, best known for my work in terms of democracy, founding 99 rise in Democracy Spring, having done a protest interrupting the Supreme Court that was captured on video, first time there was ever video from inside the court, and leading a 500-some-mile march from Los Angeles to Sacramento and 12 straight days of citizens at the Capitol there that helped to pass two bills.

And then in 2016, the march from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to D.C. Democracy Spring in mass students at the U.S. Capitol that Capitol police said was the largest number of people ever arrested at the Capitol in one day. And I believe deeply in the tradition of nonviolent movements of nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action that everyday people can use this power just of our ability and our ability to choose whether to obey unjust laws or not, to withdraw our labor, to withdraw our buying power. In addition to the ballot as tools to to forge a more just society, a follower of Martin Luther King Jr. and I believe in what he called the vision of a beloved community, a society that's rooted not in domination and greed, but in solidarity

and loving neighbors as ourselves. And I have to say, I've been encouraged by the response of voters, right, even though as people try to say, oh, you're a criminal and all this nonsense. because for me, every one of those arrests is a badge of honor, not a mark of shame, and it's an act of deep fidelity to the law because it's about the spirit of the law, which is to serve justice and truth and the welfare of the people. And obviously we know sometimes the law and justice are in conflict. It's a way of bringing them into harmony. And they're hungry for somebody that's going to fight Trump,

but stand up to the oligarchs and war criminals. And I've proven time and again that I'll put my freedom, even my safety on the line to stand up for justice. and I think that there's tremendous potential in what we could do if we had members of Congress who are rooted in those traditions of organizing, community organizing, non-violent civil resistance and can connect movements outside with our positions inside to overcome the entrenched opposition to the kind of changes that we need like Medicare for All, like banning packs, like abolishing eyes. And give us a sense of like what's happening in terms of volunteers and small donors. I mean, obviously, going up against big A-PAC money, and that, you know, on paper, at the very least, would put you at a disadvantage.

Give us a sense of what's happening on that front. Absolutely. I said when we got into this race that we could only win if we built a powerful grassroots movement. And I got in late because of life-threatening illness of a loved one and trying to support and make sure I could be present with them. And we got in with 13 days to the line to turn in the signatures. And there were supporters that were like, hey,

you know, we'd love for you to win. I'd love to back you, but I don't see how you can do that. But so many people came together to get out there and talk to voters and get the signatures that we had to turn in 1,374. We turned in 2,250, just in those 13. And from there, we've just been building

canvases happening, phone banks happening all the time. over these last few months of the campaign. We, I'm in our office that we just opened up a week or so ago. We had an office opening that was just packed in here. Beautiful energy. And, you know, Stanton, he, you know, raised over $2 million. You know, his co-chair, the New Dem Action Fund,

one of the most powerful corporate Dems in the country, former mayor of one of the biggest cities in the country. A-PAC top contributor right now, there's two big money super-packed. funded by AI and crypto that are coming in with hundreds of thousands of dollars. We knew we would never match that in terms of money, but we've tried to match in terms of people power. And we had his last filing, which was for all of 2025 and 2026, the first quarter, had many, many more donors than Stanton showed for all of 2025 in the first quarter of 2026. Not all of them, you know, maxing out as much as him, but it's really picking up as we build

into the final stretch of this campaign. So what do you do? I mean, what do you do? I mean, we're eight days out or so. And like, what is the key at this point? I mean, I know that there has been a crypto money that's come in, AI money. Presumably, they're just going to, I mean, they're just going to flood the airwaves, I guess. Has early voting started?

And how much does that help or hurt you in that regard? And, I mean, because, you know, it really is a sort of a late-breaking surge that we're seeing from your, in terms of the polling, which indicates that you, the more that people hear from you, the more they like. But now it's a question of how quickly can you get to those people? That's right. Yeah. So mail ballots went out June 24th. and people have been voting. And so now when we're knocking all doors, when we're calling folks on the phones, right,

they're not just telling, hey, they support me, but they're saying they've already voted for me, right? And we're seeing around 63% now that are saying they either support or have already voted for me around 10% for Stanton. Of course, that's when we're there at the doors. But what we've seen is that if people actually hear about his actual votes and contrast that with my positions and Democrats are with us, are with us all the way. And so it's just been about reaching people fast enough, which we've been doing through earned media, getting in the press here,

pushing our social media, street signs, canvassing, door knocking, all of those tools. And that's the key factor right now, is reaching enough people, text messages as well, blasts from the campaign. We're doing digital ads now. We haven't gone up on TV. We don't have enough money to do that yet.

But if we get enough, then we're going to do it. And we're just ramping up. on every different way as much as possible. And I think it's going to come down to election day turnout. I think that the poll that showed us within single digits and surging and winning voters who hadn't yet cast their ballots 41 to 30, that showed and that when we talk about the issues, right, that we're winning like high 60s, you know, to the 20s or teens, it showed that it's really going to come down to the election day turnout, right, and the late-breaking

support. So it's about creating as much of a surge of national support, small donations, people around the country, more endorsements joining the organizations and leaders that are already with us to reach enough voters that when they have the choice and they know, okay, Kainu Kier is running, Greg Stanton, here is where they stand. We're going to win that. And our name ID, according to that poll, was around 61 or 62 percent. So we've got to close that gap over these final days with the voters, right, that have been already voted. If we do that, we can send another anti-corruption, anti-genocide shock, through the Democratic Party, not just here in Arizona, but around the country.

And lastly, I'm curious about Arizona University. Do students there, can they vote in this? I mean, because my sense is, just based upon what we've seen across the country, and really over the past couple of years, Gaza and the genocide and our relationship to Israel has become a real, I don't know if I want to say litmus test, but in many respects, almost beyond a litmus test, like just sort of a sense that a candidate has any type of situational awareness much more prominently, or I should say even more prominently amongst younger people, what's happening on that front?

Yeah, it's a huge issue. I think it's a big factor for why a lot of people are supporting me, why a lot of people are volunteering, why they're part of the campaign, because as I said, Stanton's been actively complicit in the genocide in Gaza, not just voting to send endless military aid, but when Biden paused the 2,000-pound bomb shipments, he went after Biden and told him, no, that's wrong. You need to resume the illegal arms sales. International Criminal Court indicted Netanyahu, Galant Hamas, leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity.

He put it to sanction the international criminal court, right? So he is pushing back on any effort to hold Netanyahu and the extremist Israeli government accountable and to try to stop them. So in my view, justice would demand that he resign in remorse and wash the feet of the orphans of Gaza for two years to try to recover his dignity. But we're just going to try to take the wheel and take that power away from him. I'm pushing for an arms embargo to end military aid to use sanctions, not just to end the genocide, but to end occupation and apartheid and create the conditions for a just peace

that's negotiated by the people there, equal rights, human rights for all the people in the Holy land. And it's a huge issue with young people. And the polls that we've seen, right, folks under 45 were winning very strongly there, right? We got a lot of boomers that love us too, you know, but we're stronger with the young folks. ASU is out of session right now, right? So we did a lot of work before they went out to try to lay the groundwork. And now it's falling up with people trying to have them vote by mail.

So it's, we're not able to optimize that in the way that we could if the, if the university was in session, you know, when the, when people can vote. But we're doing everything we can with that. and we've got a lot of support there. And that's going to be critical, right? That young people who see that we don't want to live in a world where our government would be complicit in that. We want to ship the policy, not just on Israel and Palestine, but our foreign policy in general to say no to empire

and to have a new foreign policy that puts international law, human rights, democracy, and collective security first. That's going to make us more safe as well as other people. And the stakes of this, I think, are clear. And we see it in the super that are coming in to help Stanton, they know that we're a threat. And I think you probably heard about the fact that the Israeli government, the state of Israel now, this is an APAC, the state of Israel, is funding this AI texting program run by Brad Parscale, Donald Trump's former campaign manager, that are sending texts in. We got a bunch of things around the country. It looks like it may be targeting areas where APAC is more involved or where there's more at stake in terms of this policy.

policy fight, but we can't let them win this. Too much is at stake. And if people, if everyone who wants us to win does whatever they can, whether that's pitching in, five bucks, Kai Frazy.com, or signing up to join a phone bank or being out to knock doors or endorsing, and we can reach all the Democratic voters who haven't voted already and give them a choice between a Democrat who takes APEC money and United Health Group votes for the Lake and Riley. against impeaching Trump versus someone like me who rejects corporate money would

never take a dime from APEC as fighting for Medicare for all and tuition-free public colleges and universities to abolish ice to create have free solar electricity like they do in Australia during peak hours right this is what we can do if we make our government a tool not just to further enrich the billionaire class but to help all of us if we get that out to it enough voters we're gonna win and have another huge progressives for Democratic Socialists around the country for human rights and pass the baton to all the elections in August. So this is our moment. This is our time. And we encourage everybody to join us in this movement and bring it home.

Guy Newkirk. It is Kai for Arizona or AZ, I should say, dot com right behind your shoulder there. Thanks so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Sam. Thanks so much for having me on. Love the majority report and grateful We'll be with you. Oh, thanks. We are back, and after a long deliberation, we have decided to do a freebie Wednesday. That is Grandma. That is so Grandma, baby.

That is so Grandma. And with that sound, we've also opened up the phone lines. 64, 62573920 is the phone number. Yes? Well, I mean, we've been doing a lot of. important foreign affairs work. Jasper is one of the preeminent, you know, independent journalists actually going

onto location, which is something that the major press should do more of, and frankly does less of since even like the 80s when they were like foreign bureaus used to be a much more common part of the newsroom. But luckily the independent media is stepping up into the fold to fill the vacuum.

And we have, you know, independent creators like, who is this, a Logan Paul, unimpulsive. ready to ask senators like John Federman about, for instance, Iran. Oh. And then also his phone and why he holds his phone during an interview. So this is a good little meeting of the minds. Yeah.

So look, you know, we're not right-wingers. We don't believe in, you know, pseudoscientific things like IQ, which are pretty racist and don't actually measure intelligence. But just for the sake of argument, what is the cumulative IQ in this room? I mean, this is not a room that's going to test well. I don't think on any kind of quantitative test of intelligence. I'll give the Paul brother this. I would prefer he drive me in a vehicle than John Federman.

Yeah. So maybe that's the tie break there. Right. Ability to operate a motor vehicle. But, yeah, so here is, I believe, I don't know who this other guy is on impulsive, but he appears to be the sort of intellectual. Oh, the name of the show is impulsive? Impulsive, yeah.

If I was one of the Paul brothers, I would have my first name in there, so people would know which one of the Paul brothers is. Because I don't even know now. But this is Logan, apparently. Got it. I guess Jake, Brian was saying Jake probably can't mentally do a lot. Jake could really string enough sentences together to fill an hour. Oh, so this is the intellectual.

Yeah, Logan's the smarter of the. Yeah, he's the smart guy. And that's grandma. Exactly. So here they are. we're just, we're going to get into foreign affairs here. To our current approach to what, what did you think about the idea of going to war with Iran and,

and as a way of handling? Oh, sure. For me, you know, like that definitely, you know, you know,

I embraced probably the single most toxic thing a Democrat can do. Now, my vote was not a pro war. It was a pro. Genocide. We cannot let Iran build a nuclear bomb. I ran ever since back in 1979, you know, front center was, we must destroy Israel and we are going to do anything possible. And that brought us to the where.

And now I happen to agree to make sure to do something to prevent Iran building a nuclear bomb. And now if people really doesn't follow that situation, it may not make much sense. if you are paying $450 for a gallon a gas, you know, that seems to, people are frustrated, understandably, but that's really what's behind it. So that's why I decided to support that because these people and its proxies in Iran,

whether it's Hamas or Hezbollah or Houthis, they were these proxies that are committed to destroy Israel. I have a question. No follow up on that. I don't know if we just want to take that one first. I mean, how does one follow up? Because it's quite difficult to even really know where the thoughts begin and where he's even going.

It's so reactive. We're going to see it in this next piece here. He's so defensive that he can't even really understand what's being asked or what's required of him as a response. Right. I mean, he does have the completely. capacity to memorize the talking points that he needs. Like this is just the most boilerplate justification that every Republican is giving for the

war in Iran. So he got his APAC talking points. We know that he can, you know, do tricks like a trained dog for APAC. But I mean, just to note for folks like, you know, Logan Paul or his co-host here, Israel and America attacked Iran. Yes. Like that's how this started. wasn't, this whole idea of since

1979, they've been wanting to wipe Israel off the map, like in rhetoric perhaps, they say things about a country that is a complete belligerent and is occupying its neighbors and threatening to occupy even more land. Like, yeah, it's pretty

unpopular as Israel. But Israel is clearly, clearly, with America's backing, the aggressor in their region. But anyway, so here is this part where they ask Fetterman about how he's holding his phone

and I think Logan is just kind of making a little joke like what are you doing, scrolling Twitter on that? He's like reading Apex emails and glancing over them before I start talking. Right, and Fetterman, you know, he's got this transcriber on which I'll be honest, I don't think it's helping. I think this will make it very clear that it's not actually helping

him respond to what's going on in the situation he's in, which is Logan Paul's like, you know, making a joke here and he gets really defensive calls his phone a drone, which further confuses Logan Paul. You'll see his face sort of light up, and then he realized, oh, he didn't mean to call it a drone. But it will play it here. You know, you're not on social media.

You're not a social media guy. I'm just so curious. Are you browsing social media? Or is this like a senator thing where, like, you know, there's like updates on what's happening on your phone? No, actually, my, my, my social person. people are here, you could confirm. I am not, it's not even on my phones. I know, I mean like right now. Oh, where you? Yeah, because the phone's just right here. I'm just curious what, okay. Could you do that? Do this? No, I mean, no, I, I, I, I, I, you know, for me, I don't look on, I don't look on social media. I do my own media.

Did, that I mean? Yeah. No, no. I think what he's asking is I want to ask you as well, this tactic of holding the phone. Did you start doing this after the stroke? No, yeah. This, oh, yeah, sure, this conversation. Yeah. This is a, this is a, this is a drone. This is using captioning. You know, I had a stroke. I had a stroke four years ago that, that literally stopped my heart, and I nearly

died from it. And thankfully, I was able to recover, but I use this as like an aid. So I can hear, and I do can process thing. But when I'm having very specific conversations, I use this. you can see that it's like, you know, like wearing glasses. I mean, yeah, I know how to read, but I use that as a tool, whether if I'm driving or I'm reading now. I see. I see. Okay. Thank you for driving. So that's, didn't he have an incident with his wife that was immensely scary?

Yes. Uh, look, it's he should not be in the United States Senate. No. That's all I have to say about that. Can Apex send a car? I have a lot of money They're like the Corey Bush race is really extending Over extending it Also like Mitch McConnell's not out here doing an hour long podcast

Federman clearly can't do that either I don't know This I mean Apex literally sending him out there It's crazy This is a charade Yeah All right let's take a call or two

And then we'll get to some clips here Calling from a 510 area code Who's this where you're calling from 510 Hi, this is Will in Seattle. Can you hear me okay? I would prefer if you got off your headset, but I can hear you okay, Will from Seattle, or whatever we're on speaker or whatever. Is this better? Yes. Okay.

Hi, all. I love you guys. I was wondering, actually, about your thoughts on like the utility of the utility. of like socialist organizing groups that are like outside of DSA. There's this one that like this, I have a friend in my union who is really like trying to get me to come to meetings more often for this one's socialist alternative here in Seattle. And like I know they've done good work.

And for a while we had the city council member, Shama Sahuant, who's running for Congress again, or running for Congress now against a very kind of establishment to Democrats, Adam Smith. Shams what is no longer affiliated with socialist alternative, though, is what I understand. Okay. As far as the last I heard. Yeah. Yeah, I think that is right. But basically, I don't know.

I guess, like broadly, broadly. I think it's good to be part of a socialist group, a nominally socialist group. I think DSA has proven its worth in this. I know a lot of people have questions, theoretical questions or historical questions about can this be done through an electoral process. I am biased to saying that it is worth doing

and trying as somebody who, like, you know, comes from North Dakota where the nonpartisan league did a similar sort of thing and got a process done. obviously wasn't to overthrow capitalism, which is a much bigger thing. But I think in terms of like an organization goes, I think it's important to be in one. But if you have me pick a favorite, I think DSA is where the action is. And that's where the movement seems to be.

And I think people should engage with that. Well, so I just did last night. I introduced the 2026 to 2027 DSA program. And you can watch that on the Democratic Socialist YouTube. If you'd like to, you can also check out the program on the DSA website. DSA is now by raw numbers, officially the largest socialist organization in the history of the country, 120,000 members in counting. Now, yeah, socialist alternative, if you want to get involved in that, I mean, I'm not going to say that that's wrong.

But I do think that, like, if you want to be a part of kind of making more concrete change, DSA membership is the way to go because it's accelerating right now. you know, I'm not necessarily sure about what socialist alternative does, but I would be wary of smaller groups that are trying to peel off people from DSA, you know, because there's strength in numbers and there's an institutional structure. And the more people that join, the more you have kind of like really competent leaders in the organization that have delivered here. So I would just say that I think DSA is the way to go. Okay. Yeah, that's about where I had been kind of leaning towards, but I appreciate the input. Thanks so much. Yeah, one more quiz.

Could you ask Sam to put the Pilot Light end song on Spotify or something? We'll try to get on that. We'll try to get on that. But look, we can't even get cameras at work, buddy. Appreciate the call. Thank you. Cricket, gnomes, revenge. The Senate is now open to dead guys a la Mitch McConnell,

so I guess Federman stays. Philopian tube, not to sound ableist or whatever, but we really should not be allowing people who had a medical event of the brain making federal decisions. Yeah. I mean, I think the voters will eventually. I mean, this is the problem with the Senate is these long terms. I would be surprised if Pennsylvania voters,

regardless of what party he runs under, will vote to give him another term after the way he performs here. It's just blaring that obviously, you just like emotionally can't deal with this. Even like, you know, a question from Logan Paul. Let's do this here. So Mike Johnson, in conjunction with the Trump administration, is pushing for Congress to approve another 350 billion. dollars in new spending because the Pentagon wants it. The Pentagon that's a third of a trillion dollars.

Fails over, fails audits over and over and over again and can't keep their books in order. Needs $350 billion more, apparently. And when he was announcing why Congress should approve this, we're making a press conference here, He basically tied the necessity for more military funding to the fight against communism. Yes, it's 2026, not 1956. And yet this is what we're hearing from the top Republican in the House of Representatives. Let's play six and then we'll play five, if that's okay, because the meltdown. maybe or no we'll start with we can just start with five and then go to six this is where he's talking

about explicitly tying the funds to the fight against communism there's been a lot of discussion about what's going to be included in the reconciliation though can you walk through how important and how given it it is the pen of 90s additional funding and what that number precisely is going to be in the way so i'm going to the question was can you list the specifics of what the request is for the Pentagon. We've seen it's over 350 billion as a request and this is some of this is transformational kind of funding that will help us change the dynamic of the Department of War and make it more efficient and effective. It's already the greatest fighting force on the planet, not even close, but there are some ideas, a real vision on how to

improve that even further, to bolster that. You've heard the president talk about how he wants to effectively double the funding for national defense. Look, we live in dangerous times for fighting communism on our own shores and we're fighting evil terrorists and tyrants around the world. And we have to be able to protect our national security. So this is not the place to get into the details of that. Oh, it's not. On our that, that, oh, you just slip that in right there, right? That military funding, this increased 350 billion dollars in additional funding needs to go to fight communism on our shores. What does that mean? Cuba? Or does that mean? like red scare stuff with communists that are internal here the enemy from within we're back here um it cost

$48 billion a year for a free public college but i was literally gosh we worked together we didn't hang out too much that was going to be my next point i mean you could pay for basically every kid in the country to go to college for four years with that amount of money um and these are the choices that that this government makes. Because you can't make college free. What else would we hang over the head of people that are too poor to find other economic opportunity in their community and they want to join the military so they can be some of the fighting force and go die on behalf of Israel?

And also, of course, because Trump's sons are now invested in drone companies, also to enrich Don Jr. and Eric Trump because they want military contracts. and also to enrich Palantier and also North of Brumman and also, you know, whatever, the Raytheon, that's what's important. Now, there's more here. Mike Johnson continued and just starts to kind of scream about communism coming to America at the hand of the Democrats. The reason we are the greatest nation in the history of the world, the most free, most successful, most powerful, most benevolent. You hear me say it all the time. The reason that we are the greatest nation is because we were built on an entirely different and opposing set of values. Congress put

in God we trust above the roster because they wanted to remind everybody who would ever serve in this body in Congress that there is a huge distinction between us and the Soviet's philosophy. Communism, Marxism, socialism, all this begins with the premise that there is no God. It's a totally different philosophy. In our declaration that we just celebrated, 250 years, on July 4th. I'll just say going back 250 years to like say Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, they didn't believe in God, Mike, but anyway. Well, they were deists and they also explicitly wanted religion removed from our governmental

structure. That was a big part of the whole. Thomas Jefferson removed the magic bits from the New Testament. Celebrate it. 250 years on July 4th. The nation's creed, as you hear me talk about all the time, the second paragraph We hold these truths to be self-evident and all men are created equal. Our rights come from our creator, God.

They do not come from the government. The communists believe the opposite. They believe that the government is, the state is God. The state is the one that gives you all your rights. And you know what? The state can also take those rights away. And that's exactly what happens is inevitable. Communism, and this philosophy has led to the murder of tens of millions of innocent people in the 20th century alone.

It is a nightmare. is a trail to certain death, okay? And that's why we're speaking in such stark terms because we need America to wake up. They're actually really freaked out about DSA. This is a compilation of Fox News about the DSA victories, and they're having a panic attack about it.

They actually had Grace Mauser on the other day. And so it's interesting, the liberal media is not, not giving DSA their shine, but Fox is trying to bring them on as punching bags, and it's not going that well. Here's a compilation put together by decoding Fox News of their panic about the DSA victories. Even in the wake of Charlie Kirk's horrific murder, many on the left refused to turn down the rhetoric, demonizing conservatives. They're coming to take your money and maybe even your property and then just give it to a bunch of their friends. That's what they want.

And that's what they'll do, unless we the people get involved and demand that our congressmen and our senators stop funding this anti-American madness. None of this is by accident. Anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, socialism, Marxism, Neo-Bolshevism, they are on the side of dismantling the country. Their vision for America is very dark. It's insane to see how far left the Democrat Party has moved. That's Representative Steve Scalise who called himself David Duke without the baggage when he was running for Congress in the 90s. To where now, literally, it's a Bolshevik revolution. I mean, the communists have taken over that are the far-left extremist lunatics.

They stand for the same thing. Kill all the millionaires. Open all the prisons. Open the border. Defund the police. Defund ICE. Every single one of them knows the words to the Q. the national anthem.

No, no, that's not true. I'm sorry, I don't. They're showing Graham Platner enough. Who's not? Who is not DSA? The list of countries that have tried socialism and rejected it is as, it's as long as King Kong's genitalia. I mean, it's not.

We need to explain to people what socialism is. We have a great investigative unit on Saturday in America. we've done a deep dive into these DSA folks. They want to build a coalition of religious people with socialist values to defeat Christian nationalism. What is Christian nationalism? They want to defeat the moral fabric of this country. Rip up Article 1, no Senate.

Rip up Article 3. No Supreme Court. When you end judicial review, you win the Supreme Court. They want non-citizen voting, no electoral college. They want to change the fabric of this country. Rip up the constitutional foundation of America. This rising socialist move to uproot the Constitution to subvert our liberties and to convert our democracy into the kinds of government that people

are escaping and coming to the U.S. to avoid. 250 years ago, the cry was the British are coming. Today, as we celebrate America 250, the battle cry is the communists are coming. What an update. What a divergence from all conservatism prior to that. From what you've been hearing since you've been a little girl, Marcia. But the fact, I mean, it is immensely concerning, in my view, that Mike Johnson is trying to tie military funding to, and saying that it's about fighting communism on our shores. It's about, like, talking about the enemy from within is exactly how we get to certain, like, to that level of targeting of the left.

But, I mean, we've seen parts, parts of this happen already in protests against Israel's genocide. So, I mean, Mahmoud Khalil just filed a lawsuit against the federal government, right? righteously because he was jailed for his speech and he's doing so under the Ku Klux Klan Act of the 1800s just to show how like, yeah, that is also the fabric of the country that DSA wants to rip up white supremacy and the like lingering Christian nationalism and white nationalism that is so dominant in our government and that the Republican Party is invested in cementing, that is what DSA is trying to do.

And, like, I do think it's fascinating to see how Fox News is so freaked out and sees them as a threat because they understand that DSA's ideas of, you know, delivering for people economically and materially are a much larger threat than a neutered liberal opposition that will mostly agree with 90% of what they say and then scurry away when they have to confront anything that's material or that would challenge power.

Fox News understands that they'd rather have the Democratic Old Guard more than the Democratic Old Guard knows what their level of inefficacy actually is. They do put Platner up there and they're freaking out. There's a new piece in the New York Times. Platner was toxic, but Democrats could learn from his politics. that has an interesting little discovery here that I would clue in like Madaglacius

and those types of folks too because you often hear the moderates say, polling says that the Democrats are too far left and this is a huge concern. Well, only 13% of Maine Democrats said Mr. Plattner was too far to the left in a New York Times presidential poll, Sienna poll.

And it's true that Plattner wasn't DSA. DSA wouldn't have endorsed him. He wouldn't have got through the process given his biography. Um, uh, and, but his policies were, except for, I don't know, maybe even, I don't even know where the DSA's at on guns, but, um, not different from DSA. And yet he wasn't considered too far to the left than mainly because when people are responding to those polls and the Democrats are too far the left. They mean that they're two professional class scolding and, uh, superior to them. Right. I mean, that's how the parties branded itself. They've, uh, there has been an obfuscation of what leftist politics actually. is, which is, you know, both a class consciousness, but also an intersectionality and that undergirds that. But it should be a working class coalition that could cut across differences around that because it's also not just the best way to achieve our policy goals from a wealth redistribution

perspective or to get new social programs and to make sure that people are able to live lives of dignity. It also decreases the bigotry associated with the, the resentments that come from that only being the thing that is foregrounded. Zoranam Dhani is one of the best advocates for trans people in the country. Does anyone talk about it? Yeah. Do they talk about it? Or do they talk about affordability?

Or did they talk about the free buses? Or did they talk about the grocery stores? Do they talk about taxing the rich? Like, that stuff makes his advocacy for marginalized groups more of a footnote because because people can't focus on a scapegoat when they see their politicians trying to deliver for them. But Democrats, many of them,

would prefer for marginalized people to be scapegoats because it would maintain their power structure. The people that are to blame for the Democratic Party brand being considered too liberal are the people who are, for instance, saying Abdul al-Sayyad is a misogynist. Calling from a 360 area code,

who's this where you calling from? Hi, my name is Jeff, and I'm from Brimmerton. Jeff from Brimerton. Where's that? Yeah, I'm right across the water from Seattle from your other caller. Oh, cool. On the side of the Puget Sound, west of them. Nice. What's on your mind?

I appreciate the job, y'all they're doing with everything that you're presenting here. and I was hoping to bring up like an old thing that was brought up a long, long time ago by different folks even. Okay. And so like one of the things we need to have is campaign finance reform. I mean, I think most everybody agrees with that by now. And there was a push once upon a time to amend the Constitution not by having the states propose the amendment instead of Congress proposing the amendment. and I remember Sam pushing back saying that that was way too dangerous because we couldn't trust the Republicans. And, you know, all the things that they said we were going to lose voters' rights, we were going to lose civil rights,

we were going to lose abortion rights, we were going to lose, you know, all these different things. And I'm kind of trying to figure out, maybe we should go back and try amending the Constitution, you know what I mean, to overturned Citizens United. I think the problem is the state convention can get out of control if you don't control, have the numbers. And I think the Democrats are probably even in a worse state now without looking than they would have been in, like, 2012. So I understand that argument. And I don't really need to hash it out right here.

But I want to bring it up because I think that's an important discussion to have. And there are subject matter experts who disagree with you. And on the left and the right, you know, I'm not trying to play sides here. Because I'm a leftist best guy. I'm a leftist, honest. And so I think we need to overturn Citizens United, going all the way back to, you know, to 74. See, now I'm online, and I'm having a blank. I mean, generally we agree.

Yeah, I just think, I mean, I'd be interested if you have some sort of source, a recent updated argument that the state convention route is the way to go. I would read it, but I wasn't super persuaded back then, and I would take a pretty persuasive effort now to have me change my mind on that. The biggest difference between the two methods is that either A, Congress proposes the amendment, which, And then the other way is that it conveys the states, you know, all of the legislatures would send delegates, right? To the convention and they would talk about whether they should. This is what Wolfpack was arguing back in the day. Yeah, I actually volunteered back. Right.

Yeah, no. And I found those arguments interesting. I think I side with where Matt is more. I think a national spotlight and getting members of Congress to address this legislatively. if there's a groundswell and if there are politicians on the national level that they're going to push for it is probably the least cumbersome route to go. I would also say, yeah, the state houses are more unwieldy and more easily corruptible, especially in the deep south. But appreciate the call. Thanks so much. One more call, and then we will probably hang up the phone lines and finish up with some clips here.

calling from a 720 area code who's this where you're calling from hey uh this is uh charlie the mailman charlie the mailman nice to talk to you what's going on you're doing uh well i don't know if it's even something that i should be mentioning i don't want to write too much everybody's got tons of work and a lot of things uh on their plates but you know we're working like i work 14 hours and 30 minutes on Monday. And I'm just, I guess I'm just fighting against a climate at the post office where we're all just trying to take care of each other. Right. Which also causes a lot of people to, you know, shame people for trying to use union rules to, you know, get a day off here and there. And I don't know. I just, I think it really

is a big statement to how much people are feeling squeezed. Sorry, I'm mentioning my breath. You're all good. But it's really, it really just feels like a reaction to just, you know, how much people get paid. A lot of my fellow postal carriers have a lot more responsibilities. They have money problems. And the way that they live is on over time.

But if we're not fighting for the rules that we got implemented through the union, which says that we can take our days off if we want, which says that we can drop the mail at 1130, you know, where are we? But every single time one of us does that, we're like the privileged people. And I think it really does, it kind of like equates to just the state of affairs within a lot of people's mindsets about, you know, what capitalism does for them. And they're just looking at this narrow-minded view of, you know, what they can do and what they can get because everybody's so scared that, you know, they're a paycheck away from not having the money to pay their mortgage.

It's about leverage that capitalists have. And, I mean, the fact, first of all, that, like, the Trump administration, assault on the post office and the attempts to privatize, much of it have not gone unnoticed by this show. And it doesn't shock me, I guess, that you're working these horrific hours and worked to the bone because they're bringing that kind of efficiency model into the post office of, you know, making the labor force as lean as possible, which puts even more. pressure on you. Yeah, I mean, they're mirror like trying to mirror like Amazon and other things, which by the way, we probably are the reason why Amazon even still exists. Exactly. But exactly.

The post office completely, you know, subsidize Amazon's starts. Could not exist without it. And right. Yeah. Another instance of corporate welfare. I just feel like I don't know where to begin. to like how to change people's mind within every division is different and everybody's just trying to you know work as a team but we're all just keeping our heads down and you know got to just help

this guy now i got to be out till 830 and when i when i wake when i get home i literally am just like trying to repair myself for the next day and i don't know how people do it for as long as they've been doing it. I mean, I've, some guy, our union rep, 40 years in, and he's, he's a people's leaser. So he's like, he's going to always try to like, let's not rock the boat. Let's keep things going. Let's keep the mail flowing. And everybody falls in line or else they're looked at as like this selfish person. And I just don't know the answer. Well, they're trying to divide the workforce and they can have success there. I think hang in there as much. as possible. When you can, if you have the bandwidth, you can try to talk to your fellow

workers about, you know, solidarity and some of the systemic reasons behind what you're experiencing. But I mean, you see this across unions like the UAW needed to like a kick in the pants, basically. Like, I mean, it's an awkward position as YouTubers basically to be saying, hey, you can get your ass in gear. But generally speaking, a lot of unions need to realize that at some point you need to fight and it's not just about maintenance and uh um keeping things flowing as you said um there there is a fight to be waged uh that that's reason these formations exists in the first place that's kind of why i'm supporting milat so much and whatever but yeah i'll let you go i'm sorry no no no it's good i mean uh love malott one of the bright spots of of this year these elections

of these candidates but uh appreciate the call charlie hang in there okay Thanks. All right. Thanks. All right, guys. We're going to hang up the phone lines and just finish off with some calls here. Apologies. Try to take some more calls this week.

Wanted to play this. So Trump's war in Iran has caused a crisis for our food supply because around a third of the fertilizers that are shipped via. see go through the Strait of Ormuse. And it is true that largely the fertilizers here impact areas in Africa and South Asia disproportionately already poorer parts of the world. And they're dependent on these kinds of exports and they already are experiencing malnutrition, undernutrition, et cetera. but American farmers are also being forced to bear the cost.

And American farmers, smaller farmers, are already living on a razor's edge. Many are going out of business and then being gobbled up by these conglomerates, which you've got to wonder, how much is the Trump administration, its fascistic and its fascistic leanings, really care if small-time farmers go out of business

so that their donors can consolidate and buy up these farms. I would say not at all. Yep. But for American farmers with crops like corn and wheat, nitrogen fertilizers are essential. And nitrogen fertilizers are being severely impacted by the Iran War because it has these two components that are key,

urea and natural gas. And Iran and other countries that, other countries that, shipped through the Strait of Hormuz are some of the largest exporters of those components in the entire world. So with these farmers already struggling to get by, they're being squeezed because Trump decided to wage a criminal war against the Iranian people on behalf of Israel. And here's some footage of a farmer in real time, seeing that rising fertilizers prices are going to put. put him out of business. This is a local news live report and you see him do the math on camera. He is coming to a terrible realization in real time. So on my farm we're going to use about 118 tons of fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer to grow that crop.

How much is that can be? That's $136,000. That's not even doable. Our country is doing better than it's ever done. In Washington, the president hosted Iowa farmers in June, announcing $11 billion in relief. The USDA is injecting half a billion dollars into fertilizer investment and expansion of long-term domestic supply, or the Fields program.

They also say they're launching an antitrust in, investigation. I dug in. The farmers with whom we spoke, their biggest problem is not what happened in the Strait of Hormuz. It's the price gouging domestically by the big three fertilizer companies. My question is, what's the latest on these antitrust lawsuits and what's being done to break up these oligopolis? So you've got both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission that are investigating both civilly and criminally the fertilizer market. And what they're looking at there is, is the fertilizer market actually responding the way we would expect a free market to respond? Or has there been collusion in determining where fertilizer goes?

I mean, is the free market? The free market would say, yeah, the straight-of-harmoos is closed. Y'all need this fertilizer. I'm going to raise price because that's demand. I'm going to make this. I mean, that's where U.S. oil companies are doing, taking advantage of increasing. prices and their like ExxonMobil adjusted its earnings reports in a rosier way after Trump started bombing Iran because if oil prices go up from that region, it's an excuse for them to also raise

oil prices and then take home record profits. This is what Griefflation was. Yep. During the Biden administration. It wasn't because the free markets weren't operating. That's because they were operating a little bit too freely. There were supply chain bottlenecks that naturally rose prices. And then there was also the war in Ukraine and Russia's invasion of Ukraine that rose fertilizer prices as well in particular. But then in many ways, and also food supply here in the United States, that's where you saw

much of the gouging at the grocery store. Those companies, meat packers and food processors, they kept their prices artificially high. And then we got their earnings reports. They were blaming Biden and inflation that had already subsided because the people were going back to and the pandemic and things were opening up, and they were still taking home record return, but blaming the administration. Why would they do that, huh? Why would a profiteer put in charge of any sort of major industry when you, all you have to do to raise prices is to say, take my word for it.

This is unavoidable. Yes. And there's not competition to really even threaten me at all. So yeah, I guess what I have to, oh, it's this war. It's the straight of Hormuz. But prices are up way more than, and, and. Look, again, like you said, like there are actual factors that do make it more expensive. And then there's a nice little premium where it's like, oh, this might be maybe a few cents more expensive.

How about it's 25 more cents now because I need 25 cents? And they're also right that there are these fertilizer giants that are gobbling up, you know, too much and have too much market power. I didn't realize that one of them is Coke Industries. So, I've heard of them. I've heard of them. Do you think that the Republican Party is going to actively pursue an antitrust lawsuit against coke industries? Yeah, we're really investigating that. There's a guess a little bit more. They go back to the farmer here. Okay. For Lily Bridge, time is running out.

It feels like somebody's really twisting the knife in the back. They're definitely taken advantage of agriculture. They're taking advantage of farmers. Quite honestly, they're taking advantage of every single American. Just outside Cedar Rapids, I'm Molly Martinez. Interesting B-roll choice. Kowalski from Nebraska writes in and was going to talk about this on the phone. So apologies, we didn't get to you on the phones here. But here's Kowalski's take. To make ends meet on our farm, we custom truck for a couple local freight companies.

We apply fertilizers, I think you meant, and herbicides for the local co-ops. We have likely average as a part of our four-man operation bare minimum 100-hour weeks for the last 10 weeks. My oldest brother has four children and missed all their softball games, all their volleyball games. And it's because that son of a bitch in the White House decided to destroy our markets, and every single Republican in Congress let him do it. Drove up our fuel and fertilizer inputs with their war. of choice and drove down our commodity prices with their trade war of choice and cutting regulations has made food less safe in america well said and good summary of the the depravity of this administration

and um you know it it it's a real shame for all of the fetishization of farmers in the republican party look at what i mean fetishization of veterans they're sending you off to war to die for israel they're cutting VA benefits but they'll still use you as a prop same thing as farmers like it's um and and and on the point about Biden too like enforcement is one thing and Lena Khan was arguably the best part of that administration but when you don't have a president that is articulating this on the bully pulpit in the way say like Zora momdani is doing I'm going after junk fees I'm doing X, Y and Z you've allowed the Republicans to fill the vacuum and Biden was unable to communicate the best parts of what his administration was doing whether it's the fact

was too old to really effectively communicate, which is certainly a part of the story, but it's also not the full picture because he changed chief of staffs in the middle of his first term. Ron Kling was when Trump, I mean, Biden was doing some better stuff. And then I think it was Zines, who came in halfway through. And he was like a former corporate guy. And all of that stuff just got shelved. And in terms of rhetoric, Biden couldn't communicate it. the public was just starting to blame the administration for inflation without really understanding what was happening.

And so, yeah, it just breaks my heart for farmers in this country. I mean, we're at a, this is a long-term thing. Of course, Kowalski has talked about this for a long time, but the consolidation of farms and the monopolization, you know, this occasionally rears its head people notice, well, Bill Gates and people like him are buying up all the farmland in the country. the truth is that if you allow capitalism to just do as it pleases, that's what you will get. The only way that America had like a small holding farmer, a population was because of massive government policies that, like going back to like the settling of this country that said this is part of what we want to create affirmatively, even like going back to like Thomas Jefferson. Of course that was the plantation economy. but if you want to have farms, it is a policy choice,

whether they're going to be giant conglomerates that are, like, frankly, uncontrollable in situations of crisis, or if it's smaller holders, that's a policy choice that the country has to make. And if we just let it run like this, we're going to see what we're seeing right now, which is the big guys,

the little guys going underwater and the big guys eating them. up. Um, let's do a 20 here and then we'll read some IMs and get out of here. Um, so Lindsay Graham died over the weekend. No one cares leaving behind a family. I mean, his sister, who I guess is taking if that counts. One of your colleagues in the Senate. It's okay. Um, leaving behind his sister who's going to take it over. We'll start over here. Um, Lindsay Graham, died over the weekend. And no one seems to care now.

After Trump and Netanyahu used him for their political agenda, Lindsay Graham really would have loved for us to pass the Save Act. And also, he was adamant that we never cut military aid to Israel. That's what Netanyahu said. Once they were able to dispense with him as a human puppet for their agenda, it's like no one misses him. No one seems to be saying anything at all. And that's the kind of guy he was.

But I find this clip of Josh Hawley to be oddly annoying because he's deciding to engage in conspiracism. And Josh Hawley was lauded for a period of time as a new kind of Republican, a right-wing populist. Wow, he'll meet with union leaders. Interesting. He'll talk about how workers deserve. certain things. And then he'll turn around and vote for taxes to tax cuts for the rich. And then he'll

vote and turn around to fund Israel to the hilt. Cut Medico. So he's just even more aesthetic as as some newly branded kind of Republican than even the Tea Party crew was. It's so thin. It has no substance behind it. And oddly, I think this clip indicates that. Here he is engaging in conspiracism on Fox News about Lindsay Graham's death. And I'll give you my take as to why this is just, you know, another example of how he's such a poser. One of your colleagues in the Senate, Senator Cornyn is not ruling out foul play. Lindsay had gotten back from Ukraine that same day. You know, the Russians are notorious. Do you think that that's a possibility?

Listen, I think that the FBI, I know, involved in this. I think it is only wise and smart to look at every angle here. I absolutely think there should be a full toxicology report autopsy, the whole thing. I mean, nobody had been a greater advocate of taking on Putin than Lindsey Graham. Nobody had been tougher on the Iranians over time than Lindsay. He had a lot of enemies in the world. So I wouldn't rule anything out. I don't want to be conspiracy theorist. And, you know, I hope that none of that is true. But the truth is that we've lost a good man, the Senate's lost a good man, who is doing a lot of good work. And I think we owe it to his constituents and the American people to get the truth. I do too. And there's no evidence of that,

but, you know, it can't be ruled out. Okay, sure, sure, sure. A meteor could fall onto the studio right now, but it can't be ruled out. That should be Fox's slogan. Yes. But, you know, Josh Hawley and Fox will engage in conspiracism and lies as long as they're not impugning a private company like Dominion that will sue them into oblivion. They'll do election denialism, too, but they just can't blame a corporation that will hold them accountable. Um, it's so cheap, this chum that this Republican, Josh Hawley, is throwing to the base because, like, the right has relied on and the Democrats have let them from Trump getting reelected until kind of now, although they've lost a lot of credibility on this cheap conspiracyism that

simulates some sort of democratic responsiveness because people will ask questions online. And you'll have somebody like Josh Holly be like, oh, that's very interesting. This was the Epstein Files thing. Then they got into power and they covered it up. They're not earnestly engaging in any kind of actual analysis of the real conspiracy theories in this country. There are real conspiracies. The JFK assassination. Malcolm X was killed in part by our government.

Martin Luther King's assassination has a lot of questions that surround the United States' involvement, the government's involvement in his... He just got King thoughts. But those would challenge power. Those would actually challenge the deep state. How about the larger conspiracies that the capitalist class engages in to suppress wages and to steal from all of us? Those are conspiracies. How about Greater Israel?

Or that, yeah, like, yeah, the conspiracy design is conspiracy. Well, Josh Holly, look at that. No. He's like Rachel Maddow in 2017. That's who that guy is. And they have the same goddamn haircut. Oh, it's Russia. It's our adversary.

or it's Iran, it's our adversary. You're literally just repeating the deep state line. There's no chance that Lindsay Graham, the guy with a heart condition who was known to be drunk all the goddamn time, was assassinated by Russia or Iran on U.S. soil. It makes no sense. And like, this is how the right engages in conspiracism. It's aesthetic and it doesn't challenge power.

at all. You'll never see Josh Hawley turn around and turn his, uh, his conspiracism gaze towards Israel, um, or towards anything that really actually materially matters. So like Lindsay Graham was the military industrial complex's most useful asset. You think that Israel is like happy that Lindsay Graham is gone? They're probably devastated. They had a massage file. Well, I mean, Russia is the one that he's saying, right or Iran. Russia. I know, but like, but they don't have the capability to do that in the same way that that is, that they like to portray it. Of course not. I mean, uh, Lindsay Graham, uh, complained about feeling unwell and was urged to seek medical attention. He said he would do so after, uh, meet the press, um, and then said, I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions,

get around, sort out and do Israeli sudden criminalization. Doesn't sound like a guy who was worried that he had been, uh, dealt a blow by an assassin. My point is that he will engage in the just asking questions part in ways that don't touch the nerve centers of power whatsoever and have very little validity. There to help the military industrial complex have license to continue doing what it's doing. Exactly.

Exactly. So like, I don't believe that Russia or Iran assassinated Lindsey Graham, but what Josh Hawley wants you to believe is that that might be the case, which is why we should continue to wage this war in Iran and that

that we should continue to fund Ukraine, which again, you know that I was supportive of funding Ukrainian defense for quite a while, and I still understand why that happened, but we're at a point right now where there seems to be no attempt for a negotiated peace, and the Trump administration is more than happy, even though they pretended again that they wanted to cut aid to Ukraine, to get their military defense contractor buddies enriched and have this go on for as long as humanly possible. Didn't Trump say he would solve it on day one or day 100 or whatever? No, no, no. People are getting rich

right now. I mean, Russia, Ukraine, always the big impediment was, okay, yes, it is true to it is a violation of international law to try to annex territory through war. I guess what Israel's been allowed to do at the entire fucking time. And we never wanted to address any of those

things. And I mean, now, I mean, from what I can sense, Ukraine has achieved some success with drone response. and stuff like that. But ultimately, you are going to need to have an international diplomatic response to this. And we are not on that footing anywhere in the world. So. Exactly right. All right, guys. We're going to read some IMs and get out of here. Israelis not my problem says, now that Lindsay is gone, who do you think will be the top receiver of his APAC support and who will take up his role?

On another note, can you confirm you will vote for a secret Nazi? Hitler was a public Nazi. and would be a very progressive leader, but by his campaign and policies earlier in his career. I mean, later in that clip, I said it very inartfully, I will admit that. And I should have said something more akin to not ideology, but personal character, which was the point that I was trying to make, which is that I care very little, what's in a politician's heart, I care what they do. So it was not said in the most, you know, articulate way. but my point was explained later and I think is kind of abundantly clear given my views on racism, fascism, Nazism, etc.

I mean, the reason you chose Nazism for the example is because it's the most extreme one. That's the most objectionable. But in hindsight it was not an opportunity. Being hyperbolic was not the right tactic in that moment. But it, you know, it was a tough time and we were upset. Like, you know. I mean, there's a completely moronic. discussion about it, about like, well, what if the

secret Nazi gets, has, includes messages for Nazism secretly? It's like, well, that's, that's included in the output that you're talking about. Right. Like, even if it's secretive, like, that's still part of the output that you can judge. And that's how you judge politicians is on the

output, not about what is in their heart. Yeah, exactly. So, I think, uh, but people can continue reacting to it. Yeah, whatever. I mean, um, Spent a couple more weeks on it. Exactly.

Exactly. Udang Kusei Lutnik. I just signed up for the military so I can get a new free testosterone screening. The thought of being low T is terrifying. Yeah, I saw Pete Head Sop talking about that. Science's political said, Did you all see AOC's interview with DropSite yesterday?

She clarified that she meant a weapons embargo and talked about Israel needing sanctions. That's great. Oh, that's awesome. I did not see it, though. But that's great. And a step up from the blocking of offensive and defensive weapons, which she'd already committed to.

Yeah, which a lot of, you know, you still see a lot of politicians try to use that finesse, which it's over. Yep. RFK's a brainworm. Did you hear Secretary of War about mandatory TRT testing in the military? I guess we missed that. Lefty left, the Central Iowa endured in 100,

year rain with Ames, Iowa, getting 10 inches of rain in 48 hours, and that isn't even the highest amount. Fields were flooded for multiple days, and that's already signs of crop loss from it in multiple fields. And now we're projected to get 90 plus degree days for the next 10 days with no rain inside. It's going to be a rough year for crop yields. All right, three more. Science is political. Emma, have farmers decided to try the RFK approach of using parasites instead of fertilizer? what gives says driving through Connecticut right now is so depressing. We're blanketed in smoke from the Canada wildfires. The only hope I have is that this firsthand experience can show the effects of climate change

and show how prescient of an issue it is for anyone still with their head in the sand. I hope that's the case. And the final I am of the day with a soundboard request, a mortified penguin, hey, I'm our crew. Can I get a Yoda drop for me and my partner's birthdays? My president was waking up to the Lindsay Graham News and here you go. With that said, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part. Well, no, we're going to leave.

We're leaving. Bye. We're getting out. It's the end of the stream. We did a freebie Wednesday. Appreciate you all. We will see you tomorrow. It might take all strength like I to get to where I want.

I'm going to get there. I just got caught. But see the truth in a life.