The Young Turks - Bearing It All

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Harris has a meeting on Sunday with a trio of prospective VP finalists. RFK Jr. admits he was behind the infamous dead bear incident in Central Park. Scoop: Blinken told G7 Iran and Hezbollah could attack Israel in next 24 hours. Israeli strikes on Gaza shelter, kills at least 30 and injures dozens." HOST: Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur), Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. I'm so upset. Oh my God. The God! All right. All right, well, the Young Turks, live from the Polymarker Studio in LA, Jake Hugo, Jordan Yule with you guys.

Jordan's, of course, part of rebel headquarters, which is another channel on the YouTube network that we have. Well, all the networks that we have. So check that out. He's also got the Insurgent Podcast. Okay, so Jordan, we've got a lot of stories today about Kamala Harris's VP selection. That's super important and relevant, obviously. It's possible that the pick comes in literally any minute while we're live because it's supposed to come in probably today or tomorrow morning. And then we have crazy Donald Trump stories, crazy RFK Jr. stories, crazy everything stories.

So, big day ahead. Jordan, take it away. Take a look at this. With a self-imposed deadline to announce her pick for running mate by tomorrow night, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted at least three contenders at her Washington residence Sunday. Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Kamala Harris is expected to announce her vice presidential pick in the next 24 hours, and together they will kick off a multi-state tour of several battleground states.

Harris will announce her vice presidential pick by Tuesday night when she and the candidate will appear in Philadelphia for the first of seven rallies over the course of five days. The two will campaign in each of the seven most competitive states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Over this past weekend, Harris alongside her closest aides and lawyers, reviewed the finalists' backgrounds, experience, and potential vulnerabilities. But the in-person interviews, Harris allies said, would be particularly important to the process as the vice president is prioritizing

personal chemistry with her running mate and says she is looking for a governing partner. The three finalists who met with Harris on Sunday were Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walls. It remained unclear Sunday whether Harris herself had interviewed three other potential finalists, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Now, reports indicate that the pool has narrowed to just two, Shapiro and walls. And in what might be a surprising endorsement, Republican former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie through his support behind Shapiro. Take a look.

I think she needs to pick someone who's viewed as more moderate than her. I think she needs to pick someone who's got more governing experience at the ground level. That's why I think she will pick a governor. Look, I'm going to go where Donna won't go. It should be Josh Shapiro. I don't think this is a hard choice. He's a very talented policy. politician. He's extraordinarily popular, 65% job approval in the state she needs to win. This is really important. And I'll tell you this, if she picked Shapiro on Tuesday, Donald Trump created Josh Shapiro. How sad? He endorsed Maseriano, the weakest Republican candidate in that field. What it allowed Josh Shapiro to do was instead of playing to his base to try to win a narrow election, he saw an opportunity for a coalition building. the election, and that's what he did. So now he's seen as a coalition builder because he did it, but the only reason he could do it is because Trump made another ridiculously stupid endorsement

by endorsing Mastriano, who was a flawed, weak, bad candidate. Meanwhile, Tim Walls is the favorite among labor advocates, potentially providing Harris a competitive advantage among rural and working class voters. Walls picked up Walls picked up a recent endorsement from Bernie Sanders recently. Take a look. So we still await the vice president's pick for a, for her number two on the ticket. There are progressives out there making the case for Governor Tim Walz. And yet we hear today that Governor Shapiro and Pennsylvania may also be a good pick because he's more moderate.

And there are a lot of electoral votes there in Pennsylvania. you. Would you get behind the Walls candidacy? Well, I had the opportunity to talk to your governor a few days ago, and I am very impressed by him. I think you have an excellent governor who understands the needs of working families, and I hope very much that the vice president selects a running mate who will speak up and take on powerful corporate interests, and I think Kim Wolfe is somebody who could do that. House Democrats have also increasingly advocated for walls, including Representative Jim McGovern, Pramela Giapol, and Nancy Pelosi. A source familiar with the California Democrats thinking told the Hill, she is always especially

fond of former House colleagues when asked about Harris's running mate, a nod to walls. But even though he may not be in the final two that we know of, Mark Kelly actually boasts the highest name recognition and favorability, according to an AP Norke poll. Americans are more likely to have a positive view of Kelly than a negative view. About 3 in 10 U.S. adults have a very or somewhat favorable view of Kelly, while 2 in 10 have a negative view. Like many of the other contenders, though, Kelly is nowhere near a household name. About half of Americans don't know enough to have an opinion of him.

But Democrats are especially likely to have warm feelings about Kelly. 45% have a favorable view. Only 1 in 10 have an unfavorable view, and around 4 in 10 don't know. know enough to say. Older Democrats, though, 45 and older, are especially likely to have a positive view of Kelly while younger Democrats are more likely to be unfamiliar with him. A whole lot of stats, a whole lot of palace intrigue and navel gazing. Jank, what do you think? Where do you think Harris is leaning? So there are three factors that lean towards Shapiro. So, and this is not me saying I want Shapiro. That's a different conversation. This is me saying as an analyst, I think,

it's more likely to be Shapiro. And I'm not even talking about the hints that have been dropped about how the rally is going to be in Philadelphia tomorrow and how the Philly mayor leaked their videos, congratulating him on being the VP. She's had that video ready. Some intern push the button. They have no idea if that intern has no idea if it's Shapiro or not, right? I'm talking about three things that I think will make a big difference. So number one, Democrats love to pick the compromise candidate. They do not like to pick the progressive candidate.

So I wish you were the opposite, but it's not. So if she picks Walts, who is considered by most, though not necessarily me, but by most as the most progressive of the bunch, and I think he's definitely progressive. And I'm shocked that he's in the final three. If she picks him, I'll be floored. I won't be able to believe it. It'll be the first time that's happened in a long time. And I will definitely take that as positive news that they are going in a more progressive direction.

Usually they pick a guy like Mark Kelly, who's the most boring, conservative, corporate guy. Oh, a lot of people don't dislike him. That's because they've never heard of him. And so that's because he hides in a cave like most politicians do. Okay, so normally they'd go with a guy like Mark Kelly. But if Mark Kelly's in there as the most corporate friendly, most conservative guy, And walls in there is the most progressive, they're going to want to compromise on Shapiro. That's usually how Democratic leadership thinks.

So that's my sense. That's point one. Point two is the guy leading the VP process is Eric Holder. Now, this is the most important thing you should know. Barack Obama loves Josh Shapiro. Shapiro backed him way back in the day, like in 2007 when Obama started running against Hillary Clinton. and Shapiro was pretty much the only person in Pennsylvania Democratic politics that backed to Obama. He backed him really early when most of the party was with Hillary Clinton.

They've developed a personal, close friendship and relationships since then. They play basketball every once in a while. Obama asked, where's my guy? How's he doing, et cetera? The fact that Holder is the guy helping to pick the VP, it makes a giant difference. Obviously, former attorney general and very good friends with Barack Obama. And the person they brought into the campaign recently is David Plough. David Plough, another huge Obama ally and ran his presidential campaigns. So all those things point towards Shapiro.

So that is the most likely pick. We'll see, and I don't believe that it's between Shapiro and Walls. I don't know where that story came from. But how could anyone possibly know? Because she had these conversations are going to be at least partly determinative as Jordan just told you. And we have no idea what happened in those conversations. So I'm, again, I'm surprised it's those final three. And if you're a progressive and you believe me halfway that Shapiro is actually at a minimum

progressive adjacent, how do we get this lucky? One and a half candidates at a minimum and I think two out of the three candidates are either progressive or close to the progressive lane. That's kind of amazing. But if they pick Mark Kelly, it's all for not. I'll drop her to underdog because that means she's going super safe. She's playing prevent defense when she's not even leading. And that'll be a very dispiriting pick.

Yeah, I think. there's a couple other arguments that I've seen for Shapiro and the rationale that I don't know they hold much water. So people always say, oh, well, he will help win Pennsylvania. In advance of our conversation last week on your news we got bad, I looked into it. And some people have summarized the research around a VP pick helping deliver a state, their state. And we don't really have reliable data showing that a VP pick actually has an impact on that. And the last instance, I believe was 1960 where the VP was from, was considered at that point a battleground state. And if you look at the past few decades, we don't have a vice presidential pick

from a battleground state that I can recall. So I don't think that all these people signing saying, oh, Shapiro will help get her there. Maybe. Like, that's our, we could at our most confident position on that argument is a maybe. You know what? Yes, of course, he's one statewide there multiple times. But that doesn't necessarily mean he will help deliver it in the general election at, on a presidential ticket. Yeah, Jordan, I disagree a little bit here.

I understand what you're saying. And normally you'd be totally right, like picking Tim Kane to try to deliver Virginia back in 2016, was a disastrous, dumb idea. I said right out of the eight. Number one, he's not gonna deliver anything, right? And I remember they picked Lieberman all the way back in 2000 because they thought he was gonna deliver Florida. How did that turn out for us?

So generally speaking, you're right that that's not a great theory. In this case though, I think we had an exception with two states. One was Whitmer in Michigan and others Shapiro in Pennsylvania. Those two are so critical to this election. And of all of the states, Pennsylvania is the most critical, making a 35% difference, according to the analyst, on who's most likely to win. By for the most of any state. Yes, but can Shapiro actually deliver Pennsylvania because usually the VP pick can't, right?

Well, number one, if you pick a super conservative, super boring, and not that popular a person within those states, then you're not necessarily going to get the job done. Lieberman was from Connecticut. They thought maybe you could deliver Jewish voters in Florida. It didn't really work that way. So, but in Pennsylvania, not only does Shapiro have a 90% approval rating among Democrats, and you might think, well, okay, among Democrats, I'm not that surprised by it, but still it's a very solid number. He has not been divisive at all in Pennsylvania, at least as Democrats there

perceive it, but much more importantly, he has a 61% approval rating in a split that is nearly split in a state that is nearly split right down the middle, 50-50. 61% is a giant number. He has built up a reservoir of goodwill in that state. And in a state that is that close, can he tip it over to winning? In this rare case, I think yes. So another thing that you mentioned, and I know this is what Eric Holder was supposed to be doing, which is vetting the candidates.

Some of the opposition research about Shapiro that has come out over the past few days is alarming. and I want to distinguish things that I think are genuinely alarming from things that I think are being overblown. For instance, I don't care what he wrote as a college student when he was 20. I don't agree with what he wrote, but let's be honest with ourselves, with each other, with the audience, nobody can sit here and say yes, the things that I said and I wrote and I believe when I was 20 years old in college reflect who I am now as a 51 year old, you're lying to yourself if you actually believe that.

might not like him, but be fair here. Like that's just such an unreasonable standard that I see a lot of people falling for. And it's just, it's ridiculous. The thing that I am concerned about is the case of Ellen Greenberg, which was a, a woman who was stabbed 20 times or died after suffering around 20 stab wounds. And it went into his office, that case when he was in office, he oversaw that case. He oversaw that case. It was ruled as after years of sitting on it, it was ruled a suicide.

That is kind of fishy. More reporting reflects that he allegedly is friends with the woman's fiancé or a partner at that time. It seems extremely fishy. And that is something I think if he is the nominee will come up and could present to be a big issue as the campaign continues. Yeah. So a couple of things, guys. There's a snap poll going on in the chat. right now go participate and the results are super interesting because as we're

doing the show live Tim Walz is leading and we just asked Tim Walzer Josh Shapiro you know our audience is unlikely to pick Mark Kelly and it's pretty close Walls Lee superior 5643 in the live show but when you go over to YouTube community still our audience Shapiro leads 61 39 interesting so a little bit split there but they're both within the 60 to 40 range Really interesting. I agree with Jordan on the op-ed. Listen, I wrote an op-ed when I was in college that I totally regret. And I was a totally different person back then. And so I've got to give the same grace to other people. I can't then turn around and say, no, he should be judged

for what he did when he was 20 or what he wrote, almost an identical situation as me, right? So I certainly give him a pass on that, no question about it. In terms of his prosecutorial record. Look, every prosecutor is going to get there, every case nitpicked. That's just, and so, and maybe, I want to be clear, I'm not saying that this case is nitpicking. I have, I don't have an opinion on this case. I haven't studied it enough, right? But Kamala Harris has a bunch of cases too, and that's also going to be challenged. This was too liberal, this one was too conservative. I can't believe she didn't act on this. By the way, the number one case in terms of Kamala Harris, and I'm, we're probably going to talk about it more

than Trump or his team is, is she let Steve Mnuchin off the hook in California for basically robbing us blind. And then he became the Treasury Secretary for Donald Trump. So my point is that you're always going to find what you think are bad cases in there. So it doesn't move me too much yet. I reserve the right to look more into it, obviously. But look, at this point, what we think and care about is really interesting to me. I'm curious how progressives view this. A lot of you know, I wrote the op-ed in favor of Shapiro. Jordan and I had a bonus episode, and now we put it up later for everybody else, where we had a debate about Walls v. Shapiro.

I think both of them have shown courage in actually serving their citizens and endangering their corporate contributions while doing so. Well, he, Shapiro went after Wall Street a couple of times, went after the Catholic Church. Walls has done some beautiful progressive legislation in Minnesota. Waltz used to be very conservative, not very conservative, but pretty conservative back when he was in the House. So that's kind of an interesting point. And remember, both Walts and Shapiro have conservative and progressive credentials. I think Walls has passed more progressive legislation in Minnesota, probably more than almost any governor.

I'm not going to say almost, definitely more than any governor that I've seen. So that gives them a huge credibility with progressives. Bernie Sanders is backing him, unions backing him. If it's walls, I'm good. That's a great pick, right? If it's Shapiro, you know my point of view on that. I think that he's going to have the courage to do some right things. I think he's very strategic.

And tons of people disagree, but I think that it's going to take someone who cares about Israel to end the occupation. I don't think even Walls who I like is definitely not Kelly or Buttigieg or anybody like that is going to step up and go, damn it, I want this occupation ended. And President Harris, no matter what, I want you to ignore A-PAC and all the donors, and we're going to go get a peace deal done. If Walls is that guy, I'll love him forever. But I would be surprised. The only person in my opinion that has a shot at doing that is Shapiro. So, but maybe I'm wrong and you guys are split on it.

So it's, you know, and I love to see it and I love to see the disagreements. We hash it out right here. Jordan, last thoughts. Well, I mean, we see splits in the polls. We also see a pretty close competition, if you want to call it that over on Polymerkate. 54% are leaning Shapiro, 46% are leaning walls and those numbers are fluctuating pretty wildly. So, well, that gives you two thoughts, two things, though. Number one, the information on them being the two finalists is apparently pretty solid of the best.

And the betting markets have gone to pretty much 100% between those two. So that's a valuable piece of information. And then second of all, Shapiro used to be all the way up at 73%. But all these attacks against them have brought him down all the way. Did you say 54 Jordan at pond margin? 53% now. It just went down another percent. And he's dropping.

So all of a sudden, everybody's split. And it's, this is a nail biter. And I can't wait to see who she picks. And if it's Buttigieg, we're all going to jump off of We're not actually going to do that. Don't do that. Okay, but please let it be one of those two guys. Not bad, not bad if it's one of those two guys. So I'm crossing my fingers. All right, amazing, amazing day. And of course, as soon as the news breaks, we'll either have it to you line because we're live Monday through Friday, of course, 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern. Otherwise, I'll do a video for you when we're off air. Okay, we're taking a break here when we come back. Apparently Bobby Kennedy Jr. had a dead bear in his car and dropped it off in all the wrong place. What am I do with this guy? What am I do with him? All right, we'll be back.

All right, back on TYT, Jay, Jordan with you guys, but also joined by Melody Loves Music and Snow White. Did you bring seven folks with you? We'd love to have you. Thank you for joining us, Snow White. I love this channel. I love my job. CDN, Norse Dog Dad gifted five Young Tourist memberships because they're American hero. All right, Jordan, what do you got for us?

Hank, take a look at this. No bears in the park for a long, long time. It seems as if someone brought the thing there, which is really sad. That was a clip from October 2014. They were covering the story of a dead bear cub being found in Central Park. And thanks to a new piece from The New Yorker, we now know how it got there. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Revelation came in a sweeping profile of RFK and the New Yorker,

apparently during a drive upstate for a day of falconry, RFK found a dead bear cub on the side of the road. He loaded it into his car with plans to skin it for meat, and he posed for this picture during the process. But knowing the New Yorker profile was coming and that it would mention this, he posted this video on X with his retelling to try to get ahead of it, along with the caption, looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, New Yorker. Take a look. At that time, this was the little bit of the redneck in me. There'd been a series of bicycle accidents in New York. They had just put in the bike lanes.

And some people, a couple of people that got killed. And it was every day. And people had gotten badly injured. Every day it was in the press. And so I thought, I wasn't drinking, of course, but. people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea. And I said, well, I had an old bike in my car that somebody asked me to get rid of it. I said, let's go put the bear in Central Park and we'll make it look like he got in by

the way. It would be fun, funny for people. So everybody thought that's a great idea. So we went and did that and we thought it would be a music for whoever found it or something. The next day, it was like, it was on. Every television station, it was the front page of every paper, and I turned on the TV, and there was like a mile of yellow tape, and there were 20 cod cars, there were helicopters flying over it. And I was like, oh my God, what did I do?

The Manhattan DA's office told Pix 11 in New York that RFK may now face charges for this incident, and when asked about it during his interview with The New Yorker, He said, maybe that's where I got my brain worm. Nevertheless, solving this decade-long mystery did bring out some funny responses from people, including this user on X Mark Sunstrom, who said, well, it took nearly 10 years, but I got my answer. You can see, October 2014, who the blank hits a bear cub with their car probably by accident, and then brings it to drop in Central Park. And to another user, RFK's latest scandal illustrates the absurdity of his candidacy.

User the sneck says, nobody, blank, RFK Jr. I had a brainworm. RFK Jr. I've sexually harassed a lot of women. RFK Jr. I once planted a dead bear in Central Park. Now, there is so much more to this profile. And Jake, maybe you and I can discuss some of the substance in that piece. I saw you posting about this yesterday when the bear storyline started to emerge. What do you make of this? Yeah, so look, I want an outsider populist so bad.

And so I want to give these third party candidates a chance. And you know, I interviewed him here on the show. And he has a couple of policies that are really good. His money in politics policy is perfect. It's exactly Wolfpack's policy, wolf dash pack.com, okay? His housing policy is amazing. It would get rid of private equity, being able to buy our homes. It would help the housing market more than any other policy by a landslide.

So I, and he's an interesting cat, and I want to like him personally, and I'll tell you why in a second. And I want to like a populist outsider going up against what used to be two decrepit guys, and that opened the door for him a lot more before Biden dropped out of the race. but he does things that are so monumentally weird that it just makes it impossible. Who finds a dead bear and brings it to Central Park? Like if when mainstream media is going to attack any outsider as weird, radical, etc., don't help them. Minimized, they're going to find something on everyone, right? Or they're going to pretend to find something on everyone.

But RFK Jr. is like, here's another softball. Here's another one. Here's another one. Like, oh, what are you doing to me? So I get it. These events were in the past, but no, no, that's too much. It's too much. But the number one thing that I thought is actually what a lot of you guys wrote in.

So I'm going to read a couple of members here. First, a YouTube member and then a couple of folks from t.y.com. So Quincy McGoo wrote in, RFC Jr. hangs out with Roseanne Barr. Even sicker. Okay, so I was thinking, you're gonna tell the country about how it's not weird that you dropped off a dead bear in Central Park, and you chose as your vehicle to do this, a video with Roseanne Barr. What are you doing, Bobby?

What are you doing? Like, so it makes it really hard to say, hey, let's have an open mind. So here's more, I do declare, wrote in a member on t.com slash team. When you shock Roseanne with your story, you've lost the plot. And she was, she was like, oh my God, that's so crazy. When you got Rosette Boy reacting that way. Come on. And Wong John wrote in, that whole RFK story sounds grisly.

If he keeps this up, he'll barely have any support left. He's going to have to pander to his base a lot more. Okay, thank you for doing my work for me. Those excellent dad joke slash puns, nicely done. I love our members, sit the join button below. Okay, no, this story does not affect this housing policy. Does it affect his chance of winning and hence whether we should continue to have serious conversations about him? Yes, it does affect that.

And it probably should. So we mentioned that story, that New Yorker story in it, I thought was a really fascinating read. Spent a good 45 minutes with this morning, just trying to take it all in and better understand who he is. This guy is running. We'll get to the caveats around running in a second. But what is depicted is a story of somebody who appears deeply traumatized by the loss of his father. And then for the next few decades, tries to fill that hole with various vices. And then the process has alienated a lot of his friends, a lot of his longtime friends.

They're concerned about him. Some of the associations, of course, Roseanne Barr in this video, this is like the first celebrity who endorsed the QAnon conspiracy. She had this really over the top anti-Semitic Twitter post several years ago with the gingerbread cookies, just really offensive stuff. On top of that, though, there are people on his own campaign who have some very, very problematic past, views, beliefs, stances now currently. It's very, very alarming. And on that candidacy, he's running, of course, his poll numbers have diminished with Kamala Harris, replacing Biden on the ticket, but he is still running and they're targeting people in swing states. So he's pulling, they're trying to target disillusioned Republicans in solid blue states, disillusioned

Democrats and solid red states. We don't know how many they'll pull, but they do see be polling well with young people and Latinos. I would be very worried with Trump on the ballot about the potential playing spoiler. Who knows how close these margins are? We saw it was very, very close in 2020. I don't know. The polling is looking better for Harris, but I'm a little concerned. But all that said, it depends on if he can get on the ballot. A lot of this is presumptive. They're still trying to get ballot access in a lot of these states. To me, and maybe you disagree, there's no like real mathematical path to victory for Kennedy. So it does seem like you're still throwing away your vote if you are in a state where he is on the ballot.

So I have thoughts on whether you're throwing away your vote. And I want to tell you why, I want to root for him personally in a second. But first, Twitch members get in on the act. Mr. Scruffrey O'4 says, no to RFK Jr. The Second Amendment is not for bare arms. Occam's taser writes in, now we know what RFK Jr. would do for a Klondike bar. And Thomas Anakin says this will lose RFKJ support at a bare minimum. Okay, and Amy, back to YouTube members, says,

Also, can we talk about the fact that he was going to eat a rotten road killed dead bear but couldn't take the COVID vaccine? These are devastatingly good points in my opinion. So you know I agree with him on the things that I just mentioned. And those are big ones, housing and money in politics. But I disagree with them on other things, including vaccine. And especially as Amy points out, vaccine versus eating a dead bear. Okay.

So now that leads me to the personal point before we get to. to the electoral things here. Look, I had a friend who lost his dad young, and he lives a little wild like RFK Jr. does. He reminds me of him, he reminds me of him a lot, okay? They also believe the same kind of theories, et cetera. This guy's one of my best friends. And so I know why he does that, and he tells me why he does that, especially when he gets drunk, which is, hey, listen, when I lost my dad in my own arms, I knew life was short. So what is lived cannot be on lift. And so I'm gonna live, live, live, live.

And I feel like RFK Jr. lived that kind of life. And given that his father was shot when he was young, and he got that same lesson, I'm not at all surprised by that. And that's the kind of guy that I normally like in real life. Do I go falconyering? No, would I know what to do? No. But do I kind of want to go falconyering with Bobby Kennedy? Yeah, okay, because he's, and now by the way, if you say, hey, while he was doing that, he did other bad things.

and you took it too far. Super fair, super fair. That's not, you don't get to live life to its maximum at other people's expense, right? So I'm not here to adjudicate that because I don't know the details of those stories, okay? But I know that that's why he does what he does, and that's part of why I root for him. But, but this is too much. And I don't just mean the dead bear. That's, if it was just the dead bear, fine.

And look, I've defended him on the brainworm. A lot of people have that condition. It sounds super funny and he shouldn't have settled in a deposition. We can go on and on and on. and on and on. But all these things are piled up. But the most important thing is when you make an extraordinary case against vaccines, and that's what you're mainly known for, and you disagree with 99% of the world's doctors and scientists, it behooves you to be super rational on everything else so that you gain enough credibility for us to go, huh, I wonder if he's right about the

vaccines, and 99% of the world's doctors are wrong. That's a really high bar. And when you got the dead bears and the brainworms, et cetera, much harder to get there. That's just real. And you can say, hey, Jake, I don't like that you were saying things that are real. Well, then this is not the show for you. But that's obviously true. And he's not anywhere near that bar at this point. Now, finally, the most important point is once Biden dropped out, RFK Jr's numbers sank like a rock.

And so that's because he lost almost all of his Democratic voters. Because those Democratic voters were like, you want me to vote for you Biden? Biden can't speak. You're insulting my intelligence by telling me to vote for Biden. The guy's barely alive. And that was a huge part of the reason they went looking for someone else and found Bobby Kennedy Jr. So once Kamala Harris came in and she was alive, a lot of those Democratic voters went back to the Democratic Party. So if you're rooting for Bobby Kennedy Jr. to get out of the race and you're a Democrat, I think you're strategically incorrect. I think at this point, I would be surprised if the great majority of the votes he's taking isn't from Donald Trump.

That's why Trump keeps attacking him. So whether he's going to stay in the race or not is a different question. Whether he can regain any kind of momentum and get there by election day to the point where he'd be realistic, that seems enormously unlikely, mainly because Biden dropped out, let alone all these stories, right? If he gets there, he gets there, okay? But for now, that seems super unlikely. And so I strategically, if you're a Democrat, I think you definitely want him in this race and taking those Trump votes away. But, but I don't think he's going to win. And I don't

think that, that it just, it was too tough given the life that he lived. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Good. We got agreement on that one. All right, guys. We got to come back as soon as we can. So just bear through the social media break for a second. I had to do one on my own. All right. We'll be right back. memberships, we appreciate you. Sorry about the singing. Try to keep to a minimum. All right, Jordan, what's next? Good sing more. Until then, take a look at this.

The U.S. bolstering air defenses in and around Israel, sending additional cruisers, destroyers, and another squadron of fighter jets to this region after Iran promised to severely punish Israel for those two assassinations in Tehran and Beirut last week. President Biden announcing those new defensive measures for Israel on the phone to Prime Minister Netanyahu over the weekend, but the president calling their phone call very direct, saying the killing of the leader of Hamas in the Iranian capital had, quote, not helped the chances of getting a ceasefire in Gaza, a former Israeli general telling me he thinks Iran and Hezbollah will attempt a more decisive attack than that mass barrage of Iranian drones and missiles fired Israel in

April. The U.S. is sending more military resources to the Middle East ahead of an expected attack on Israel by Iran and its proxies that the United States and its allies believe could come at any moment. The escalation follows Israel's assassination of Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyah, in Tehran, in Hezbollah, military commander, Fáoud Shakur, in Beirut last week. After those killings, Iran and its proxies immediately promised to retaliate. Take a look. Iran immediately vowed vengeance. Chominee posted it is our duty to take revenge. And the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Israel will, quote, face a harsh and painful response from the powerful and huge resistance front,

especially Islamic Iran. That threat of regional war was repeated today by Iranian proxies in Yemen, the Houthis. And in Lebanon, by Hezbollah and Hamas, which vowed to take the battle with Israel to quote, new dimensions. The U.S. and Israel appear to be taking those threats seriously. and Netanyahu is already vowing Iran will pay a heavy price if they follow through. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told his counterparts from the G7 countries on Sunday that an attack by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel could start as early as today.

Blinken reportedly told officials on the call that pressuring to Iran to limit its assault is the best way to avoid regional war. Iran's foreign military spokesman Nasser Kanani blamed Israel on Monday for the incident. instability in the Middle East, saying that Iran is not seeking to escalate tensions in the region, though any attack obviously would escalate tensions. Biden is meeting today with his national security team in the situation room and speaking with Jordan's King Abdullah in the hopes of de-escalating the situation with diplomacy. But Netanyahu seems to have different plans. Israel would consider launching a preemptive strike to deter Iran if it uncovered airtight evidence that Tehran was preparing

to mountain attack, Hebrew media reported after Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo convened Israel's security chiefs for a meeting on Sunday evening. So for now, unfortunately, it's a waiting game. But it's also critical to note that this escalation has already been disastrous for multiple reasons, including the fact that it's derailed talks about a potential ceasefire in Gaza. Axios reports one source who was on the call with G7 countries said Blinken sounded frustrated when he briefed the ministers on recent talks with with Israel over a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. Blinken said the administration felt it was close to a breakthrough before the assassination

in Tehran. Jank, I guess this is just what happens when a country assassinates the chief negotiator of a ceasefire deal. What do you make of this story? Yeah, this is obvious. Netanyahu is saying, I'm gonna start World War III in the Middle East, and you idiot Americans, as he called us when he spoke in front of Congress here, I'm gonna make you pay for it. I'm gonna make you pay for it in money, and treasure and blood. I'm going to make your guys fight for it.

And by the way, he's not wrong. It's happening right now. Blinkin's talking about how we're moving warships into the area to defend Israel. I have a question that will be considered controversial in Washington, but not at all in the country. Why? Why should we defend Israel? They definitely started this war. They did a strike inside Tehran, the capital of Iran.

Earlier, they did a strike in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. How many neighboring countries will Israel attack before we say, hey, maybe they're starting the war? So don't tell me this. Oh, well, there was a Hamas leader there. And so they get to kill anyone in a foreign country and they get to assassinate anyone they like. By the way, Vladimir Putin agrees. He thinks it's totally okay to assassinate any person in any country. And he doesn't care about our sovereignty, UK sovereignty, no sovereignty.

He thinks it's okay to invade other countries. So does Benjamin Netanyahu. And so is there any limit? Is there any limit? What if they had nuked Iran? Do we still have to say, no, no, we gotta defend Israel. We gotta do, poor Israel. I mean, they were only in the middle of attacking almost every neighbor they have.

When all of a sudden they were attacked by mean Iran. So we all have to go and die there for Israel. And even if we don't have to die, no, you have to send more, billions more, billions more. Maybe trillions, maybe trillions, shut up and give me the goddamn, the goddamn money. I'm in the middle of attacking all my neighbors. Self-defense, my ass. This isn't anywhere near self-defense. Now, look at this. Warmonger Netanyahu, one of the biggest warmongers of my lifetime, period, of any country. By the way, you know he was part of the neocons who started the Iraq war. So it's not like we didn't fight a war that Netanyahu wanted

us to fight. How'd that one turn out for us? Iran is four times the size of Iraq. Okay, let alone Lebanon, the Occupy Territories, let alone the 1.6 billion Muslims that at some point is going to say, God damn it now, what do you want us to do? How much humiliation can any people take? So now, okay, he says maybe a preemptive strike. You already did a strike inside Iran. You assassinating someone in Tehran in their capital. And now you say before Iran strikes back, we're going to strike them again. So we wait, that's two preemptive strikes. And even then we have to defend them. I don't want to defend them. This is not an ally. This, if they're now with allies like this, you don't need enemies. What kind of an ally says, I'm going to keep starting war wars and more wars.

And by the way, all of this to protect the massive oppression that I have of the occupied territories. And hey, no, no, you got to do it. While my settlers go steal more land in the West Bank, we're not done stealing their land yet and beating them and humiliating them and killing them. 57 years of a brutal dictatorship in the occupied territories. Oh, we have the best democracy in the Middle East. First of all, that's so insulting. That's not remotely true. If you count Turkey in the Middle East, it's a 10,000 times better democracy than Israel.

Why? Well, Israel's got a nice little democracy if you're inside Israel. But for five and a half million people, they run a totalitarian dictatorship. And it's from an ethno state. says no, people from a different religion. I don't care which religion. People from a different religion will rule you. And you'll know to shut up and take our rule for 57 years.

And if you complain, we'll destroy every building in Gaza. And by the way, I mean, look, we're gonna get to this in the next story. On Thursday, they bombed a school, killed 15 people. On Saturday, they bombed another school, killed another 17. On Sunday, they bombed another school and they killed another 30. So kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. Kill, kill, kill, kill, nonstop, ally. No, no, no, we're a nice little piggy bank.

We're a bunch of morons who say, oh, yeah, oh, they captured our government through this lobby called APAC. So now we got to go and fight a war with Iran. I think it's a terrible idea. I want no part of that war. America should not send a dollar to fight Netanyahu's aggressive wars of choice, offensive wars, that he is definitely starting. And if any reporter dares say that Israel's defending itself after it started this war, well, okay, then you'll know they're giant liars. Every one of them is an enormous, purposeful liar, because we can all see right now,

Israel did the first strike against Iran. And by the way, they've assassinated people in Iran before. Nonstop, they think, oh, I have a right to infinite assassinations. Why? I don't like them. I call them terrorists. Well, Nanjahu has killed now about 40 times the number of civilians as Hamas as. So would it be fair to call him a terrorist? No, no, no, no, no, no.

If you're not Muslim, you never got to call them as terrorists. Well, I mean, is this killing civilians or isn't it? Oh, no, no, no, we have one standard for Israel and America and our allies. We have a completely different standard for Muslims. You can kill them all day long, kill all their civilians, kill 40 times their civilians. And nope, we're not terrorists. So now we can kill any of their leaders in any other country. What if they did likewise?

And they killed one of the Israeli leaders. You know what would happen, right? Oh, savages, these violent Muslim terrorists, we have to kill them all. And we have to do it. We have to do a preemptive strike and an assassination and a bombing and a bombing and a bombing. And if they ever respond, we have a right to defend ourselves. So this is the worst ally in the world. And by the way, last thing that for now that Jordan mentioned there,

Ismail Hanier was considered the moderate who was trying to get to a ceasefire deal in Hamas. Now, when you kill the moderate, what happens? All of the extremists, and there are plenty of them in Hamas, are going to say, see, we told you so. All Israel ever does is violence. The minute you're soft on them a little bit, remember Ismail, he wanted to do a peace deal with them. And they murdered him. So, of course, we're not going to do a peace deal now. Okay, because the minute we go to do a peace deal, then Yahoo's going to murder us.

So now we're going to have war and more war, and it is definitely brought to you by the state of Israel. And within that, like that dynamic you're talking about by killing Hania, then they could say, if there isn't any more progress after this, because of Israel's actions, if there isn't any progress in discussions, Israel can then say, well, we. We tried to negotiate. They don't want to negotiate. They don't want to make a deal with us. Hamas doesn't want a deal. And it only justifies what they actually want, which is more war. And the media will run with it. Because look at the framing they're setting up in this story. Iran, I guess not that it's great, but understandably wanting to retaliate, that's what escalates things. It's not Israel. It's not Israel assassinating somebody on Iranian soil. It's Iran retaliating for them doing that. Just as we saw when Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Syria, when Iran sent that mostly performative response of drones and unmanned aircraft that were all shot down, that was Iran

potentially escalating things. It wasn't Israel instigating it. The idea that Iran responding to Israel is what escalate. It's like NFL, it's like NFL. it's like NFL rules. You can hit somebody, but if they retaliate, they get flagged. It's so egregious, it's so ridiculous, and for some reason we all just accept it. We need to push back on this framing.

There is no, in no scenario where Israel isn't the aggressor here. They are assassinating leaders. They are bombing diplomatic buildings in different countries. And Iran, we talk about Israel having a right to defend it. itself, as they massacre tens of thousands of people in Gaza, of course that's not self-defense. It's mass murder, it's ethnic cleansing, it's genocide. Does Iran have a right? Who gets the right? Because in the Western media, it's never anybody that is mostly Muslim, any country that is mostly Muslim or mostly brown. That luxury is never afforded to Muslims or traditionally

Middle Eastern countries, ever. And you see that jingoism in our foreign policy and it's perpetuated throughout our media. It's disgusting. So look, I ask questions that are very hard to answer because it exposes obvious, overwhelming hypocrisy. So let's take a moderate leader inside Israel that I want to replace that, you know, Benny Gantz. So you say, oh, there are no moderates in Hamas. People will say, of course, of course, of course, they're all dirty terrorist savages.

I know, I know. And you guys are super pure. It's not like you just butchered over 39,000 people, including 15,000 children that Israel murdered. Oh, I know, I know, it wasn't Israel. Hamas made you do it. You have no idea how ridiculous you sound when you say things like that. The rest of the planet is not interested in your BS anymore. Just because you bribe a bunch of American politicians doesn't mean that you get to rule our minds and you get to make us believe absurd things.

And I don't care what any stupid cable news anchor says about how they're a special ally. What does that even mean? So, okay, I would hate it if Iran assassinated Benny Gantz in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. And I would say that's an outrageous act of terrorism. And it's provocative. And of course Israel is going to counter strike. But when you do it to one of their leaders, people go, yeah, well, he's Muslim. Of course, he's marked for death.

Who cares? His life is worthless. We just butcher 15,000 kids. You think we care about that guy's life? You think we care about, and F that guy's life. I don't care about his life either. But I care about law and order. I care about the international rules.

And why do I care about them? Because if you keep violating international rules, people violate them back. If you keep punching people in the face, do not be surprised if they punch you in the face back. And then you could say, oh, I can't believe they punched me. I had a right to murder them and their children.

I can't believe they're fighting back. Well, okay, you can be an idiot. You could be the world's dumbest person and go, I can't believe those Muslims dare to defy us. They should just sat there and let their kids be murdered. Come on, and let their leaders be murdered. And yes, we have a double a standard. You're not allowed to kill any of us or any of our leaders,

but we can murder any of you we like. And by the way, we're the good guys. Are we? Are we? Because right now, America is not acting like good guys. We're backing the most belligerent and oppressive government in the region. If you say, hey, Bashar al-Assad's a worst butcher, I agree with you. But has Syria attacked as many neighbors as Israel has?

No. Net Yahoo is an obvious, one of the biggest war mongers of our lifetimes, absolutely drenched in blood. And he's the one that leads the more. army? Literally no one on earth believes that anymore unless you're blinded by your Israel bias. And you think, well, obviously all the Muslims are dirty and need to be killed. And obviously we're the moral ones for killing them. Okay, you can believe that all day long, but now the world hates you. So is that good for Israel? You idiots, is that good for Israel?

Oh yeah, they hated us anyway. Everybody's an anti-Semite. Oh, just because we killed 40,000 people just because we killed a stadium full of women and a stadium full of children. Now all of a sudden, they hate us because they're anti-Semitic. Really? Okay, listen, whatever gets you through the night, okay? But the reality is Israel has been monstrous here, absolutely monstrous. If you love Israel, you would do everything in your power to get them to turn around and to end the goddamn occupation. But if you say, no, I don't like Israel, nearly as much as I like oppressing and killing Muslims, well, then you made your bed.

And I don't want to lie in it. And I don't want America to lie in it. So America, vote out anybody who's telling you, we got to go pay in blood and treasure for Israel's war crimes. Hell no, it should be our answer. As the region worries about a potential next phase of this war, in Gaza, the unchanging current reality continues to kill and maim 300 days in. These, the minutes after an Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza city, it was crowded with displaced people. Survivors said there was no warning. It was hit by three missiles. That Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza City has killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens more,

according to the Palestinian Emergency Response Agency. Most of the victims were women and children, said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian civil defense. He said that an F-16 fighter jet hit a school called Hassan Salame, where at least 14 people were still buried under the rubble. Shrapnel and debris also hit a neighboring school known as Nassar, he said. The IDF used the same excuse it always does. The Israeli military said it targeted terrorists in Hamas command and control centers located at the Hassan Salami and Nassar schools. It said it had taken numerous steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians before the strike, including using precision munitions, surveillance, and intelligence, though it did not specify how it had it done so.

And even if we generously assume that they did take steps to avoid civilians, they failed. Basal, the Palestinian civil defense spokesman said, right in front of me, there was a five-year-old child dying. How is this related to October 7th? If you want to kill someone, kill him away from other people. It was the third attack on a school in the last four days, all of which had housed Gazans who were forced to leave their homes during the war. A recent assessment by the United Nations found that nearly 85% of Gaza's schools have been destroyed or damaged during the war, with more than half of the school buildings used

as shelters hit directly. Sadly, of course, Israel also saw violence over the weekend. An alleged Palestinian militant carried out a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, killing a woman in her 70s and an 80-year-old man. Now, Jane, we try to be fit. We don't want to see violence on any side, but it does seem significantly disproportionate. I mean, this strike is yet another instance of an absolutely heartbreaking, an avoidable and preventable tragedy, and I expect absolutely nothing to change as a result.

What about you? Yeah. So look, we've been saying it from day one. We don't want civilians killed on either side. It's always a tragedy. So what do you kill those poor, that older couple for 75 and 80 years? What would he get out of it? It's so dumb.

So totally counterproductive to everything we need to do to free Palestine. Having said that, let's talk about scale, which America never does. In fact, they covered up the crimes of Israel by making it seem like, well, you know, 1,200 people got killed. So obviously they had to kill 40,000 on the other side. No, that's not obvious at all. That's not obvious at all. My heart breaks for those 1,200. Does your heart break for the 39,580 people killed?

For most of you in the audience, you're of course answering, of course it does. And is 39,580 larger than 1,200? It doesn't take a math genius to figure it out, okay? So is Israel the most incompetent military in the world? Well, God, gee, they're just trying so hard to avoid civilian casualties. But okay, well, what are you going to do? They had tens of thousands, a minute, at a bare, bare minimum, 25,000 civilians killed already. Because IDF says, I don't know, I think we killed 14,000 Hamas guys.

Where's the proof? Any proof? No, I don't know any proof. Well, you were saying 9,000 like a minute ago. And then you were saying, no, actually you were saying 15,000, then 9,000, now you're at 14,000. Which one is it? all within the span of a short period of time. Oh, so you're just making numbers up. But even if you take up their totally made up number of 14,000,

well, there's over 39,000 dead, 25,000 civilians. Do they matter? Do their lives matter at all? And let's be honest, for the American government, our sick, corrupt politicians said, no. They gave standing ovations to Benjamin Netanyo, saying, I don't care about those 25,000 dead women and children, At all. Did the check from APAC clear? It cleared? Good. Kill as many Palestinian women and children as you want. That is what our United States Congress, and yes, our president is saying

super loud and clear. Muslim lives don't matter at all. You can kill as many Muslims as you like. And by the way, we'll say that you were defending yourself. They're in occupied territories, brother. They have almost no power. You saw Israel bomb every building in Gaza. You saw Israel bomb These three schools, let alone the hundreds of schools they bombed before. They blew up all the universities for no reason. It just came in, they did improvised devices. They imploded the universities. Why?

Because they don't want them to get an education. They want to humiliate and beat and oppress the Palestinians as much as humanly possible. But they're the good guys. Our media and politicians pretend they're the good guys. Do good guys bomb schools filled with women and children? Women and children, and if you say, well, there was a terrorist there. So of course we had to kill, even if that were true, and they haven't proved it, the IDF is pathological liars. They make Donald Trump look honest.

Almost every statement IDF puts out is lie, okay? We've double checked like nonstop lies, right? But even if you granted them that there was a terrorist in the building, how about the 29 other people, mostly kids? It's a refugee shelter now, but women, children, et cetera, that's being reported. How about them? Who cares? They're Palestinians. Who cares?

Just kill them all. Are you kidding me? If I had the world's worst, I mean, name it, any terrorist. I don't care if it's a Muslim terrorist, Israeli terrorist, etc. And they're holed up in a building with 30 people inside, 29 of whom are innocent. Would I bomb that building to kill the worst terrorists in the world? Of course not. Because I don't want to murder 29 innocent people.

But you would do that and you would brag about it and you would say it's no big deal and you're just defending yourself if you thought those other 29 lives don't matter at all. After all, they're Muslims. Do their lives even count? And Israel is the moral army? No one who isn't monumentally biased would ever think that. You'd have to be a borderline lunatic to think that. So, and will this matter? Of course not. America doesn't care about Palestinians or Muslims or Arabs at all, at all. Our politicians are monsters.

As long as any donor is giving them money, I mean, they'll run roughshod over our own citizens, let alone Muslims in a different place. They say murder away, kill anything. of them that you like and will give you infinite money. We just gave them $26 billion. They use it to bomb schools. Do you think it's going to change? No, they'll bomb more schools and more schools and more hospitals and more ambulances.

And every time those, it was an accident. Did we just murder 15,000 of your kids? Doesn't really matter, are they really kids? They're just Muslims after all. Well, if you're not sick of that and you don't think that's unbelievably bigoted and racist, There's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with you if your heart doesn't break for those Palestinians. The October 17th attack on Al-Ali hospital.

I remember you and I had a conversation on the show about it a couple days later. And we saw people who are deferential to Israel argue, well, Israel doesn't bomb hospitals. That's how we know they didn't do it. That was October 17th. Where are we now? Where are they now? Where are the people who in that moment made the argument that Israel would never do this? Almost every hospital has been at least partially damaged.

Schools, 85% of it, the schools are partially damaged or destroyed. You talk about the death toll. That is a conservative estimate at this point. With the amount of people that are known to be trapped under rubble, it is probably magnitudes higher. and nobody who went out of the gate in the first couple weeks of this war and argued, Israel doesn't do that. That's just not how they behave. They're a moral army. Where are they now? What are they saying now? What is the excuse? It's always cast doubt on the death toll. It's split hairs over the use of the word genocide. Dispute that it's an occupation because

they can't argue on the substance. They have to pull IDF and Israeli talking points to distract and deflect from the core issue, which is that violence and a waging a war against a captive population is leading to untold civilian death. And then you have Benjamin Netanyahu, give us the finger in Congress and say, there's no place for political violence and democracies. Okay, sure, whatever, whatever you say, because I turn on TV, I open social media, I look at the news, and I see carcass after carcass. of these people, innocent people who had nothing to do with October 7th killed by Netanyahu in his military. Israel is obviously one of the most belligerent and oppressive nations on earth, and we fund them to do that. We enable it. They use our money to slaughter innocent people over and over and over again, and we don't do anything about it.

It's heartbreaking, and if you're an American citizen, you should be outraged by. by the immorality of our politicians. Okay, young Turks, we'll be back.