The Young Turks - China Trade Truce - May 12, 2025

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month Shopify trial and start selling today at ⁠shopify.com/tyt President Trump's "reciprocal" tariff on China will fall to 10% from 125%. Knesset debate reveals not everyone thinks starving Gazan children is a bad thing. American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander freed from Hamas captivity. SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. You, Casper. Good to be here. So we got a wild show for you guys today. Trump has done the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we'll tell you about a couple of his tricks and why some of the proposals that look good might not be as good as they look.

But on the other hand, he seems to be separating himself from Israel. That is super interesting and relates to several stories in the rundown today. All right, with that being said, let's get started. Well, the big cahuna in the news today, of course, is the trade deal that President Trump made with China. Is it a good trade deal? Will it prevent the inflation that many are worried about? Well, let's get to the details. Yesterday, we achieved a total reset with China after productive talks in Geneva.

Both sides now agree to reduce the tariffs imposed after April 2nd to 10% for 90 days as negotiators continue in the largest structural issues. The United States and China have reached a temporary deal that mutually lowers tariffs with Trump, describing this deal as a total reset. Now I should note that if it is considered a reset, it's only a temporary 90 day reset. But before I get to the details on what the trade negotiation entails, what do you think, Jank, reset? No, so it's a positive step because the 145% was mental, but it's not that great. So I think it's gonna have a whole host of issues, but maybe I'm wrong.

Because the stock market disagrees with me, they're super excited. They think everything's onky dory. But we're gonna tell you about a couple of things here that make you realize, this is still gonna cause huge problems and it is not what it appears to be. So things aren't going back to what they were prior to the announcement that Trump made on liberation day. It's important to remember that because the United States is still maintaining its 10% universal tariff on all foreign imports into the United States. And yes, that also impacts China, of course. So the Trump administration has repeatedly stated that this number is the absolute lowest,

any country will be able to negotiate in regard to their products being imported to the US. Now the US also insists that China is still not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States and as a result, Trump has decided to keep the additional 20% 20% tariff on Chinese goods as a consequence of that. So as you can see, you got the 10% tariff, you know, the baseline. In addition to that, you have the additional 20% tariff in regard to fentanyl. However, the Trump administration has indicated that China is starting to negotiate in good faith. So that signals that things are moving in a more positive direction.

So here's Treasury Secretary Scott Besant with more. We saw here in Geneva that the Chinese are now serious about assisting the U.S. and stopping the flow of precursor drugs because the Chinese brought their trade delegation, they led by the vice premier, but they also brought a deputy minister for security, who was their fentanyl expert. We brought someone from our national security staff, and they had a very long and in-depth sidebar about how our two countries could work together. So obviously there you have a percent addressing the issue with the flow of fentanyl into

the United States. One other thing that I'll add before I go to you, Jank, is the fact that the Trump administration's tariffs on specific sectors or specific products like cars and steel. still remain in place and they do in fact apply to Chinese imports. So there's still going to be steep tariffs, but this thing that Trump does is really fascinating where he'll kind of come out of the gate with like a crazy number. Everyone panics about that number. And then through his negotiations, the tariffs are lowered, but they're still high, right?

They just seem lower relative to what he had initially proposed. Yeah, so there's two problems here. And first one is, did we really get anything out of this? Or was this just the surrender that was dressed up like it was a peace treaty and a negotiation and a compromise? Because I've read a bunch of things. I haven't seen anyone explained to us what China gave to us. They still have a 10% tariff on us across the board. So what it, oh, they took back the 115% on top because we had moved it to 125%.

moved it to 125, so they moved it to 125. Correct. Okay, but that didn't solve anything from before Trump made the threats and put on the tariffs. So that least is the second problem, which is Trump loves to create a mess, and then when he halfway resolves it, takes credit for resolving the mess. But brother, this mess didn't exist before you. The mess that existed before you was on China, especially other countries as well, but especially China, putting tariffs on us and having unfair trade practices, but none of that got

resolved. So where's the win? I'm trying to figure out where the win is. And by the way, the prices are about to keep increasing. You're going to wonder why. I'll get back to that in a second. Well, to that point, Jank, the Trump administration is currently alleging that China will ease its non-tariff barriers, but they haven't provided details on, A, what that means and what that would look like. Who knows? There might be more details coming out in regard to that in future reporting, but for now, we don't really know what that means. So you're right, according to the current reporting, it doesn't really seem like the U.S. has really gotten much out of China here, other than the fact that China has lowered its tariffs in response

to Trump's threats of increasing tariffs on Chinese goods. But again, I want to be clear, not the original tariffs they had. Right. The extra tariffs they put in because of the extra tariffs Trump put in. Yeah. So we have gained nothing from this so far, this gambit of putting 145% tariff on China. Now, in retaliation to Trump's announcement on Liberation Day, China decided to stop exporting rare earth minerals to the United States.

At the moment, China has paused those exports of rare earth minerals to the U.S., but that could resume thanks to this deal. But again, going back to the point that Jank just made, the stopping of this trade was in response to Trump's announcement on Liberation Day. So that was China essentially retaliating against the Trump administration. So both the U.S. and China were set to face economic hardship due to these tariffs. make no mistake about that. In fact, just last Friday, Reuters had reported that Chinese officials have grown increasingly alarmed about tariffs impact on the economy and the risk of isolation as China's trading partners have started negotiating deals with Washington, according to three officials familiar with Beijing's thinking. Among the main drivers of Beijing's

climb down were internal signals that Chinese companies were struggling to avoid bankruptcies and to replace the U.S. market three people familiar with the Chinese government's thinking said. Some areas feeling immediate impact were furniture and toy makers, as well as textiles, said one of the officials. And according to Reuters or sources who spoke to Reuters, the Chinese government also feared that its trading partners would essentially start negotiating new agreements with the U.S. while leaving China behind. And so in regard to the feel of the more recent negotiations and how the Trump administration believes that China is negotiating in good faith, it's likely because these tariffs weren't just going to crush the American economy.

They're also going to crush China's economy as well. So what happens after the 90 days are up? Because remember, this is temporary. This is only going to be in place for 90 days. Trump has stated that if negotiations with China fall through, then his administration would just raise tariffs back to the insanely high figure that he has lowered from in recent negotiations. So that's where the negotiations currently stand. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna tell you about the two things that are gonna happen next and

not going to happen. So, but first, balks is a member on YouTube and wrote in China blinked. Brother, I don't, yes and no. Let's put it this way. I think Anna's right that China blinked in the sense of they had these companies that were going to go under and they went and made a deal with America. They didn't give up anything. So it's not like they really blinked in that sense, other than the new stuff, as we've explained a couple times. But I think we blinked a lot more. We got nothing. Like they still have the old tariffs that they had. And the reason Trump blinked is because we were about to have empty shelves.

We started to have some empty shelves. The shipping stopped. We're gonna have supply chain issues. Because when you add 145% on top of anything, it's totally unsellable. So they don't bother shipping it. Right, right? There is, nobody has 150% profit margin. And they think, oh, no big deal on your 145% you've added on top.

I'll make an extra. That's not a thing that exists. So he avoided that colossal mess of his own making that was in the middle of happening, right? Now, the part where I would say China blink only a little bit is because they had us so badly cornered that if China went to the European Union and some of the other allies we have and circled the wagons against us, then we would have been in monumental trouble and they could definitely outlast us. But they chose not to do that. And my guess is because of those very influential, very wealthy businessmen in China who were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Chinese government can withstand this. The Chinese people can withstand this. But our bank accounts can't.

So they have corruption over there as well that affects this. But now finally, the most important part. So we still have a 30% tariff on them, right, because of the 20% extra for fentanyl. It's nonsensical. China will say, oh, yeah, we are going to stop that. and we'll choose to believe them and take that 20% off. I guarantee it, there's no question about it. He's definitely going to take that 20% off.

It's only a matter of time, right? So, but in the meanwhile, it's still 30%. 30% is still super high. It's not like, oh, it's lower than 145%. So I bet prices going up by at least 30% is not going to be a big deal. No, it's going to be a big deal. And so when the prices continue to rise, even after this big spectacle about, we have a deal and China did what we want, right?

And the stock market totally bought into it, went up a lot today. It's past Liberation Day. Where was the day before Liberation Day when the market collapsed because of the proposed tariffs? It's now high, which I think is nuts. But hey, maybe they know better than I do. And maybe people say, oh, 30% extra on prices skyrocketing, no big deal. But I don't think so, and I think Trump is a lot more backing down to do because these tariffs are never going to work in the structured this way. Yeah, just to get a little more specific, today the Dow Jones jumped over 1,100 points or almost 3%.

The S&P 500 went up 3.26%, and the NASDAQ went up 4.35%. So today was the best day since April 9th for all three indexes. But, you know, there is still a lot of concern about prices going up for items that are being imported from China. And also, I personally am fearful that companies that are not going or products that aren't going to be impacted by Trump's tariffs are going to also be inflated in price because that's always what happens. I mean, you had supply chain disruptions during COVID. So some products as a result of those disruptions ended up being in short supply. Prices went up for those products. But then other companies selling other items that weren't impacted by supply chain issues

took advantage of that and increased their prices also. And I'm just going to leave you with a quote from Gene Soroka. He is the executive director for the port of Los Angeles. And he says even at 30%, a 30% tariff with a 90 day reprieve, it's not going to dramatically change what we're seeing right now. So Soroka said companies that supply critical goods like healthcare products and that sell merchandise time to the holiday season such as toys might use this moment to restock, but your refrigerator, outdoor patio set, regular stuff is not just going to come and flood

the marketplace because we've gone from 145 to 30%, he said. And in fact, Jay Foreman, who serves as the CEO of a toy company called Basic Fund, expects prices to go up for toys to the tune of 10 to 15%. Yeah, so my last thoughts here are here's another problem you layer on top of what Anna just said, which is that once they raise the prices, as we saw with the supply chain issues, they never bring them back down. So that makes the inflation permanent. Once they get you to buy something at a certain price, there's no company that's going to bring it back down. So that means all the companies in those industries, toys, refrigerators, et cetera.

They're all gonna have to raise their prices probably by about 30%, right? And then after they do, even if the tariffs go away, since they all raise them together, there's no competitive need to bring them back down, so they'll just keep them higher. Right, exactly. And then that inflation will last for a long, long time until they screw us. And last thing is, I know I ask for principles and for people not to be hip, critical on both sides. And I know that there's no chance it's going to happen. But in this case, so which one is it, guys, the ones that supported Trump's maniacal tariffs? So was it that they're

going to last forever and they're going to rebuild manufacturing or it's the art of the deal? Okay, I'm okay with you picking one. I'm not sure that I, you even really believe the one you're picking. But you got to pick one. You can't say they were going to last forever and they were going to rebuild manufacturing when they just didn't last forever. He just took them away. And he's gonna keep on taking them away. Yeah. Well, look, my read of this is that it's actually a mix of both. I think that there are targeted tariffs on specific industries that Trump is serious about.

So for instance, he's keeping the tariffs on steel, steel imports specifically. And so I think that's the right way to do tariffs. Doing like these weird, wide ranging tariffs on all imports when it doesn't necessarily make sense for American consumers is ridiculous. So I think when it comes to, you know, those broad, wide ranging tariffs on other countries, it's a way to scare those countries and bring them, you know, to the negotiating table. So but Anna, you and I have been saying that from day one, that you could do targeted industry specific tariffs and that's actually a progressive position. And so, but that's not what Trump supporters were saying.

Right. They were saying the global nuclear tariffs were a genius idea. They were gonna work and they were gonna magically rebuild manufacturing. It takes 10 years to rebuild an industry. So it takes the minimum three, four years to build a factory, right, before you even get there. So I'm just pointing out for you guys, if he, but if at the end he gets to a position we like, which is, hey, he's keeping it on steel and a couple other industries, he negotiated some deals, I'll take a win, right?

Now, but, but please don't buy into everything a politician says. So when he said he was going to magically rebuild manufacturing, come on guys. Obviously that wasn't the case. When I said that, and it's not like people didn't say that. They did. I had a debate on Pierce Morgan with Carrie Lake and Batyongra Sargon. And they both said, no way. Those tariffs are going to be in place forever.

And then we were going to come back in four months and that they were going to still brag about how they were in place. I think it was four days later. they were, most of them were gone. So just listen to what people are saying and judge you, use your own judgment for what you want out of this, right? No matter where the partisans lie and keep an open mind and independent judgment. All right, we gotta take a break. But when we come back, we have a massive Gaza segment waiting for you.

Don't miss it, we'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Janganana, with you guys. Also, Scott Hester. Scott, thanks for upgrading, we appreciate it. You can either join or upgrade through the join button below on YouTube. That's super helpful. TYt.com slash join is a way to join through our website, and I read those comments more often. And you get all of our programming on the website, t.yt.com slash join.

And obviously, if you just want to help for free, you could just subscribe or ring the bell. All right, Anna. We've got a big update on Gaza, so let's get into it. The conditions in Gaza is getting more catastrophic than before. We are now seeing children are starving. I can arrive, Azatim. Can and can. That's the chauvahua of us.

The right of parliament, the parliament of Israeli, I am, can, man, if you know, if you understand the shulchings of the amira I'm going to be I'm just going to I'm going to let's say that man that you just heard say

that Gazans need to be starved is actually an Israeli Knesset member by the name of Moshe Sada admitting again on Israeli television that starvation

isn't just you know a side effect of this war on Gaza it's part of the goal it's part of the government and the IDF's strategy. And sadly, he is far from the only member of the Israeli parliament who sees starvation as a tool for punishing and driving civilians out of Gaza, which of course is considered

a war crime. It violates international laws. Now, the Israeli blockade of Gaza is now in its third month, and I mean blockade of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip. This began in early March, no food, water, or medication has been allowed into the territory, Jank. Yeah, so that guy you just saw is a bona fide fascist, and he is very similar to the Nazis. So I hope I'm being clear enough with what some members of the Israeli government are up to.

When you, and don't tell me that you're offended by that, if you support a guy who says, let's starve children to death. That is Nazi 101. So, and if you say no, it's okay because they're not Israeli children, so we can starve them to death, their lives don't count. That's Nazi 101, okay? So, and I wish he was alone, and I wish he was a lone madman in the Israeli government and we could give you the context and say, no, don't worry, it's not like the Israeli government

actually voted to do that policy. But we can't tell you that because the Israeli government did vote to do that policy. policy, and there are tons of voices, as Anna is about to explain to you, inside the Israeli government, literally saying, yeah, of course we should starve their children to death. And in fact, and this is the most amazing part of the story, they think that it is immoral not to starve the children. Yeah, amazing. Do you remember in the beginning of the current war on Gaza, there was that big debate about

whether the IDF had bombed a hospital? And they're like, oh my God. We would never do that. The IVF is a moral army. We would never bomb a hospital. Every hospital in Gaza is obliterated and now they are actively saying out loud in public and in internal debates about how they would like to murder Palestinian children. With our money.

Yeah, and of course they won't ever do it with their own money. They need our money to not give the Palestinians food. Okay, so now if you're still defending this particular Israeli government, you really, I really need to go and clarify your morality because you don't have any. Yep, okay? There is no excuse for this at all, at all. But again, the bias is so deep that those connesset members and cabinet members, they really believe that it's immoral not to murder these people.

I mean, it is a case study in dehumanization because they have so effectively dehumanized Palestinians, including literal babies, literal children, that they, loudly and proudly declare that they are intentionally starving them to death. So let's get to those details, let's get to all the different Knesset members who have waited on this. Now, Heretz has reported that last week, the Knesset held a first of its kind discussion on the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. But I want to be clear, they weren't holding this hearing in order to do something to help Palestinians who are suffering as a result of this humanitarian crisis. They're more worried about the public relations fallout from what the Israeli government and the IDF is doing. They're worried about the PR.

So that's why they're holding this hearing. Now, during the meeting, Dr. Sharon Shawl, who is from Natan, an Israeli-based organization that provides humanitarian aid around the world, remarked, quote, I think that even everyone sitting around this table doesn't want a suffering child to be unable to receive painkillers or minimal medical treatment. And to her surprise, that actually ended up setting off a firestorm during this hearing. Her assumption that nobody wanted Ghazan children to starve apparently was incorrect. So Israeli lawmaker, hold on, Israeli lawmaker Amit Halevi from Netanyahu's Lakud party angrily interrupted her to say this, quote, I'm not sure you're speaking for us. When you say we want to treat every child and every woman, I hope he's.

don't stand behind that statement either. When fighting a group like this, the distinctions that exist in a normal world don't exist. No, I mean, they do exist. It's just that you're a monster. Yep. And you'd like to be like the Nazis and murder children. That moral distinction exists for the rest of us who are not Nazis like you, okay? And so Saul. Look, look, hold on one second. I want to be clear. Dr. Sharon Shawl is is the head of the medical sector at Natan Worldwide Disaster Relief. And she's a wonderful person. She's an Israeli and she's saying, can we please get them medical attention?

Because I would hope none of us would be for children starving to death or not being able to deal with pain and Anna's got more details in a second for you. So good person. The rest of them attack her. They're like, how dare you? It is immoral to not want to cause these children pain. Okay, well, monsters define. There is no excuse for it at all.

And if you're trying to make excuses for it, okay, and now we know what you would have done in the 1930s. Yeah, look, Amit's thinking is barbaric thinking, okay? It's the way a barbarian would think. And so in the beginning of this war, when Netanyahu tried to frame this situation as a war between civilization and, you know, barbarians, really you're going to claim that you guys are the one's representing civilization, fighting against, you know, barbaric actions. And what Hamas did on October 7th, to be sure, was barbaric. But what does it say of the Israeli government when their response is a thousand times more barbaric? Yeah.

Killed far more civilians than Hamas did on October 7. Imagine if Hamas said, well, of course, we should starve all Israeli children to death. They were occupying us. They deserved it. And they were hiding behind the human shields of Israeli babies. So we starve them all to death. We would all rightfully say they are the worst monsters in the world. Right.

Now Israeli government officials are saying it and saying it's immoral if you don't starve them. So let's give you the horrific details of what these Nazis said. So Shal responded to that statement by saying, I hope that you too don't want a four year old whose arm has been amputated to go without painkillers. I hope you have that empathy too. Then lawmaker Lamor, son Har Malik decided to jump in. This individual is from the religious Zionism party. And they say that the only treatment needed here is for you.

So now threatening your own, threatening Israelis. Oh, you dare to be a decent person, Dr. Sharon Shaw? You need treatment. Yeah. Yeah, there's something wrong with you. Another participant remarked, my God, this is so sad. You are the sickest doctor I've ever seen. Well, how many Nazi doctors do you know?

Do you know Dr. Mangala and his, you know, descendants or something? And I mean, do all the doctors you know think that you should starve children to death? Jesus, what kind of Nazi doctor hospital are you familiar with? Because guys, Heretz is reporting this. It's an Israeli paper, there's plenty of perfectly good things in Israel. They're freedom of press within Israel's fine. They murder all the journalists in Gaza, that's a different situation, right? There's good people like Dr. Sharon Scholl, sometimes their courts do the right thing,

sometimes, et cetera. So, but what we're seeing is something shocking that we have never seen before, where government officials in an allied country, a country we fund, are actively saying we should murder children, and if you, and if you're a doctor and you don't support us inflicting pain on children, starving children, and murdering children, you're not a good, good. doctor. Sadly, it didn't end there. Now, someone who was there at the time of this hearing by the name of Yassar,

Lifshitz, whose son was, you know, an Israeli man who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, you can, look, I find the quote that I'm about to read absolutely deplorable, but I also understand that when Hamas kills a family member of yours, you're going to want to retaliate and retaliate in incredibly cruel, unfair ways toward people who didn't even do anything wrong, right? And so with that in mind, this is what Lifshitz said, although there are almost no innocence in Gaza, any moral person can understand that starving children is not something we can be proud of. This is a person whose own family member was killed by Hamas and is able to see things way more clearly than the scum in the current

Israeli parliament. And I mean it when I say scum. Not all of them, but the ones who are openly saying that they're in favor of starving defenseless children to death, they're scum. They're We're scum and we're funding them. Is this gonna be a point of contention in America now? Do we have to debate this on cable news? Well, if I say, hey, maybe you shouldn't starve the Palestinian children to death, will I be called an anti-Semite? And they answer, you know what the answer is, yeah, they will debate it, and yes, we will be called anti-Semitic. They'll say, blood libel, blood libel, you're saying that the Jews, because it's a Jewish state are murdering children.

No, I'm not saying it, their government officials are saying it, and they're saying that if you don't children, you're immoral. I've never seen anything like it. And I can't, I've said it a million times I'll say it another million. It's not all Israelis, you see the other Israelis. And I agree with Anna, if you Hamas killed your son, you get to be super enraged by it. And I don't call you any of those names because you're in a different category. You're understandably super upset about something terrible that happened to you, right? The others seem to relish killing these children. And it's not because they're Jewish or Israel's a Jewish state. Because power, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

We in the United States have enabled this by saying every time Israel did a massive war crime as something despicable, we said, thank you very much, here's a new blank check, murder as many people as you like, just absolutely oppress the Palestinians and treat them like they're non-humans and kill as many of their children as they can. Thank you, sir, here's another blank check. That's how the American government caused this catastrophe. And Israel wouldn't be in this shape, and their government officials wouldn't be this if we didn't continue to give them a blank check after every terrible thing that they've ever done.

Let me read you the rest of his comment. He says, there's a line we need to make sure we don't cross. Seeing mothers with dead children in their arms, is that what will bring back our hostages? Our strength also lies in the justice of our path. I just want to say Lifshitz is absolutely right. And I commend Lifshitz for having this view. This is the, this is the humane view, okay? But unfortunately, there are so many members of the current Israeli parliament who don't agree with him. So Harmelik, the lawmaker from the religious Zionism party, scolded him in response, though, saying it's terrible that you even bring that up. It's terrible, awful, and horrific that you're talking about starvation when our children were

butchered so cruelly, what do you think is happening to the Palestinian children? The Palestinian children aren't being butchered right now by your government, by your military. That's exactly what's happening right now as we speak. And on top of that, as they're being butchered, as innocent civilians are being butchered, the Israeli government is blocking humanitarian aid to ensure that either they die suffering in unbearable, unspeakable pain, or that they die without any chance of keeping them alive, helping them survive through medical intervention. It's disgusting.

And they think they're the moral ones. That's the amazing part about all of this. Yeah, and he's yelling at a, you know, again, the family member of someone who was killed by Hamas, as if they don't have. And I don't agree with everything that Lipshit said. I don't agree that there's no innocence in Gaza, but I get that they are upset about the situation. But even so, they say, well, what are we going to do?

Be the monsters that we think we're fighting. And the cabinet members go, absolutely, we should be those monsters. We should be way worse than their monsters. They killed 36 of our children and we've only killed about 20,000 of theirs. Why we should starve them all to death, all the little babies. You see how they're the monsters? No brother, I see how you're a monster. So I see how both sides, by the way, 36 kids terrible.

We've said it a billion times, terrible, right? If you don't, if you think 36 kids dying by Hamas is terrible, but you don't think 15 to 20,000 children already dead? let alone the starvation that's happening now, if you don't think that's terrible, you're basically saying, I'm a racist, bigot, fascist, and in this case, you have earned that title. And you say, oh, yeah, my babies are relevant. Your babies are trash, and I plan on murdering them. That's exactly what a Nazi would say.

So there is a rabbi who's been vocal and pushing back against this idea that it's totally fine to starve civilian children to death. And his name is Rick Jacobs. He penned an op-ed for the Washington Post titled, I'm a rabbi. Starving Gaza is immoral. And so he called Israel's assault on Gaza a just war, but condemned the blockade of food and humanitarian aid into the region,

saying that starving Gazaan civilians neither will bring Israel the total victory over Hamas. it seeks, nor can be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law, will this policy bring home the 59 remaining hostages, including the 24 who are still alive? It's unlikely. And contrary to the wishes of almost 70% of Israelis who, in a recent poll, prioritized the hostages return over that elusive total victory. Further, he writes that Hamas is willing to sacrifice thousands of Palestinians by hoarding humanitarian aid. Israel must not, depriving gossens of food and water, will not make Israel safer or hasten the return of the hostages. Each of us who loves Israel must say so and urge Israel to change this policy.

So I wouldn't be surprised if this rabbi is currently being attacked by members of the Israeli parliament. Okay, I want to be clear about who he is. He's not just a regular old rabbi. He's the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which is the largest denomination for Jewish Americans. So he is representing Jewish Americans more than probably anyone is because that's the largest denomination. And he's saying enough, don't. So yeah, I don't agree with him that it's a just war. But of course he's going to say that. Right. And so you want to have nuance about your positions on Israel. God bless, man. I'll take nuance. I'll take disagreements around the

edges, maybe even some core issues, right? But if you cross the Rubicon and you say, yeah, let's starve their children to death, there's no discussion with a Nazi. And so, like what, that's, because that's literal, that's literal. Let's murder their children is not a thing that you can compromise. What we, oh, let's compromise murder after children, no. But Rick Jacobs is not doing that. Rick Jacobs is doing something really moral, outstanding, and absolutely necessary. He's basically saying, without saying the words, not in our name, and thank you.

you Rabbi Jacobs for saying that. I appreciate it. We all appreciate it. Everyone should rally around Rabbi Jacobs, okay, and say enough because you're driving up anti-saventism through the roof, through the roof, okay? And don't tell me, oh, they hated us anyway. No, you fill in the blank, Turks, Poles, Jamaicans, it doesn't matter. If the whole world sees that group starving children to death, they're all going to hate you. Why? Because of what you're doing. Wake up, wake up, listen to Rabbi Jacobs, please wake up. Because if we here in America, especially, you know, rabbis, et cetera, moral leaders, don't come forward and say, this is wrong. And we need to stop enabling Israel.

then we're never going to stop this. If you keep sending the checks, they're going to think, oh, we did a great job. America thinks we did a wonderful job. It just sent us a $20 billion gift for our war crimes. It sent us an $8 billion gift, a $4 billion gift. America won't stop giving us gifts for this genocide and ethnic cleansing. Let's do more of it. That's the message we're sending here in America.

And we all have to unite to make sure we do not send that message, not in our name. Right, we've got a big update on a dual American citizen that has just been released by Hamas. So we'll give you the details on how that deal was made. Spoiler alert, Israel was not involved in that negotiation. Of course, they didn't want him released. I'm gonna just read one comment from a YouTube member here. Lady A.F. wrote, and imagine what's like for Israel is trying to speak up and getting shut down so aggressively, just for saying simple little things like children shouldn't suffer. So that's the unfortunately climate that Israel is in now. So even when good people speak out, they're shouted down by people saying, screw the children. Who cares? We've got to murder them. I can't believe you don't. You're not a good doctor because you don't want to murder them.

So it is a deeply oppressive environment right now in that country. We're trying to avoid that here. I know a lot of countries are in deeply oppressive environments. And of course, that's why they go after the journalists first. And that's why Israel has murdered more journalists than all other conflicts in the world combined. It's last year. Yes, Anna. Well, we're not quite done with the ongoing war on Gaza.

In fact, there is a big update in regard to the United States and its position in, in relation to Israel and the Palestinians. So let's get into it. Eden, Alexander, an American citizen who, until recently most thought was no longer living, thought was dead, is going to be released in about two hours actually. And he's going to be released before the eyes of Steve Whitkoff,

who has done a fantastic job. As you just heard, President Donald Trump announced today that a dual American citizen who also unfortunately was a hostage of Hamas has been released by Hamas. The individual freed is Eden Alexander, the last known American hostage in Gaza. And it's important to understand just how Alexander was released, how this deal was made through the United States and Hamas. So per ABC News, Hamas announced its intention to free Alexander on Sunday, describing the decision as a part of the steps being taken to achieve a ceasefire.

The statement said Hamas had been in contact with American officials over the past few days as part of ceasefire negotiations. And that account was backed up by an anonymous source from the United States. this US familiar or U.S. official familiar with the deal to release Alexander, told ABC News that the agreement came together in recent days via direct talks between the U.S. and Hamas. In other words, Israel was not part of this hostage release negotiation. They were not part of this deal. We're going to revisit that in just a minute. But Trump announced this on truth social as well, writing the following. I'm grateful to all those involved in making this monumental

news happen. This was a step taken in good faith towards the United States and the efforts of the mediators. Qatar and Egypt to put an end to this very brutal war and return all living hostages and remains to their loved ones. Hopefully this is the first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict, I look very much forward to the day of that day of celebration. I mean, he mentions ending the war several times, and it's clear that that is what the president wants, and that is good news, how that ends up manifesting, we'll see. But the Trump administration isn't just bypassing Israel. They're even calling Israel out for negotiating in bad faith and serving as an obstacle to ending the war. According to Channel

12, here's what Steve Whitkoff, who is the Trump administration special envoy to the Middle East, told hostage families in Israel, quote, we want to bring the hostages home, but Israel is not willing to end the war. Israel is prolonging it despite the fact that we don't see where else we can go and that an agreement must be reached. So you can kind of understand why the Israelis hate Whitkoff, want to get rid of Whitkoff. But make no mistake about it, Whitkoff, is the first American official who's willing to call a spade a spade and call out Israel for serving as an obstacle to a peace deal. Yeah, so first off, I'm gonna give a lot of credit here to Donald Trump.

And if you're on the left and you're like, oh, he brought home a hostage and cut out Israel, but he's Trump, boo, I don't want to give him credit. What did you, what do you need? What do you like, so did you not want to bring home a hostage? Did you want to make sure he followed the orders of Israeli government? I don't know what you want, but I'm a fair person and an honest person. Trump deserves a lot of credit for this deal, okay? So now, cutting, like bringing the brother home already is great news, but that also proves the second thing, which is look at how easy it was.

Like he just, all he had to do was remove Israel from the negotiations, talk to Hamas, and you know what Hamas got in return, nothing, just a promise that, hey, you know what, we'll keep this in mind, it'll create some goodwill. Super easy, okay? Why are we not getting the deal done? Well, listen to Whitkoff. Whitkoff is telling you, it's because the Israelis don't want peace. They want continual war. Why? Because they want to occupy the Gaza Strip and steal that land. Right. And look, Whitkoff, I just want to note, hasn't lost all hope that there could be a ceasefire deal, although he's kind of going into this with eyes wide open. Like he can see what the dynamic

is with Israel involved. He says to the hostage families, there's currently an opportunity window that we hope is real and all the mediators will take advantage of, we are putting pressure on all the mediators and doing everything we can to bring the hostages home. So he still has a little bit of hope, but I can't believe I'm saying this. Someone who Donald Trump tapped to serve as his special envoy to the Middle East, Donald Trump tapped him is way better on this issue than who Biden had involved in, in, you know, peace negotiations and a ceasefire deal. It's just incredible to see it.

Yeah, so look, redemption on every account. So we told you this isn't about Jews. This is about foreign governments. Whitkoff is a Jewish American and he's saying the right thing, doing the right thing, representing America. And I appreciate it. and doing it way better than Anthony Blinkin did. And so it has nothing to do with religion. It has with two different governments. One's on the wrong track, and we need to stop enabling them. We need to help our ally get back to reality and decency and morality.

And I'm sure that Whitkoff agrees. And that's why he's saying things that are true. Now that at least is the second thing. So what do we tell you? We told you that the Democrats are a bunch of robots, and they're never going to waver one inch from what the donor class wants, okay? Trump is a wild card. And that wild card could go disastrously as when he was talking about how we would have

ground troops in Gaza and then build a Trump Riviera, absolute disaster, talking about maybe, you know, the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, et cetera. But a wild card could also have some chance of going in the right direction. So it took a wild card to have an envoy who will say, well, the Israelis don't want Oh, truth broke out. I know, it's incredible. Like, so let's be honest, let's be honest, a Democratic envoy would have never said that.

Not a million years. They would not have had permission to say that. Joe Biden's envoys obviously never said that. They would lie on Israel's behalf every time. They say, oh, we really want to get to a ceasefire, but it's of course, oh Hamas's fault, the son of a bitch, Hamas terrorists. Israel's great and wonderful,

and there's nothing they could do about it. Oh, my, Israel, right? So that was Blinken and all the Jake Sullivan and all the loser robots in the Biden administration. And Kamala promised to do the exact same thing. So if you're a Democrat, please wakey, wakey, right? And they won't. Oh, no, I bet she would have miraculously turned around 180 degrees and done the right thing. No, she promised that she would never do the right thing.

So we're not like blind about Trump. You're crazy, naive? No, it could get way worse, right? But since he's not a robot, sometimes truth accidentally breaks out. Trump doesn't abide by any of the rules associated with traditional political parties in this country, right? So this isn't a Republican versus Democrat thing. This is a Trump versus typical status quo politician thing. Because make no mistake about it, had Trump been any other traditional conservative Republican,

we would not be having a conversation about his special envoy admitting that Israel is the one serving as an obstacle to a ceasefire. And so look, there are some interesting developments right now because of the fact that Trump has kind of soured on his relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and vice versa. And so that might be changing the dynamic of U.S. foreign policy as it pertains to Israel moving forward, but specifically during the Trump administration, I think any other administration that comes after Trump is going to revert right back to giving Israel everything it wants. So here's what I mean. So look, Netanyahu has been pushing the United States to bomb Iran to get engaged in a hot war with Iran on behalf of Israel. To Donald

Trump's credit, he has resisted those calls. He does not want to go to war with Iran. In fact, what he'd like to do is enter a new nuclear deal with Iran to prevent them from building nuclear weapons. And I am 100% supportive of Trump's thinking on that. Now, the U.S. also ended its strikes against the Houthis, or as Trump likes to say, the Houthis, who were very brave, as he also said, Netanyahu didn't like that. And again, Trump wants to engage in these negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu hates that. So here's what NBC News reported on Sunday. Netanyahu was particularly upset when Trump said that he had yet to decide whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium under a new nuclear deal. His administration is negotiating. For his part,

Trump has been frustrated with Netanyahu's decision to begin a new military offensive in Gaza, which the president sees as at odds with his plan for rebuilding there. And according to Ilan Goldenberg, who worked on Middle East policy during the Obama and Biden administrations, Netanyahu cannot publicly criticize Trump too harshly or really much at all, because apparently Israelis love Trump, including right-wing Israelis. So Netanyahu's whole political strategy and survival strategy is based on holding his coalition and holding his political base together, Goldenberg said, and those folks love Trump.

So for him to go very publicly against Trump is something he really can't do. So this, Jake, this dynamic is just really interesting, and I hope it keeps going in this direction, because maybe for the first time, I don't want to say that there could be a decoupling of this relationship between the United States and Israel, but frostier relations might actually bode well for the lives of innocent people who are currently trapped in Gaza.

Yeah, so let's break down all the ways that the decoupling is happening. It doesn't mean that he can't be reversed. It could be reversed at any second, and Trump is super fickle, and he could go in the disastrous direction at any second. Having said that, for now, let's look at the facts without the emotions and the tribalism involved. Okay, so did he attack Iran when Netanyahu told him to? No, he didn't. That's a huge story from the New York Times, and there's no question.

that Netanyahu wanted that attack. And my guess is he ordered it like he normally does, right? I ordered the American president to attack Iran on my behalf. And Trump was like, no. I haven't seen that in my lifetime. So okay, to be fair, you could say, well, Biden didn't attack Iran either. And Obama made a great deal with Iran. So, and especially Obama, Obama did defy Netanyahu.

And you know, who did not want that deal. And he got us a great deal anyway. Okay, so that's, all right, not bad. give credit where credit is too, but yeah, Obama and others have done something a little similar, okay? And Obama's deal was better. So, and I don't say that because I'm a Democrat, because look, I'm even talking to Republicans now going, Marjorie Taylor Green on this show. It was like the Obama deal was actually pretty good. I mean, I never thought I'd see anything like that, right? So now, okay, the second thing, he did the deal with the Houthis,

and he cut Israel out of it. So, and Israel was super mad about it. And he said, you're gonna stop bombing American ships and we're gonna stop bombing Yemen. And these are like, yeah, deal, let's go, right? It didn't say anything about stopping the bombing of Israeli ships or ships headed to Israel. So Israel's like, how dare you? You did a peace deal for Americans? And you did not consider Israel first? And Trump's like, yeah, that's right, that's what I did. And then the third thing is the hostage deal. Israel doesn't want the hostages released. Why? Well, first of all, And by our on war is telling you that, right? Basically.

And but the reason they don't want them released is because it's a pretext for, oh, we had to bomb Gaza more. We had to keep taking more and more of Gaza's land. In fact, all of it, we had to drive out all the Palestinians into the desert and starve them to death because of the hostages. We were defending ourselves from a war that started, I don't know, 28 years ago or whatever, whenever it started. Oh, we are still doing it.

self-defense as we took to Sudateland, I mean Gaza, okay? So and Trump is like, oh, so, but there's an American hostage there. Israel's like, no, shut up, don't worry about the American hostage. We need him as a pawn. Trump's like, yeah, I don't think so. Hey, Hamas, you want to make a deal? You give me the hostage, I give you nothing. And Hamas is like, yeah, okay, deal. If you can't say that that was good from Trump, then you really do have TDS. Okay, so that was great and the decoupling is real, it doesn't mean it'll hold, but if we fully decouple and go, Israel, somebody doing this the other day and I loved it. Love you, see ya, bye, bye, okay? Hey, listen, you're a grown up country, one of the top 20 economies, enjoy, okay?

But we don't have to give you on this money. Nobody ever said that. We don't have to kiss your ass, we don't have to do our entire foreign policy based on you. By the way, is Trump doing it out of good, neat reasons or because he's getting a lot of business deals from Qatar? in San Arabia, I don't know, but I don't care too much either, because we've got to end that genocide. 100%. And look, we live in a corrupt political system where even foreign governments have sway over our politicians and the presidential administration.

If bribery from other players helps balance things out in regard to this war, I will allow it. All right, we're gonna take a break when we come back for the second. an hour, man, there's a lot to get into. We'll talk about Trump, fat shaming, one of his business buddies, and doing so kind of in a hilarious way, but in the context of making what could be a historic announcement on pharmaceutical drug prices. We'll be back with that story and more, don't miss it.