The Young Turks - Hitting The Jackpot - September 23, 2026

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian directly challenged Donald Trump in a defiant United Nations speech, accusing the U.S. of terrorism while saying Iran will not surrender and remains open to diplomacy. Meanwhile, the FBI’s investigation into Sen. Susan Collins and a defense contractor has come under renewed scrutiny after ProPublica reported that the probe was shut down after Trump returned to office. Sports betting sites are taking off and causing a lot of issues for the likeliest to lose.  Thanks to today's sponsors: Get 40% OFF the Ground News Vantage Plan when you sign up at ground.news/tyt Stay informed without the media spin at ground.news/tyt Visit www.sleep.me/tyt to get up to $255 off your Chilipad 2.0 with code TYT Use Code TYT for 20% OFF at TruDiagnostic.com Posting a job is easy at upwork.com Use less data, get paid by switching to Noble Mobile: https://go.tyt.com/getnoble For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/tyt Hosts: Ana Kasparian 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 podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Well, hello. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. There is a news story involving yet another ICE incident where an American. American citizen actually gets roughed up after telling the immigration agents that he is an American citizen over and over again. They left him battered after roughing him up. And I'm going to give you the details of that story. Hopefully later on in this segment, it's going to be a bare bone segment because the story developed right before the show. And I want to make sure I cover it because this is, it keeps happening over and over again. And I think a lot of people kind of turned away after Greg Bovino was removed from his position in, you know, Customs and Border Patrol.

But some of these tactics that led to the removal of Bovito are still being carried out. And this latest story happened in Illinois. So we'll get to that story a little later in the show. But for now, I wanted to start off with the update on the UN General Assembly taking place in New York City. And we did hear a speech from the Iranian president today. Let's get into it. Yesterday, the United States president described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism.

Our esteemed supreme leader was assassinated without any legal framework of reason. I come from an Iran where in truth, They bombed a school. You see these children? These children perished under bombs with weapons used by the United States and Israel. They were innocent. A day after President Trump delivered his speech at the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Masood Peshkian, who actually had a completely different prepared speech,

decided to abandon it and give you what? you heard in that video. Now he says he abandoned the speech that he previously had prepared following President Trump's declaration that the Iranians are terrorists who might get nuked if they fail to comply with Trump's demands, which by the way is incredible because in the same speech, Trump says Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, it would be too dangerous. As he's threatening to nuke Iran. And then on top of that, I mean, he talks about little babies that get killed. What about the babies that you are responsible for slaughtering by aiding and abetting the Israelis? Anyway, let's watch the U.S. delegation shamefully walk out as Pazashkin describes the Iranian

children who were killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes. Take a look. One of the small cities in a province in Iran, a sports hall where children were busy playing. The United States, by using weapons with multiple warheads, targeted that sports hall. They martyred, assassinated our scientists, are men, women, and children. innocent children whom in truth had committed no crimes, no sins. Those who are terrorists and train and protect terrorists, describe us as such. We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists.

We responded, but we did not hit civilian populations. They came into surrounding territories by and our families. by targeted our universities, our healthcare centers, our schools, our hospitals, our infrastructures, all of it against international law. He was right to point out the fact that while Iran targeted U.S. military bases, military infrastructure, what did the United States target? Now, some argue that, well, it was an accident based on outdated intel that the U.S. carried out a triple tap strike against the Minab Elementary School and the opening salvo of this war against Iran.

It was a mistake. It was a mistake. However, to me, it's becoming increasingly clear that it might not have been a mistake at all. Now, I wasn't really familiar with how Tomahawk missiles work. But it turns out that at every step of deploying a Tomahawk missile, there are individuals and the military who need to sign off on it, who need to approve it. Luckily, we have Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Aguilar who made an interesting point about this during a recent episode of Mario Naftall's stream. Mario Naftall wasn't conducting the interview. This is Brandon Weikert. But nonetheless, take a listen to what Aguilar had to say.

So in the joint prioritized targeting list, that target, the Monob School and the sports complex, there were already listed on that joint targeting list. list. It was like, okay, we're going, go. Tom Hawks away. There was already designated targets. So let's just say that there was an AI faux pa. Okay, well, the western coast, the Persian Gulf coast of Iran is one of the most surveilled, ubiquitously watched pieces of terrain on the planet. We know that that was or wasn't a military base. And let's just say that the most latest of Intel we had from 24 hours ago dictated that it was. Okay, well, a Tomahawk cruise missile is a terminally guided missile, meaning there is somebody flying that thing. There is an operator

at a terminal watching that thing all the way from the minute it comes in. And a Tomahawk cruise missile also has loitering time around the target before it strikes to confirm or deny the presence of whatever you want to hit without wasting a multimillion dollar missile. So, did every aspect of knowing that it wasn't this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, IRGC base, knowing that it wasn't this, that it wasn't all of these things. Not only in past intel, it wasn't, but in the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the authorization of the strike, but then the actual, the terminal, uh, guidance, the person at the terminal can say, hey, cut, we're not hitting it.

We're, you know, pull out, pull off. Up until the, a minute before it hits. But we did hit it. Not once, not twice, but three times. And whether we're talking about children in Israel, children in Gaza, children in the West Bank, children in Iran, children anywhere, they should not be targeted and they should not be victims

of these brutal, senseless wars. Whether we're talking about children in our own ICE detention facilities, by the way. And what this signals to me, and maybe people don't understand why I care so much about the story, right? Some people complain, why don't you talk about other things? This is all you talk about. Because what these stories reveal to me is that we are being led in this country by monsters,

who don't value children, who don't see the innocence of children, and are perfectly happy to do a triple tap strike on an elementary school at a foreign country. And I hope you guys are fully aware that the actions our government takes against civilians in other countries internationally typically come back to bite us American citizens in the ass. Ice roughed up an American citizen in Illinois today. They claim it was a case of mistaken identity. They thought they had a guy that they were looking for. So this American citizen in Illinois was screaming, I'm an American citizen. I'm American citizen. They roughed him up and left him, left him alone after that with all his injuries. Some of my favorite designs on ShopTYTYT are get caught trying and team joy.

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That's Shopify.com slash tYT. Is this the kind of country we want to live in? Is this this type of leadership that we want? Now perhaps these war crimes have something to do with the majority of Americans now wanting our Secretary of Defense, Pete Hagsith, impeached. Now, that'll never happen because the cowards in Congress, congressional leadership in particular, decided to go on recess early. I'll give you more details on that in just a minute.

But first, let's get to the details of this UGov Economist poll, which found that 51% of registered voters surveyed. support impeaching Hegsith for starting the war with Iran without congressional authorization, while 34% oppose it. Support for impeachment rises among likely voters to 54% and opposition rises to 35%. Now, only 22% of Republican voters want Hegsith impeached. I would love to sit down and have a conversation with the rest of the Republican Party or Republican voters who don't think Hegsith should be impeached. Maybe they're under the impression that he doesn't deserve it, since he's not the one who decides whether or not we go to war.

And that is true. He's not the one who decides. Trump was the one who decided. But what about Hegseth's rhetoric? What about his lust for death and destruction, which he has been overt about? Is that the type of representation the American people deserve on the international stage? Is that how you want to be represented? I know I don't.

And it has nothing to do with his political tribe. It has everything to do with the words that come out of his own. own mouth after we slaughtered 100, what was it, 175 little girls in an elementary school. Real pro-life, real pro-life. Of course, Thomas Massey introduced articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth, and he did so through a privileged resolution, which would force a house vote, full-floor house vote on the articles of impeachment within two days. What did House Speaker Mike Johnson do in response to that? He allowed the House to go on recess early for a long weekend, long break, I should say, not weekend, long break.

That's a kind of coward Mike Johnson is. And by the way, the rest of the Republican lawmakers who don't want to cast an uncomfortable vote. Uncomfortable because it'll draw the ire of Trump and Hegseth, of course. But also, the Iran War isn't popular at all. So, you know, congressional lawmakers don't want to be put in a position where they're going to have to, I don't, take a stance on something, make a difficult decision. So there are some Republicans, though, who are now starting to vocalize how much they want the war in Iran to end. So let's get to the details on those individuals, because it's kind of incredible. So Politico reports that Senator John Hustead, who's from Ohio, he's a Republican, of course, says the war needs to come to an end as quickly as possible so that we can lower gas prices.

Not so we can prevent the loss of innocent lives, but so we can lower gas prices. And I get it, I get it, some people don't care about the loss of innocent lives. I do. Others are just purely motivated by their own political aspirations. you know, the senator would like to get reelected, and this isn't a good look for Republicans. It's concerned about the inflation that's obviously tied to the war against Iran. Husted said in the interview that he still thinks Iran needs to reach a deal with Trump to end the conflict, but added, quote, I don't know anybody that doesn't want the war to come to an end. Let's get a little louder about it then.

But don't give him too much credit because he does not plan to support the Democratic-led war powers resolution when it comes up for a vote in the Senate this week, a spokesperson said. Cowards. What is the point? Let me just say, nothing sounds worse to me than being stuck around all of these loathsome lawmakers for like six months out of the year, which is how long Congress is. really in session. So why would you sign up to do this? It sounds terrible. Why, I mean, why would you go through the process of campaigning, winning elections if you're not going to wield that power for good? You don't even want to do your own job. You don't want the executive branch to get congressional approval before going to war. So what is the point of your whole existence in Congress, really. But okay, let's keep going. So Hustad's set its seat is being challenged by former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, who was voted out of office in the last election.

Republicans and, you know, GOP Senate operatives basically say that they're like really focusing on and prioritizing this race as one of the races that's important to, you know, win in in order to maintain Republican control of the Senate. But for what? You guys are useless. The Senate in general, thanks to the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes for legislation to pass, makes the Senate useless.

The Senate is where bills go to die. And I just, I don't understand why these people want power. When they never wield it for anything? Well, to be fair, they do wield it for themselves. Sure, they love those closed door briefings that they can trade stocks on without any consequence, right? But there were other Republicans who decided to vocalize their dissent when it came to continuing the war in Iran. So Ashley Hinson is actually the Republican Senate nominee in Iowa. She also broke with Trump over the war.

So did Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers, you know, the guy that. that's running against Abdul al-Said for the Senate seat in Michigan. Suddenly, he's speaking out against the Iran war. You better be careful, Mike. You better be careful. Israel don't like that. And we all know what you represent.

We all know what you represent. So where are we with the Iran war? If you talk to Trump administration officials, oh, we're totally killing it. We're doing so well. I mean, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant's economic warfare against Iran is really working, right? except it's not, not fully. So what do I mean by that? Well, remember, Scott Besant decided to sanction all Iranian airlines and said that he would impose

secondary sanctions on any country that doesn't play ball with our demands in enforcing those sanctions. Well, what about China? Where does China stand on that? Let's take a quick look. The US has threatened to punish countries that allow Iranian flights to land on their territory from today. Can I ask if China will keep receiving and accommodating flights from Tehran? China's position is consistent.

We firmly opposes illicit unilateral sanctions without basis international law and the lack mandate from the U.S. UN Security Council. Next question. We don't have much leverage over China. We don't live in a uniparty, or unipolar, I should say, a unipolar international setup anymore. China has leverage, China has power, and they're not going to bend to the demands of the Trump administration. They're just not. And this is what's being said ahead of Xi Jinping's visit with Donald Trump, which is going to happen very soon. So U.S. officials had a three-hour long conversation meeting with the Iranians in New York City yesterday. Now, unfortunately, Steve Whitkoff and the usual individuals were involved in those talks.

So I don't have much hope that anything good is going to come out of that. And Whitkoff is weirdly tight-lipped about the discussions. But we need a negotiated settlement and we need to get out of the war. This isn't going anywhere good. We have egg on our face. It isn't people are dying. We're wasting resources, depleting our military munitions. How far is this going to go before our so-called leaders realize that they're destroying not just our country,

but are standing in the international community? All right, let me now turn to a story that I want to cover. I apologize. This is a story that came to my attention pretty soon before we came on air. So I don't have a prepared segment. Bear with me as I go through the details as I know them. And I should also note this is a developing story. So other details might come out pretty soon.

So immigration and customs enforcement, ICE, well, apparently they mistakenly detained another American citizen, brutalized him, beat him up, roughed him up. As he was yelling, I'm an American citizen, I'm an American citizen. So this took place in a Chicago suburb on Sunday morning. We're just learning about it now. CNN reporting that the man was found on the ground by police in Evanston, Illinois, after officers were dispatched around 9.49 a.m. over reports of two men arguing. So this is a statement from the Evanston Police Department. And Giuliana Bragg from CNN reporting on this story. So I want to give her credit. She writes that several bystanders were helping the man, police said. And an ambulance was called after he reported

injuries to his head, neck, and teeth. Witnesses told officers they believed ICE agents were attempting to detain the man who police identified only as an Evanston resident. By the way, he is, in fact, a U.S. citizen. So there is a cell phone video from a witness. I should note that the video starts reporting kind of in the middle of this interaction with ICE agents. So as this story develops, we might get more information about it. But I do want to show the video, leave my mic up, guys, as we watch. And I'll explain more of what you. you're seeing. So remember, you could, okay, so that's all we have. You can hear him yelling and telling the ICE agents that he's an American citizen. So this is the latest, the latest instance of a

U.S. citizen getting swept up by Trump's immigration enforcement agents. And while it seems like it seemed, right, because there was less attention being paid. So it seemed like things had calmed down after the fatal shooting of Renee Good and then later Alex Pruddy in Minnesota, everyone thought like, oh, well, maybe the removal of Greg Bevito means that Trump is softening up on his mass deportations policy. No, that hasn't happened. You still have untrained, randos, heavily armed, roaming suburbs and city streets, just detaining random people, roughing up American citizens. Dozens of individuals have died in ICE custody during Trump's second term.

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This is one of the easiest ways to find out. Right now, go to true diagnostic.com and use code TYT for 20% off your entire order. That's true diagnostic.com code TYT for 20% off. So one year after Operation Midway Blitz, the immigration cracked down by ICE officers in Chicago and surrounding areas, legal challenges against the agent's aggressive tactics are still underway. And that's the other thing. So these are American citizens who are being, you know, roughed up or wrongfully detained. They're going to rightfully sue the federal government for the way that they were treated. And then U.S. taxpayers will pay their settlements.

While responding to the scene, one officer encountered two SUVs near an intersection and spoke with an individual in one of the vehicles who identified himself as a federal agent conducting a fugitive investigation. Fascinating. The person was wearing a plain clothes and a vest marked police with federal law enforcement markings, according to police. The individual told the officer that agents had attempted to identify a person who resembled someone they were seeking, but the person refused to provide identification and resisted detention. I'm going to need to see evidence of that before I just take law enforcement's word for it. The agents later determined the man was not, not the person they were seeking and learned that he was, in fact, a U.S. citizen.

After which he was released. So DHS told CNN that ICE agents were conducting a targeted enforcement operation, encountered a person who resembled their target and immediately identified themselves as law enforcement. And this is a quote, exact statement from DHS, quote, The individual was given lawful commands but was not cooperative and refused to identify himself. Again, I'm going to need to see some evidence of that. By the way, so you just start beating someone up? Is that how law enforcement is supposed to conduct itself?

You just start beating someone up, brutalizing someone because they're not complying immediately with your demands to self-identify. By the way, you can hear the guy saying I'm an American citizen as they're roughing him up. Doesn't seem like they were really interested in figuring out what his identity was, in that moment at least. ICE officers relied on their training, what training? There was a mass hiring spree after Trump secured tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for ICE and for Border Patrol. And he decided to do away with some of the training requirements that could have been a little helpful in preventing situations like this from happening. ICE officers relied on their training and later left the scene without further incident once the individual finally identified themselves. Is this what we want?

And it's a serious question to the right wingers who think that this type of increased government control and power, like to the point where you have heavily armed federal agents roaming the streets and roughing up American citizens, is that the country you want to live in? Is that what you were calling for? Maybe it is. That's not the country I want to live in. And if that's the country, anyone in the audience who's watching right now wants to live in, how about you go like move somewhere else that has an authoritarian government, rather than wanting our democratic country,

which has a democratic process with elected leaders who are supposed to be accountable to us. They're not supposed to beat people up in the streets. They're not supposed to try to find weasily ways to skirt the First Amendment and violate our free speech rights. They're supposed to serve us. If you wanted an authoritarian government, there's plenty of options, internationally speaking. But I guess that's not good enough. Destroy this country. and I guess give the federal government even more power to brutalize American citizens.

And by the way, also immigrants. I don't think people should be brutalized. Yeah, we should enforce our laws. I have no problem with that. But having untrained, heavily armed federal agents doing what we've been seeing since almost the beginning of Trump's second term is unacceptable to me. And I don't want to live in a country like that. Anyway, we got to take a break. We'll be right back.

I don't have a funny handle, right? It says, Anna, people all over the world agree with you, keep fighting. I'm just sorry. It has an effect on me too. Okay, so covering these stories every day, it just feels useless. It feels so useless. And I'm so ashamed of our government and what our country is representing right now. theater goddess says, Hegeszitz didn't get us into the war, but he has the power to punish those who accidentally hit civilian targets and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Don't impeach him for starting the war. Impeach him for his criminal mismanagement while in office. He needs to go, period. I want to go back to talking about kids. Have you been around children? They're so pure and innocent and helpless. I just, I don't understand anyone who thinks it's okay to justify brutalizing and killing kids. I don't understand wanting to brutalize or kill any innocent person, okay, or people in general. In very, very rare exceptions, I have said that I would be okay with the punishment of execution. But I'm talking about warlord, war criminal type people. We can't even protect our kids,

man. It's crazy. I want to thank my team, Wilhur, Taylor Ellis, and Alyssa Salmon's for getting that video element for the breaking story that I covered in that last segment. They're amazing. Like I brought it up to that minutes before we went live and they got the elements I needed to show you at least what we have in terms of evidence of what happened. Anyway, thank you to my team. You guys are amazing. Thank you to the video editing team and the graphic. team as well. All right, I want to read a few more comments. I did a bad job with reading comments yesterday. I apologize for that, so I'll read as many as I can today. Make it make sense as wish I could make north of $175,000 and get a long recess slash break like Congress does. Are they even going to

work 160 days this year? Thanks for all you do, Anna. I doubt it. Because Mike Johnson has decided to break for recess early a few times, right? This isn't the first time. History speaks as the claims about an epidemic of whites lynching African Americans now promoted by congressional Democrats. Wait, what? Are the kind of toxic demagoguery that make people hate Democrats? Every case so far has been a suicide or in one case, black on black crime. I, history speaks, I have no idea what you're talking about, but you know how to DM me. So please send me information about what this is. Let's read some comments from our YouTube members. We've got Simon Moody who says, so when the war you started kills children and you're told about it, you walk out. But when McCrone calls out your

acts in the West Bank, it's grotesque. Yeah, deny reality some more. Why don't you? I know. It's Another Brian says solo Anna Wednesday, let's go. I wish I was in better spirits today. I'll try to pick up my mood. I just, it feels hopeless. And I know I know that it's not, but today it just, it does. It feels hopeless. Anyway, let's move on to something entirely different,

corruption among congressional members, including one who's running a fascinating race. She's definitely been a topic of discussion, but not in the ways that I was hoping. So let's change the topic of discussion when it comes to Susan Collins. Well, turns out the FBI was investigating Susan Collins, the senator from Maine, over her involvement in a corrupt pay-to-play scheme involving defense contractors. Oh, what a shocker. Now, the Republican senator is currently up for reelection in Maine.

And I think that voters deserve to know about this investigation, which, abruptly ended after Trump was elected and inaugurated for his second term. So here's what the investigation found and what the context of the investigation was. So it centers on Senator Collins running for re-election back in 2019. So the longtime Republican senator was in danger of losing. And, you know, it was due to Trump's cratering approval numbers. So Trump isn't doing well with his approval numbers. So as a result, he's dragging the Republican Party down with him. Senator Susan Collins is up for reelection and she's in a lot of trouble. She's looking for that cold hard cash. Because, you know, when in doubt, instead of serving your constituents and making

a case for why you are a good public servant who represents them, oh my God, I need more money to run political ads. Like, that's where their minds immediately go to. So what happened? Well, here comes the bribe. Collins leveraged her position as the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee for a campaign donation or campaign donations from the defense industry. But the way that she went about it seems to have broken some campaign finance laws. If we lived in a just world, there would be consequences, but we don't live in that world. So ProPublica looked into this, and they're reporting on this is fantastic. They're reporting in general is fantastic.

But basically the committee that she chairs, the Senate Appropriations Committee, directs funding and financial resources for the military and the Department of Defense. And she's been a member of that committee for 17 years. She's now the chair of that committee, which means she has an incredibly powerful role. Now, back in 2019, when she's running for reelection, there was a meeting with a guy by the name of Martin Kio. CEO of the defense contractor Navitech. And so this meeting was facilitated by Scott Reed. Scott Reed happens to be the head of the Super PAC promoting Susan Collins. So Navitec was hungry for more

government contracts in Maine. Oh, they're always hungry for those government contracts. I mean, you want to talk about socialism or welfare, whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of welfare in this country, it just tends to go to corporate interests. Corporate interests. They're always looking for a government handout, aren't they? Especially defense contractors. But let's see what Navitec did. So if they cut a big check, the CEO told Reid, remember, Reid is the head of the super PAC for Collins. Navitech wanted Collins to guarantee, guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding. In other words, this CEO wanted to ensure that Susan Collins, picks your pockets and provides welfare to this private defense contractor.

That's what this is. So what happens next? Well, due to campaign finance laws, the donation couldn't come directly from Navitech. And so Navitech funded or funneled the donation, which initially was $150,000 through a shell company to hide the source of the money. This is how it's done. But Martin C.O. really wanted to make sure that Collins understood where that cash came from. Okay. And so he because not only he wanted to make sure that Collins knew where the money came from because it's a it's a pay to play, pay to play quid pro quo type situation. I give you the money.

You give me the taxpayer money in the form of government contracts. And two months later, he told Navitech executives that Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company email reviewed by ProPublica. Okay, so Reed is the person who told Navitech executives. Like, don't worry, thank you for the $150,000. Our politicians are cheap whores, prostitutes. You give us 150,000. We'll give you a $32 million government contract. Some of my favorite designs on ShopTYTYT are Get Caught Trying and Team Joy.

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Shopify is like having a dedicated business partner who actually knows what they're doing. It can help you write product descriptions, set up discounts, and even build custom apps just by telling it what you need. Whether you're selling mugs, shirts, or whatever your big ideas, Shopify gives you everything you need from day one. So if you're ready to hear the of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.com slash t-y-t to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at Shopify.com slash t-y-t. That's Shopify.com slash tyt. That's all it takes to sell out the American people. Okay, what's the government contract for? What are you going to? to provide. Is it useful? Is it necessary? Is it critical? Who cares? 32 million dollars in government

contracts. No wonder the Pentagon has a hard time passing a single audit. In 2018, Navitech wanted to expand its naval operations in Maine and hired lobbyist Glenn Mandigo to help them, fun name. Now Mandigo also already had a relationship with Collins, so he was particularly useful. In that first meeting with Collins and her staff, KEO pitched an $8 million boat hole research project for Navitech and the University of Maine. Collins seemed supportive. Of course she was. Not long after, Mandigo called Kio and said Collins wanted him to bundle tens of thousands of dollars for her re-election, suggesting Navitek throw a fundraiser, Keo told the FBI. By the way, he does.

decided to cooperate with the FBI because the FBI was alerted to these possible campaign finance law violations. And they were investigating Collins. The problem is after Trump got elected, he did away with certain FBI units that are tasked with investigating these types of corrupt schemes. We'll get to that with more details in just a minute. So again, these donations caught the FBI's attention, especially since military contracts are, you know, supposed to be awarded through a vetted and competitive bidding process. That didn't happen here, which is why the FBI was like, red flag, we need to look into this. The FBI had spotted his out of the blue donations in the summer of 2018, just before Collins included $8 million for Navitex proposal in the defense

budget. Emails showed her staff made it clear to the Navy that it should, send the money to Navitech. I mean, we're talking about actual email evidence. These morons put it in writing. They had her dead to rights, but it doesn't matter because the FBI units investigating this. You're gone. Making matters worse, taxpayers ended up getting totally shafted, as we often do when it comes to defense contractor grants. So Keough told FBI, and prosecutors, the company's work for the government, was, I'm going to read this very slowly, was of no real value. Tens of millions of dollars in government contracts for Navitech, no real value. Navitech's research under his stewardship never resulted in products the military wanted to buy.

So here's Senator Collins in front of a Navitech 3D printed boat that the company knew the Navy had absolutely no intention of using. Real proud of herself. Like, I get, I get that some random woman made an allegation against Platner that was never proven. There was never any evidence behind it at all. I get that. And he's gone. I get that he's gone. he was running against Susan Collins.

No one seems to give a damn in our legacy media about this. Where's CNN? Hey, CNN, maybe have a pro-publica reporter on to talk about this disgusting corruption and theft of taxpayer money. But they can't be bothered, right? Because that's what Americans are here for. That's their only purpose, according to our media and according to our government. We're just here to get shafted to have our earnings stolen from us in every paycheck for these goons who want to live off of taxpayer money.

Well, by the way, I would venture to say the executives over at Navitech probably lobby hard against entitlement programs for American citizens. Lobby hard against certain social safety net proposals by whatever few decent politicians we might. might have left in Congress. But when it comes to welfare for their own purposes, oh, they love it. They can't get enough of it. They can't get enough of it. In order to persuade other lawmakers, by the way,

Navitech would concoct a research project in partnership with a university in a Senate Appropriation Committee members district or home state. And CAO would make a large initial campaign donation. Navitec employees referred to the strategy as the method. Ooh, they're so brilliant. Wow, so creative.

They called it the method. And it enabled the company to string together tens of millions of dollars in contracts. The result was the same as getting earmarks, a reliable growing revenue stream bankrolled by U.S. taxpayers. They love to pick your pockets. Now, let me be clear about something. When it comes to my money going to Social Security, I will allow it because that is, a specific program that helps all Americans in their retirement years.

You see your money going straight to that program. We paid into it. We know exactly what it's for. Same with Medicare. But the rest of my earnings getting taxed by the federal government, what am I getting in return for that? So Navitex executives remarked on how easy it was to take advantage of U.S. taxpayers under our corrupt system. I'm not kidding. So Eric Schiff, a former Navitech executive,

said this, and I quote, it was eye-opening for me, frankly. Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It's all for sale, meaning our government, our politicians, the prostitutes that we're supposed to think represent us. And the secret was well known, by the way. Keough told the FBI that the lawmakers, lobbyists, and Navitech brass understood these donations were bribes and that the payments were essential to the entire scheme. Keo believed he was buying Navitex way into the annual defense budget, not winning over members with innovative engineering proposals. Again, CNN, not covering this. They couldn't get enough of the Platner coverage. But when it comes to stealing from U.S. taxpayers? Who cares? Boring. So boring. The FBI charged K.O. in 2022 for his campaign

finance violations and crimes. And he was also later charged with defrauding the COVID loan program. Real deadbeat this guy. He cooperated with the FBI in return for a lighter sentence. And he became the main source of intel for a larger investigation into Collins. And by the way, other elected officials. Because Collins wasn't the only one who was engaged in this pay for play scheme. And ProPublica says that they have, you know, this is a multi-part series in their reporting. I'm very curious to see who else will be outed as part of their investigation. But because Senator Collins was only the tip of the iceberg, Keo gave agents a 50-page

document naming dozens of lobbyists, congressional staffers, and members of Congress who he said helped him trade cash for contracts. K.O. and his close associates had donated nearly $900,000 to dozens of politicians. By the way, that's all it takes. I know that's a lot of money for a normal, ordinary person. It is a lot of money. But think about it. We're talking about dozens of politicians. It takes less than a million dollars to buy dozens of our politicians. And what do you get in return? Oh, well, you know, you get to establish operations in half a dozen states with over $40 million a year in government funding. $900,000 in return for $40 million in taxpayer money?

Sounds like a deal. Sounds like a deal, right? Totally infuriating. By late 2024, ProPublica writes, Ball and Gonan, these are the two FBI agents that were part of the investigation, had come to believe that there was enough evidence to warrant a broader investigation into bribery of members of Congress. And that's according to a memo that was reviewed by ProPublica.

But the investigation never happened. So I alluded to this multiple times in the story. But after Trump got elected and inaugurated, he gutted the FBI unit that was actually investigating this case. The unit was known as CS-15. The move halted all, all corruption cases, all of them. Okay, by the way, shocking to find that there were corruption cases or investigations to begin with. But what Trump did by gutting the FBI unit is he ended all of those investigations.

Trump also replaced all Justice Department attorneys who worked with CR 15. So it appears that these individuals were intentionally targeted by Trump. She, I wonder why. I wonder why. Now, Trump's administration, the Trump family, has been so brazenly corrupt that there's a story we're going to cover tomorrow involving a Republican senator who's calling for the subpoena of Don Jr. And good for him for doing that. We'll see if it leads to anything. But you get rid of the cop on the beat, in this case, the CS-15 unit. And what do you think the Trump family is going to do? What do you think corrupt politicians are going to do? They're going to do. They're going to do. going to use their position of power to enrich themselves, not represent the best interests of the American people. One of the FBI agents on the case was able to persuade her superiors to approve one new investigation, though, before she was removed by Trump. It centered on South Carolina,

one of the states Navitec, eyed for a rapid expansion. The FBI had questions about a steak dinner, Kio shared with Senator Lindsey Graham. And now he's And now he's dead. So. And there seems to be more info coming from ProPublica, whether or not chaos dealings with politicians amount to criminal bribery. The Trump Justice Department has little interest in finding out. And his sheer success reveals how easily influence is purchased in Washington today. This is the first in a series of stories drawn from our reporting. So Senator Collins is up for reelection.

And I really do hope that the great people of Maine think carefully about the decision that they're going to make when it comes to casting their ballot. Even if you're a Republican voter, I don't think that you should have a senator who's stealing from you. Or more importantly, allowing corporate interests to steal from you because that's what this was. You've probably seen our band in the UK shirt, the one we dropped after the UK government tried to silence us on me. And thanks for our partners at Shopify, we were able to get that shirt up on ShopTYT quickly and painlessly. We've been running our store through Shopify for a while now. And if you're thinking about starting your own business, whether it's your own merch, a side hustle, or your dream project, Shopify is the place to do it. Here's what I'll tell you straight up.

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Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash TYT. That's Shopify.com slash TYT. Anyway, oh, wow, I'm massively late. Let's take a break when we come back. We will dive right into a story I've been wanting to cover, and luckily today I'll get to do that. We'll talk about the betting markets, we'll talk about online gambling, and how absolutely devastating it's been for young people in particular in this country. We'll be right back. Radiohead Truth writes it and says, Anna, this is the only story that matters, keep calling out

Israel. Look, I care deeply about that story, which is why I dedicate so much of our showtime to it. There's a lot of stuff happening within our country as well, and I want to do a better job covering those stories. But I see everything connected. If you don't live in a sovereign country with political leaders who represent the people within that country, the citizenry of that country, like, nothing else really matters. So to me, the whole Israel story represents how little our politicians are interested. in looking out for us, you know? So that's why I cover it.

But anyway, James Kelly says they are living their best Christian nationalism dream and getting paid by the government. I wonder how many people will be missing when this is over. Oh my God, I don't want to think about it that way. Social Security Whisper, aka Green Space Guy, says it's time to bring back the windfall profits tax on oil companies and use the funds to lower gasoline taxes. That is an interesting suggestion, actually. You know, we're going to talk about, you know, the whole notion of a diesel export ban in the second hour with Ryan Grimm.

I'm really looking forward to that. So stick around. Don't go just yet. Let's go to our YouTube members. We've got Anthony who says, I wonder how many children have died because of the actions of the IRGC. Yeah, I wonder about that too. I would venture to say that it would be far less. than the children is real and the United States is now responsible of killing.

That's what I would say. Anyway, back to the show. This, I don't know, I'm amused by this comment because it just resonates with me so much. But this is from our Twitch community, twitch.tv. Twitch.tv. If you want to be a subscriber on that channel, angry calm, I like angry calm. I wish I could be angry calm. I'm usually just angry, angry.

But anyway, so they can find a tattoo on Platner's ass, but they can't find Collins's corruption. they know about Collins's corruption, I would venture to say. It's just not the type of story that would be prioritized on legacy media. Legacy media is in the business of protecting neoconservatism and neoliberalism, which has nothing to do with conservatives and liberals. You guys know that, right? So it's just so frustrating. Anyway, let's hear a little bit about our partner, Upwork.

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All right, you guys get the point. Let's get to the next story. Let's talk a little bit about this. How often do you bet? Oh, every day. People wake up and check newspaper. I wake up and check who's playing. But football season is high season for him.

Let's go. On this college football Saturday, he's got 200. $250 down on four games. If he wins all four, this bet will pay $3,000. But Esteban wins only one. So after a friend comes over, he tries it all again. Northern Illinois plus 31.5. You tell me plus 31 a half, don't cover against the defensive team.

Four more games, he loses another 250. Just like that, he's down 500 bucks. How much money do you buy? better year? Probably 80 to 100,000, 120. Which has to be approaching the amount of money you make a year. 90, seven. Oh, you got to make a better pass than that. That's right. Great route. This single 29-year-old pest control salesman bets as much as he makes, if not more. I'm getting paid this week. I'm about to put it all down. Your paycheck this week. Yeah, sometimes. I like this game a lot. Yeah, let's just I'll put it on there. And then look, I got paid double this week. Or I mean,

ramen noodle for the rest of the week. Complete and utter disaster. There's a crisis brewing with the massive growth in online sports betting. And it seems, you know, legacy media is finally catching on to how big of a problem this really is. Now, there are betting markets and then there's online sports gambling. And believe it or not, those are two different things because they're treated differently when it comes to our Congress and how they regulate things. I don't believe they should be treated differently. In fact, the betting markets are far worse than the devastating story I'm about to share with you in regard to online sports betting.

But we'll do a follow-up story that focuses solely on the betting markets. For now, though, let's talk a little bit about what's happening with individuals who have gambling addictions and how the legalization of online betting has basically made it all too easy to basically allow people who have predisposition to addiction to, you know, end up gambling, losing everything. And at the same time, these websites or these apps, I should say, go out of their way to incentivize gambling. They try to lure people in. And when you live in a country where people feel hopeless, they feel like there's no other way to get by or to get ahead, financially speaking, I think people get sucked into these online betting, online gambling apps and they end up losing everything. So let's get to the stats because it's important to understand just how big of an issue this

really is. In 2025, Americans placed, get a little of this, $166 billion in bets on sporting events. Now, of that $166 billion, $159 billion was on online betting, online betting. The vast majority of those bets were made online. And by the way, 166 billion total, that's actually up from just $6.6 billion in 2018. So as you can tell, the ease in which the accessibility of gambling, thanks to the legalization of online gambling, has become a real problem. And I got to say, early on, years ago, when this debate came up, I remember thinking, like, yeah, who cares? These casino magnates, like they don't want any competition. So they like lobby really hard to ban online sports betting.

And I don't think that they should be allowed to. So I was actually open to legalizing online betting. But I will say this, I'm not predisposed to addiction. I'm very, very blessed in that regard. A lot of Americans are. And I should have considered that when I was commenting on it years ago. But now we see the damage that's being done. And unfortunately, it doesn't seem like our congressional lawmakers have any interest in reining any of this in.

But let's keep going. What else do we know about this? So this explosion in legal sports betting is due to the rise of online sports books like Fandul, a draft king. I'm sure you guys have seen some of their commercials. 94% of all sports wagers are now placed online via smartphones. Simple, easy. It's the palm of your hands. You don't have to go to a casino. You don't have to drive anywhere. You don't have to make a phone call online. Super easy on your phone. So in 2018, the Supreme Court actually struck down a federal ban on sports gambling. And then that ban was also part of a 1992 federal professional and amateur sports protection act, which allowed states to choose their own regulations as it pertains to sports betting. Now, 31 states have since legalized online sports betting apps, and that's thanks to a, well,

large part to the incredible lobbying efforts. And if you want some details on that, there was $72 million spent on lobbying so far in the midterms. So the companies behind these online sports betting apps, they've already spent $72 million on lobbying for the midterms. You need proven experts who can execute on what you need right now. I know I run a small business. Upwork is where businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work from

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That's UPWRK.com, Upwork.com. And now 27% of U.S. adults maintain an active sportsbook profile. That's a lot of Americans. A quarter of Americans maintain, more than a quarter of Americans, maintain an active sports book profile. So these apps allow users to bet anytime, anywhere, right from their phones, right in the palm of their hands. It used to take effort, like I said, you'd have to actually make a phone call or travel to a casino. So with digital apps, people can bet 24-7 and are also, now putting money on smaller events, such as which team will score first or whether someone will

miss a free throw. And they can string these micro bets together into one big bet called a parlay, a popular feature that has big potential winnings, but usually doesn't pay off. Fandul and draft kings, by the way, do more than just facilitate these bets. And that's the other layer to this that is a huge problem. So if Congress wanted to do a half measure, they could focus on the ways in which people are incentivized to engage in this behavior. So basically, they're leveraging hyper-personalized, AI-driven strategies designed to lock you in. So in 2023, Draft Kings took customer betting records and built a machine learning model,

a form of artificial intelligence that seeks patterns and data to answer the question, who was more likely to respond to promotions by gambling and losing more? So, Draft Kings makes money when gamblers lose money, obviously, obviously. That's how this works. And the model sought to identify those, it could get to lose the most. So that's how they're targeting people in their promotions. It scored each customer based on their habits. The higher the score, the more money the gambler was likely to lose for each promotion offered.

So they're engaging in this by specifically seeking individuals. They know likely have an addiction, have a gambling problem, because they are more likely to lose money, which means that these companies make more money, make more profit. So there is a reason why these companies are so selective and they're targeting roughly, get a load of this, roughly 95% of total betting losses are absorbed by just 5% of betters. Their lives destroyed. Who cares, right? Who cares?

I mean, I care, which is why we're covering this story. but it's just so devastating to know that you have these companies operating out in the open in a way that devastates Americans' lives, and Congress can't be bothered by it because they're collecting that cold, hard lobbying cash. So why don't we hear from one of those individuals in the next video? Take a look. It's made to make money. How do they make money off of us losing? There'd be some days where I'd be betting five, six, seven games a day, five thousand a game, 10,000 a game. That thing is engineered to keep you going. I represent individuals who have essentially lost their houses and their spouses and their kids over this. It's almost as if it's the same

type of addiction. The dopamine hit. There's no barrier between pulling out my phone and chasing, chasing, chasing, chase and chase. Next thing I know, I had 10 grand in my bank account five minutes ago, and now I got nothing. Family addicts are also being incentivized by sports betting apps. So much as Las Vegas casinos, plied high rollers with gourmet meals and lavish entertainment. This is by CBS News. Sports gaming apps are now rewarding VIP bettors with luxury sweet access, autographed jerseys, and unique fan experiences. Just pay for the unique fan experiences without doing the gambling. Like you're actually spending more money. Anyway, you're spending more money on these things by losing in these bets. But okay. And then these companies know exactly

what they're doing because one former fan duel employee actually spoke to CBS about their tactics and said, I had conversations with people where they would say, well, we know what we should do, but we don't want to slow them down from placing a bet. So diagnosed, this statistic blew me away, diagnosed gambling disorders have increased by roughly 61% in the U.S. or in U.S. states that have legalized this form of betting since 2018. So this is not helping society. It's intentionally preying on people who are vulnerable to this. And a quarter of sports betters say that they worry they cannot control their gambling,

according to U.S. News and World Report. They conducted a survey about this, and that's what they found. So states with legal online sports betting have seen a 25% increase in bankruptcy, and credit card delinquencies. More than half of respondents, 51% say they've placed sports bets to try to pay their bills, and 21% have wagered to cover their rent and mortgage. So I had a conversation about this with some of my colleagues, and one of them made a really great point about how when you're increasingly living in a society

where there are less and less opportunities and you don't see a future for yourself, And also, especially right now as we speak, you actually have to spend a considerable amount of money to work in many cases. What do I mean by that? If you have to drive to work and you have a commute with gas prices as high as they are, you're actually spending a considerable amount of money to go to work. You are expending precious resources to go to an office or go to your place of work and try to earn a living. It might be a lot easier to, at least for some in their minds, to just gamble on your phone at home. You're not spending any money. You're not putting any gas in your car.

You're not worrying about, you know, an annoying boss. You're not worried about having your wages stolen by your employer. But you want to know something? You're getting shafted by these companies that seek to, you know, learn people who are more likely to lose money so they can make more. profit. So despite the ongoing crisis, our government appears completely captured by these companies, and so are sports leagues. So just last month, the NFL actually announced that they have renewed their partnership with Fanduel, Draft Kings, and another company called Fanatics. So all three partners

will also have presence at NFL tent pole events, such as the Super Bowl and NFL draft, unique hospitality and VIP experiences and integrations across NFL-owned digital media properties. Finally, they will have access to real-time official play-by-play statistics, proprietary next-gen stats. I don't even know what these things are and bet vision through genius sports, the league's exclusive data distribution partner. One other thing that I'll say is whenever something is online, It's kind of hard to enforce age-related regulations.

And so I spoke to several of my friends and family members who actually work at schools, because I was curious, have you guys noticed high schoolers maybe engaging in these bets, like placing bets on these apps? And yeah, they are. They are. So there are very real problems at play here, and there's no cop on the beat because our government is corrupt. and they couldn't care less about us. And none of that is going to change unless we stop thinking that the same behavior by the American people

will yield different results. That is the reason why, during my debate with Jenk, I said, I don't care about the midterms. I didn't say that because I'm trying to discourage people from voting. I said it because I don't think anything is going to change after the midterms. even if we get a few decent people voted in, I don't think we could vote our way out of this. There is a deeper systemic issue with our government that needs to be addressed. And unless we address it, whoever gets elected just gets absorbed into this blob, this corrupt mess. So anyway, Ryan Grimm joins us for the second hour.

And we're going to talk a little bit about the economic situation on the ground here in the United States, It's a possible diesel export ban and a lot more. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. Indisputable is still the fastest growing news show in America compared to CNN, Fox News and 30 other networks. We tell the truth on indisputable because the truth is indisputable. We go places that other news media outlets refuse to go when there were human rights abuses

happening at the Victorville Prison, Guards and members of the community contacted us. You, through your investigative reporting, unearthed, very troubling allegations about specific forms of abuse and discrimination in the federal prison system. It really doesn't take much to be a trusted voice. All it takes is to be fearless, report on matters, be an advocate. I called it the bullpen intentionally because it's a place of preparation. We present individuals who may have an opposing view. So we debate. Sometimes we interview individuals because their stories deserve to be heard.

A survivor of significant police misconduct and his attorney. We covered this story earlier and will remind you of the horror of one man being shot at damn near 100 times by the police. We take time on this show to showcase the temper tantrums of Cairns in the wild. We do this not because we want to see people's emotional outburst in public, or because these incidents are emblematic of a bigger societal issue taking place across the nation. And it has to be checked. My friend, my big homie, attorney at law, Benjamin Crock. I just want to thank you, man.

An educated, articulate brothers like yourself speak truth to power. It makes a great difference in changing the landscape in America. Listen, no matter what you do, don't allow the politics of ideology to evaporate the soul that still exists inside of you. They don't stop, I don't stop. Racism won't stop. I won't stop. Systemic bias won't stop. I won't stop.

People still need health care, so I won't stop. People still need criminal. Just the system's performed, so I won't stop. You won't stop you. I'm wearing one of our pieces of merchandise. So the funny thing about the Dragon Squad, and that's what our viewers call themselves, that's the name of the group. But every individual chooses their own name.

You might have Cincinnati Dragon. You might have Harry Potter Dragon. We have a Grandma Sunshine Dragon is one of those that I remember. These are people that like to have an element of themselves, their lives, what's significant to them reflected as a part of the community. But the concept of the Dragon Squad is just something I threw away as a joke. I was mocking the proud boys, these right wing groups that come up with a name for themselves that they think is cool, but it's actually really lame.

And I thought, you know, off the top of my head, I can come up with something that's still kind of lame, but much cooler. And so I threw out Dragon Squad and I just moved on with my life. But everybody liked it. And so they kept it going. And so we've embraced it. And I think again, it was this was during the period of the pandemic. I think it was it was sort of nice to have a renewed sense of community, a feeling that you're a part of something when everything seems so chaotic.

And as a result of that, we've got independent artists online streaming, making beautiful digital art of dragons. We've got, you know, we've released a number of pieces of merchandise that people love sending us photos of them. And then by the way, for me personally, people send me, like you can probably see in the background, like a knitted dragon, someone sent me. There's a dragon book they sent me. Dragon board games they send me. People have done like custom ironworks making dragon bottle openers. Like the fans are super invested in diamond art and things like that. And so it's great that they send this stuff.

Sometime we're going to have to set up a wall of all of it. But yeah, it's definitely brought the community a lot closer together. The fact that we were no longer in this big studio, I felt a lot more personally attached to people. It felt very immediate. and I know that I personally needed the connection. Carlin J. Boquet writes in and says, I feel your pain, Anna, every time the kids are mentioned that were victims from so many injustices breaks my heart.

Thank you, Anna, for always being real. Thank you. I just can't get over the fact that, like, the bare minimum is giving a damn about protecting civilians, yes, but especially children. But we can't even succeed in that. Anyway, YTP Renewd says we need to get kids away from the internet as soon as possible. We certainly need to do something about these gambling apps and things like that for sure. Anyway, this X hour is going to be fantastic.

Joining me now is one of my favorite journalists, Ryan Grimm, friend of the show. Ryan is a host on Breaking Points, of course, and the founder and one of the main reporters over at DropSight. Ryan, drop site is so important. I can't get enough of the reporting. We just had David Pynon, who was one of the sources for that incredible story that you and Mertazza Hussein reported about, the story about the Arrow 2 system and also the iron beam, which we paid for. We developed, but we're supposed to pretend like Israel engaged in a joint venture on those

two developments. And they have the IP, so we can't even take advantage of it. And you live in LA, so you're familiar with this concept of like somebody, the parents like doing everything for the kid and then being like, no, look, the kid won this prize. It's a little bit endearing when it happens in that context. Not endearing in the context you reported on. But anyway, thank you for that amazing reporting. But for the purposes of this discussion, I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about the whole notion of a diesel export ban. Is that actually going to happen? Well, let's get to the details.

Senator Solomon today has called for a ban on diesel exports, a temporary ban. Or what? A ban on diesel exports? Chuck Grassley called for the same thing. Mike Rogers called for the same thing. Is that something you're considering it? Well, I've called for that too. I've said, let's not send out the diesel.

We make a lot of diesel. I could have a little bit of an effect on regular automobile gasoline. Because when you do that, you know, it's sort of a flow. It's a balance. But no, I've called for it. I've called for it within my people. I've been talking about it. Scott, do you want to talk about that person?

We're examining that whether it's feasible in terms of the overall refining capacity and whether a full or partial ban would work. Is there a timeline for decision on that day? Fast, one way or the other. The incredibly stupid decision to go to war with Iran has caused so much economic harm to Americans that as you just heard, the president is allegedly considering implementing a diesel export ban, which, of course, diesel is incredibly vital to our truckers, to our economy, to our farmers. But the suggestion has led to some GOP infighting.

You got to remember, the oil industry buys our politicians, and they got to look out for their donors. They care about that a lot more than the American people. However, two hours, about two hours before we went live, the Hill reported that the Trump administration is not considering an export ban. But Ryan, I don't know what to believe because this is an administration that just kind of shoots from the hip. They take everything day by day. Yesterday, he says he wants the export ban and it's going to happen fast. Today, different story. What do you make of this?

Yeah, until he comes out and publicly says he's not going to do it, yeah, I think you have to take it seriously. This is a rare case where the oil industry is actually telling the truth about the problems with the oil industry ban. And it's weird that Grassley is calling for it because the diesel that farmers buy in Iowa is refined in the region there. And the pipelines are already basically full from the Gulf up to the Midwest. And so if you ban exports, all it's going to do is create a glut in the in the Gulf where the refiners there produce for export for Latin America and for Europe. But because the pipelines are already full, like they can't send any more to Iowa. I mean, I guess they could put some on trucks. But like, really?

Like we're going to we're going to solve this with with trucks driving up from Louisiana. But what would really happen is what Trump alluded to there. So clearly he's been briefed on this. they would be getting a much lower price for diesel down in the Gulf. And so the Gulf refiners would cut their diesel runs. And if you cut the runs, you can't just cut diesel. You cut all of the processing of a barrel of oil. Because you process a barrel of oil and out of it, you get gasoline, you get diesel,

and then you get all these other refined petroleum products. So if you want less diesel, you got to refine less oil. That means you have less gasoline coming out of the refineries. And that's why he said there's a balance there with gas prices. So you would actually get diesel ticking down, but gas ticking up. And that's not what Trump wants either. I mean, something else that got brought up that I think is a pretty decent point when it comes to an export ban. It could obviously increase the price of diesel further for some of our allies that we do trade with. And that would mean the price of imports would skyrocket. So it's not

as cut and dry. And it's a lot more complicated and nuanced than I think most people realize. It's not like we get like an in-depth education on how the oil industry works. We don't want to know this stuff. We want to go back to not knowing these things. And like also the West Coast and the East coast import a lot of their oil. So if we do a ban, I mean, import a lot of their diesel. So if we do a ban, then the other countries are going to have to then make up the difference. So they're going to stop exporting to us. And so then the price is going to skyrocket in New England, which he doesn't care about because that's mostly democratic and you don't care about much of the West Coast either. But he's going to lose a bunch of house seats all over the place where he's not even expecting it.

So yeah, I don't think he'll end up doing it because it's such a bad idea, but he's under so much pressure to do it. And now that it's been raised, he's going to look like a chicken for not doing it. So he's like with everything he's gotten himself into, he's screwed whatever he does. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, it's interesting because Trump flirts with and even carries out the types of policies that historically speaking, Republicans would attack the left for if they proposed it. So just to give you one example, you know, the whole beef debacle where he imported beef from Argentina and then implemented price controls, which if I remember correctly, I know it was a long time ago, but back in 2024 when Kamala Harris was running and she said she wanted to do something about corporate greed and inflation, they interpreted that, I think, intentionally inaccurately as she wants to implement price controls. She said no such thing. And to be clear, I'm against price controls. I think that it does distort the market and actually causes unintended consequences. That's not great for consumers. By the way, and in the case of the

Argentinian beef flooding the market, it was a double whammy and insult to our ranchers because you have more competition with foreign beef. And then you're going to have to compete with foreign beef that's discounted 25%. You're like screwing over your own citizens by doing it. that. Anyway. Illegal antibiotics. Yes, exactly. So the meat had to be recalled later. It's just, it's so wild. Now, look, when it comes to this issue, it is a huge problem. Like, the cost of diesel is out of control, according to AAA, the national average price of diesel was $6.53 per gallon as of

September 22nd. And that was up about 73% since the start of the war. And Trump recently said that he does not expect diesel prices to come down anytime soon. I got to hand it to him for his honesty there, right? Like, I have no intention of ending this war. And as a result, it's going to get worse. So anyway, the midterms are coming. Vote for us. Yeah. Even in his UN speech, he said, and we're going to get to end of this war very soon right after the midterms. Even so he used to be lying and saying that, you know, tomorrow he's, the Iranians are begging for a deal and we're going to, and maybe it will end the war tomorrow. Now he's not even lying that it's going to happen tomorrow. Now he's claiming it's going to happen after the midterms. Then you're like,

wait a minute. There is no apparent electoral check on you even with an election coming up. So on what planet are you going to be pressured by anything after after the elections? I mean, And maybe the shock of the night, because like, we're probably going to see at least one Senate seat fall that people didn't expect to happen. And we're going to see like 10 or 20 house seats maybe fall that people were like, whoa, that guy spent $250,000 and as a substitute teacher and he just beat, you know, or $25,000. And he just beat the chairman, you know, of the Energy and Commerce Committee or whatever it is. Like, there's going to be some examples of that. And maybe that will shock him enough. But on the other hand, it doesn't seem like he's receptive to external pressure.

So before we hear from the farmers and what they're saying, and let me just be clear, national media, cable news, especially Fox News channel, they've been kind of downplaying the severity of this issue. But local news has actually been doing a pretty decent job interviewing farmers and getting their perspective on what's going on. But before we get to that, I kind of want the audience to have an understanding of where we are when it comes to our situation with Iran. I'm not even sure I'm really familiar with the administration's thinking at this point. It doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon. And there's a lot of attention at the UN General Assembly. Obviously, nothing is going to be solved before the midterms. So is there anything the audience should know about in regard to this ongoing?

conflict? Well, the conflict, the hot conflict has moved to Yemen. And it appears today that the city of Taiz has been pretty much taken by Ansar al-A, otherwise known as the Houthis, which gives them an extraordinary run of territory there. They have, you know, effective, complete control of the straight of Bob Omenab, which they're using to pressure Saudi Arabia. The East West pipeline, I think, just went back online yesterday. Apparently, it was hit by Iraqi militias. It went back online. That's actually great news.

I didn't know that. So they're actually, apparently, exporting a little bit of oil finally. And so that's one reason you saw the oil prices dip a little bit in the last, in the last day or two. But the last time that Iran and the U.S. exchanged, Tifert, Iran, we hit Iran, and then they responded within like an hour with a huge attack and particularly hitting the base in Jordan, I had thought, and there was reporting that night that we had expended something like 50 ballistic missile interceptors. It turned out, according to the IG, 70. Wow.

Those are like four million bucks a pop. And we have a limited supply of them. And we make them at a clip of dozens a year. Right. So this is not. So every time we go back to that well, that it's going to cost us enormously. And in terms of things that we can't replace earlier today, the Iranian struck an Emirati-flagged oil tanker that was trying to sneak through. So despite the U.S. having unleashed hell all along the coastline of the Strait of Hormuz,

with the goal of making it impossible for Iran to continue to control it, just today they struck another tanker. So it's not going well for us. Now, they've sanctioned all the airlines and they're, and they're, so they're, they're trying to choke the economy out. But I don't know of an example ever of a country that is at war surrendering because of economic hardship. We gave Iraq chemical weapons to use against Iran in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. Yeah. Come, I mean, just a little, like, brush up on history a little bit if you're serving the American people and making decisions about the war and peace. But, you know, maybe he can't be bothered with that.

So let's talk a little bit about what the farmers are saying, because local news in multiple states, according to media matters, referenced a July report from a congressional joint economy committee's Democratic minority, which found that, farmers across the country spent $1.4 billion more on diesel fuel alone during this year's planting season than they did last year. That's a 63% increase for certain key crops. And that translates into a food crisis for the American people. Like that's what happens. Okay. So when J.P. Morgan puts out their analysis indicating that the first quarter of 2027 will, including, including food crisis for Americans, this is what they're referring to. Missouri anchor Ann Allred said on KSDK that according to that Congressional Committee report, Illinois farmers are paying $163 million more than they were in the last year. So a lot more than Indiana, that's higher than any other

state. Missouri is the 11th most expensive state up by $58 million. And I'm happy that the local outlets are giving the farmers a voice because otherwise we wouldn't hear from them at all. Florida cotton and peanut farmer Mickey Diamond told the W.E.A.R. reporter Claire O'Neill that probably an average day of harvest is 400 to 500 gallons a day of fuel. So the high price of diesel affects our bottom line considerably. O'Neill said that the cost to fill up is nearly $2 a gallon more than last year and fertilizer prices are also climbing. And Ryan, that's the other part of this that I don't think gets nearly enough attention. It's not just about our energy crisis, which is bad enough, but a third of the world's fertilizer transits through the Strait of Hormuz.

And so farmers are having to either spend a lot more money on fertilizer or they're having trouble even getting their hands on fertilizer. So that also feeds into the food crisis that analysts are warning about. Yeah, dropside, we have a reporter in Uganda, and he was telling us how throughout major parts of Africa, not only is fertilizer so expensive that people can't get it, but it also costs so much money to transport it because of energy prices, from where you pick it up to where you need it,

that even if you could afford the fertilizer, you can't afford to get it where you, you're going. And this is happening as the world has turned the bread basket, the world's bread basket, into a drone killing field of trench warfare. So we're going to see starvation. We're going to see unrest. People might forget that the Arab Spring and a ton of the other uprisings that happened around the time of the 2010s were about like liberal. and about corruption and democracy. But really, they were about food prices and energy prices.

And that and that was flowing out of the financial crisis that that fed that fed then this explosion of commodity prices in 2010 and 2011. And that created unrest all over the world because people were starving. And we're going to see that again. I think you're already starting to see it in some places. But I think you're going to see a lot more of it. And you know, in the U.S., this winter, in New England, people are trying to lock in their home heating oil, which that's how you do it in New England.

If you're a homeowner, you say, you call around now and you say, all right, let me lock in a price for the entire winter for what I'm going to pay for home heating oil. And the companies are telling people, you can't for the first time ever. You can't even lock in because we can't guarantee you what the price is going to look like or even if we're going to be able to maintain supply at this point. And home heating oil is basically a derivative of diesel. And so people are going to get smashed throughout the everywhere that uses home heating oil. A lot of kids are going to bed cold. Pipes are going to be bursting. It's going to be ugly.

And that's in a wealthy country. Like imagine the rest of the world. Well, look, let's look at the bright side. I always like to end on a positive note. At least we are fighting to ensure that Iran, a country, our president threatened to nuke yesterday during his UN General Assembly speech, will never obtain a nuclear weapon. They're too dangerous. They're too dangerous. Too important. Yeah. Yep. All right, we got to take a break. Let's do that when we come back.

We're going to talk a little bit about the upcoming midterms. Some of the normalized racism that we see in this country as it pertains to Muslims or anybody. who might be critical of what Israel's up to. We've got that and more coming up. Don't miss it. Shai Town's finest in our Twitch community says, I want Lena Con back. Yeah, like 50 of Lena Cons.

Okay, like that's what we need. We need more than just one Lena Con, unfortunately. Let's go to our YouTube members, starting with Bud Roland 1, Collins, and how many other establishment Democrats? By the way, like I don't want anyone to think the corruption issue only hits one party. Obviously, we have a problem with corruption on both sides of the political aisle.

And I'm really looking forward to that reporting in this ProPublica series. Metal Esquire says Anna is the boss. The world loves your journalism. Thank you. Give Ryan some love because his journalism is much more important. I usually cover his journalism on this show. Mark Francis says Trump will not ban diesel because this is a corporate capitalist country. Look, I think that is a factor in this.

I think the points that were raised in the segment we did are valid. And so it could lead to unintended consequences that end up harming American consumers rather than helping. Let's go to Maggie Ramirez, who says ICE agents need to be held accountable. And ICE as a law enforcement agency must be abolished. Yeah. I think now with so many untrained people hired, it's irredeemable. Sorry. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Kasparian and Ryan Grimm with you.

Ryan, there was a conversation that I really want to get your thoughts on. And it had to do with an important Senate candidate, okay, Abdul al-Said, who's been making the rounds, even putting himself in some hostile situations, including the podcast that we're about to hear from. Take a look. Do you understand why Jews such as myself find your description of what's happening? in Israel and in Gaza as a genocide as disqualifying. As a Jew, I find it entirely unfair and not accurate to describe what's happening in Israel as a genocide. My understanding of the definition of a genocide is the purposeful extermination of the people based on the religion, their ethnicity,

or their nationality. Would mass slaughter campaign be better? Would that be better for you? That was Scott Galloway, who grilled Democratic Senate candidate Abdul al-Said about his comments on Israel. committing a genocide, something that Israeli scholars have said is happening. But Ryan, I just, does he realize that there are Democratic voters who actually consider a candidate persona non grata if they don't consider what's happening in Gaza, a genocide? I think they do understand. I think they, I think he must understand that because it's become so apparent. Also, I think 40% I was on a panel today. with a guy from IMEU, and he was saying that a recent poll had 40% of American Jews saying it was a

genocide. So what are we talking about here? So it's 60, 40 even among American Jews. And if you're in the 40, that's disqualifying. I thought that his use of the word disqualifying was kind of the most offensive there. Agreed. It's like, look, you want to have a horrific opinion that I find appalling? Go ahead. But like to then add on top of that that if he doesn't share your horrific opinion, it is straight up disqualifying, that part, I don't know how you arrive at a certainty around that. And he also cut his definition off in whole or in part. Yes. Okay. So let me read the definition of genocide because either people just don't know what's considered genocide or they're intentionally particularly.

intending to be ignorant. So here's what it says. Pursuant to the genocide convention and the Rome statute, genocide is committed when one or more of the following five categories of underlying acts are committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part, let me read that again, or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group such as killing members, members of the group, seems like that's happening, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. That's happening. Deliberally inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Have you guys seen Gaza? Have you seen how level? Or the statements from the government. Exactly. We're, we're going to get to that. We are going to get to that. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the government. group. If you guys can remember, not only are pregnant women being killed, I mean, I think last weekend, there was a seven-month pregnant Palestinian woman who was killed by the IDF in Gaza. But aside from that,

there was a fertility clinic that was intentionally leveled by the Israelis. Yep. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Okay. So the acts need to be committed intentionally to constitute genocide and, well, the commission found punishable acts under four of the five categories for Israel. I'm talking about the United Nations Commission, which determined in September of last year that Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. The only one that they didn't have evidence for was forcibly transferring children. I agree with them on that. Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part Palestinians in the Gaza

Strip as a group. And look, as Ryan alluded to, the Israelis really aren't shy about what their intent is. And if you don't believe me, take a look at this. There's no shashmall, there's no water, ain't all is a ghan

we're in chayot in a time. These are some examples of the threats Israeli government

officials and army commanders issued to Palestinians in Gaza. As Ambassador Huckabby said if we're

practicing genocide we're surely doing a very bad job of it because we could have, you know, basically eliminated the entire population of Gaza,

but we went the other direction. You want a Palestinian? You want a media Jewish? The truth is, into the last hostage returns, we shouldn't even give water to the Gaza Strip. For a year and a half, we've been beating the hell out of Hamas. We're breaking Gaza apart, leaving it as a pile of rubble,

with total unprecedented destruction in the world, and the world still hasn't stopped us. The aim is to achieve the one and only required outcome. The conquest of Gaza, the annihilation of Hamas. It's not a soud. I'm shawlk, I think that's to make uprored in Gaza. All night, not only read, 40, not only those who are the same, there. There are people who are in life, they don't need to be able to live.

They're not people. They're all the nukvots, they're givoree, on the children, on the nashions, on the tinnocot of our. You'll hear you how they're minimum of minimum of minimum of tenu, but there's other something that have been to do.

Ornish mavette to the menhavit. But you know, Galloway's feelings were hurt. So, that disqualifies Abdul al-Said for telling the truth. Right, yeah.

And like I was saying, like, I get that some people are going to be in their feelings. Like, it's, that's a thing. Again, and I understand the historical context. But to then extend that, and say that I will have no grace for anyone else who looks at what Israeli leadership has said over the last three years and has done over the last three years and finds it to be genocidal and beyond the pale. You've lost your humanity at that point. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm going to

push back a little bit. I disagree with you. You don't get to invoke the Holocaust where, these disgusting, inhumane, brutal acts were committed against Jews, against the Roma, against so many different groups of people. You don't get to invoke that as a cover for what Israel is doing now. Because Israel is doing the same thing, right? I agree, but what I mean is I understand it. Yeah. I don't agree with it, but I understand it as a human being. So do you think people like Galloway just don't know what's going on in Gaza? No, he knows. I think he's filled with an extraordinary amount of fear and hatred. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to end on this. This is an Israeli scholar. His name is Amos Goldberg.

And he's a professor of genocide studies. I think it's important to hear from him. Let's watch. First of all, let me say that I am not alone, of course. Most of those of those of the experts, Ligon or otherwise genocide, historians, sociologists, others who expressed their views on this topic, said it is a genocide. Many did not say a word, but from those who expressed their views, the overwhelming majority said it is a genocide. And so this puts some weight on this claim because those are very, of course, some of the worst well-known and articulate a historian of the Holocaust like Omar Barthorv, Seagal and others, but also legal experts. Like the one who is considered number one in the field, William Shabbas, who actually wrote the

fundamental textbook of the film. At a certain point, particularly after the starvation of 2025, he said openly that it is the strongest case of genocide that was brought to any international court. Just keep that man away from Galloway, you know? It's a difficult truth. Yeah, he'd be disqualified, exactly. All right, let's move on to something entirely different. I want to talk about Troy Jackson. And I got to be honest with you, Ryan, after what I believe was a very, very dirty act against Platner.

Who, by the way, I wasn't even fired up about that race because I just, I'm so blackpilled on elections and, you know, oh, elections are so important. Just vote harder. Everything's going to change. Nothing changes. Everything gets worse. Again, I don't want to discourage people from voting. It's important to vote. It's like the only way you get your voice heard at this point. But I believe, like, I can't stand in justice. And personally, I think that you should provide actually at least some evidence when you're going to accuse someone of something as serious as forcible rape. So like the whole Troy Jackson replacing Platner thing, I was salty about it. However, I'm even saltier now knowing what the consultants are up to. So let's get to the details on this story. Troy Jackson, who happens to be

the Democratic Senate candidate who replaced Graham Platner in Maine, is now apparently besie. by an army of democratic consultants who are advising him to soften his tone on what I believe is the genocidal terrorist state of Israel. Now, I personally don't think it's a good idea to soften your tone on that issue. But nonetheless, Jackson is currently a state senator. He actually served as the president of the state senate for six years. He's also a logger. So he had a normal job. He lived in the real world, doing real world things prior. to running for the Senate seat. Now, among his accomplishments as a state lawmaker, he was able to pass a law that provided universal free meals to every student in the Maine public school system.

And he also served as Bernie Sanders' political director for the state of Maine in 2016. So he's a good candidate. Now, Jackson is described fondly as someone who reliably showed up to help Maine residents, even if it put him at odds with. the Democratic establishment in the state. But now the Democratic establishment is in his house, okay? And they're giving him advice that I can't wait to hear your commentary on. But in the frenzied shuffle to like fill the void that was left by Graham Platner, basically his campaign brought on these establishment friendly consulting firms. And New York Magazine explains that these consultants are in fact trying to get him to distance himself from Platner as much as possible.

avoid saying Platner's name whenever possible. An internal document tells him. Other campaign documents tell Jackson to moderate his positions on Israel and Chuck Schumer. So when asked about whether he thinks Israel carried out genocide in Gaza, internal campaign documents instruct him to say, quote, no matter what you're comfortable calling it, I think we can all agree this is senseless violence. As if like Democratic voters can't see through that, they can see through that. And when it comes to Schumer, apparently the consultants had him travel to D.C. to have this, like, awkward meeting with him.

And the reason why they did this is because a week earlier, Troy Jackson had declared that if he gets elected, he would not support Schumer as the Senate majority leader, should the Democrats take the Senate. Internal campaign documents recommended that if asked about the meeting, Jackson should tell reporters that he was impressed. with how he cared about the same issues I care about, like healthcare and fighting for working people. I just, there's more, but I, Ryan, your thoughts. This will send you even further around the bend. So I also got my hands on the document that Rebecca Traster was referencing there. And the fuller quotes are even worse when it comes to,

there's one on Medicare for All where they don't have them back off of Medicare for All, but basically they frame it as in a much weaker version. But the one on Israel, here I'll read to you what he's supposed to say when he's asked about the genocide comments. It says, start with, I've said what I've said. Do not sound like you're walking back the previous position and do not invite an argument over semantics. But don't repeat it.

So it's such a great DC consultant line. I've said what I've said. Yeah, it's like obviously true. You've said what you've said. Does that mean you still believe it? Let's just leave it and I've said what I've said. Then he's supposed to go on to say this. I think what's happening in Israel and Palestine is horrific, senseless violence.

I think Israel has the right to defend itself, but I do not support the United States sending offensive weapons that enable more killing. This is like months ago. It's like a year old position. So they're advising him to say things that would literally piss off both sides of the Gaza genocide debate. Yes. And then they tell him to call for, quote, the release of the hostages.

He got the nomination in July. There are no Israeli hostages. These are the people who get paid a ton of money to do consultants. Tens of millions. They will walk out of Maine with three. tens of millions of dollars in their pockets. Okay. So, what hostages?

What? What hostages? The only hostages are the Palestinians. Yes. Without charge. And I guarantee you they do not mean them. Thousands of them. But this offensive weapons, it's like, what?

Now, I don't think he said that out loud. Because if he did, I think somebody would. Now, he has said a bunch of word salad nonsense that has really angered a lot of people in Maine. I don't think he's done the offensive weapons thing. So hopefully he has enough sense where he was like, yeah, I don't know about that. Why can't he just?

Okay, this is a genuine question. And I'm very ignorant about how campaigns work. I've never looked into it for myself. I'd never have any interest in running. But like, I've always been very curious about the whole notion of hiring consultants. So if you're like some robot who's not really interested in being a public service, but you want a position of power. I can understand hiring consultants. Like you've never really thought deeply about these issues. Troy Jackson, based on what I've read about him, seems to be an

individual who has his own individual thought. He uses common sense. He's his own person. And it seems to have taken him pretty far politically in the state of Maine. So why exactly does he need to hire these consultants in the first place? So it's an interesting question. And so basically I think what I, my understanding talking to a lot of people about this is that you have to think about what his career has been. Yes, he was the president of the Senate. That's not that huge position, you know, relative to United States Senator. He has an associate's degree. He'd be the first one in the Senate, the only one in the Senate to have just an associate's degree. He finished third in the gubernatorial. election. It was very close, and he and Platner ran together, but he ended up finishing third, and then he's done. He's like, that was it. You know, I'm done with this. Platner volunteers then basically effectively get him the nomination because he and Plattener campaigned together. They had similar politics. And so all of a sudden, he's the nominee. And he was unwilling,

He had an opportunity at the moment to pick up basically the Platonor infrastructure. But because of the environment and the climate around Platner, they were canceling. They were trying to cancel like Dan Osborne in Nebraska because he had the same consultants as Graham Platner. That's so crazy. That's crazy. The McCarthyist, like, blast radius of that moment was coast to coast. And he didn't stand up to it. So now he basically has, you know, he could go out and try to build his own campaign,

but they're on the fly. Like, you know, they're weeks away from ballots going out. And so in come these Washington consultants. And interpersonally, I can tell you, like, these are very alpha, like, impressive, persuasive people. Like, they get you in a room. Like, they're going to pick your pocket and you're not going to see it coming. And so he's like, wow, these guys really know what they're doing. They won this race.

They won that race. Now, he's got consultants from Dan Goldman, who lost his house race. He's got consultants from Mallory McMorrow who lost her Senate race. God. Got consultants from Colin Allred who lost. So like there actually, he could have been like, wait a minute, I'm seeing a lot of L's. Right.

Right. Here. Like, where's the guys that did the W in Maine like a couple weeks ago? Let's get them. But he didn't. And so then once he's locked in, then they start sending him to all these fundraisers. And this answers your other question about Israel. He is not something from what I understand.

who has, who is steeped in like Israel, Palestine. And he's a very genuinely working class person. Like out of high school, he goes, he's been logging. People like that, and people like me, I didn't learn about what's going on in Israel until basically college. Like it's not in a working class, poor area. It's just not something that is talked about. Well, Ryan, that's probably different today.

I mean, at this moment, because of what's happening in Gaza, just the Middle East in general, Right. But so what this does is it puts him in community and in contact with all of these Zionists who are super pro-Israel, but are really good people. And they're giving him money. And they support humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. And they support a two-state solution. And they're just, it really hurts them when they hear the word genocide. And they just want him to understand that. And they're not asking him for anything. They just want him to understand how hurtful it is because of their history. And it gets to him. Like, that. That's so, but it's very manipulative from the consultants because they know exactly what they're doing. And then when they come in with their talking points, they hear, he's hearing the echoes of what he's getting at the fundraisers. And then you wind up with this word salad. I mean, it makes me question whether these consuls, because like Kamala Harris, I remember a Kamala Harris who was able to communicate. rather effectively. Like she wasn't a word salad communicator previously.

So this story is making me wonder whether her consultants were filling her head with so many crazy thoughts that she would just didn't have the confidence to campaign the way that she would campaign otherwise. I don't think these consultants are helpful. I think that what Americans are responsive to right now on both sides of the political aisle is genuine authenticity. And I don't think you can be authentic. if you're literally paying a consulting firm tens of millions of dollars to tell you what to say.

Like it's just, it's going to come across as it authentic. And look, the campaign's coaching on certain subjects is pretty evident in how he's been campaigning. So at a town hall in September, Jackson offered up a word salad to your point. This is Graphic 5 to undercut his previous position on the genocide in Gaza. quote, watching people on both sides of the issue not being able to live in peace with their family, it's horrific. I had to reach out to a lot of people to get more educated on the issue, but I will say that both sides, Gaza and Israel deserve to be there, be protected. And then at a town hall for seniors, Jackson opened with, quote,

I believe we need to get rid of ice, which drew massive applause, but his mumbled follow-up, something about needing to make sure people, people in our country are not sex trafficking, felt forced and garbled and was met with cold silence. So I have a question that might sound a little wacky, but given the way Democrats or the Democratic establishment has been treating Abdul al-Said, like the Democratic nominee for a Senate seat in Michigan, do you think there's a possibility that there's intentional sabotage taking place here? Well, what I think is happening is it's a financial heist of epic proportion.

They're going to walk away with an extraordinary amount of money. And I also think what they're trying to do is make sure that he does not go into Congress as a populist. They want him to win as a basically corporate cutout so that when they need something from him, they're going to call me like, hey, we were the ones that raised you $50 million and got you the Senate seat. Like, this billionaire tax that Bernie wants you to sign on to, like, is that really such a great idea? You know, it's going to cost jobs, yada, yada, yada.

And you don't want that. And so it's, it's, it's, they tried, you know, getting Janet Mills through in the primary, lost that. Then they got platinum out. Then they tried to get a centrist candidate through. the nominating convention. They failed at that, George, Troy Jackson instead. So then they surround him with consultants to try to pull him in. And so they're, it's, you know, they're never giving up. And that's what we're seeing. Plus, they're going to get insanely rich doing it. And by the way,

they're also advising him to stop doing town halls. Like it's some of the worst advice ever. But honestly, this story is a microcosm of a huge issue I've been having with just our whole. political system and this notion that like, oh, you don't like the way things are going, just vote harder. Like simply engaging electorally is not going to save us, okay? That's not me saying don't vote. That's me saying we need to do war. Okay, there needs to be an effective outside pressure campaign that's well organized to ensure

that these people are held accountable, that they're accountable to us, like the voters, as opposed to the consultants, corporate interests, and what have you. So it's just incredibly frustrating. And, you know, I think the Democratic establishment near a Tandon in particular, like, why is she back? I feel like she disappeared for a while. But now all of a sudden, it's like she was working in the White House. It's like somebody hire her to do one of those jobs where she can't. I remember that.

You're right. You're doing real things all day long, like actually doing like policy work. I have never seen a Democrat more thirsty. to sink a Democratic candidate's like Senate seat or campaign than near a Tandon. You know, she's just the worst. But anyway, we're running out of time. I'm going to read some comments. So let's do that in the last few minutes.

And then who knows, maybe some questions will be directed at you, Ryan. Let's go to Avenger Dragon who says they'll ban your account if you win too much. Oh, that's in regard to the gambling story that I covered earlier. Let's go to Damesh. The Trump administration does love to brag about how they're the kind of people who will target families. Then when a bunch of families get bombed by the American military, they swear it wasn't them. I know, it's pretty incredible. He'll threaten, again, he'll threaten Iran with nukes in the same speech where he's saying Iran can't have nukes because they're too dangerous and they can't be trusted.

It's just, it's wild. Winter's Scoop says, meanwhile, a Venezuelan man was shot in Austin, Texas, just one day of coverage. You know, I saw a headline about that literally like right before the show because I was reading a different ice-related story where ice, like, brutalized an American citizen on the streets. I didn't have enough time to read the details about the Venezuelan man who was shot by ice in Texas. It's just there's so many of these stories every day. And we do a two and a half hour show, Ryan. And every day it is a battle to figure out like how many of these stories can I fit into the show. And I always feel like I'm doing a bad job because, yeah, we should cover the Venezuelan man who was shot.

I feel the same way. Yeah, and our breaking points is like two hours. It needs to be four. I know. And you still wouldn't be able to cover everything you want to cover. It's crazy. Anyway, everyone go support DropSight News. Please subscribe to their substack if you haven't already. Breaking Points also has a newsletter. So subscribe to that as well. Ryan, you are an absolute joy to talk to.

Thank you for coming on the show and keep up the good work. Always a privilege to be on with you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. All right, everybody. We are going to head on over to our members-only bonus episode. Dave Smith joins us. I'm going to have him comment on some of the claims made by bed. Shapiro, including a claim he made just recently about how, no, Trump isn't losing support because of the Iran war. It's really over his tariffs. It's just amazing.

Anyway, lots to get to in that hour. You don't want to miss it. We'll see you there. TYT.com slash join.