The Young Turks - Ken Klippenstein Interview - May 27, 2025

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month Shopify trial and start selling today at ⁠shopify.com/tyt Donald Trump floats taking federal funds from Harvard to give to trade schools, intensifying his war on elite institutions. In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu faces backlash from allies over the war in Gaza, while attention turns to a manifesto linked to the Israel Embassy shooter. Hosts: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jake Hugar, and a despairing with you guys. So lots of news as usual. And Donald Trump's at war with Harvard and Russia. And then the Democratic Party is at war with itself and words. So that's going to be interesting later in the program, which words make sense to use

and which words are verboten. Okay, so lots to get to super interesting stuff in the news. Casper, how you doing? I'm doing okay. I feel like you might be doing better than me. It appears you were hanging out with some European soccer stars over the break. Is that true? Well, if I look in the mirror, I suppose that would be true.

No, I was like, where do you get that I'm doing better? I am not. Okay, I went to, okay, just real quick here before we get into the news. I went on a benign Canadian podcast and got into a shouting match about Israel this morning. So I'm like, I just can't get away from this thing. With Canadians? I know. And it's called Canada land.

you guys should check it out. I had a perfectly good interview with them before and this one until we got to Israel at the end and I know. All right. Anyways, you guys will see what we put things up on t.com slash press for any outside interview that I do. And you know I know how things are. We can't win, right? The radical left says we're Zionist because we allow the Israeli position on our air. Folks who are defending Israel, his main criticism. He's a good guy otherwise. It just really set me off. Was that I criticize Israel too loudly. Well, I don't think we criticize Israel loudly enough. Israel is currently carrying out a literal genocide and brags about ethnic, ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if it offends you that we're too critical of what the powerful country of Israel is currently doing and victimizing, slaughtering and brutalizing innocent people in Gaza, sorry. Yeah, yes, it is making people uncomfortable. So I'm sorry to make you guys uncomfortable on both sides. I know you don't, we shouldn't have an open mind, we shouldn't hear both sides, and we shouldn't stick with the facts, and we shouldn't tell you what's actually happening. But nevertheless, we persist and we tell you what's actually happening with the real facts to back it up.

So let's start doing that now, Anna. Well, I wanted to actually start off with what you have. referenced earlier, Jank, because this war between Donald Trump and Harvard continues and it just heated up today. Billions of dollars has been paid to Harvard. How ridiculous is that billions? And they have $52 billion as an endowment. They have $52 billion. And this country is paying billions and billions of dollars and then give student loans and they have to pay back the loans. So Harvard's going to have to change its ways. President Donald Trump, who's still at war with Harvard, is now threatening to redirect its federal grants to trade schools instead. Now, writing on Truth Social, the president said, I am considering taking $3 billion of grant money away from a very anti-Semitic Harvard and giving it to trade schools all across our land.

Now, of course, he didn't provide any details on how he would do this. What are the details of which trade schools would get this money? What's his real reasoning and rationale for cutting these federal grants toward Harvard? He did make a good point in that video we just showed you in regard to the billions of dollars. Harvard, a private institution receives from the federal government, usually in order to carry out research and stuff like that. But at the same time, tuition is very high at Harvard. And they do accept a lot of foreign students.

They argue they do that because they want viewpoint diversity. I argue that they do that because they get to charge foreign students a lot more intuition. In fact, the percentage of foreign students that have been accepted to American universities across the board have really increased in recent decades because it's a huge cash cow for them. And sure, I'm willing to believe that they want to accept some foreign born students in order to have viewpoint diversity. But I think the financial reasoning is the main reason. But on that front jank, Donald Trump has banned basically the acceptance of foreign students across the board in American institutions. They want to essentially vet these students and their social media before accepting them into the country. I'm sure that that's going to be challenged in the courts.

A federal judge has already blocked what Trump tried to do in banning Harvard in admitting foreign born students. But it does seem like he's not going to give up on specifically targeting Harvard. And Harvard will continue with its lawsuits against the Trump administration. Yeah, I've never rooted for Harvard so much in my life. I've never rooted for Harvard at all before. And now I'm, you know, team Harvard because of this situation. So all right, first of all, the idea that Harvard is very anti-Semitic is hilarious. It's the funniest thing I've ever heard.

based on what, because they allowed a protest on their campus, which is exactly what you're supposed to do in college. And well, but it was against beloved Israel, of course, of course. That has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. It's not that some college campus protests didn't do anything wrong. Like they always like the pro-Israel side says, no, I found three instances on college campuses where they bullied or intimidated a Jewish student. Well, I hate that and I hope that that never happens, et cetera. So I can't say that it's never happened. I can't say that I'm not concerned about anti-Semitism on a college campus or anywhere

because does anti-Semitism exist in the world? Of course it does, right? But is it such a epidemic, swarming Harvard? Where Harvard, they're all just, all the students are about to put on clan robes and hoods and go after the Jews. That's how they make it look like. No, that's not at all what's happening. And that's not why they're taking this action.

No, they're taking this action because they got paid by the Israeli lobby to make sure that no one criticizes Israel. Now, that's the reality of it. But if you say that, they go, well, that's also anti-Semitic. You can't say things that are true like APAC was the number one donor to congressional members in this election cycle by a lot. $126 million just going directly to the Congress people, let alone the dark money, et cetera, et cetera. So apparently $126 million doesn't affect politicians at all.

That is the only reason why this is happening. By the way, Jews in America didn't ask for this anti-Semitism task force. The Jewish senators have written a letter to Trump saying, we don't want it, and we don't want you to attack Harvard like this. So it's not that Jewish Americans have asked for it. It's that Israel has asked for it, and Israel gets whatever it wants here in America, whether you have a Democratic or Republican president. I know you're not allowed to say that, even though it is obviously, obviously true.

Okay, and that's why Joe Biden gave a blank check to Israel to fund their genocide. That's what Donald Trump is doing likewise. That's why he's doing this crackdown. So now, if you watch other shows and they don't talk about why this is happening, which includes, I believe, literally 100% of mainstream media, they're lying to you about the cause. They're putting, they're helping Israel with their propaganda of pretending that they're concerned about anti-Semitism.

As by the way, if they were, there's three people who are driving anti-Semitism in this world more than anyone I have ever seen in my lifetime. Their names are Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben Gavir, and Smokic. Okay, so those three are driving anti-Semitism through the roof, through the roof. all across the globe, not some peace protesters at Harvard. I mean, who are you joking with? And then he's going to send the money to trade schools instead. Yeah, my ass, he is.

He isn't going to send them to any trade schools. That's just some populist, fake populist talk is always from Donald Trump. And I see, of course, they're very concerned about any kind of bigotry. Because you know how inclusive the Trump administration wants to be. and how they're so worried about racism and bigotry, right? They're showing that in all of their actions otherwise, right? And my God, the degree to which they are concerned about Islamophobia, which is obviously 10,000 times worse than anti-semitism in this country,

oh, am I sorry, am I allowed to say that? No, I know, I'm not allowed to say anything. I have to say the only thing we should care about is anti-Semitism. Screw the Muslims, screw everyone else. Who cares? They're not going to get a task force. They're not going to get congressional hearings. that nobody's shutting down Harvard over protecting Muslims.

Nobody cares about protecting Muslims. Okay, but we're supposed to believe that Donald Trump all of a sudden grew a soft spot in his heart for Jews and only Jews. And it's not the money he took from Israeli interests, a foreign government. But all of a sudden, he loves Jews in America. And he's really worried. In fact, he's thinking of doing DEI for Jews. Okay, no, none of that is true.

None of it is remotely true. It doesn't have anything to do with Jewish Americans. It has everything to do with a foreign government that has purchased almost all of our politicians. I think you're right about that you're right about that. Certainly Israel has quite a bit of influence on our politicians. And Donald Trump is even more transactional than most American politicians. brazenly so, overtly so he does as he's paid to do. But I think there's also another wrinkle

to the story or another factor that we should consider because clearly Christopher Rufo has had quite a bit of influence on the Trump administration's behavior or activity in response to university campuses, having curriculum that they don't like. So Christopher Rufo is the guy who is very active in the state of Florida, just as Ron DeSantis. was, you know, engaging in this assault on universities and college campuses that had curriculum that he didn't like. And so that, you know, same treatment is kind of now being expanded to other universities, specifically IVs at the moment. And Harvard has become a real target for Donald Trump because of the fact that Harvard is one of the institutions that's willing to fight back.

They've filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration. They're fighting against the Trump administration in regard to the ban on foreign students. And I want to just add one other detail that was reported today. So he claims he's going to redirect $3 billion in Harvard's federal grants to trade schools. But today he actually took even more specific action. So Trump asked several federal agencies to look into canceling $100 million in outstanding contracts with Harvard. And so before he made that announcement, And, you know, he says that he wants to, in addition to canceling these contracts, just do more vetting of foreign-born students who get visas here in this country.

Before he announced all of that, the head of Harvard had a sit-down interview with NPR. And during that interview, he kind of talked a little bit about some of the allegations against Harvard and how its curriculum doesn't really represent diverse viewpoints. So get a load of what Harvard President Alan Garber has to say about some of the critique coming from the Trump administration. The federal government is saying that we need to address anti-Semitism in particular, but it has raised other issues, including issues about speech. And it includes claims that we lack viewpoint diversity. There are also claims about failure to comply with law. concerning discrimination more generally.

For some of this, we have been very clear that we think we do have issues. And I would particularly emphasize the speech issues. We think it's a real problem. If particularly at research universities, students don't feel free to speak their minds. When faculty feel that they have to think twice before they talk about the subjects that they're teaching, that's a real problem that we need to address. So I actually really do commend Alan Garber for what he said there because I do think that that's been a bit of a problem on university campuses across the country.

At Harvard specifically, there was one professor, I don't believe he's there anymore, but his name is Roland Friar. And he wanted to look into discrimination and policing, and he started his research with the hypothesis that discrimination absolutely exists with policing. And so he was expecting the data to show that unarmed, you know, black Americans are more likely to be roughed up and shot by police. But through his research, he found out that while harassment of black Americans is certainly more common when it comes to policing, the shooting of unarmed black people is not disproportionately higher than that of the shootings involving unarmed whites or unarmed. you know, individuals of other backgrounds. That research was what it was.

And he got a lot of backlash from Harvard as a result of it. And yeah, so that kind of stuff does exist. I think that it's a problem when people engage in backlash when they see data that they don't like or they don't agree with. So the fact that the university's president is drawing attention to that and saying we need to do better is a good thing. But to your point, Jank, I definitely agree with you. I don't think this is really about anti-Semitism. I don't think Trump is like sitting around worried about viewpoint diversity on college campuses. I think he's retaliating against Harvard.

He's doing it aggressively. I think there are other influences that are motivating his backlash toward Harvard. And Harvard's fighting back. And he doesn't like that. He doesn't like that Harvard isn't just doing what he wants them to do. For instance, one of the things that Trump wanted, he requested or the government requested, the university's disciplinary records on foreign students, so students who are there with foreign visas, as well as video images of student demonstrations, requests that were part of a far-reaching list of demands

with which Harvard has only partially complied. And so since Harvard isn't just complying with anything that Trump wants, he continues targeting them and continues threatening them with more and more grant cancellations and cuts to federal funding. Yeah, first of all, I just looked it up because now, it just to prove the point, this doesn't have to do with anti-seventh-ism. Alan Garber is also Jewish American, okay? So if it was really about anti-Semitism, my guess is that he would also be deeply concerned. What is this actually about? It takes away $3 billion, and a lot of that is scientific research, most of it is.

So they were looking into cures for tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis, working on all those different kinds of projects, all those are now halted, all the medical research is halted until Israel is satisfied with how we are doing surveillance on their behalf. The part that bothers me the most is, okay, I want the student demonstrations, I want all their pictures. Remember, this isn't about, oh my God, does someone commit a crime? If someone committed a crime as an assault on a Jewish student, of course I want them locked up.

I don't want them just having an issue. If they committed an assault, they crossed the line, they were physical, they were violent. You gotta arrest that person, okay? By the way, that also applies to pro-Israel protesters who did significant violence at UCLA, and it was barely noted for the record, okay? So one guy finally got arrested after. People are like, are you're really not gonna arrest anyone? Their faces are right there, and they clearly attack with sticks and weapons, et cetera.

They're like, yeah, but it is the pro-Israel side. I mean, we can't, I mean, that side is sacred. They could say the most terrible things about Muslims, call all of them terrorists. No one cares. They could beat up innocent students, no one cares. But oh my God, Israel's been offended, take pictures of everyone. And because remember, it isn't it just about that kind of legal action? There are people that have said, some billionaires that have said that if, that they're

taking names from those demonstrators and not based on people who did anything either violent or even any kind of speech they didn't like. If you're at a peace protest, they're saying they will never hire you on Wall Street. They've got a blacklist, I'm not saying it, they're saying it. And I think they, and by the way, you think you're fighting anti-semitism when you do that? You drive up anti-Semitism when you loudly declare we have a blacklist for anyone who opposes Israel and will destroy your career if you're going to Columbia, Harvard or anywhere else. If you dare protest against Israel, Jesus Christ, what are you doing? That is terrible for America, the Palestinians, but also for Israel and Jews.

So okay, now my guess is that what's going to happen is he said, I said no more foreign students, okay? How much does somebody want to bet that Israeli students will be ledded? But they'll be like, well, of course, I mean, if you're from Africa, I'm gonna take you Middle East, you're instantly better, I don't even want to listen to you, okay? Everywhere else is banned, Israeli students, or come right in, come right in. Look, it hasn't happened yet, and maybe I'm wrong, and then you'll get to say, Jake, you were wrong. Okay, and is this veting for America?

Like, oh, the students coming in, we're going to vet them, he says. So if you're a foreign student applying here, man, we're going to go through your social media and all of your life and find out how dangerous you are. To America? No, to Israel. We're going to see if you criticize Israel at all, and then we're going to ban you from Israel? No, from America. Guys, this is a freaking joke. None of this has anything to do with anti-Semitism. So it doesn't mean that people aren't legitimately worried about anti-Semitism as Israel is committing atrocity after atrocity after atrocity. And then having the Israeli lobby stand up and do standing

ovations for terrorists like Netanyahu in our Congress. Is that making people mad? Yes, it's making people mad. Okay, and so I'm worried about the rise of anti-semitism. I'm also worried about the rise of Islamophobia, but I'm the only one in the country, other than other Muslims. But this is, that is not the main issue at all, that is 100% a lie. The main issue is the Israeli lobby has told their dog Donald Trump, you are to arrest, hound, and kick out of the country, anyone who dares to disagree with the terrorist government of Israel. And any time an administration engages in this type of overreach when they attempt to censor or punish either a group of people or an institution for not carrying out whatever it is they want to carry out or doing exactly what they want to do.

When the government becomes too big, well, the next incoming administration, which could be a Democratic administration, could target conservative universities because those exist. And I don't want to live in that kind of world. I don't want to live in a kind of world where any presidential administration that's politically motivated starts targeting universities that don't do as he or she says. That's when government has become too big. So I think the administration has really opened a Pandora's box here. Let's see what the future holds. But for now, Harvard's fighting back. And really, it's the only institution, only university that's been fighting back. Yeah, okay, I just last two things.

Just on your point about language, Anna, if you're on a college campus, you've got to hear everyone out. So I don't want to ban pro-Israel positions. I don't want to ban anti-Israel positions, pro-Saudi, anti-Saudi, pro-this, anti-that. I don't care. And this applies just as much to the left as it does to the right. And let's be honest and real, more to the left than it does on the right on college campuses, okay? Okay, no, you don't need a safe space.

You need a safe space for physical harm, that's fine, okay? You don't need a safe space from language, grow up, okay? Oh my God, they hurt my feelings. I don't, can't stand that when someone says that about. criticism of Israel, I also can't stand that when someone says it about criticism of anything. Like I mean, Jesus Christ, the criticism of Muslims is like a tsunami in America. If I was like debilitated by that or any Muslim in America was depilitated by that, we couldn't function, right? Just let's go, let's go. You address speech with other speech. You don't

melt, you don't need a safe space, especially on a college campus. You need to be. You need to hear each other out no matter how much it offends you. And that's why we have these conversations on the air here. And lastly, if you were truly concerned about anti-Semitism, and there are a lot of people who are truly concerned about anti-Semitism, the number one thing you would do is what? Shut down criticism of Israel or fight to make sure that Netanyahu loses power in Israel, because there's no one on planet Earth driving anti-Semitism as much as Netanyahu. If you're a logical person, that is not a close question.

You would do everything in your effort to make sure that Netanyahu is out of power in Israel. And you would do everything in your power to get a two state solution because occupying and other people in a horrific fashion for 58 years is not causing, helping the cause of eradicating anti-Semitism. Two states that are perfectly safe and independent would, then we could all go back to cheering for both of those states, Palestine and Israel. And wouldn't that be a beautiful world with a lot less anti-Semitism and a safe Israel? That's what you would do if you were a logical person really worried about anti-Semitism.

But if you're not really worried about that, you just want everybody to shut up about Israel. Then you would say, oh, I am so concerned about anti-Semitism. We must arrest anyone who criticizes Israel. Yeah, that's not America, man. Go find another country. That's not America. And Donald Trump is un-American for trying to limit our speech on college campus or anyone else. And every time that he talked about, oh, freedom of speech, freedoms, I want to be able to be racist.

I want to be able to say the N-word. I want to be able to say all these terrible, bigoted things. Oh, now all of a sudden I'm really worried about offending people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my ass you are. You're un-American, you hate freedom of speech, and you never believed in it. And the minute you criticize Trump, you'll find out how much he hates freedom of speech. I'm going to sue you. I'm going to shut you down. You hurt my feelings. I'm so sick of the right not recognizing how pathetically weak Donald Trump is. All right, young Turks.

You're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus. IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. All right, back on T.YT.Jank, Anna and Joe G. Joe, thanks for signing up through that join button below on YouTube. We appreciate you.

And I'm just going to read one comment here that I think is spot on for the last story we did. Wang Jun wrote in from the t-y-t.com member section. Until they censor and deport a clan member, there's no way in hell they'll ever commit me. They're against anti-Semitism. Yeah. Oh, by the way, there was neo-Nazis in Charlottesville who said the Jews will not replace us. Are we looking at to do investigations of them? No, freedom of speech.

freedom of speech very fine people on that side but oh you criticize Israel and you're even Jewish oh I am very concerned about anti-Semitism I will now punish you severely yeah yeah yeah nothing to do with anti-semitism all right Anna well let's talk a little bit about how Israel is losing support from some of its closest allies Israel's military says it attacked what it called key terrorists here in Gaza city and took steps to to stop civilians getting hurt, but children were killed. It was horrific, says one displaced mother, pulled from the rubble with her son. It was indescribable.

Body parts, charred bodies, the smell of burning. I swear to God, our hearts have died. We're shaken, we're exhausted, enough. At least 54 Palestinians were killed in a single Israeli airstriety. Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. The airstrike targeted a school that had turned into a shelter for displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Now it looks like Israel's brutal acts against the Palestinian people has finally led to its closest allies on the international stage, really questioning whether they want to continue supporting Israel and what it's doing.

Now before we tell you which countries are now saying that Israel has gone way too far, We should hear from the former Israeli prime minister. His name is Aoud Olmert, who recently published a piece in Haretz, where he admits that he was actually wrong about Israel's objectives. And while he's been critical of Israel's military acts in Gaza in the past, he was unwilling to call it a genocide or unwilling to claim that Israel was committing war crimes. What does he think now? Well, you're about to find out. He writes that recent operations in Gaza have nothing to do with legitimate war goals. The government sends our soldiers and the military obeys to wander around Gaza City,

Jabalia and Khan Yunus neighborhoods in an illegitimate military operation. This is now a private political war. Its immediate result is the transformation of Gaza into a humanitarian disaster area. He continues to write that over the past year, harsh accusations were voiced worldwide against the Israeli government and its military's conduct in Gaza, including accusations of genocide and war crimes. In public debates in Israel and on the international arena, I've rejected such accusations firmly. I claimed firmly and with conviction, in no case did a government official give orders to hit Gaza's civilians indiscriminately.

In recent weeks, I've been no longer able to do so. What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation, indiscriminate, limitless, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians. It's the result of government policy, knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly, dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes. He then lists specific reasons why he believes that Israel is committing war crimes, including the intentional starvation of Gaza's civilians,

Many are now dying from starvation. He writes that Israeli cabinet ministers headed by crime boss Benjamin Netanyahu are actively unhesitating, are actively and with malice, a forethought are pursuing a policy of starvation and humanitarian pressure with potentially catastrophic results. I believe the government of Israel is now the enemy from within. no external foe we've fought against over the past 77 years has caused greater damage to Israel than what the Itamar Ben-Gavir, Netanyahu, and Basilel Smotrich-led government has inflicted on us. And look, this guy used to be a prime minister in Israel, and he's also overseen war crimes against Palestinians

under his own leadership, but apparently the war crimes that Israel is now engaging in go too far even for him, which is kind of incredible. Yeah, so Ehud Olmer is an really interesting guy. Was he, you know, militant in the past against Palestinians? Yes. In a way, I suppose that gives them even more credibility, although I, you know, I don't like thinking about it that way. But is he someone who is genuine and is trying to help Israel by making sure that they don't do these egregious war crimes, which is turning the whole world against them? Yes. Is he also trying to help Palestinians to some degree? But I don't question his motives.

I think that he's right. If you want to help Israel, get them to stop this war, get the criminal thug terrorists that are running it right now out of the government. and bring back sanity. And this is not a new opinion now that he's saying these things. If you've been watching the Young Turks, you've heard me say many, many times, the one peace offer that was real and that the Palestinians should have taken was the one that Ehud Omer made when he was prime minister in 2008. That was a deal that was good enough to take.

I wish to God that Palestinians had taken it. Now, he currently has another peace plan offer that he's worked with a former Palestinian foreign minister on, it's a terrific solution, there's nothing wrong with it. By the way, the Arab coalition also has a plan that is also perfectly good, where they come in. Look, to be clear, nothing is perfectly good, right? But is it infinitely better than Israel's solution of ethnic cleansing and genocide? Yes, does it exist? Yes, and so the Arab coalition says, we'll pay for it, and we'll drive Hamas out.

So you don't have to worry about any of that, as long as we get on a road to two-state solution. But Omer is right, the current Israeli government does not want a two-state solution. They want Israel from the river to the sea. They want greater Israel, and they have maps of it. And they talk about how they're going to conquer Gaza, and they're thinking of taking parts of other countries as well. Southern Lebanon, western Syria. This is an imperial empire that is, does not mind doing ethnic cleansing or genocide at all. Now, this is again, not about Israel being the enemy.

This is about this current government of Israel that is doing these horrific war crimes and that believes in having an imperial empire and stealing their neighbors' lands and invading them and killing them and indiscriminately killing civilians to be able to grab more land of conquest. And now the word conquest is directly from the Israeli cabinet. They are flat out admitting that this is about conquest and not about self-defense. And so I appreciate Omar's comments on this. And now we're gonna tell you about the Europeans who are way, way late. They are terribly, unconscionably late to criticizing Israel.

Of course, America's dead last and totally controlled by Israel. Anna, tell us about the European reaction. Yeah, so let me just comment on what you just said because, yeah, they are very late. And I don't know what the catalyst was for all. all of these European leaders coming out and finally saying, okay, enough is enough. Because it's not like Israel's conduct was okay for the last, you know, 19 months. The conduct was terrible from the very beginning. In the very beginning of this war, Israel would tell Palestinians, okay, we're going to start bombing in the north.

So we're going to need you to evacuate to the south. And as they were evacuating to the south, the IDF was targeting them and bomb. them. Let's not forget that. That's not new. That didn't just start happening this week. That happened from the very beginning of this war. Okay. Now with that in mind, let's no, hold on. Let me get to Germany real quick. But the German chancellor suddenly grew a set. Okay. Friedrich Merz says that these recent strikes on the Gaza Strip can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas. he told a broadcaster WDR in a televised interview, quote, harming the civilian population to such an extent as has increasingly been the case in recent days. No, not recent days. This has been the case from the very beginning, but nonetheless, he continues, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism. I no longer understand what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, with what goal the civilian population is being impacted to such an extent. I could buy you a clue.

The times, hold on, the Times of Israel reports that while the chancellor plans to have a call with Netanyahu to urge him to not overdo it, take it easy, take it easy. He also made clear that he's very guarded and his criticism toward Israel due to historical reasons. Okay, are we going to use the Holocaust as the excuse for never criticizing Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing and genocide? Really? How ridiculous is that? The government of Israel is not a symbol of all Jews, okay? You can criticize a foreign government, especially as they're slaughtering innocent people at a large scale. But okay, anyway. So I think that's part of the reason why Germany has basically been supporting Israel almost as aggressively as the United States government does. Now, the U.S. government does it for corrupt reasons. I guess Germany does it because they don't want to. to draw any attention to the fact that they carried out a Holocaust that persecuted and

slaughtered Jews, you know, decades and decades ago. But you don't have to attach those two situations to what's happening right now and what's being carried out by the Israeli government at this very moment. You know, you could be on the wrong side of history twice, but maybe that's what the chancellor is worried about here. Anyway, Israel's most prominent enabler is the the United States and the Times of Israel also reports that Donald Trump had a heated phone call with Netanyahu in which Netanyahu wanted to bomb Iran and Donald Trump pushed back. I'm not gonna give anyone any credit until I actually see some real action in holding Israel accountable for what's currently going on. I have no doubt that Netanyahu wants the US to go to war with Iran on its behalf, on Israel's behalf. But let's just wait and see what happens. Yeah. So no, no, Trump, and Netanyahu are potentially fighting over whether we're going to go to war with Iran. And, you know, I'll give Trump credit for this. He's the first U.S. president in my lifetime to not immediately follow an Israeli order.

Like, he's at least pausing for a second because it's so harmful to the U.S. and to his anti-war stance and to make America great again, that he's paused. I mean, he's followed Israel's orders on everything else. If you criticize Israel in America, he'll arrest you, deport you, et cetera. But on that one, he's paused for saying, okay, now let's talk about the Germans. So because of historical reasons. But okay, wait, let's break that one down. So did Germany do the Holocaust? Yes.

Was Holocaust one of the worst things in world history, if not the worst? Yes. Okay. So, but the idea that came out of that was never again. Did they think just never again for only one ethnic group? I guess. I guess that's what they meant because if you believe that as you have a certain responsibility as the German government to make sure that it that things like genocides never happen again, then you would be opposed to the Israeli government. You wouldn't be backing the Israeli government. So it's like have Jews been victims throughout world

history? Yes. So then I thought okay, who's another group? There's many other groups, But let's pick one that's also been victimized throughout history, Poland, constantly brutalized by the Germans, the Russians, the Germans, right? And during the Holocaust, millions of Poles were killed by the Nazis, right? So since Poland has that history, if Poland now decided to occupy a part of the Czech Republic and say, well, it doesn't matter, we're going to occupy them for 60 years, because now we get to because we're the special victims. And by the way, we're going to slaughter 53,000 of them, including over 16,000 children. But you're not allowed to criticize us because we're Polish. So never again, never again.

So I can do whatever I want to others. That would make no sense at all. But when it's applied to Israel, everyone pretends that it makes sense. If you care about Holocaust and genocide and ethnic cleansing, you would be opposed to Israel. you would not be in favor of this current government of Israel. That's just logic, unless you're super biased or, you know, other influences like lobbyists, et cetera. And Anna, to your question about what changed, that's why I tried to almost jumped in there. So you're right.

Remember, and you pointed this out last week, and I've now said it in like two or three other interviews. In the beginning of the war, there was a hospital that was hit. And every pro-Israel supporter was like, oh, my God, I could you say it was us. Israel's so moral. We would never hit a hospital. You all have to retract it. You all have to apologize to Israel, right? They've destroyed every Israel in Gaza now. Every single hospital has been bombed by the IDF in Gaza. Every single one of them. So can I?

One of the pediatric, hold on, one of the pediatric doctors in Gaza was working in the emergency room, attempting to save lives last week as the charred bodies of children showed up to the emergency room. She soon realized that those seven charred bodies were her children, her children. She later found out that two more of her children were killed in their family home as a result of an IDF airstrike. Only one of her 10 kids remains alive, okay, in critical condition in a hospital as we speak, an 11-year-old boy. Her husband was also critically injured and is currently in the hospital as well. Single airstrike almost wiped out her entire family as she was in the emergency room attempting to save other people's lives.

That's what's currently transpiring in Gaza right now. But, you know, the chancellor should be real careful about what he has to say in critiquing the IDF and its conduct in the Gaza Strip, you know, because history. Yeah, no, it's because power. Israel has power that Palestinians don't. That's why they're getting slaughtered. And by the way, those nine dead kids of that doctor, they were not killed. They were murdered by Israel. They were murdered. The former prime minister is telling you, we're indiscriminately killing civilians. That is what terrorists do. There's no question about it. They remember they said, as to Anna's point earlier, oh, that's okay, we're going to gently move them to the south because we're looking to protect them. because Israel is the most moral army and they would never kill any civilians.

We're just going to move them to Con Unis. They've destroyed Con Unis. They've destroyed the entire South. They bombed the hell out of every civilian area in Gaza. Yes, they are murdering civilians on purpose. It is super obvious what's happening. Okay, and lastly, so why did they move? All the hospitals, all the schools, all the death and destruction, didn't move the Germans, the French, etc. They're still sitting there, you know, licking the boots of the Israeli government.

So why did they finally move? Because their entire populations are now like, are you guys serious? You're going to let them starve two million people to death? And so they were on the brink of starvation. And that's when the European governments rebelled. And by the way, that is when Smotrich put out the statement that we read to you last week, where he said, it turns out this is bad optics. He said, I would love to not only starve them to death, but I would like to deny them water so it's quicker and they die from dehydration.

But it turns out we're going to lose money, the thing that, you know, the only thing that Smotrich Ben-Gavir and Netanyahu apparently care about from the outside world, and approval, and approval. So we're going to, and he said this. We're just going to bring them to the brink of starvation, but don't let them starve so that the idiot Europeans can follow our orders like dogs. Okay, yes, I'm adding colorful language there. But you can go see his own quote where he says, I would like them to die of dehydration, but we have to bring them to the brink of starvation so that the world doesn't turn against us. And lets us finish the job, apparently the final solution for Gaza, and either kill or remove every Palestinian from Gaza and steal that land. So you can look up Smokritch's words and see it exactly for what they are. He's a genocidal

maniac and the German leader just figured out, oh, we might not want to help a genocidal maniac. Thank you, Germany, for just figuring that out. Yeah. In addition to that, Canada and the United Kingdom are considering economic consequences for Israel due to what's currently transpiring in Gaza. French leader Emmanuel Macron wants to review the European Union's association with Israel, including its trade deals. And finally, you have the prime minister, of Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy co-signing onto what Macron has to say. So many of Israel's Western allies are now taking a good hard look at what's happening in Gaza. They're like, we don't really want to be on the wrong side of history in the case of Germany again. So we'll

see how this really plays out. Right now, it just seems like threats. Israel remains undeterred. We'll see how this story develops. For now, we got to go because when we come back, Ken Clippenstein joins us for his incredible reporting on Elias Rodriguez. That was the moron who decided to shoot to, you know, embassy staffers in D.C. last week. We've got more on that when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank Hugar, Anna Kasparian, with you guys. We've got a lot of great interviews for you guys coming up. We got Representative Gil Cisneros, a really interesting backstory.

That's at 8 o'clock Eastern tonight. Representative Roe-Connor is a really interesting project in Congress. He'll be on tomorrow at 8 o'clock Eastern. But right now we've got a different guest for you guys, and Anna's got that. Yep. All right. Well, joining us to talk about Elias Rodriguez. the young man who ended up shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C.

is independent journalist Ken Clippenstein, who you should subscribe to over at Substack. He is the first journalist who obtained the manifesto of the shooter, published it, and has faced some consequences and some intimidation tactics as a result. Ken, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, guys, good to be back. So good to have you. Ken used to be a colleague here at TYT was one of our reporters, but he has moved on and is breaking some incredible stories over at Substack. So Ken, I wanted to start off by asking you about the manifesto itself.

So you obtained the manifesto and you made the decision to publish it. And I think you have a good reason for why you want to publish it. Explain that reason and talk to us a little bit about why other journalists were unwilling to publish it. Yeah, we're several days past this. It's clear now that that manifesto is authentic. CNN's chief law enforcement intelligence correspondent said that his senior intelligence sources are saying that it's authentic. Basically, everybody knows it.

But it's this weird kabuki of pretending, oh, you know, they haven't, FBI hasn't verified it yet. So we can't put it out there. The reason that I think it's important to put it out there is not for the shock value. I've never been somebody that wants to do, you know, I don't watch true crime. I find it distasteful. The reason I think it's important is because if you don't put out an account like this, once you have it verified, and I spent several hours talking to people in order to make sure that it was authentic and it was what it appeared to be, if you don't put that out, that just creates an information vacuum that is quickly filled with all kind of crazy conspiracy theories and speculation. And frankly, can you blame people when they're not given the information that they should have?

That they're going to come to their own conclusions and they're going to try to piece together some narrative about what happened. So I think that's the really important point to all of this is providing a consensus reality of like what exactly happened so that people don't have to, in their free time, guess what it is that took place, which invariably is going to happen. That's never not going to happen. So I think that's, first of all, the most important point. Second of all, in a story I published subsequent to the manifesto on the individual, I think giving people a better, more realistic, warts in all view of these individuals doesn't glorify them. It makes them look, I think, I didn't think he came off well at all in the series of interviews that I conducted and leaked chat messages that were given to me. And I think actually prevent people from romanticizing these figures and turning them into someone not human, if you could just see the very human, human details about their daily life. So I completely disagree with what is unfortunately the commonly held view that if we don't talk about this, the problem will just go away. Yeah, I agree with you. And in fact, sorry, Jake, real quick. We're going to get to some of those leaked messages that you reported on in just a moment. And you're right. I mean, he is not a likable guy. He obviously had some serious issues.

And I remember right after the shooting, all of these allegations of an alleged false flag were percolating all over social media. So putting this type of manifesto out there and making clear what this guy's motivations were, I think is really important. We'll get to some of the intimidation tactics you faced as a result of the federal government in just a moment. Jank, take it away. So that's what I want to get to. I want to come back to all the upsides and downsides of releasing the manifesto. But so the FBI shows up at your door. And what's their ostensible reason for coming in every?

So at first it's this sort of awkward back and forth where I'm just saying, you know, I can't talk to you guys, you need to contact my lawyer, give her my lawyer's information. They keep saying, you know, it's just for a few minutes. It's no big deal. We just want to ask you some questions. They keep saying you're not in trouble, which to a lay person is going to understand it to me, okay, that's no big deal. That doesn't mean you can't get in trouble once you start talking to them because, you know,

anything that you tell a federal FBI, an FBI agent, if there's an inaccuracy there, you can face charges for lying to the FBI, even if, you know, your recollection is wrong or whatever. So I don't want to get involved in any of that, not to mention, it's just not appropriate for the press to be liaising with these agencies in charge of investigating the thing while they're reporting on it. And the fact that I told them that, I said, you know, look, I'm a reporter. I can't be talking to people investigating this case while it's happening And because after I told them a couple times, talk to my lawyer, they kept saying it. So it was like, well, what do I say to impress on them that I'm familiar with elicitation techniques.

I cover national security. So I know that when they say you're not in trouble, that is a ploy to try to get the person to separated from their lawyer so that they talk to you in conditions that are favorable to law enforcement. So I made that point. I said, look, I'm a reporter. I can't be talking to people involved in the thing that, in the investigation that I'm reporting on and furnishing information. And they didn't seem impressed by that at all. And that's sent a sort of chilling message to me. It makes me wonder, how often is this happening where they're going to media talking to them?

And we never hear about it. We know about one such case because this wasn't even the first time that the FBI had visited me in the past year. They visited me also when I published the J.D. Vance research dossier during the election campaign last year. And what was interesting about that visit was subsequent to my, you know, just going public and describing what happened. We found out that other news outlets also received communications and calls from the FBI. I don't remember if it were visits or not. But that only came out after I disclosed it.

So there is a campaign of, I don't want to say, you know, it's not like they're holding a gun to your head. But if the FBI shows up your door or if they call your boss, I think it's a lot of the It's hard to imagine that that's not gonna have some psychological effect on how you approach the story going forward and who knows how much this is happening. That's just one case we happen to know because I disclosed that then after that, Reuters was motivated to follow up on it. So that's really the concern to me. So look, it's not like the Trump administration has a good record on releasing files.

FC files completely unreleased. So anytime you want to release any files, they're all over you. But did they give a reason? Like, is there like, because going to going and trying to shake down a reporter for reporting very relevant news is not legitimate. So did they claim to have a legitimate reason for talking to you? Yeah. So at the very end of our conversation, kind of the body language felt like they were going to move away. They slipped this part in, which I think was like a veiled threat. It's like they said something like, we want to know how you knew about this so quickly and how you were the first reporter to put it out there. And if there if there was coordination with the,

I don't remember the exact words, I'm paraphrasing here. But if there was communication, with the shooter before it happened. The implication being that I'm in on this thing and there's some sort of plot. And I think the move there is to try to scare me and I think, oh, I don't want to get in trouble. I better talk to these guys. Fortunately, I again, national security reporter. I know these techniques. I understand that you always want to go through a lawyer no matter what. So, you know, that didn't work on me. Again, I have to wonder how many other people it, something like that might work on. And if they actually believe that, because it's crazy to think that, you know, by definition, There's always going to be a reporter who's first to a story.

I think I reported, I spent several hours verifying it. Some people have this impression that I just run with things. That's not true. I spent hours verifying and making sure that it was true. And so it was maybe like three or four hours, maybe four or five hours after it happened. So that's pretty quick, but not, I mean, it's not exactly like I had it out there within five minutes of the event taking place. So what this says to me, and in questions they submitted to my lawyer, 11 questions, which I took and published on my, newsletter, which I encourage everyone to go and look at those specific questions to give you a sense of what it was that they wanted to know, it was essentially that. It was what can they find out about potential sources? What can they find out about my role in this? And it says to me that they're not using their investigative resources very wisely if they're thinking that because a reporter had it three or four hours later that constitutes some kind of suspicious behavior. I mean, things happen fast. You can communicate with people quickly because of the internet. For them to jump to that, it's just.

crazy and it makes me worried about that, you know, I hope that they're able to find out the truth of what happened. And if they're going off on these crazy conspiracies, it doesn't inspire much confidence that they're going to be able to. I mean, they still haven't said whether the manifesto is legitimate, even though it clearly is, as I said before. Yeah, it seems like they just didn't want the manifesto to be published at all. And I'm curious, like obviously, you know, you have the FBI showing up at your door. So you've got a sense of how the federal government is feeling about you publishing it. But I am curious what your readers thought about your decision to publish the manifesto. I love that you did it. I think that your reasoning behind it makes

logical sense. I don't want an information vacuum to exist. That is where conspiracy theories tend to metastasize. But any of your readers upset with you for publishing it? This is one of the most striking things about publishing these things that the rest of the media doesn't publish and that it seems law enforcement doesn't want it published is how much ordinary people are not angered by it. I thought I was honestly, if I'm frank, I was more scared of the response to the story than I was of the FBI's visit just because of the sensitivity of all of it. I mean, I have the same view that any sane person does. This is awful. I don't want somebody getting killed. I don't want a civilian getting shot at. And when I wrote this, I thought,

oh, God, am I going to get dog piled? And are people going to say that I'm glorifying the shooter, whatever it is. And to my astonishment, just, as was the case with the Mangione manifesto that I published before this, and then the J.D. Vance dossier before that, overwhelmingly, people were just glad to see what the heck happened. And I can count on one hand the number of people that were angry about it. And I was really surprised by that. Because if you compare that to clearly the attitude on the part of law enforcement, which regards this is suspicious, and on the part of media, which is just pretending this isn't happening, I thought for sure there'd be some people angry about it. I've hardly seen any of it.

I wonder how much of this is the FBI or the feds feeling embarrassed by the fact that you obtained the manifesto before they could even launch an investigation? You know what I'm saying? I mean, who knows? I'm just speculating here. They might have had the manifesto at the same time you did. But it just seems weird to me that, you know, they show up at your door and they start, you know, implying that maybe you were coordinating with this lunatic. So, Jank, I want to toss over to you if you have anything to ask. Yeah, so look, it feels like the authorities constantly saying the public can't be trusted. That if they even hear or read a madman's words, that's it, their brain's going to melt and they're all going to turn into terrorists or killers, et cetera. And I think that you're getting the reaction you're getting from those because they're like, yeah, let me read it and be the judge of whether my brain's going to melt or not. And so having now read that manifesto, it looks like, yeah, that's the idiot who shot those two innocent people.

And so he explains why he did it, it's not a good reason, there isn't a good reason. And so when I look at it, I think, wait, do the authorities not want us to know the real reason he did it? Because the real reason is already perfectly terrible, right? So, but now I see pro-Israel forces, including Representative Randy Fine, all over television saying, in the manifesto, he says to globalize the intifada, well, I read it twice. It doesn't say that at all, does it? Yeah, it doesn't say that.

No, it doesn't. And that's the problem with allowing major media and systems of power to paraphrase to people what has said. I mean, we had the Protestant Reformation over exactly this question. Are you able to read the original text or not? or do you need a priest class inserting itself between you in that text? And unfortunately, that's what the media has become. When they do this, they did the exact same thing with the Mangione document.

I remember watching CNN and seeing them paraphrase. They said something like, well, there's not even really anything of substance in there. This is just the rantings of a crazy person. And I'll tell you, when I published that manifesto, and I got endless people saying, obviously, I don't want to kill somebody like Mangione is alleged to have done. But people resonated with the pain that he felt about the health care on a systemic basis. And so to see that response and then compare it with what the media had claimed, oh, you don't need to see it, we'll paraphrase it for you, or law enforcement paraphrase it,

and then drop, you know, kind of select leaks and comments in the media, which they did about that. So they're happy to talk about the contents, just the contents, the portions of it that they want to talk about and the paraphrase that they want to do. It's not that they didn't want to talk about it. They want to talk about it on their terms. It's when you actually give people the underlying thing so that there are no terms and people can just decide what they think. That's what they dislike.

And it's really pernicious. I don't see any explanation for that other than being that it's about control and they want to have control of the narrative. Yeah, they want to gate keep for sure. Go ahead, Jank. Yeah, just real quick follow up on that, Ken, because the manifesto also disproves some of the kooky theories from the people opposed to Israel where they were, oh, is it a false flag operation? Did Israel do it themselves? And you read the manifesto? No, it's definitely

not a false flag operation. This clown, imbecile, you know, a killer did it on his own. And, you know, he was proud about his manifesto and he published it. So again, it seems like the government is so, at a minimum, doesn't trust its own citizens. And then when they keep things like this hidden, Ken, doesn't it fester on all sides? Oh, I bet Israel did it on, you know, from that side, which is terrible and they didn't, right? And I, oh, or, you know, oh, he said that we should globalize the intifada and everyone protesting Israel is just as guilty as I am or whatever insane thing that Randy Fine is making up. Just trust me, right?

So that's why it feels like the government taking this action. I don't know, is either a statement saying we don't trust our own citizens or we'd like to keep it hidden for a reason or a policy reason rather than a legitimate reason. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously they didn't want to talk about the geopolitical context in which it took place because that leads to all sorts of awkward questions and a dependent. that they don't want to have. So it's simply, you know, it's just like with Mangione, he's crazy. It's a crazy person. I mean, the, you know, logic is indecipherable to me. But I mean, this couldn't be a more straightforward case in the sense that, you know, I just, we mentioned this earlier. I just wrote a story based on half a dozen interviews of people that knew him and, you know, a huge trove of text messages in a private chat that he was a member of. This person was a,

you know, hard left Maoist, third one. worldist. That's how he described himself. And in that worldview, you pursue violence against your perceived adversaries. And it's not a democratic worldview. And so that's pretty much what this was. It couldn't be more straightforward than that. I mean, obviously, you know, that worldview, what angered him was what's happening in Gaza. But that was filtered through this prism of this, you know, hard left authoritarian way of seeing. the world. And I just wish people could see that. And, you know, Anna mentioned earlier that there were these conspiracy theories about it being some kind of false flag event and which I, you know, was able

to corroborate on a data basis just by looking at Google trends and seeing this thing spike the high, the phrase false flag spiking the highest level it has in the past year. You know, I mean, there's a whole contingentistry around fighting disinformation. There's a very easy way. It's by being transparent. Yeah. And I do appreciate that you just today publish those messages. You know, he was in a message group. He was very active in that message group. And aside from being radicalized politically, he just seemed like a very troubled person, right? Just going through a lot, angry. And someone who's in that kind of mindset is very easy to radicalize, right? seem to have some sort of affinity for Stalin-type, you know, political figures, which blows my mind.

But nonetheless, I mean, do you get a sense of where he got radicalized? Is this something that just kind of happened organically? Do you have a sense of that at all? So this is another frustrating part about the mainstream account when you leave out the records that we know exist and that we're able to verify. The presumption on the part of a lot of the press so far has been, oh, you know, October 7th is what radicalized him. And I'm sure the national security system is going to kick in and say, oh, this is an October 7 phenomenon. Clearly that was a part of it. But when you talk to people that knew him going, I talked to people that knew him since adolescence, since middle school.

And that was how far back some of these texts went. This person was disillusioned with the political system since he was 15 years old. Wow. And yeah, and he was supportive of these, you know, authoritarian left, I don't know, theories or worldviews, whatever you want to call them, going back many years, definitely before October 7th. So this is a much more complex phenomenon that I think has a lot to do with people's dissatisfaction with the system. And that obviously interacts with things like the Israel, things like the Gaza War. But to say that in isolation, the entirety of this is just about, you know, it's just about post-October 7th that misses the entire mark of what exactly happened.

And if you're serious about preventing stuff like this from happening in the future, is necessary to understand. I mean, when the Trump administration wants to turn this whole thing into some kind of ethnic hate crime, as leaving out the whole geopolitical context, not only are misunderstanding what happened, you are risking pursuing charges that you're not going to be able to sustain. and are going to undermine your case. So I think that even people who they're only interested seeing this person face as stiff of a penalty as he can, I think even they should care about this stuff being out there. Ken, was he a tankie? I think he was clearly, I mean, so many of

the texts were just these internist scene fights about these alphabet soup groups that I struggled to even keep up with. You know, after the shooting, he was quickly reported that, He had some association with a group called the PSL. And so I went through the text messages and found him railing against the PSL for not being sufficiently left on some obscure basis that I couldn't quite understand. And so he liked this other, you know, subculture within these Maoist sects or what. I mean, it's almost like a religion as so many different branches and upshoots and its own theology and everything. But yes, I think it's fair to say that it was a tankie. Yeah, he's awful in every way. And I'm grateful for you and your reporting, Ken,

thank you so much for having the guts to do what a lot of journalists out there were unwilling to do by publishing his manifesto along with the manifestos of others who have been in the news recently. So keep it up. Everyone, please check out Ken Clippenstein's newsletter over at Substack, Ken Clippenstein.com is where you can subscribe. Please support the work he's doing as an independent journalist. We need independent journalists out there. Ken, you're absolutely kicking ass. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks, Kat.

All right. We got to take a quick break when we come back. More news, don't miss it.