The Young Turks - The King's Soldiers - June 12, 2025

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Israel is poised to launch operation on Iran, multiple sources tell CBS News. American Security Contractor Unloads On US-Israeli ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.’ Palantir was hired by Bank of America in 2010 to target WikiLeaks. Their plan, later leaked to WikiLeaks, included hacking, disinformation and smearing supporters including Glenn Greenwald. Bragg Soldiers Who Cheered Trump's Political Attacks While in Uniform Were Checked for Allegiance, Appearance. 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 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. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we are inching ever closer to war with Iran. At the top of the show today, I'm going to go through all of the various updates, what Israel is threatening to do, what Trump is saying, and I don't have a lot of faith to be quite frank with you. But I'm going to give you those details in just a minute, so hold tight. We're also going to give you an update from a U.S. contractor who was specifically hired to carry out the delivery of humanitarian aid under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And this whistleblower has written about their experience in Gaza, and it doesn't look good for the Palestinian people.

And it certainly doesn't look good for the government of Israel in their BS effort to deliver humanitarian aid. It does appear that they're just kind of using this to provide cover for the fact that they are still starving Palestinians. They're still refusing to give them adequate water or water at all. So I can't wait to share the details as written by this whistleblower. So stick around for that. Look, there's a lot going on. I wanted to have someone to discuss the ongoing nationwide protests against the ice raid. So we are going to cover that. But I've held onto that story for the second hour of the show so Woz and I can discuss it rather than have me cover it by myself. I think a discussion would be far better. So stick around for that as well. As always, just want to encourage you to like and share the stream. If you're watching us love, here at TYT, we do the news. We don't do BS infighting or nonsense gossip stuff. We want to cover the stories that are important, sometimes some stories that are fun, and we wouldn't be able to do it without our members. So you can also support us by going to tyt.com slash join. All right, without further ado, let's get into the reality of a potential

war with Iran. The U.S. and Iran are set to have more nuclear talks on Sunday. President Trump confirms the U.S. is removing some diplomats and their families from parts of the Middle East because of escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. How imminent is the Israeli strike on Iran? Well, I don't want to say eminent, but it looks like it's something that could very well happen. Just as the United States was set to hold yet another round of diplomatic talks with Iran in the hope of signing a new nuclear deal, considering Trump ripped up the one from 2018,

Israel is now threatening to strike Iran and drag the United States in yet another regime-change war in the Middle East. Here's more. Reports say Israel is prepared to launch an attack on Iran with or without U.S. support. We're trying to, we're trying to make a deal so that there's no destruction and death. And we've told them that, and I've told them that, and I hope that's the way it works out, but it might not work out that way. Trump previously warned Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu against any military action while negotiations with Iran are still ongoing. Now, obviously, the president of the United States would warn Israel against conducting strikes against Iran as the U.S. is engaged in diplomatic talks with Iran. But see, that's the problem.

Israel doesn't want the United States to engage in diplomatic talks. Israel doesn't want the United States to secure a nuclear deal because a nuclear deal would kind of eliminate the justification for Israel to drag the United States into a hot war with Iran. And of course, the real objective here for Israel is to get the United States to engage in a regime change war. So at the end of the day, the most powerful country, well, the most powerful country in that region is already Israel. But Israel is worried that there might be some retaliation for their bad behavior by Iran. So they want to ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon, but don't make the mistake of thinking they're going to stop there. They do want regime change in Iran. But more importantly, they want to essentially drag the United States to fight that war on their behalf. You want to know why? Because they literally would not be able to win that war without the assistance, without the aid of the United States. Now, before I move on any further,

Just minutes before we went live today, President Donald Trump posted something on social media in regard to this issue, arguing that he will remain committed to a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear issue. My entire administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran. They could be a great country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a nuclear weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter. He didn't write that. But nonetheless, if he actually agrees with that sentiment, then I'm all for it. And Iran is in the negotiations, the diplomatic talks are not about whether Iran gets to develop a nuclear weapon or not. Iran has already agreed that they are willing to not develop a nuclear weapon, to avoid developing a nuclear weapon. The real sticking point here is whether Iran will be allowed to enrich civilian levels of uranium, meaning uranium that will be used to provide energy, power to their people because they export their oil. That is what props up their economy.

And so in order to provide energy to their people, they like to use nuclear power, which, by the way, something we should consider leaning into a little more here in the United States if we really give a damn about the climate emergency. But that's a different story. So look, the Trump administration ordered military and diplomatic personnel to basically leave the region, leave Middle East countries that we have bases in, in order to prevent a retaliatory strike against them by Iran following Israel's offensive actions. So Israel claims that it would be justified in striking Iran due to Iran's enrichment of uranium, which theoretically can be used to build a nuclear weapon and get a load of this.

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran was not complying with its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. The first such censure in two decades, Iran condemned the vote saying it completely called into question the credibility and prestige of the nuclear watchdog. Now, you should know that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, you know, what they were up to, where they were traversing recently and who they were having conversations with. In fact, why don't we hear from reporter Murtaza Hussein. He works for drop site news, and he explains exactly what I'm talking about. The Omani foreign minister confirmed that talks will happen between Steve Whitkoff and between Iran's foreign minister. However, Maz, at the same time, we do know that Israel's head of Mossad and their minister, Ron Dermer, will be meeting with Steve Whitkoff, apparently ahead of said meeting, again, potentially for some coordination of what exactly we don't know. Iran just got rebuke,

rebuke to this morning by the IAEA over nuclear materials. So things do seem to be. be trending in a very bad direction unless things go well during these talks. Yeah, this is a problem too that Mossad officials and Ron Dürmer have been hovering around the talks from the beginning. They've been in Rome. They've been wherever the talks are happening. They're either briefing with Koff beforehand or just being in the area to let it know that their position is very, very important in these talks. So, you know, to be honest, I'm not particularly optimistic, unfortunately, about the Sunday talks. So the talk this weekend. It also doesn't help that legacy media also seems complicit at best or pounding the war drums at worst, just as they did in the lead up to our invasion of Iraq.

So I'm going to give you a quick excerpt from the New York Times. There's a bit of information here that's actually accurate and really, really important, especially as it pertains to what the IAEA is claiming. But just notice the vague citation here. It's very reminiscent of what I would read in the lead up to our invasion of Iraq. Iran's nuclear program has advanced considerably over the past decade, analysts say. It is now on the brink of being able to manufacture enough nuclear material to fuel 10 nuclear weapons, although producing a usable bomb would likely take many more months. Who exactly are these analysts?

Who are these analysts? Are these analysts, I don't know, tied to defense contractors, weapons manufacturers, the Israel lobby? I don't know. Who are these analysts? But more importantly, let's not forget the most important part of that entire statement or excerpt from the New York Times that I just read, because producing a usable bomb would likely take many more months.

And honestly, I'm suspicious of even that claim. I don't think that Iran is about to develop a nuclear weapon and wipe out the United States. I think that Israel sees Iran as a threat. Israel wants Iran's regime changed. They know that they can't fight that war and win on their own, and they're going to drag us into it. And the fact that there's currently an effort to manufacture consent for this drives me absolutely insane. So let's get to the rest of this. Israel wants war, Netanyahu in particular, has been beating the war drums for years, for decades, as it pertains to Iran.

I can show you evidence dating back to the 1990s. In fact, why don't I do that right now? The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran that has wed a cruel despotism. to a fanatic militancy. If this regime or its despotic neighbor, Iraq, or to acquire nuclear weapons, this could presage catastrophic consequences not only for my country and not only for the Middle East,

but for all of mankind. The two nations that are vying competing with each other who will be the first to achieve nuclear weapons is Iraq and Iran. And Iran, by the way, is also is also outpacing Iraq in the development of ballistic missile systems that they hope will reach the eastern seaboard of the United States. They have to enrich enough high enriched uranium for the first bomb. Where's Iran?

Iran's completed the first stage. Took them many years, but they completed it, and there's 70% of the way there. Now they're well into the second stage. And by next spring, at most, by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks. That last clip in the compilation you just watched was from 2012. Back in 2012, Benjamin Netanyahu was claiming that Iran was

months away, maybe weeks away, maybe weeks away, of having a nuclear weapon. Now, currently, Israel has nuclear weapons, which they refuse to acknowledge, but the entire international community knows they have nuclear weapons. They began their nuclear program in the 1960s. And there's only one country in the Middle East right now that's carrying out a genocide, and that country is the country of Israel. So if we're concerned about a questionable government in the Middle East, obtaining nuclear weapons or having nuclear weapons, maybe we should have a discussion about the

genocidal regime that's carrying out genocide in Gaza right now, you know, the regime that just called for the complete annexation of the West Bank and the construction of 22 additional illegal settlements. Maybe we should have a conversation about the country that has a military force, the IDF, that literally shot at European and international diplomats as they were visiting Janine last month. Can we have a conversation about that? And if Netanyahu was so concerned with Iran's enrichment of uranium, why did he lobby so hard to get Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal that was signed by Iran, our allies, and of course the United States back in 2015, but of course Trump pulled out of it in 2018 on behalf of Israel. Why? I mean, let's take a look

at this graph because it shows you Iran's uranium enrichment program. And if you notice, as soon as the nuclear deal is signed, that activity comes to a stop. They enriched just enough uranium specifically to provide energy to their own people. But it wasn't until 2018 when Trump ripped that deal up, that Iran began enriching uranium again at higher levels. Because that wasn't the bug. That was the feature of pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal for Netanyahu. Because he's been itching for this war. He's been itching for those U.S. tax dollars, those American bombs, boots on the ground in Iran, American boots on the ground in Iran. Why do you think Trump had to evacuate American military personnel from our bases in the Middle East?

Why do you think? It's because Israel's actions, if they do carry out strikes in Iran, put Americans at danger. Americans. And at the same time, you'll hear, you know, the Warhawk Israelis within the Israeli government argue, no, no, we're worried about the national security of Americans. No, you're not. They're not worried about the national security of Americans at all. After Netanyahu succeeded in convincing Trump to do this, you see the nuclear, I'm sorry, the uranium enrichment. Then Netanyahu is currently acknowledging that Iran and its proxies have been severely weakened due to Israel's ongoing attacks over the last year and a half. So he will acknowledge that they're weakened and they're less of a threat. But nonetheless, Iran has been weakened since Hamas launched the October. 7th, 2023 attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza, Hamas and Hezbollah, which are backed by Iran,

have been decimated in their wars with Israel. And you would think that that would convince Netanyahu to calm down a little bit. But no, war is the only answer for BB. Netanyahu has privately, privately argued that Iran's vulnerability will not last long, meaning that Israel has a limited window in which to launch an attack. He just wants war. It doesn't matter if Trump is trying to pursue diplomatic means. This guy, Netanyahu, his government, they want war, they want to drag us into it. It's just so obvious and so clear. And by the way, the New York Times decided to keep citing the ominous analysts in their piece,

writing that Israeli strikes against Iran's air defenses last year weakened their capabilities, allowing Israeli fighter jets to more safely launch a new mass attack, according to officials and analysts. If Israel waits too long, Iran might restore them. Analysts said, who are the analysts? Is there a possibility that the analysts have a conflict of interest here that we should know about? But we can't look up because they're not being named. What a pathetic report.

But look, things do not look good when you have Donald Trump downplaying the prospects of a deal with Iran. Now, he said this on camera prior to posting that we still favor diplomacy post on social media. But nonetheless, this doesn't really inspire much confidence in the Trump administration. Take a look. And what's the main impediment to getting a deal? Well, they're just asking for things that you can't do. They don't want to give up what they have to give up. You know what that is.

They seek enrichment. We can't have enrichment. We want just the opposite. And so far, they're not there. I hate to say that because the alternative is a very, very dire one. But they're not there. They have given us their thoughts on the deal. And I said, you know, it's just not acceptable.

Do you think you're going to be able to stop Iran from enriching its- I don't know. I did think so. And I'm getting more and more less confident about it. They seem to be delaying, and I think that's a shame. But I'm less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. If they don't make a deal, they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. It would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying.

It's so much nicer to do it. No, it would be more than just nice to avoid a hot war with Iran. because if Trump decides that he is going to be dog walked to the extent that Israel pushes the United States into a conflict, into a war with Iran, a lot of people are going to die. We would need boots on the ground to fight Iran. I mean, just think of it. The United States, with all of its funding, all of its weaponry, couldn't even beat the Houthis in Yemen, who are Iran-backed.

So obviously, if war breaks out with Iran, we would need to have boots on. on the ground. And Iran is nothing like Iraq. We're talking about far bigger land mass, far bigger landmass. We're talking about 90 million people in Iran. We're talking about superior weaponry compared to what Iraq had. It would be a complete and utter disaster, complete and utter carnage of innocent civilians, American soldiers. And for what? Because the current Israeli government doesn't seek diplomatic means of ending Iran's nuclear program. It's ridiculous, but that's where we are. We'll see what happens. But for the love of God, please someone keep that pig Mark Levin away from Trump. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the show Anna Casparian with you. Let's get right to our next story. 120 people were killed in a 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday, including dozens who were shot while trying to get food from aid distribution sites. There were 41 people, according to hospital officials, killed on Wednesday in two separate incidents, one in central Gaza and one in the south. The hospital officials said they were shot while trying to get food parcels.

The Israeli military says it's aware of one incident in which troops fired upon people approaching them in darkness overnight. Now that the United Nations organization known as UNRWA is no longer allowed to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza following Israel's defamation of the entirety of said organization, Turns out that there is disaster after disaster with the organization that is now replacing UNRWA.

Of course, that's known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Now, an American security contractor is blowing the whistle on this U.S. slash Israeli-backed organization. And what this person reveals is explosive to say the least. But before we get to those details, I just want to remind the American people, That you're funding this, you're funding this. And Basim Youssef, who was on Pierce Morgan show today, I think describe the predicament that Americans are currently in perfectly. Let's watch.

Why is my money? Why is Hurricane Relief funds in Carolina, in America are going to fund Israel? Also, like, I don't understand the relationship between America and Israel. It's like it's the most effed up situation ever. We're like the world's most pathetic sugar daddy. We give them billions of dollars and they on us. Like Mr. Jonathan said, now we're ganging on them. We're not helpful. Dude, we gave you $30 billion to bomb children and it's not enough for you.

Like I mean, at least when you pay a dominatrix, you know that you're getting but this is just America having a public humiliation king while getting and they call this foreign policy. They are arresting American's students on American soils for protesting Israeli work crimes. What the hell man? This is like your crack whore making you beat your children for calling her what she is a hoar. Alas. And the thing, this is what really boggles me in America. The right and the left, they fight each other tooth and nail over gun control, education, minorities right, health care, DEI. But when it comes to Israel, everybody competes to be Israel favorite

I wouldn't have said it better myself. Now with that in mind, let's go to this piece that was written by the American Security Contractor. This person is blowing the whistle anonymously and wrote the piece for Zateo, it's titled Exclusive, American Security Contractor Unloads on U.S.-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Quote, I thought I was signing up for an aid mission, but what I've witnessed in Gaza is horrific. So this individual writes that he or she is one of hundreds of security contractors who have been in Gaza to facilitate aid under the new U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation project, and it's all BS. Now, they confirm exactly what I had been outlining about this project. I talked about it on Pierce Morgan's show. I talked about how

Palestinians who are desperate and hungry who go to these humanitarian aid hubs in order to get food and water get shot at. And I think that it's being done intentionally. And guess what? This piece kind of confirms it. So he or she writes, the higher ups claim the Israeli military is not involved, but it feels like they're the man behind the curtain. Sure, They're not on site with us, but their snipers and tanks are just hundreds of meters away. You can hear them shooting all day. We were monitoring an empty site all day. Sometime after dark, dozens of flatbed trucks finally brought aid. The Israeli military soon radioed in that 200 to 300 civilians, a couple of kilometers less than two miles north were approaching. We then observed an Israeli

drone go out there. Shortly thereafter, the area started getting lit up with artillery. Maybe the Israelis were firing between our position and the people in order to keep them from moving forward. I don't think that's the case. After all, tanks fire all day long near these aid sites. Snipers fire from what used to be a hospital. Bombs and bullets fly all day long. in one direction toward Palestinians. We know the Israeli military has been enforcing curfews in some parts of Gaza. I would not be surprised if the aid was delivered at night deliberately, given it would then draw people out at which point they could be fired on as combatants, even though they

weren't. It's very clear that the Israeli military will take any opportunity available to fire. This is an American contractor. This is an American contractor. And I don't blame this individual for not wanting to release their identity, given the kinds of threats I personally have seen from IDF soldiers toward me for speaking my mind, which I will continue to do because I'm not afraid of them. But nonetheless, this is an American contractor who's been on the ground who got hired specifically to help deliver aid. in the context of Gaza and the fact that these people have been starved for months and continue to be. There are more details that were shared in this piece that I think you should read about.

I'll give you a few of them. So this contractor writes that prior to their departure to Gaza, the American contractor says that, you know, they were told they would be joining a good mission without providing any details. They're then sent to Washington, D.C., where they're given a little more details, but very little information about the logistics, how they're supposed to carry out their duties. And individuals who are not qualified were hired to be part of this, by the way. They write, some folks seemed way too old. It seemed like the company was so short on personnel that they weren't picky about who they allowed in on this. We were eventually each issued an AR-style rifle as well as a pistol sidearm. But no one was, no one was. No one was

tested to ensure they had proper training, some of us were also given machine guns. They also write that there were some non-lethal weapons provided as well. Things like, you know, flash grenades, pepper spray, but they also write that we're talking about people who don't have access to water, meaning the Palestinians, and we're ready to spray them in the face with pepper spray? Why would we do that? They're just trying to get aid. We're there to give them aid. It doesn't make any sense. The contractors are allegedly working 20 hour days with no days off. That's also according to this piece. They're also not getting fed while they're in Gaza. Instead, they're getting a stipend and they're being told, just go to a grocery store in Israel and

get food when your shift is up. Your 20-hour shift is up and you're probably exhausted and desperately need to sleep. Some weeks, they literally have no days off, according to this individual's claims. And when it came to delivering aid, the group was overwhelmed with desperate people. But they say, of the Palestinians, the Palestinians were never aggressive towards us. They were only trying to get aid, aid, by the way, that consisted of flour, rice, lentils, tea bags and noodles, things that need water. They don't have any water and we're not giving out water. That's the reality on the ground in Gaza.

So when Netanyahu, when Ben-Gavir, when Smotrich, when they tell you who they are and when they tell you that they're not really looking to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and they just want to give like this facade of providing humanitarian aid just so they can continue. you on with their slaughter and genocide in Gaza, just believe them. Why wouldn't you believe them? They're telling you what they intend to do. I believe them. The question is, why is it that some of the most ardent defenders of Israel here on U.S. soil refused to believe them? Is it because they're bribed? Thanks to the legalized bribery in our political system? Is it because there's blackmail on them? I don't know. But when the Israeli government tells us what they intend to we should believe them because they usually carry it out. It's happening right now. in the news, that's probably going to surprise you.

There's a lot going on today, so you probably haven't even heard of it. But if you're concerned about police immunity, especially when it comes to federal agents, the Supreme Court actually ruled in your favor. Let's get to it. In 2017, Trina Martin, her son Gabe, who was seven at the time, and her partner, Toy Cleat, had that sense of security shattered by a flash bomb grenade that signaled the start of an FBI It was like two guns putting in my face at like one time. So I was just really just nervous.

That was my main focus. Like I didn't want to get killed. You know, my safety came first at that moment. I remember being on the floor and I'm looking up to see what's going on. And I see a bunch of like automatic weapons pointed at me. And I'm like, oh, man. Every year, there are literally hundreds of cases involving raids. on homes that were mistaken to be the homes that were meant to be targeted in said raids.

They're called wrong home or wrong house raids. And the United States Supreme Court has now ruled in favor of a family, the very family you just heard from, who is seeking to sue the federal government over a wrong house raid that had been carried out by the FBI back in 2017. Now, who would have thought that the biggest blow to federal law enforcement immunity would come from a conservative Supreme Court in a unanimous decision? I'm not kidding. This was one of the most shocking decisions I've seen in the Supreme Court. So at the center of this case was Trina Martin and her then boyfriend, a toy client. You just heard from him in that video.

Now, Martin's home in Atlanta was wrongfully rated by the FBI back in 2017, and it turns out that it was actually Martin's neighbor who was suspected of engaging in gang activity, and that was supposed to be the FBI's target. Now, Martin's son, who you also saw in that video, was just seven years old at the time, and he had the pleasure of witnessing federal agents pointing guns at his own mother when he was just seven years old. And that's after busting into the house. Now, obviously, that's traumatizing for a child. This family was victimized. And these victims incurred damages to their home as a result of the raid. At the time, they claimed $5,000 in damages due to a burnt carpet, broken doors, and fractured railings. Agents quickly acknowledged, by the way, that they had stormed the wrong address due to a faulty GPS direction.

But the FBI refused, refused to provide any restitution. Lower courts later tossed out the family's liability claims, citing sweeping protections under federal law. Now, when law enforcement, in this case the FBI, has brought immunity, don't you think that maybe that doesn't incentivize them to be extra cautious to ensure that they've got the right house when they do these rates? When you know you have that immunity, you're just not going to be as cautious. And I think that's what's happening here.

Plus, these victims deserve restitution. And the fact that the FBI wasn't even willing to pay them $5,000 is insanely gross. But that's what we're dealing with here. So two lower courts actually tossed out Martin's lawsuit, but she took it all the way to the Supreme Court. And that brings us to today. So in a unanimous decision, the High Court said the Martin case could move forward, but they did stop short of rendering judgment on whether the FBI could successfully invoke other legal defenses related to the discretionary nature of its job. So Neil Gorsuch, who is very much a conservative Supreme Court justice, wrote the deciding opinion. I want to just read a quick excerpt from what he wrote.

He says if federal officers raid the wrong house causing property damage and assaulting innocent occupants, may the homeowners sue the government for damages, the answer is not as obvious as it might be. So the argument here is, well, look, you want to provide like federal agents or law enforcement enough immunity so they're able to do their job without fear of a lawsuit. But in writing his decision, Gorsuch also made clear that this lawsuit absolutely should move forward, given the recklessness that was demonstrated by the FBI. I mean, just the unwillingness to double check to ensure that they had the right house.

Gorsuch confirmed that Congress has unambiguously opened the door to potential liability when an officer commits an assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, or abuse of process. He remanded the case to a lower court for further consideration as to whether the FBI could invoke other protections. So this case isn't over yet. It's not a full-blown victory for Martin and her former boyfriend and her son. However, what this does do is set precedent for lawsuits against law enforcement, in this case, federal law enforcement, the FBI. And that is a good precedent to set. This is a big deal. And so it chips away at law enforcement immunity. Obviously, there needs to be a balance to ensure that it doesn't impede law enforcement's ability to do

their jobs. But clearly, the immunity is too broad and protects really bad behavior that victimizes all sorts of innocent people across this country on a regular basis. Now, the Trump administration, by the way, had argued that the Martin case should be thrown out. So that's what the Trump administration believed. But luckily, the Supreme Court disagreed with that. They claimed that officers should be able to exercise discretion in the course of their duties without worrying about lawsuits. I disagree. I'm glad the Supreme Court disagrees. ABC News also reports that the Trump Justice Department has put a freeze on federal civil rights investigations into cops and canceled consent decrees with police departments, local police departments that were found.

There was evidence that they had engaged in a pattern of misconduct. And in a concurring opinion, Justice Sonio Sotomayor, joined by Justice Katanji Brown Jackson to liberal Supreme Court justices, of course, urged the lower court in the Martin case to be critical of the administration's assertions of immunity for officers discretionary actions in the line of duty. So this is a super fascinating case. I'm happy with the way the Supreme Court ruled in this case. We'll see how it plays out as it's sent back to the lower courts. For now, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about fascinating Trump loyalty test when it comes to the military.

Welcome back to the show, everyone, Anna Casparian with you. And I want to just quickly talk about two more stories before we bring Wazen, beginning with this. The fake news, ladies and gentlemen, look at them, look at them all. What I have to put up with. Fake news. This is a record crowd. You never had a crowd this big. That's an honor.

You think this crowd would have showed up for Biden? I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. Maybe I'm wrong. In Los Angeles, the governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles. They're incompetent. President Donald Trump is continuing to obliterate longstanding norms that separate our military from politics, and you just heard that with the uber partisan speech that he gave yesterday at Fort Bragg.

Now, unfortunately, some soldiers can be heard in that video that we showed you cheering and jeering at Democratic politicians, but now we're learning that his team handpicked the service members who stood behind him during this speech. So according to an investigation by military.com, internal 82nd airborne division communications reveal a tightly orchestrated effort to curate the optics of Trump's recent visit, including handpicking soldiers for the audience based on political leanings and physical appearance. The troops ultimately selected to be behind Trump and visible to the cameras were almost exclusively male. And then get a load of this is my favorite part. This is my favorite part. given the shape of our president.

One unit level message bluntly said, no fat soldiers. Okay, man. Everything's a reality show for this guy. Norms don't matter. Rules don't matter. Acting like an adult and avoiding pettiness doesn't matter. And then everyone needs to look like they're out of central casting in his

cabinet. I mean, are we really impressed by Christy Noem? Okay, the cosplayer in the administration. It's just so embarrassing. But nonetheless, another note to the troops said, if soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience, then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out. Now, look, some see that as, oh, well, the Trump administration is trying to control who's in the crowd. So everyone agrees with him, everyone's loyal to him. But I'm sure there are people in the military who do not support some of what Trump is doing and don't want to be like seen in the camera shot behind Trump. So maybe that's what that was about. But we also know that Trump insists, insists on loyalty. So the Trump campaign merchandise was even even being sold at the base, very likely violating some pretty significant defense department rules. This guy, man, Man, like, he might be the top grifter, not just in the country, but in the world. There's, I don't know if there's been a single opportunity that he didn't use to sell merch, but these are the details.

So a pop-up shop operated by 365 campaign, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based retailer that sells pro-Trump and other conservative-coded memorabilia, was set up on site with campaign-style merchandise on Army property. Soldiers were seen purchasing, clothing, and chotchkes, including Make America Great Again, chain necklaces, to faux credit. Guys, to faux credit cards labeled white privilege cards trumps everything. Cool, cool. Total clown show. To be clear, it is a violation of Pentagon policies to engage in political activity while in uniform. And I think that's a good rule, that's an important rule, because the military is not supposed to be a political body. But it didn't really seem to stop the soldiers at the speech or during Trump's speech from basically booing former presidents and, of course, cheering for current president Donald Trump.

In addition to the Fort Bragg speech, this weekend Trump will celebrate his birthday, of course, with a giant military parade. And that's basically theoretically meant to honor the army. It's their 250th anniversary. I'm skeptical that that's the real reason why Trump wants to have a military parade. If you can remember, he wanted a military parade in his first term, but that got shot down. Anyway, Graham Parsons, who's a former professor at West Point and Atlantic writer Tom Nichols, explain why Trump's effort to politicize the military is such a big deal. What does all of this say to you about the longstanding line between the military and partisan politics?

Oh, it's in grave danger. I really can't overstate how disgusting that event was. By politicizing the military, you're sending the message to the troops and to the American public that the military is an ally of this narrow political faction that Trump embodies. He loves the idea that the military is also his personal muscle, that it's his personal security force to be used at will, which is really what's going on in Los Angeles. What he's doing in Los Angeles isn't really about Los Angeles. It's about setting up the idea and getting people used to the idea that Donald Trump can bypass your local community, your state, your county governments, and just put troops in your streets anytime he feels like it because he's the president and needs to, people in uniform are his personal security force. I think that's spot on, right? And so I actually can't stand when people make Trump out to be

an idiot, because I don't think he's an idiot. I actually think he's very strategic in his thinking. And I think what we're seeing on our streets right now is a perfect example of that. When you underestimate someone's strategic thinking or intelligence, you're the one who suffers from it. Okay, so let me explain what I mean. What you just heard, the last individual you just heard speak in that video is totally spot on. What Trump did is he utilized the one area in which he still enjoyed quite a bit of favorability among the American people, and that's on immigration. And so by deploying 700 Marines to Los Angeles, which was totally unnecessary, he is normalizing the deployment of U.S. soldiers on U.S. soil.

And that is terrifying, especially when you couple it with this story, where he's basically demanding the military's loyalty to him and his ideology. So luckily, there are some in the military who are speaking out against this. Military leadership is getting slammed for their failure to uphold ethics standards. Risa Brooks, an expert of civil military relations at Marquette University, says this. What I think is so remarkable about Bragg is that it's really a breakdown on the military side. It shows it's possible that the military's professional ethics could fail. Well, Risa, yeah. Yeah, Risa. This isn't, like, honestly, this isn't the first time. It's just that these violations happened in other countries. Now they're happening here, which we've been warning about. But, okay. But people within the military are concerned too. One commander at Fort Brad said this. Fort Bragg said this. This has been a bad week for the army, for anyone who cares about us,

being a neutral, a neutral institution. This was shameful. I don't expect anything to come out of it, but I hope maybe we can learn from it long term. Well, to this commander, I am pretty much done with hoping for anything good to come from the federal government at this point, certainly under the leadership of Donald Trump,

considering how effortlessly he decided to deploy U.S. military to Los Angeles when it was completely unnecessary to do so. Scary times we're living in, but hey, you know, at least there were no fat soldiers behind Trump. All right, I'm gonna do one more story before we bring Waz on to cover a lot of other stuff we gotta cover today, including the ongoing demonstrations all across the country. Anyway, let's get to this. Right before we came on air, there was a new Quinnipiac poll that was released.

So Donald Trump, negative 12 on approval in general, negative 11 on immigration and negative 16 on deportations. Well, Americans are not just giving President Donald Trump low marks on his signature policies, but on his approval rating overall. And that's according to a new Quinnipiac poll that I want to get into and I want to break down. So Trump has received consistently high approval ratings on his immigration policies. during his second term. We've been covering that quite a bit. But it looks like we are now experiencing a turn. Because according to this poll, he's losing. He's losing favorability when it comes to his immigration policies. It might have something to do with the ICE raids that target people at Home Depot parking lots, day laborers who are trying to make an honest living. Or when ICE goes

into a church to arrest a suspected undocumented immigrant, you know, that kind of stuff. It kind of starts to turn people off. And so Quinnipiac found that when it comes to Trump's handling of immigration issues, only 43% approve, 54% disapprove, and 3% offered no opinion. And to be honest with you, it makes me curious if polls like this and the public sentiment kind of turning on Trump's immigration policies is what incentivized him to post something today on social media about how, oh, you Our farmers are saying that it's not good that we're doing these raids. And maybe we need to scale them back a little bit. We'll see if they're actually scaled back.

But Trump knows what he's doing. Stephen Miller is the one who ordered ICE to essentially target low hanging fruit as it pertains to undocumented immigrants. It's very easy to find day laborers in a Home Depot parking lot. And the reason why he ordered them to do that is because they want to increase their deportation numbers. They're in an imaginary competition with the Obama administration. It's ridiculous, but okay, let's give you some more. When it comes to Trump's handling of deportations, well, how does the public feel about that? Only 40% approve, 56% disapprove, 4% offered no opinion.

So his numbers on the issue of deportations were even worse with 16% of respondents disapproving than approving, or 16% more, I should say, respondents approving than approving. disapproving than approving. And then in the Quinnipiac poll, Trump got low scores across the board, including on issues like the economy, trade, the Russia-Ukraine war for obvious reasons, and the Israel-Ghasa war. I would like to think for obvious reasons. I mean, he hasn't really inspired much confidence lately when it comes to preventing a war with Iran on behalf of Israel. And also, let's not forget that Palestinians are getting slaughtered at an insane clip every single day, children, women, elderly people. You know, Americans tend to not like that. So when they see those images, I'm guessing they're not really appreciating how the Trump administration is failing

to stop the carnage. And remember, he's the one who wants to make Gaza the Riviera of the Middle East, meaning he would like to steal that land from the Palestinian people and build hotels, a resort community, absolutely pathetic. Now, unsurprisingly, Trump's overall approval rating came out pretty low as well. Thirty-eight percent of Americans disapprove of the job he's doing so far. I'm sorry, 38 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove, and eight percent offered no opinion. So, look, Americans are paying attention. That gives me a little. a little bit of hope for the future of this country, because quite frankly, some of the targeted raids that have been taking place across the country, the types of people who are getting arrested,

the way in which they're getting arrested in front of their children, inside their churches, at their workplaces. Yeah, it's upsetting a lot of people, not just in L.A., not just in blue states, but across the country. When he said that he was going to target criminals, people believed him. And maybe that's the number one mistake, ever believing that the sky is telling the truth. All right. We've got to take a break. When we come back, Wozni Lombray joins us for the second hour. We're going to talk about the aftermath of that big fight that Trump had with Senator Rand Paul.

And we've got a lot more to get to. So stick around. We'll be right back. I don't know.