The Young Turks - You've Got Ismail

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated; Iran vows revenge. Project 2025 director leaves Heritage Foundation after Democratic attacks and Trump criticism. ""White dudes for Harris"" was a missed opportunity. Why couldn’t it have been for all dudes? At a boisterous Georgia rally, Harris dares Trump to ""say it to my face"" and show up for their debate." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Live from the Polymarket Studio in L.A. It's the Young Turks. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. And I hope you guys enjoyed the show today because I will be off for two weeks after today. But we do have an awesome show ahead for you, including. some pretty big international news having to do with the assassination of a Hamas political leader. What does that mean for the potential of a broader war exploding in the Middle East?

We're going to get into that later in the show. We're also going to talk a little bit about some of these kind of segregated fundraising Zoom groups that have popped up in support of Kamala Harris. Is this the right political strategy? We're actually going to have a guest on to talk about it. That's Tyler Austin Harper from the Atlantic, so stick around for that in the first hour. Later in the show, we're also going to bring John Iderall on. He's still recovering from being sick, but he was kind enough to do the show, which I'm excited about, because one of the topics we're going to discuss is potentially one of the worst Donald Trump appearances I have ever seen.

And that is saying something. He was at an event for black journalists, and it did not go as planned, I imagine, for him. So we're going to get to that. We're going to show you some highlights or low lights from that event in just a moment, or not just a moment, in the second hour. But before we get to all of that, as always, please like and share the stream. If you're watching us on live, it's a great way to share the message of TYT and help support us. And you can also become a member by going to TYT.com slash.

join. All right, without further ado, let's talk a little bit about this major international news. Ishmael Hanya was seen as one of all pragmatic leaders and a crucial voice in the negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal. He grew up at a refugee camp where he lived until his self-imposed exile in 2017. international news today, Israel has assassinated Hamas political leader, Ishmael Hania, who is someone pretty high up in Hamas. And they did so during his visit in Iran. In fact, he was assassinated while he was in the capital of Iran, Tehran. And we also have some new reporting indicating that Israel's bombing in Beirut yesterday, which of course is the capital

of Lebanon, did in fact kill a Hezbollah commander. by the name of Fuad Shakur, we'll get back to the details of that element of the story in just a moment. But first, what is telling about the assassination is how it was carried out. And this is according to Barack Ravid. Let's take a look. You know, just to understand how this assassination happened, according to the Iranian media, there are new details that are being published, some sort of aircraft, fired a missile into Hania's bedroom through the window and kill them. You really need to have very good intelligence and very good operational capabilities to, you know, conduct such an

operation. So the IDF has the obvious capability to do a strike so precise, that they can assassinate a Hamas political leader by firing something through a window that'll hit him in a bedroom. I think it's really important to highlight that because, again, clearly they have the capability to do these precision strikes. And these are exactly the type of precision strikes that we are not seeing carried out in Gaza where the IDF drops 2,000 pound bombs on the civilian population, which has led to at least 39,445 people who have been killed and 91,773 injured in Gaza since the war started, and that's according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Now, of course, it does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says the majority of the dead are, in fact, women and children. That's a little bit of a side note.

But I do want to just emphasize, I personally have no problem with Israel going after Hamas leadership at all. all. Now, I do think it is fascinating that they decided to go after this specific Hamas leader. Because as I mentioned, he is a political leader for Hamas. He is not one of the military leaders. Now, why is that relevant? Well, the political leader that we're talking about here, Ismail Hanier, is a lot more moderate. And he was the individual who was engaging in the ceasefire negotiations on behalf of Hamas. He was considered more moderate, more willing to be practical and pragmatic, as opposed to Hamas' military leadership. So they specifically targeted him, and this means that ceasefire talks will very likely end altogether, okay, and that Israel and Israel is basically going to abandon the Israeli and American hostages who remain captive in the Gaza Strip. So this is actually bad news when it comes to the ceasefire negotiations.

I feel terrible for the family members who have been protesting Benjamin Netanyahu because they want the hostages to return. They wanted a ceasefire deal. But that seems less and less likely now. It's not just the specific individual that Israel decided to target. It's also where and when they decided to target him. Okay. So the time and place really does matter. This was on Iranian soil in the capital of Iran, Tehran. And this was during the inauguration of Iran's new president, who has been considered a much more progressive president compared to the type of leadership that Iran has had in the past. This new president is focused on rebuilding diplomatic relations with the United States, something that Israel has been very much against. And now that this has happened, I mean, obviously, it's going to sour any possibility of a diplomatic conversation between the United States and Iran. Obviously, Iran is angry. Obviously, Iran is, well, they're saying they're going to retaliate. The question is, how are they going to retaliate? And will this explode into a larger war? Now, with that in mind, I want to go to this next clip. And it features Trita Parsi. He's from the Quincy Institute for

responsible statecraft. And I think what he elaborates on here during a conversation on breaking points is really important to take in. Let's take a look. The fact that they took him out while he was in Tehran on the day of the inauguration of the Iranian president, I think is designed to send a couple of messages. One of those messages is, of course, that they are trying to undermine any opportunity that Pizeshkian's election would bring about for renewed U.S.-Iran diplomacy, something the Israelis have opposed since the mid-1990s. Secondly, is to send a clear signal to both Iran and the different groups that Iran is supporting from Hezbollah to the Houthis to Iraqi militias, that they're not safe, they're not even

safe in Iran, and that Iran actually cannot protect them. This is deeply, deeply embarrassing for Iran, of course, particularly, if it turns out that some of the reporting that is coming out now is true, which is that he was actually in or very near the presidential compound when he was assassinated. And then you have to ask yourself, so if the Israelis are doing something that they know is deeply embarrassing to the Iranians, they're clearly doing it because they know that that will maximize the likelihood that Iran will respond. And that will then as a result. And of course, trigger an escalatory spiral.

Now, the United States government alleges that they knew nothing about this assassination. They were not alerted by Israeli authorities or the Israeli government about it before they carried out the assassination in Tehran. But what we do know, and what's been very clear based on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's public statements, is that he's been wanting to go to war with Iran for years now. In fact, he's been trying to go the United States to fight this war on behalf of Israel. And that's why he was pushing so hard to get our government to rip up the Iran nuclear deal, something that Donald Trump was happy to do, which paved the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons. I mean, there's nothing that's stopping them now because we're the

ones who pulled out of that international agreement, which of course had oversight to ensure that Iran would not develop nuclear weapons. We also know that, again, this is an individual that could have been targeted in Qatar, but Israel decided to specifically talk to. target this Hamas political leader, a moderate political leader who was engaging in the ceasefire negotiations as he was visiting Tehran. And so in my opinion, this is very much meant to inch closer to a war with Iran, which would be absolutely catastrophic. So I don't know how Iran is going respond. I mean, that's really the big question now. And it's not just about Iran anymore. I mean, as we know, Israel has been fighting this war on multiple fronts, including with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

As we had reported with you all yesterday, they had done a bombing in Beirut. That story was developing at the time. We didn't have enough details about whether or not they had successfully assassinated their target there. It was a Hezbollah commander. And now we're learning that that commander Fuad Shakur was in fact killed, and we have some more details about that as well. Let's take a look. Chaos in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli airstrike in the southern Bayroot neighborhood of Dahia. When we arrived shortly afterwards, hundreds had gathered after learning four people,

including two children were killed and at least 70 wounded in the attack. Well, you might be able to see over my shoulder, that building over there, that was damaged in that Israeli strike. As you can imagine, it's a scene of real chaos here, but also one of real anger. In a move almost unheard of, the Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike and named its target. Kuwakur, also known and Said Moussin, Hezbollah's most senior military commander and the head of its strategic unit. Now, of course, Israel says that it carried out that assassination. after they claim Hezbollah had fired a, basically had targeted Israel and had killed 12

Druze in the occupied Golan Heights. And so Hezbollah has still refused to take any responsibility for that. A number of different things could have happened there, right? So it could have been an Iron Dome missile misfiring. It could have been Hezbollah accidentally. misfiring. There's a bunch of different things that could have happened. And unfortunately, while Hezbollah claims that they want an independent investigation into that attack, Israel has shot that down. So we might never find out what the truth is in that case. But the point is they did carry out that assassination in Beirut. They did the bombing in Beirut, which of course is the capital of Lebanon. And that has led to a lot of anger because it wasn't just

one individual who was assassinated. As you heard from that report, there were four other individuals who were killed, some of whom are children. And so this reads to me that Benjamin Netanyahu has no interest in ending the war. If anything, his interest is in expanding the war. He intended to target the Hamas political leader in Iran rather than targeting him in Qatar if he wanted to target him at all. And for some reason, when after him, when he's the moderate one who's been engaging in these negotiations for a ceasefire, rather than attacking or going after the Hamas military leaders who are far more, I guess, rooted in their extremist ideology and not as pragmatic, not as willing to negotiate or compromise as Hania was. And so this doesn't really

bode well if you're looking for peace in the Middle East, if anything. Again, it's very clear to me that Netanyahu has abandoned the hostages entirely and has all the interest in the world, all the incentives in the world, really, to continue this war and in fact expand this war, maybe even exploit the current situation to finally get what he's always wanted, which is a hot war in Iran, which of course the United States would be dragged into. This is not a good sign. Again, I want to emphasize, I have no problem with Netanyahu going after Hamas. It's just interesting to see the way he is carrying that out. And every, Every sign reads to me that he's not really just trying to go after Hamas, he's trying to expand this war. And when I say that he has every incentive to do so, he knows that the second the war is over. He's going to have to come up on charges of corruption. He's going to have to stand trial for that. He knows that his days as a political leader are over because the people of Israel find him repulsive and want him out. 72% of Israelis do not want him in leadership.

And so this is awful for everyone involved. It's awful for Israelis because what Netanyahu is currently doing is playing with fire. I mean, he is trying to provoke militants, whether it's Hezbollah, whether it's the Houthis, whether it's other Iran-backed proxies. And that really puts Israelis in danger along with civilians in other countries like Iran, Lebanon, like Syria. And so it doesn't look like there's peace coming anytime soon. But of course, we will give you guys updates on this story as we learn more.

Not really good news to be honest with you, even though I don't really shed any tears for Hamas leadership, keeping it real. All right, let's move on to our next story. Actually, you know what, let's do this. I don't want to be late for our guests. So why don't we take a break? We'll bring our guest on and then after our interview, we'll talk a little bit about project 2025. There's some pretty big updates with that story. You don't want to miss it.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. Before we get to our next story, I just wanted to read a quick comment from one of our members. Jesus take the wheel says, North Tehran is the wealthiest part of the city with the most security. This is deeply humiliating for the Iranians. It would be like Iran bombing Netanyahu while he was in Midtown Manhattan. It is deeply embarrassing for Iran, which is what makes the whole situation a lot more terrifying

because they're going to want to retaliate more out of the fact that they're embarrassed by the security failure here. Hopefully they don't. I mean, they've been a lot more measured than we've expected, but we'll see. We'll see how it plays out. Anyway, we'll get back to that story and more later, but for now, there's this. As white women, we need to use our privilege to make positive changes. If you find yourself talking over or speaking for BIPAC individuals or, God forbid, correcting them, just take a beat. And instead, we can put our listening ears on. As white people, we have a lot to learn and unlearn. So do check your blind spots. Maybe you should check your blind spots. Like Candice Owens, am I allowed to ever

correct Candice Owens? She's a person of color. Anyway, that was some of the self-flagellating that went on during the white women for Kamala Harris fundraising call. These racially segregated Zoom fundraisers actually took place for other groups as well. including black women for Harris and white dudes for Harris, which ended up sparking a debate among members of the left. Now, Shadi Hamid of the Washington Post asked an interesting question, quote, maybe I miss the memo, but when did white affinity groups become an okay thing on the left? One self-described democratic socialist has actually been vociferous in his criticism on social media about this. And so we decided to look into.

to what he had to say about it in his recent Atlantic piece. It's titled, White Dudes for Harris's for Harris was a missed opportunity. Why couldn't it have been for all dudes? But what was really interesting about this piece was how nuanced it is because Tyler Austin Harper, who actually wrote the piece, attended the group and was pleasantly surprised about the substantive nature of the conversation that was taking place. So in the piece, he writes, I'm generally hostile to. any form of racial

identitarianism, and I've spent the past few years watching and criticizing liberals as they've peddled condescending, divisive, and often bizarre rhetoric in the name of anti-racism, fighting sexism, and generally

militating for progress. I thought the event would be the kind of thing that played well with the college-educated voters who already make up the Democratic base, but that might repel the swing state and working class men the party needs to court in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan. So imagine my shock when I found myself slowly but surely charmed by the white dudes for Harris call.

Joining us now is this man himself, Tyler Austin Harper, who's an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College and a contributing writer over at the Atlantic. Thank you so much for joining us, Tyler. Happy to be here. So I'm so happy that you're joining us, because I want to learn more about what you experienced during that call. I also want to talk a little bit about this ongoing debate because I do feel that those who are willing to engage in the debate are a bit courageous because it's really easy to just smear

someone as a racist and then be done with it. But you're willing to take this on. So talk to me about the concerns that you had when this first came up with white women for Kamala Harris. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as you saw in that clip you showed, my concern immediately, I actually watched the white women for Harris Zoom because I was curious. And there was a lot of self-flagellation. There was a lot of sort of paternalism and condescension about that really framed white women sort of implicitly as sort of swooping in to kind of save the day in ways. I found troubling. But also this kind of notion that is because some white women voted for Trump, that it is the responsibility of everyone who shares that. is in that racial demographic to somehow like a tone for this in some way. There's a lot of talk about, you know, we've got to be accountable because other white women voted for Trump. And that whole sort of logic doesn't really hold for me. But so that's kind of what I was expecting with the dudes for Kamala Harris call.

I was, you know, I went in, I tried to be open-minded, but I went into the assumption that I wasn't going to like what I heard. A lot of the promotional material, I will say, too, was, you know, there's a lot to talk about toxic masculinity. There was a lot of talk, you know, about, we got to hold ourselves accountable and have open spaces for honesty and sharing, et cetera. And, you know, I'm from a pretty working class part of Pennsylvania. And I had a sort of a hard time imagining that the way in which it was framed rhetorically was going to go over well for, you know, people in some of these key swing states. And I was really surprised, you know, there was really substantive discussion. There was

discussion about labor issues. The self-flagellation was largely very absent. And it was, you know, it was a robust discussion that I thought, you know, didn't go down the same path that some of the other Zoom calls seem to go down. So yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm really happy to hear that because I do think that, you know, this collectivist take that the left tends to have on, on race versus focusing on individuals who might be racist is a problem, right? Because I do think that it ends up alienating people who like messaging from the Democratic Party otherwise. But when you're told over and over again from the party that you want to support that you're a problem and you're a problem specifically because of the color of your skin, well, if you're repulsed by racist rhetoric on the right, you're similarly going to be repulsed by the racist rhetoric on the left as well. And so I will admit I was pretty blind to this issue for many years, and I didn't understand what people were talking about when they would, you know, point to this kind of divisive strand in the Democratic Party. But now I do see it. And I actually think that it's strategically a terrible idea because you're right. I mean, when it comes to those swing states, this kind of messaging can really make all the difference. And it's not to erase the reality of racism in America. I think it's about.

about tackling it on a more precise level as opposed to kind of lumping everyone together as a bad thing simply based on the color of their skin. I mean, that's that's bigotry, right? Yeah. No, totally. I mean, I think one of the things that really, you know, there's been a lot of criticism of privilege discourse, which is one of the reasons why some of these Zoom calls really bothered me because they're like, we have to use our privilege for good. That was one of the sort of talking points from the white women for Harris call. That was one of the talking points early on and before the call happened for the white dudes for Harris call. And, you know, I grew up in a really white place that was absolutely crushed by the opioid epidemic. There was not, you know,

there was often not a lot of privilege floating around. And I think a certain kind of person, you know, who's like a working class white guy in an area that's been de-industrialized that, you know, people are dying from opioid overdoses are not, they're going to hear all that privilege talk. Like, I don't see where my privilege is, you know. And so it is really divisive unhelpful. I don't think it's a, you know, I think we should be, you know, class first on the left. And I think there's a way in which all of this privilege, toxic masculinity talk, papers over a lot of class differences that really matter and that can turn off voters when they, when they hear that kind of language.

I think that's such a good point. And I was really happy to read from your piece that the white dudes for Harris conversation really did center on important substantive issues, including labor issues. And they talked about the positive things that the Biden administration did on behalf of unions, on behalf of labor, which is true. But I personally feel like those accomplishments by the Biden administration are not. never really acknowledged, or at least they're kind of buried underneath some of the more cultural debates or race-related debates that the Democratic Party takes on. And again, I want to emphasize, I don't think it's a bad thing to address racism or sexism or any of those issues in America. I do believe that those issues still exist. It's really about the framing

of those issues and this weird tendency that Democrats now have in lumping entire groups of people together. I mean, in the cold open that I showed, you know, I know that she means well. I know that she's coming from a good place. But she's also kind of infantilizing black people, which you should never correct the black person. Okay, but black people are not a monolith, right? There are different. Sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes they're wrong, sure, yes. But there are different ideologies among the black community. They're not all the same. So the idea that you shouldn't ever engage in a conversation where you might disagree with someone who's black is in. my opinion, insane and goes to this super toxic direction of like infantilizing black people.

Like, oh, you know, you don't want to do that. You know, you don't ever want to challenge them. No, I'm pretty sure that they can hold their own and engage in a debate like anyone else can. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I as an academic, a lot of my work is, you know, I focus on the history of science in the 19th century and a lot of, you know, stuff about the history of eugenics and race science. And it is often shocking to me the way in which the same kind of infantilizing tropes from the 19th century are popping back up in progressive rhetoric. You know, I think you're totally right. And, you know, black folks can be wrong. Individual black folks can be wrong.

You know, I mean, we saw a bit of this, too, with, you know, when we were debating whether Biden should stay or go. And one of the arguments was, well, black voters wanted me to stay, which was disingenuous to begin with. But also, you know, part of me was like, well, what if, like, those people are wrong? Like, it's possible that they're wrong. and he in fact should go. So I do think there is this tendency to infantilize and treat entire racial groups as a monolith with kid gloves. And that doesn't strike me as especially progressive.

Yeah, as that debate was going on, your spicy tweets were greatly appreciated by me because look, it turns out they were wrong. They were wrong. I mean, look at the enthusiasm and excitement around Harris now. So I do appreciate that because I know personally what it was like to push. for Biden to drop out and how people reacted to that. Now, what was also interesting is how the organizer of the white dudes for Harris Zoom call acknowledged that the optics aren't good, right?

So he said throughout American history, when white men have organized, it was often with pointy hats on. But they kind of proceeded with this like racially segregated Zoom meeting anyway. Well, in this case, it had to do with gender. But a lot of these guys were white. I mean, all of them were white. It was marketed as white. And their marketing materials were also kind of divisive, if you ask me.

So can you talk about that? Because you had positive things to say about the Zoom call itself, but you still have critique. Yeah, you know, so to begin with, like I said, I'm not a fan of racial identitarianism of any kind. I mean, I don't think the way to fight white identitarianism on the right is with a mirrored version on the left. But I do think there's an important distinction that doesn't often get made between a call or a fundraiser, an activity or a group that the logic of which is we're all white, we're all men. Let's have a Zoom versus a substantive discussion of policy that impacts a particular racial demographic, right? I think those are two really different things. And what I was pleased to, I mean, there are issues that impact white men disproportionately. When we talk about sort of disproportionality, we're usually talking about minorities, but there are issues that. that impact white men disproportionately. Rising suicide rates is one. This has changed a little recently,

but opioid deaths was another that for most of the 2010s disproportionately impacted working class white men. So I don't have an issue in principle with a group of people saying, hey, working class white men face these particular issues. Let's have a call that is designed to make it known to the Harris campaign that we care about these particular sets of issues. That's very different as a kind of rhetoric than,

are you white, are you a man? Come on down. We have a group for you and we're doing a thing. You know, and the call itself was much more of the former, and the rhetoric leading up to the call in some of the marketing materials was much more like, are you white? Are you a dude? We're having a white dudes meeting, you know? And that's the kind of thing I found troubling. So, you know, I would not rule out in any circumstances, but sometimes it might make sense for white men to advocate as a group. That sometimes makes sense for black folks, and it's fine, you know. But it is when it's about nothing other than shared skin color, that's when I get the kind of creepy crawlies, you know. Yeah, I appreciate that distinction. I think it's important to make it. Now, final question for you, you know, there's something going on on X or Twitter that really bothered me because regardless of what anyone's critique is of these like segregated groups or segregated Zoom calls, I don't think that the individuals who own social media platforms should put their thumb on the scale when it comes to the general election. it appears that that's exactly what Elon Musk did. So he ended up suspending the Twitter account that belonged to the white dudes for Harris

effort. And so what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, it's terrible, for one. I'm not sure what the logic, if any, was offered to that. And I also haven't followed up on. I saw it happen the night up. I don't know if it's been reinstated or not. But yeah, I think we're seeing a lot of thumbs being put on the scale.

I mean, I've been really astounded that the media actually has not covered this very well at all, you know? I mean, there's some of the normal, you know, Elon Musk is crazy, blah, blah, blah, but he's really using Twitter as a platform to really push Republican talking points. And I don't want to call it election interference. I think that's too strong, but it is, it's really clear that Twitter has become a political organ with a very specific bias. And that is algorithmically pushing up or down and enforcing certain rules based on, you know, political standing. So, you know, that's not great. And I think it's something that we should talk about more, you know, and I think it's, you know, it often feels like those rules are not equally enforced across the political divide. And you know, Republicans and Elon Musk want to say,

and I think some of this is fair, that, well, actually, some of these platforms have a history of shadow banning conservative rhetoric. That's not a myth, that's not a fairytale, but there's been some of that and it's true. But just as I don't think the solution to white identitarianism on the right, is that on the left, the same thing. I think the solution to some legitimate complaints about the way that conservative discourse was treated on platforms, the solution isn't to do the same thing to the left now.

And I think we're seeing a bit of that. Yeah, I totally agree with you. You know, according to Elon Musk, the page violated their TOS. I can't imagine that the argument is that this was racism. If he cites racism, I'm going to laugh because obviously all sorts of racism, anti-Semitism, all sorts of gross rhetoric is really thriving on that platform. And so if you're going to be a free speech absolutist, then you can't pick and choose based on political affiliation.

It seems like that's what's going on. And to your point, and I really appreciate you being fair on this, I mean, look, conservatives despise the fact that it appeared the Democratic Party put their thumb on the scale. and convince Twitter to ban any mention of the Hunter Biden laptop story. And so it's really important for the left to take that into account. Because any time you advocate for something like that to be done to the right, it's going to happen to the left in the future, probably the near future, right? And that's exactly what we're seeing right now. And I don't agree with any of it. Now, of course, at the time, you know, there was this big lie about how Russia was behind the

Hunter Biden laptop. They weren't. Right, right, right. And so that's, you know, that led to a lot of fear and a lot of people just kind of conceding to what the Democratic Party wanted. I think that was a bad idea. But I do appreciate you focusing on this issue. It takes, again, a lot of courage to do it, because I'm sure you got a lot of backlash over your spicy tweets. But overall, I think that your piece was nuanced and important. So we'll include a link to it in our description box so anyone who's interested can read it. And thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Take care. You too. All right, everyone. We're going to take a brief break. And when we come back, we've got more news. I wanted to get into the Kamala Harris

rally. We're going to talk about that later on. And you don't want to miss it. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Let's get right to our next story. I don't know what the hell it is. It's Project 25. He's involved in Project. And then they read some of the things that they are extreme. I mean, they're seriously extreme.

But I don't know anything about it. Project 2025. I'm sure you heard of it. It was cooked up by the right-wing think tank known as the Heritage Foundation and has been such a thorn in Trump's side that his team successfully pushed for the ouster of its director, a guy by the name of Paul Dan's. Now, the Trump campaign did not author Project 2025. You might think they do because Democrats make it appear as though Trump himself wrote it. But it has been attributed to his campaign by Democrats as part of their political strategy. And I think that it is wrong to do this because when you inaccurately attribute something to Trump, when you cry wolf, well, when he actually does pose a threat on things, people are going to be fatigued from the fear mongering. And so I want to make my case on this. Now, let's get back to the director of Project 2025. Paul Danz's exit comes after the project completed exactly what it's set out to do, bringing together over 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision,

motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said, in a statement. Now, as you heard from the video that you watched a little earlier, Trump has very aggressively disavowed Project 2025. There are portions of Project 2025, namely on immigration policy that Trump does agree with and he campaigns heavily on. But as Associated Press notes, Trump has repeatedly disavowed the document saying on social media he hasn't read it and doesn't know anything about it.

At a rally in Michigan earlier this month, he said Project 2025 was written by people on the severe right. I agree with him on that. And some of the things in it are seriously extreme. I agree with him on that as well. Now, it's important to keep in mind that while there's a big, you know, worry about Project 2025 right now, this is a document similar to what the Heritage Foundation releases literally every election cycle. In fact, it dates back to the Reagan administration. Now, the document itself has differed from election cycle to election cycle, of course. But the Heritage Foundation has been in the game for a long time, and they do this, again, every election cycle. It's the think tank's way of pushing the Republican candidate,

and in their hopes, the Republican president eventually, to carry out what their agenda is. But associating it with the Trump campaign, because some former Trump administration, officials are now part of the Heritage Foundation, I think is a little bit unfair. Now, here's how the Trump campaign reacted to the ouster of Paul Danz. The Trump campaign appeared to cheer Paul Dan's departure tonight, even though he is an alum of the Trump administration who served in the OPM office, saying in a quote, its demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump in his campaign. It will not end well for you.

Now, in addition to that, Trump's campaign advisors, Susie Wiles and Chris Lasavita went even further and released a statement saying that President Trump's campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the president in any way. Reports of Project 2025's demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign. It will not end well for you. And one thing that I will note is that Trump isn't disavowing Project 2025 because he's trying

to appeal to the lips, okay? He's disavowing it because MAGA Republicans ain't about the hands. Heritage Foundation brand of conservatism. There is a very obvious split in the Republican Party that I think a lot of Democrats are unaware of. There are the traditional conservative Republicans. They're the Warhawks. They're the individuals who are very extreme when it comes to social issues. And then there are the more isolationist MAGA Republicans. These are the America first crowd. They don't like what's in Project 2020. And so what Trump is doing and disavowing it is trying to appease or appeal to members of his own base.

So again, like he knows that it's actually politically advantageous to not be associated with something that is not popular with the America First MAGA crowd. Now, Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnsdorf, who's been following this story very closely, discloses some really important. important facts about how the Heritage Foundation agenda was developed in the first place. And the timing of how they developed it is also really important. And guys, I'm not telling you this because I'm trying to defend Donald Trump. I'm telling you this because I don't want people living in fear because Democrats are attributing something that Trump didn't write to Donald Trump. So with that in mind, take a look.

Project 2025 started before Trump was the nominee, before it was clear that he was going to be the nominee. And the idea was for the Heritage Foundation to get together a whole bunch of think tanks in the conservative movement and present a consensus view for an agency by agency policy blueprint for the next administration, whoever that Republican president was going to be. A lot of people at Heritage and involved in Project 2025 loved the notoriety that it was getting. They loved to see it being criticized on CNN and MSNBC. They loved that they were DNC mobile billboard trucks outside the office. But then when it started angering Trump and they started getting backlash from Trump about it, that made them really concerned. The thing is,

I don't expect the Democrats to stop talking about it anytime soon. Yeah, I agree. I don't think Democrats are going to stop talking about it anytime soon, because this is very much part of their campaign strategy. And look, it has now been, several years. I mean, since 2016, the Democratic Party's messaging as it pertains to the general election is the other guys really bad and really dangerous. And that's terrible in two main ways. Okay, number one, it leads to a situation in which Democratic voters live in this like extreme fear. And look, I think that there are lots of things to be concerned about when it comes to Donald Trump should he get reelected. But having unfounded fears about something that

Trump did not write and did not subscribe to, I think is unfair to people. I don't want them to live in fear like that. And more importantly, I think Democrats need to make the case for why voters should support them, not just because the other guy is scary and dangerous, but because Democrats have a policy agenda that seeks to improve the lives of Americans. That needs to be part of the messaging. If you want to fearmonger, okay, I mean, that's going to be part of the messaging as well, and that's fine. But the dishonesty really bothers me. The fear mongering to an extreme really bothers me and the lack of a message in regard to what substantive policies are Democrats going to pursue should Kamala Harris win the general election. Like the lack of

that really bothers me as well. So look, I want to emphasize and be fair, there are definitely elements of Project 2025 that Donald Trump is in favor of and vociferous. supports. This guy can't hide the ball. He's very honest about what he wants to do. And one of the things he wants to do, of course, is mass deportations. But what's really interesting is during Kamala Harris's rally in Georgia yesterday, she did touch on immigration. And she seems to be promoting the hardline right wing policy that the Biden administration was trying to pass in the Senate. So let's hear what she had to say about that. Our administration worked on the most significant border security bill in decades. Some of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, D.C. supported the bill. Even the border patrol endorsed it. It was all set to pass. But at the last minute, Trump directed his allies in the Senate to vote it down.

He tanked, tanked the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election. As president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed, and I will sign it into law and show Donald Trump what real leadership looks like. I mean, that was a hardline bill that was negotiated by a very conservative Republican in the Senate, Senator Lankford. So it's just really interesting how the Overton window on immigration has really moved to the right. And it's celebrated when it's Kamala Harris, right? But when it's Donald Trump, probably because of his way of communicating, it's not celebrated, right? It's used to fearmonger.

And it's important to know that. It's important to be aware of that. Now, Republicans will claim that that bipartisan bill was a weak bill, but it was really a massive giveaway to conservative Republicans. It had provisions in there that Republicans have been fighting for for many, many, many years. And in fact, Langford was furious when Trump crushed that bill because he wanted to run on our broken immigration system. So it's important to know the fact. It's important to be honest about what's really going on in this election.

Donald Trump, in my opinion, is a target-rich environment. And if the Democratic Party wants to fearmonger about him, please do so on things that he's actually saying he's going to do. But associating him with the Heritage Foundation, which again is full to the brim of traditional conservative Republicans that MAGA Republicans find repulsive, I think is weird. And the reason why Donald Trump is so furious about it is not because, Democrats are fear mongering about it to liberals. He's furious about it because some in the MAGA crowd are concerned that, you know, the Heritage Foundation agenda is going to be implemented. So that's what I had to say about that story.

With that in mind, let's move on to one more story before we bring John in. So he won't debate, but he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me. Well, Donald. I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me. me on the debate stage. Because as the same goes, if you've got something to say, say it to my face. In front of a rally crowd of 10,000 people in Georgia last night,

Kamala Harris taunted Trump challenging him to say all the smack talking that he likes to say on the campaign trail to her face. Now, her comments come after Trump's interview with Fox News this week, in which he refused to definitively say he'll debate Kamala Harris, which honestly I think is pretty insane and weak. Let's take a look. The answer is yes, I'll probably end up debating. But I can also make a case for not doing it. Also, I don't like rewarding fake news. I don't like rewarding the people that have been able to, They're going to make tens of millions of dollars with this debate. I don't like ABC.

I think it's a terrible, terrible outfit. I don't like that ABC is going to get rich, George Slopidopoulos, as I call them. I don't like it's such, I mean, these are such bad people. I don't like that ABC is going to get rich. Okay, look, Slopidopoulos is pretty funny. I have to admit. However, pretty weaksos considering the fact that Donald Trump agreed to do a debate with Joe Biden on ABC and now suddenly ABC is a problem. Right. Now he actually gave even more lame excuses during

this interview. Let's take a look. Everybody knows who I am. And now people know who she is. She's a radical left lunatic. She'll destroy our country. She wants open borders. And why not debate her? No wait. But because they already know everything. She wants to defund our police. She wants no bail. She wants no cash. You just you kill somebody and we're going to release you immediately. They call it cashless, cashless. That's a, by the way, this has been a horrible thing for our country. This has been what I just said. But we know where she is. She wants high taxes. Well, they're going to say you're afraid of debating her. That's what they're going to say. Well, they said that with Biden too. You know, I was afraid. I did great with Biden and I did

great in every debate. I've had a lot of debates. But you're winning on all the issues, right? But you know, I'm leading in the polls by, I think a lot. I don't know. I hear different numbers, but I'm leading in all of the polls. I'm leading big in all of the swing states. I know, but you actually did debate Biden. Like people were saying you'd be afraid to debate Biden, and then you did debate Biden. And it was disastrous for Biden, definitely. But he's going to argue that the electorate knows everything they need to know about Kamala Harris, who he won't debate, but he did debate the current president of the United States who what, like the electorate didn't know enough about? That argument really makes no sense. Look, in my opinion, he's going to

debate her. I don't know why he's playing this game. I don't know what the strategy is here. It is not making him look good. It's making him look incredibly weak. We'll see how this plays out, but he won't debate her because, again, people already know everything they need to know about the vice president as opposed to the current president. Okay. Now, Trump also argued that he's leading big in all of the polls, including in the swing states. But polling does suggest that that might not be the case anymore. So let's go to the latest Bloomberg poll, which found that Kamala Harris has effectively wiped out Trump's lead in some of these battleground states. In Michigan, the latest Bloomberg morning console poll finds Harris leading

Trump by 11 points. That is a major shift in that state. And all six other battleground states pulled, Harris and Trump are in a statistical tie within the margin of error. Harris leads by two points in Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Trump leads Harris by four points in Pennsylvania and by two points in North Carolina. The candidates, they are running dead even in Georgia. So look, this is big news. I want to proceed with caution because it's one poll. I think we'll get a better sense of how well she's performing once we are able to do an average of polls. And guys, I mean, she has now been the presumptive Democratic nominee for a very short period of time. So we need to wait for more polls to come in to have a clearer picture of how she's performing.

What's clear to me, though, is she's obviously performing way better than Biden was. And I do think that this is really throwing the Trump ticket off their game. I mean, it is kind of amazing to me how much they're fumbling on this election now that Harris is the presumptive nominee. Now, overall, the Bloomberg poll also found that Harris was backed by 48% of voters compared to 47% of voters compared to 47% for Trump, which is a statistical dead heat in the swing states that will likely decide November's election. Now, as she continues campaigning, and I do have to give her credit, she's done a really good job with her campaign. She has this confidence and way of speaking now that for some reason she was having difficulty with when she was just merely VP rather than VP and a presumptive nominee for the general election. And so I'm happy to see that. She's got like this confidence that is just good to see.

Let's just put it that way. Now, again, that's a stronger showing than the two-point deficit for President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race. So just to do that comparison, obviously Kamala Harris is a better candidate, a more competitive candidate to run up against Donald Trump. Now, the survey also shows newfound enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket since Biden dropped out. So more than one third of voters is. in the seven battlegrounds, battleground states, said that they're much more likely to vote now that the contest is between Trump and Harris, and the numbers rose to 49% and 44% among black and Hispanic voters, respectively. Now remember, Biden was really struggling with those demographics, and it wasn't that they were going to vote for Trump necessarily, but there was a concern that they weren't going to show up to vote for Biden. And so the enthusiasm is important and it could really go a long way in helping Kamala, you know, clench this election. Now, battleground state voters who said that they're much more likely to vote.

Let's take a look. Oh, I already shared that with you. So black voters, 49 percent, Hispanic voters, 44 percent. And then there's an APN-O-R-C poll that found that about eight in ten Democrats say they would be somewhat or very satisfied if Harris became the Democratic nominee for president. By comparison, only about four in ten Democrats were satisfied with Biden being the nominee. And while Trump still polls much better when it comes to the economy, it also turns out that his lead in that area is narrowing. Trump has an eight percentage poll. I'm sorry, Trump has an eight percentage point edge over Harris on the question of who's trusted more on the economy

down from the 14 point advantage he held over Biden early this month. But it's important that you don't underestimate your opponent and don't get overconfident, right? So most averages of polls still have Trump coming out ahead in November, and that includes the real clear polling, which gives Trump a 1.5 point lead if third party challengers are taken into consideration. That's what you're looking at here. So it indicates that Trump has 44.6 percent. Kamala Harris has 43.1 percent. Kennedy remaining in the race is potentially hurting her, but we don't know for sure yet. But look, it's still somewhat early because Kamala Harris hasn't really been the presumptive Democratic nominee for that long. It really depends on how the campaigning moves forward and whether or not Donald Trump can kind of turn the messaging around. As I mentioned on the show earlier this week, you know, right now the Trump Vance ticket seems to be playing defense and they do seem to have been caught flat footed. I don't think they expected Kamala Harris to be the presumptive Democratic nominee. And so they're trying to kind of catch up and go back to where I think Trump usually shines, which is playing offense. There's really no telling if he's going to get there. But we'll see. For now, we're going to take a break when we come back. John Ida Rola joins me for the second. an hour. Don't miss it.