What A Day - The Long Good Bibi

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

The twelve year tenure of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may come to an end as early as this week if the broad coalition of officials that are set to replace him can hold together and form a new government. We spoke with Haggai Matar, the executive director of +972 magazine in Israel about the coalition, which includes representatives from eight ideologically distinct parties. Last week, U.S. Marshals shot and killed 32-year-old Winston “Boogie” Smith Jr. in Minneapolis while attempting to arrest him. Now, people in the city are calling for more transparency into the shooting and asking that anyone who might have video footage come forward. And in headlines: a federal judge overturns California’s 30 year ban on assault weapons, Vice President Kamala Harris travels to Central America, and Joe Manchin reiterates his support for the filibuster and opposition to HR1.Show Notes:+972 Magazine's Haggai Matar – https://twitter.com/Ha_MatarFor a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday.

It's Monday, June 7th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, where we are welcoming Megan and Harry's daughter to her very first episode of a podcast. Yeah, we're just going to assume she's listening, and we hope she enjoys it. Yeah, I think she'll understand every word. Totally. On today's show, protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis throughout the weekend after law enforcement shot and killed 32-year-old Winston Smith Jr. Plus, we'll have headlines. But first, the latest with a check-in on Israel.

The government is supposed to be formed within the coming week and a half. They announced they were successful in creating this coalition government. But it will be about a week and a half before it's actually sworn in. And a lot can happen in a week and a half. Yeah, that is Haggai Matar, executive director of PLOS 972 magazine in Israel, who I spoke with yesterday. And as early as this Wednesday, the country may form a new government that pushes out Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. So we wanted to get context on what that might mean for the government, the people, and more.

Yeah. And as you mentioned there, we are just days away from Netanyahu's 12-year tenure, possibly coming to an end. But on the ground, tensions were ramping up all last weekend, despite this current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. So what's going on? Yeah, a lot. So yesterday, Israeli police detained a number of Palestinians, including Muna and Mohammed al-Kurd, who have been trying to protect their home in Sheikh Jarrah. They were released after a massive outcry, but that also followed the arrest of a journalist from Al Jazeera over the weekend as well. And then on top of that, far right Israeli groups are once again planning to march through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem later this week, which could coincide with the actual vote on this new government. So a lot of the same conditions that led to the most recent conflict are playing out again. And as we mentioned, a broad coalition came together last week to

oust Netanyahu. That's not a done deal, though. So what's happening this week? Well, we could see a vote happening in the Knesset or parliament as soon as the next few days here. And the deal right now is between eight ideologically different parties. It would tentatively install right wing pro annexation politician Naftali Bennett as prime minister for the first two years. Here's what journalist Hagai Matar said we should know about him. He'll probably be the most right-wing prime minister Israel has ever had, the first religious prime minister Israelis have ever had. At the same time, he will be part of a coalition where he's in a minority in these positions of his. And he will be curtailed in his ability to promote, he won't be able for them to go ahead and annex territories. Yeah. And so after those two years are up, Yair Lapid would be the next prime minister.

He's often branded as a centrist, but still politically quite to the right. Here's Mattar talking about Lapid. He does not oppose the occupation in any serious way, does not support any sort of progressive agenda in the economy in any sort of way. And then at the same time, he kind of positioned himself in recent years as the absolute center of the Israeli map, which is very much on the right as the goalpost of what is considered left and right. Israel has really, really moved further and further to the right. Now he's considered center.

Normally, we would say that he's on the right. Yeah, so it doesn't sound like much would change on the political spectrum overall compared to Netanyahu. But what have people on the ground been saying about this new possible coalition? Yeah, so aside from the pro-Netanyahu supporters, Mattar described a lot of confusion and unhappiness. A lot of people saying, okay, it's good that we'll get rid of Netanyahu, but nobody's happy with this coalition. I don't think there's a single person who voted for any of these lists that will make up the new coalition who's content because they all essentially had to give up so much of their platforms just in order to kind of make it and make do with the other parties that nobody's

really happy. So everybody's confused and kind of wondering if this will survive. Yeah, and Gideon, it's very possible that this coalition could fall apart before Wednesday as well. Netanyahu isn't going down without a fight. Yeah, he is not. And Mattar said that even if this new government is formed, Netanyahu wouldn't actually go anywhere in that case. Well, he won't be the prime minister. He will be the head of the opposition. And Netanyahu has a history as a very, very fierce head of opposition. We've already seen just the past few days since the announcement of the supposed new government, just how ruthless he can be. Yeah, what he's talking about there is that

Netanyahu has aggressively tried to get some of the more nationalist members of this new coalition to break away from it. Plus, his son Yair Netanyahu was temporarily blocked from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter after reposting calls to protest outside of one lawmaker's home, a repost that widely shared that person's home address. Then over the weekend, the head of Israel's Internal Security Service issued this kind of rare statement voicing concern about, quote, extremely violent and inciting discourse aimed at some of the lawmakers in this new coalition. And he went so far as to say he was concerned that it would open the door to violence.

And even while Netanyahu has said that he condemns incitement and violence, he recently referred to the newly formed coalition as a result of the quote, greatest election fraud in history. That sounds so familiar. Yeah, like nothing we've heard before. This is from the guy who, by the way, condemned the Capitol riot incited by,

you guessed it, former President Trump. So lots to follow there in the next few days with that vote in Israel's parliament happening as soon as this Wednesday will keep you up to date on all of it. Let's turn back to the U.S. and Akilah, you are monitoring a story out of Minnesota. Yeah, so it's brutal. So really sorry to start your Monday off with this kind of news. But Minneapolis is once again at the center of a scandal around a black man being extrajudicially murdered by people whose job it is to bring people in alive. 32-year-old Winston Boogie Smith Jr. was shot to death last Thursday by U.S. Marshals who were attempting to arrest him on alleged weapons charges. But who can actually know for sure?

Because U.S. Marshals don't allow the use of body cameras. There were four consecutive days of vigils and protests since his death, with people searching for answers and proof of what actually happened. Yeah. And so the official word from authorities is that Smith fired a weapon from inside his car, I guess, resulting in the marshals firing back and killing him. Basically. And just to pull the curtain back a little bit, U.S. media has a real authority bias. So while we are reporting what the U.S. marshals have said, we also know that the initial police report about George Floyd's death was a complete mischaracterization of what took place. So part of media literacy has to be taking any information with a grain of salt, especially when it's provided by authorities with no incentive

to be truthful. This is what the multiple days of protests have mostly been about. These people in Minneapolis are so suspicious of what law enforcement say nowadays that they're demanding video proof of what went down. Here's community activist Tashira Garraway speaking last Friday. We refuse to believe that no one has video footage after all of those different departments showed up yesterday. So we want transparency and we demand it now. And a reminder that a bystander's video was crucial in getting justice for George Floyd and body cam footage is a key piece of evidence in the police shooting of Dante Wright in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center in April. Yeah, and activists, family members and the community at large are not sold on what's been shared so far on the killing of Winston Smith Jr. Because as you're saying here, officials claim that there are no tapes.

So is there a good reason at least for that? No. So a Department of Justice spokesperson said back in February that marshals could wear body cameras, but reports now claim that they haven't been phased in yet. So I'm going to need help understanding why they can't hand out the fucking body cameras already. I mean, it doesn't seem like a real problem. It's just a very convenient excuse. And just a little more context on the lack of body cameras. It is bizarre, and it's also been challenged by local law enforcement.

Some police departments nationwide, for example, have pulled their own officers from federal task forces with the U.S. Marshals because they aren't allowed to wear their body cams. It's fascinating. But during the past weekend's protests, family and friends described Smith as a caring father of three. One childhood friend of Smith's, who was unnamed, was recorded on the streets last Saturday by the organization The Citizen Reporter. Winston was loved. Winston was a sweetheart. Winston loved his kids. Winston loved us. Winston loved you if you ain't know he loved you. But Smith was also often harassed by police. Protesters are demanding transparency in the investigation and have asked that anyone who

might have video footage come forward. We'll keep you posted on the situation in Minneapolis as it unfolds, but that's the latest for now. It's Monday WOD Squad, and today we're discussing another earth-shattering story from the digital world that we live in, in our segment, Nothing But Net. Somebody bought a chicken nugget on eBay last Friday, but here's where things get scary and weird. They paid almost $100,000 because the nugget looks like a character from a video game. Specifically, the nug bears a striking resemblance to an Among Us crew member. If you're not familiar, Among Us is the game where one or two people sabotage everybody else on a spaceship, and it became hugely popular during the pandemic.

The nearly $100,000 selling price means some people look back fondly on the period when our social calendars were dominated by smartphone game face hangouts. The nugget also came from a BTS meal, which might have added to its value, and its seller said it would be frozen and air sealed prior to delivery, which is frankly the bare minimum for a six-figure piece of chicken. So Giddy, my question for you,

how much would you pay for this? I would pay a dollar, I believe. And I think I unfortunately would probably have already consumed it at the point where I could have even realized in hindsight that it might have looked like this. So I would lose out on money because I would have eaten the food. Dang, that's a real bummer, man. I'm sorry to hear that.

It's okay. It's my cross to bear. How about you? What would you pay? I mean, I'd probably pay $1,000 if it came with the BTS sauce. Both of them, you know, not just one. But yeah, I think $1,000 is good for this kind of ridiculous thing from this time period. Compared to the $100,000, it certainly sounds reasonable.

Definitely, right? I mean, I think that, you know, that's the most any chicken could ever be worth. Well, that's what's new on the internet. Invest wisely in nuggets, and we'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. A federal judge in California overturned the state's 30-year ban on assault weapons last Friday. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez made the ruling, arguing that the ban deprived

Californians of owning assault-style weapons that other states allow. He also outrageously compared AR-15 rifles to Swiss Army knives, saying that the weapon is both a home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. He did fail to note, however, that Swiss Army knives were not used for any recent mass murder in the country, as far as I'm aware. Governor Gavin Newsom and the families of gun violence victims spoke out against the ruling, calling the judge's comparison to a Swiss Army knife an insult. The judge granted a 30-day stay for the ruling, which means it won't be implemented right away, and that the state attorney general has the right to appeal it, which he has already vowed to do.

Wow, that judge sounds like an asshole. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Guatemala over the weekend for her first foreign trip in office. President Biden tasked her with the same role he had when he was VP, which is to address the issues causing mass migrations out of Central America. She plans to meet with both Mexico and Guatemala's presidents, along with civil groups and business leaders to talk about promoting business investments there and in surrounding countries. Harris is specifically focusing on Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which have all been struggling with violence, corruption, and poverty for decades. Her hope is to encourage investments in the region that

could eventually lead to fixing deep-rooted systemic issues and ending mass migration crises. This Sunday, we were reminded of the four scariest words in the English language, Joe Manchin op- ed. The West Virginia senator and good Republican truther wrote that he would vote against the For the People Act or H.R. 1, which would expand voting rights, restrict gerrymandering and generally revamp rules on campaign finance and ethics. Manchin's position all but seals H.R. 1's fate. The bill would need support from all 50 Democrats and Democrat leading independents in the Senate to pass, and that's assuming the Senate could reform the filibuster, which Manchin also loves, since it plays into his

costly and destructive fetish for bipartisanship. Manchin's argument against H.R.1 is that voting rights legislation that only has support from Democrats would, quote, destroy the already weakening bonds of democracy. For that reason, he instead supports the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, or H.R.4, which has a better chance of attracting Republican support than H.R. 1, partly because it doesn't do quite as much. In response to Manchin's article, Democratic Representative Mondaire Jones of New York tweeted, quote, Manchin's op ed might as well have been titled Why I'll Vote to Preserve Jim Crow. Facts. True. I mean, yuck. So Bitcoin could have a new application besides paying ransom to hackers and buying identities on the dark web. The application is legal tender in El Salvador. At a Miami Bitcoin conference this Saturday, El Salvador's populist president Nayib Bukele announced his support for this idea. Bukele's party holds a supermajority in Congress, so the Bitcoin as legal tender bill he plans to submit this week has a strong likelihood of passing. Many of El Salvador's citizens live in the U.S., and each year they send billions of dollars to family members who live back home. Bukele says that if the money was transferred as Bitcoin,

people could cut out intermediaries and save millions. Bukele also hopes to bring investors to his country by promising not to charge capital gains tax on cryptocurrency. Also, in an indication of the increasingly blurred line between leader of a country and hustle culture influencer, he changed his profile picture on Twitter to give himself laser eyes, which is some kind of Bitcoin meme, I guess. This is the guy you want to sit next to at the UN if you want finance tips, but also want to hear about the benefits of sensory deprivation tanks and intermittent fasting. Yeah, where's Joe Biden's laser eyes? I'm waiting. Yeah. Honestly, I just don't think he has the range. And those are the headlines. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review,

try intermittent fasting and tell your friends to listen. Don't do that. And if you're into reading and not just well-deserved mansion slams on twitter like me what today is also a nightly newsletter check it out subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe i'm akilah hughes i'm getting resting and invest in nugs they're only going up they probably have a stronger likelihood of not being volatile than dogecoin nugs to the moon. That's what they're saying. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun and Jazzy Marine

are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Leo Duran, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.