What A Day - Trump, Musk Go “Dark MAGA” During Rally at Site of First Assassination Attempt

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Donald Trump rallied with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, at the same site where a lone gunman attempted to assassinate the former president earlier this year. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris was in North Carolina over the weekend helping with the ongoing recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene. She’s scheduled to do a series of sit-down interviews this week with a slew of different outlets, from ’60 Minutes’ to ‘Howard Stern.’Today also marks one year since Hamas militants broke out of the Gaza Strip, killing roughly 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostage in the deadliest attack on Israelis in the country’s history. It prompted Israel to immediately declared war on Hamas, and in the year since, the Gaza Health Ministry says around 42,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military. As the threat of a wider war mounts in the region, Yonatan Zeigen, the son of an Israeli peace activist who was killed during the attack, and Nivine Sandouka, a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem and regional director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace, talk about the work they’re doing to help bring peace the region.Show Notes:Alliance for Middle East Peace - https://www.allmep.org/Vivian Silver Impact Award - https://www.viviansilver.com/Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday   

It's Monday, October 7th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What A Day, the show where we are saluting the good people of Vanderbilt University, whose football team beat number one-ranked Alabama. Afterwards, the fans marched the goalpost three miles through downtown Nashville and threw it into the Cumberland River. Shout out to the very, very, very confused bachelorette parties they must have marched past. On today's show, former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk get real dark in Butler, Pennsylvania, Harris hits the airwaves, and Florida prepares for another major hurricane. But first, today marks one year since Hamas militants broke out of the Gaza Strip and violently killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 hostage. It was the deadliest attack

on Israelis in the country's history. Israel immediately declared war on Hamas. And in the year since, the Gaza Health Ministry says around 42,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's military, and about half of those killed were women and children. On Sunday, Israel reportedly attacked a mosque in Gaza, killing 19 people. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has resisted calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, and recently expanded its war to some of Hamas's allies in the Middle East. In a radio interview that aired over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron called it a priority that countries, quote,

stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu released this video in response. As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilized countries should be standing firmly by Israel's side. Yet President Macron and some other Western leaders are now calling for an arms embargo against Israel. Shame on them. As the fighting continues, Hamas is still holding around 100 Israelis hostage, although many of them are believed to be dead. Polling from over the summer showed that the majority of Israelis supported a hostage deal that would end the war in Gaza.

But our next guests, one Israeli and one Palestinian, believe that much more needs to be done in order to achieve peace in the region. Yonatan Zaygan's mother, Vivian Silver, was a Jewish peace activist living in Israel near the Gaza border. She was killed by Hamas on October 7th. Yonatan was in close contact with her up until her final moments, and in the aftermath of the attacks, he's taken up her life's mission of working for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I spoke to Yonatan about his mother and the work he's done to honor her legacy. Yonatan, welcome to What A Day. Can you tell us a little bit about your mom and what she fought for? My mother, she invested herself in issues of equality and social justice and shared society between Arabs and Jews in Israel and co-liberation of Israelis and Palestinians.

Prior to October 7th, how did you feel about your mother's work? You know, I wouldn't admit that while she was alive, but I was proud of her. What changed for you after your mother was killed? Why did you decide to follow in her footsteps at that time? Well, before October 7th, I tried to lead a pretty normal life of going to work, raising my kids. I was a social worker by profession. And for me, October 7th changed that. I felt an urge to become invested

in aligning my beliefs, the way I view the world, with political action. What do you say to those who believe that the only way to prevent another October 7th is to completely eliminate Hamas, no matter the cost to Palestinian civilians? I don't think that that's plausible, because Hamas is not just a military organization. It's an idea. It's a code name. You know, if Hamas themselves stop functioning as an organization,

a different organization with the same ideas will emerge because the only way for us to eliminate that bad idea is with a good idea. And we're not offering any good ideas. You know, we need to transform our enemy into our partner if we want any kind of capacity to live secure lives. And that's not something we're doing. We're just deepening the causes of organizations like Hamas. One year after the attacks, a broader war seems even more imminent and peace seems further away. How are you continuing to work towards peace, even as the situation looks so bad? What gives you optimism?

A few things, anchoring myself in history, thinking about Israel and Egypt, thinking about in Europe, you know, after World War II, what they have become today, thinking about Northern Ireland or South Africa or Rwanda. The other thing is to be active. When I keep myself busy in this line of work, I create hope within myself and I hope within my surroundings and I partner with other people, with other Palestinians and other Israelis. And when we talk together, it seems realistic. You've argued that U.S. assistance to Israel should be conditional as a way to stop enabling

Israel when it may violate humanitarian laws. What's your message to Vice President Harris and to other Democrats who have been reluctant to put restrictions on aid to Israel? I think the paradigm needs to change of the relationship and the aid that is being offered from the United States and the international community in general. I think they have been an active partner in the status quo up until October 7th. And the status quo was an ongoing occupation and ongoing conflict. So we don't need to go back to October 6th. We need to build an entirely new system of co-liberation and coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians. And the way to do that has to come through the international community. For our listeners who want to be able to support your work, support peace efforts in Israel and Palestine, what can they do from the U.S.? How can they

get involved and actually be helpful? In my mind, the most important thing is the ability for interfaith action. In North America, it should have been a lot easier for them to march together for peace and not, you know, either pro-Palestine or pro-Israel. Because when they do that, it's counterproductive. They're not helping Palestinians by canceling discourse with Jews. They're just normalizing the conflict. And Jewish people in North America aren't helping Israel by reiterating that Israel has the right to defend themselves or weaponizing anti-Semitism.

They're just condemning us to continue the occupation and the conflict. You know, if you're Jewish in North America and you're talking about security, the only way for us to realize security is by reaching an agreement with the Palestinians. It won't happen if we stay divided. We have to do it together. Yonatan, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. That was my conversation

with Israeli peace activist Yonatan Zaygan. I also spoke with Naveen Sanduko, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem and regional director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace. I started by asking how life has changed for her in the past year. Well, listen, it's not that it was easy and it was like there was no occupation. There was occupation before the 7th of October, right? But for us, it just meant feeling more and more threatened just because your identity is Palestinian. Feeling more and more that people are going into poverty. It also means more home demolitions.

It also means more displacement of families in East Jerusalem specifically. So it's been extremely stressful to be living in East Jerusalem, actually, after the 7th of October. Have you been personally touched by that? Has your family? Well, actually, my father lost more than 50 members in Gaza in one airstrike. So he lost all of his cousins that lived in Gaza. And I'm also a mother. I have a 14-year-old boy. And for me to see him walking in the streets alone in Jerusalem, especially in areas where there might be police, just adds a burden to me. It just means that your heart is walking and you never know what's going to happen next.

It is just really stressful. And it also means that you're imprisoning yourself and you're imprisoning your own son at home, that you limit the places where you can go, you limit the places where you can actually be. And so it has affected us personally. And of course, like everybody else, it's the stress, it's the trauma, and especially for us as people who work in peace building.

You mentioned peace building. Your organization, the Alliance for Middle East Peace, is dedicated to establishing peace in the region. When you talk to people outside of your work, how open are they to that message, to the importance of trauma-informed conversation and dialogue, to the message of peace? Well, listen, right now the word peace itself is one of those words that if you mention it, people are going to look at you and say you're delusional. It's not only mentioning the word peace, it's mentioning the word ceasefire when it comes to Palestinians. It's mentioning the word ending the occupation. It's mentioning the word justice and reconciliation. When it comes to Israelis, it's mentioning returning back the hostages, bringing them home as well. So all of these

words that I just mentioned, if you boil them down, they actually mean the word peace. And if you talk about what are the peace needs for both the Palestinians and the Israelis, it's exactly that. We spoke with an Israeli peace activist just before we spoke to you, and they talked about the need to facilitate conversations between Israelis and Palestinians as part of the solution for peace. How do you build the trust to have those conversations with people who have experienced so much trauma and people who are so divided right now over the events that have happened over the last year? I think it starts with people who already were engaged in this type of work beforehand. I mean, let's talk about me personally. I'm a person who didn't think that I could

actually be talking to the other side when I was maybe 20 or 25 years old earlier on. And it's only because I was intrigued somehow to understand a little bit of what is the other? What do they think? How are they? That I slowly started to get to know the other, to build that trust. And I think in order to build that trust, there needs to be a willingness to listen and the willingness to think that we deserve a better future, which I think both people know and realize. According to statistics, both people want a different future, but definitely it's not easy. What do you think are the biggest lessons to be learned as we look back at a year since what took place on October 7th? Well, as I said earlier, it didn't start on October 7th. It started way earlier than that.

But I guess it means that the situation before October 7th, the status quo was not sustainable. To think that you can have a system of oppression and a system of occupation and to think that this system is going to bring you security is not sustainable. It tells us a message that we need to find a political solution. We need to give people hope. As a peace activist, how are you and your colleagues maintaining hope as things continue to escalate? This is one of the most difficult questions actually to answer because I think looking around us, we see more and more violence. And now it's not only the Palestinians and the Israelis, it's also Lebanon and then some other countries. And for me personally, when you mentioned the word hope, it comes from knowing that there is 164 organizations, both Palestinians and Israelis, and to know that they are working

day and night to achieve that vision of bringing people together, of bridging the gaps, of humanizing one another. It gives me hope to know that the issue of the conflict is finally on the international agenda, because it wasn't on the international agenda anymore before the 7th of October. So this is what gives me hope. And to tell you the truth again, as a mother for a 14-year-old boy, I don't want him to go through what I have gone through in my life, 41 years of living in this country. And they deserve a better future. This is what gives me hope, but also determination. Naveen, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Jane. Thank you.

That was Naveen Sanduko, Regional Director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace. We'll link to both of my guests' organizations in our show notes. We'll get to the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. And now the news. Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me. Former President Donald Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania

this weekend, the site where a lone gunman tried to assassinate him earlier this year. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk joined him on stage. As you can see, I'm not just MAGA, I'm dark MAGA. Sure. And just like his new bestie, Musk showed a willingness to abandon all truth and reason when urging Republicans to go to the polls. And then make sure they actually do vote. If they don't, this will be the last election. That's my prediction. This will not be the last election. Trump also took the occasion to spread more lies about the Biden administration's response to the disaster relief after Hurricane Helene. In response, two of North Carolina's largest newspapers published an editorial from their board over

the weekend titled, Shame on Donald Trump for Worsening North Carolina's Helene Tragedy with Political Lies. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris was on the ground in North Carolina on Saturday. She met with FEMA officials for a briefing on the damage caused by Helene and spoke with reporters. I came out to talk with the folks who have been doing God's work on the ground here in the last several days. We got in touch with Sonia Luz, a schoolteacher who lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina. She's been helping with some of the relief efforts, but says misinformation is getting in the way. Things like, don't drop off your donations here because they've stopped taking them because everyone has died in this holler and therefore they can't accept donations.

Or the government's turning away donations or taking your donations and doing lord knows what with them. There's kind of a lot of that stuff. Outside of the region though I think it's worse like if you're here you see that the government's here that FEMA's here. Sonia grew up in the mountains. It's a place she says that's used to being forgotten. We're really not used to this kind of response and I don't think that we expect it and the response has been really overwhelming. I think culturally and personally like we're really grateful for it and it's not a thing that I think we expected. And while the southeast continues to dig out from the damage done by Hurricane Helene, another dangerous storm is

headed towards Florida's Gulf Coast. Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall by Wednesday near Tampa, one of the city's hardest hit by Helene. The storm is projected to move eastward across central Florida into the Atlantic. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for over 50 counties this weekend ahead of the storm's arrival. So you have time to do what you need to do, but this could potentially be a major hurricane. No matter what happens, it is going to have impacts to the state of Florida. I don't think there's any scenario where we don't have significant impacts at this point. So please do what you need to do to keep yourself and your family safe. DeSantis also warned residents to prepare for major power outages and flooding.

The state's Division of Emergency Management says it's preparing for one of the largest evacuation efforts in recent years before Milton makes landfall. Back on the campaign trail, Vice President Kamala Harris is hitting the airwaves this week hard. Following a number of interviews with local outlets in Pennsylvania and Arizona, and radio interviews with stations across the country, the presidential candidate sat down with 60 Minutes for an interview that will air Monday evening. Trump was also expected to speak with 60 Minutes, but backed out of the interview for reasons. On Sunday, we got a preview of her conversation with correspondent Bill Whitaker.

Whitaker asked her whether the U.S. lacked influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done, which would release the hostages and create a ceasefire. And we're not going to stop. Harris also sat down with a popular podcast, Call Her Daddy. She'll continue the media blitz with Sit Downs on The View, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Howard Stern. And she's participating in an Univision town hall in Las Vegas on Thursday.

Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has also been busy. He spoke with Fox News' Shannon Bream on Sunday morning, focusing on abortion rights. He has said repeatedly that he will not sign a national abortion ban. Are you calling that just, it's a flat-out lie? Yes, of course. And Senator Vance has in the past said so too. Now look, they may see this as an election issue. We see it as a right of women to make their own bodily decisions. And this week, Waltz will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live and plans to do local media and swing states nationwide.

After a brief respite, the Supreme Court is back in action today. I wonder what flags are flying outside the Alito House to mark the occasion. This term, the justices will take up trans rights, gun control, and porn access. Also the presidential race if it's contested. So we're keeping it nice and easy and low-key. We'll have Melissa Murray from our very own Strict Scrutiny podcast on tomorrow to preview the term. And that's the news. One more thing before we go. This past weekend, I was a guest on Offline to talk to our very own

Max Fisher about meta-smart glasses, the InfoWars sale, and more of the weirdest things I see on the internet because I spent too much time on the internet. I had an amazing time. To hear more on the impacts of technology and the internet on our culture, tune in every Sunday and head to the offline feed wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, talk to someone you disagree with and don't yell at them on the internet, and tell your friends to listen. And if you are into reading and not just about the cases in front of SCOTUS this term, like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston. Thanks for listening.

What A Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded by Jarek Centeno and mixed by Bill Lance. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michelle Alloy. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Bye.