Krystal and Saagar discuss US Gaza master plan revealed, Hannity demands Venezuela regime change, White House demolitions, Krystal goes to war for Graham Platner.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 4 (00:33):
Let's go ahead and start with this d one.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Guys, so you've got bybe getting asked whether or not
Israel is a US protectorate. Pretty interesting comments here. Let's
take a listen.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
To that Israel is becoming some kind of a sales
state or protectorate of the United States, not only an
advisort what to do, but also command and what to do.
Why do you both comment on that? And I want
to put it very clearly. You know, one week they
say that Israel controls the United States. Clear to say
the United States controls Israel. This is all guash. We
(01:04):
have a partnership and alliance of partners. We share common
values with common goals. We can have discussions, we can
have disagreements here and there, but on the whole, I
have to say that in the past year we've had
agreement agreement not only on goals but how to reach them,
and I think we're pursuing them successfully.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So interesting to you to say the Vice president standing
there well BB is taking that question saga.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It is about as close to screw you as it
can be mustered in diplomatic speak, especially when you tack
on this. Let's go and put the next part up
on the screen. The Kannesse while JD. Vance, the Vice President,
was in the country, approved a bill to apply is
reely sovereignty in the West Bank.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
The proposal would say that the laws, judicial system administration
sovereignty of the State of Israel shall apply to all
areas of settlement in Judea and Samaria. It is a
twenty five twenty four vote after a quote heated discussion,
and it is one where they stipulate not only what
I just read, but that it would actually apply in principle.
So the difference here is that technically it was symbolic.
(02:12):
The government is not going to officially carrate this out now, frankly,
considering how we have covered the West Bank at this
point with Jasper Nathaniel, it already exists, but it's.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Effectively a symbolic thing at this point.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Nonetheless, it was again as big of a diplomatic fu
as they could muster, not only from BB because it
was not just the protectorate conversation, the private conversations at
least some of it were leaked to various different reporters
where JD is begging them basically saying, give the ceasefire
a chance. It's like a meme, please give piece a chance.
They're like, please, please just try it. You know you
(02:48):
may enjoy it. It may actually work. And in addition,
not only to the ceasfire conversation that's been happening with
the US administration and others is that they are not
doing enough to address the actual underlying dynamic of the
government itself, like you had Smotrich and ke Ben Gevier too,
members of the government who are outwardly I mean, this
(03:09):
is just today he says, this is from Smodri if
Saudi Arabia is telling us that in return for normalization,
they want a Palestinian state. We will say, friends, no,
thank you. You can continue riding camels on the sand
in the Saudi Desert, okay. And these are the people,
these are the people whose troops are supposed to be
patrolling Gaza right right.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And then in addition to the fact.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
That the plan riding money for the reconstruction and.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Providing the money for the reconcern, they don't want any
of this to work out.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And it's like America is stuck pretending in.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
This dream like state where the Israeli government actually wants.
They don't want a seaspiero that all, Why do we
keep the pretense, Like, guys, just be honest about what's
happening here.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's one of the things that drives me the most
crazy about foreign policy is how much pretend there is,
how much bakery there is from you know, American politicians
who have to pretend BB is different and his government
is different, and that they're not out there just openly
saying we are never giving Gaza back to Palestinians. We're
going to stay here forever. We're going to have settlements
(04:11):
we're going to push them out of a gaza strip. Altogether,
they're just openly saying and then we just have to
pretend that we don't hear it, or American politicians just
pretend that they don't hear it and they don't actually
know what's going on. It's one of the things that
makes me the most insane. On the West Bank point,
I mean, Jade Vance was annoyed by this because it
created an uncomfortable situation from when we could put D
two B up on the screen. He says that he
(04:34):
was unhappy about it. The vote in the Kanessa on
annexing the West Bank was strange. If it was a
political stunt, it was a foolish political stunt. I was
offended by it. We will not allow Israel to annex
the West Bank, and we were not pleased with this vote.
Of course, the reality is they have allowed Israel to
annex the West Bank. This was a key priority of
top donor Miriam Adelson, and they've allowed mass settlements to
(04:56):
go for including as Jasper Nathaniel has pointed out, some
extremely consequent ones that basically, you know, end the viability
of a Palestinian state to include the West Bank mac
also just sent us this.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Apparently they are.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Getting rid within Israel entirely of even the language West
Bank in favor of the biblical, biblical term Judea and Samaria.
So another symbolic move to assert their own sovereignty over
this area and these people, the parts of the West
Bank that are supposedly controlled by Palestinians. You know, it's
the Palestinian authority, which are collaborators anyway, but in reality,
(05:33):
you know, Israel controls the nature of their day to
day life, where they can go, what they can do,
whether they can harvest their olives free from free from
rampaging settlers or not. And so de facto annexation has
already happened. It would have to be rolled back. It
would have to take you know, this administration or another
actually asserting themselves and saying this is unacceptable, and here's
(05:54):
what it's going to look like, and here's how we're
going to get to some sort of peace and justice
for Palestinians.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
For that to happen.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Right now, they've got their hands fuld just keeping Israel
from going back to full blown slaughter within Gaza.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
So at the.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Same time, let's talk a little bit about the idea
for quote unquote phase two. We could put D three
up on the screen. So this is some Wall Street
journal reporting, and it dovetails very well with what we
were talking about in the West Bank, the reality in
the West Bank, because this plan looks a lot like
they want to turn Gaza effectively into a new West Bank.
(06:28):
So the headline here is a US plan splits Gaza
into one zone controlled by Israel and one by Hamas.
Now the reality on the ground right now, and they
say Jared Kushner floats a plan to rebuild the Israeli
controlled half of the Palaestin enclave until Hamas can be disarmed.
So right now, the reality on the ground is Israel
is still occupying fifty three percent of the Gaza strip.
(06:51):
And anytime anyone gets close to what they call the
yellow line, which doesn't exist like in reality and physical reality,
just like on a map and in their heads, anytime
any Palaestin gets close to that or wanders over it,
they shoot and kill them.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
That is what we've seen in this quote unquote cease fire.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So they want to use the part that they occupy
as effectively a cudgel to begin the rebuilding process there
and allow potentially some of their you know, vetted like
gang affiliated people into that area, and then to use
that to pressure Hamas as like, now you have to
(07:28):
disarm because Palestinans want to come over and live in
this reconstructed area, and we're not going to do any
reconstruction in the area that the overwhelming number of Palestinians
remain in and that you remain in control of. So
that is the idea, you know. Interestingly, people just caught this.
I didn't note this from the sixty minutes interview with
Kushner and Witkof originally, but in that interview and it's
(07:50):
going to be D zero guys, Witkoff talks about how
they've been developing this quote unquote master plan for two
years and Jared Kushner gets a very uncomfortable look on
his face when Witcoff uses that language.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Let's go ahead and take a look at that.
Speaker 6 (08:05):
Part of the plan is the reconstruction, the building rebuilding
of Gaza and your builders. You've been in real estate,
as you said, it's extremely complex. Tell us more about
the plan and how much it's going to cost, where's
the money going to come from, and who's going to
(08:26):
reward the contracts? Three questions.
Speaker 7 (08:32):
I think it's going to cost a lot of money.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
What's a lot of money?
Speaker 5 (08:36):
You know, the.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
Estimates are in the fifty billion dollar range. It might
be a little bit less, it might be a little
bit more. I happen to think that that's not a
lot of money. In that region. You have governments that
are going to jump on in.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
And so the Middle East countries are going to provide
the money.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
What you'll see European participation and so forth. I think
the beginning of this plan is how to get it going,
and that's what me and what me and Jared work
on all the time. The money raising, we think is
the easy part. We think that happens relatively quickly. But
it's the master plan. And we're working with a group
(09:14):
of people who have been working on master plans for
the last two years.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
So there are plans already.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
We have plans already. We have a master plan already.
And by the way, and Jared's been pushing this and
we're working together on it, and I think if the
world saw the progress so far, they'd be pretty impressed.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So Witkoff says they've been working on a master plan
for two years.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Now.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, this is the master plan, and this is basically
the Yeah West wangification, they still have control. All of
this falls apart. It's really hard to take it seriously
because it's just it's fake. I mean, look at the
comments from the Finance minister about Saudi Arabia. Who do
you think the people would be responsible for quote unquote
disarming Hamas would be it would be the UAE, Saudi Arabia.
(09:57):
The US JD and Trump both say no US troops
will ever set foot on the ground in Gaza. Great,
I mean, honestly I support that, but eventually somebody's troops
have got to set foot on the ground to have
political administration. Their plan is like some phase rollout where
they'll just encroach space by space Hamas will be allowed
and then they'll slowly dehmosify it.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
How how do you do that? What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
At a certain point, it's all just recreating the same
dynamic as Iraq Afghanistan. These people have no actual plan.
In the absence, chaos will reign. Israel will continue to
shoot and to kill, and eventually some sort of mass
attack or whatever either Hamas will do it. Maybe Israel
will do, we'll see and then we'll be right back
(10:41):
to where things were. That seems like the modal outcome
at this point. I don't really see another way that
it could go well.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
And like I said, this quote unquote master plan that
they're laying out it really does look a lot like
the reality in the West Bank. And so if you're
going to be trying to get Palestinians voluntarily to go
into the area that Zdrae controls, basically you're getting them
to voluntarily go into a direct military occupation where every
(11:07):
aspect of your life is controlled by the Israelis. And
so you know, in the West Bank you have three
different as this was all set up in the under
the Oslok Cords. You've got areas A, B, and C
different levels of control by the Israelis theoretically, and part
of what has now become actual reality, as Jasper's laid down,
is that even in the areas that are supposedly under
Palestinian control, your life is actually determined by the Israelis.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
And yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
This is also why a lot of people have moved
from feeling like a two state solution is okay. Well,
if you're just going to annex everything, then give people rights,
then just have a one state. But of course that
would be wildly unacceptable to the net Yahoo, to smochors,
but not just them, not just the extremists, I mean,
be wildly acceptable to any mainstream Israeli politician for Palestinians
(11:53):
just to actually have citizenship, because then you have this
quote unquote demographic threat. They have big families, and they
have you know, they have already about half of the
if you look at all of Israel and Palestine put together,
it's about half of the population. So pretty quickly you
have this very different political reality if you actually.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Allow them to have rights.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And that's where the core of this campaign of genocide
and ethnic cleansing and occupation, that's where this all comes from,
because they cannot they cannot permit a situation where Palestinians
have any sort of political say in their system.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, the political administration of the entire system just looks
like even more hopeless than ever before. Also in terms
of the US dynamic, just look at what it takes
to get Israel to stick to the ceasefire, at least
in limited ways. The Vice President, the US envoy, the
President's son in law all have to be in Israel
(12:48):
all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Just to be like, hey, please give this.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
The US intelligence community has to monitor every explosion in
Gaza just to make sure that the Israelis aren't lying
about it as a pretext to go back.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
How can we possibly stick to that dynamic forever?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
R I mean, I talked about how the schizophrenia of
the administration just so I know it's the Ukraine's but
everybody stick with me, because in the last week it
has been a masterclass by the Trump administration. Trump literally
less than a week, actually six days, so six days
ago Vladimir Zelenski met with Trump at the Oval Office.
He called Trump, or he called Putin and he berated
Zelenski for not agreeing to peace terms. That was six
(13:23):
days ago, and he said, I won't give you any
long range missiles in the interim period. He set a
new summit for Budapest between him and Putin, and it
looks like things were going in a.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
More pro Russian direction.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Three days ago, the Secretary of State and Lavrov, the
Foreign Minister, have quote a disastrous phone call.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Whatever that means.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
The Budapest's summit is canceled. They say they have no
immediate terms. Yesterday, Presidence Secretary Scott Besstt announces major Russia
sanctions against the regime, and the Wall Street Journal reports
that now long range missiles are on their way to Ukraine,
which will be used to strike in them on That
is six days what we just watched from berating Zelenski
(14:02):
to give up the Dunboss region to giving giving long
range missiles to Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Who knows what will be six days from now? Right?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Okay, now apply that to Israel and to see, yeah,
where does he spire today? Who knows what will be tomorrow?
This guy is rebuilding the East Wing, that's what he apparently.
I'm not joking. I heard a story that he's currently
has two different types of marble tabletops in which he
is asking every person who comes from the Oval office
which one they prefer. That's his current actual interest, not
(14:32):
miss So good luck to anybody who's a ceasefire believer
or anyone, because a week from now, six days from now,
who knows what you're gonna wake up and get?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And that's why I would bet on the Israelis know
what they want. Trump doesn't know what he wants.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I would bet on Israel.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It was interesting that it was Rubio that had the
quote unquote disastrous call with Lavrov that blew everything up
in tourms of the direction of you know, having the
Budapest meeting and all of that sort of stuff. And
that's the thing is I think this president. This is
not to deny him blame. He deserves blame forever thing
that's happening under his government. But I think he has
checked out of a lot of pieces of it. He's
(15:05):
obsessed with his renovations. He likes that the physical legacy
that he can leave of his hideous tacky gold taste.
That's the thing that he actually cares about. And so
he's like, yeah, Marco, you talked to Lavrov. Yeah, Steven Miller,
why don't you run the immigration thing. Why don't you
guys work together on the Venezuela REGIMEA, Oh, you want
to do regime change in Venezuela is sure, be my guest, Like, look,
(15:26):
go and make it a little personal project. He's outsourced
a lot of parts of this, even I mean even
on the economic piece. It doesn't feel like he is
as hands on and engaged with it as he was
in the early days of this administration. So the kind
of focus that would be required to keep this thing
on the rails, it's hard to imagine. And let's keep
in mind also even with Jade Vance there, they're still
(15:49):
taking their freakin' like, let's annex the West Bank and
call it Judea and Samaria votes and all we can
muster is like I was offended by that, Okay, but
you're not going to do anything about it, are you?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yes, It's like, what are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I actually really wonder because yeah, he's on his way
back to Washington. Now, what's going to happen a week
from now? Because, like I said, with the Trump administration,
they're going to be on Ukraine now, you know, for
the next three days, and then by the way, Venezuela,
which we're about to cover.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
You get myired in that. Who cares about the israel
CIEs fire. This is the problem. You get yourself into
too many things.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You don't have enough attention, you don't have a unified
you know, attention of government. This is this is how
things are going to go. Let's get to Venezuela. There's
a lot of moving parts, but the major breaking news
President Trump from the Oval Office yesterday, saying that he
will soon notify Congress that land strikes on Venezuela must begin.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Let's take a listen, A legal.
Speaker 8 (16:42):
Authority if they do coms, yes we do, we have legos.
We're allowed to do that. And if we do buy land,
we may go back to Congress. But we have this
is a national security problem. They killed three hundred thousand
people last year. Drugs, these drugs coming in. They killed
three hundred thousand Americans last year, and that gives you
(17:04):
legal authority. We have a national security Really, I will
say this, when you look at the people we're dealing with,
and we know them, we know the people coming in,
we know the boats, we know everything else. We're allowed
to do it. It's in international waters. If we don't
do it, we're going to lose hundreds of thousands of people.
(17:27):
Now they'll be coming in by land a little bit
more because they're not coming in by boat anymore. There
are no boats in the water. There are no more boats.
We know the boat almost immediately. You know, it's pretty
unusual when you see somebody with a fishing rod and
five engines on the back of the boat. You know,
you don't need that to go fishing. Wait wait, wait,
and we will hit them very hard when they come
(17:47):
in by land and they haven't experienced that yet. But
now we're totally prepared to do that. We'll probably go
back to Congress and explain exactly what we're doing when
we come to the land. We don't have to do that,
but I think Marco I'd like to do that. You
may respond to that.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
So yeah, now we are going to come to the land.
Let me just explain a little bit because the sea
campaign has actually heated up over.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Just the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
There was a new announcement of a strike on drug traffickers,
but actually in the Pacific, or alleged drug traffickers I
should say, that was actually in the Pacific ocean. So
this is now a two ocean front or now, I
mean what you look at from the expanding nature not
only of the boats but of the rhetoric in terms
of striking the land would obviously be a massive escalation.
(18:36):
The reason why he says yes to notify Congress is
all of this is currently being done under a drug
interdiction mission, but none of it has actually been justified
presented with evidence. There is frankly, I mean, look, Ryan
and I are working on a big Venezuela story right now.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I can't give away all the details.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
The one tidbit I can offer is that there is
not one shred of evidence internally that fentanyl is on
any single one of these boats, not one piece of
evidence that fentanyl is on these But which is again,
I mean, this is the rhetorical justification of the strike.
By the way, what he says they're about the boats. Again,
small tidbit that we can offer. These boats would have
to stop and refuel some twenty times in order to
(19:18):
get to the United States. The current intel is that
they're not heading to the US, is that they're most
likely heading to different places in the Caribbean, namely Trinidad
and Tobago. By the way, everything I just said Ran
Paul also just echoed on TV. So I'm not giving
anything in particular really a way. I'm just telling you
that that's from based on our reporting. That's what we
can able to offer you. So this is all part
(19:40):
of a regime change operation. There's just no other way
to describe it. Maduro quite literally offered up everything by
Trump's own admission.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
In addition, to numerous.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Reported outlets about some of the behind the scenes talk.
So this is I mean, look, this is where things
are trending right now. Trump genuinely believes the best way
to get act to Venezuela and oil is to overthrow
the government.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
The drug thing is a pretext. It has nothing to
do with that.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, it has to do with minerals, which will show
you here in a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But it's scary. It's scary.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
There are a few things to pick up on from
his comments. So let's be clear. What they're doing is
random murder in terms of attacking these boats. I mean,
the few details that we've had at this point, some
of the people who were murdered who have been identified,
were like random fishermen.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
So maybe some of them are drug traffickers. We don't
know that.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Any of the literally any of them are, and they
have now killed dozens of people without offering a shred
of evidence that these are even the individuals that they claim,
and Soger and Ryan's reporting that they have zero evidence
internally that any of these boats have sentinel on them,
even though that is what they are telling the American public.
That is in and of itself a bombshell. That's number one.
(20:48):
Number two when he says we're going, you know, they're
going to come to the land. Maybe we'll go to Congress.
We don't have to go to Congress. Maybe we'll go
to Congress. Let's be really clear about what that means.
So right now we have random murder of potential fishermen
in you know, Caribbean and the Pacific. What he's proposing
is random murder of people here on the land.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
That's what that expansion means.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So they are trying to claim the power to ur
betrayal to you know, unilaterally, just murder random people that
they announce the public or drug traffickers without providing evidence.
That is the power that they are trying to claim.
Maybe they'll go to Congress, and maybe they won't because
Trump doesn't seem to think that they have to. So
that's number two. Number three. Let me read to you
(21:35):
what Pete Hagsath tweeted out in response in you know,
to announce this latest murder at sea. He says, because
some of the language here is very important. So he says, today,
at the direction President Trump, the Department of War carried
out yet another lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated
by a designated terrorist organization dto yetigan again, the now
(21:56):
deceased terrorists were engaged in narco trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
We're just supposed to take the for that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
By the way, the vessel was known by our intelligence
to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transitting along
a non narcotrafficking route, and was carrying narcotics. Three male
narco terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which
was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed
and no US forces were harmed in this strike. These
strikes will continue day after day. These are not simply
(22:20):
drug runners. These are narco terrorists bringing death and destruction
to our cities. These DTOs are the al Qaeda of
our hemisphere and will not escape justice. We will find
them and kill them until the threat to the American
people is extinguished. So that language there saying these are
the al Qaidas of our hemisphere. That is the pretext,
(22:42):
the linguistic pretext that they're trying to use and convince
you of to allow them this unconscionable power grab.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
That's the way they're framing it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
And I think, you know, the regime change part is terrified,
Like everyone should be very concerned about that, but it
should also be very concerning to you what they're already
doing and the powers that they're claiming for not only
these attacks on boats, but now trying to claim for
here domestically on US soil.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yes, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
It is literally just GWATT GWAT logic, GWAT rhetoric, and
in some cases the new rhetoric is actually more extreme
than the GWAT because it no claim at time during
the war in Iraq, even when we were spreading democracy
apparently to Iraq and Afghanistan, did people come to the
airwaves and say that Iraq should be the fifty first state,
(23:30):
but did not put that past Lindsey Graham and Sean
Hannity on Fox News Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9 (23:36):
I had a chat with you this weekend and I
thought you had a pretty darn good idea and you
said you were going to share it with the president.
I want to know if you did. And that is
this opposition leader in Venezuela that won the Nobel Prize
that said it really deserved to go to Donald Trump.
Sounds like a pretty good leader to me for the
people of Venezuela and the end of narco terrorism and
(23:57):
a better relationship with the US. Or if they choose
maybe the fifty first state, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Sounds good to be sounds good to me, fifty first
state of Venezuela. So you know, we can't simultaneously be
for mass deportation of Venezuelan migrants. What does Trump always
say is like they opened up the asylums, they opened
up the jails, and they sent them here. So we're
going to send them back and then we're going to
(24:22):
create them and to turn them into and then they're
all gonna be citizens. Okay, Okay, let's not to mention
the fact that it would cause mass illegal migration, even
if there was some sort of regime collapse. Again, I
don't want to get too ahead of the story Ryan
and I are working on, but we have some bombshell
stuff that we can report, the intel stuff, frankly some
of the least interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
But the point I just want to stick to is.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
There is no evidence that Maduro is actually like a
large scale drug trafficker. Number one, Number two, there's no
fentanel on any of these boats, Number three, these boats
all the current intellig does not even show that they're
necessarily heading for the United States. Number four, all of
the powers that are being claimed by the administration are
ones that the George W. Bush presidency and the Obama
(25:06):
presidency use as sweeping powers to be able to drone
strike and kill whoever they want. And five is actually Congress,
because the thing is is that nobody's really doing anything
about this inside of Congress. Like, look, this is I
always say this, The true true threat to America is
real bipartisanship, the stuff that everybody just comes ninety eight
(25:27):
zero votes on things like regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine,
and you only have a few shitsters like Rand Paul
and Thomas Massey willing to speak out. That's the real
danger to the country. I don't see any large scale
demonstration or you know, people like I'll give credit where
do but like, let's be honest, it's like a minority congressman,
(25:48):
a minority caucus in a minority like in a minority
ruling party of the House has no power to do anything.
Like there's no stand up about authorities here. It's it's
very area and it's moving much quicker. Again, I really
don't think that the media is covering this properly. Like
nobody points to the fact the United States Center saying
(26:09):
Venezuela should be a fifty first state combined with regime
change operations should freak everybody. It should be front page
international news. Yeah, and everyone's like, oh, yeah, I mean,
we just struck. It's a two ocean war now, Like,
when's the last time the United States even did a
two ocean strike.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And maybe, just maybe the opposition party should have something
to say about that, you know. I mean, you have
a few outliers like Rocana, but by and large they
are silent on I mean, it's just disappointment doesn't even
begin to describe it.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
It really is like they barely exist.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And so part of the reason why the media doesn't
cover it in the way that it is is because
in the way that it should is because they aren't
getting those signals from the opposition party of like, holy
this is really bad and making the case against this,
so the American people know what's going on and can
evaluate for themselves whether or not they'd be like to
be in a regime change war against Venezuela, or like
(26:58):
to be blowing up in Tumen in the Caribbean, or
like to have those powers brought here to domestic soil.
And so you know, there's it's astonishing to me how
little fight they have, how fraid they are of taking
him on anything outside of these few narrow issues. And
so that's part of why you don't have a mass
(27:21):
upset over this in the population, because there are so
few voices that are actually speaking on against it.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, I mean, also let's say about Maga too. This
is part of why I.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Think Venezuela is more dangerous than Iran. And this will
sound crazy, like the operation is that there is no
organized or there is no organized rhetoric language or project
that takes invading Venezuela as a serious thing and opposes it.
So an Iran, not nearly enough people spoke up, in
my opinion, but there was an organized effort on the
right to speak up and to say that this is
(27:52):
a bad idea to pursue regime change in Iran and
to not allow the Israelis to go full on and
actually do it.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Now they still might, but to be.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Clear, at the time, there was a real, real, organized effort,
and the White House felt some pressure on Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
They feel nothing.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
A huge part of the MAGA commentariat actually believes the
fentanyl claim. I don't know why. I mean, look, listen,
Ryan and I will put a story out soon.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
He tells you.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
It's complete bullshit. You don't need to hear from me.
You can hear from a lot of other people. There's
no fentanyl in Venezuela. DEA statistics say there's no ventanyl
in Venezuela. But they're like, these people killed my you know,
cousin or whatever from a heroin over to It's like, guys, no,
they didn't. Okay, I'm sorry, Like it didn't. I'm sorry
that happened to you. But your literal emotions are being
weaponized by the government for a legitimate neocon wet dream
(28:38):
of overthrowing Venezuela. So the fact that there's no organized
project actually seems to me like it's going to be
more likely because what MAGA likes is the expansion of
administrative power and strikes. It always feels good to blow
up drug traffickers.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Again.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Again, it's not necessarily any evidence behind that, but they
don't have a theory for how this can go badly, Like,
you can't simultaneously oppose mass migration, which I do, and
which a lot of them ostensibly say. You can't talk
about trend Diarragua and Venezuelan and takeovers of neighborhoods and
say that deposing the regime of Nicholas Maduro is going
to do anything about that same thing. You know, we
(29:13):
have allies neighbors in the region Colombia, and these are
thriving big countries Central America and also who we are
reliant on to make sure that you know, they are
stemmed the crisis before it even comes here. Where do
you think they're all going to go? You know, in
the same route that they did under Biden. They're going
to flood the border. So just think about it. I mean,
maybe they won't make it here, they're going to make
it to you. And so there's an entire theory that
(29:36):
you know, is so obvious but has not yet been articulated.
And all they're hearing instead as Pete Hegseth Fox News
and Trump and others being like, oh, this is actually
the highest and best use of our military.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
It's it's honestly scary. The internal dynamics. I'll just say it.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
I mean, not that anybody listens to me, but you're
you're getting taken for a ride like this is complete
bs one hundred percent. Every claim on the fentanyl drugs.
I'm telling you it's false, and they know it's false.
They stumbled on the drug thing after months to convince
Trump because originally.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
They're like, oh, he stole the election. Trump's like, I
don't care. Still he's They're like, he's bad, he's a murderer.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
So I mean, what, well, we don't have murderers that we
do diplomatic relationship with who gives a shit what's going
on in Venezuela. But eventually they came down to drugs.
He seems to believe it based on this fake indictment
from twenty twenty and this new what is it, the
fifty million dollar bound bounty scary man.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, it's It is terrifying how easily people can just
be talked into war, Like all you have to do
is hit whatever.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
They're like policy of.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Rogin his Zona is Oh, they're they're narco terror is Sentinel,
and without any sort of critical thought, they're ready for
the next regime change war, and zero thought about what
the consequences of that will be, zero thought about whether
any of what they're being fed is truthful.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
It's very disturbing to see.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I can't be the only one which is watched with
great alarm as the entire White House East Wing will
now be demolished in favor of Donald Trump's announced presidential ballroom.
Here he is laying out the reasoning. Let me just
before we even play it, though, let me describe this.
Of course, he had announced his plans for the ballroom.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Okay, so he's going to build this new ballroom on
the White House campus. However, what actually comes out now
is that in order to build said ballroom, you have
to demolish the entire historical part of the East Wing.
Demolition pictures began to leak online. They eventually told them, hey,
stop taking pictures of it if you work in the
government and leaking it to the press. Then they said, oh,
(31:46):
only the facade itself will be destroyed. No, now they're
coming for the whole thing. Here's Trump laying it out.
Speaker 8 (31:52):
In order to do it properly, we had to take
down the existing structure. The way it was shown it
looked like we were touching the White House. We don't
touch the White House. That's a bridge at last bridge
going from the White House to the ballroom. Then you
get into the lobby of the ballroom, and then you
go into the magnificent the main room. And it's something
that has gotten incredible reviews.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Something that's gotten incredible reviews. Shall we let's review it.
We'll all review it together. Let's play it.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Let's let's put it up here on the screen. Yep,
here's the video.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
That's the East Wing. That's a bulldozer they're taking it down.
This is from above the fence.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Again.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
This is the historic East Wing part of the White
House where millions of tourists have gone. I've walked this
halls a lot of times. It's really nice. If you
ever had the ability to go to the Christmas tour
or anything like that. That's that's it, you know, all
right there in favor of this whatever. This is this
gigantic new footprint, the East Wing, the ballroom.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Look at that. Look at that.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I'm sorry, you know, yeah, I don't even have words.
It's like the tackiest shit I've ever seen in my
entire life. I mean, just look at some of these renderings.
On the left, you can see the tiny little west
wing where the rose the colonnade, the rose garden, which,
by the way, is ort to destroyed the rose gardens.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
On top of what you can see for the west wing,
the Oval the.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Magisterium of like the understated part of the Oval Office
in favor of a gilded age breaker style mansion of
a ballroom which will be used for how many times
in a year.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
It's grotesque.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I mean, look, I mean the one benefit is that
nobody in the like nobody's paying.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
For it, like in terms of the taxpayers.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Yeah, a parent it's gonna be some three hundred billion,
But even that it's being sponsored by some major corporation.
I mean, the thing that just gulls me about this
is the taste. It's so disconnected from American public history architecture,
you know, anything that even remotely calls back to our
(33:58):
reverence for our history. And you know, of course that
cope is like, oh well, Harry Truman remodeled. Yeah, it's
not the same, Okay, it's just not by the way
that one actually was in conjunction with the White House
Historical Association, was done because the White House was falling apart,
not because we need a fucking ballroom so that you
can entertain more than nine hundred guests.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
They even say.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
They're going to modernize it, which makes me literally want
to have a brain aneurysm. If you've ever been to
the East Wing, the entire point of the place is
that it has deep history. If you want to put
ac events or something like that, okay, fine, but nobody.
I mean, I'm just imagining glass slighting doors and fluorescent
lighting in the East Swing, and it's going to give
me an overall brain aneurysm just looking at all this.
(34:41):
Now here's the final question. Do you agree with near
Tangent's take that the images of the White House could
swing the election.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I was like, look, Nera, you're after my heart. I
am one of those people. I am a White House
swing voter. But even I am naive enough to say
that people give a shit about the.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I only honestly, let's be honest, it's kind of an
insider thing to even care because the ninety nine percent
of the US population has never even been inside of
the East Wing.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I've probably been there ten or fifteen times. The Blue Room,
the Red Room.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
You know, all of these gorgeous places, even the photos
don't really capture capture it. You know, when I go
in those places, I'm like, wow, FDR did fireside chat here?
You know, this is where the famous George W. Bush
interviewing all that happened. I guess Americans just don't get
Trump certainly doesn't care at all.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Maybe I can hopefully inspire some reverence for our great
architecture in favor of whatever this.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
It makes me feel very conservative good.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I mean I do, I don't know, if I listen,
I don't know. Maybe there's right who knows right? What
lands with people? And there is something. Clearly Trump finds
it to be somewhat of a political problem because number
one he lied and said that the East Wing wouldn't
be touched.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Well, it won't be touched at all.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
There will be no demolision and it'll just go up
alongside of it, like no demolitionon whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Which I was concerned about. But I was like, okay, whatever, Maybe.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, he's a builder. Maybe so.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Number One, he felt the need to lie about it
and continues to lie about it. Number Two, he felt
the need to cover up the pictures and demand that
no one take a picture of this, because so he
certainly has some sense that this is at least not
a great political look. It's going to swing the next election.
I guess we'll never know. We'll have to do some sophisticated,
you know, political regression analysis to figure out if this
(36:23):
was the factor. Maybe we'll see as approval rating fall
off a cliff and be able to point to to
this renovation demolition and whatever.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
But it does make me feel very conservative good.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
It makes me feel because I mean, I do feel
this sense of like this isn't your, This is all
of ours, like all of our nation's history, like all
of these historic things that occurred in these spaces, and
you just feel the power of a king to just
knock it down without asking anyone's permission, without going to
the public and seeing if that was something that people
(36:54):
are interested in, Like forget the money, but just you know,
you've now destroyed a space that cannot be rebuilt. And
there I can't remember, I wish I remember who was
saying this, but there was another progressive who was saying, like,
why does this bother me so much? And their analysis
and I think this could be the I think there
could be something to this is that it is a
(37:14):
physical representation of like Trump and his long legacy that
is now going to be left. And I think that's
why that's why he wants it as well. And so,
you know, when it was just one term, and this
was some of the emotions that I think we all
groppled with when Trump got reelected. When it's just one term,
that can kind of be an aberration. You know, Hillary
is a bad candidate, and there was backlash to Obama
(37:36):
and all these kind of weird you know, Russia and
whatever was going call me and whatever is going on.
When he gets re elected a second time, you're like, oh,
this is not an aberration when popular book, Yeah, this
is actually where our country is now. And so I
feel like this is sort of a physical manifestation of that,
which is why I find it.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
I do find it religious.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I think that's fine from like some left point of view.
I'll just give you of more value neutral oneh which
is that it's the White House. It doesn't belong to you,
it doesn't belong to anybody. Is that you are at
the mercy of history in a certain sense, as in
you assume the office.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
The office doesn't assume you.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
And that's really what it's about, is that the point
is is that the office is supposed to be bigger
than everyone else all previous renovation.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
You're a guest in our house.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Genuinely, this sounds cringe and point at this point to
even talk this way, because this is how they talk
on MSNBC, But it is unironically true at a very
base level of No, it's the people's house.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
It is the White House. Now.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Previous renovations that have happened include Harry Truman. By the way,
it was super controversial when he added the Truman balcony.
It was not people were not happy about it. They
basically added it for the pleasure of the president. I
guess it's been, you know, sixty seventy years, so we
can get over it. At this point, I'm still not
over it. Where the whole point is, if you've ever
(38:53):
been there, it's not that nice. And that's actually I
used to hate it whenever I would work there, but
I have come to appreciate the charm of the fact
that it is kind of a dilapidated office building. I
don't know if you saw this there's this viral photo
of Nick Saban, who was the coach at Alabama, and
he had this beautiful wooden office with all of these
(39:15):
books and things behind him, and it just looked so vintage,
as if a place where a person works. And then
his successor, I think his name is Kaylin de Boor,
came in and turned it into like a glass tea
mobile store. And by the way, the team wasn't isn't
doing as well under the new But there was something
about that which was just so physically jarring, you know,
for many people. And that's kind of how I feel
(39:37):
about this entire thing is just looking at it, it
seems disconnected and actually, frankly, even that ballroom, it's just
so reminiscent of like the worst architectural design of US history.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
But if we are living in a second Gilded Age,
maybe it may be.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I mean, it does fit with that.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
And I think that's the other part that bothers me too,
is you know, this is some of the money is
coming from the like extortion that he's doing on these
you know, tech platforms, and I think some of the
like YouTube Fielty money going to one of the things
that I saw, Yeah, I think, so double check that,
but that was the headline that I saw. And so,
but okay, what are what is his time and focus
(40:15):
and attention going to building out this hideous, gaudy like
you know, Golfee meets Versailles meets mar A Lago ballroom
for a bunch of rich elites who can come and
suck up to him and pay tribute and bring their
gold bars or whatever it is to get their you know,
their goodies. And so even like the purpose of it
(40:36):
is gross, let alone the visuals of it. So uh yeah,
it does. It does bother me, I am The pictures
of it are visually jarring. Is it going to sway
the election near? I don't know about that. I'd like
to believe it, but I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Yeah, you never know. You just never know.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Look what I would hope is it inspires a love
of history. And part of the reason why, you know,
watching the transformation of the Oval Office and of you know,
the ballroom or the East Wing and all of this
is because at least previous presidents some had a deep
reverence for the things that actually happened in that room.
And I've told this story before, but one of the
(41:15):
things that, you know, really hit with me. Whenever I
was I interviewed Trump, maybe the first or second time
is the first time I ever went into the Oval office.
I was like, that's the Jack Kennedy shot, right, you know,
at the desk, and I thought about Nixon and Kissinger
preying on the floor right before his resignation, or Eisenhower
and where he would play his goal, you know, all
these things you've read about for years and years and years.
(41:35):
And then I'm looking at this man. I'm like, he
doesn't think about any of that, and I.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Doesn't even know about it.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Maybe I don't know it, probably not, but you know,
or Jackson, Like is this portrait of Jackson?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I'm thinking about?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Even the Oval room itself is such an unusual shape
and the evolution of how that kind of came to be,
the Resolute desk, the HMS resolute. These are all the
things that are like rolling through my mind. Now that
can be bad. It doesn't necessarily translate to political success
or to great leadership or any of that.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
But in that moment, I was like, Oh, he doesn't
care about any of that.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
And you know, it's clear obviously in this is that
you know, imprinting this view of like who America is
is kind of in his own form. So, yes, you're
right in that it is a physical thing of Trump's legacy.
But more broadly I think it is I don't know.
I think it's like a loss of history and a
veneance of something.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
You can't get that back.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
You can't get back the East Wing and however it does.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
They say they're going to modernize it. I don't want
it to be modernized.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
It needs to stay relatively the same. That's kind of
how we treat most of these places. It's like, if
anybody in Washington has ever been to the Heart Senate
Office Building, it's a glass construction box. It looks like
shit compared to the Russell Senate Office Building, it's marble.
When you walk the halls, you see signs like this
was John F. Kennedy's office, this was lbj's office. That's
how it should be, in my opinion, just to ground
(42:53):
people down to at least something that they are remotely
connected to.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, I agree with you. It makes me very sad.
It makes me very very sad, especially for the future generations.
You know, I had a dream because my wife and
I we've done multiple tours and we were talking recently like, oh,
we could take her to the White House, you know,
And I'm like, now, she wanted to get to see it.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Took that away from me.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
One thing I will say about Nira's point is I
think if it was like Obama or Biden who did it,
the Republicans would be able to make it. The Right
would be able to make this effective campaign issue. Yes,
you're and the Democrats pulled that off. I don't have that.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Level of confidence. I agree, I agree, Chrystal. What are
you taking a look at?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
So guess what, guys, Graham Plotner's tattoo has made me
more ride or die for him than ever.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Let me explain my thinking here.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
So, as Ryan and Emily covered yesterday, main Democratic Senate
candidate Graham Platner is under fire for a variety of
old Reddit comments and an extremely poor tattoo. Joyce, So
here's that tattoo, revealed in a pick of Graham drunkenly
serenading the crowd with Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball as a
gag at his brother's wedding.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Honestly, it's a good song. You guys should listen to it.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Graham says he got the tattoo with a few of
his buddies in the Service during a drunken night of
shore leave in Croatia. And it turns out it's not
just a cool looking skull and crossbones.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
But a Nazi insigniy.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Well, yesterday we received the update that he has already
had that tattoo covered.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 10 (44:14):
I think that racism and anti Semitism are a long
scorge on our society and a long scorge on our politics,
and I think it has no place in our world.
For that reason, I have gone and gotten it covered up, right, right.
I went to a tattoo parlor and I got this
to cover up the sculling crossbones. It's a Celtic not
(44:36):
with some imagery around dogs, because my wife Amy and
I have two wonderful dogs that we love a lot.
This far more represents who I am now than even
the skulling crossbones did, which I thought.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
That it was so now the tattoo is obviously still
hideous visually, but no.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
Longer hideous symbolically.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So what are we anti fascist leftists and progressives to
do with all of this, Well, the first and most
important question to answer is is this man actually a
secret Nazi. Obviously, if the answer was yes, that would
be disqualifying, but from the available evidence, the idea he's
actually a Nazi seems utterly preposterous. Here the likely By
the way, Palanteer hacked Reddit leak is very useful. We
(45:15):
can read through a wide variety of Graham's often impolitic comments,
which he made when he thought he had Internet anonymity
and no expectations of running for public office. So what
do we see in those comments? Well, some comments on
sexual assault and race that are definitely not progressive, for
which Graham has expressed regret, and some comments proclaiming himself
a psychedelic, taken communist and Antifa super soldier, which would
(45:38):
make him about the furthest thing possible from being a Nazi.
For what it's worth, he was also a Michael Brooks fan,
crediting the late socialist commentator with his political shift and
mourning his untimely death.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
So between the.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Fact that we actually have access to his edgiest ship
posts and none of them are far right, and the
fact that I am personally married to a man who
accidentally got a metallica tattoo while sober im but he
thought it looked cool, so he just went for it.
I do believe Graham's croatia sure leave story, and think
we can confidently reject the theory that he is somehow
a secret Nazi. For me, this makes the question of
(46:10):
whether it continued supporting Graham or not extremely simple and
also vitally important. In fact, I genuinely believe that this
Graham Platinir question is at the heart of what course
the Democratic Party is going to take for the future.
Will establishment Democrats continue to limit the field to the
most professionally boring and uninspiring people on the planet, or
(46:31):
will the Democratic base reject their smear tactics and force
a new anti oligarchic direction. Because if you are opening
the gates to a broader range of candidates who haven't
just been planning presidential runs since they were like five,
like total psychos, You're going to get some works. You're
going to get some weird tattoos, some off color remarks,
some very messy life trajectories. The reward, though, is you
(46:52):
get a party that doesn't give America the ick. As
Emma Bigelin puts it quote censorious Hall monitor. Liberalism that
refuses accept growth in people unless you're a corporate centrist
and always forgiven, just as Cuomo supporters, is far more
of a threat to the Democratic Party's chances in the
future than anything dug up on Graham Platner. And it's
more than the Democratic Party's chances which are at stake here.
(47:14):
Status quo neoliberalism has failed to deliver for people, and
those failures are exactly what enabled the rise of fascism.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
The question of.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Whether the Democratic Party base can elevate new candidates with
new profiles and most critically, new politics is existential for
the party and for the country as a whole. So
Graham's tattoo also raises the question of what do we
even consider to be a scandal. They want you to
believe that a bad drunken tattoo is more scandalous than
bad policy backing billionaires at the expense of ordinary people
(47:45):
and support for genocide at the expense of our souls.
We have to fight that view with everything that we have.
It main currently, there's a choice between two leading candidates
on the Democratic side. You've got the sitting governor, Janet Mills.
She's the choice of Chuck Schumer and the DS as
governor of Maine. She has opposed a millionaire's tax. She
vetoed adding higher income tax brackets. She opposed hiking corporate taxes,
(48:10):
but she did implement a cigarette tax, which will disproportionately
hit the working class. Now, she did pick a fight
against Trump, which I appreciate, but if it's not match
with a willingness to confront capital, it is not nearly enough.
Mills also opposed local Israel divestment efforts in Maine. She
threatened to veto statewide divestment efforts. She's been silent on
(48:31):
the genocide and just generally tose the lockstep pro Israel line.
She also happens to be the least popular Democratic governor
in the entire nation and would end her Senate term
well into her eighties.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
Do you really believe that that is the type.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Of candidate that Democrats should rally behind for the future
of the party, let alone the country now. Graham supports
a billionaire minimum tax, strongly supports Medicare for all. Wants
to surge federal government direct housing construction to deal with
housing affordable, wants to end the forever wars, and especially
to end the genocide and bring.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
Peace and justice to Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Now, with no public profile or political office, he has
built a grassroots movement both in Maine and around the
country of people who are inspired by his model of politics.
This was just last night, By the way, he routinely
garners hundreds of cheering supporters to his events.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
So, guys, is the a risk?
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (49:23):
Could more come out?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Sure, But many Democrats have tried to beat Susan Collins
with standard issue safe choices before, and all of them
very safely lost. There is also I should mention another
candidate named Jordan Wood in the race, who is responsible
for a network of scam PACs and running exploited of
fundraising tactics, who has probably done more to harass Democratic
voters and scan the amount of money than perhaps any
(49:46):
other individual. He's at one percent right now, by the way,
So I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far. In
response to tattoo, Congress and Rocana, Senator Standards, Senator Heinrich,
They're all standing behind Graham. Even a sort of centristsh
Democrat Rubin Diego did not throw Graham under the bus.
Here are Bernie's most recent comments. Clip is a little long,
but I couldn't cut any because you guys need all
(50:07):
of this pure quintessential Bernie.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Do you have a question about your endorsement a plan?
Speaker 11 (50:12):
It was the American healthcare system?
Speaker 4 (50:14):
Well, something he talks about a lot, right, I'll.
Speaker 11 (50:16):
Be just say a few words. Number one, I am
impressed that media is so concerned about the tattoo that
mister Platner has. Meanwhile, there's a result of Trump's mess
of cuts the Medicaid. The estimate is that if we
don't change that, fifteen million people are going to lose
their health insurance. Fifty thousand people you are going to die,
(50:38):
maybe equivalent to the importance of mister Platt's tattoo in
terms of mister Platinum. This is a guy who served
four terms as in combat Marine, four tours of duty.
(51:04):
He was a machine number, He saw friends die. He
came out of that war as he has a knowledge
with PTSD, got good treatment at the VA, got his
life together. This is a man who served his country,
who suffered, who had some difficult moments, who said things
(51:24):
that he should not have said, and he has apologized
for them. But I think if this country is about anything,
it's about understanding that every person, me, you, everybody else
has gone dark moments in our history and we go on.
I think the issues that Graham is talking about the
need to deal with massive income and wealth, inequality, healthcare
(51:47):
is a human right, raising the minimum age are the
issues that are going to resonate and may resonate all
over the United States of America.
Speaker 4 (51:56):
So you're standing by your endorsement.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
Can I do about the tattoo?
Speaker 4 (51:59):
Do you think it's necessy that he gets it removed
or covered up?
Speaker 11 (52:04):
Once again, we're dealing with a collapsing healthcare system as
a result of Trump's policies. Fifty thousand Americans may die
unnecessarily every year, and you were asking me about whether
or not a guy should get a tattoo removed.
Speaker 10 (52:18):
Sorry, he thought he.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
Was going to remove it, Classic Bernie.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
I also spent a good bit of time reading through
the replies from the normy dem Podsave Audience under their
interview with Graham. I didn't see a single negative one.
In fact, I've actually seen more nervous lefties than liberals,
possibly because of our past John Fetterman trauma, which I
do understand, but let's be real, guys, Fetterman did have
ideological red flags in the present day, not based on
some old post. The biggest red flags were on Israel,
(52:45):
of course, and also that whole trying to murder a
random black guy in his neighborhood situation. Also worth remembering, though,
that Fetterman has literal brain damage which apparently made him
basically a different person, so it does seem like a
pretty unique situation. The other intelligent critique I've seen from
lefties is just basically, listen, guys, we got to pick
our battles, and the Nazi tattoo guy is just not
worth it. Journalist Adam Johnson, for one, tweeted this quote,
(53:07):
do you think it's wise to piss away capital defending
someone with a Nazi tattoo, someone with little pedigree on
the issues that matter and was a blackwater murk? Does
this feel like a good use of our time and energy?
To that, I would respond, yes, this is the absolute
best use of our.
Speaker 4 (53:23):
Time and energy.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
It is an essential use of our time and energy,
and I will die on this hill. And to be honest,
the ship posting but mostly leftist reddit posts actually kind
of laid my fears on the Blackwater Front, and that
was the most concerning aspect of Graham's lore for me personally,
but only political capital front with respect, I think this
analysis is just wrong. It's not how political capital works.
There's not like a well of capital the left holds
(53:45):
in reserve which we have to budget across a variety
of candidates and causes. In fact, when we go in
for a candidate and stick with them and succeed, our
political capital and our political power grows. We didn't abandon
Zoron when he wouldn't condemn globalized into foud and was
relent he smeared as an anti Semite Energihattist, and standing
with him even when he was under fire only grew
(54:06):
our collective power. In the same way you cannot capitulate
to Trump, you cannot capitulate to the establishment Democrats who
helped to bring us Trump. A reckoning is happening right
now in the Democratic Party. They know it and we
know it. The leadership has lost control of the Norman
liberal base, making the kind of political revolution that Bernie
dreamed about actually maybe possible. They are out there asking
(54:26):
Corey Booker and Gavinusom about a pack.
Speaker 4 (54:28):
They forced reluctant leaders to back a shutdown. They didn't
want to do it.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
But if the Democratic establishment is able to get us
to abandon Graham, they will use this playbook over and
over and over again on every candidate who poses even
the slightest challenge to the pro oligarch consensus. And guess what, guys,
not all of those candidates are going to be as
impeccably and improbably squeaky clean as Zorn Mamdani appears to be.
Speaker 4 (54:52):
People are messy.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
If you are going to be a party of people
and not a party of creepy skin robots, you're going
to have to live with some dirt or in this case,
some ink and Sager we got to pull out this morning.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
I think we have it.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
All right, we've talked far, far too long, so enjoy
the show. We'll see you Friday show tomorrow
Hey, guys, Sager and Crystal.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Here, independent media just played a truly massive role in
this election, and we are so excited about what that
means for the future of this show.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
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Speaker 3 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
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dot com.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Let's go ahead and start with this d one.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Guys, so you've got bybe getting asked whether or not
Israel is a US protectorate. Pretty interesting comments here. Let's
take a listen.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
To that Israel is becoming some kind of a sales
state or protectorate of the United States, not only an
advisort what to do, but also command and what to do.
Why do you both comment on that? And I want
to put it very clearly. You know, one week they
say that Israel controls the United States. Clear to say
the United States controls Israel. This is all guash. We
(01:04):
have a partnership and alliance of partners. We share common
values with common goals. We can have discussions, we can
have disagreements here and there, but on the whole, I
have to say that in the past year we've had
agreement agreement not only on goals but how to reach them,
and I think we're pursuing them successfully.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So interesting to you to say the Vice president standing
there well BB is taking that question saga.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It is about as close to screw you as it
can be mustered in diplomatic speak, especially when you tack
on this. Let's go and put the next part up
on the screen. The Kannesse while JD. Vance, the Vice President,
was in the country, approved a bill to apply is
reely sovereignty in the West Bank.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
The proposal would say that the laws, judicial system administration
sovereignty of the State of Israel shall apply to all
areas of settlement in Judea and Samaria. It is a
twenty five twenty four vote after a quote heated discussion,
and it is one where they stipulate not only what
I just read, but that it would actually apply in principle.
So the difference here is that technically it was symbolic.
(02:12):
The government is not going to officially carrate this out now, frankly,
considering how we have covered the West Bank at this
point with Jasper Nathaniel, it already exists, but it's.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Effectively a symbolic thing at this point.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Nonetheless, it was again as big of a diplomatic fu
as they could muster, not only from BB because it
was not just the protectorate conversation, the private conversations at
least some of it were leaked to various different reporters
where JD is begging them basically saying, give the ceasefire
a chance. It's like a meme, please give piece a chance.
They're like, please, please just try it. You know you
(02:48):
may enjoy it. It may actually work. And in addition,
not only to the ceasfire conversation that's been happening with
the US administration and others is that they are not
doing enough to address the actual underlying dynamic of the
government itself, like you had Smotrich and ke Ben Gevier too,
members of the government who are outwardly I mean, this
(03:09):
is just today he says, this is from Smodri if
Saudi Arabia is telling us that in return for normalization,
they want a Palestinian state. We will say, friends, no,
thank you. You can continue riding camels on the sand
in the Saudi Desert, okay. And these are the people,
these are the people whose troops are supposed to be
patrolling Gaza right right.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And then in addition to the fact.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
That the plan riding money for the reconstruction and.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Providing the money for the reconcern, they don't want any
of this to work out.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And it's like America is stuck pretending in.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
This dream like state where the Israeli government actually wants.
They don't want a seaspiero that all, Why do we
keep the pretense, Like, guys, just be honest about what's
happening here.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's one of the things that drives me the most
crazy about foreign policy is how much pretend there is,
how much bakery there is from you know, American politicians
who have to pretend BB is different and his government
is different, and that they're not out there just openly
saying we are never giving Gaza back to Palestinians. We're
going to stay here forever. We're going to have settlements
(04:11):
we're going to push them out of a gaza strip. Altogether,
they're just openly saying and then we just have to
pretend that we don't hear it, or American politicians just
pretend that they don't hear it and they don't actually
know what's going on. It's one of the things that
makes me the most insane. On the West Bank point,
I mean, Jade Vance was annoyed by this because it
created an uncomfortable situation from when we could put D
two B up on the screen. He says that he
(04:34):
was unhappy about it. The vote in the Kanessa on
annexing the West Bank was strange. If it was a
political stunt, it was a foolish political stunt. I was
offended by it. We will not allow Israel to annex
the West Bank, and we were not pleased with this vote.
Of course, the reality is they have allowed Israel to
annex the West Bank. This was a key priority of
top donor Miriam Adelson, and they've allowed mass settlements to
(04:56):
go for including as Jasper Nathaniel has pointed out, some
extremely consequent ones that basically, you know, end the viability
of a Palestinian state to include the West Bank mac
also just sent us this.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Apparently they are.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Getting rid within Israel entirely of even the language West
Bank in favor of the biblical, biblical term Judea and Samaria.
So another symbolic move to assert their own sovereignty over
this area and these people, the parts of the West
Bank that are supposedly controlled by Palestinians. You know, it's
the Palestinian authority, which are collaborators anyway, but in reality,
(05:33):
you know, Israel controls the nature of their day to
day life, where they can go, what they can do,
whether they can harvest their olives free from free from
rampaging settlers or not. And so de facto annexation has
already happened. It would have to be rolled back. It
would have to take you know, this administration or another
actually asserting themselves and saying this is unacceptable, and here's
(05:54):
what it's going to look like, and here's how we're
going to get to some sort of peace and justice
for Palestinians.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
For that to happen.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Right now, they've got their hands fuld just keeping Israel
from going back to full blown slaughter within Gaza.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
So at the.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Same time, let's talk a little bit about the idea
for quote unquote phase two. We could put D three
up on the screen. So this is some Wall Street
journal reporting, and it dovetails very well with what we
were talking about in the West Bank, the reality in
the West Bank, because this plan looks a lot like
they want to turn Gaza effectively into a new West Bank.
(06:28):
So the headline here is a US plan splits Gaza
into one zone controlled by Israel and one by Hamas.
Now the reality on the ground right now, and they
say Jared Kushner floats a plan to rebuild the Israeli
controlled half of the Palaestin enclave until Hamas can be disarmed.
So right now, the reality on the ground is Israel
is still occupying fifty three percent of the Gaza strip.
(06:51):
And anytime anyone gets close to what they call the
yellow line, which doesn't exist like in reality and physical reality,
just like on a map and in their heads, anytime
any Palaestin gets close to that or wanders over it,
they shoot and kill them.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
That is what we've seen in this quote unquote cease fire.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So they want to use the part that they occupy
as effectively a cudgel to begin the rebuilding process there
and allow potentially some of their you know, vetted like
gang affiliated people into that area, and then to use
that to pressure Hamas as like, now you have to
(07:28):
disarm because Palestinans want to come over and live in
this reconstructed area, and we're not going to do any
reconstruction in the area that the overwhelming number of Palestinians
remain in and that you remain in control of. So
that is the idea, you know. Interestingly, people just caught this.
I didn't note this from the sixty minutes interview with
Kushner and Witkof originally, but in that interview and it's
(07:50):
going to be D zero guys, Witkoff talks about how
they've been developing this quote unquote master plan for two
years and Jared Kushner gets a very uncomfortable look on
his face when Witcoff uses that language.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Let's go ahead and take a look at that.
Speaker 6 (08:05):
Part of the plan is the reconstruction, the building rebuilding
of Gaza and your builders. You've been in real estate,
as you said, it's extremely complex. Tell us more about
the plan and how much it's going to cost, where's
the money going to come from, and who's going to
(08:26):
reward the contracts? Three questions.
Speaker 7 (08:32):
I think it's going to cost a lot of money.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
What's a lot of money?
Speaker 5 (08:36):
You know, the.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
Estimates are in the fifty billion dollar range. It might
be a little bit less, it might be a little
bit more. I happen to think that that's not a
lot of money. In that region. You have governments that
are going to jump on in.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
And so the Middle East countries are going to provide
the money.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
What you'll see European participation and so forth. I think
the beginning of this plan is how to get it going,
and that's what me and what me and Jared work
on all the time. The money raising, we think is
the easy part. We think that happens relatively quickly. But
it's the master plan. And we're working with a group
(09:14):
of people who have been working on master plans for
the last two years.
Speaker 6 (09:19):
So there are plans already.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
We have plans already. We have a master plan already.
And by the way, and Jared's been pushing this and
we're working together on it, and I think if the
world saw the progress so far, they'd be pretty impressed.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So Witkoff says they've been working on a master plan
for two years.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Now.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, this is the master plan, and this is basically
the Yeah West wangification, they still have control. All of
this falls apart. It's really hard to take it seriously
because it's just it's fake. I mean, look at the
comments from the Finance minister about Saudi Arabia. Who do
you think the people would be responsible for quote unquote
disarming Hamas would be it would be the UAE, Saudi Arabia.
(09:57):
The US JD and Trump both say no US troops
will ever set foot on the ground in Gaza. Great,
I mean, honestly I support that, but eventually somebody's troops
have got to set foot on the ground to have
political administration. Their plan is like some phase rollout where
they'll just encroach space by space Hamas will be allowed
and then they'll slowly dehmosify it.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
How how do you do that? What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
At a certain point, it's all just recreating the same
dynamic as Iraq Afghanistan. These people have no actual plan.
In the absence, chaos will reign. Israel will continue to
shoot and to kill, and eventually some sort of mass
attack or whatever either Hamas will do it. Maybe Israel
will do, we'll see and then we'll be right back
(10:41):
to where things were. That seems like the modal outcome
at this point. I don't really see another way that
it could go well.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
And like I said, this quote unquote master plan that
they're laying out it really does look a lot like
the reality in the West Bank. And so if you're
going to be trying to get Palestinians voluntarily to go
into the area that Zdrae controls, basically you're getting them
to voluntarily go into a direct military occupation where every
(11:07):
aspect of your life is controlled by the Israelis. And
so you know, in the West Bank you have three
different as this was all set up in the under
the Oslok Cords. You've got areas A, B, and C
different levels of control by the Israelis theoretically, and part
of what has now become actual reality, as Jasper's laid down,
is that even in the areas that are supposedly under
Palestinian control, your life is actually determined by the Israelis.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
And yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
This is also why a lot of people have moved
from feeling like a two state solution is okay. Well,
if you're just going to annex everything, then give people rights,
then just have a one state. But of course that
would be wildly unacceptable to the net Yahoo, to smochors,
but not just them, not just the extremists, I mean,
be wildly acceptable to any mainstream Israeli politician for Palestinians
(11:53):
just to actually have citizenship, because then you have this
quote unquote demographic threat. They have big families, and they
have you know, they have already about half of the
if you look at all of Israel and Palestine put together,
it's about half of the population. So pretty quickly you
have this very different political reality if you actually.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Allow them to have rights.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And that's where the core of this campaign of genocide
and ethnic cleansing and occupation, that's where this all comes from,
because they cannot they cannot permit a situation where Palestinians
have any sort of political say in their system.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, the political administration of the entire system just looks
like even more hopeless than ever before. Also in terms
of the US dynamic, just look at what it takes
to get Israel to stick to the ceasefire, at least
in limited ways. The Vice President, the US envoy, the
President's son in law all have to be in Israel
(12:48):
all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Just to be like, hey, please give this.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
The US intelligence community has to monitor every explosion in
Gaza just to make sure that the Israelis aren't lying
about it as a pretext to go back.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
How can we possibly stick to that dynamic forever?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
R I mean, I talked about how the schizophrenia of
the administration just so I know it's the Ukraine's but
everybody stick with me, because in the last week it
has been a masterclass by the Trump administration. Trump literally
less than a week, actually six days, so six days
ago Vladimir Zelenski met with Trump at the Oval Office.
He called Trump, or he called Putin and he berated
Zelenski for not agreeing to peace terms. That was six
(13:23):
days ago, and he said, I won't give you any
long range missiles in the interim period. He set a
new summit for Budapest between him and Putin, and it
looks like things were going in a.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
More pro Russian direction.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Three days ago, the Secretary of State and Lavrov, the
Foreign Minister, have quote a disastrous phone call.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Whatever that means.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
The Budapest's summit is canceled. They say they have no
immediate terms. Yesterday, Presidence Secretary Scott Besstt announces major Russia
sanctions against the regime, and the Wall Street Journal reports
that now long range missiles are on their way to Ukraine,
which will be used to strike in them on That
is six days what we just watched from berating Zelenski
(14:02):
to give up the Dunboss region to giving giving long
range missiles to Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Who knows what will be six days from now? Right?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Okay, now apply that to Israel and to see, yeah,
where does he spire today? Who knows what will be tomorrow?
This guy is rebuilding the East Wing, that's what he apparently.
I'm not joking. I heard a story that he's currently
has two different types of marble tabletops in which he
is asking every person who comes from the Oval office
which one they prefer. That's his current actual interest, not
(14:32):
miss So good luck to anybody who's a ceasefire believer
or anyone, because a week from now, six days from now,
who knows what you're gonna wake up and get?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And that's why I would bet on the Israelis know
what they want. Trump doesn't know what he wants.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I would bet on Israel.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It was interesting that it was Rubio that had the
quote unquote disastrous call with Lavrov that blew everything up
in tourms of the direction of you know, having the
Budapest meeting and all of that sort of stuff. And
that's the thing is I think this president. This is
not to deny him blame. He deserves blame forever thing
that's happening under his government. But I think he has
checked out of a lot of pieces of it. He's
(15:05):
obsessed with his renovations. He likes that the physical legacy
that he can leave of his hideous tacky gold taste.
That's the thing that he actually cares about. And so
he's like, yeah, Marco, you talked to Lavrov. Yeah, Steven Miller,
why don't you run the immigration thing. Why don't you
guys work together on the Venezuela REGIMEA, Oh, you want
to do regime change in Venezuela is sure, be my guest, Like, look,
(15:26):
go and make it a little personal project. He's outsourced
a lot of parts of this, even I mean even
on the economic piece. It doesn't feel like he is
as hands on and engaged with it as he was
in the early days of this administration. So the kind
of focus that would be required to keep this thing
on the rails, it's hard to imagine. And let's keep
in mind also even with Jade Vance there, they're still
(15:49):
taking their freakin' like, let's annex the West Bank and
call it Judea and Samaria votes and all we can
muster is like I was offended by that, Okay, but
you're not going to do anything about it, are you?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yes, It's like, what are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I actually really wonder because yeah, he's on his way
back to Washington. Now, what's going to happen a week
from now? Because, like I said, with the Trump administration,
they're going to be on Ukraine now, you know, for
the next three days, and then by the way, Venezuela,
which we're about to cover.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
You get myired in that. Who cares about the israel
CIEs fire. This is the problem. You get yourself into
too many things.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You don't have enough attention, you don't have a unified
you know, attention of government. This is this is how
things are going to go. Let's get to Venezuela. There's
a lot of moving parts, but the major breaking news
President Trump from the Oval Office yesterday, saying that he
will soon notify Congress that land strikes on Venezuela must begin.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Let's take a listen, A legal.
Speaker 8 (16:42):
Authority if they do coms, yes we do, we have legos.
We're allowed to do that. And if we do buy land,
we may go back to Congress. But we have this
is a national security problem. They killed three hundred thousand
people last year. Drugs, these drugs coming in. They killed
three hundred thousand Americans last year, and that gives you
(17:04):
legal authority. We have a national security Really, I will
say this, when you look at the people we're dealing with,
and we know them, we know the people coming in,
we know the boats, we know everything else. We're allowed
to do it. It's in international waters. If we don't
do it, we're going to lose hundreds of thousands of people.
(17:27):
Now they'll be coming in by land a little bit
more because they're not coming in by boat anymore. There
are no boats in the water. There are no more boats.
We know the boat almost immediately. You know, it's pretty
unusual when you see somebody with a fishing rod and
five engines on the back of the boat. You know,
you don't need that to go fishing. Wait wait, wait,
and we will hit them very hard when they come
(17:47):
in by land and they haven't experienced that yet. But
now we're totally prepared to do that. We'll probably go
back to Congress and explain exactly what we're doing when
we come to the land. We don't have to do that,
but I think Marco I'd like to do that. You
may respond to that.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
So yeah, now we are going to come to the land.
Let me just explain a little bit because the sea
campaign has actually heated up over.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Just the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
There was a new announcement of a strike on drug traffickers,
but actually in the Pacific, or alleged drug traffickers I
should say, that was actually in the Pacific ocean. So
this is now a two ocean front or now, I
mean what you look at from the expanding nature not
only of the boats but of the rhetoric in terms
of striking the land would obviously be a massive escalation.
(18:36):
The reason why he says yes to notify Congress is
all of this is currently being done under a drug
interdiction mission, but none of it has actually been justified
presented with evidence. There is frankly, I mean, look, Ryan
and I are working on a big Venezuela story right now.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I can't give away all the details.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
The one tidbit I can offer is that there is
not one shred of evidence internally that fentanyl is on
any single one of these boats, not one piece of
evidence that fentanyl is on these But which is again,
I mean, this is the rhetorical justification of the strike.
By the way, what he says they're about the boats. Again,
small tidbit that we can offer. These boats would have
to stop and refuel some twenty times in order to
(19:18):
get to the United States. The current intel is that
they're not heading to the US, is that they're most
likely heading to different places in the Caribbean, namely Trinidad
and Tobago. By the way, everything I just said Ran
Paul also just echoed on TV. So I'm not giving
anything in particular really a way. I'm just telling you
that that's from based on our reporting. That's what we
can able to offer you. So this is all part
(19:40):
of a regime change operation. There's just no other way
to describe it. Maduro quite literally offered up everything by
Trump's own admission.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
In addition, to numerous.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Reported outlets about some of the behind the scenes talk.
So this is I mean, look, this is where things
are trending right now. Trump genuinely believes the best way
to get act to Venezuela and oil is to overthrow
the government.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
The drug thing is a pretext. It has nothing to
do with that.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, it has to do with minerals, which will show
you here in a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But it's scary. It's scary.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
There are a few things to pick up on from
his comments. So let's be clear. What they're doing is
random murder in terms of attacking these boats. I mean,
the few details that we've had at this point, some
of the people who were murdered who have been identified,
were like random fishermen.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
So maybe some of them are drug traffickers. We don't
know that.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Any of the literally any of them are, and they
have now killed dozens of people without offering a shred
of evidence that these are even the individuals that they claim,
and Soger and Ryan's reporting that they have zero evidence
internally that any of these boats have sentinel on them,
even though that is what they are telling the American public.
That is in and of itself a bombshell. That's number one.
(20:48):
Number two when he says we're going, you know, they're
going to come to the land. Maybe we'll go to Congress.
We don't have to go to Congress. Maybe we'll go
to Congress. Let's be really clear about what that means.
So right now we have random murder of potential fishermen
in you know, Caribbean and the Pacific. What he's proposing
is random murder of people here on the land.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
That's what that expansion means.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So they are trying to claim the power to ur
betrayal to you know, unilaterally, just murder random people that
they announce the public or drug traffickers without providing evidence.
That is the power that they are trying to claim.
Maybe they'll go to Congress, and maybe they won't because
Trump doesn't seem to think that they have to. So
that's number two. Number three. Let me read to you
(21:35):
what Pete Hagsath tweeted out in response in you know,
to announce this latest murder at sea. He says, because
some of the language here is very important. So he says, today,
at the direction President Trump, the Department of War carried
out yet another lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated
by a designated terrorist organization dto yetigan again, the now
(21:56):
deceased terrorists were engaged in narco trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
We're just supposed to take the for that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
By the way, the vessel was known by our intelligence
to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transitting along
a non narcotrafficking route, and was carrying narcotics. Three male
narco terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which
was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed
and no US forces were harmed in this strike. These
strikes will continue day after day. These are not simply
(22:20):
drug runners. These are narco terrorists bringing death and destruction
to our cities. These DTOs are the al Qaeda of
our hemisphere and will not escape justice. We will find
them and kill them until the threat to the American
people is extinguished. So that language there saying these are
the al Qaidas of our hemisphere. That is the pretext,
(22:42):
the linguistic pretext that they're trying to use and convince
you of to allow them this unconscionable power grab.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
That's the way they're framing it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
And I think, you know, the regime change part is terrified,
Like everyone should be very concerned about that, but it
should also be very concerning to you what they're already
doing and the powers that they're claiming for not only
these attacks on boats, but now trying to claim for
here domestically on US soil.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yes, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
It is literally just GWATT GWAT logic, GWAT rhetoric, and
in some cases the new rhetoric is actually more extreme
than the GWAT because it no claim at time during
the war in Iraq, even when we were spreading democracy
apparently to Iraq and Afghanistan, did people come to the
airwaves and say that Iraq should be the fifty first state,
(23:30):
but did not put that past Lindsey Graham and Sean
Hannity on Fox News Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9 (23:36):
I had a chat with you this weekend and I
thought you had a pretty darn good idea and you
said you were going to share it with the president.
I want to know if you did. And that is
this opposition leader in Venezuela that won the Nobel Prize
that said it really deserved to go to Donald Trump.
Sounds like a pretty good leader to me for the
people of Venezuela and the end of narco terrorism and
(23:57):
a better relationship with the US. Or if they choose
maybe the fifty first state, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Sounds good to be sounds good to me, fifty first
state of Venezuela. So you know, we can't simultaneously be
for mass deportation of Venezuelan migrants. What does Trump always
say is like they opened up the asylums, they opened
up the jails, and they sent them here. So we're
going to send them back and then we're going to
(24:22):
create them and to turn them into and then they're
all gonna be citizens. Okay, Okay, let's not to mention
the fact that it would cause mass illegal migration, even
if there was some sort of regime collapse. Again, I
don't want to get too ahead of the story Ryan
and I are working on, but we have some bombshell
stuff that we can report, the intel stuff, frankly some
of the least interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
But the point I just want to stick to is.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
There is no evidence that Maduro is actually like a
large scale drug trafficker. Number one, Number two, there's no
fentanel on any of these boats, Number three, these boats
all the current intellig does not even show that they're
necessarily heading for the United States. Number four, all of
the powers that are being claimed by the administration are
ones that the George W. Bush presidency and the Obama
(25:06):
presidency use as sweeping powers to be able to drone
strike and kill whoever they want. And five is actually Congress,
because the thing is is that nobody's really doing anything
about this inside of Congress. Like, look, this is I
always say this, The true true threat to America is
real bipartisanship, the stuff that everybody just comes ninety eight
(25:27):
zero votes on things like regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine,
and you only have a few shitsters like Rand Paul
and Thomas Massey willing to speak out. That's the real
danger to the country. I don't see any large scale
demonstration or you know, people like I'll give credit where
do but like, let's be honest, it's like a minority congressman,
(25:48):
a minority caucus in a minority like in a minority
ruling party of the House has no power to do anything.
Like there's no stand up about authorities here. It's it's
very area and it's moving much quicker. Again, I really
don't think that the media is covering this properly. Like
nobody points to the fact the United States Center saying
(26:09):
Venezuela should be a fifty first state combined with regime
change operations should freak everybody. It should be front page
international news. Yeah, and everyone's like, oh, yeah, I mean,
we just struck. It's a two ocean war now, Like,
when's the last time the United States even did a
two ocean strike.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And maybe, just maybe the opposition party should have something
to say about that, you know. I mean, you have
a few outliers like Rocana, but by and large they
are silent on I mean, it's just disappointment doesn't even
begin to describe it.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
It really is like they barely exist.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And so part of the reason why the media doesn't
cover it in the way that it is is because
in the way that it should is because they aren't
getting those signals from the opposition party of like, holy
this is really bad and making the case against this,
so the American people know what's going on and can
evaluate for themselves whether or not they'd be like to
be in a regime change war against Venezuela, or like
(26:58):
to be blowing up in Tumen in the Caribbean, or
like to have those powers brought here to domestic soil.
And so you know, there's it's astonishing to me how
little fight they have, how fraid they are of taking
him on anything outside of these few narrow issues. And
so that's part of why you don't have a mass
(27:21):
upset over this in the population, because there are so
few voices that are actually speaking on against it.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, I mean, also let's say about Maga too. This
is part of why I.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Think Venezuela is more dangerous than Iran. And this will
sound crazy, like the operation is that there is no
organized or there is no organized rhetoric language or project
that takes invading Venezuela as a serious thing and opposes it.
So an Iran, not nearly enough people spoke up, in
my opinion, but there was an organized effort on the
right to speak up and to say that this is
(27:52):
a bad idea to pursue regime change in Iran and
to not allow the Israelis to go full on and
actually do it.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Now they still might, but to be.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Clear, at the time, there was a real, real, organized effort,
and the White House felt some pressure on Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
They feel nothing.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
A huge part of the MAGA commentariat actually believes the
fentanyl claim. I don't know why. I mean, look, listen,
Ryan and I will put a story out soon.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
He tells you.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
It's complete bullshit. You don't need to hear from me.
You can hear from a lot of other people. There's
no fentanyl in Venezuela. DEA statistics say there's no ventanyl
in Venezuela. But they're like, these people killed my you know,
cousin or whatever from a heroin over to It's like, guys, no,
they didn't. Okay, I'm sorry, Like it didn't. I'm sorry
that happened to you. But your literal emotions are being
weaponized by the government for a legitimate neocon wet dream
(28:38):
of overthrowing Venezuela. So the fact that there's no organized
project actually seems to me like it's going to be
more likely because what MAGA likes is the expansion of
administrative power and strikes. It always feels good to blow
up drug traffickers.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Again.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Again, it's not necessarily any evidence behind that, but they
don't have a theory for how this can go badly, Like,
you can't simultaneously oppose mass migration, which I do, and
which a lot of them ostensibly say. You can't talk
about trend Diarragua and Venezuelan and takeovers of neighborhoods and
say that deposing the regime of Nicholas Maduro is going
to do anything about that same thing. You know, we
(29:13):
have allies neighbors in the region Colombia, and these are
thriving big countries Central America and also who we are
reliant on to make sure that you know, they are
stemmed the crisis before it even comes here. Where do
you think they're all going to go? You know, in
the same route that they did under Biden. They're going
to flood the border. So just think about it. I mean,
maybe they won't make it here, they're going to make
it to you. And so there's an entire theory that
(29:36):
you know, is so obvious but has not yet been articulated.
And all they're hearing instead as Pete Hegseth Fox News
and Trump and others being like, oh, this is actually
the highest and best use of our military.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
It's it's honestly scary. The internal dynamics. I'll just say it.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
I mean, not that anybody listens to me, but you're
you're getting taken for a ride like this is complete
bs one hundred percent. Every claim on the fentanyl drugs.
I'm telling you it's false, and they know it's false.
They stumbled on the drug thing after months to convince
Trump because originally.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
They're like, oh, he stole the election. Trump's like, I
don't care. Still he's They're like, he's bad, he's a murderer.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
So I mean, what, well, we don't have murderers that we
do diplomatic relationship with who gives a shit what's going
on in Venezuela. But eventually they came down to drugs.
He seems to believe it based on this fake indictment
from twenty twenty and this new what is it, the
fifty million dollar bound bounty scary man.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, it's It is terrifying how easily people can just
be talked into war, Like all you have to do
is hit whatever.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
They're like policy of.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Rogin his Zona is Oh, they're they're narco terror is Sentinel,
and without any sort of critical thought, they're ready for
the next regime change war, and zero thought about what
the consequences of that will be, zero thought about whether
any of what they're being fed is truthful.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
It's very disturbing to see.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I can't be the only one which is watched with
great alarm as the entire White House East Wing will
now be demolished in favor of Donald Trump's announced presidential ballroom.
Here he is laying out the reasoning. Let me just
before we even play it, though, let me describe this.
Of course, he had announced his plans for the ballroom.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Okay, so he's going to build this new ballroom on
the White House campus. However, what actually comes out now
is that in order to build said ballroom, you have
to demolish the entire historical part of the East Wing.
Demolition pictures began to leak online. They eventually told them, hey,
stop taking pictures of it if you work in the
government and leaking it to the press. Then they said, oh,
(31:46):
only the facade itself will be destroyed. No, now they're
coming for the whole thing. Here's Trump laying it out.
Speaker 8 (31:52):
In order to do it properly, we had to take
down the existing structure. The way it was shown it
looked like we were touching the White House. We don't
touch the White House. That's a bridge at last bridge
going from the White House to the ballroom. Then you
get into the lobby of the ballroom, and then you
go into the magnificent the main room. And it's something
that has gotten incredible reviews.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Something that's gotten incredible reviews. Shall we let's review it.
We'll all review it together. Let's play it.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Let's let's put it up here on the screen. Yep,
here's the video.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
That's the East Wing. That's a bulldozer they're taking it down.
This is from above the fence.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Again.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
This is the historic East Wing part of the White
House where millions of tourists have gone. I've walked this
halls a lot of times. It's really nice. If you
ever had the ability to go to the Christmas tour
or anything like that. That's that's it, you know, all
right there in favor of this whatever. This is this
gigantic new footprint, the East Wing, the ballroom.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Look at that. Look at that.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I'm sorry, you know, yeah, I don't even have words.
It's like the tackiest shit I've ever seen in my
entire life. I mean, just look at some of these renderings.
On the left, you can see the tiny little west
wing where the rose the colonnade, the rose garden, which,
by the way, is ort to destroyed the rose gardens.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
On top of what you can see for the west wing,
the Oval the.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Magisterium of like the understated part of the Oval Office
in favor of a gilded age breaker style mansion of
a ballroom which will be used for how many times
in a year.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
It's grotesque.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I mean, look, I mean the one benefit is that
nobody in the like nobody's paying.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
For it, like in terms of the taxpayers.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Yeah, a parent it's gonna be some three hundred billion,
But even that it's being sponsored by some major corporation.
I mean, the thing that just gulls me about this
is the taste. It's so disconnected from American public history architecture,
you know, anything that even remotely calls back to our
(33:58):
reverence for our history. And you know, of course that
cope is like, oh well, Harry Truman remodeled. Yeah, it's
not the same, Okay, it's just not by the way
that one actually was in conjunction with the White House
Historical Association, was done because the White House was falling apart,
not because we need a fucking ballroom so that you
can entertain more than nine hundred guests.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
They even say.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
They're going to modernize it, which makes me literally want
to have a brain aneurysm. If you've ever been to
the East Wing, the entire point of the place is
that it has deep history. If you want to put
ac events or something like that, okay, fine, but nobody.
I mean, I'm just imagining glass slighting doors and fluorescent
lighting in the East Swing, and it's going to give
me an overall brain aneurysm just looking at all this.
(34:41):
Now here's the final question. Do you agree with near
Tangent's take that the images of the White House could
swing the election.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I was like, look, Nera, you're after my heart. I
am one of those people. I am a White House
swing voter. But even I am naive enough to say
that people give a shit about the.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I only honestly, let's be honest, it's kind of an
insider thing to even care because the ninety nine percent
of the US population has never even been inside of
the East Wing.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I've probably been there ten or fifteen times. The Blue Room,
the Red Room.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
You know, all of these gorgeous places, even the photos
don't really capture capture it. You know, when I go
in those places, I'm like, wow, FDR did fireside chat here?
You know, this is where the famous George W. Bush
interviewing all that happened. I guess Americans just don't get
Trump certainly doesn't care at all.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Maybe I can hopefully inspire some reverence for our great
architecture in favor of whatever this.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
It makes me feel very conservative good.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I mean I do, I don't know, if I listen,
I don't know. Maybe there's right who knows right? What
lands with people? And there is something. Clearly Trump finds
it to be somewhat of a political problem because number
one he lied and said that the East Wing wouldn't
be touched.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Well, it won't be touched at all.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
There will be no demolision and it'll just go up
alongside of it, like no demolitionon whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Which I was concerned about. But I was like, okay, whatever, Maybe.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, he's a builder. Maybe so.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Number One, he felt the need to lie about it
and continues to lie about it. Number Two, he felt
the need to cover up the pictures and demand that
no one take a picture of this, because so he
certainly has some sense that this is at least not
a great political look. It's going to swing the next election.
I guess we'll never know. We'll have to do some sophisticated,
you know, political regression analysis to figure out if this
(36:23):
was the factor. Maybe we'll see as approval rating fall
off a cliff and be able to point to to
this renovation demolition and whatever.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
But it does make me feel very conservative good.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
It makes me feel because I mean, I do feel
this sense of like this isn't your, This is all
of ours, like all of our nation's history, like all
of these historic things that occurred in these spaces, and
you just feel the power of a king to just
knock it down without asking anyone's permission, without going to
the public and seeing if that was something that people
(36:54):
are interested in, Like forget the money, but just you know,
you've now destroyed a space that cannot be rebuilt. And
there I can't remember, I wish I remember who was
saying this, but there was another progressive who was saying, like,
why does this bother me so much? And their analysis
and I think this could be the I think there
could be something to this is that it is a
(37:14):
physical representation of like Trump and his long legacy that
is now going to be left. And I think that's
why that's why he wants it as well. And so,
you know, when it was just one term, and this
was some of the emotions that I think we all
groppled with when Trump got reelected. When it's just one term,
that can kind of be an aberration. You know, Hillary
is a bad candidate, and there was backlash to Obama
(37:36):
and all these kind of weird you know, Russia and
whatever was going call me and whatever is going on.
When he gets re elected a second time, you're like, oh,
this is not an aberration when popular book, Yeah, this
is actually where our country is now. And so I
feel like this is sort of a physical manifestation of that,
which is why I find it.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
I do find it religious.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I think that's fine from like some left point of view.
I'll just give you of more value neutral oneh which
is that it's the White House. It doesn't belong to you,
it doesn't belong to anybody. Is that you are at
the mercy of history in a certain sense, as in
you assume the office.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
The office doesn't assume you.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
And that's really what it's about, is that the point
is is that the office is supposed to be bigger
than everyone else all previous renovation.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
You're a guest in our house.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Genuinely, this sounds cringe and point at this point to
even talk this way, because this is how they talk
on MSNBC, But it is unironically true at a very
base level of No, it's the people's house.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
It is the White House. Now.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Previous renovations that have happened include Harry Truman. By the way,
it was super controversial when he added the Truman balcony.
It was not people were not happy about it. They
basically added it for the pleasure of the president. I
guess it's been, you know, sixty seventy years, so we
can get over it. At this point, I'm still not
over it. Where the whole point is, if you've ever
(38:53):
been there, it's not that nice. And that's actually I
used to hate it whenever I would work there, but
I have come to appreciate the charm of the fact
that it is kind of a dilapidated office building. I
don't know if you saw this there's this viral photo
of Nick Saban, who was the coach at Alabama, and
he had this beautiful wooden office with all of these
(39:15):
books and things behind him, and it just looked so vintage,
as if a place where a person works. And then
his successor, I think his name is Kaylin de Boor,
came in and turned it into like a glass tea
mobile store. And by the way, the team wasn't isn't
doing as well under the new But there was something
about that which was just so physically jarring, you know,
for many people. And that's kind of how I feel
(39:37):
about this entire thing is just looking at it, it
seems disconnected and actually, frankly, even that ballroom, it's just
so reminiscent of like the worst architectural design of US history.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
But if we are living in a second Gilded Age,
maybe it may be.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I mean, it does fit with that.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
And I think that's the other part that bothers me too,
is you know, this is some of the money is
coming from the like extortion that he's doing on these
you know, tech platforms, and I think some of the
like YouTube Fielty money going to one of the things
that I saw, Yeah, I think, so double check that,
but that was the headline that I saw. And so,
but okay, what are what is his time and focus
(40:15):
and attention going to building out this hideous, gaudy like
you know, Golfee meets Versailles meets mar A Lago ballroom
for a bunch of rich elites who can come and
suck up to him and pay tribute and bring their
gold bars or whatever it is to get their you know,
their goodies. And so even like the purpose of it
(40:36):
is gross, let alone the visuals of it. So uh yeah,
it does. It does bother me, I am The pictures
of it are visually jarring. Is it going to sway
the election near? I don't know about that. I'd like
to believe it, but I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Yeah, you never know. You just never know.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Look what I would hope is it inspires a love
of history. And part of the reason why, you know,
watching the transformation of the Oval Office and of you know,
the ballroom or the East Wing and all of this
is because at least previous presidents some had a deep
reverence for the things that actually happened in that room.
And I've told this story before, but one of the
(41:15):
things that, you know, really hit with me. Whenever I
was I interviewed Trump, maybe the first or second time
is the first time I ever went into the Oval office.
I was like, that's the Jack Kennedy shot, right, you know,
at the desk, and I thought about Nixon and Kissinger
preying on the floor right before his resignation, or Eisenhower
and where he would play his goal, you know, all
these things you've read about for years and years and years.
(41:35):
And then I'm looking at this man. I'm like, he
doesn't think about any of that, and I.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Doesn't even know about it.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Maybe I don't know it, probably not, but you know,
or Jackson, Like is this portrait of Jackson?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
I'm thinking about?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Even the Oval room itself is such an unusual shape
and the evolution of how that kind of came to be,
the Resolute desk, the HMS resolute. These are all the
things that are like rolling through my mind. Now that
can be bad. It doesn't necessarily translate to political success
or to great leadership or any of that.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
But in that moment, I was like, Oh, he doesn't
care about any of that.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
And you know, it's clear obviously in this is that
you know, imprinting this view of like who America is
is kind of in his own form. So, yes, you're
right in that it is a physical thing of Trump's legacy.
But more broadly I think it is I don't know.
I think it's like a loss of history and a
veneance of something.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
You can't get that back.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
You can't get back the East Wing and however it does.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
They say they're going to modernize it. I don't want
it to be modernized.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
It needs to stay relatively the same. That's kind of
how we treat most of these places. It's like, if
anybody in Washington has ever been to the Heart Senate
Office Building, it's a glass construction box. It looks like
shit compared to the Russell Senate Office Building, it's marble.
When you walk the halls, you see signs like this
was John F. Kennedy's office, this was lbj's office. That's
how it should be, in my opinion, just to ground
(42:53):
people down to at least something that they are remotely
connected to.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, I agree with you. It makes me very sad.
It makes me very very sad, especially for the future generations.
You know, I had a dream because my wife and
I we've done multiple tours and we were talking recently like, oh,
we could take her to the White House, you know,
And I'm like, now, she wanted to get to see it.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Took that away from me.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
One thing I will say about Nira's point is I
think if it was like Obama or Biden who did it,
the Republicans would be able to make it. The Right
would be able to make this effective campaign issue. Yes,
you're and the Democrats pulled that off. I don't have that.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Level of confidence. I agree, I agree, Chrystal. What are
you taking a look at?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
So guess what, guys, Graham Plotner's tattoo has made me
more ride or die for him than ever.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Let me explain my thinking here.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
So, as Ryan and Emily covered yesterday, main Democratic Senate
candidate Graham Platner is under fire for a variety of
old Reddit comments and an extremely poor tattoo. Joyce, So
here's that tattoo, revealed in a pick of Graham drunkenly
serenading the crowd with Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball as a
gag at his brother's wedding.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Honestly, it's a good song. You guys should listen to it.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Graham says he got the tattoo with a few of
his buddies in the Service during a drunken night of
shore leave in Croatia. And it turns out it's not
just a cool looking skull and crossbones.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
But a Nazi insigniy.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Well, yesterday we received the update that he has already
had that tattoo covered.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 10 (44:14):
I think that racism and anti Semitism are a long
scorge on our society and a long scorge on our politics,
and I think it has no place in our world.
For that reason, I have gone and gotten it covered up, right, right.
I went to a tattoo parlor and I got this
to cover up the sculling crossbones. It's a Celtic not
(44:36):
with some imagery around dogs, because my wife Amy and
I have two wonderful dogs that we love a lot.
This far more represents who I am now than even
the skulling crossbones did, which I thought.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
That it was so now the tattoo is obviously still
hideous visually, but no.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
Longer hideous symbolically.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So what are we anti fascist leftists and progressives to
do with all of this, Well, the first and most
important question to answer is is this man actually a
secret Nazi. Obviously, if the answer was yes, that would
be disqualifying, but from the available evidence, the idea he's
actually a Nazi seems utterly preposterous. Here the likely By
the way, Palanteer hacked Reddit leak is very useful. We
(45:15):
can read through a wide variety of Graham's often impolitic comments,
which he made when he thought he had Internet anonymity
and no expectations of running for public office. So what
do we see in those comments? Well, some comments on
sexual assault and race that are definitely not progressive, for
which Graham has expressed regret, and some comments proclaiming himself
a psychedelic, taken communist and Antifa super soldier, which would
(45:38):
make him about the furthest thing possible from being a Nazi.
For what it's worth, he was also a Michael Brooks fan,
crediting the late socialist commentator with his political shift and
mourning his untimely death.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
So between the.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Fact that we actually have access to his edgiest ship
posts and none of them are far right, and the
fact that I am personally married to a man who
accidentally got a metallica tattoo while sober im but he
thought it looked cool, so he just went for it.
I do believe Graham's croatia sure leave story, and think
we can confidently reject the theory that he is somehow
a secret Nazi. For me, this makes the question of
(46:10):
whether it continued supporting Graham or not extremely simple and
also vitally important. In fact, I genuinely believe that this
Graham Platinir question is at the heart of what course
the Democratic Party is going to take for the future.
Will establishment Democrats continue to limit the field to the
most professionally boring and uninspiring people on the planet, or
(46:31):
will the Democratic base reject their smear tactics and force
a new anti oligarchic direction. Because if you are opening
the gates to a broader range of candidates who haven't
just been planning presidential runs since they were like five,
like total psychos, You're going to get some works. You're
going to get some weird tattoos, some off color remarks,
some very messy life trajectories. The reward, though, is you
(46:52):
get a party that doesn't give America the ick. As
Emma Bigelin puts it quote censorious Hall monitor. Liberalism that
refuses accept growth in people unless you're a corporate centrist
and always forgiven, just as Cuomo supporters, is far more
of a threat to the Democratic Party's chances in the
future than anything dug up on Graham Platner. And it's
more than the Democratic Party's chances which are at stake here.
(47:14):
Status quo neoliberalism has failed to deliver for people, and
those failures are exactly what enabled the rise of fascism.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
The question of.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Whether the Democratic Party base can elevate new candidates with
new profiles and most critically, new politics is existential for
the party and for the country as a whole. So
Graham's tattoo also raises the question of what do we
even consider to be a scandal. They want you to
believe that a bad drunken tattoo is more scandalous than
bad policy backing billionaires at the expense of ordinary people
(47:45):
and support for genocide at the expense of our souls.
We have to fight that view with everything that we have.
It main currently, there's a choice between two leading candidates
on the Democratic side. You've got the sitting governor, Janet Mills.
She's the choice of Chuck Schumer and the DS as
governor of Maine. She has opposed a millionaire's tax. She
vetoed adding higher income tax brackets. She opposed hiking corporate taxes,
(48:10):
but she did implement a cigarette tax, which will disproportionately
hit the working class. Now, she did pick a fight
against Trump, which I appreciate, but if it's not match
with a willingness to confront capital, it is not nearly enough.
Mills also opposed local Israel divestment efforts in Maine. She
threatened to veto statewide divestment efforts. She's been silent on
(48:31):
the genocide and just generally tose the lockstep pro Israel line.
She also happens to be the least popular Democratic governor
in the entire nation and would end her Senate term
well into her eighties.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
Do you really believe that that is the type.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Of candidate that Democrats should rally behind for the future
of the party, let alone the country now. Graham supports
a billionaire minimum tax, strongly supports Medicare for all. Wants
to surge federal government direct housing construction to deal with
housing affordable, wants to end the forever wars, and especially
to end the genocide and bring.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
Peace and justice to Palestinians.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Now, with no public profile or political office, he has
built a grassroots movement both in Maine and around the
country of people who are inspired by his model of politics.
This was just last night, By the way, he routinely
garners hundreds of cheering supporters to his events.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
So, guys, is the a risk?
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (49:23):
Could more come out?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Sure, But many Democrats have tried to beat Susan Collins
with standard issue safe choices before, and all of them
very safely lost. There is also I should mention another
candidate named Jordan Wood in the race, who is responsible
for a network of scam PACs and running exploited of
fundraising tactics, who has probably done more to harass Democratic
voters and scan the amount of money than perhaps any
(49:46):
other individual. He's at one percent right now, by the way,
So I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far. In
response to tattoo, Congress and Rocana, Senator Standards, Senator Heinrich,
They're all standing behind Graham. Even a sort of centristsh
Democrat Rubin Diego did not throw Graham under the bus.
Here are Bernie's most recent comments. Clip is a little long,
but I couldn't cut any because you guys need all
(50:07):
of this pure quintessential Bernie.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Do you have a question about your endorsement a plan?
Speaker 11 (50:12):
It was the American healthcare system?
Speaker 4 (50:14):
Well, something he talks about a lot, right, I'll.
Speaker 11 (50:16):
Be just say a few words. Number one, I am
impressed that media is so concerned about the tattoo that
mister Platner has. Meanwhile, there's a result of Trump's mess
of cuts the Medicaid. The estimate is that if we
don't change that, fifteen million people are going to lose
their health insurance. Fifty thousand people you are going to die,
(50:38):
maybe equivalent to the importance of mister Platt's tattoo in
terms of mister Platinum. This is a guy who served
four terms as in combat Marine, four tours of duty.
(51:04):
He was a machine number, He saw friends die. He
came out of that war as he has a knowledge
with PTSD, got good treatment at the VA, got his
life together. This is a man who served his country,
who suffered, who had some difficult moments, who said things
(51:24):
that he should not have said, and he has apologized
for them. But I think if this country is about anything,
it's about understanding that every person, me, you, everybody else
has gone dark moments in our history and we go on.
I think the issues that Graham is talking about the
need to deal with massive income and wealth, inequality, healthcare
(51:47):
is a human right, raising the minimum age are the
issues that are going to resonate and may resonate all
over the United States of America.
Speaker 4 (51:56):
So you're standing by your endorsement.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
Can I do about the tattoo?
Speaker 4 (51:59):
Do you think it's necessy that he gets it removed
or covered up?
Speaker 11 (52:04):
Once again, we're dealing with a collapsing healthcare system as
a result of Trump's policies. Fifty thousand Americans may die
unnecessarily every year, and you were asking me about whether
or not a guy should get a tattoo removed.
Speaker 10 (52:18):
Sorry, he thought he.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
Was going to remove it, Classic Bernie.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
I also spent a good bit of time reading through
the replies from the normy dem Podsave Audience under their
interview with Graham. I didn't see a single negative one.
In fact, I've actually seen more nervous lefties than liberals,
possibly because of our past John Fetterman trauma, which I
do understand, but let's be real, guys, Fetterman did have
ideological red flags in the present day, not based on
some old post. The biggest red flags were on Israel,
(52:45):
of course, and also that whole trying to murder a
random black guy in his neighborhood situation. Also worth remembering, though,
that Fetterman has literal brain damage which apparently made him
basically a different person, so it does seem like a
pretty unique situation. The other intelligent critique I've seen from
lefties is just basically, listen, guys, we got to pick
our battles, and the Nazi tattoo guy is just not
worth it. Journalist Adam Johnson, for one, tweeted this quote,
(53:07):
do you think it's wise to piss away capital defending
someone with a Nazi tattoo, someone with little pedigree on
the issues that matter and was a blackwater murk? Does
this feel like a good use of our time and energy?
To that, I would respond, yes, this is the absolute
best use of our.
Speaker 4 (53:23):
Time and energy.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
It is an essential use of our time and energy,
and I will die on this hill. And to be honest,
the ship posting but mostly leftist reddit posts actually kind
of laid my fears on the Blackwater Front, and that
was the most concerning aspect of Graham's lore for me personally,
but only political capital front with respect, I think this
analysis is just wrong. It's not how political capital works.
There's not like a well of capital the left holds
(53:45):
in reserve which we have to budget across a variety
of candidates and causes. In fact, when we go in
for a candidate and stick with them and succeed, our
political capital and our political power grows. We didn't abandon
Zoron when he wouldn't condemn globalized into foud and was
relent he smeared as an anti Semite Energihattist, and standing
with him even when he was under fire only grew
(54:06):
our collective power. In the same way you cannot capitulate
to Trump, you cannot capitulate to the establishment Democrats who
helped to bring us Trump. A reckoning is happening right
now in the Democratic Party. They know it and we
know it. The leadership has lost control of the Norman
liberal base, making the kind of political revolution that Bernie
dreamed about actually maybe possible. They are out there asking
(54:26):
Corey Booker and Gavinusom about a pack.
Speaker 4 (54:28):
They forced reluctant leaders to back a shutdown. They didn't
want to do it.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
But if the Democratic establishment is able to get us
to abandon Graham, they will use this playbook over and
over and over again on every candidate who poses even
the slightest challenge to the pro oligarch consensus. And guess what, guys,
not all of those candidates are going to be as
impeccably and improbably squeaky clean as Zorn Mamdani appears to be.
Speaker 4 (54:52):
People are messy.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
If you are going to be a party of people
and not a party of creepy skin robots, you're going
to have to live with some dirt or in this case,
some ink and Sager we got to pull out this morning.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
I think we have it.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
All right, we've talked far, far too long, so enjoy
the show. We'll see you Friday show tomorrow
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