October 28, 2024 • 41 mins
Krystal and Saagar discuss Michelle Obama scolds men to vote Kamala, Jeff Bezos nukes WAPO Kamala endorsement, Israel bombs Iran.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
That is possible.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
If you like what we're all about, it just means
the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Speaking of I guess expanding the math, Kamala Harris was
down in Texas for a big rally with Beyonce and
also with Michelle Obama trying to boost Colin Alright's chances
in the Senate against Ted Cruz.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Michelle Obama, kind of following.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
In our husband's footsteps, had some very specific messaging towards men.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
But see anyone out there thinking about sitting out this
election or voting for Donald Trump or a third party
candidate in protests because you're fed up.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Let me warn.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
You, your rage does not exist in a vacuum. If
we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter,
your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to
your rage.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Are you, as men prepared.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
To look into the eyes of the women and children
you love and tell them that you supported this assault
on our safety and to the women listening, we have
every right to demand that the men in our lives do.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Better by us.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
We have to and how it will affect every single
woman in your life. Your girlfriend could be the one
in legal jeopardy if she needs a pill from out
of state or overseas, or if she has to travel
across state lines because the local clinic closed up. Your
wife or mother could be the ones at higher risk
(01:58):
of dying from undiagnosed cervical cancer because they have no
access to.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Regular gynecological care.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Your daughter could be the one too terrified to call
the doctor if she's bleeding during an unexpected pregnancy. And
this will not just affect women, It will affect you
and your sons. The devastating consequences of teen pregnancy won't
just be born by young girls, but also by the
(02:26):
young men who are the fathers. They too will have
their dreams of going to college, their entire future is
totally upended by an unwanted pregnancy, her pressure dropping as
she loses more and more blood or some unforeseen infection spreads,
and her doctors aren't sure if they can act. You
will be the one praying that it's not too late.
(02:49):
You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to
do something. And then there is the tragic but very
real possibility that in the worst case scenario, you just
might be the one holding flowers at the funeral. You
might be the one left to raise your children alone.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
Do not put our lives in the hands of politicians,
mostly men who have no clue or do not care
about what we as women are going through.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So there were kind of two parts of that message.
The first part where she's very like, you know, you
have every reason women to expect your men to do better,
and then you need to do better. The second part,
I think much more effective, where she's like personalizing it
and talking about some of the most dire consequences of
losing the right to abortion care. But I mean, listen,
I don't think that when you're out there tell it
(03:44):
on this issue, right, we know that this is not
the number.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
One she's for men, right, literally not the number.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
One, And so I don't even know if this message
really is for men. But it comes off it's similar
to Obama's of like, you know, lecturing.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Hectoring and lecturing this Las Obamas.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Like you're thinking about this wrong, et cetera, and so,
like I said, the second part of that, I think
is actually very effective. I think it's consistent with like
the way Kamala Harris has talked about abortion, how some
of the most effective surrogates have talked about these specific
consequences which we have seen, and the way that yes,
if you're a man, this could affect somebody you love
in your life.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I think that's effective.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I think anytime you go on on the direction of
like could even be construed as lecturing, I think you're
on very shaky grounds.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, and that's why I was, like, I was honestly
so pissed off by it, because I just hate this
hectoring and lecturing, specifically from the Obamas, where you have
these people who are in charge of the country for
eight years and then this, you know, as the male
shift has happened, and there's a lot of reasons as
to why, but abortion is a key reason why a
(04:48):
lot of women are voting, and there's absolutely nothing wrong
with that. But this whole like we have reason to
expect better from the men in our lives, and it's
you know what, does she say, the consequences of your rage?
The thing is, and we just had a whole conversation
about this with the Trump thing. Whenever people are mad,
validating why they are, specifically in a small deed democratic
(05:10):
context is really important. Dismissing and saying you're wrong is
quite literally one of the most least effective political strategies
that is out there. So in general, being in the
position of lecturing people, especially from the heights of people
were in charge of the country, just completely like counterproductive. Now,
the latter part of that message, I agree. I mean,
(05:32):
that's one of those where the most effective abortion ads
I've seen is when it's a couple and was that
I forget the people who work spoke at the DNC
and there was a man and wife and she had
she needed like an abortion or something, and then the
doctors denied her one.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
She was left with consequences for that.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
And he's it was a Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
One and he's all the husbands up there being like
my wife and I wanted more children, and this is
a I mean, that's a powerful ad. That's a family
ad that's one that looks at you know, as a unit.
This was very much like kind of both pitting men
and women against each other, but more importantly it was
lecturing against the men. And so I think that the
most effective is to message like to that unit as
(06:13):
a family specifically people were in a marriage, and you know,
it really also celebrated this this this like hyper individualism,
which is connect you know, that whole teen pregnancy message.
I don't even necessarily disagree. It's more just like putting
it in that way is I think quite gross, and
it's like all of them which part, just the part
was like, oh, their lives will be ruined by having
(06:33):
a baby. I just think that's I don't know that
to me, that one it reads wrong just because it
very much looks at as like as as something that
will quote ruin your life, and there are a lot
of consequences teen pregnancy, et cetera. But I just think
talking about it in that way very much like centering
the teenager and the teenage girl and boy and like
their ability to go on and like do whatever they
want and this like individualism that kind of does validate
(06:56):
some of the pro life way that people criticize.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
But I don't know the whole thing to me just
read wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The best part of their message is just trying to
message to people as a unit and why it's consequential
for you. But outside of that, lecturing and putting people
against each other I always think is the wrong move.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Kalin Harris actually did a very good job at the
debate talking about this, and you know she she had
those specifics. I mean, one of the most effective ads
we've ever seen on the topic of abortion was the
young woman in Kentucky who had been raped repeatedly by
her stepfather and who said, listen, I would not have
had the ability to have choices if it was you know,
Daniel Cameron, who was the one who was running for governor,
(07:34):
and you end up with a Democrat winning the state
of Kentucky focused on an issue of abortion. So so yeah,
that part of the message I do think is very effective,
but the other part not so much. The same time,
we got a little hot mic moment from Kamala Harris.
She's at a bar with Gretchen Whitmer and seems to
get caught saying something like, you know, we need to
(07:55):
make up ground with male voters. And then she says like, oh,
there's microphones around ship. Lol, let's take a listen to
how this all went down.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Yeah, oh we have microphones and listening to everything.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
I didn't realize that, Okay, Weds, I just told the
family secret ship.
Speaker 7 (08:25):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, so the audio is muffled. But yeah, basically we
need to move.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Ground, move ground among that.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, so anyway, some indication that they which I mean
we've seen. Actually she's doing a podcast.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's no secret. It makes it's not a secret.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, but I mean to hear her acknowledge it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
It's a thing. Right, she got caught saying something she
didn't mean to say publicly. This is the thing.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
But yeah, she's doing the Shannon Sharp podcast today Club
Club Chase. So we'll take a listen to that tonight.
And she's you know, enlisted. I guess Tim Walls is
playing mad Football on Twitch.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, although that was a bomb only they didn't have
that many streamers on it. Really, this isn't like Tim
Wall's derangements and so subjectively it was like ten thouts,
which I mean we you know, we get more.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
On that than our live streams.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
It's not impressed those are not impressed it.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
She's made a number of conservative efforts to try to
go into more mail spaces and you know, put out
surguts that she thinks will be effective, et cetera. So
clearly they realize this is an area that they've got
to shore up in order to be to prevail on
election day.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yes, either, I don want to get to a clip
to talking of so many I referenced earlier. Here is
John Fetterman talking to a New York Times reporter on
their podcast specifically about that cultural phenomenon I referenced earlier,
and explaining to her what truck nuts are.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8 (09:49):
You know, I I'll never forget. I lived directly across
the street from the steel Mill and we were doing
an event there for Clinton, and I asked the Union President.
I'm like, hey, where we are on Trump? And he's like, yeah,
probably half or sixty percent two thirds are voting for him.
(10:09):
And I was like, Oh, that sucks. And then immediately
there was a guy getting off and he had a
truck and he had truck nuts on it. You know
what truck nuts are?
Speaker 9 (10:21):
Do?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I look like I know what?
Speaker 8 (10:23):
Yeah, it's ball hung on the hitch of a truck
and he honked and he was like, oh Trump as
he drove by, and it's like, hey, we're in trouble.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, it does not surprise me that the truck nuts
guys are for Trump. I actually respect the fact that
she was like, do I look like do I look
like the kind of person who knows.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
What truck nuts?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I mean, I weur suit every day.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I don't know what trucknuts are, right, I guess I
was raised in Texas. You know, I remember the first
time I ever saw a pair. I don't know, I
mean to me culturally, I think that was important. And look,
you can give it to Fetterman and he did win
state by five. He says that they're in trouble. What
else did he say? He said, he's like the level
of Trump support is astonishing. I believe that was the
word that he used specifically where he lives, you know,
(11:09):
in Pittsburgh so or in that in the Steel area,
which is interesting. I'm curious, like there's been a this
is pure Pa politics. Yeah, Harris just recently released an
ad like centering herself around the city of Philadelphia. Yeah,
and it was like celebrating Philly and I was like
an Eagles game, but I was like, you know, culturally,
(11:31):
this is very interesting because there is like such a
massive cultural divide between Philly the mainline suburbs. You know,
you've got the urban population, you've got the white college educated,
the celebration of the city of Philadelphia, and then you've
got Pittsburgh and all the other areas so they're a
rural and pa that are much more like culturally conservative.
So it does seem like there are picking sides. I'm
(11:52):
not sure which way it's going to go.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Well, Pittsburgh is also quite democratic. The city itself and
the surrounding suburbs are quite you know democratic in general.
But yeah, I mean between Philly and Pittsburgh, you have
a lot of rural, very conservative areas.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
They call it like Pencil Tucky.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And yeah, remember after when Hillary was running in twenty sixteen,
wasn't it Schumer that said that thing about like for
every person we lose in rural Pennsylvania, were going to
pick up two in the suburbs and didn't work out
for Hillary, but a it worked out for Joe Biden
twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It may well work out for Kalma Harris this time.
Speaker 9 (12:25):
Around.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
We'll see if that electoral calculation has has blossomed for them.
But yeah, I guess a real cultural divide on display
there between the New York Times lady and John Fetterman.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Absolutely all right. Last part is Beyonce also was at
that event. Let's take a listen to what she had
to say.
Speaker 7 (12:41):
I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother,
a mother who cares deeply about the world. My children
and all of our children live in a world where
we have the freedom to control our bodies.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
A world war.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
We're not divided. Our past, our present, our future merge and.
Speaker 9 (13:09):
We need you.
Speaker 7 (13:10):
It's time to sing a new song, a song that
began two hundred and forty eight years ago.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The old notes of.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Downfall, discord, despair no longer resonate. Our generations of loved
ones before us are whispering a prophecy, a quest, a calling,
an anthem.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It makes me nervous. All the selection makes me so nervous.
Does remind me so much of Hillary?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Leo came out to endorse Kamala Leo DiCaprio, Oh jokes
about that else.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Yeah, that's the first time me back to a woman
who was over twenty five.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
No, it's he saw twenty twenty four and got confused.
Just a joke, Leo, like, I love you.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Of age, But yeah, yeah, exactly, will see it does
seem very twenty sixteen. And she got the tweet the
Springsteen rally with Obama, the exact same thing that happened
in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7 (14:14):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Going to Houston, I mean, both of these candidates now
it's Kamala, why are in Houston?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Trump? Why are you going to New Mexico?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Yes, going on here.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I mean Texas makes a little bit of sense because
of coloradulright as one of their best chances to steal
a seat from Republicans. And I think they also liked
the backdrop of Texas has been the site of some
of the most horrifying stories of women, you know, women's.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Health, and so I think I think they liked that
backdrop as well. But yeah, I mean, Comma's not gonna
win tex right exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
You know, every time somebody talks about the Senate races,
I just always think your job's not to get the
Senate elected.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Your job is to you know, be president. So anyway,
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
She probably she maybe had some fund raisers. There's a
lot of money there too, because that's fun. Razors.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
When Trump flies all the way to Montana to do
a rally, I'm it's fucking Montana.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Like, less than a million people live in Montana. What
are you doing? You know, it's like or Coachella in California.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It's the same thing. Yeah, I mean, but you know,
we just talked about the nationalization. That's certainly part of it. Okay,
we've talked way too much today, so we can't do
Michigan today tomorrow, promise. Sorry, everybody, don't freak out, don't
leave any for crazy comments. What happened to Michigan. It's
not being censored. Let's get to endorsement. Turning down to endorsements.
Huge story here in Washington. The Washington Post, the local
(15:29):
hometown paper, has decided not to endorse in this year's
presidential election.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
This decision was announced by the Post internally somewhat nine
days before the election. The decision was made by this
new editor. His name is will Lewis, a former Rupert
Murdoch employee from the UK. Calling back to the history
of the Washington Post pre nineteen sixty and they're not
making presidential endorsements.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
There has been quite a lot of discussion about this,
certainly because you may have noticed. But at the very
top of the Washington Post there's a little line on
beneath it it says democracy dies in the darkness. And
I seem to recall, you know, millions of dollars and
lots of people here in DC signing up for the
Washington Post for democracy dies in the darkness, and lots
(16:19):
of resistance liberalism and columnists there who signed up for
that vision under Jeff Bezos, and then Bezos himself deciding
nine days before the election is like, yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Know what, We're not gonna endorse here. So there's quite
a lot to say about it.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I think it really just comes down to the capriciousness
of a billionaire owned media and you know, a lot
of people I don't know, Tell me if you agree
with me. There's been a big thing online about people
who are canceling the Washington Posts and journalists and others
their subscriptions, yeah, are like, please don't cancel the Washington Post.
It hurts journalists. I'm go go you know what, let
me defend these folks. These people signed up for freaking
(16:54):
democracy dies in the darkness their resistance lives. These are
the people who made millions selling an annotated copy of
the Mulla Report. Okay, some people Pepperig Farm remembers. So
when those same people don't see a COMMA endorsement, what
do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
You took their money gladly.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
When it was anti Trump, I agree with you. Sorry,
you can't have it both ways.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Also, like it's owned by a billions.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
If he wants to kick in some more money, it
will be nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
He lost one hundred millions last year on the post.
He's not gonna chap his ass to lose four thousand subscribers. Sure.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, So like if he wants to fill in that gap,
then that's on him. That's not on you know, the
people who are disgusted with this decision. And I don't
care how you feel, abou Kama Harris or Donald Trump.
You should be disgusted with this decision because it's pretty clear.
The Washington Posts reported that the decision did come directly
from Jeff Bezos, and we all know why he's a
(17:48):
big government contractor. Blue Origin has massive contracts with the
federal government, and Trump did cancel some of his contracts
last time around two. So he's looking at this and
he's putting his own like class capitalist interests ahead of
the way of the the journalistic integrity of the Post.
(18:11):
That's what's going on here. He's he and by the way,
we can put E two up on the screen. Friday's announcement,
based right at the Guardian didn't mention Amazon and didn't
mention Blue Origin, but within ours, high ranking officials of
Blue Origin met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas,
(18:31):
as the Republican omni seeks a second presidency, Trump met
with Blue Origin CEO and vice president of government relations.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
That means lobbying, according to the AP.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Meanwhile, CNN reported the Amazon CEO, Andy Jasse had also
recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone.
Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post Editor at
large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, which TLDR. He calls
it a clear quid pro quote, and I think that's
(19:00):
fairly obvious.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Bezos doesn't want to have his government contracts canceled.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Again.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
He doesn't want to be crosswise with Trump. He wants
to make nice with him because he thinks Trump may
well be back in the White House and he knows
there'll be no punishment from the Kamala Harris people if
they win. They're not gonna, you know, go out for
quote unquote retribution. So yeah, that's what's going on. And again,
like I said, this is not to try to make
a partisan point. This is to say you should be
(19:26):
very very leary a billionaire influence in politics, billionaire influence
in media, billionaire ownership.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
And I will also say when Bernie.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Sanders made this point back in twenty twenty about how
the Bezos Washing Post maybe wasn't too friendly towards him
because of his class politics, he was smeared as a
conspiracy theorist by the same people who now like you
should be. You owe Bernie Sanderson apology because obviously he
was right.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
I did so many monologues.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Act some of my most viral monologues initially over at
Rising were specifically about this billionaire ownership of the Washington Post.
I remember, remember when Bloomberg was in the race and
Bloomberg News was like, we're still objective.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I go, yeah, you're definitely still objective whenever the guy
of your namesake is in the goddamn race, that's right sure.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And by the way, the guy justifying that, Mikelthwaite, is
the same British moron who was on stage with Trump
talking about tariffs. Just so people know for who exactly
are like the most corrupt people in this country.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And that's the point.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
The point though, and the irony is when democracy dies
in the darkness. These people didn't give a damn about
billionaire ownership because it was fine for them, and yet
now it's oh my god, you know he's he's like
playing with our lives and giving up on our values.
And look, I have some sympathy because Jennifer Rubin, right,
(20:47):
I mean, these brain dead resistance people, to be fair,
they were courted on this basis, they were employed on
the very like real idea. Even Robert Kagan, right, Okay,
So for people who don't know who, Robert Kagan is
literally one of the chief voices for war in Iraq,
neo conservative, unreconstructed, married to Victoria Newland, who is one
(21:07):
of the most psychotic former members of the State Department
of NATO, expansion, etc. I have nothing nice to say
about these people, but they were hired on the basis
of being anti Trump for these quote unquote like principal reasons.
So even though I disagree with them, it's not like
they don't have a coherent worldview. And so for Bezos
to just change the rules of the game, which he can,
(21:29):
is deeply disingenuous to his readers and to his employees.
And that's the problem, is that when it's capricious and
it's totally up to him, it's just a ludicrous position
that puts, you know, it just tells.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Us what the whole game is about. Yeah, and I
don't want everybody to know that.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And also why nobody billionaire or whatever owns a slice
of this company and the only people who control it
are the vast majority of our previous describers.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
It is also I mean, it is also like capitulation
advance because they do know that Trump will, you know,
will look to punish his political enemies because he's done
it in the past. And there's a more reporting for
the Washington Post this morning.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
I'm just reading. Jeff Stein tweeted this out.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Some billionaires who Trump targeted are now hedging their bets
as the president former president vous retribution against enemies if elected.
Bezos block Swappo endorsement. Zuckerberg is promising neutrality. Warren Buffett
is staying out. The Google chief reportedly called Trump to
praise his McDonald's stuff. CEO's rushing to back channel to
Team Trump.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Trump has not had no issue calling out political enemies
by name, threatening to use the force of government for retribution.
Apparently that is intimidating a lot of wealthy targets. Is
a very scary sign that government intimidation works is the
take of one individual.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
So, you know, I do think this is part of
a pattern of people who fear that.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Trump is going to end up back in the White
House and don't want to be on his bad side
because they want their companies to continue to flourish. They
don't want to be made, you know, an example of
by Trump even by just turning them into a partisan name,
et cetera.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
So that's part of what you see going on.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Lumped into this conversation, potentially unfairly was the La Times,
which also decided not to endorse in this race, and
I think you could similarly make a point about, like,
you know, it's the billionaire owner of the La Times
who was also making the decisions for the newsroom about
not endorsing, but seems to have a more principled reason
for doing so. We can put this up on the
(23:20):
screen with regards to La Times. So their billionaire owner
says that they are protesting calmless support of Israel's war
in Gaza. This is according to his daughter, a thirty
one year old political activist who has been They've been
consistently anti genocide in terms of the Israeli assault on Gaza,
(23:45):
anti apartheid. She's been a consistent activist on the you know,
pro Palestine side of this equation. So she said, quote,
our family made the joint decision not to endorse a
presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I've
been involved in the process, and point to commeless support
for Israel's war in Gaza. So you know, like I said,
more principled. Certainly, you know, a direction I support a
(24:08):
lot more in terms of the rationale behind it, although
you still have to say, like you know, the billionaire
influence part, even if it is a cause that I support,
it's still a troubling direction.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Well, and this, look, the whole point is to me,
this just goes against the idea of the news business
in the first place. I'm like, these endorsements, and specifically
in the more partisan age, they're not swaying anybody. They're
purely cultural signifiers, and I think that's fundamentally wrong with
the way that this all should be in the first place. Like, notice,
(24:39):
you know, nobody's been endorsing anybody over here. I did
a whole monologue where I said how you should vote,
and specifically it was like, how you should think about
voting based on the issues that are important to you,
because you're the one who.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Should make that decision. Outsourcing your thinking to somebody else
is frankly ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
But that is the mainstay of a lot of current
Republican out a lands and a lot of these democratic ones.
So there's a meta conversation, I guess, yeah, to be had,
But broadly, what I really come back to is these
journalists who are constantly tutting everybody who's canceling their Washington
Post subscription. I'll be like, hey, I hate to break
it to you. The people who subscribed to it. They
didn't do it for the News. They did it for
(25:17):
this democracy dies in the darkness. Mullershit. And so you
cannot be mad at them when they cancel, because they
you renegged on the vision that they sold.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's the whole point.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Bethos is in general, even just from a business, has
been a horrendous owner of the Post. They have been
bleeding subscribers. You know for a while now New York
Times has been able to very successfully, like.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
They rolled it up their business.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, and they have all these different verticals, the cooking
and the sports and the games and all this stuff
that's very popular that doesn't isn't just reliant on opposition
to this one political figure. But you know, I'm sure
the Post is going to be fine because, like I said,
they've got a billionaire owner. Who to make up that
lost thousands of subscriptions is absolutely nothing. But I still
(26:02):
someone tweet this, and I think this is probably correct
that there will likely be a lot less I think
these are indications that there will be a lot less
institutional resistance.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
To Trump this time around.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That more the mo is Let's try to be neutral,
let's try to placate him, Let's try not to earn
his iire, let's try not to, you know, tank like
have our government contracts canceled, et cetera, et cetera. And
you know, we had already seen this in terms of
Wall Street and Finance warming up to Trump. You know,
the number of donors that he's getting from the institutional
(26:37):
finance much larger than they were back in twenty sixteen
or even in twenty twenty. He has gone out of
his way to make explicit promises to billionaires in the country.
Obviously is backed by the wealthiest person on the planet.
But I do think that that this is an indication
that the strategy of lockstep institutional resistance to Trump is
(26:58):
has basically disintegrated into no, we're going to try to
appease him, try to go along, to get along, so
that we don't end up in his targets.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, And I also just think there's like a cultural
difference at this point. If Trump has been around for
a long time, like the shock of his win in
twenty sixteen, and that level of like employee walk out out,
this stuff is gone, you know at this point, and
if I don't see it coming back in that way,
whatever resistance to Trump what form that will take. It
will not be the cringe twenty seventeen version. I would
(27:27):
hope it's much more of a deep, like actual assessment
within the party about like, hey, why didn't we have
a primary?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Why did we prop up Biden for such a lot?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Actually, I'm curious with you, do you think that'll happen
or do you think they're going to go rush Agate
again or like some similar like cope, what do you
think the cope.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
It's going to be cope of course, just racism.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
No, I think probably they'll blame like it depends on
how the election results go down, but it's certainly possible
they'll blame people who you voted for Jill Stein or
sat out because they were disgusted with the support for genocide. Yeah,
I think that's you know, that's a pretty clear trajectory.
You already see the ads that are you know, against
Jill Stein. You see those efforts under way, So that
(28:07):
will be that will be a big part of it.
But I think also secretly they'll just decide like, oh,
it's sexism and we could just never run a woman.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Again, right, which is so dumb. Again, like Greshen Whitmer
would be way more competitive.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
In this race. But don't you think that's true?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
If Hillary and both lose to Trump, the secret assessment,
the public assessment will be, you know, the public to
racist b I mean, sexist, blah blah blah, and the
secret assessment will be like, that's why we must only
run men year on out.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think it won't be an elite assessment, unfortunately. I
think a lot of it will come to voters. Democratic
voters care a lot about winning, and they're less ideological
in terms of.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
They're willing to go along with a lot and they
want to win.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And so if that is the assessment from elite media
and others that is kind of pumped out there, then
they may internalize it.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Again, I think that's totally incorrect. I mean, she's not
that far away.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
From she's doing way better than Yeah, she's so much will.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You know, kind of a dumb thesis, but I could
see it. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I really do hope when Biden is gone and we
can all talk, honestly, they we'll just talk about how
insane it was to prop them up for as long
as we did, how insane it was not that going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's not going to happened because they were. They're all
complicit in it, you know, so they can't they can't.
It can't be that, I mean the yeah, the in fact, actually,
actually it's.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Much more likely. The conversation you get is should have
stuck with Biden.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I'm telling I already see people on Twitter are like,
I'm not convinced that she's better than the mind.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
It's like you are.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Insane, you are in like, go back and watch that
debate and tell me that this was the guy that
Democrats should have run. No, Obviously, the much better direction
would have been to actually have a primary process where
voters actually got to vet these candidates, where you know,
even if it doesn't end up being Kamlers, at the
end of the day, she has to go through the
rigors of that and is strengthened by that process. That's clear,
(29:56):
like very obvious taken. Then there's you know, I'm sure
there'll also be a she loses Pennsylvania, They'll be that
she should have picked jos Shapiro to Oh yeah, right,
that'll be a big one as well. So it just
still depends on the flavor of what goes down. But
I think you are much more likely to see the
we should have stuck with Biden than the we should
have actually had a democratic process.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Very possible. All right, guys, we got treat to Parsi
standing by. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
So, as we're usual, we have huge updates coming out
of the Middle East, and to break down the very
latest with regard to Israel retaliating against Iran, we've got
doctor Treta Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible state Craft.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Great to see you, sir, Good to you.
Speaker 9 (30:33):
Good to be with you guys again.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, of course, so let's put this Wall Street Journal
article up on the screen. You know, I refer to
these in a shorthand as retaliatory attacks. Of course, we
know that that's not exactly accurate, since this is just
retaliation to the latest Iranian attacks, which were retaliation for
Israeli attacks.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
But in any case, we've.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Got a Wall Street Journal article here arguing that Biden
pushed Israel to limit their attacks on Iran, yet still
inflict a heavy blow. Based on what we know about
the sites that Israel did strike, what can we say
about the level of these attacks and the potential response.
Speaker 9 (31:09):
Well, the interesting thing is we actually cannot say that much. Clearly,
the Israelis struck. Clearly, they were successful in striking at
least twenty sites. They left about five people killed. That
number may increase. There's definitely been some damage. The extent
to which that damage has occurred, however, is unclear. The
(31:31):
Israelis are saying that they've essentially taken out all of
Yvan's long range anti defense missiles and systems. The iranis
of course downplaying it. I think the Israelis are exaggerating.
The truth may be somewhere in between, but we frankly
just don't know quite yet. But this is very important
because if the Israeli narrative turns out to be true,
(31:54):
and I'm personally skeptical, part of the reason I'm skeptical
is because it actually serves the interests of those in
Israel or in power. We want to see further escalation
because the argument they're essentially making is see Yran no
longer has long range anti defense missiles. As a result,
it is going to be relatively easy now to strike
the nuclear program. What are we waiting for? Let's just
(32:15):
go for it and then hoping that either the Bide
administration or the Trump admonstration would go along with it.
I'm very skeptical of this for several reasons. A because
we don't know quite yet the extent of the damage.
We don't know how long it will take Vanians to
recuperate from whatever that damage is. But also no one
thought that the danger with striking Van's nuclear program was
(32:38):
Yvon's anti defense missiles. That has not been the reason
as to why the strikes have not taken place. The
reason why the strikes hasn't taken place is because it's
quite clear if the nuclear sites are struck, the Ivanians
will weaponize their program, they will leave the MPT. And
given how deeply much of the program is underground, the
(32:59):
US it's self has made the assessment that whe or
without anti defense missiles in place, the ability to actually
take out the facilities underground is very very limited. If
the US has that calculation, restitualt Israeli simply cannot do it.
So there's a lot of fog and a lot of
smoke right now, and it is all about establishing various narratives.
(33:22):
And from the Israeli side, of course, the narrative they
want is see this was easy. The Iranians couldn't do
that much about it. What are we waiting for unleash
us and allow us to take out everything?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, so, doctor Parsi, in terms of the Iranian regime
and just the way they have reacted to this, what
does it tell us? Is it similar to last time
around where we consider the matter closed? How is the
message that is currently coming out of media and others
in response to this.
Speaker 9 (33:49):
So initially, almost even before any real assessment could be
made of what the damage was, they were downplaying it,
which sent a clear signal they don't want to see
further escalation. They're not the ones who started this exchange
of direct fire between Israel and Yvon. That's what the
Israelis started on April first, when they struck the Ivanian
consular section of the embassy in Damascus. But as time
(34:13):
has passed, and as we have seen, most importantly that
there has been casualties, you are seeing things happening in
the Ivanian debate in which there is a lot of
anger and a lot of belief that not responding may
actually be a mistake. What they don't want to see
is the idea of striking Tehran becoming normalized in the
(34:34):
same way that striking Damascus or striking Beirut has become
normalized for these Raelis. They do it regularly. It's hardly
news any longer, certainly not in the mainstream American media.
They almost never report on those things. The Ivanis don't
want to end up in that situation in which Israel
striking Tehran will become a normalized issue, and that is
(34:55):
one of the pressures internally for them to do something.
The question, of course is what could they do without
sparking the larger ward that the Israelis want and these
Iranians do not want.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Interesting. Yeah, that's such a great point. I hadn't thought
about about the normalization of those Israeli attacks on Bayvorud
and on Damascus. I wanted to ask you what you
made of this reporting inside of the Wall Street journal
piece we just had at They say that the White
House use Israel's request for that anti missile battery as
leverage after the Pentagon indicated Israel wanted the system to
(35:27):
bolster its defenses against Iran. Tony Blinkin recommended at a
meeting with Biden. The US agreed to send it only
if Israel promised to strike only military sites.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
What do you make of that assertion of the use of.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
That anti missile battery basically to sort of coerce the
Israelis into not striking nuclear sites.
Speaker 9 (35:48):
I think this whole thing is a bit of a fallacy.
I don't doubt that the story is true, and I
wouldn't doubt that Blincoln would have agreed to the fads
even if he got nothing from these Raelis. The bottom
line is the fact that they didn't strike the nuclear
facilities may not be that relevant if this continues to escalate,
And there's much to indicate that, even though the Vanians
(36:09):
may not respond quickly, that this is not the end
of this story. This may be the end of one chapter.
But unfortunately, as long as the United States helps Israel
reduce the cost of its own escalations by rushing in
and protecting it every time it happens, and every time
these Raelis want to escalate, instead of saying no, we
don't want to war in the region, they can drag
(36:31):
us in. Instead, we say we'll just strike here, just
strike there, and we'll give you more missiles so you
don't have to be the cost of it. If that
is our approach, all we're doing is that we're ensuring escalation,
We're just ensuring it at a slower pace than if
we didn't provide those if we didn't push back against
those initial targets, this may very well end up with
(36:51):
strikes against the nuclear sides and a complete war. So
just slowing it down, which is what the Bid demonstration
at best have done, is simply not good enough. If
we believe that the US is interest in all of
this is for us not to get dragged into another war, individual.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Which I think we all do at least here, And
that's my question. My last question really is how do
you think that the Israelis will calibrate and will they
escalate if Donald Trump does win the election in eight days.
Speaker 9 (37:20):
I think there's a degree of nervousness in Israel. Israelis
I've spoken to. They're not saying that they don't prefer Trump,
but there is a degree of nervousness because they know
very well that if Trump changes his mind and doesn't
want to see discontinue, there's going to be a high
cost for the Israelis to do to Trump what they
have done to Biden. They have disregarded almost every red
(37:43):
line that Biden has put forward, Biden himself has clearly
not been serious about those different things, but the Israelis
have taken pleasure in humiliating Biden publicly. I don't think
the Israelis would do that easily with Trump. They know
that the reactions can be quite unpredictable. I think it's
also very interesting that as much as the Trump administration
(38:03):
is saying things such as, you know, you got to
do what you got to do, go do the job, etc.
They're not saying anything about what the US would do
in terms of supporting Isrum. And one line that I
think is coming out of the Trump camp is we
don't want to restrain these Ralis, but we also don't
want to help them do what they're doing because we
don't want to get into a war. Jdvans themselves said
(38:25):
in an interview that it's a clear interest with you
as not to get into a war with you. Blan.
So I think you may end up seeing a policy
in which the pretense of restrictions that I think the
Bidendmistration has put forward will simply not be there. They
may even be active encouragement, but perhaps without a very
large part, if not all, of the materials supported the
(38:46):
Biden demonstration has provided the how does.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That square with some of the significant interest groups on
the Republican side, Not only you know, the evangelical base,
which has been Trump's largest, most core supporters, highest level
of support, who actually they have a higher favorability rating
for bb net Yahoo than American Jews do. Miriam Addilson,
being one of his largest donors, know a commitment to
(39:11):
Israel being her largest issue. Reporting suggests that, you know,
one of the things that she wants out of Trump
is for him to allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
You know, officially within.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
The Republican Party you have versus the Democratic Party of
much stronger support for Israel, for shipping weapons to Israel,
much more hawkish views visa vi Iran. So how does
that Trump assessment square with some of those critical interest
groups and donors on the Republican side.
Speaker 9 (39:40):
You're absolutely right, Chryst that that is a critical element
within the Trump camp as well, that you have those
who not only want to continue to do this, but
also want to see even greater American support for it.
And I don't think that the battle within the Trump
administration has been entirely square it out when it comes
(40:01):
to this, I'm just judging it based on what Trump
himself has said so far, which is going quite far
out there and in terms of expressing support for Israel
but saying very little about what the US role would be.
And then you listen to Jdvans and there you have
a bit more detail in terms of even being more
in favor of not putting restrictions on Israel, but also
(40:21):
even more clear about the US not necessarily being part
of it and not getting involved in the war. I
think at the end of the day, we have to
be very frank we do not know what the Trump
administration would do because it is quite unpredictable, particularly mindful
of the very elements that you mentioned. And this is
going back to Stargar's question. Part of the reason why
there's a degree of nervousness in Israel about Trump as well.
(40:42):
They know that in many ways he may actually be
much better for them, but they also know that if
Trump were to change his mind and decide to go
on a path that they're not happy with, it probably
cannot do too much about it.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Very interesting, doctor Parci. Always great to have your analysis.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 9 (40:58):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Yeah, it's our play too.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Thanks to all our premium subscribers breakingpoints dot com if
you want to become one otherwise, We'll see you all
tomorrow
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent coverage.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
That is possible.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
If you like what we're all about, it just means
the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Speaking of I guess expanding the math, Kamala Harris was
down in Texas for a big rally with Beyonce and
also with Michelle Obama trying to boost Colin Alright's chances
in the Senate against Ted Cruz.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Michelle Obama, kind of following.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
In our husband's footsteps, had some very specific messaging towards men.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
But see anyone out there thinking about sitting out this
election or voting for Donald Trump or a third party
candidate in protests because you're fed up.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Let me warn.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
You, your rage does not exist in a vacuum. If
we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter,
your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to
your rage.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Are you, as men prepared.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
To look into the eyes of the women and children
you love and tell them that you supported this assault
on our safety and to the women listening, we have
every right to demand that the men in our lives do.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Better by us.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
We have to and how it will affect every single
woman in your life. Your girlfriend could be the one
in legal jeopardy if she needs a pill from out
of state or overseas, or if she has to travel
across state lines because the local clinic closed up. Your
wife or mother could be the ones at higher risk
(01:58):
of dying from undiagnosed cervical cancer because they have no
access to.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Regular gynecological care.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Your daughter could be the one too terrified to call
the doctor if she's bleeding during an unexpected pregnancy. And
this will not just affect women, It will affect you
and your sons. The devastating consequences of teen pregnancy won't
just be born by young girls, but also by the
(02:26):
young men who are the fathers. They too will have
their dreams of going to college, their entire future is
totally upended by an unwanted pregnancy, her pressure dropping as
she loses more and more blood or some unforeseen infection spreads,
and her doctors aren't sure if they can act. You
will be the one praying that it's not too late.
(02:49):
You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to
do something. And then there is the tragic but very
real possibility that in the worst case scenario, you just
might be the one holding flowers at the funeral. You
might be the one left to raise your children alone.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
Do not put our lives in the hands of politicians,
mostly men who have no clue or do not care
about what we as women are going through.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So there were kind of two parts of that message.
The first part where she's very like, you know, you
have every reason women to expect your men to do better,
and then you need to do better. The second part,
I think much more effective, where she's like personalizing it
and talking about some of the most dire consequences of
losing the right to abortion care. But I mean, listen,
I don't think that when you're out there tell it
(03:44):
on this issue, right, we know that this is not
the number.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
One she's for men, right, literally not the number.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
One, And so I don't even know if this message
really is for men. But it comes off it's similar
to Obama's of like, you know, lecturing.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Hectoring and lecturing this Las Obamas.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Like you're thinking about this wrong, et cetera, and so,
like I said, the second part of that, I think
is actually very effective. I think it's consistent with like
the way Kamala Harris has talked about abortion, how some
of the most effective surrogates have talked about these specific
consequences which we have seen, and the way that yes,
if you're a man, this could affect somebody you love
in your life.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I think that's effective.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I think anytime you go on on the direction of
like could even be construed as lecturing, I think you're
on very shaky grounds.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, and that's why I was, like, I was honestly
so pissed off by it, because I just hate this
hectoring and lecturing, specifically from the Obamas, where you have
these people who are in charge of the country for
eight years and then this, you know, as the male
shift has happened, and there's a lot of reasons as
to why, but abortion is a key reason why a
(04:48):
lot of women are voting, and there's absolutely nothing wrong
with that. But this whole like we have reason to
expect better from the men in our lives, and it's
you know what, does she say, the consequences of your rage?
The thing is, and we just had a whole conversation
about this with the Trump thing. Whenever people are mad,
validating why they are, specifically in a small deed democratic
(05:10):
context is really important. Dismissing and saying you're wrong is
quite literally one of the most least effective political strategies
that is out there. So in general, being in the
position of lecturing people, especially from the heights of people
were in charge of the country, just completely like counterproductive. Now,
the latter part of that message, I agree. I mean,
(05:32):
that's one of those where the most effective abortion ads
I've seen is when it's a couple and was that
I forget the people who work spoke at the DNC
and there was a man and wife and she had
she needed like an abortion or something, and then the
doctors denied her one.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
She was left with consequences for that.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
And he's it was a Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
One and he's all the husbands up there being like
my wife and I wanted more children, and this is
a I mean, that's a powerful ad. That's a family
ad that's one that looks at you know, as a unit.
This was very much like kind of both pitting men
and women against each other, but more importantly it was
lecturing against the men. And so I think that the
most effective is to message like to that unit as
(06:13):
a family specifically people were in a marriage, and you know,
it really also celebrated this this this like hyper individualism,
which is connect you know, that whole teen pregnancy message.
I don't even necessarily disagree. It's more just like putting
it in that way is I think quite gross, and
it's like all of them which part, just the part
was like, oh, their lives will be ruined by having
(06:33):
a baby. I just think that's I don't know that
to me, that one it reads wrong just because it
very much looks at as like as as something that
will quote ruin your life, and there are a lot
of consequences teen pregnancy, et cetera. But I just think
talking about it in that way very much like centering
the teenager and the teenage girl and boy and like
their ability to go on and like do whatever they
want and this like individualism that kind of does validate
(06:56):
some of the pro life way that people criticize.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
But I don't know the whole thing to me just
read wrong.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The best part of their message is just trying to
message to people as a unit and why it's consequential
for you. But outside of that, lecturing and putting people
against each other I always think is the wrong move.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Kalin Harris actually did a very good job at the
debate talking about this, and you know she she had
those specifics. I mean, one of the most effective ads
we've ever seen on the topic of abortion was the
young woman in Kentucky who had been raped repeatedly by
her stepfather and who said, listen, I would not have
had the ability to have choices if it was you know,
Daniel Cameron, who was the one who was running for governor,
(07:34):
and you end up with a Democrat winning the state
of Kentucky focused on an issue of abortion. So so yeah,
that part of the message I do think is very effective,
but the other part not so much. The same time,
we got a little hot mic moment from Kamala Harris.
She's at a bar with Gretchen Whitmer and seems to
get caught saying something like, you know, we need to
(07:55):
make up ground with male voters. And then she says like, oh,
there's microphones around ship. Lol, let's take a listen to
how this all went down.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Yeah, oh we have microphones and listening to everything.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
I didn't realize that, Okay, Weds, I just told the
family secret ship.
Speaker 7 (08:25):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, so the audio is muffled. But yeah, basically we
need to move.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Ground, move ground among that.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, so anyway, some indication that they which I mean
we've seen. Actually she's doing a podcast.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's no secret. It makes it's not a secret.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, but I mean to hear her acknowledge it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
It's a thing. Right, she got caught saying something she
didn't mean to say publicly. This is the thing.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
But yeah, she's doing the Shannon Sharp podcast today Club
Club Chase. So we'll take a listen to that tonight.
And she's you know, enlisted. I guess Tim Walls is
playing mad Football on Twitch.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, although that was a bomb only they didn't have
that many streamers on it. Really, this isn't like Tim
Wall's derangements and so subjectively it was like ten thouts,
which I mean we you know, we get more.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
On that than our live streams.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
It's not impressed those are not impressed it.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
She's made a number of conservative efforts to try to
go into more mail spaces and you know, put out
surguts that she thinks will be effective, et cetera. So
clearly they realize this is an area that they've got
to shore up in order to be to prevail on
election day.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yes, either, I don want to get to a clip
to talking of so many I referenced earlier. Here is
John Fetterman talking to a New York Times reporter on
their podcast specifically about that cultural phenomenon I referenced earlier,
and explaining to her what truck nuts are.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8 (09:49):
You know, I I'll never forget. I lived directly across
the street from the steel Mill and we were doing
an event there for Clinton, and I asked the Union President.
I'm like, hey, where we are on Trump? And he's like, yeah,
probably half or sixty percent two thirds are voting for him.
(10:09):
And I was like, Oh, that sucks. And then immediately
there was a guy getting off and he had a
truck and he had truck nuts on it. You know
what truck nuts are?
Speaker 9 (10:21):
Do?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I look like I know what?
Speaker 8 (10:23):
Yeah, it's ball hung on the hitch of a truck
and he honked and he was like, oh Trump as
he drove by, and it's like, hey, we're in trouble.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, it does not surprise me that the truck nuts
guys are for Trump. I actually respect the fact that
she was like, do I look like do I look
like the kind of person who knows.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
What truck nuts?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I mean, I weur suit every day.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I don't know what trucknuts are, right, I guess I
was raised in Texas. You know, I remember the first
time I ever saw a pair. I don't know, I
mean to me culturally, I think that was important. And look,
you can give it to Fetterman and he did win
state by five. He says that they're in trouble. What
else did he say? He said, he's like the level
of Trump support is astonishing. I believe that was the
word that he used specifically where he lives, you know,
(11:09):
in Pittsburgh so or in that in the Steel area,
which is interesting. I'm curious, like there's been a this
is pure Pa politics. Yeah, Harris just recently released an
ad like centering herself around the city of Philadelphia. Yeah,
and it was like celebrating Philly and I was like
an Eagles game, but I was like, you know, culturally,
(11:31):
this is very interesting because there is like such a
massive cultural divide between Philly the mainline suburbs. You know,
you've got the urban population, you've got the white college educated,
the celebration of the city of Philadelphia, and then you've
got Pittsburgh and all the other areas so they're a
rural and pa that are much more like culturally conservative.
So it does seem like there are picking sides. I'm
(11:52):
not sure which way it's going to go.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Well, Pittsburgh is also quite democratic. The city itself and
the surrounding suburbs are quite you know democratic in general.
But yeah, I mean between Philly and Pittsburgh, you have
a lot of rural, very conservative areas.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
They call it like Pencil Tucky.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And yeah, remember after when Hillary was running in twenty sixteen,
wasn't it Schumer that said that thing about like for
every person we lose in rural Pennsylvania, were going to
pick up two in the suburbs and didn't work out
for Hillary, but a it worked out for Joe Biden
twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
It may well work out for Kalma Harris this time.
Speaker 9 (12:25):
Around.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
We'll see if that electoral calculation has has blossomed for them.
But yeah, I guess a real cultural divide on display
there between the New York Times lady and John Fetterman.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Absolutely all right. Last part is Beyonce also was at
that event. Let's take a listen to what she had
to say.
Speaker 7 (12:41):
I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother,
a mother who cares deeply about the world. My children
and all of our children live in a world where
we have the freedom to control our bodies.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
A world war.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
We're not divided. Our past, our present, our future merge and.
Speaker 9 (13:09):
We need you.
Speaker 7 (13:10):
It's time to sing a new song, a song that
began two hundred and forty eight years ago.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The old notes of.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Downfall, discord, despair no longer resonate. Our generations of loved
ones before us are whispering a prophecy, a quest, a calling,
an anthem.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It makes me nervous. All the selection makes me so nervous.
Does remind me so much of Hillary?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Leo came out to endorse Kamala Leo DiCaprio, Oh jokes
about that else.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Yeah, that's the first time me back to a woman
who was over twenty five.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
No, it's he saw twenty twenty four and got confused.
Just a joke, Leo, like, I love you.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Of age, But yeah, yeah, exactly, will see it does
seem very twenty sixteen. And she got the tweet the
Springsteen rally with Obama, the exact same thing that happened
in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7 (14:14):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Going to Houston, I mean, both of these candidates now
it's Kamala, why are in Houston?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Trump? Why are you going to New Mexico?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Yes, going on here.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I mean Texas makes a little bit of sense because
of coloradulright as one of their best chances to steal
a seat from Republicans. And I think they also liked
the backdrop of Texas has been the site of some
of the most horrifying stories of women, you know, women's.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Health, and so I think I think they liked that
backdrop as well. But yeah, I mean, Comma's not gonna
win tex right exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
You know, every time somebody talks about the Senate races,
I just always think your job's not to get the
Senate elected.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Your job is to you know, be president. So anyway,
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
She probably she maybe had some fund raisers. There's a
lot of money there too, because that's fun. Razors.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
When Trump flies all the way to Montana to do
a rally, I'm it's fucking Montana.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Like, less than a million people live in Montana. What
are you doing? You know, it's like or Coachella in California.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It's the same thing. Yeah, I mean, but you know,
we just talked about the nationalization. That's certainly part of it. Okay,
we've talked way too much today, so we can't do
Michigan today tomorrow, promise. Sorry, everybody, don't freak out, don't
leave any for crazy comments. What happened to Michigan. It's
not being censored. Let's get to endorsement. Turning down to endorsements.
Huge story here in Washington. The Washington Post, the local
(15:29):
hometown paper, has decided not to endorse in this year's
presidential election.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
This decision was announced by the Post internally somewhat nine
days before the election. The decision was made by this
new editor. His name is will Lewis, a former Rupert
Murdoch employee from the UK. Calling back to the history
of the Washington Post pre nineteen sixty and they're not
making presidential endorsements.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
There has been quite a lot of discussion about this,
certainly because you may have noticed. But at the very
top of the Washington Post there's a little line on
beneath it it says democracy dies in the darkness. And
I seem to recall, you know, millions of dollars and
lots of people here in DC signing up for the
Washington Post for democracy dies in the darkness, and lots
(16:19):
of resistance liberalism and columnists there who signed up for
that vision under Jeff Bezos, and then Bezos himself deciding
nine days before the election is like, yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Know what, We're not gonna endorse here. So there's quite
a lot to say about it.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I think it really just comes down to the capriciousness
of a billionaire owned media and you know, a lot
of people I don't know, Tell me if you agree
with me. There's been a big thing online about people
who are canceling the Washington Posts and journalists and others
their subscriptions, yeah, are like, please don't cancel the Washington Post.
It hurts journalists. I'm go go you know what, let
me defend these folks. These people signed up for freaking
(16:54):
democracy dies in the darkness their resistance lives. These are
the people who made millions selling an annotated copy of
the Mulla Report. Okay, some people Pepperig Farm remembers. So
when those same people don't see a COMMA endorsement, what
do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
You took their money gladly.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
When it was anti Trump, I agree with you. Sorry,
you can't have it both ways.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Also, like it's owned by a billions.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
If he wants to kick in some more money, it
will be nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
He lost one hundred millions last year on the post.
He's not gonna chap his ass to lose four thousand subscribers. Sure.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, So like if he wants to fill in that gap,
then that's on him. That's not on you know, the
people who are disgusted with this decision. And I don't
care how you feel, abou Kama Harris or Donald Trump.
You should be disgusted with this decision because it's pretty clear.
The Washington Posts reported that the decision did come directly
from Jeff Bezos, and we all know why he's a
(17:48):
big government contractor. Blue Origin has massive contracts with the
federal government, and Trump did cancel some of his contracts
last time around two. So he's looking at this and
he's putting his own like class capitalist interests ahead of
the way of the the journalistic integrity of the Post.
(18:11):
That's what's going on here. He's he and by the way,
we can put E two up on the screen. Friday's announcement,
based right at the Guardian didn't mention Amazon and didn't
mention Blue Origin, but within ours, high ranking officials of
Blue Origin met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas,
(18:31):
as the Republican omni seeks a second presidency, Trump met
with Blue Origin CEO and vice president of government relations.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
That means lobbying, according to the AP.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Meanwhile, CNN reported the Amazon CEO, Andy Jasse had also
recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone.
Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post Editor at
large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, which TLDR. He calls
it a clear quid pro quote, and I think that's
(19:00):
fairly obvious.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Bezos doesn't want to have his government contracts canceled.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Again.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
He doesn't want to be crosswise with Trump. He wants
to make nice with him because he thinks Trump may
well be back in the White House and he knows
there'll be no punishment from the Kamala Harris people if
they win. They're not gonna, you know, go out for
quote unquote retribution. So yeah, that's what's going on. And again,
like I said, this is not to try to make
a partisan point. This is to say you should be
(19:26):
very very leary a billionaire influence in politics, billionaire influence
in media, billionaire ownership.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
And I will also say when Bernie.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Sanders made this point back in twenty twenty about how
the Bezos Washing Post maybe wasn't too friendly towards him
because of his class politics, he was smeared as a
conspiracy theorist by the same people who now like you
should be. You owe Bernie Sanderson apology because obviously he
was right.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
I did so many monologues.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Act some of my most viral monologues initially over at
Rising were specifically about this billionaire ownership of the Washington Post.
I remember, remember when Bloomberg was in the race and
Bloomberg News was like, we're still objective.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I go, yeah, you're definitely still objective whenever the guy
of your namesake is in the goddamn race, that's right sure.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And by the way, the guy justifying that, Mikelthwaite, is
the same British moron who was on stage with Trump
talking about tariffs. Just so people know for who exactly
are like the most corrupt people in this country.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
And that's the point.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
The point though, and the irony is when democracy dies
in the darkness. These people didn't give a damn about
billionaire ownership because it was fine for them, and yet
now it's oh my god, you know he's he's like
playing with our lives and giving up on our values.
And look, I have some sympathy because Jennifer Rubin, right,
(20:47):
I mean, these brain dead resistance people, to be fair,
they were courted on this basis, they were employed on
the very like real idea. Even Robert Kagan, right, Okay,
So for people who don't know who, Robert Kagan is
literally one of the chief voices for war in Iraq,
neo conservative, unreconstructed, married to Victoria Newland, who is one
(21:07):
of the most psychotic former members of the State Department
of NATO, expansion, etc. I have nothing nice to say
about these people, but they were hired on the basis
of being anti Trump for these quote unquote like principal reasons.
So even though I disagree with them, it's not like
they don't have a coherent worldview. And so for Bezos
to just change the rules of the game, which he can,
(21:29):
is deeply disingenuous to his readers and to his employees.
And that's the problem, is that when it's capricious and
it's totally up to him, it's just a ludicrous position
that puts, you know, it just tells.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Us what the whole game is about. Yeah, and I
don't want everybody to know that.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And also why nobody billionaire or whatever owns a slice
of this company and the only people who control it
are the vast majority of our previous describers.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
It is also I mean, it is also like capitulation
advance because they do know that Trump will, you know,
will look to punish his political enemies because he's done
it in the past. And there's a more reporting for
the Washington Post this morning.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
I'm just reading. Jeff Stein tweeted this out.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Some billionaires who Trump targeted are now hedging their bets
as the president former president vous retribution against enemies if elected.
Bezos block Swappo endorsement. Zuckerberg is promising neutrality. Warren Buffett
is staying out. The Google chief reportedly called Trump to
praise his McDonald's stuff. CEO's rushing to back channel to
Team Trump.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Trump has not had no issue calling out political enemies
by name, threatening to use the force of government for retribution.
Apparently that is intimidating a lot of wealthy targets. Is
a very scary sign that government intimidation works is the
take of one individual.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
So, you know, I do think this is part of
a pattern of people who fear that.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Trump is going to end up back in the White
House and don't want to be on his bad side
because they want their companies to continue to flourish. They
don't want to be made, you know, an example of
by Trump even by just turning them into a partisan name,
et cetera.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
So that's part of what you see going on.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Lumped into this conversation, potentially unfairly was the La Times,
which also decided not to endorse in this race, and
I think you could similarly make a point about, like,
you know, it's the billionaire owner of the La Times
who was also making the decisions for the newsroom about
not endorsing, but seems to have a more principled reason
for doing so. We can put this up on the
(23:20):
screen with regards to La Times. So their billionaire owner
says that they are protesting calmless support of Israel's war
in Gaza. This is according to his daughter, a thirty
one year old political activist who has been They've been
consistently anti genocide in terms of the Israeli assault on Gaza,
(23:45):
anti apartheid. She's been a consistent activist on the you know,
pro Palestine side of this equation. So she said, quote,
our family made the joint decision not to endorse a
presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I've
been involved in the process, and point to commeless support
for Israel's war in Gaza. So you know, like I said,
more principled. Certainly, you know, a direction I support a
(24:08):
lot more in terms of the rationale behind it, although
you still have to say, like you know, the billionaire
influence part, even if it is a cause that I support,
it's still a troubling direction.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Well, and this, look, the whole point is to me,
this just goes against the idea of the news business
in the first place. I'm like, these endorsements, and specifically
in the more partisan age, they're not swaying anybody. They're
purely cultural signifiers, and I think that's fundamentally wrong with
the way that this all should be in the first place. Like, notice,
(24:39):
you know, nobody's been endorsing anybody over here. I did
a whole monologue where I said how you should vote,
and specifically it was like, how you should think about
voting based on the issues that are important to you,
because you're the one who.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Should make that decision. Outsourcing your thinking to somebody else
is frankly ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
But that is the mainstay of a lot of current
Republican out a lands and a lot of these democratic ones.
So there's a meta conversation, I guess, yeah, to be had,
But broadly, what I really come back to is these
journalists who are constantly tutting everybody who's canceling their Washington
Post subscription. I'll be like, hey, I hate to break
it to you. The people who subscribed to it. They
didn't do it for the News. They did it for
(25:17):
this democracy dies in the darkness. Mullershit. And so you
cannot be mad at them when they cancel, because they
you renegged on the vision that they sold.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's the whole point.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Bethos is in general, even just from a business, has
been a horrendous owner of the Post. They have been
bleeding subscribers. You know for a while now New York
Times has been able to very successfully, like.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
They rolled it up their business.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, and they have all these different verticals, the cooking
and the sports and the games and all this stuff
that's very popular that doesn't isn't just reliant on opposition
to this one political figure. But you know, I'm sure
the Post is going to be fine because, like I said,
they've got a billionaire owner. Who to make up that
lost thousands of subscriptions is absolutely nothing. But I still
(26:02):
someone tweet this, and I think this is probably correct
that there will likely be a lot less I think
these are indications that there will be a lot less
institutional resistance.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
To Trump this time around.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That more the mo is Let's try to be neutral,
let's try to placate him, Let's try not to earn
his iire, let's try not to, you know, tank like
have our government contracts canceled, et cetera, et cetera. And
you know, we had already seen this in terms of
Wall Street and Finance warming up to Trump. You know,
the number of donors that he's getting from the institutional
(26:37):
finance much larger than they were back in twenty sixteen
or even in twenty twenty. He has gone out of
his way to make explicit promises to billionaires in the country.
Obviously is backed by the wealthiest person on the planet.
But I do think that that this is an indication
that the strategy of lockstep institutional resistance to Trump is
(26:58):
has basically disintegrated into no, we're going to try to
appease him, try to go along, to get along, so
that we don't end up in his targets.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, And I also just think there's like a cultural
difference at this point. If Trump has been around for
a long time, like the shock of his win in
twenty sixteen, and that level of like employee walk out out,
this stuff is gone, you know at this point, and
if I don't see it coming back in that way,
whatever resistance to Trump what form that will take. It
will not be the cringe twenty seventeen version. I would
(27:27):
hope it's much more of a deep, like actual assessment
within the party about like, hey, why didn't we have
a primary?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Why did we prop up Biden for such a lot?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Actually, I'm curious with you, do you think that'll happen
or do you think they're going to go rush Agate
again or like some similar like cope, what do you
think the cope.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
It's going to be cope of course, just racism.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
No, I think probably they'll blame like it depends on
how the election results go down, but it's certainly possible
they'll blame people who you voted for Jill Stein or
sat out because they were disgusted with the support for genocide. Yeah,
I think that's you know, that's a pretty clear trajectory.
You already see the ads that are you know, against
Jill Stein. You see those efforts under way, So that
(28:07):
will be that will be a big part of it.
But I think also secretly they'll just decide like, oh,
it's sexism and we could just never run a woman.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Again, right, which is so dumb. Again, like Greshen Whitmer
would be way more competitive.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
In this race. But don't you think that's true?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
If Hillary and both lose to Trump, the secret assessment,
the public assessment will be, you know, the public to
racist b I mean, sexist, blah blah blah, and the
secret assessment will be like, that's why we must only
run men year on out.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think it won't be an elite assessment, unfortunately. I
think a lot of it will come to voters. Democratic
voters care a lot about winning, and they're less ideological
in terms of.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
They're willing to go along with a lot and they
want to win.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And so if that is the assessment from elite media
and others that is kind of pumped out there, then
they may internalize it.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Again, I think that's totally incorrect. I mean, she's not
that far away.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
From she's doing way better than Yeah, she's so much will.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You know, kind of a dumb thesis, but I could
see it. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I really do hope when Biden is gone and we
can all talk, honestly, they we'll just talk about how
insane it was to prop them up for as long
as we did, how insane it was not that going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's not going to happened because they were. They're all
complicit in it, you know, so they can't they can't.
It can't be that, I mean the yeah, the in fact, actually,
actually it's.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Much more likely. The conversation you get is should have
stuck with Biden.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I'm telling I already see people on Twitter are like,
I'm not convinced that she's better than the mind.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
It's like you are.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Insane, you are in like, go back and watch that
debate and tell me that this was the guy that
Democrats should have run. No, Obviously, the much better direction
would have been to actually have a primary process where
voters actually got to vet these candidates, where you know,
even if it doesn't end up being Kamlers, at the
end of the day, she has to go through the
rigors of that and is strengthened by that process. That's clear,
(29:56):
like very obvious taken. Then there's you know, I'm sure
there'll also be a she loses Pennsylvania, They'll be that
she should have picked jos Shapiro to Oh yeah, right,
that'll be a big one as well. So it just
still depends on the flavor of what goes down. But
I think you are much more likely to see the
we should have stuck with Biden than the we should
have actually had a democratic process.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Very possible. All right, guys, we got treat to Parsi
standing by. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
So, as we're usual, we have huge updates coming out
of the Middle East, and to break down the very
latest with regard to Israel retaliating against Iran, we've got
doctor Treta Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible state Craft.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Great to see you, sir, Good to you.
Speaker 9 (30:33):
Good to be with you guys again.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, of course, so let's put this Wall Street Journal
article up on the screen. You know, I refer to
these in a shorthand as retaliatory attacks. Of course, we
know that that's not exactly accurate, since this is just
retaliation to the latest Iranian attacks, which were retaliation for
Israeli attacks.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
But in any case, we've.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Got a Wall Street Journal article here arguing that Biden
pushed Israel to limit their attacks on Iran, yet still
inflict a heavy blow. Based on what we know about
the sites that Israel did strike, what can we say
about the level of these attacks and the potential response.
Speaker 9 (31:09):
Well, the interesting thing is we actually cannot say that much. Clearly,
the Israelis struck. Clearly, they were successful in striking at
least twenty sites. They left about five people killed. That
number may increase. There's definitely been some damage. The extent
to which that damage has occurred, however, is unclear. The
(31:31):
Israelis are saying that they've essentially taken out all of
Yvan's long range anti defense missiles and systems. The iranis
of course downplaying it. I think the Israelis are exaggerating.
The truth may be somewhere in between, but we frankly
just don't know quite yet. But this is very important
because if the Israeli narrative turns out to be true,
(31:54):
and I'm personally skeptical, part of the reason I'm skeptical
is because it actually serves the interests of those in
Israel or in power. We want to see further escalation
because the argument they're essentially making is see Yran no
longer has long range anti defense missiles. As a result,
it is going to be relatively easy now to strike
the nuclear program. What are we waiting for? Let's just
(32:15):
go for it and then hoping that either the Bide
administration or the Trump admonstration would go along with it.
I'm very skeptical of this for several reasons. A because
we don't know quite yet the extent of the damage.
We don't know how long it will take Vanians to
recuperate from whatever that damage is. But also no one
thought that the danger with striking Van's nuclear program was
(32:38):
Yvon's anti defense missiles. That has not been the reason
as to why the strikes have not taken place. The
reason why the strikes hasn't taken place is because it's
quite clear if the nuclear sites are struck, the Ivanians
will weaponize their program, they will leave the MPT. And
given how deeply much of the program is underground, the
(32:59):
US it's self has made the assessment that whe or
without anti defense missiles in place, the ability to actually
take out the facilities underground is very very limited. If
the US has that calculation, restitualt Israeli simply cannot do it.
So there's a lot of fog and a lot of
smoke right now, and it is all about establishing various narratives.
(33:22):
And from the Israeli side, of course, the narrative they
want is see this was easy. The Iranians couldn't do
that much about it. What are we waiting for unleash
us and allow us to take out everything?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, so, doctor Parsi, in terms of the Iranian regime
and just the way they have reacted to this, what
does it tell us? Is it similar to last time
around where we consider the matter closed? How is the
message that is currently coming out of media and others
in response to this.
Speaker 9 (33:49):
So initially, almost even before any real assessment could be
made of what the damage was, they were downplaying it,
which sent a clear signal they don't want to see
further escalation. They're not the ones who started this exchange
of direct fire between Israel and Yvon. That's what the
Israelis started on April first, when they struck the Ivanian
consular section of the embassy in Damascus. But as time
(34:13):
has passed, and as we have seen, most importantly that
there has been casualties, you are seeing things happening in
the Ivanian debate in which there is a lot of
anger and a lot of belief that not responding may
actually be a mistake. What they don't want to see
is the idea of striking Tehran becoming normalized in the
(34:34):
same way that striking Damascus or striking Beirut has become
normalized for these Raelis. They do it regularly. It's hardly
news any longer, certainly not in the mainstream American media.
They almost never report on those things. The Ivanis don't
want to end up in that situation in which Israel
striking Tehran will become a normalized issue, and that is
(34:55):
one of the pressures internally for them to do something.
The question, of course is what could they do without
sparking the larger ward that the Israelis want and these
Iranians do not want.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Interesting. Yeah, that's such a great point. I hadn't thought
about about the normalization of those Israeli attacks on Bayvorud
and on Damascus. I wanted to ask you what you
made of this reporting inside of the Wall Street journal
piece we just had at They say that the White
House use Israel's request for that anti missile battery as
leverage after the Pentagon indicated Israel wanted the system to
(35:27):
bolster its defenses against Iran. Tony Blinkin recommended at a
meeting with Biden. The US agreed to send it only
if Israel promised to strike only military sites.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
What do you make of that assertion of the use of.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
That anti missile battery basically to sort of coerce the
Israelis into not striking nuclear sites.
Speaker 9 (35:48):
I think this whole thing is a bit of a fallacy.
I don't doubt that the story is true, and I
wouldn't doubt that Blincoln would have agreed to the fads
even if he got nothing from these Raelis. The bottom
line is the fact that they didn't strike the nuclear
facilities may not be that relevant if this continues to escalate,
And there's much to indicate that, even though the Vanians
(36:09):
may not respond quickly, that this is not the end
of this story. This may be the end of one chapter.
But unfortunately, as long as the United States helps Israel
reduce the cost of its own escalations by rushing in
and protecting it every time it happens, and every time
these Raelis want to escalate, instead of saying no, we
don't want to war in the region, they can drag
(36:31):
us in. Instead, we say we'll just strike here, just
strike there, and we'll give you more missiles so you
don't have to be the cost of it. If that
is our approach, all we're doing is that we're ensuring escalation,
We're just ensuring it at a slower pace than if
we didn't provide those if we didn't push back against
those initial targets, this may very well end up with
(36:51):
strikes against the nuclear sides and a complete war. So
just slowing it down, which is what the Bid demonstration
at best have done, is simply not good enough. If
we believe that the US is interest in all of
this is for us not to get dragged into another war, individual.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Which I think we all do at least here, And
that's my question. My last question really is how do
you think that the Israelis will calibrate and will they
escalate if Donald Trump does win the election in eight days.
Speaker 9 (37:20):
I think there's a degree of nervousness in Israel. Israelis
I've spoken to. They're not saying that they don't prefer Trump,
but there is a degree of nervousness because they know
very well that if Trump changes his mind and doesn't
want to see discontinue, there's going to be a high
cost for the Israelis to do to Trump what they
have done to Biden. They have disregarded almost every red
(37:43):
line that Biden has put forward, Biden himself has clearly
not been serious about those different things, but the Israelis
have taken pleasure in humiliating Biden publicly. I don't think
the Israelis would do that easily with Trump. They know
that the reactions can be quite unpredictable. I think it's
also very interesting that as much as the Trump administration
(38:03):
is saying things such as, you know, you got to
do what you got to do, go do the job, etc.
They're not saying anything about what the US would do
in terms of supporting Isrum. And one line that I
think is coming out of the Trump camp is we
don't want to restrain these Ralis, but we also don't
want to help them do what they're doing because we
don't want to get into a war. Jdvans themselves said
(38:25):
in an interview that it's a clear interest with you
as not to get into a war with you. Blan.
So I think you may end up seeing a policy
in which the pretense of restrictions that I think the
Bidendmistration has put forward will simply not be there. They
may even be active encouragement, but perhaps without a very
large part, if not all, of the materials supported the
(38:46):
Biden demonstration has provided the how does.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That square with some of the significant interest groups on
the Republican side, Not only you know, the evangelical base,
which has been Trump's largest, most core supporters, highest level
of support, who actually they have a higher favorability rating
for bb net Yahoo than American Jews do. Miriam Addilson,
being one of his largest donors, know a commitment to
(39:11):
Israel being her largest issue. Reporting suggests that, you know,
one of the things that she wants out of Trump
is for him to allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
You know, officially within.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
The Republican Party you have versus the Democratic Party of
much stronger support for Israel, for shipping weapons to Israel,
much more hawkish views visa vi Iran. So how does
that Trump assessment square with some of those critical interest
groups and donors on the Republican side.
Speaker 9 (39:40):
You're absolutely right, Chryst that that is a critical element
within the Trump camp as well, that you have those
who not only want to continue to do this, but
also want to see even greater American support for it.
And I don't think that the battle within the Trump
administration has been entirely square it out when it comes
(40:01):
to this, I'm just judging it based on what Trump
himself has said so far, which is going quite far
out there and in terms of expressing support for Israel
but saying very little about what the US role would be.
And then you listen to Jdvans and there you have
a bit more detail in terms of even being more
in favor of not putting restrictions on Israel, but also
(40:21):
even more clear about the US not necessarily being part
of it and not getting involved in the war. I
think at the end of the day, we have to
be very frank we do not know what the Trump
administration would do because it is quite unpredictable, particularly mindful
of the very elements that you mentioned. And this is
going back to Stargar's question. Part of the reason why
there's a degree of nervousness in Israel about Trump as well.
(40:42):
They know that in many ways he may actually be
much better for them, but they also know that if
Trump were to change his mind and decide to go
on a path that they're not happy with, it probably
cannot do too much about it.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Very interesting, doctor Parci. Always great to have your analysis.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 9 (40:58):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Yeah, it's our play too.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Thanks to all our premium subscribers breakingpoints dot com if
you want to become one otherwise, We'll see you all
tomorrow
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