10/30/24: Kamala Massive Final Pitch Rally, Biden Trump Supporters 'Garbage', CNN Bans Guest LIVE, Oct 7 Survivor Says Bibi Gov Collapse

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
All right, good morning, and welcome to the counters. This
will be the last Counterpoints on a Wednesday before the election.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Was going to say exactly a week from right now
as we are speaking, the election results.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Will be asleep. Hopefully.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, well I doubt it. The election results will be in.
It doesn't mean we will know who the president is
because that wasn't the case last time. There were really
tight margins and it's looking very similar, if not even
closer than it was in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
And happy Steve Bannon released from prison today.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Wow, that's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I used to do his podcast this morning. Yeah, he's
a free man. I have so many questions about his
time in prison. Did he wear two prison outfits the
way he wears two? For people don't know he wears
two of the button down shirts.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
And for the record, Bannon going to prison because he
didn't respond to a subpoena. Right, There are other cases
against Bannon, but the one he went to prison for
is refusing to reply to a congressional subpoena over jelosty.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
People don't do that, no, tons of people.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, that's as funny as the two jumpsuits is I
guess the law firm.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Maybe not so much, but.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
We're going to talk. We're going to talk about Kamala
Harris's rally, which both Emily and I were at last
night in Washington, d C. We're going to talk about
garbage gate. Did Joe Biden say that all of Donald
trumps supporters are an island or a pile of garbage
or did he just misspeak? We will, we will parse
that for you. We'll get to the bottom swing the election.
So we need to get to the bottom of this.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah. Absolutely. Then we'll be talking about Robert F. Kennedy.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Jun You're not getting off the ballot in some swing states,
officially decided by the Supreme Court yesterday. So huge news really,
even though it could only affect a few thousand ballots,
it's still really big news.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
We had Emily's friend Ryan Gerdusky booted off the the
It was great, How how it started, How it's going.
I'll be on CNN at eight pm. I have been
banned from CNN. We'll also be talking to Amir.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
To be fair.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Gardesky and I aren't exactly friends, but Ryan is eluding
to a debate that we hosted with Zero Hedge Immigration
that was a Robbie Swave suave versus Ryan Gerdusky and
Jack Pisobic and the Libertarian presidential candidate.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
It was just Melee.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
I didn't think I could be shocked those Maga dudes
talking about what they were going to do if they
win the White House. Yeah wow, okay, ye. Interesting. Then
we're going to have Amir Tibone, who is an Israeli
journalist and author of the new book The Gates of Gaza.
He has not just an incredible story from October seventh,

(02:32):
he and his family lived in Nahal Oz, which is
the kibbutz that is closest to Gaza. You may have
actually heard something about his story about about a year ago,
absolutely gripping. We're going to talk to him just about
about his book and also the like unfolding genocide that's

(02:52):
going on in Gaza now, including some updates from northern Gaza,
as well as my interaction yesterday with Matt Miller in
the State Department press room. And then we've got Emily
interviewed Eric Schmidt, Missouri Senator.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
And more importantly friends with JD.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Vance probably Jdvan's closest friend in the Senate, so had
him on undercurrents and asked him a little bit about
whether Elon Musk undercuts the drain the swamp message and
if he's worried actually, as Matt Stoler is about Trump
telling this wonderful story and how the Google CEO keeps
calling him to tell him the McDonald's.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Thing was the biggest.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Who knows whether or not that's actually true, but it
was a good conversation about the realignment some insight into
the campaign as we get closer to election day. So,
speaking of which, Ryan, should we start with the A
block here and the rally we were both at last
night on the National Mall.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
The Ellipse is that.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Part put does vo up here while going right.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
You're gonna want to see this, and if you're listening,
we'll describe it a little bit. But the Ellipse is
the park that's directly south of the White House and
Kamala Harris hosted a very well staged rally that ended.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Up drawing a massive, massive audience.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
The sun was setting on a quite literally perfect fall
day in Washington, amazing weather, and it stretched all the
way back to the Washington Monument.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
It's got sparser.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Towards the Washington monument, which is still an impressive feat
because that's just a lot of a lot of ground
to cover and to have it.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
That tightly packed. RN, what did you make of the
rally last night?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
And it and they had a they had a handful
of kind of regular people who would tell stories about uh,
kid who you know, needs insulin and gets it cheaper
because of Biden's uh and Congress under Biden, you know,
cracking down and making insolent cheaper and that sort of thing.
But in general, nobody else, Like there was no Joe Biden.
There were no senators, there were no members of Congress,

(04:44):
there were no labor leaders. So it wasn't that sense
of rolly just like, oh here's here's the vice president
and that's it.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
The one takeaway we were talking about before the show started,
she did her thing where she talked about how Trump
got in the way of Democrats wanting to crack down
on the border and this really tough immigration bill that
they had negotiated with Republican immigrant immigration hawks, and the
crowd is just like dead silent, like we don't want

(05:15):
to hear this, and then she says, and of course,
we are a nation of immigrants, and the crowd erupts
at that. So it was interesting to see that while
the Democratic elites have done a complete one to eighty
when it comes to immigration policy and the approach to
immigrants on the border, that at least this kind of

(05:37):
demographic of the Democratic base was like, no, no, no, we
actually meant it when we said all are welcome here,
Like we're not actually with you on this pivot that
you've done.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
So Kamala Harrison the parts of the speech.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
She was billing this as a kind of democracy speech,
billing it as her closing argument, and started off making
a very direct parallel to January six. She said, right
here where we're standing right now, Donald Trump, you know,
encourage her supporters to go down to the Capitol. And
then she pivoted to the meat of the speech being
way more about like you were saying, healthcare costs, childcare costs, inflation,

(06:10):
home prices and all of that, and brought it back
to these questions of democracy and everything at the end.
Literally as she was speaking, and we'll get to this,
but as she was speaking, Joe Biden was on CNN
like one hundred yards behind her making his like weird
garbage comment about Trump supporters, we will parse that, don't fear.
But that was happening at the same time as Kamala.
Harris had this line where she said, I have it

(06:33):
right here. The fact that someone disagrees with us doesn't
make them the enemy within.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
So talk about stepping on the messaging.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
And that was a theme of the speech that you know,
she's not gonna put her opponents in prison, She's going
to give them a seat at the table. Otherwise, standard Kamala.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
She's coming in with a to do list, to do.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
List on Edie's list. There's a little bit of Kamala
from last night.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
We know who Donald Trump is. He is person who
stood at this very spot nearly four years ago.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
And sent an armed mob to.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
The United States capital to overturn the will of the
people in a free and fair election. And our democracy
doesn't it doesn't require us to agree on everything. In fact,
we like good arguments from time to time. Just think

(07:29):
of your own family, right, It's not the American way
to not have disagreements. We don't shy away from robust debate.
Robust debate. Effect We like a good debate, don't we
We like a good debate, and the fact that someone
disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.

(07:55):
They are family, neighbors, classmates, coworkers. They are fellow Americans,
and as Americans, we rise and fall together.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
So I think it's worth being very clear. And we
were talking about this a little bit earlier. Kamala Harris
being able to draw a massive crowd in Washington, d C.
On a nice day is really not a sign that
sort of we do the same thing with Trump rally
sizes too. It's not a sign that she's necessarily going
to win. That she just was able to draw a
bunch of people from the Beltway whose livelihoods are connected

(08:36):
to the federal bureaucracy that Donald Trump is threatening quite explicitly.
Lots of defense people, defense industry people out here. So
it's not hugely impressive as a feat. But I thought
they'd put it together very well.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Sure, well, except I don't. Oh, I guess you weren't
inside the case. Then at the end they only had
like one place to leave. Oh really, that's like they
were afraid we're going to go sack capital or something.
It took longer to get out and it was to
get in.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
They knew what you were up to.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
They knew, what if I'm not on arrest, you need
to let me go right.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
You know, there was a pretty rowdy cohort of Palestinian
activists who were outside the gates of the rally, and
I caught on video a couple of times.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
I mean, it got it.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Got tense because people were waiting in a really long
line to get into the rally, and the Polstadian protesters
did strategically a great job of setting up camp right
in the high traffic areas, and so as people are waiting,
they're shouting shame and are you okay with genocide, which
is really riling up.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
The Kamala bros.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
As you can imagine, who starts saying like you're pro Trump,
And you know, it was this interesting split screen of
sort of people in their like dockers and barber jackets
yelling at the Palestinian activists who had pictures of babies
that have been you know, injured, killed in the war,

(10:02):
and they're being yelled at by in some cases these
just like pasty white I can say that because I'm
pastry white, but these like pasty white rich.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Kids who just made them to vote for Kamala Harris,
so it got they did a really good job.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
If you could actually hear them all the way back
at the Washington Monuments, like strategically. I heard that you
could even hear them inside the rally from the press pen,
so they were maybe.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Loud throughout the entire the entire rally. You could hear them.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
They had bullhorns and were genuinely I think they genuinely
did what they sought to do. But it was another
great split screen because when I stood in the same
spot as I stood on January six, I was watching
and I was trying to compare what I was seeing.
The most well off crowd I've ever seen at a
rally ever. And that doesn't mean there weren't people who
flew in private jets on January six, of course there were,

(10:53):
but it was a much more.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Sort of hard scrabble crowd. And it was all.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
With last night. It's people who live in d C.
Or suburban Maryland or suburban Virginia.

Speaker 5 (11:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
I just thought it was a similar dynamic actually though
with the Palestinian activist and you've probably seen this before,
it was like scrappy people who weren't, you know, making
these big paychecks. And getting shouted down by people who
felt entitled to have everyone vote for Kamala Harris.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I didn't see it. Yeah, where I was, I didn't
see any friction between the protesters and the I mean
I saw some people saying, like, we agree with you.
I saw that too, and I think they understood, like,
there's not They're not gonna win an argument at that
point anyway. Yeah, and they don't, and they probably actually

(11:39):
do agree that. What they disagree with is they're like, well, yeah,
we're just gonna we're just gonna swallow this and vote
for this person anyway totally.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
And then they're showing up at a rally.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, exactly. And so, uh, Trump was in the Lehigh
Valley last night. My dad and my brother went to
that rally actually just to check it out, just to
check it out. But Kamala has a new act kind
of targeting Trump people just making the rounds here. Let's
roll that.

Speaker 6 (12:07):
Your current, honey, in the one place in America where
women still have a right to choose, you can vote
any way you want and no one will ever.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Know did you make your right choice?

Speaker 6 (12:25):
Share it in, honey, Remember what happens in the booth
stays in the booth. Vote Harris Well, vote coming Good
is responsible for the contents.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Of this ad. What'd you think of that?

Speaker 2 (12:36):
You know, I think it's almost insulting to women. I
see what they're doing. I think it's insulting to It's
also like a huge l on mail in balloting, because
that's a huge problem with mail in balloting is you
potentially have someone like watching over your shoulder and or
filling out the ballots for you and saying, oh, this
is a I know how you're voting, ballots filled out,

(12:57):
put it in the mail, don't worry about it. But
on top of it, it's just like I think a
woman can like tell her husband she's not voting for Trump.
I know that that does get tense in people's marriages.
I understand that, but like, you don't need Julia Roberts
to tell you it's okay to go against your husband.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, I wonder who that ad.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Is for suburban women right who are.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Already voting for Harrison, making them feel even better about it.
Like maybe a comparison would be the way that Obama
has been saying, if you're Muslim, how can you vote
for the guy who did the Muslim band like, I
don't think that's actually aimed at Muslim voters. It's aimed
at other people who might feel like, because of their

(13:41):
solidarity with the Arab or Muslim American community, that they
might not be able to vote for Kamala Harris, even
though they themselves are like, well, you know, I prefer
Kama over Trump. And it's regrettable what's going on in Gaza,
but it's not really my main issue. But then if
they feel a sense of solidarity with their friends in
the Muslim rabbit community, then they might with them. And
I think what Obama was doing with that one line

(14:03):
saying if you're Muslim, how can you vote with a
Muslim band guy? It gives the non Muslims then this
permission structure to say, yeah, you're right, that is crazy.
I'm going to be an ally by voting against the
Muslim band guy. So maybe this makes some suburban women
feel better. Maybe maybe works.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
We'll see. Yeah, I don't know anything.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
I mean at this point, any tiny little demo you
can pick off when you have a statistical dead heat,
essentially is if that works on a couple thousand women,
it may.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Be the difference.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
So even though that seems unlikely, I guess they're throwing
everything at the wall, getting Julia Roberts out there now,
speaking of which we don't have to just go by
crowd size or advertisement messaging. Let's take a listen here
to Harry Enton, who gave a pretty interesting breakdown of
where the polls are right now on CNN yesterday.

Speaker 7 (14:54):
That's all we hear about, Oh, Donald Trump's going to
out perform his polls. So I went back and checked
out whether or not a par already outran the polls
three presidential election cycles in a row in the key
battleground states.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
It's never happened.

Speaker 7 (15:06):
It's never happened zero times, zero times since nineteen hundred
and seventy two. So if the polls are going to
underestimate Donald Trump once again, that would be historically unprecedented. Now,
maybe you want to make the argument that Donald Trump
himself is historically unprecedented. But what normally happens is the
posters catch on, hey, we're underestimating, We're not taking into
account some part of the electorate. They make adjustments, And

(15:29):
I think that helps to explain why we have never
seen that the same party has been underestimated three times
in a row in presidential elections, at least over the last.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Fifty two years.

Speaker 7 (15:37):
And what do we see in twenty twenty two in Michigan, Pennsylvania,
and Wisconsin. Well, it turns out that the average poll
in those states actually underestimated Democrats by four points. It
underestimated Democrats by four points. And I want to apply
that to the electoral map, because if it turns out
that the polls underestimate Donald Trump are underestimated the Democrats
excuse me, like they did in twenty twenty two, what happens, Well,

(15:59):
Kamala how ruins as sweet because she wins all these
great battleground states. She wins down in the Southeast, and
she wins down in the Southwest, and she gets the
three hundred and nineteen electro votes.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Okay, so that's actually some pretty interesting historical context there, Ryan,
And another thing I wanted to add is my colleague
at the Federalist, former colleague John Daniel Davidson, wrote a
piece really interesting in terms of polling. It's not a
piece about polling, but it's called the social stigma of
being a Trump supporter is Gone, which I think is
probably true.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
On a national level. Maybe it's not true.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
In everyone's marriage, but that actually, if we're trying to
figure out whether this polling is accurate, a lot of
that inaccuracy in the polling was attributed to the quote
shy Trump voter phenomenon. So when even you have the
Federalists saying they feel like the social stigma would be
a Trump supporter is gone, I do wonder if we
look back a week from now and see that that

(16:47):
affected the polling.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, the Federalists would know, right, So it's true, and
I think it's true, like people are for better or
worse if they like Trump. They're more willing to say
it now than they certainly I think in yeah, say
October of twenty sixteen.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Totally. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Well, let's get to our next block because we have
Shelby Talcott in studio and we're going to run down
some Trump updates.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Stay tuned for them.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
We're excited to be joined in studio by one of
our favorite return guests, Shelby Talcott of Semaphore Semaphore shallby
correct me on air, it's Semophour four.

Speaker 8 (17:22):
I guess semaphore a lot, but I didn't come up
with the name to be clear.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Okay, well we'll blame Ben. I've heard it both ways. So, Shelby,
you are doing a lot of reporting on the Trump
campaign and the vibe check and the Trump campaign with
less than a week ago before election day.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Let's put b one up on the screen.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
This is a tear sheet from Politico, just reporting a
little bit on how the fallout from the Tony Hinchcliff
joke about Puerto Rico is now quote spreading like wildfire
in Pennsylvania. Now that may seem interesting to people outside Pennsylvania,
who say, how could a joke about Puerto Ricans be
difference in Pennsylvania? But my understanding, Shelby, based on your reporting,

(18:04):
is that the Trump campaign recognizes, with tight margins which
we likely expect a week from now, the Puerto Rican
demographic in swing states is big enough to really perhaps
make a difference.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
What are you hearing from them? Yeah, listen.

Speaker 8 (18:18):
And I was surprised by how many Puerto Ricans are
in Pennsylvania. In fact, I think the number was like
half a million. But the big thing is that Donald
Trump's campaign recognizes that this is essentially a tied race,
and so anything that could swing some of these voters
either against voting for Donald Trump or even getting off
of the couch and deciding to vote for Kamala Harris

(18:40):
is notable. And what Kamala Harris's campaign has tried really
hard to do, and Democrats have tried really hard to
do with some success, is to tie that comedian's joke
directly to Donald Trump, because of course it was at
his rally, and that was not the only sort of
controversial hot comment of the evening. You had the anti

(19:00):
christ comment, you had some sort of other speakers who
made these certain remarks that a lot of people were
offended by. And so the campaign has really tried to
distance itself from this comedian's comment. And I talked to
Donald Trump's political director James Blair yesterday and I asked
him about this, and he argued that it's they're not
concerned that it's going to affect the vote, because at

(19:22):
the end of the day, Donald Trump himself did not
say it, and they have disavowed the comment. But it's
clearly a concern. And you can tell that because the
campaign typically doesn't even go so far as to disavow
themselves from certain things, so when they do, it's notable.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
And so I as I know, as I grew up
partly in Allentown, was born there, and my dad and
brother went to the Trump rally in Allentown last night,
and I can tell you, yeah, Allentown and the entirely
High VALI are is like half Puerto Rican or more,
even from back when I was there. These are people
who have been there for a very long time. I
think the way that the comedian made the joke, he
connected it also to people Latino being here illegally. And

(20:02):
I won't even get into like the crew joke that
he told ahead of it, which has been going like
wildfire to that one.

Speaker 9 (20:09):
It's but also so the Puerto Ricans who heard that
are like, how dare you?

Speaker 1 (20:13):
We're Americans, what are you talking about?

Speaker 9 (20:16):
And also they've been living here since the seventies in
the Lehigh Valley.

Speaker 8 (20:19):
And I think the big thing is these jokes maybe
are fine for like a bar scenario or a comedy
club tony, but we're a week and a half out
from the presidential election and this is a political campaign.
And when I talked to people on Donald Trump's team,
They've conceded that, yeah, okay, this was a mistake. We
probably shouldn't have had not only a comedian, but an

(20:40):
edgy comedian at our political rally, because inevitably it's going
to get tied to Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, well, and they got a gift that they've been
going absolutely wild with just in the last like twelve hours.
We're recording this in the morning, and it happened around
nine o'clock in the evening. Actually, as Kamala Harris was speaking,
Joe Biden was on CNN and had this to say, Listen.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
This is what Kama gets for not inviting him to
the rally.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
Exactly.

Speaker 5 (21:07):
Let's roll be two or Puerto Rico, where I'm in
my home state of Delaware. They're good, decent, honorable people.
The only garbage I see float down there is his
supporters is his demonizational scene is unconstable.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
So this is a wild, right, wild frenzy because the
Biden campaign is now doing cleanup and saying that Joe
Biden said supporters with an apostrophe on the end of it,
meaning the garbage was Trump supporter's possessive.

Speaker 8 (21:36):
Garbinization, referring to the comedian like the singular.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Right, that it's possessive that it's like this is there,
it belongs to them, not that they themselves are garbage,
which is what the Trump campaign understandably because when you're
listening to it, he said exactly, that is what he said,
although media outlets have run with the Biden version of
it and have actually like tried to explain why in
wass don't these are gymnastics. I don't think would be

(22:02):
happening if the parties were reversed there. But Shelby, just
take us through a little bit and everyone here can
watch it. If you're watching this, we're gonna put B
two A. Let's put this up on the screen. This
is jd Vance's response. This started happening immediately. He started
criticizing the media for media for cleaning up this is
a Jonathan Lamuir story and in Politico and jd Vance

(22:27):
criticized them almost immediately on X last night for writing
in a way that he felt was doing cleanup for
the Biden campaign. And then he posted this one another morning.
Her son who died of a fentyl overdose is not garbage.
A truck driver who can't afford rising diesel prices is
not garbage. A father who wants to afford groceries is
not garbage. And we have one Trump tweet to put up.

(22:48):
I guess a Trump truth. Maybe it was a tweet. Okay,
he posted this on x as well.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well, that's how you know he's feeling really good.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
He's going to well, I'm running a campaign.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
I'm running a campaign of positive solutions to save America.
Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate, etcetera, etcetera.
Not on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters garbage.
Don't you can't lead America if you don't love the
American people, Shelby, that tone is one.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
I watched the entire rally. You were actually there.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
I watched the whole thing from start to finish, and
I wasn't on Twitter while I was watching it, so
I wasn't sort of seeing the real time feedback. That
was the messaging that Trump just put in that tweet.
Somewhat amusingly, they were going for at the rally unity love,
the party of peace, the candidate of peace. So they
feel like they've gotten a real, like last minute gift
here that actually could be they believe more effective than

(23:41):
the deplorable moment was for Republicans.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Is that what you're hearing.

Speaker 8 (23:44):
Yeah, last night, actually when I was texting people on
Donald Trump's campaign, they kept comparing it to that Hillary
Clinton deplorable's moment, And listen, this is a really big
gift for the Donald Trump campaign. Simply whether it ends
up influencing votes or not, who knows.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
We're so close to the actual election day.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
But what it does is.

Speaker 8 (24:04):
It shifts the storyline from a pretty positive news cycle
from Kamala Harris in the with the comedian situation, and
so now everybody is focused on Joe Biden calling his
calling Donald Trump supporters garbage. And again you can debate
on what he meant. I think it's a little bit
of spin from the White House. You can hear it
when when you listen. But yeah, this is a really

(24:27):
big gift, and they're not going to let this go.
I think you can expect to see it in last
minute adds, in last minute you know, posts on social media.
We're seeing it all over. They're not gonna they're not
going to die down on this.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
My own theory on it is that he was I
think he was trying to say the only thing that's
garbage is his supporters demonization of the American people. Because
he then goes into the demonization. It seems like he's reading,
but it's not. It's a lot of what it's politics.
It doesn't matter what he meant to say.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
And well, this is also who's the genius.

Speaker 9 (25:01):
Who's the genius that's writing like a complicated script for
this guy?

Speaker 1 (25:05):
He can't.

Speaker 8 (25:06):
This is the problem with having Joe Biden on the
campaign trail. That's exactly why Kamala Harris has kept her
distance from having Joe Biden on the campaign trail because
they don't believe he helps her.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
And we've seen that time and time again.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, this seems like something that the Trim campaign rightfully
understands will help turn out, Like this is what gets
your base to not stay home? Is Joe Biden calling
your supporters of garbage literally at the moment that Kamala
Harris is saying, nobody is the enemy within Yeah, et cetera.
Let's roll this clip of John Stewart responding to the
Tony Hinchcliff joke. This is B three and John Stewart

(25:41):
had a surprising take actually on what happened.

Speaker 10 (25:44):
Now obviously in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to
a political rally a week before election day and roasting
a key voting demographic. Probably not the best decision by
the campaign politically, but to be fair, the guys really
just doing what he does. I mean, here he is
at the Tom Brady roast a few months ago.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
The great Jeff Ross.

Speaker 11 (26:06):
Ladies and gentlemen, Jeff is so Jewish he only watches
football for.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
The coin toss. Gronk, you look like.

Speaker 11 (26:13):
The Nazi that kept burning himself on the ovens. Kevin
is so small that when his ancestors picked cotton they
called it deadlifting.

Speaker 10 (26:24):
Yes, yes, of course, terrible boo. Yes, there's something wrong
with me. I find that guy very funny. So I'm sorry,
I don't know what to tell you. I mean, bringing
him to a rally and have him not do roast jokes.
I had to be like bringing Beyonce to a rally and.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Oh, okay, that was pretty good.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Shelby to a point.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
We were having actually before we went to air, as
we were chatting getting the mics on.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Those are funny jokes.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
The Trump campaign seems to now be realizing they were
funny jokes for a comedy set, and maybe as Trump
is throwing together this genuinely I think interesting coalition of
people at Madison Square Garden doctor Phil. He had everyone
from doctor Phil to like hedge fund guys and Ilon
Pogan was there.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
It was a little bit of the RNC again.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
But it's interesting because the Trump campaign is kind of
operating on the fly. It's just a totally different world.
So do you sense that this was you said this earlier,
but maybe they realized that it kind of These things
can be funny, but that doesn't mean that they're political
campaign funny.

Speaker 8 (27:34):
I think they've realized that there's a time and a place,
and you know, nine however, nine ten days out from
a presidential election where the polls are essentially tied and
the both sides are going at each other pretty aggressively,
already not the place to bring in a super edgy
comedian who makes racially insensitive jokes.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Although if it ends up that Biden garbage comment, then
it's like the hand of God.

Speaker 8 (28:05):
Yeah, but cancels each other out or maybe the Biden
thing becoming a bigger deal, because I do think again,
you look back at twenty sixteen, the Hillary Clinton deplorable's
comment that ended up being a huge deal at least.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
The difference with Hillary is like she meant it, and
she said exactly what she meant, whereas you know, what
Biden said is in contrast and in conflict with what
their whole messaging is.

Speaker 8 (28:30):
But Biden's criticized Trump supporters in the well, so you
dous sort of line up with like past things he says,
whether he meant.

Speaker 9 (28:41):
Do you remember some of the worst stuff he said,
some blunt stuff he gave that.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
Big speech in Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Remember it was the dark branded speech with the red
lights behind him outside Independence Hall. Yeah, I mean, I
think this actually speaks to something that Harris Biden camp
is struggling with.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
And I saw it at the Rattle last night.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
It was like they can't side whether they think that
Trump supporters are fascists or that they're just you.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Know, deserve a seat at the table and they're part
of our family exactly.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah, it is a.

Speaker 8 (29:09):
Fine line, and I don't know how you can do
it successfully and clearly this and the problem shows that
they're they've struggled to do.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
They're probably also legitimately ambivalent on the question, but they're
not quite sure. Actually, yeah, they would stick a knife
in them.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
So Donald Trump then in Allentown in front of Ryan's family,
started talking about how Democrats have quote already started cheating.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
Let's rule this last clip here.

Speaker 10 (29:33):
If you have a mail in ballot, get that damn
ballot in pleaze immediately because.

Speaker 12 (29:41):
Because they've already started cheating.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
In Lancaster, they've cheated. We caught it with two thousand
and six hundred. So Shelby, you've you've seen him so
many times now is he just doing Trump impressions?

Speaker 5 (29:53):
Now?

Speaker 1 (29:54):
It feels like he's just doing his own.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
Impression the mail in ballot.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Ionators, and he's like, that's even better, like it?

Speaker 8 (30:02):
Yeah, Well, the thing when you when you go to
a lot of these Trump rallies, a lot of them
are similar. This is, you know, not a new speech.
This specific allegation of courses is newer. But in general
he talks a lot about the twenty twenty election. He
talks a lot about uh, you know, he has a
lot of claims.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Must be so happy to have new cheating and new
election ringing to talk about.

Speaker 8 (30:25):
Well, it's interesting too, because when I talked to James Blair,
Trump's political director, I asked him one of the questions
I asked him towards the end of the interview was
what if in eight days from now, Kamala Haris wins, Like,
what would the big thing be and what's your biggest concern?
And on the biggest concern part, he started pointing to
Pennsylvania and talking about exactly what Donald Trump was talking

(30:47):
about last night, and so that was really interesting.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
And then I sort of asked a follow up.

Speaker 8 (30:51):
I said, you know, are you saying that if Kamala
Harris wins, it's going to be because of voter interference?
And he said, I'm not saying that. That's not what
I'm saying. I'm just saying that in the days leading
up to the election, we want a free and fair election.
We want the rules to be followed and then let
the chips fall where they may.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
See.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
This is so interesting because let's bring it full circle.
It's like the Tony Hinchcliff set in that you don't
it's the double edged short of Donald Trump. You do
not get the benefits politically of trump Ism without this
part of trump Ism. Meaning they can script a great
Madison Square Garden rally and speech for Donald Trump, but

(31:29):
because it's Donald Trump, they're still going to have the
free wheeling and they're going to have the comedians and
the entertainers and the whole cogans like. They can script
it as well as they want, but if it's if
it's fundamentally Trump, if it's fundamentally Trumpy, it's still also
going to have this. You can script something for Donald Trump,
He's still going to talk about what he wants to
talk about, and that's going to take you where it does.

Speaker 8 (31:51):
His campaign has learned for a long time now to
that they could do whatever they want and they can
sort of guide Donald Trump. But at the end of
the day, Donald Trump runs the campaign and part of
their job is reacting to what Donald Trump may or
may not say. And when I've been out on the
campaign trail over the past year and a half, that's
a big reason that some of these undecided voters are

(32:13):
not so sure about Donald Trump because they don't love
when he goes off script. And so that's been something
that the campaign has tried to sort of figure out,
how do we get around that, how do we realize
Donald Trump is going to be Donald Trump. Some people
are going to love it, some people are going to
be put off by it. How do we get some
of those voters who are put off by it to
still vote for him because they're, for example, more worried
about the economy and jobs.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
So what's the mood among kind of the Trump brass
now October thirtieth, twenty twenty four. How are they feeling,
How do they feel about the early vote, How do
they feel about the polls and heading into election day?

Speaker 8 (32:44):
The phrase I've heard used most often is cautiously optimistic.
But it's really interesting because at the same time, I
would say there's an equal amount of skepticism. Because for
Donald Trump's campaign aids who have been here before, who
have worked with him in twenty twenty and twenty sixteen,
they've never been in this position where the polls are
looking this good, and so they're almost like freaking out

(33:07):
a little bit because they're like, what are we missing?
They're going over the data, they're going over their internals,
they're exactly they're they're just like, they're suspicious.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Essentially, you seem this good.

Speaker 8 (33:17):
Yeah, Well, so this confidence is matched with an equal
amount of skepticism, and I thought, I think that's really notable.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
But also they're.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Feeling good about the early vote.

Speaker 8 (33:28):
Of course, there's a lot of you know, nuances with
the early vote, and we're not really going to know
where things fall until after the election. But they're they're
really happy with the early vote, particularly because, of course,
for years Donald Trump told his voters don't early vote,
and so they're feeling really good that they have the
numbers that they have in some of these states. They're

(33:49):
feeling good about the tide race. I think their internals
are showing that Donald Trump is a little bit more
ahead than the external numbers. But yeah, cautiously optimistic is
the phrase I hear most often.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Can you stick around for a minute to talk Michigan Wisconsin? Sure?
All right, then let's put c one up on the
screen here. So our RFK RFK Junior tried tried to
this kind of hail Mary attempt to the Supreme Court
to try to get off the ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin.
And because of the timing of him dropping out and
endorsing President foreign President Trump, that meant that in some

(34:24):
states he can't get his name off the ballot.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
You have to be pretty clueless at this point to
not know that RFK has dropped out. So how much
do you think that this could affect Michigan and Wisconsin,
because I can see it a couple of different ways,
And I'm curious what the campaign thinks if you've if
you've heard from them on this. On the one hand,
I think rf K Junior will get a decent number
of votes, like in the thousands, maybe even the tens

(34:49):
of thousands in these states. But then the question is what
would those people have done if his name was not
on the ballot. They might have just written in Weed,
or they might Bryan Graham, they might have voted for
another third party or just left it blank. So people
kind of automatically think, oh, well, he endorsed Trump, and
they have voted for RFK Junior on their ballots. That

(35:09):
means if he wasn't there, they would have automatically voted
for Trump, And I think that's a leap that you
can't make. But I'm curious how obviously they care because
they went to the Supreme Court. So how big of
a handicap is this for Trump Michigan and Wisconsin.

Speaker 8 (35:24):
I mean, I think it's an open question. Right, As
you said, they clearly care because they tried to get
his name removed but I remember months ago when Kennedy
first got into the race, there was real debate over
who he would hurt more. Donald Trump's campaign at one
point had internal data that they would that he would

(35:44):
hurt them more. And so I think that's important. And
now as people heard from Kennedy Moore, I think, you know,
some of these he garnered more Republicans and Democrats. But
I think there are a small number of people who
might vote for Donald Trump or might stay home who
we're backing Kennedy, And so any vote, I think any

(36:06):
number in this presidential election when it's so close, if
the public pulling is to be believed, can influence it.
And so I do think that Donald Trump's campaign is
somewhat concerned about it doesn't help them, and I do
expect that we'll probably see Kennedy out urging those voters
in those states to vote for Donald Trump in the
next few days.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah. And you know, in politics, I think the biggest
bias that you have, especially in media, is just working
in media, and you are so disconnected from the mind
of the average voter, who has a million different things
going on, may genuinely start tuning into the election. I
mean We've been covering this every single day for over
a year, but may genuinely start tuning into the election
the day before they vote and looking like google Donald
Trump versus Kamala Harris, immigration numbers, healthcare, all of those things, inflation,

(36:48):
and are like looking at the charts and whatever. But
there are also people who go in there aren't happy
with the candidates are voting for. Maybe they're going to
vote for Tammy Baldwin Wisconsin, and they see Robert F.
Kennedy Junior's names on the ballot, and they like Robert F.
Kennedy Junior, and they don't like Donald Trump Kamala Harris.

Speaker 7 (37:04):
Robert F.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Kennedy Junior was campaigning pretty hard against Donald Trump just
about a year and a half ago. That stuff does happen.
People really aren't happy with these two candidates. That's what
he was originally campaigning on, in fact, So that stuff
can make a big difference. When we looked to twenty
sixteen when the margin in Michigan, do you remember exactly
how many votes it was? It was such a tin

(37:26):
thousand issues, so so small, So obviously it can make
a significant difference. Now, Shelby, another thing I'm curious about.
Let's first roll this next thot. This is Robert F.
Kennedy Junior talking about what he's been promised in a
Trump administration.

Speaker 13 (37:41):
The key that I think, you know, the President Trump
has promised me is is control of the public health agencies,
which are HHS and as sub agencies, CDC, FDA and
IH and a few others, and then also the USDA,
which is which you know, is key to making America

(38:03):
healthy because we've got to get off of seed oils.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Shelby.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
This is something I actually asked Senator Eric Schmid, who's
a very good friend of Jade Vance on Undercurrents recently,
what it's been like to marry the RFK Junior camp
to the MAGA camp, bringing MAHA and MAGA together make
America healthy.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
So how are these two very disparate groups?

Speaker 2 (38:27):
I mean, when I went to the Rescue of the
Republic rally to report on it a few weeks ago,
I literally saw barefoot hippies and MAGA evangelicals together like
backslapping and having fun. But internally on the campaign side,
how's everybody getting along in both of these like pretty
different universes coming together.

Speaker 8 (38:45):
I know that there are people on Donald Trump's campaign,
who are huge fans of Kennedy, And to the point
where I've heard, you know, he just talked about positions
that Donald Trump has promised him. Whether or not he
would get confirmed is an open question. You have American
Collins on a help committee. They're not going to vote
to get Kennedy into any conformable position. But I've heard

(39:08):
that Trump's campaign believes that it is worth the fight,
and so if he were to win, I wouldn't be
surprised if there is a fight and a debate over
Kennedy being in a conformable position. But what's also notable
is the Maha thing. As you noted, Donald Trump really
never mentioned that before Kennedy got on board. But they've

(39:28):
really embraced Kennedy's sort of obsession with public health and
with the obesity crisis and with childhood chronic illnesses. And
that's what the campaign has added in the last few
months upon bringing Kennedy on board, and they're really letting
Kennedy sort of run that aspect of their campaign.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
From my understanding, that's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Actually, Yeah, from my perspective of heightening attention on all
of those chronic problems is a wonderful thing. His solutions
sometimes like kind of coming out. I'm not so sure
about that.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Well, well, I think it's interesting about it.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
It's like attention on it.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Just the idea of the like we all know Republican
campaign operatives and we know Republican campaign consultants like really
blue Blazer crowd. That changed a little bit when Trump
got into the picture, but not entirely. And so to
even have them to the point you just made like
genuinely outsourcing some outreach to Robert F. Kennedy Junior and

(40:22):
his motley band of hyder docks interesting eccentrics. That's actually
a pretty crazy dynamic, I would imagine.

Speaker 8 (40:31):
Yeah, And I think it just goes to show a
how close this presidential race is. But be how the
thinking inside Trump world has really changed. You have Tulca
Gabbart also that they brought in, so you do have
some of these folks that you know, in twenty sixteen
it would have been it's still eyebrow raising, but in
twenty sixteen it would have probably been unheard of. I
can't imagine that have happening and have being happened in

(40:54):
twenty sixteen, and now you're seeing it with Tulca Gabbard,
you're seeing with RFK Junior, You're seeing all of the
sort of folks that never would have been involved in
a Trump campaign are now involved in a Trump campaign,
and they're not only involved, but there really are being
embraced by Donald Trump's folks and his longtime aids.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
While we've got you and we've mentioned Michigan, I'm curious
how the campaign is interacting with the kind of Arab
American and Muslim American vote that you had a rally recently,
you know, where they had a decent number of Muslim speakers.
Many American group has endorsed at Trump administration. This pack
pack which is hilariously named Pakistani American Political Action Committee,

(41:36):
they endorsed Trump. Uh, I'm curious, like from internally, how
do they how do they think about this kind of
unexpected support that they're getting from that community and do
they actually talk about what they would do when it
comes to the approximate cause of this support, which is
the genocide and Gaza. Do they talk ever? Do you

(41:58):
ever hear like, oh, if we win, we actually have
to do something about this question? And like what would
they do or is it more like, we'll think about
that later.

Speaker 8 (42:07):
I think it's more And to be clear, this is
not like my key focus, so I don't always ask
about this. But when I do talk to the Trump
campaign about the issues they are most focused on. This
is not necessarily in the top three or four, because
they look at what the majority of voters are worried about,
and so what you hear them talking about publicly a
lot is oftentimes what they're talking about privately, which is

(42:28):
the economy, which is the borderslation exactly. But they're seeing
this as a gift. Again, They'll take whatever voters they
can get. And so if all of these people are
really frustrated at Kamala Harris for her non action or
non comments and are willing to give Donald Trump a chance,
they're totally fine with that.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Now whether or not.

Speaker 8 (42:48):
If Donald Trump wins, that ends up with some sort
of serious new legislation that they will like, I'm not totally.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Convinced, but it or does it even blunt? Like So meanwhile,
like over a drops yesterday, we just reported on this
thing Project Esther that the Heritage Foundation is putting out,
which is basically saying we're going to try to round
up and deport anybody who's like on a student visa
or on any kind of visa and is protesting on
behalf of Palestinian rights, and otherwise do a kind of massive,

(43:17):
kind of legal and political campaign to dismantle any criticism
of Israel.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
So if they can connect it to like what's called
by like we know how these designations work, Like, yeah,
these dubious sort of sometimes dubious, sometimes serious connections to terrorism.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Right, so there'll be this pressure from that wing of
the kind of right. But does the fact that he's
up on stage with a bunch of Muslims change that
at all or no?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
My understanding is that this outrage campaign is being led
by Tiffany Trump's father in law. Right, So these are
literal family ties.

Speaker 8 (43:51):
Yeah, yeah, they're families.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
He's Lebanese, is that right? Yeah?

Speaker 8 (43:54):
Whether it makes a difference, I don't know, Right, I
don't know if any To be clear, I don't know
if anything at this point race is going to make
a significant difference. I think the vast majority of voters
have already made up their minds. And for what it's worth,
when Donald Trump's campaign is talking about some of those
persuadable voters this late in the race. You know again,
James Blurry yesterday told me that what they're mostly focused

(44:16):
on is a group of younger under fifty, mostly white,
but still like a quarter of them are minorities, men,
and so that's the group that they're viewing as the
most persuadable for their campaign. So it's not necessarily Muslims,
it's not necessarily women. It is men under fifty, mostly white,

(44:40):
but a solid number of them are black and Hispanic
as well, and so that's where they see those persuadable
voters a week out of the presidential race.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Well, Shelby, if you couldn't tell, we find your reporting
very valuable that we kept going.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
I'll ben that so I keep my job, shall we, Talga,
thank you so much for stopping by and giving us
some of your time on this very very busy week.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Anytime, all right, we'll be back with more soon.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Mega pundit Ryan or Dusky has gotten himself booted from
c n N. Let's take a look at why and
then we'll talk about where this came from. If you
don't want to be cooled Nazis, stop doing.

Speaker 7 (45:19):
More than table and people know by me, I never
called you.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
I mean, I'm not saying her saying.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
I'm of the Pubestinians. I'm used to it.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Well, I hope your beaper doesn't go off. The thing
is is that.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
You should not know. You just said I should be
kill No.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
I did not say, let me talk about TV said.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Let me let me just.

Speaker 14 (45:44):
Guys?

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Are you.

Speaker 14 (45:53):
Ryan?

Speaker 3 (45:54):
That is completely apologies.

Speaker 13 (45:56):
The first blow.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
The Muslim guys should be blown up.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
I apologize on TV.

Speaker 14 (46:00):
Don't say, don't say then I apologize you literally, I thought.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
You didn't think said.

Speaker 12 (46:08):
Because what's funny is rudy he said, said you're a
great guest to be here.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Nine ones today, and so.

Speaker 15 (46:17):
This is where we're in there, this is America.

Speaker 12 (46:20):
Forget the racism.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
That's which I should die saying that.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
He said, what does bea mean? Don't give me? Why
did you say?

Speaker 1 (46:28):
What did you mean by the beepa?

Speaker 3 (46:31):
What did you mean?

Speaker 5 (46:32):
You didn't?

Speaker 12 (46:33):
You said, PA doesn't know at least have the guns
to support your racist from.

Speaker 15 (46:39):
This is why, this is why yesterday's rally was discussed.

Speaker 12 (46:43):
Don't call us Nazis, but I'm gonna threaten the brown
guys terrorist and kill.

Speaker 15 (46:46):
Him because I didn't ever say Donald Trump was hitler,
But do you know who sat on a stage, stood
on a stage yesterday and said, I want to come
to the Nazi rally. I don't have to make up
words and call you something. You're saying it for youself
and what you just said apologize, but I will tell
you I don't accept that apology. And you didn't even
say it's fine. That was disgusting. But I can be

(47:07):
offended when you don't even stay it to me. I'm
not Puerto Rican, but I was offended by what he
said yesterday, and I'm offended that the former president and
potentially future president would allow it and go for twelve
hours and not say I don't care because you know what,
when Kala Harris put out statements about switching up opinions,
it wasn't good enough.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
For republic because you said it. So that don't get
me to watch CNN. I'll be honest, tryan that was.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
I'm a cluster.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Yeah, that was the.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Reality television version of political news that we've gone so
far astray from but can be entertaining at the very least.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
So then he they came back after the break without
him there anymore. Let's go back to Abby Philip.

Speaker 14 (47:50):
We're back here, and before we get started, I want
to just address what happened in the last segment. First,
I want to apologize to Medi Hassan for what was
said at this table. It was completely unaccepteople when we
get this discussion started, you'll see that Ryan is not
at the table. There is a line that was crossed
there and it's not acceptable to me. It's not acceptable

(48:10):
to us at this network. We want discussion, We want
people who disagree with each other to talk to each other.
But when you cross the line of a complete lack
of civility, that is not going to happen here on
this show. It's a heated time. We're in the middle
of a political season. We are eight days from a
presidential election. But we can have conversations about what is

(48:32):
happening in this country without resorting to the lowest of
the lowest kind of discourse. I want to address that,
and I want to apologize to the viewers at home,
because we want to be able to hear each other.
We want to be able to talk to each other,
and we plan to do that in this next segment.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
And you know what, maybe this is a side note
but one point here, this is not a new dig.
So several weeks ago and The National Review ran a
political cartoon that had Rashida Talib with a pager kind
of blown up on her deskh.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
We talked about it at the time.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
And we talked about at the time, and the way
that CNN handled that was actually, instead of condemning that cartoon,
they picked up on what Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessl
said about the political cartoon, which was that she said,
just like Rashida Talib should not be attacked over her religion,

(49:33):
she should not accuse me of charging pro Palestinian protesters
simply because I'm Jewish. She just completely fabricated and manufactured
something like that Rashida Tleeb had never said, and used
that political cartoon as a way to kind of wedge
her own grievance against Rashida Talib. And then CNN for

(49:53):
days just covered Dana Nessil's charge and.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Then kind of didn't Dana bash come out and then
kind of make a semi care action that wasn't a
full yeah, because.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
They had to eventually really say, actually, Rashida Tlive never
said that, right, But and they kept saying, well, we
reached out to Rashida to leave for clarifications, a clarification
what shouldn't say that anyway? So it's interesting then see
it on CNN's own air.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
I mean, I think it is interesting because like we
moderated a debate with Ryan for Zero had a couple
of months ago.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
It was on immigration, and that guy was unhinged.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
It turned out similarly to that, he's had some moments
on CNN recently and they kept bringing him back because
he is super super maga, ultra maga as they say
in the streets, and he is like totally tries to
constantly be flipping the script and going full on offense
no matter what, which CNN obviously thinks makes for engaging television.

(50:46):
So even though he's ultra maga, to keep bringing him
back and bringing him back, And in this case, I
don't think there's any way he thought Meddi said that
he was pro Hamas. The idea that Meddi would go
on TV.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
That they did the page your attack on it's point.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
The idea that Maddie would come on TV and just
be like, listen, I'm pro Hamas on a CNN panel,
nobody actually thought that. But what's interesting is Ryan apologized
on air, probably because he wants to.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
He wanted to keep going back on CNN, so.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
He apologized on air, said that he thought he was
pro Hamas, when actually what he means is that when
he says he's pro Palestinian, Ryan believes that means you're
pro Hamas, which is what the National Review cartoonist believes.
That's like, you can make that argument. I don't agree
with categorically making that argument, but a lot of people
on the right actually do, and that's where that comes from.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
The apology. The apology was pretty pitiful, but also I
thought kind of instructive because you did watch him kind
of start to grovel like on set, as if like
he knew he was in trouble. He realized, oh, the
thing I just said is not actually defensible and I
can't and he's like this this is actually going to

(51:59):
have conquences for me. Yeah, oh yeah, But the graveling
apology was not gonna be the way to do it.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
It reminds me of like, you know, you're about to
get called to the principal's office and they're going to
call your parents and you're.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
Like, no, no, that's not I didn't mean it like that.
That was me. It was me sarcastic.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Really, it really did feel like that. So yeah, I
don't know if we'll be seeing him on CNN's hair.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
No, I think he was totally banned that that said,
for me, the reason that is, I mean is the
joke is dumb, and then the the outrage is so
insufferable too, And it's just like everyone not from me,
I mean, I understand it was made directly to Meddi,
but from Abbey Phillip, who then also posted a very
self serious Instagram video about it. It's like, just get
over it, like, let's let's move on.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
It was a joke, right for seeing it. For Maddy fine,
like it was directed to you, is that you get
to take offense. But yes, CNN you invited this guy
on what they were doing because he does this kind
of thing. Yes, you're upset that he went a little
bit over the line because.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
It made you look bad, not because you went on.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
The one drawing is weird lines where like this other
insane stuff that he's saying is okay, but this insane
thing is not is not okay.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
You either want the clash of ideas or you don't.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
And you either want people to like, actually, like that's
the thing. You want people to actually be revealing what
they really think. And there Ryan revealed what he really thought,
and I get CNN needing to say, we have to
assert some boundaries.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Whatever. They can do that if they want a business.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
On the other hand, it's just the I just find
the moral sanctimony from them afterwards to be a little insufferable.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
I don't know if you saw this thread, but a
former Rising producer had an interesting thread. Did you see
this one? I did see this one for people who
missed it. He was making the point that it's difficult
to book non crazy right wing people.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Yeah, I don't know which.

Speaker 9 (53:54):
Is which is not entirely untrue because like so many
people who are on the right and are like hardcore
supporters of Trump also either in the past or currently
have like Richard Spencer associations, which doesn't which I think
Ryan Gardusky does. I didn't look into that or and

(54:16):
or have said other things where you're like, oh, that's
like beyond the pale. It's hard to find like since
we have moved the pale so far, it's hard to
find people who are representative of that pale, but not
beyond what we consider to be beyond it. So't you
didn't like that bread or what?

Speaker 2 (54:33):
But yeah, I thought the tho it was kind of bullshit, honestly,
because I mean, there are plenty of times where it
would have been hard to book someone who didn't think
Donald Trump was a full blown Russian asset who was, but.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
They don't, they don't care about that. Well, that's what
I'm said within the pale.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
But that's what I'm saying, like or who thought that?
You know?

Speaker 2 (54:51):
I mean, I could go into all kinds of different
issues I'm thinking particularly of like.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
I'm accepting, I'm basically accepting see, and it's premise.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Right, which the threat is not the threat is saying
that it's there's a specific and unique problem on the right,
which I don't disagree. I mean, I don't disagree that
there are problems on obviously of booking people who are
willing to defend both.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
Political parties, because I think we.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
Agree that both political parties have some incredibly deep and
serious problems. But to act as though it's unique to
the right, I disagree with that. I think it's I
think it's problem like across the board, I just don't accept.
I mean, I think Trump is his own thing. But
if anything, I think a lot of the sort of
professional pundits on the right are like not even representative

(55:38):
of the right. So it does mean that there's room
for more crazy people than to come in and go
through the gates and be like, well, I'm representative of
a real voter because I'm pro Trump, when you know
that's a lot of Republican voters are not super hardcore
mega They just kind of tolerate Trump, whereas a lot
of the punditry absolutely detests Trump and is you know,
pro Pentagon with every breath they have, and is pro J. P.

(56:00):
Morgan with every breath they have. So it just to me,
it just doesn't reflect what I see.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
But what I guess the way to put it would
be that over the last like fifteen twenty years, as
you've had the kind of the Great Awokening and the
rise of identity politics and a focus on equity as
kind of a shared narrative that CNNMSNBC, The Times, the

(56:28):
kind of establishment pricess said, look, we're turning the page
on the Jim Crow era. We're moving into an era
of equity and people who are not willing to be
on board for that. Those are outside the boundaries. You
can say whatever you want about Russia or whatever else
that's within that's within healthy civil debate, but outside of

(56:49):
civil debate as any you know, it became eventually if
you were opposed to marriage equality, like a lot that
would almost be kind of now it looks like they're
kind of pushing, like letting those people back in a little,
but they were drawing that boundary. And within the Trump
world a lot more, you know, lots of his kind
of high level, high profile supporters would be outside the

(57:14):
bounds of that reasonable what they just what they just
what they considered to be civil discourse.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Well, and if you're not going to let Tom Cotton
publish an essay in the pages of the New York Times,
then you're either going to be left with insane people
or people who don't represent actual Republican voters.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
So Tom Cotton example is a good one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Yeah, So I just like don't have a lot of
sympathy for that worldview because it just to me is
there's so many problems with it.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
But I mean that you're Druski is out there and
CNN was just asking for it.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
The magic component of the like if you're a genuine,
true believer in Donald Trump, I think that does legitimately
present certain problems if you like accept some of the
twenty twenty election stuff in a way that's not you know,
like how jd Vance talks about the tech interference and
the Zuckerberg interference in an election. If you take that

(58:04):
like almost defensive of Trump platform being Sidney Powell and
Himmember else Rudy at the time, I think that does
present legitimate problems in the same way I think there
are legitimate problems for people who fully defend Russia.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Gate and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
So anyway, those are my thoughts.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
All right, Well up next Amir to Bone, author of
the new book, The Gates of Gaza. Stick around for that.
Joining us now from Israel is journal how Retz journalist
Amir Tabone, author of the new book, and we can
put up e two here, The Gates of Gaza, which
is part memoir, part history of Israel, part history of
Israel Palestine. Terrific book. Amir, thank you so much for

(58:47):
joining us, really appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (58:49):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yeah, and just to set the context for people. I
don't know if if you even remember this, it was
so long ago. If we can put up E four here,
This is an old magazine that I co founded called
huff Post Highline U. Amir wrote this, this really great
profile of the relationship between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama

(59:17):
and how it really collapsed in acrimony over the course
of his of his presidency. And if you squint there
you can see contributed reporting by Ryan grimm Uh.

Speaker 9 (59:27):
Indeed, yeah, so Amir and I worked on that, on
that story together, and a few few collaborations afterwards. I
always followed your your work from Israel.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Amir is one of the best sourced reporters kind of
in the political space over there. And I still remember
waking up on Saturday, October seventh, and because we are
but I guess six hours or so, you know, I
had so much had unfolded while while we slept in

(01:00:01):
the United States. One of the first things that I
saw on social media was that you and your family,
you know, had been trapped in this safe house, in
not safehouse, safe room in nahl Oz, which is the
kibbutz which is closest to the border of Gaza and

(01:00:22):
I can only imagine how many times you've you've told
this story by this point a year later, and the
book is heavily you know, weaves this story through. But
for viewers who are unfamiliar with it, can you just
tell them what is what is nahal Os? And you
know what briefly, what was like? What was October seventh like?
And people should really read the book and get the

(01:00:44):
full story, but I wanted people to have the context
for this conversation.

Speaker 5 (01:00:49):
Well, thanks for the opportunity to discuss it. And as
much as it's not easy to talk about it again
and again, I also feel it's an obligation I have.
So Nahalos is a small Israeli community. You can think
of it as a village or a very small town,
located within the internationally recognized borders of Israel, right across

(01:01:11):
the border from the Gaza Strict. It's home to about
four hundred and fifty people, including my family, me, my wife,
and our two young daughters. We have a four year
old and a two year old. And this community was
attacked by Hamas on October seven, as part of that
widespread Haramas invasion into Israel. On that Saturday morning, within

(01:01:34):
our community. Out of four hundred and fifty people, fifteen
were murdered on that day. That would be three and
a half percent of the total population. So try to
think of a small town, a village, or a neighborhood
in the US losing three and a half percent of
the population in one day. That's basically what happened in Ahalos.

(01:01:56):
Seven people were kidnapped from the Kibuts and out of them,
five were released alive in late November, after more than
fifty days held by Flamas thanks to the hostage deal
orchestrated at the time by President Biden. There are still
two hostages from our community, fathers of young children friends

(01:02:17):
of mine, mariem Iran and Sachidan, who are in the
hands of Hamas. And my family survived that day, and
I tell in the book the story of how and
what happened, and how we were forced to remain in
this little room in complete darkness, no electricity, no food,
with the two girls at the time three and a

(01:02:39):
half and two years old, for the entire day, basically
and to keep them quiet so that the terrorists who
were firing in our living room will not hear us.
Quite a story, and like you said, Ryan, what I
tried to do in the book is to tell that story,
but also the history that preceded it, and in my analysis,

(01:02:59):
led to the history of the conflict between Israel and
the Palestinians and the relationships across the two sides of
the Israel Gaza border.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
Yeah, and I have the book open in front of
me right now. It's really gripping.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
There are a lot of people who purport to speak
for the victims on October seventh, people who.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
Lived through the horrors that you live through.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
How different and even just the people who've been rescued
as hostages for example, as you mentioned, you're in touch
with people. In fact, you are one of the survivors
of October seventh. How different do you feel the conversation
has been among people who survived that day versus sort
of the broader media discourse.

Speaker 5 (01:03:41):
And that's such a smart question. And I think that
anybody who has lived through an event will often feel
that the media coverage of the event is a bit weird.
And I've been hearing that for years as a journalist
writing about many different things. I've also covered wars in
Ukraine and Syria and the Court region and This is

(01:04:03):
not necessarily a criticism, but a comment that I've heard
from people over the years that when you are actually
part of a story, the weight portraying the media, even
if it's the greatest reporting and the most professional and
accurate description, it sometimes feels just a little off. And
I think that when I talk to my neighbors, my

(01:04:24):
friends who survived this attack, or when I talk to
friends who lost their loved ones on that day, who
had people from their family kidnapped into Gaza, there's just
some kind of an understanding between the people who went
through this that it's very, very hard to summarize in
articles or television segments. And I felt like the book

(01:04:48):
was my attempt to also bring that story in more words.
It's not a very long book, but still, you know,
it offers more space than a regular newspaper article to
describe the events, the emotions, and also the aftermath and
the scars that had lived on all the people who
were the things.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
And so another thing that struck me about October seventh
and the Victims was the way that so you can
explain more of the kind of political details around the
political kind of texture around this, but a lot of
the people in your community and the and a lot

(01:05:30):
of the other kidbut seem in the surrounding area are
kind of left wing, liberal leaning people who are supportive
of Palestinian rights, of Palestinian dignity, opposed to in general
the occupation and would like to see a two state solution,
both sides living side by side. Some of them are
were active in, you know, in activism within Gaza, like

(01:05:53):
taking patient you know, because if you're in Gaza and
you have a life threatening illness or health compliction, you
need the permission you know, of Israel authorities to travel
outside of it. And so some would like would go
in and help bring people out. Some of those people
ended up being either taken hostage or victims of this.
And so it's not as if somebody who has right

(01:06:16):
wing like terrible politics deserves to you know, be killed
as a civilian or taken hostage. But there's something extra
kind of poignant about people who are you know, kind
of sympathetic to the pal steating cause being and who
are deeply hostile to net Yahoo government being the victims

(01:06:37):
of of net Nyah whose failure down in the South.
And then I was as I was thinking that through
and I'm curious for your answer to this, why do
those types of people live there in the first place,
like so close to this kind of constant reminder of
the horrifying reality of the occupation and this and this siege,

(01:07:00):
Like how did that happen?

Speaker 5 (01:07:04):
Yeah? I know this is one of the complexities of
Israeli politics and society and how it is wildly different
in many ways than the politics and the culture of
the United States. And just to give perhaps a name
and a face to this discussion before I get into
the politics of it, you can think as an example
of vv and Silver, very famous peace activist from baire

(01:07:28):
He Botes, fifteen minutes from natal Oz, you know, not
from my home. And she was one of the founders
of an organization called Women Wage Peace, which was fighting
against the occupation in favor better relations between Israel and
the Palestinians and of attempting to help bring about peace
in the region. And she was murdered on October seven, Bifamas,

(01:07:52):
women who devoted her life really to promoting peace between
Israels and Palestinians, and eventually was murdered by these terrises
in her house in Kiboard's Dailey Now, if you know,
we take her as an example, you can ask Ran, well,
why would a person who has devoted their life really
to the purpose of peace decide to live in this

(01:08:13):
border community that, to many Israelis is a signal of
the need for security and protecting the border from the
enemies on the other side. But you know, a way
that is unique to this conflict and to the geography
of this land, The two things to an Israeli would
actually really make sense because communities like national o's, like

(01:08:35):
the re like a keybots Nils, which was also attacked
on that day and had the highest number of casualties
people were murdered or kidnapped. These were communities that were
built on the Israeli side of the border, not within
the Gather Strip, not on disputed land that Israel took
after the Sixth Day War. And these are not communities

(01:08:59):
that were built out of some desire to, you know,
basically strip the Palestinians off their rights, but actually out
of the belief that Israel needs to have a border
and that on the other side of that border you
can have an independent Palestinian state that we can have
peaceful relations with, just like the US has a border

(01:09:20):
with Canada, and France today has a border with Germany,
although that's a very very relaxed border. Maybe one day
the very Palestinian border will be the same and we
won't even need a passport to move between the countries.
I don't foresee that very soon and be an ambition
for the future, and so for the people living there,
it actually made sense. This ideological zionist really that's the

(01:09:44):
word to use, belief in the importance of strong, secure
borders for the state of Israel. And at the same time,
I believe in the necessity of peace and dignity and
the good life for the people on the other side,
because without that we are doomed to come instant cycles
of war.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
And you talked you talk in the book about the
decision to move down there from Tel Aviv in twenty fourteen,
and just around the time as we're doing the reporting
for that piece, and you talk about how there was
this several month long invasion war in twenty fourteen, and

(01:10:23):
a laws was evacuated during that because it's under constant shelling,
and as people thought that the war was approaching a ceasefire,
people had been away for so long that they were
impatient to return. One family came back early a shell,
landed in no laws, exploded, went through trapped and went

(01:10:46):
through a window and killed, I believe, a four year
old child who became the face of the kind of
the tragedy of that war across across Israel and led
to then a number of families leaving that community. And
then later you just you know, later that year, you

(01:11:08):
decide you're gonna you're gonna move in. And what struck
me and probably you too as you were writing this,
I'm curious, was that this is that this was a
horrifying tragedy that captivated the attention of the entire country
while dozens of children were killed yesterday in Gaza kind

(01:11:30):
of namelessly, not namelessly to the families of those in Gaza.
But we're not leading the press coverage with them here
in the United States. This is one we can tell, Yeah,
we're not it's not it's not international attention. Uh, And
we're approaching probably in Gaza a similar percentage. You talked

(01:11:53):
about three and a half percent of the community being killed.
The death rate in Gaza may maybe that at this
point of the two million people we were talking before
you join here about how because this is still going on,
nobody has really had a chance to kind of process

(01:12:14):
what has happened because we're still living through it. So
how do you square in your mind the horrific tragedies
that you've lived through and that you've witnessed and square
them with the kind of exponentially greater scale just a
mile away.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
So I'll divide this into three levels. Perhaps First of all,
there is the emotional left and putting aside the politics
and the justifications that Israel had for the war. And
to be frank, I supported the war in the beginning
after October seven because I really felt Israel had no
choice but to retaliate militarily, very strongly to what Ramas did.

(01:12:56):
But I'll get to that in a second. On the
emotional level, it's terrible, it's horrendous, it's an immense tragedy.
It's heartbreaking, and you know, I can go on and
on with the words, but you know, the pictures themselves,
I think speak longer than anything. And by the way,

(01:13:19):
I've visited many times since October seven, we don't live
there at the moment. The keyboats cannot really be inhabited
by families with children. But whenever I go there, I
see the destruction on the other side Becausehalo is so
close to Gaza that you can really see with your
eyes the destruction on the other side of the border.

(01:13:40):
And you know, I'm not happy about it. I don't
find anything to celebrate about it. I think it's heartbreaking,
and I understand also that it will have repercussions for
the future because now the Gaza strip is home to
more than two million people who are living among this
epic destruction. On the logical level, I do understand that

(01:14:04):
after October seven, Israel had to go to war against
Tamas because what Ramas did on that day, you know,
massacre of civilians, a breach the border, and the kidnaping
of more than two hundred people, that was not something
Israel could just say, well, okay, it happened, and now
we're moving on, you know, fresh page. We can debate

(01:14:26):
whether the war should now continue or not. I'm on
the camp that says the most urgent thing to do
right now is a deal to end the war and
release the hostages. And I've been writing this for months, actually,
I've been writing this for months in Haharet and I've
been speaking about it in other platforms. I really think
the urgency ending killing and the suffering, and bringing back

(01:14:50):
our hostages to Israel and allowing the beginning of a
process to rebuild, reconstruct, you know, fix the damages on
both the border is really really urgent. That's the best
I can say about it. And then I think on
the third level, this is the geopolitical level, I think

(01:15:11):
we need a plan to rise from this disaster, because
if we spend now all of our time debating who
had it worse and who committed bigger crimes, there are
no winners in that debate, and it doesn't really lead
us to a place where people in Gaza and in
Israel can get over this disastrous, horrendous, ongoing event. What

(01:15:37):
we really need is a plan for the day after.
We need to finish the war, release the hostages, and
then start thinking about the day after, what do we
do to improve the reality in Gaza and in Israel
and to make sure that something like this never happens again.
And honestly, right now, that's my biggest concern, apart from
the again urgency, stopping the kil bringing back the hostages,

(01:16:01):
including my two friends, my biggest long through concern is
we don't really have any kind of plan or what
comes next and how we avoid this situation repeating itself
in a year or two or three down the road.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
And Rand, do you want to cue up this clip
of you talking to Matt Miller at the State Department
briefing yesterday about the UA Sure Israel, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
We get your reaction to this, so we can roll
the mercenaries plan. Yeah, well it's part of the mercenaries plan. Yeah,
or it appears to be we roll this side from
the State Department yesterday earlier on how the letter that
you guys sent in mid October tod Israel mentions the
suggest that they not pass the unreband right above that

(01:16:46):
in that same letter, at bullet point three of the
three bullet points says that is what should also end
isolation of northern Gaza by reaffirming that there will be
no Israeli government policy of forced evacuations of civilians from
northern to southern Gaza. Sure humanitarian organizations have continuous access
to northern Gaza through northern crossings and from southern Gaza. Obviously,

(01:17:06):
the thirty days isn't up, but two weeks ago the
situation in Northern Gaza was bad. Like today, it's utterly dystopian.
The opposite of making progress has happened there. Somebody mentioned
the one hundred and nine civilians killed in this residential
building is part of this forced evacuation. So it seems
like neither of those two things have happened, and in

(01:17:27):
fact they've gone the opposite direction. Do you need the
thirty days to make an assessment on it? At least
that bullet.

Speaker 12 (01:17:34):
So we have made clear that the situation in Northern Gaza,
which is what that bullet refers to, needs to change.
And Secretary Blincoln made clear directly to the Prime Minister
last week that the situation in Northern Gaza needs to change.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
That we need to see.

Speaker 12 (01:17:53):
Everyone in Northern Gaza, every civilian in Northern Gaza, have
access to food and water and other humanitarian assistants. And
we're going and continue to make that clear.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
You started with the RSF and the most recent Wark crimes.
UAE is one of the strongest backers of the RSF.

Speaker 5 (01:18:09):
You guys are very tight with the UAE. Why can't
the US pressure of the UAE to put a stop
to this.

Speaker 12 (01:18:16):
We have made we have made clear to every country
in the region, every country around the world, that no
country should do anything to prolong this conflict, including providing
arms to either of the warring parties.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
It just seems like countries in that region just aren't interested,
like the kind of maybe they listen, but they just
don't follow the advice that works.

Speaker 12 (01:18:32):
Like every country, every country makes its own decisions on
a host of foreign policy issues. But I can tell
you that the thing that the Secretary heard time and
time again is we were in the region last week,
is that partner after partner welcomed our engagement because we
are the only ones who could play this critical role
of trying to in conflicts in goz It.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
So about two weeks ago there was this big letter
from the Secretary Austin and Secretary Blink and really laying
down the gauntlet. These are the things that we really
must see or there are going to be consequences. And
two of them that I mentioned there in the State
farm yon one, do not ban on RA and do
not do a force evacuation of northern Gaza. In the
two weeks sense they banned on Ra and they did

(01:19:15):
a forced evacuation of the north. Can you tell us
from like from the Israeli government perspective, how do they
why do they keep doing this? Like what happened to
the US, That the US isn't kind of calling the
shots anymore here? Or is the US okay with this?

Speaker 5 (01:19:33):
First of all, I'll say about UNRA that this is
bigger than the US because on the UNRA legislation, Israel
has also heard from other allies, the UK, Germany, Arab
countries that we have close relationship with everybody advocated against
this legislation and the government ignored it. Regarding the forced
evacuation in northern Gaza, here, I have to say, I

(01:19:55):
do think Biden did get something with that warning, because
the punpulation that was removed from the area of Jebalia,
which is north of Gada City, was not pushed south
of the Netsam corridor, which is today the main dividing
line between northern and southern Gaza. And there is this
plan advocated by the far right elements of the Natania

(01:20:16):
government to push the population from northern Gaza thross that
specific corridor that rode into southern Gaza. That has not happened,
and I do think the letter by the Secretari has
had an impact because the population moved a little south,
but still within the boundaries of what we would call
northern Gaza. So that's just, you know, to put the

(01:20:37):
difference between the two things. And now on the big picture, Ryan,
I'll tell you honestly, I think that Natania at some
point during the war, I would say around December January,
decided to take a bit, and the bat was on
Donald Trump winning the election in the United States. He
told himself, I will now suffer through a year of
you know, condes, all kinds of you know, messaging, and

(01:21:02):
they'll tell me that I'm doing terrible things, you know,
and Blinking will call, and Biden will call, and pay
Department will call me out in the briefings, and maybe
they'll hold some weapons at some point, which they did
for two months before invasion of Rafiles. But at the
end of the day, their fear of losing the election
to Trump will allow me to get away with a

(01:21:25):
lot of things, and eventually, if he will win, I
could get away with even more. I think this is
the bit that he played. You'll know next week if
it actually worked out for him.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
So what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
Then?

Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
What let's say is bad is wrong and Kamala wins.
What does that mean for his strategy going forward?

Speaker 5 (01:21:46):
I believe if Kamana Harris wins the US election, Antaniell's
government will collapse within a matter of very few months.
In order to remain in power, Nataniel needs to do
two things. First of all, it's important for the view
understand how different Israeli politics is than American politics. Right
in your politics, we have an election four years, somebody

(01:22:07):
gets elected president and unless they are impeached or they die,
they will serve out their term. In Israel, we have
coalition politics. We have a multi party system, and the
Prime Minister is very powerful, but at the same time
can lose power any second if the parties that basically
make up his coalition decide they no longer align with him.

(01:22:30):
Netaniao's survival in power after October seven relies on two
political forces within his coalition, the ultra religious far right
and what we call the ultra Orthodox, which is another
very very religious segment of the Jewish population. Both of
these parties have very specific interests and demands from Nataniel

(01:22:53):
that require him ultimately to do two things. Number one
is to build settlements Ina. This is the demand of
the far right elements of his coalition. Number two is
to significantly weaken the democratic guard rails within Israel, like
the Supreme Court and all the other mechanisms that really

(01:23:15):
separate Israel from the other countries in the region, making
it the only democracy in the Middle East, as we
like to pride ourselves, and you may recall and the
viewers may recall that before October seven, for an entire year,
the biggest news story out of Israel was the attempt
by Nathaniel's coalition to weaken Israel's democratic institutions and provide

(01:23:37):
much more power to themselves to the government. If Kamala
Harris wins the election, both of these things would simply
not happen. He will not be able to build settlements
in Gaza because the US will put a glaring red
line on that, and there will be no more elections
to take into consideration, and the fear of being tough
on Israel and then losing middle of the road voters

(01:23:58):
for Trump that will be out the window. Settlements in
Gaza will simply not happen, and she will be able
to use leverage to stop that. In ways that I
think Biden has been hesitant or fearful of doing because
of the election. And the same goes for crushing the
democratic institutions inside Israel, which is really necessary for these

(01:24:22):
ultra religious parties because they want to reshape the country.
So I think that from his point of view, he
knows pretty much that if she wins, his coalition collapse.
He will not be able to fulfill the demands of
his partners. If Trump wins, Honestly, it's anyone's bet what
will happen. I mean, the guy so unexpected, so unstable,

(01:24:42):
has a history of specific on the Israeli issue, by
the way of you know, saying one thing and then
saying the opposite and doing you know, I mean, everything
is up in the air. But I do believe that
Nataniel thinks he can get away with a lot more
with Trump and that he can fall to him the
settlements in Gaza as condos on the beach, which it

(01:25:03):
will be anything. But but you know, think about Trump
and that Trump really, yeah, I really wouldn't care if
Israel became more like Russia and less like the Western
democracy that it wants to be. He wouldn't shed a
tear right. So that's Nathaniel's gamble basically, And.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
So if Kamala wins and Yao's government does collapse subsequently,
what what what political forces are ready to be able
to replace it?

Speaker 12 (01:25:28):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
What comes next if that happens is a is Do
those two forces in the far right have enough other
access to power? Or would there be some type of
center right your Lapede situation?

Speaker 12 (01:25:40):
What what?

Speaker 3 (01:25:41):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):
What replaces him?

Speaker 5 (01:25:43):
It would not be replaced by a left wing progressive government,
I can tell you it's a left wing Israeli. This
is not realistic right now, not at all. But I
do believe there could be a center right government that
would be more like the government we had in Israel
for about a year year and a half after Nathaniel
lost power in twenty twenty one and before his comeback

(01:26:05):
in late twenty twenty two. It was a centrist government
that had a moderate right wing element and moderate left
wing element, and it was in terms of policy much
more let's say, perfol and certainly on internal issues, much

(01:26:25):
less provocative and extreme. And I do believe that a
coalition like that could rise to power again in Israel,
and it will not include Nataniel himself or the far
right ultra religious elements that he relies on to have power.
It could, by the way, include once again a party
representing segment of the Arab Muslim population in Israel. I

(01:26:47):
mean that previous government we had about two years ago.
It was historical in one sense that there was a
cooperation there between right wing centrist, left wing parties and
also one party representing Arab Muslim citizens of Israel. And
even after the shocks of Goober seven in the war,
I can still see that configuration returning. But you know,

(01:27:10):
all of this is hypothetical. First of all, we have
to see what happens in your election, and then we
get to a point where Israel also has an election.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
We still don't have confirmation about anyone would that post
that yahoo government move toward ending the war? I think
the war it seems like the support tell me if
I'm wrong. Support for the continuing the war seems almost universal.
Not universal, but close to it.

Speaker 5 (01:27:34):
Yeah, it's complicated. I think most Israelis, if you just
ask them right now, do you agree to stop the war,
they will say no. But if you ask them, do
you agree to stop the war in return for a
deal that brings us back all the hostages? Palling in
Israel shows an overwhelming majority for this position. We're talking.

(01:27:55):
Some polls have it in the high fifties, others in
the sixties, and I've even seen in the seven things
in terms of percentage of our population that would say, okay,
you know, regardless of the fact that there are still
terrorists in Gaza. Course, I mean, look what's happening there,
but regardless of the fact that there's still a threat

(01:28:15):
to Israel from other enemies in the north, in the East.
We have one hundred hostages there and if we don't
bring them back soon, they are all going to die,
and we will not even be able to locate some
of their graves because the people who help them are
also dying in the world. So when you present it
like that, you actually have a majority the Israeli society

(01:28:39):
that will say, okay, for a deal that brings us
back to hostages, we are willing to stop this war.
The problem is that for Natanielle, stopping the war basically
means losing power. If he stops the war, the far
right elements in his coalition immediately bring down the government,
and it's heartbreaking and enraging. But in making the choice

(01:29:02):
between his own political survival and the fate of the hostages.
He has made his choice, and it's not the patriotic Zionist,
you know, Israeli loving choice that I would expect the
leader of this country to make and to you know,
to prioritize the lives of our hostages.

Speaker 1 (01:29:24):
Well, we'll see how it goes. And Amir would love
to have you back on keeping something one of the
best sourced reporters I think in in Israeli politics, and
the book is called The Gates of Gaza. Whether you
agree or disagree, wherever you sit on the spectrum, I
think it's it's not only is a gripping read, but
it's you know, I think you've come away, you know,

(01:29:45):
understanding more about the situation.

Speaker 3 (01:29:48):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (01:29:50):
Thank you so much, guys for having me really appreciate
it well.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
On Undercurrents this week, around the Undercurrents YouTube channel, I
hosted Senator Eric Schmidt for a conversation about the election,
just to do a sort of mood check similar to
what we did with Shelby earlier in the show. But
Schmidt is a personal friend of jd Vance. They were
called by CNN or Schmidt was called by CNN arguably
his closest friend in the Senate. They were both entering

(01:30:13):
around the same time and similar ages. So Schmid's been
campaigning with JD. Vance, and I wanted to throw a
couple of questions of him about what's happening behind the
scenes of the campaign. And one question I had was, just,
you know, the closing message of the Drain the Swamp
movement in twenty twenty four taking place at Madison Square
Garden with a billionaire like Elon Musk, with Lutnik, so

(01:30:35):
somebody who's a Titan of Wall Street, lots of wealthy celebrities,
and so I wanted to ask the under Schmidt if
he thinks that that risks undermining the drain the Swamp,
anti establishment central message of the Trump campaign.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
Here's what he had to say.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
I do want to say, though, from the standpoint of
someone kind of on the populist right, I wonder that's
where I'm coming from. I wonder if you think that
Donald Trump's kind of drained the swamp message, is it
all undermined in the minds of voter when you're trotting
out celebrities, billionaires from Silicon Valley? And also, I think
it was Howard Latnik Wall Street kind of CEO. Does

(01:31:11):
that hurt the drain the swamp message? Does it? Were
you as somebody who has come to this from a
position of a sort of an anti establishment position when
it comes to the economy as well, is there anything
to that?

Speaker 16 (01:31:23):
I don't think so. I think it's bringing new people
into the fold. I mean one of the markers of
the movement over the last whatever six seventy eight, almost
ten years now is that new people have entered the
process right. They're frustrated with things that have happened. It
system hasn't worked for them. So to the extent you've
got like Elon Musk, who I think he's voted Democrat

(01:31:44):
most of his life or at least recently, He's seen
the excesses of the left. He's seen what they really
want to do. And I think that more than even
r D or Red Jersey or Blue Jersey in some ways,
where we're at now is kind of this permanent Washington
Democrat allies in the media and Democrats themselves as this
sort of alliance, this establishment alliance versus the disruptors, the

(01:32:07):
people who want to see real change. And I think
that that bodes well, in this election cycle, that's seen
as an election cycle, and Trump's viewed by it like
a two to one margin.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
Okay, but remember the case Missouri v.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
Biden that was kicked off by Eric Schmidt when he
was the Attorney General of Missouri, which was pushing against
censorship obviously, and when it was changed into a bigger
case of Supreme Court ended up losing.

Speaker 3 (01:32:30):
Just in the last term.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
Donald Trump has been talking about his conversations with Google CEO,
who is allegedly, according to Trump, been calling to kind
of butter him up, and Matt Stoler, friend of the program,
has been saying, this is a worrying sign for mega populists.
Let's listen to Eric Smith responding to a question about that.
Trump also keeps mentioning the story about how the CEO

(01:32:52):
of Google has called him a couple of times to
say that his McDonald's trip was like through the roof
on Google. They haven't seen searchas like that forever. And
some on the left have said, is this a sign
that you know there's Trump is warming up towards Google,
that Google is warming up towards Trump. Some people have
said that with the Washington Post non endorsement as well

(01:33:13):
that Jeff Bezos, you didn't want to frustrate Donald Trump.
You're kind of one of the anti trust guys. You've
really helped the Republican Party get tougher on big tech
in particular.

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):
Does any of that worry you?

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
Do you worry that Donald Trump would go soft on
big tech in another administration? Or is this sort of
like what you said before, it's a bigger tent and
a new coalition.

Speaker 16 (01:33:34):
Yeah, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. I think that,
you know, some of those big tech giants ought to
be a little bit concerned because their behavior has been exposed.
You mentioned kind of my role in that. When I
was Attorney general in Missouri. We brought that Missouri Versus
Biden censorship lawsuit that exposed even before the Twitter files.
This is before Elon Musk bought Twitter. It was further

(01:33:55):
amplified by the Twitter files. But what we've found in
the discovery in that case, this is back in twenty
twenty two, was shocking. I mean, you had direct communications
between high ranking Biden administration officials with you know, vice
presidents and these organizations that could control content. Take this down, Okay,
we'll do it.

Speaker 5 (01:34:12):
What else can we do.

Speaker 16 (01:34:13):
I think kind of COVID exposed a lot of these excesses.
People were shut down, they were shut out, they were
trying to be silenced, you know, the kind of counterculture
tendency that a young person might have to be a contrarian. Look,
the Democrats have adopted this position, along with some of
the biggest companies in the history of the world, to

(01:34:35):
kind of shut down and silence people. And you hear
Elin Must talk about it. JD talks about it in others.
But I certainly saw that firsthand in that lawsuit. So
I'm not sure what their game plan is afterwards. But
to the extent they're working with government or abusing their
own rules to shut people down, they ought to be
concerned because we ought to have some reforms in that regard.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
So nothing super explosive there, Ryan, But I do think
some of these questions about Donald Trump's closing message and
involving you know, talking about getting buttered up by the
Google CEO and covorting with one of the most powerful men,
if made me the most powerful man in the entire world,
a massive government contractor somebody who's benefited from a lot
of taxpayer subsidies like Elon Musk has. It's a tention

(01:35:20):
for sure and his messaging. And the other thing Schmid
said is that it feels quote more like twenty sixteen
than twenty twenty to him on the ground, he feels
like this campaign is going in the right direction for
Trump at the right time, with about a week to go.
And that's similar to what Shelby said she's hearing from
the Trump camp internally. They're quote cautiously optimistic, is what

(01:35:41):
she reported here earlier in the show. So they don't
seem to be worried that it's backfiring.

Speaker 3 (01:35:47):
But I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
I feel like I feel like Trump has just dropped
a lot of the economic populism. Yes that Jade Vance
kind of likes. Like the best example was, to me,
the the speech he gave where his campaign advertised that
he's going to he's going to go out and he's
going to talk about how he's going to defend SOLL security,
He's going to defend Medicare, is actually going to expand Medicare,

(01:36:10):
is even going to make the Affordable Care Act better.
He's going to do tariffs, He's going to like you know,
crack down on people are ripping us off with our
trade deficit. That was the theme of the speech, and
it was written and he read it from a teleprompter,
but he would pause on the teleprompter every now and
then to do a riff on the Laura details of

(01:36:33):
victims of crime by illegal immigrants. And when he would
pause there he pause for half an hour and just
and just go in on that point, that point, that issue,
and he would become animated. You could tell like this
is the thing that was really getting him excited, and
he and he felt like the crowd was with him

(01:36:54):
on this one. And then he'd get back to you know,
and I'll bring down your copays and and I'll you know,
I'm also going to go after big Pharma and I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
It Actually reminds me of the Hairs campaign a way
we talked about earlier, that they get really animated when
they're talking about how Trump is a fascist, and then
they kind of like, we'll get into the meat and
potatoes too, you know, like everyone is really i mean,
it's understandable, right, Like everyone feels like this is an
existential moment, and so they get really caught up in
those particular arguments.

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
Yeah, and my yeah, my right right wing populism can
either be like this economic nationalistic part of it that
you know, Steve Bannon has talked about, like yeah, or
it can be the other Steve Bannon element, which is
just going after the other. Uh, and it feels like

(01:37:45):
that they're they're they're leading into the other.

Speaker 2 (01:37:47):
Well, there's a Leninist component to what Steve Bannon wants
to do in the kind of heightened contradiction sense, meaning
you have to otherize people and then you open the
gates to economic populism and economic revolution. Which is an
interesting way to look at it because the risk is
obviously that you otherise people, open up the gates, and

(01:38:10):
then you just don't do any of the economic stuff
because the corporate capture is so strong in Washington, and
I mean, the Trump campaign is signaling that might genuinely
be the dynamic if he has another administration. Because to
your point, was he still talks about his potential two
hundred percent tariff, like that's what he said at Madison
Square Garden on certain items they're trying to revive American manufacturing.

Speaker 3 (01:38:33):
You hear him talk about that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
But Stolar actually went back and looked at his speeches
from twenty sixteen and compared them to a speeches to
twenty twenty four, and you can see pretty clearly when
he pulls out excerpts that the economic policy, the economic
populism of twenty sixteen is muted this time around. It
is just not a central feature of the messaging like

(01:38:55):
it was in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
Right and Democrats were always dismissive of it, would joke
that economic anxiety doesn't have anything to do with why
people are supporting Trump. And then it's actually just you know,
code for racism and bigotry and xenophobia. But now they
you don't even get the code. He's pulled out. He's
stripped out the code. It's just the straight xenophobia.

Speaker 3 (01:39:18):
Well, I mean there's still it's still some some of
that is still there.

Speaker 2 (01:39:22):
It's just he's not it's stuff there. It's a question
as to what enough. That's what I think was interesting
about the Eric Schmith thing is like the question is
what do they do? Like is the messaging indicative of
something that would happen differently? And Schmid has talked about
his potential attorney general, so for him not getting any
of these questions. I mean, I thought it was important
just to hear what he would say to that question,

(01:39:43):
because nobody's asking those questions from the sort of conservative
point of view, like are you abandoning what MAGA was
supposed to be about On the economic front, it's just
constantly taking Trump's bait and asking questions about culture war
and blah blah blah. But they're not feeling the heat
about what their voters might want to actually see them

(01:40:05):
do if they take office.

Speaker 3 (01:40:08):
And he's, as you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
Mentioned, the billionaires would rather they talk about immigrants.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
If you're outsourcing a department to Elon Musk, who has
a million conflicts of interest, come on, there's some legitimate
questions to be raised there.

Speaker 1 (01:40:22):
All right, So Friday show will be an actual show
and it's exciting. Friday. We will will have Crystalin Saga
as well.

Speaker 3 (01:40:30):
We are kindly hosting Friday before the election. We're kindly
hosting a real show.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
We extended an invitation of Crystalin Sager out of the
kindness of our own hearts and said, hey, you guys
were doing.

Speaker 3 (01:40:41):
The show us.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
You guys want to come on, get their take, get
some exposure. It would be good to like, get them
in front of people here. People want to hear what
they have to say.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):
I'm sure if you want to hear that, they'll be
back here tomorrow morning.

Speaker 3 (01:40:54):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
But that's our Friday show, and we've got all kinds
of fun election coverage show next week. So Breaking Points
dot com if you want to become a premium subscriber
and support the show otherwise, we'll see you back here
on Friday, all right, See that

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