4/11/24: Top Dem Inflation Gaslighting Shut Down Live, Trump Panics After Arizona Abortion Ban, Lead Found In Lunchables, Hamas Chief Family Assassinated, Tucker Defends Palestinian Christians, Media Smears Protesters As Authoritarian

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
let's get to the show.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
All right, Good morning, Welcome to Breaking Points staggers out today.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
I'm here, Krystal.

Speaker 5 (00:29):
How you doing doing well so far? How about you, Emily?
I'm great to have you here.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
Doing just about as well as John Bolton un CNN
last night, who was proudly announcing that he is going
to vote for Dick Cheney in twenty twenty four. He
did it in twenty twenty. That's made with principles.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
A little too on the nose. Honestly, to be voting
for Dick Cheney in twenty twenty four is really wild.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
At least vote for Liz Cheney if you're going to
do it. Yeah, maybe even.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Work upgraded figure resistance model of warmongering. Yes, yes, yes, anyway,
important things to get to. In addition to John Bolton's
voting preferences, we have some inflation numbers that just came
in yesterday.

Speaker 5 (01:03):
Hotter than expected.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
We'll talk about what that means for you, and obviously
what it may mean for the political landscape as well.
There's also another really fascinating story with regard to inflation data.
A government agency was caught feeding secret inflation information to
you guessed it, Wall Street, who can benefit to the
tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars from such inside information.

(01:25):
Break that down for you as well. We've got some
new abortion comments from Trump trying to contain the fallout
over that new Arizona decision, and we also have some
question marks about what exactly is going on.

Speaker 5 (01:37):
In his campaign.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yes, there's a sort of tale of two campaigns going
on here, so we'll break that down for you. Also,
turns out lunchables are even worse for your kids than
you may have imagined, which is the problem for me personally,
because yes, I do feed my kids lunchable, though probably
not anymore.

Speaker 5 (01:55):
So we'll break that down for you.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Very excited to be joined, honestly honored to be joined
by ISRAELIJOURNALI is Gideon Levy today with Haretz. He's going
to break down the very latest that is going on
in Gaza, including an Israeli airstrike that killed the sons
and grandchildren of a Hamas's political leader. Tucker kicked a
hornet's nest over Palestinian Christians. Will bring you those comments

(02:17):
and the fallout.

Speaker 5 (02:17):
Emily and I, of course will react.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
John Stewart with a great monologue calling out Biden's hypocrisy
on Israel versus Russia and human rights. And I'm taking
a look at Jonathan Chate's latest piece, which may be
his worst yet, which is really saying something. So breaking
down this piece where he's you know, he's going after protesters,
saying that they're illiberal and authoritarian. There's a lot to
say about that one. So let's to get to this morning.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Oh my gosh, absolutely, yes, all.

Speaker 5 (02:43):
Right, So let's start with that inflation data.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let's put the numbers up on the screen so you
guys can see coming in higher than expected. This is
per Heather Long from the Washington Post. She's got some
charts there on the screen you can see as well.
So she says inflation in March came in at zero
point four percent for the month. That is an annual
rate of three point five percent.

Speaker 5 (03:03):
In the past year.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
The forecast was four point three percent and three point
four percent, respectively, so you can see higher on both
of those metrics. She goes on to say that gas
and rent accounted for over half of the March increase.
Higher gas price and high rent are keeping inflation above
three percent. She had another tweet where she broke down
the specific increases in a variety of categories that were

(03:28):
really noteworthy, and some of these are just extraordinary. So
car insurance up twenty two percent in the past year.
I really have no idea what the hell is going
on there, Car repair up twelve percent, baby formula up
ten percent, veterinarian bills up ten percent, Rent up five
point nine percent.

Speaker 5 (03:46):
Obviously that really hurts.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Electricity up five percent, restaurants up four point two percent,
gas up one point three percent, and home health care
for the elderly stored fourteen point two percent in the
past year, the largest increase that we have ever seen
in that category. So you clearly have a number of areas,
in particular, some that are most near and dear to

(04:09):
Americans in terms of their pocketbooks that continue to spike emily.
There's you know, a lot of fallout from this, obviously
the political fallout, we'll get to that in a minute,
but it also raises a lot of questions about what
the Fed is going to do next. There was, you know,
the feed is stopped increasing interest rates. There was a thought, oh,
maybe next time they meet they may actually cut interest rates.
That's something that people who especially are looking to buy

(04:32):
homes are really hoping for because the mortgage interest rates
make home buying even more unaffordable than it would otherwise be.
But that is effectively off the table now with this
hotter than expected inflation report.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah, that is a really good, good point. And I
think another thing to look at here is that as
the Biden administration, I know we're going to get to
Biden's comments in just a second, they say inflation is
coming down. The juxtaposition of these numbers with that, The
important metric to look at is in some of those
numbers that Crystal just pointed out, it's not even that
the rate of inflation is slowing. And that's what we

(05:05):
saw in the top line numbers too, And that's what
the Biden administration has pointed to in some respects saying
the rate of inflation has slowed year every year, month
over month, and that's what's really been able to they've
been able to use it as somewhat of a tool.
That's not what we're looking at here, and that's basically
all they have. Whenever they get a number like that,
it's basically all they have. But when you're looking at

(05:27):
fourteen percent increases in rent or five point nine percent
increases in rent, yeah, I mean that is devastating. It's devastating,
and people feel it, and there's no way you can
talk around it.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, and we know at this point, you know, at
the beginning of the inflationary cycle, h the idea that
corporate profits and basically profiteering was contributing to this was
really dismissed as this fringe idea the further we got along,
and that wasn't the only thing that was going on,
but that was actually a significant chunk of it was
corporation seeing and they would admit this on earnings call, Hey,

(05:59):
we can get away with raising our prices. So of
course we're going to raise our private prices because we
want to hire a profit margin. That trend has continued.
There have been increased reports about how that is at
this point contributing actually a majority of the inflation across
a variety of categories. And we've also covered here specifically
with regard to rent, that there is a nationwide epidemic

(06:21):
of basically rent collusion, where they're using these algorithmic programs
to squeeze every penny that they possibly can out of
renters and colluding amongst a lot of large landlords in order.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
To do so.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
There's actually legal action being taken against this in both
federal and state courts.

Speaker 5 (06:39):
So you know there are supply chain issues.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Each of these categories has their own specific story, but
corporate profiteering is a big part of this, which was
basically put off the table to talk about for a
long time. Joe Biden has started to talk a little
bit about the corporate part of this, but has done
basically nothing about it. As you mentioned, he was asked
yesterday about these inflation numbers.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
Let's take a listen to his response.

Speaker 6 (07:03):
Thank you, mister president. Last month, you predicted the Federal
Reserve would cut interest rates thanks to falling inflation, but
today data showed that inflation rose more than expected. For
the third straight month. So how concerned are you about
the fight against inflation stalling and do you stand by
your prediction for a ray cut.

Speaker 7 (07:23):
Well, I do stand by my prediction that before the
year is out to be a rake cut, there's may
delayed a month or so. I'm not sure that we
don't know what the Fed is going to do for certain,
but look, we have dramatically reduced inflation from nine percent
now so close to three percent. We're in a situation
where we're better situated than we were when we took office,

(07:44):
where we're inflation with skyrocketing and we have a plan.

Speaker 8 (07:48):
To deal with it.

Speaker 7 (07:48):
Whereas the opposition, my opposition talks about two things. They
just want to cut taxes for the wealthy and raise
taxes on other people. And so I think they're they
have no plan. Our plan is one I think is
still sustainable.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
I mean, this is obviously one of the biggest political
risks for the Biden campaign. He's got a number of
political problems ahead of him. Don't get me wrong, his
age being one of them, his unconditional support for Israel
being another one of them. But consistently voter say the economy,
inflation even as consumer sentiment has improved a little bit
and people's sense of the economy has improved a little bit,

(08:25):
and we did get a really good jobs report last week,
and unemployment is low. I mean, there are some things
that they can point to, but this is just a
major source spot. I saw numbers last week, Emily, the
same groceries, for the same basket of groceries this year
over last year, you have to spend four hundred and
forty five dollars more a month.

Speaker 5 (08:44):
I mean, that's astronomical.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, the amount of money that represents for ordinary people
is huge.

Speaker 5 (08:51):
That is huge.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
It's huge.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
And I continue to think the strategy of acting as
though you know your eyes are lying to your your
bank account is lying to I think that is a really,
really big error for the Biden campaign. And it doesn't
mean that like from a political strategy perspective, where you're
spinning and you know you're doing the usual bs. I'm
not saying Biden should walk out and take credit for it,
though I would give him a lot of the blame,

(09:13):
But I'm not saying that's what he has to do.
He should, though, empathize with people because people are really
hurting and it has happened, It has transpired under his watch.
And there's a whole lot more to this than people
just not remembering how good they have it under Joe Biden.
Are not understanding? Yeah, And that continues to be the
line from the White House. Why aren't you reading Paul Krugman?

(09:34):
Why aren't you accepting what Paul Krugman says about the economy.
It's like, actually, why aren't you accepting what's happening to
normal people when they go to get their groceries.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
And that was really underscored by a noteworthy moment from
a top Biden surrogate, an ally, Jim Clyverd. He was
on MSNBC, and his whole argument was very similar to
what you're saying. It's like people just don't understand how
great things are. And he's going on and on all
that we brought inflation down and MSNBC lear has to
break into his comments with a CNBC reporter with these

(10:11):
numbers on inflation being hotter than expected just coming across
at that moment.

Speaker 5 (10:16):
So let's take a look at that awkward exchange.

Speaker 8 (10:18):
It's an inflation today, it's about forty percent of what
it was when Joe Biden took office, and so the
inflation rates are down and people's incomes are up, not
what they may here on social media. One of the
focused group people talked about social media and the misrepresentation, disinformation.

(10:45):
All of those things are out there, and that's the
battle that we have to fight, and we've got to
do a better job of fighting it more effectively.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
So I'll validate that.

Speaker 9 (10:57):
I think the disinformation out there is distorting the entire process.
I think social media doesn't help, but there's also a
lack of validation that these voters feel. And I'm going
to bring in Ander Ross Sorkin right now because we've
just got breaking news. The consumer price index increased at
a faster than expected pace last month, a signal that

(11:20):
inflation remains stubborn ley high.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
And this has been their line, blaming disinformation for what
people are able to experience in their own lives. I mean,
four hundred and forty five dollars more per month for
your groceries we had. Now we have actually in some
instances wages surpassing the inflation rate, but you may have
already been behind from previous inflation in the past. That

(11:45):
your wages didn't catch up to not to mention, the
course of the Biden administration, we've seen the social safety
net that was erected during the COVID era, all of
that being stripped away, So the previous supports you had,
and not only in terms of direct checks, also in
terms of child tax credit other programs that's gone. Inflation
remains high, and they're blaming disinformation for people not understanding

(12:08):
what they're experiencing in their own lives.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
And this seems to be the strategy that they're sticking with.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
I mean, we're like a couple of months into the
strategy now, and it's I mean you can see it
in real time fail for Clyburn on Mourning Joe on
Morning Joe of all places, where inflation to them basically
means nothing. It means like maybe their intern gets them,
you know, a medium coffee instead of a large coffee,
but not even that, yeah, you know, when they go

(12:33):
run out to get their coffee. So I mean, it's
just ridiculous and the problem is going to be Also,
they continue to deflect to like different Trump culture wars things.
I don't mean culture were in terms of abortion, but
like these questions of like Donald Trump is just you
guys forget how bad he is, Like the Trump amnesia line.
They try to build into this inflation thing. You don't

(12:55):
remember how bad the economy was under Donald Trump, et cetera,
et cetera, don't remember how bad it was with COVID.
The View was talking a couple of weeks ago about
how Anna Navarro just she felt like she couldn't even
play words with friends. She was constantly so stressed out
during the Trump administration. She really sad that she's back
to playing words with friends now, so that's good news.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
But they keep Americans and a Navarro can play for
words with friends, but.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
It's like it's their crutch.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
It's their crutches, like Donald Trump was horrible, so they
don't have to talk in substantive terms about the economy.
They don't understand that it's actually probably less risky for
them to empathize with people.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's a struggling right now.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
That's right, And there's a way you could approach this.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
I don't know that Joe Biden is personally capable of this,
but there's plenty of evidence out there. Like I said
that a significant chunk of this pain and this inflation
is directly because of price gouging and corporate profiteering. So
when you get a report like this, don't try to
dismiss it, don't try to underplay it. Don't try to
convince people that their lives are different than their lives
actually are. Come out hot with rage at the corporations

(13:58):
who are jacking up prices, who are making fat profits
of many of these companies making the biggest profit margins
they've ever made before. Come out hot and filled with
righteous anger at those individuals and at those corporations that
are causing pain for American consumers. And you know what,
it's not just theater because the reality of it is

(14:18):
the presidential bully pulpit does still mean something. When Joe
Biden did a little bit of conversation about meat packing
plants and the way that they were price gouging, it
actually had an impact. You could see the way that
they altered their behavior in real time because they felt
that scrutiny from a presidential level. And they know, hey,
this guy's got a lot of power. He could mess
with us here, you know, from an anti trust perspective.

(14:40):
In other ways, yeah, and it's bad publicity and so
and corporations are very like skittish about that sort of scrutiny,
and so they actually improved what they were doing and
it had an impact. But instead you see this, you know,
instinct constantly to gaslight and insists that the problem is
actually just the media is not explaining to you or.

Speaker 5 (14:59):
Were too dumb to understand, and what the reality of
the economy is.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
No, the economy is, you know, it's complex for some people. Sure,
if you're an older person who has a home and
a lot of savings, you're probably doing okay, even though
you know for you inflation is a problem too. If
you're a younger person, you're trying to get a home
that is wildly out of reach, You've got student debt
hanging over your head. You've got some real problems here.

(15:23):
And it's not imaginary, and it's not because you don't
understand what's going on. Something Sager and I've been talking
about here is there's this curious inversion and at least
some of the polling where older Americans who had been
more consistently Republican, Joe Biden is actually doing a bit
better with them, and younger Americans he's falling off with now.
Part of that I think is Israel Gaza, no doubt,

(15:45):
but that doesn't explain Trump picking up support there. And
I do think that the difference in the experience of
the economy for the young versus the older generations is
a big part of that story of what's going on
in some of the polling that's come out.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
And my best guess as to why he's not addressing
the price gouging as much as he could be just
from your political standpoint, is that it broaches this issue
of the legislation.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
He's passed the.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
Super high spending and he can defect. But that's what's interesting,
because he did that in big ribbon cutting ceremonies with
these bills.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
He's very proud of these bills.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
It's like this is what he wants to run on,
but he's afraid to talk about them. It's a total
catch twenty two and it's an unfortunate situation for him
because he's afraid to talk about to validate that inflation
is not going down.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
What did he say, dramatically decreased?

Speaker 4 (16:33):
He's afraid to talk about that instead of just coming
out and saying I passed necessary spending, which I don't
agree with but he could certainly agree with that. Say,
I passed necessary spending and then corporations jumped on the
bandwagon and are trying to take advantage of us trying
to repair the country. But they don't even want to
talk about that because they don't want to validate that
people are really still feeling inflation.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
I think the fact too, that analysis about corporate profiteering
came from the left just constant. Like anything that left
says or argues, the mainstream of the Democratic Party feels.

Speaker 5 (17:08):
The need to be against other way.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, I mean really, since like the Clinton era, that
is their natural instinct. That is certainly Joe Biden's natural instinct.
And there's more indications now there's an interview I don't
know if you saw this recently with Ron Klain, who
is Biden's original chief of staff, when you were getting
some more progressive things out of this administration before he left,
and one of the things he was saying him is,
like Jesus Biden loves talking about these frickin' bridges, But

(17:31):
you know what, people aren't like experiencing a bridge at.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
The grocery store.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
They are experiencing their grocery prices being higher than they
used to be, so we need to focus a bit
more on that. And he is absolutely he is absolutely correct,
And I don't think it's a mistake that since Klaan left,
not that things were perfect when he was there, but
there's really no affirmative economic agenda whatsoever. It's more of

(17:56):
just like a hope and a prayer that things are
getting better and will continue to get better, which you
know evidence by this report. Hope is not a strategy.
Let's put this next piece up on the screen from
Heather Long. I mentioned this before, but I really need
to do some more digging or we need to get
an expert on to explain to me what is going
on here, because this car insurance and car repair spike
is really wild. She points out over ninety percent of

(18:17):
US households own a car. Vehicle insurance is up twenty
two point two percent in the past year. That's the
largest jump since nineteen seventy six. Vehicle repair is up eleven.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
Point six percent.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
One theory I saw floated Emily, but I don't know
if this is you know, this has backing or not,
but it sounds kind of logical.

Speaker 5 (18:37):
Is during COVID. People were driving a lot less.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
There was a kind of a bonus on car insurance
came down because it was, you know, less risky car
insurance ensures. We're having to put out less money because
people were just driving less. Presumably there's a similar dynamic
going on with repairs. Because people were driving less, there
were less auto repairs.

Speaker 5 (18:56):
So now that you have.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
A spike in driving, a spike in auto repair, perhaps
that's what's driving this huge jump. But that is a
massive expense for a lot of American households. Ninety percent
of him, as she points out, own a car. So
this is really matters.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
Yeah, ninety percent of American households own a car. But
it's always worth remembering actually that journalists are disproportionately clustered
in New York City and Washington, d C. And listen,
I didn't have a car for a really long time here,
so it used public transit. I walked, And that's similar
to a lot of journalists. So this is a big
blind spot for the media. It always has been gas prices.
Some journalists do have cars. Many journalists do have cars,

(19:31):
but a lot of them actually just don't. Even these
are not things that even register for them because they're
taking the subway or they're walking and they're you know,
I think I think that's why we're sitting here, Crystal
looking at these huge spikes and being like, wait what,
Because if there were more media attention paid to this
over the course of the last couple of years, I
think we would all have a better understanding of what

(19:52):
was going on. But it's always been a blind spot
for the press.

Speaker 5 (19:54):
Yeah, no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
And also, you know, many of whom want to help
the Biden administration and don't want to talk about this
too much and are subject to this same you know,
shaming over quote unquote disinformation around the economy. So let's
put this last piece up on the screen from the
New York Times. Their headline, inflation was hotter than expected
in March, unwelcome news for the Fed. They dig into

(20:18):
this prospect I mentioned earlier. You know, there was there's
all these indicators of like, oh, what does Wall Street
think that the Fed is going to do? And Wall
Street was saying there was a decent chance you were
going to get a rate cut here coming up.

Speaker 5 (20:30):
That is basically off the table.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Now, you know, it is most likely that rates will
hold steady. I saw Larry Summers out there for what
e's worth saying, you know, we have to now expect
that it's possible we could even see go back to
rate increases. This has a lot of political implications, although
it's kind of you know, it's a dual edged sword.
So on the one hand, when you get rate cuts,
you get you can have a hotter economy. You also

(20:57):
have lower mortgage interest rates, which come you know, really
follow very closely what the Fed is doing. So those
are good things. On the other hand, it can contribute
to inflation. So that's the argument in favor of the
continued you know, trajectory or increasing the rates. So you know,
and if this comes into the fall and the Fed
is changing rates, that can have also political implication, something

(21:19):
that Donald Trump is keenly aware of and it's already
been discussing. So in any case, the fact that this
inflation report came in hotter than expected, probably changing the
Fed's plans and definitely taking a rate cut off the
table for the for now.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
And puncturing the narrative bubble of a lot of experts
over the last several months. Not sure that will come
as a surprise to anybody.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, that's true, though there was a lot of like, oh,
we did it soft.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
Landing, and you know, no.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Mission that were accomplished.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
There was a lot of mission accomplished going on in
the mainstream discourse, and I think this is a real
reality check moment for them. At the same time, there
is an incredible scandal unfolding at the Bureau of Labor
and Statistics or here eyes glaze over. It has to
do with non public secret information being released to a

(22:07):
group of what they described as super users, who of
course are all on Wall Street in position to make
millions of dollars based on this non public information. Let's
go and put this up on the screen. This is
for the New York Times. A lot of other outlets
reporting on this as well. They say new questions on
how a key agency shared inflation data.

Speaker 5 (22:24):
I think that's to put.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
It pretty mildly, a government economists had regular contact with
quote super users in finance record show at a time
when such information keenly interests investors, keenly interest them. Let
me go ahead and read a little bit of this
report for you. So this all started back in February.
There was an email that was sent to a group

(22:46):
of users explaining how a methodological tweet could have contributed
to an unexpected jump in housing costs in the Consumer
Price Index, and it was addressed to quote super users
circulated rapidly around Wall Street. Journalists got their hands on
this and said, wait a second, what the hell is
going on here?

Speaker 5 (23:04):
Is there some official list of.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Super users who are being clued in on all of
this information? And the bls, No, no, no, it's just
a one off. This is not normal procedure. Don't worry
about it. Well, now, we had a Freedom of Information
Act request that showed that the agency, or at least
that economist who sent the original email, was in regular

(23:28):
contact with users in the finance industry. And what you
can see here is one of those exchangers exchanges where
a super user said, Hey, would it be possible to
be on the super user email list? The employee replies, yes,
I can actually do the list. Reporters' efforts to reach
the employees identified the Bureau confirmed were unsuccessful. They described
this individual as a relatively low ranking but long time

(23:52):
official within the Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard statistics.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
I'm confusing myself. Statistics dahm, right about that.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Okay, So anyway, the fact that you have people in
finance emailing this person.

Speaker 5 (24:04):
Like, hey, can I get on that cool list?

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Indicates this was not a one off, and they got
their hands on additional emails, some of which did, in
fact contain significant non public information. Now this is like
some really wonky stuff about oh, we're making this methodological
change and how we can calculate that housing inflation, et cetera.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
But if this is what you do, and.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
You're trading potentially one hundreds of millions of dollars based
on this information, and what's going to do to the
markets which you know, by the way, when this inflation
data came out yesterday, a huge market crash. So if
you have a heads up that that's the sort of
thing that's coming, you can imagine the kind of bank
that you can make off of that. It is an
extraordinary scandal. And the last thing I'll say here is,

(24:47):
you know, let me give you a sense of who
some of the recipients on this were. Apparently the names
were redacted, but their employers were not, so you're able
to get a sense of, all, right, well, who are
these quote unquotes super users. They say that many of
the recipients appear to have been in house economists at
large investment banks like Barclay's, Nomora and BNP Paribas. Others

(25:10):
work for private research firms which sell their analysis to investors.
Some recipients appear to have been analysts at large hedge
funds such as Millennium Capital Partners.

Speaker 5 (25:19):
Revan Howard, I don't know who these.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
People are in Citadel, which trade directly on their research,
and at least one case, emails to super users appear
to shared methodological details that were.

Speaker 5 (25:28):
Not yet public. So it's exactly who you expect.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
It's these in house economists, it's people at these firms
that sell their research so other rich people can benefit
from this inside information, and it's firms that can directly
trade on this research as well.

Speaker 5 (25:44):
So it's it's.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Honestly, it's pretty extraordinary, and frankly, based on the details
that came out here, you know, the agency is not
really commenting at this point, but this supposedly low level
employee seems to have copied, you know, a large distribution
list within the BLS. So the suggestion is he certainly
didn't think he was doing anything wrong. And is very

(26:09):
likely this was sort of you know, accepted or even
authorized and directed from higher level officials who you know,
likely knew what was going on. I seriously, I seriously
doubt it was just one employee freelancing on this thing.

Speaker 10 (26:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
No, And a couple of points.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
One The New York Times actually broke a lot of
the story open because of Foya. They filed Foyer requests.
I got this like vast scope of what had been
going on. And all you need to know basically is
that in the Time story, it says one of the
BLS employees, and this is the Times rights. The BLS
had announced the change in a news release in early January,

(26:44):
but did not publish details about it on its website
until mid February, two weeks after the email from the employee.
One of the BLS employees said quote, it wasn't appropriate
to be sharing information that.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Wasn't public and hadn't been fully vetted.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
So if the BLS is saying that it wasn't and
was not appropriate to be sharing that information, just internalize
that for a moment, because that tells you what you
need to know. The BLS says this is not appropriate.
There you go right, it's a high stakes not I
shouldn't say error because it doesn't sound like it was
an error. It sounds like it was systematic, so not

(27:19):
appropriate and on that scale. And those are the two
big takeaways I think from the story that I would
hope continues to reverberate, because there's a lot more to
know about exactly who was benefiting.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
I'm surprised this isn't a bigger story, to be honest
with you, because it also raises a lot of questions
about like, Okay, well, if this was just what they
were doing at BLAT, what other kind of non public
information is Wall Street and their wealthy clients?

Speaker 5 (27:43):
What are they benefiting from?

Speaker 1 (27:45):
You know, it contributes obviously to not only the sense
but the reality that there's one game being played among
the wealthy and another one being played among everyone else.
Just to give you a sense of the tone of
these emails, that one that I mentioned and that you
know definitely contain non public information, they say. On January
thirty one, this employee send an email to his super

(28:06):
users describing coming changes to the way the agency calculates
use car prices. At the time, a crucial issue for
inflation watchers The email included a three page document providing
detailed answers to questions about the change and a spreadsheet
showing how they would affect calculations. Quote, thank you all
for your very difficult, challenging, and thoughtful questions, the email said,

(28:27):
it is your questions that help us flesh out all
the potential problems. So do you really think this employee
was just on his own or her own freelancing? And
compiling this three page document with the you know frequently
asked questions and a spreadsheet showing how they affect calculations
and telling these super users, Hey, thank you. We're taking

(28:48):
in your input. We really appreciate it. We really appreciate it.
You really think this person was just freelancing? It's going
to be interesting to see how this agency handles this situation.
If they just escape this scapegoat this one employees, Ah,
he was just he or she was just freelancing, We
had nothing to do with it. Or if there are
larger recriminations and we really come to understand how widespread

(29:11):
this communication was and whether this was the only instance,
you know, this particular list of super users in this
type of information, or if there's way more sharing of
inside information than we have an understanding of at this point.

Speaker 11 (29:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
No, absolutely.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
And the other thing at the end of the story
that is noted is they say, you know, the after
years of remaining loan stable, inflation started to take off
in twenty twenty one and it has remained a major
newstry ever since because it influences federal reserve policy. Is
a major driver of market training. Well, yeah, no kidding.
And on top of that, I think you put it

(29:47):
really well in the beginning of this segment, Crystal, where
you talked about the potential scale of this. It's not
just one person talking to you know, ten different people
sharing a document with ten different people. It is then
the decision that those ten different people make at all
of their places, and it just can have a ripple
effect throughout literally the entire economy. As that paragraph highlights,

(30:09):
it is a major driver of market trading. So you
have this employee engaging in long back and forth one
on one. He says, I can't share some of this data.
But that's not a benefit that everyone gets obviously, So
it's a I agree with you, this should be a
much bigger story.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
So the economy a big problem for Joe Biden. But
Donald Trump has some problems of his own.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Emily, Donald Trump, you will be shocked to learn, has
some problems of his own. Now, Donald Trump was in
Atlanta yesterday. He bought some thirty milk chicks for people
at a Chick fil A?

Speaker 3 (30:37):
Did you see that?

Speaker 5 (30:38):
I did see that. Do we know flavors? Do we
have any any intel there?

Speaker 4 (30:42):
Not that I'm aware of, but will certainly update everyone.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
The obvious choice, go to choice at Chick fil A.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
The frosted lemonade Chick fil A is incredible.

Speaker 5 (30:53):
Die I'm a fan of the diet frosted lemonade.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Oh yes, yes it is.

Speaker 5 (30:57):
Do you people still get canceled on the left for
going to Chick fil A?

Speaker 3 (30:59):
By the way, I was gonna sy I think you might.

Speaker 5 (31:03):
Die. Frost the lemonade is amazing.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
There you go, cancel Crystal hashtay. Let's get it trending.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
But dontap was in Atlanta yesterday and he was doing
some back and forth with reporters actually after he had
touched down in Atlanta, And so let's actually just roll
this clip of Donald Trump talking about the Arizona Supreme
Court abortion ruling that thrust their abortion law basically an
entire state of Arizona back to eighteen sixty four.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
And I covered this yesterday, but you didn't mishear me.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Eighteen sixty four is where the Arizona Supreme Court said
the law now stands with the abortion basically the abortion
policy that when Arizona was a territory passed in eighteen
sixty four. Everyone's pretty familiar with the story by now.
But likely that'll be overturned in November. Not overturned, I
shouldn't say that sounds like a legal term, but the

(31:54):
people of Arizona will likely overturn that November. There's a
bale initiative underway right now to enshrine abortion rights into
the constitution. So Trump was asked about it. Here's what
he had to say.

Speaker 6 (32:07):
Arizona go too hard.

Speaker 10 (32:09):
And Arizona go too more.

Speaker 11 (32:10):
Yeah, they did, and that'll be straightened out.

Speaker 10 (32:12):
And as you know, it's all about the states rights.
I'll be straightened out.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
And I'm sure that the governor and everybody else are
going to bring it back into.

Speaker 11 (32:19):
Reason and that'll be taking care of I think very quickly.

Speaker 10 (32:22):
What do you think about Florida? Fort Hard is probably
maybe going to change. Also, see it's all of what
it's the will of the people. This is what I've
been saying. It's a perfect system.

Speaker 4 (32:32):
So for fifty two years people have wanted to end
road me a way to get it back to the states.

Speaker 10 (32:38):
We did that.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
It was an incredible thing, an incredible achievement.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
We did that, and now the states have it, and
the states are putting out what they want.

Speaker 10 (32:46):
It's the will of the people.

Speaker 12 (32:47):
So Florida is probably going to change, Arizona's going to
definitely change.

Speaker 10 (32:52):
Everybody wants that to happen.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
And you're getting the will.

Speaker 13 (32:55):
Of the people.

Speaker 10 (32:56):
It's been pretty amazing.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
It's pretty amazing, he said, it's pretty amazing.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
He said it's the perfect system, which I think some
people in California would disagree with because they're basically ruled
by referendum. If the people has some interesting effects in California.
But that's his line and he's sticking with it. It's
actually funny because he said on Monday, you put out
a big statement that had a huge ripple effect throughout
the conservative movement into abortion movement, saying this all needs

(33:25):
to be left to the states. Essentially after the fall
of Row, you know, Trump basically is like, I gave
you guys the end of row, so we're just going
to kick it back to the states now. And so
he actually this Arizona ruling gave him an opportunity to
try out that campaign strategy, that messaging strategy, and he's
sticking with it.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Crystal.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah, well, I mean this was very inconvenient for him
and for all Republicans, frankly, but especially for him because,
like you said, he just did this whole thing of like,
all is this beautiful democracy, will the people's states rights?
And then Arizona's like, how about in our state we
ban it completely in a way that would be acceptable
to about five percent of the population who hold this position.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
So his whole leave it up.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
To the states thing kind of immediately undermined by the
reality of this decision in Arizona. You know, I also
think listen, he's he realizes abortion is a big problem. Yes,
very clearly. Absolutely. I don't think there's really anything he
can do about it, though, no matter where he tries
to message himself, for what words he put, whatever he does,

(34:29):
because the bottom line is he's responsible for Roe versus
Wad being overturned. That's the bottom line, he's celebrated. Even
in those comments, he was celebrating that, so you know
his latest effort here can put this up on the screen.
From CNN, he was asked, I think in that shame exchange,
would he sign a federal abortion ban?

Speaker 5 (34:47):
He said, no, we don't have any more details about.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Okay, well, what if it was fifteen weeks, whatever, it
was six weeks or is it just if it's.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
A blanket abortion ban, would he not sign it?

Speaker 1 (34:55):
There's also other questions, Emily, as you know, probably better
than I do, some of the people who would potentially
be involved in this administration, they're looking at the Compstack
Act and enforcing that, which would be a de facto
abortion ban without actually having anything having to be signed
or passed through Congress.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
So what about that? So it doesn't really answer.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
A lot of questions about the sort of these sort
of like nuanced in details, but it does show you
politically he's trying to run as far away from this
as he possibly can. But again, I mean, the Biden
administration has already the Biden campaign has already put out
a very powerful and emotional ad that Zager and I
played on Tuesday on this issue. Trump has continued to

(35:36):
you know, celebrate the fact that he was the guy
that got Roe versus Wade overturned and frankly, you know,
his whole leave it up to the states thing. It
really smacks of political opportunism and pandering because it's not
a moral position. Like if you actually are pro life,
and you you genuinely are, and you think abortion is murder,
you're not going to be like, oh, but it's cool

(35:58):
if it happens in California.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
Like Californians decide, right, Yeah, No, it doesn't make a
lot of sense. Although so I heard Nancy Mace I
talked about this yesterday on NPR kind of going with
the strategy in these conversations with MPR and talking about
how most Americans find themselves at this point of agreement
in the second trimester.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
So most Americans are.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
Not on board with the full Democratic policy prescription, which
is basically like row allowed for states to make their
own decisions about what happened in the third trimester. And
Nancy Mace and a lot of Republicans have said the
best way for the GOPED a message the abortion issue
is to talk about that and then talk about you know,
sort of kicking it to the states after we find

(36:39):
that point of consensus. People have tried the fifteen week
strategy that was Lindsay Graham's big idea. People have tried
all of these different ways of talking about it since Roe,
and nothing is working.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Nothing is working.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
So that's where Trump came out and tried to going
into the summer, neutralize the question of abortion by saying,
this is my position, it's now up to the people.
Interestingly enough, the Arizona Supreme Court had a similar point.
They said this should be decided not by the court,
but by the legislature and the people of Arizona, which

(37:10):
is why they allowed the eighteen sixty fourth thing to
go into effect. And the people of Arizona are going
to make a decision. And it's not necessarily ironic, but
that being on the ballot in November. Good luck to
carry Lake and Donald Trump in November.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
If that's on the.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
Ballot in Arizona, it could be on the ballot in
a lot of other states too, and some of which
are swing states.

Speaker 5 (37:32):
It's all about in Florida as well.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, I wonder what you make of that, because listen,
on the one handed, Florida's trend to the right seems
pretty clear.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
How much does Santus want to buy, like sixteen points
or something.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
I think Trump wanted by four if memory serves thereabouts,
which is not like a crazy margin. It's not a
massive mart And especially if you believe the polling, which
I'm not sure if I do or not, but if
you believe the polling that shows Joe Biden actually doing
pretty well among older residents. Florida famously in Arizona two
has a lot of older residents. It's I'm not saying

(38:06):
Florida will be in play, but it's.

Speaker 5 (38:07):
Not crazy to me at this point.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Since you have the abortion ballat initiative, you have a
weed ballad initiative, you have you know, this older population
which seems to be more friendly to Joe Biden than
any other, you know, age demographic group that Florida could
possibly be put back in play really kind of solely.

Speaker 5 (38:24):
Based on this one issue. It's also wild.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
I know you and Ryan did a great job covering
this yesterday, but watching Republicans like Kerry Lake, who previously
all is a great, great law that's on the books.
We already got a great law in the books talking
about this eighteen sixty four thing. And then when the
court actually rules the way she claimed she wanted them
to rule, she's running away as far and as fast
as she possibly can. And you know, it was one

(38:48):
thing when this was all hypothetical, Yeah, exactly. It was
one thing when you could talk about fetal personhood and
heartbeat bills and whatever, when you weren't having court saying okay, well,
if that's the law, then there's no IVF anymore. It
was one thing when it was theoretical. Now that it's
very real, and public opinion has really shifted. And we
covered this together that since Roe versus Weight was overturned,

(39:12):
it wasn't like there was one shift and that was it.
People have continued to move to the pro choice position,
breaking what has been a multi decades long fifty to fifty.

Speaker 5 (39:22):
Split on the issue.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
And I just don't think that there is really any
messaging fixed for this because there's a big.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
Reality problem right now.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
And I know that the advice that the RNC gives
and Nancy Mace was talking about, Donald Trump has tried
to use as well as like, okay, we'll talk about
the third trimester, because that's where Democrats are on the
shakiest ground. That made a lot of sense when Roe
was in place, because all of the battleground over abortion
legislation was about the third trimester, because that was you know,
that was effectively what Roe determined.

Speaker 5 (39:52):
Well, that's not the battleground anymore.

Speaker 8 (39:54):
Now.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
The battleground is over these near complete bands. It's over
things like IVF even stem cells, things like that being
put back on the table in this real flashback to
the early two thousands kind of debate. And I think
the best Republicans can hope for is that this kind
of you know, fades into the background that people are
talking about it as much. But as long as you

(40:15):
have these ballot initiatives and you have continued court decisions
like what just happened in Arizona, good luck with that.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:21):
I mean, there's going to have to be a massive
shift in public opinion and the cultural sort of position
on abortion if Republicans want to push the issue forward
without losing and suffering massive losses.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Biden knows this.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
So Biden was also asked about the Arizona ruling yesterday
at the White House.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Let's rule this, this is B three on.

Speaker 10 (40:40):
The issue of abortion service factory. What do you say
to the people of Arizona.

Speaker 6 (40:43):
Right now, we're witnessing a law going place that dates
back to the Civil warrior.

Speaker 7 (40:49):
Elect me, I'm in the twenty twentieth century, twenty first century.
Not back then you weren't even a state. I find
thank you all very much.

Speaker 10 (41:04):
So.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
The senns you're hearing, the dulcet tones of White House
reporters shouting at the top of their lungs is at
Joe Biden as he leaves the podium and.

Speaker 5 (41:11):
Beautifully slowly shuffles away.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
We may have an entry for best bidens, questionably of
all time there when he said, elect me, I'm in
the twentieth century.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
I guess that's incredible.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Better than the nineteenth century, which is but the Republicans
are in that is the kind of choice that we're
faced with in this election. But didn't exactly stick the
landing there. But obviously I mean the fact that it's
in eighteen sixty four law.

Speaker 5 (41:38):
Yes, it is very it is very potent.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
And I'm reminded very much of the ad that was
run in the Kentucky governor's race a young woman who
was raped to saying, listen, Daniel Cameron, the Republican if
he's governor, I'd be forced to carry my I think
it was her stepfather who raped hers baby to term.
This was incredibly potent in that race, which you know,
really shifted towards Andy Basheer, the Democrat it was able

(42:04):
to get reelected, wasn't really even close at the end
of the day, and Kentucky much more conservative on this
issue than the majority of the country. You know, it
was wild for me, having lived in Kentucky previously and
being like a little bit obsessed with their politics to
see because Democrats have been getting killed in Kentucky for

(42:24):
years now on abortion. You know, this used to be
a solid Democratic state for years and years and years.
Was one of the last to sort of realign with
the Southern realignment. Appalachia, West Virginia, Kentucky where like the
last two states to really realign there and still at
the state level elect Democrats, as you can see with
with Andy Basheer, But it was cultural issues that killed
Democrats in that state. So to see like this the

(42:47):
way the script flipped and suddenly it was Democrats who
were wanting to talk about abortion. Previously, Republicans were running
all their ads on abortion this was the thing they
wanted to talk about the most, and to have that
flip on a dime. The Republicans are trying to avoid
the issue as much as possible, Democrats are trying to
run on the issue as much as possible and winning on.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
Abortion in the state of Kentucky. That was wild to me.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
And obviously, you know, there are tons of extremely just
heart wrenching, emotional stories out there that are all the
result of Row versus Way being overturned. And you can
bet you know Joe Biden's got a lot of other issues,
this is the.

Speaker 5 (43:27):
One area where the more.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
This is being talked about, no matter how Republicans try
to message, the stronger the Biden campaign's hand is here.
I mean, I sort of feel like it's sort of
the reverse of immigration. Is that issue for Republicans, which
no matter what Joe Biden says, as much as he's like,
I'm just like them, I'm just as you know, crol
and hardlism.

Speaker 5 (43:46):
I want to do what Trump wants to do.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
It's a bad issue for them and there's really nothing
they can do about it at this point without really
shifting the cultural narrative about it, and the media narrative
about it in all of those things in ways that
I personally support. But the more you're talking about that issue,
the more you're basically in quicksand for the Democratic Party
at this point, it's the same for Republicans. The best
they can do is just hope that it's not a
big topic a conversation.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah. Absolutely, there's really nothing they can do. I agree
with that completely.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
And there's been a flurry of stories just in the
last couple of days about both the Trump campaign and
the Biden campaign, because again, we're heading into summer now,
we're heading into convention season. The parties are both I know,
it's insane, both very busy planning for a summer of campaigning.
And I'm actually really excited to put this next element
up on the screen. This is before it really is hilarious, Crystal.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
There's a two different stories here.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
One is an Associated Press report on the Trump campaign
and the Biden campaign, and some people were looking at
it and saying, these are huge takeaways. Less than five
staffers in each battleground state for Trump, they can't afford
to hire staff until the summer, and GP staffers are
trashing the twenty twenty four campaign.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Meanwhile, over at.

Speaker 4 (44:55):
Vanity Fair, Gabriel Sherman tweeted his own story out where
he said, for the May issue, I report on Trump's
weirdly competent and savvy twenty twenty four campaign.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, and inside the terrifyingly competent Trump twenty twenty four campaign.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
So it's unclear as to whether Trump is just extremely
competent or so competent he's incompetent.

Speaker 5 (45:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
I just don't know what to make of it.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Actually, do you have any insights into what is reality here?
Because as I was reading the piece that said, okay,
they only have, it is kind of wild that you're
this close to the conventions and everything ramping up, you
only have like five staffers in battleground states. Meanwhile, they
contrast the Biden ministry, the Biden campaign is doing a
much more you know, traditional Okay.

Speaker 5 (45:35):
We've got our offices open, we've.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Got our big staff on the ground, We're ready to
do our mail and balloting push and all that stuff.
On the other hand, when they ran in twenty twenty,
the Trump campaign spent way too much money early and
then they were screwed down the stretch.

Speaker 5 (45:52):
I think in Georgia.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
They only they spent a tiny amount of money on
advertising because they just didn't have it. What's his name,
Brad Parscal's not his name. He was really sort of
thrown under the bus for spending wildly and you know,
putting the campaign in really dire streets from a funding perspective,
on the way, you know, on the way down the

(46:13):
stretch post labor days. So I'm wondering if there wasn't
a lesson learned from that of like, we're gonna we're
gonna harbor our resources, make sure that we've got everything
we can. And then there is a reality of a
lot of his money has gone to legal bills. You know,
it's also hampered some of his ability to campaign because
he's got all these trial dates and court appearances that

(46:34):
he has to make as well. So strangely and surprisingly,
Biden is actually out campaigning more than Donald Trump, which
is certainly not something that I would have predicted.

Speaker 5 (46:44):
So I'm not one hundred percent what to sure what
to make of this.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
On the one hand, I also think field programs, sorry,
field people out there, are overrated. They don't do all that,
especially in a presidential campaign where everybody already knows who
the candidates are, they've got their opinions formed, etc.

Speaker 5 (47:03):
On the other hand, I do.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Think that the mail in ballot initiatives and early voting
initiatives that Democrats used in twenty twenty were so significant
as compared to the non existent Republican efforts, and like
anti Republican efforts, like the fact that they were opposed to.

Speaker 5 (47:21):
Mail in balloting.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
I actually think that factor alone was the game changer.
So it kind of depends for me on how I
look at this, whether this is actually consequential or not.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
Yeah, and I misspoked this as an NBC story. There's another
AP story we're about to talk about. But in this
NBC news story, there's a source quoted saying this is
like comparing a Maserati to a Honda twenty twenty head
staff and the bodies in place to turn out the vote.
This current iteration is starting from ground zero and we're
seven months out from the election. Meanwhile, the Gabriel Sherman

(47:54):
piece in Vanity Fair is talking about how Donald Trump
is surrounding himself with ultra loyalists. Now he's sort of
learned the lesson of twenty sixteen and twenty twenty. By
the way, twenty sixteen is a great example of your
point about field operations. Asked Hillary Clinton, how that sort
of traditional competence stump for her?

Speaker 3 (48:11):
I guess she's won the popular vote, but that's you know,
you're see one president.

Speaker 4 (48:16):
Well, you know she's the rightful president if it weren't
from leadmir Putiny. So anyway, all that is to say,
this is a jexposition of a couple different things. On
the one hand, you have a campaign that may be
struggling to a wreck to that kind of infrastructure.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
On the other hand, you have.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
A campaign that is at least getting Gabe Sherman to
believe it's so competent, because shockingly competent in fact, because
Donald Trump is, it's not leaking. So like they would
point to the crazies, like I shouldn't even say crazy
so much as like the eccentric people that.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Were in his first campaigns.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Yeah, and just said they leaked all the time, and
Trump would pit them against each other in ways that
intentionally sewed chaos, and that in and of itself was
a huge distraction. But now he's just laser focused on
the job at hand. Doesn't matter though to your point, Crystal,
if you also have to pay huge legal bills that
are going to take away, no matter what, from his

(49:13):
ability to campaign on the ground. That's why he's not
doing so many rallies because they're stupid expensive.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
So there are real challenges for him.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
Being around the country in different courtrooms is going to
be a real challenge for him.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
So it's a couple of different things.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
On the one hand, I do think he learned his
lesson of you know, you really need to have He
installed loyalists at the RNC, for example, like ousted Ron
and McDaniel.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Here's the AP story. This is the next element.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
As Biden tours the country and visits Swing states, their
headline says Trump is fundraising and playing golf. You know,
it's still Biden is really out there in a way
that I find surprising. They're doing these really carefully, really
carefully stage managed.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Events, and.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
It's based what they can do at this point. But
I'm sure Trump would be doing that if he could.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
I think they feel like they have to to try
to combat the you know, Biden's too old sense and Trump, meanwhile,
I think, probably feels like my people are with me,
like and I got other stuff going on, and I
need to be raised of money because they are significantly behind.
Even with this huge fifty million dollar fundraising event that

(50:27):
they just had, they're still significantly behind where the Democrats are.
And as mentioned before, some of that is bled out
through legal bills as well.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
So the problems for him are real.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
You know, the two dueling narratives there, Both of them
serve a sort of like useful liberal narrative. On the
one hand, the Gabe Sherman one, the terrifyingly competent, Like
even that language that's like the biggest Democratic or left
of center or anti Trump fear is oh shit, last
time we got lucky because he was incompetent. Yeah, so
the worst of what he wanted to do, like stop

(50:57):
the steal. I mean, it is true, he wanted to
steal the election, and he was basically too incompetent to
actually get it done.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
And he wasn't surrounded by yes men.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
And that's right, he didn't have all his loyalists in place.
So now this time around, he's got his ducks in
a row, he's got all his loyalists in place, he's
got a plan. It's going to be different, and the
most terrifying version of Trump is going to occupy the
White House. So that narrative is served by the Gabe
Sherman piece, you know, the other piece of just like haha,
will laugh at how this is like bumbling and or

(51:26):
they don't even have staffers. They're on money, like he's
you know, he's on the ropes, et cetera. Obviously serves
a different, useful liberal narrative where the truth lies. It's
very hard for me to discern from the outside, but
you know, I think we have enough data points at
this at this juncture to say it does look like
Trump is taking on a little bit of water and

(51:46):
that he isn't doing as well as he once was
in the polls.

Speaker 5 (51:51):
One indication of this, for what.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
It's worth, is the predicted odds now actually have Joe
Biden favored over Trump. We can put this up on
the screen, So Biden is at just looking this morning,
fifty two cents.

Speaker 5 (52:07):
Trump is at forty six cents.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
So, you know, for again, for what it's worth, the
people who are trying to bet based on the outcome
of this election, now there's slightly favoring Joe Biden. We've
had a number of polls that have shifted in his direction,
though it's still very much is a jump ball. And
part of why maybe Trump is maybe taking on a
little bit of water he can put this up on

(52:30):
the screen is his legal troubles. You know, this is
the latest headline. His former close executive Alan Weislerberg, who
really was like his right hand man in a lot
of ways, was just sentenced to five months in jail
for lying basically lying on behalf of Donald Trump right,
which is no one should go to Rikers. That's a
whole other story. But part of what he was I

(52:55):
think he pled guilty to here and took this deal,
was lying about the size of Trump's the pet condo,
the penthouse, which is central to Letitia James civil fraud
suit against Trump in New York. So the fact that
all these stories Trump's criminal trial on the Stormy Daniels
hush money thing, I think is set to start next week.

Speaker 5 (53:14):
It's happening.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
They're still trying to delay it, et cetera, et cetera,
but that looks like it's going to start imminently. All
of these stories are in the headlines more and more
as legal action ramps up, and maybe that's one of
the reasons why possibly he is taking on a little
bit of water here.

Speaker 4 (53:28):
Yeah, Michael Cohene claims Weisselberg has a lot of knowledge
of what happened in the hush money case, and jury's
selection for that is set to start next week. I
think it's yet to be determined what a fact these
legal battles have on Donald Trump as we get closer
and closer to the election, how voters react to it.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
But you know, we were talking about this earlier in
the show, Crystal.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
I know for sure one thing that likely won't be
the most effective for the Biden campaign is just leaning
on the Trump is insane crutch over and over again
when inflation is where it is.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Maybe, although it worked pretty well them in the midterms,
I would have said that too true. But it did
work pretty well for them in the midterms, and you
know the.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
But with the whole country, I mean in a presidential.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Maybe I don't know. I genuinely I really don't know.
You know, I think abortion is way more potent than
I expected it to be. People didn't vote on the
economy in the way that I expected them to in
the midterms, where Democrats really outperformed. We've had all of
these special elections that have gone to Democrats, and it

(54:30):
could be the case that when you have a general
election and you have a much wider electorate, that some
of those trends are less significant. But I genuinely don't
know at this point, which is why oftentimes I feel
like when we cover politics and the show, we'll do
one block that's like inflation is really bad for biding,
and the next one's like an abortion and really good drum,
and I really bad for Trumps.

Speaker 5 (54:49):
So I don't know. That's where I am. I just
genuinely don't know.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
One thing I do know, though, is I am not
gonna be sending lunchibules in my kids lunchboxes anymore. So
consumer reports out with some new information about lunchables, the
popular item packed in many school lunchboxes, including plenty of
times in my kids school lunchboxes.

Speaker 5 (55:11):
Now I feel like a terrible mother.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
But also, and this is very notable, was recently approved
to be included in cafeteria lunches. So kids are also
you know, getting these as school lunch and their schools
in many schools across the nation. Let's put this up
on the screen with the details. So the headline here
is should you pack lunchables for your kids' school lunch?

(55:33):
The answer effectively is a resounding no. CRS tests found
the lunch kits and some similar ones from Armor, oscar
Meyer and others contained lead and other contaminants and were
high in sodium. Let me read you a little bit
of this report. So here are the findings.

Speaker 5 (55:50):
They say.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
There's a lot to be concerned about in these kids,
says Amykating, a registered dietitian at Consumer Reports. They're highly
processed and regularly eating process meat I mean ingredient many
of these products has been linked to increased risk of
some cancers. We also found that some kids had potentially
concerning heavy metal and how do you say this?

Speaker 5 (56:08):
They late theay late levels.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
And they're too high in sodium, especially for kids. Do
you think the school lunch versions might be better? Sorry,
they have even more sodium than the store pot versions.
Bottom line, we don't think anybody should regularly eat these products,
and they definitely shouldn't be considered a healthy school lunch,
says Eric Boring, PhD, a Consumer Reports chemist who led

(56:33):
CRS testing. Let me just read you a little bit
more here about the lead and cadmium piece, which to
me was in some ways the most concerning. They say,
Our experts found lead cadmium are both in all of
the kits that they tested, even in small amounts. Obviously,
these heavy metals can cause developmental problems in children. None
of the kids we looked at exceeded any legal or
regulatory limits. Still, five of the twelve tested products would

(56:56):
expose someone to fifty percent or more of California's max
allowable dose level for lead or cadmium. Our experts use
those values because there are no federal limits for heavy
metals in most foods. That is a relatively high dose
of heavy metals given these small serving sizes of the products,
which range from just two to four ounces. Their analyst says,
for example, the kids provide only about fifteen percent of

(57:17):
the sixteen hundred daily calories that a typical eight year
old requires, but that small amount of food puts them
fairly close to the daily maximum limit for lead. Even
if one meal kit doesn't push a kid over the limit,
it puts them in the danger zone because there will
likely be exposure from other sources. So if a child
gets more than half of the daily limit for lead
from so few calories, there is little room for potential

(57:39):
exposure from other foods, drinking water, or the environment.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
Emily, it's really I mean, I shouldn't say it's a
shocking report, but it's shocking in the respect that we
our food safety standards are so completely distorted. And one
of the reasons for that is just actually even in
the company that oversees launchroples in their name, which is
Craft High Craft Hines. These are very powerful companies in Washington,

(58:05):
d C. Obviously, Hines is the family that John carry
married into and Hunter Biden, the Bidens actually have used
to at least have relationships with people in that family.
And it's not just that specific. I mean, it's just
years and years of completely turning the regulations into Swiss
cheese based on who has access, and that's how you

(58:26):
end up getting things like this approved for school lunches,
and that makes more money for the company because that
means it's more sales around the country. So it's just
a special interest carving out or car at chipping away
at which should be obvious standards that we understand, but
we can't trust the regulatory agencies to do that on

(58:46):
a consistent and principal basis.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
So way back in twenty ten, I out of nowhere
decided to run for Congress. I was a new mom,
And maybe this sounds silly, or maybe it sounds really
I don't know how it sounds. But one of the
things that really drove me to take such what at
that point in my life was a really drastic step
was I was shopping for baby bottles for my infant
and realized I had to be really educated to make

(59:12):
sure there weren't toxins in the baby bottles. And you
just start to think, You're like, this is insane. How
could we expose these little, vulnerable beings to such a
perilous system. And when you really start to pull on
that thread, it connects to everything, because, like you just said,
there's a reason why lunchables are allowed in school lunches.

(59:32):
There's a reason why lunchables are allowed to have potentially
dangerous amounts of lead. And it is all about money
and politics and corrupt capture of these regulatory agencies and
the assault on these regulatory agencies in the neoliberal era,
where the budgets are cut and they're staffing stripped, and
they are undermined to the extent that even if they
had the standards, they don't have the capability to enforce

(59:54):
the standards. I did a piece back in the Rising
Days about similar things being found in baby formula, and
you just ask you, like, as someone who's trying to
do their best for their kids, how do you even
know what that is?

Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
Because listen, I was under no illusions lunchibles were like the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Greatest options for my kids, but I didn't think they
were the worst.

Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
Am No big deal?

Speaker 11 (01:00:18):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
If they have these occasionally, that's fine, right, No, apparently
it's not.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
And specifically you put this up on the screen.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Watch them posted a report a while back about how
lunchibles ended up on school lunch trees and the sub
had your weak rules in industry power have allowed ultra
processed products onto the menu. And there's a lot of
things going on here. So first of all, you've got
school funding, you know, being undermined, which means both that
you have fewer cafeteria workers will guess what, lunchables super easy.

Speaker 5 (01:00:48):
You just stack them up.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Kids can grab them for themselves, and they are familiar
with them and they're likely to eat them. Number Two,
the group that makes these recommendations has a ton of
received industry and has industry ties. So of course if
you're craft times, they say, this is a twenty five
billion dollar growth opportunity in the school lunch market. And

(01:01:09):
in order to meet these little bit of standards that
we have for quote unquote healthy school lunches, which are
utterly pathetic, ketchup is still considered a vegetable by the way,
you know, they could tweak it a little bit, and
actually in those tweaks to up, for example, the protein content,
they just pump it full of even more sodium, so
they're actually in certain ways worse for your kids. The

(01:01:31):
quote unquote healthy school lunch is actually worse for your kids.
And it gets to not only this corruption, but also
it gets to like, what are our values in this country?

Speaker 5 (01:01:41):
Yes, what are val Like? We're feeding kids.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Poison at schools. We're a wealthy country. We can't afford
to have at least some decent, nutritious stuff that our
kids are eating when they're trying to learn and their
brains are developing and they're in this critical time period.
And look at the health fallout, look at the obesity rates,
look at the chronic health problems that we have in
this country, some of which is, you know, due to

(01:02:05):
the fact we don't have universal healthcare, and a lot
of it is due to the fact of the influence
of big food and how cheap and easy this stuff
is and how much we pump kids full of it
from a very early age.

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Yeah, a lot of this happened really quickly, and we
were like the frogs in the boiling pot and didn't
realize that we were guinea pigs in this mass experiment
that had some really damaging consequences. One of the interesting
things we can put the next element up on the
screen about lunchables in particular. This was a San Francisco
Gate story. There's some actually some good books that have
been written or that touch on this topic of actually

(01:02:38):
lunchibles in particular. The subheading of this story is a
cigarette giant turned the middling product into a lunchtime juggernaut. Well,
what that means is actually, as cigarette sales started to plummet,
Philip Morris, Philip Morris made lunchabules. They popularized lunchibles. Essentially
bought lunchabules and found a way to market them with

(01:03:00):
great success, market them to parents and find a way
to make them super, super tasty for kids.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Here's a great quote from the San Francisco Gate piece.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
They say, if your impression is that the lack of
nutrition in lunchibles is a byproduct of cost saving measures,
Lunchible's history belies that perhaps the strangest thing about Lunchible's
legacy is that its manufacturers repeatedly try to pivot toward
healthier ingredients, only to fail every time. They just continued
the lunchibles with fruit line. People actually might even remember
that it's just their business. This is their business, and

(01:03:33):
it's really I think perfect that Philip Morris is who
popularized the Lunchi bowl.

Speaker 10 (01:03:38):
It just speaks to.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):
Exactly how backwards are approach to food food safety is.
And I think we're starting to catch up and starting
to understand the way that these foods are intentionally designed
to maximize their addictive quality, is to maximize their non
perishability or their slow perishability and all of that. It's

(01:04:01):
really sad, but we've all been experiments in this for
you know, decades. My mom's rule was I only got
lunchables on field trips, and that was like the best,
because I love pizza, lunchibles.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
They're really good. They're really good.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Kyle loves people Pizza lunchable that is that is not
surprising at all, so disgusting because they're not even heated. Uh,
it's just like this cold bread. Yes it's great and
it's like gross tomato sauce.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
But you get to make it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:24):
Yeah, that's but that was the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
So apparently the origin story is oscar Meyer had like
balooney was not really popular anymore, and they had all this.

Speaker 5 (01:04:33):
Extra bologny and they're like, what are we going to
do with all this boloney?

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
And so this is what they came up with was, Aha,
we'll market it to these kids and be like, oh.

Speaker 5 (01:04:41):
You're in control.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
You're empowered in your lunch because you, you know, put
the cracker in the cheese and the meat together, so you're.

Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
In control of the lunchible. You the kid, You the kid.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Yeah, and to and obviously listen as a parent, you know,
I can relate to this. I don't know why I
hate making school lunches like I hate making lunches. There's
something about that. It's like the bane of my parental existence.
And so if you've got this thing, you can just
pull off the shelve and stick in the lunch box.
It's pretty nice, right, So it appealed to the kids,
appealed to the parents, and they started selling like hotcakes.

(01:05:11):
But the problem was, to begin with, it actually wasn't
profitable because the trays cost too much money. And so
that was the Philip Morris when they bought I guess
they bought Craft. Yeah, so it was Oscar mind and
then they merged with Craft and morris By's Craft anyway, whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
Already there's a monopoly story here too.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
By the way, they're like, well, no, if you're selling them,
we're going to figure out how to make them profitable,
and so they crack the code of how to make
them profitable and then the rest of his history. But
you know, I also think it's the fact that the
fruit ones and the more healthy ones failed also says
something too, because it's not like, obviously, if you just

(01:05:50):
get the lunch abowles out of the food system, then
it's all going to be fixed. It's that you have
a whole systemic problem. And so yeah, kids are like, oh,
this is the I'm used to eating all the time,
So no, I don't want this like healthier version I
want the crap. That's what I'm used to, right, That's
what my body is like raised on and expects, and
we obviously see disasterus health consequences down the line.

Speaker 5 (01:06:11):
So anyway, the reason.

Speaker 4 (01:06:12):
We're so attraction to these foods, at least you know,
in the moment, short term, is because they're not There's
these are combinations that are not found in nature, right,
and it's made to be as palatable as possible. Like
think about like skittles, like taste great immediately and then
you're like, oh, I just ate plastic, all right, but
I just feel like right, yeah, but it's that's again,

(01:06:33):
these are it's it's preying on I think a real
problem of moms needing convenient, Like moms are overworked, moms
are doing so much and parents in general are doing
so much, and this is just like praying on the
need for something really easy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Yeah, there's kind of a two income trap story here,
yes as well, you know, as you need to income
earners in the household time to you know, carefully prepare
a healthy and neutrient.

Speaker 5 (01:07:00):
Just lunch is less available.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
And I don't know the story about lunch bols in particular,
but a lot of these foods have been given the
rubber stamp of healthy because they have corporate capture the
at the regulatory agencies that allow you to put that
you're healthy on the box of cereal, that you're a
good source of whatever in the box of cereal, and
it's just it's not really true in the big pictures.
So it's really sad what we've allowed to happen to

(01:07:25):
the thing. And just very briefly from a conservative perspective,
when there's criticism of regulation, you know, I think there's
some reasonable criticism of regulation in some sectors, but in
other sectors when we're talking about literally the thing that
is the building block of a healthy family.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
How can you have a healthy, happy.

Speaker 4 (01:07:47):
Family if what we are eating we are told is
healthy and it's actually terrible for you, Like, that's not
the pathway to fulfillment, success as a human being, just
prospering as families. It's just obviously deregulating the industries that
are our physical health when our physical health is on

(01:08:08):
the line is probably not the way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Yeah, there's a real conservative core value of putting actual
family values, yeah, and protection of children above even like
corporate profit margins, absolutely so I think that's an important note.

Speaker 5 (01:08:23):
All right, guys, for the latest sound of Israel and Gaza.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Are very fortunate, Pete joined by a fantastic guest this morning,
so let's go ahead and get to that. For the
latest on developments out of Israel and Gaza, we are
very fortunate this morning to be joined by an extraordinary
journalist and Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy. He's also a calumnist
for Haretz and an author. Welcome, sir, so great to
have you.

Speaker 10 (01:08:44):
Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Let's go ahead and put Gideon's latest column here up
on the screen. The headline here is no victory awaits
Israel in Rafa, only more death and destruction. We just
read you a little bit of this for the audience.
On the eve of the possible quest of Rafa. One
camp demands Rafa and another camp demands the release of
the hostages. No one says no to the conquest of Rafa.

(01:09:08):
No reservist threatens to refuse to serve in Rafa if
Israel invades the city. In the face of the lust
for blood and revenge. There is no opposing camp. Only
against Benjamin nt Yahoo, the primary culprit, but not the
only one. Is there a determined camp. What do you
think is the significance of the Israeli plans to invade Rafa.

Speaker 11 (01:09:31):
I know their way of thinking, namely that without Rafa
we will never break Hamas. But they say souls in
Communis they say soul. So in Gaza city it's always
like the horizon. The next stop will be the finest one,
and you'll never reach it. Because meanwhile, in the north

(01:09:51):
part of Gaza you see this Kramas is big. We
have to know a few things about Rafa. Raffa is
the southstu in the Gaza street, mainly operated by refugees
from nineteen forty eight, a very poor place.

Speaker 10 (01:10:06):
I've with them many times.

Speaker 11 (01:10:08):
But in this war, in the last half year, one
point two million uprooted people replaced. People were told by
is to find rescue in Ruffe. Without any kind of
infrastructure or water, would no place to stay, living in
kind of tents. And now Israel wants to invade this

(01:10:33):
biggest refuge place in the world, maybe the biggest refugee place. Sorry,
And I asked myself where will those people go and
who will guarantee their lives? Those are people who went
through hell in the last half a year. Those people
lost everything in their lives. Part of them lost their relative,

(01:10:54):
their parents, their sons, their children. Part of them lost
their homes. Also they lost their own What do we
want them now? So therefore, by my really opinion is Liz,
give it up, give it up, because nothing would make
out of it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
Yeah, and I want to stay on that point of
what could come out of it, even you know, sort
of taking the net Yahoo argument at face value about
how this is essential to the destruction of Hamas. From
your perspective, if this is if this operation goes ahead,
what even is the best case scenario for the net
Yahoo administration, Because one thing we know for sure is

(01:11:32):
that it's it's not going to destroy Hamas and an
operation in Ravas there is just that's that does not
assure the destruction of Hamas. So what could the outcome
be even the best case scenario for the net Yahoo administration.

Speaker 10 (01:11:45):
No, there is no best case scenario. There's nothing good
in this scenario.

Speaker 11 (01:11:49):
The best sending case scenario from their point of view
was really to destroy Hamas. But we both agree that
this is not achievable because Hamas is of being destroyed,
and there is story such an organization. There is a
way to harm the military capabilities, and this is what
it done enough in the last half the year. There

(01:12:12):
is no best case scenario. PONTANIAO. I'm afraid there are
also different calculations. As long as the goals going on.
His government is in power, there are no elections, and
his career is guaranteed. Is it the only consideration? I'm
sure not. Is it one of his considerations?

Speaker 10 (01:12:31):
Yes? Is it jitimate one?

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Get in you right in your column. There is no
opposition to war in Israel, and I wonder why you
think that is. I mean, at this point we even
have the US government acknowledging there's a famine at least
in northern Gaza. We are seeing children who are starving
to death, babies who are starving to death. We have
somewhere around forty thousand Palestinians who have been killed, many

(01:12:57):
of them the majority of whom are women in children.
Why is there no significant opposition to this war in Israel?

Speaker 11 (01:13:04):
Because something very dramatic happened on the seventh of October
when Israel and israelis stall nose atrocities in the south,
the killing the kidnapping and other crimes that were conducted there.

Speaker 10 (01:13:21):
They decided that they are.

Speaker 11 (01:13:23):
Not interested anymore at all any kind of embassy toward
the Palestinians, in any kind of dialog with the Palestinians,
in anything with the Palestian It's a very emotional, primative reaction,
which I cannot criticize, but that's not the policy.

Speaker 10 (01:13:41):
And above all the Israelis and Israel.

Speaker 11 (01:13:44):
Go to the conclusion that after those crimes, has the
right to do whatever it wants, and this is almost illegal,
enormous as well as things like any country in the world,
and it cannot do whatever. Words to this year have
to add the fact that the Israeli media, free and commercial,

(01:14:05):
private owned, had decided voluntarily that they are not going
to batther the Israelis with scenes from Gaza.

Speaker 10 (01:14:14):
You will not see the suppware, you will not see
the starvation, you will not see the destruction.

Speaker 11 (01:14:20):
Because we know you Israelis, you don't want to see it,
and we will do this service for you, and we
will not show it for me.

Speaker 10 (01:14:28):
And that's that's fatal.

Speaker 11 (01:14:30):
Because most of the Israelis are not exposed to nothing
from what is going on in Gaza, and this shapes
their mind.

Speaker 10 (01:14:38):
They really believe that Israel.

Speaker 11 (01:14:39):
Is killing only terrorists who deserve to be killed, and
Israel is living peace ws in and are quite happy
about this warm as they are very unhappy with the
fact that the ostrigers are still missing. They are very
unhappy with the killings of Israeli soldiers. They are very
empathetic about the unbelievable human tragedy on the other side.

Speaker 4 (01:15:05):
Well, and just on that point about the hostages, and
while we're talking about Rafa, because that is front of
mine for so many people, and as you were just explaining,
is really public opinion. What's the potential outcome for the
remaining hostages if there is a ground.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
Operation in Rafa going forward? What's the potential outcome is there?

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
Is it possible that the kind of best case scenario
of recovering hostages safely and getting families some closure or
at least some certainty, is an outcome ahead or what
do you make of that get in You.

Speaker 10 (01:15:40):
Know, I don't know. I don't know, because nobody knows
where are the hostages.

Speaker 11 (01:15:44):
But I know one thing is really striving now for
six months to release them through military pressure, very messing
military pressure. Killings and destruction. It didn't work. Why would
you work?

Speaker 10 (01:15:58):
Now?

Speaker 11 (01:16:00):
We have to realize that the hostages will and can
be released only in one way, through a deal, and
a deal means Israel paying for their release, paying not
in money, but in terms of releasing a Palestinian prisoner,
big quantities and other conditions. If joy is so eager

(01:16:21):
to see the hostage frae, it should have gone for
a deal long time ago.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
I wanted to get your reaction getting in if we
can put guys D one up on the screen. Yesterday
there was an Israeli military strike that killed three children
of the Hamas political leader is Mael Honiah and Gaza,
along with a number something like three of his young
grandchildren as well. There was a lot of theorizing that
this could be connected to the ceasefire talks that are ongoing.

(01:16:49):
I don't know how likely successful those ceasefire talks are
going to be, but do you see these two things
as connected? Because the theory was that now, who doesn't
really want a ceasefire at the moment, as you pointed
out and many others appointed out as well, he needs
this war to continue in order to keep his hold
on power. Do you think that there's a connection there

(01:17:09):
and what do you make of these strikes?

Speaker 11 (01:17:10):
The Isuelis claim the authorities claim that this operation was
not approved by high levels. Is it true or not?
I can't tell, but that's their claim. It was local
commanders who approved this operation. If so, then something is
very wrong in the decision making process of the Israeli

(01:17:32):
Army because such sensitive operation, feeling six members of the
family of Israeilanea in such a sensitive time, which goes
for high ranks and politicians and government, shows that we
are facing anarchy in the Isuli Army. This cannot be

(01:17:53):
accepted that such an operation will not.

Speaker 14 (01:17:55):
Be approved by the highest drinks until the primaryst so
other either there is a plucky or they are lying
and most possibilities I cannot tell you where is the truth?

Speaker 10 (01:18:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
I think it's now long been clear that the military
operation in Gaza has not been some surgical hunt for Hamas. Obviously,
Nanyahu has his own political considerations of just trying to
hold onto power as long as possible. But from your perspective,
getting what is the true goal, what are the true
motivating reasons for the all out destruction and annihilation that

(01:18:33):
we've seen, and starvation used as a weapon of war
that we've seen in Gaza.

Speaker 11 (01:18:40):
I truly believe that the main motivation is to punish,
to take revenge, to show the people of Israel that
we are doing something too, that we are teaching the
Palestinians and Hamas lesson.

Speaker 10 (01:18:57):
Every serious person knows that much more or will not
come out of this war.

Speaker 11 (01:19:02):
Nothing of the goals will be achieved, and nothing worth
achieved than half the year. It's not that I'm speculating now.
In half the year, one of the longest walls between
Israel and Palace is the achieved nothing. Why to believe
that another half the year will be any better? But
by the end of the day, it's really to punish
and to take revenge.

Speaker 10 (01:19:24):
Is it legitimate? I doubt it. Is it justified? I
don't know. Is it clever? I know that's very much.

Speaker 5 (01:19:32):
What level of pressure do you feel personally?

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
Because I have to say, I really admire your courage
being and as really journalists runing an Israeli newspaper and
expressing opinions that, as you yourself will readily admit, are
basically unheard of throughout most of Israeli society. What sort
of personal pressure have you come under, especially post October seventh.

Speaker 11 (01:19:53):
I must be friends with you and tell you that
if from so many points of view, I went through
was wars. From my perspective in terms of being exposed
to pressure, to threats, and two Fotina even had the
bodyguards because there was no other choice.

Speaker 10 (01:20:12):
The main.

Speaker 11 (01:20:14):
Loneliness, the main really challenge, is the fact that many
of my friends changed their mind in.

Speaker 10 (01:20:23):
This war and didn't turn back.

Speaker 11 (01:20:26):
So part of what was called the Beascamp really changed
its mind dramatically, and I'm more lonely than ever. It's
not very pleasant, but it's much less pleasant to be
in now refugure in rough at this I can ensure.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
Yeah, well, we really admire your courage and your principles.
I've been reading you closely for quite a while now,
so it's an honor to get to speak with you,
and I'm so grateful for you taking some time with.

Speaker 5 (01:20:53):
Us this morning.

Speaker 10 (01:20:54):
Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 5 (01:20:56):
It's our pleasure.

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
Stay safe.

Speaker 4 (01:21:01):
Tucker Carlson over at the Tucker Carlson Network did an
interview with a pastor in the West Bank, a Palestinian
pastor in the West Bank that made huge waves sort
of across.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
The online right this week.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
I would just want to start with a clip from
the interview and then we can get into why exactly
people are so upset about it. So here's a Tucker
Carlson with Isaac Munther, a Lutheran pastor again in the
West Bank.

Speaker 12 (01:21:26):
If you wake up in the morning and decide that
your Christian faith requires you to support a foreign government
blowing up churches and killing Christians, I think you've lost
the thread. Just to end on this, if you had
a message for Christian leaders in the United States, whether
in government or in churches, or just citizens who care
about the religion their fellow Christians, what would it be.

Speaker 13 (01:21:49):
It would be to remind them that when the state
of Israel was created, it was not created on an
empty land. It was created on a land that had
many a self indigenous Potestinians, including Palestinian Christians, and that
that state they support, that state they celebrated as a
fulfillment of prophecy and the sign of God's state to

(01:22:10):
the Jewish people. For it to become a state, hundreds
of thousands of Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians were forced to
leave and have never returned. There is a very very
brutal war taking place, and a war that I've described
using the word genocide because it's a war that has

(01:22:31):
used if it's starvation as a me and fellow Christians
are suffering because of that war.

Speaker 12 (01:22:37):
Father, thank you for your thoroughly decent and sensible analysis,
and I hope it's heard by Christians.

Speaker 10 (01:22:43):
Ruth the West.

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
Okay, so again the key Tucker Carlson quote.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
There, if you wake up in the morning and decide
your Christian faith requires you to support a foreign government
blowing up churches and killing Christians, I think you've lost
the thread. That could also obviously be applied to the
United States in the Cold War era. We talk about
Al Salvador and all of that. But just sticking here
for now, it's worth noting there's so much to kind
of break down from this, but it's worth noting that

(01:23:08):
so I grew up missourition and Lutherans in the United
States a more conservative denomination of Lutheranism than Evangelical Lutheranism
alka the Evangelical luther in Church of America. This denomination
of Lutheranism in the Holy Land. Is it's worth again
saying more liberal this particular. So the person that Tucker

(01:23:28):
Carlson interviewed actually was sort of championing the ordination of women,
like kind of a progressive denomination, progressive version of Lutheranism,
which is an interesting kind of crossover with Tucker Carlson
finding common cause on that question of Christian persecution. There
are about three thousand of his denomination Lutherans in Gaza.
There are forty seven thousand Christians. At least that was

(01:23:49):
as of twenty seventeen. I'm sure that number has gone down.
So he also went viral last year, which some people
may remember. Chris, so I think you remember this. He
had this viral sermon Christmas sermon where he said if
Jesus were to be born today, he would be born
under the rubble in Gaza. He gave a sort of
homily around Christmas where he said Christ and the rebbel

(01:24:11):
a liturgy of lament. That was the title of the service.
Here's another quote from him. People keep leaving because of
the political reality life under a very harsh Israel Israeli
military occupation is difficult to bearn As a result, many
young Palestinian Christians continue to leave, for example, Bethlehem, that's
where one of his churches is one of the churches
he leaves leeds choosing to find a better and easier

(01:24:31):
life elsewhere. Now in the best the sort, I'm trying
to put the best faith approach to Tucker's critics here,
and I don't think this was I think this is
probably a strange and it probably not the best.

Speaker 3 (01:24:45):
Interview for Tucker.

Speaker 4 (01:24:47):
But his critics of him just having this conversation with
this Lutheran pastor. You know, they said this particular pastor
was championing Hamas because they pulled this clip of him
in an address on October ninth saying, you know, one
of the scenes that left an impression on my mind yesterday,

(01:25:07):
and there are many scenes, is the scene of Israeli
youth who were celebrating a concert in the open air
just outside the borders of Gaza, and how they escaped.
What a great contradiction between the besieged poor on the
one hand and the wealthy people celebrating as if there
was nothing behind the wall. What is happening is an
embodiment of the injustice that has befallen us as Palestinians
since the Knakba until now. He also said in that address,

(01:25:27):
we do not justify or support the killing of civilians
or the abuse of corpses or prisoners. War is always ugly,
but the hypocrisy of the world is something truly harmful.
Today we are called first to pray, pray for the
word to stop, pray for protection for the innocent. Every
human being who dies is a human being created in
the image of God. God does not rejoice in death,
and we do not rejoice in death. But because he

(01:25:49):
says things like Israeli occupation, I think he referred to
the siege at one point, it's obvious that he's coming
from what we in the United States would category as
a leftist position on this particular question. It's obvious, but
to say that Tucker Carlson should not interview and should
not have expressed any sympathies for someone coming from that

(01:26:13):
perspective who lives it every day in Bethlehem, which is
a very contested territory. To say that his perspective is
not worth hearing out in the United States and there's
no reason for somebody to express sympathy with that position,
I think is actually really unfortunate and speaks to the
way that we have, just even on the right, created

(01:26:36):
these blocks and these bubbles that it's just you cannot
even ask questions without being categorized by some people. There's
some really good faith disagreement on this, and I would
disagree with some of what Tucker Carlson said in that
interview myself. We have to be able to talk about
some of these things, though, because there are more than

(01:26:56):
forty thousand Christians in Gaza.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
Yeah, and that is a very uncomfortable fact. I think
for people who are just lockstep, anything Israel does is fine.
There's also obviously religious view. I mean, the religious group
that has the most favorable view of the net Yahoo
government is not Jewish Americans, It's white Evangelical Christians. So

(01:27:21):
Michael Tracy actually tweeted this out, and I thought this
was well said. He said, Palestinian Christians are the most
cognitive dissonance inducing demographic for the pro Israel GOP consensus.
Many GOP voters literally do not even know.

Speaker 5 (01:27:33):
That they exist. That's why the pro war cheerleaders.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
Are reacting so angrily to Tucker simply interviewing one of them.
With regard to this pastory right I was familiar with.
I saw his Christmas sermon which was beautiful and went viral,
and I think, you know, spoke to humanity. I wouldn't
say it was left wing. I would say it was
pro humanity. In fact, some of the messaging and it
was rather conservative, talking about the commercialization of Christmas and

(01:27:58):
how Christmas is not about Sannah and a tree and gifts,
It's about the message of Jesus. I saw another sermon
of his that went viral as well. So he's been
a very powerful voice. He lives in Bethlehem under Israeli occupation,
surrounded by settlements and having to deal with all that
that entails and the Christian population of Bethlehem, and this

(01:28:20):
is one of the things that was really I think
contested in some of the reaction has significantly diminished, and
the reason is quite clear. There's a lot of polling
on this. Seventy eight percent of Christian residents of Bethlehem
cited Israel's occupation as the main reason why they moved away.
Only three percent blamed the rise of islam movements like Hamas.

(01:28:40):
Because this was some of the pushback, It's like, oh well,
Bethlehem used to be predominantly Christian and it's not anymore.
And it's because of this these Muslim fundamentalists. Well, according
to the Christians who moved out of Bethlo, that's not
the case. They moved away because they were living under
occupation and all of the indignities and humanities that that entails.

(01:29:02):
This was written up by Electronic Intofada, but it was
a you know, a nonpartisan organization that did the polling here.

Speaker 3 (01:29:07):
That's exactly yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
Bethline surveys show support for town of Christ's birth and
confusion over its location. They also interviewed Americans who were
pretty confused over what exactly was going on in Bethlehem,
but that key data about seventy eight percent saying it
was Israel's occupation is the reason that they left. And
in addition, you know, obviously you have had churches under
assault in the Gaza Strip. In fact, you had two

(01:29:31):
Christian women, a mother and daughter, who were sniped and
killed in the early days of this conflict.

Speaker 5 (01:29:37):
We covered it here. I don't know if you all
recall that or not.

Speaker 4 (01:29:39):
But Idea have disputes it, which has also became an
issue in this whole viral conflict Trinac.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
By the way, I personally believe the eyewitness eyewitnesses who
were on the ground versus the idea of who lies
all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:29:53):
But one of the oldest churches, maybe the oldest church
actually in Gaza was bombed and lots of Christian died
there earlier in the war. Sharin Abu Akle was Christian,
was Christian Al Jazeera journalist. Obviously, the IDF story changed
on her.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
Well, they admitted they killed her though, yes, ultimately they
admitted and again that she was a Christian Postinian Christian, and.

Speaker 5 (01:30:16):
The attacks American too.

Speaker 1 (01:30:17):
They attacked mourners at her funeral as well, if people
recall but.

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
And so if we can't even talk about this, that's
a little ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
Yeah, and even the you know, the pushback, oh this
you know this pastor he said, X y Z listen.
I don't know every word that this man has uttered
and whether I co signed them or not. But that
doesn't really rebut what he's saying, what Tucker's arguing here,
and the comments I saw that he made about October seventh,

(01:30:45):
you know, I tried to gingerly and very carefully make
some similar remarks about the festival goers.

Speaker 5 (01:30:52):
This is not in any way.

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
To sanction their murder, which was horrifying, which was an outrageous,
indefensible atrocity. I'm not denying that, I would never deny that.
But there was something that was worth commenting on about
the fact that's so close to the Gaza strip, this
open air prison. You had people who were going about
their lives as if that was completely invisible, and that

(01:31:17):
was the overall reality of Israeli society prior to October seventh.

Speaker 5 (01:31:22):
Was this idea that.

Speaker 1 (01:31:22):
We can just keep these people out of sight, out
of mind. We can go ahead with normalization with Saudi Arabia,
with other Gulf Arab states. We can just pretend they
don't exist. And net Yahuo would say things like, you know,
I can control the height of the flame. They would
go in for these boeing of the lawn operations every
now and again, but for your average Israeli they never
really had to come into contact with Palestinians.

Speaker 5 (01:31:44):
So that seemed to me more what he was commenting on.

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
But again, even if he said something about October seventh
that I genuinely objected to, that does not undercut the
argument that's being made now. Now, the other thing I
would say is that you know, with regard to and
choosing this particular issue to push on and focusing only
on Christians as opposed to the many, many more tens

(01:32:09):
of thousands of Muslims who've been slaughtered in Gaza. You know,
the most charitable interpretation is kind of the Michael Tracy
one of like he knows this is the one that's
the most difficult for the right to deal with. But
you know, the uncharitable interpretation is like, well, you only
care about the Christians. You don't care about all of
humanity that is suffering in Gaza right now, the little

(01:32:30):
you know, Muslim babies who were being starved to death,
et cetera. But I'll give it to Tucker. He sure
knows how to stir the pot, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:32:38):
Speaking of which, yeah, we can just quickly give everyone
a flavor of the backlash.

Speaker 3 (01:32:41):
Put you two up on the screen.

Speaker 4 (01:32:44):
One critic of Tucker who said, quote, there is no
one in America, American life who thinks less of Christians
than Tucker. He doesn't like Jews, but he at least
doesn't think we're stupid. Even Trump's Bible selling is transparently transactional.
Tucker's entire stick relies on his belief that Christians are dullible,

(01:33:04):
gullible SAPs. That's from a senior editor over at Commentary Magazine.
By the way, I mean, Tucker has very openly in
the last couple of years talked about going much deeper
into his own faith personally, which I've heard him do
it at events. It's a very compelling story, and it's
actually a very honest story. So I sort of take
issue with that point that there's no one in American

(01:33:26):
life that thinks less of Christians than Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 3 (01:33:29):
Here's a tweet from David M. Friedman. This is the
next element we can put up.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
This was in Trump's Ambassador Israel, so particularly noteworthy that
he made this commentary.

Speaker 4 (01:33:39):
Yes, he said, Tucker my friend. Before the Palestinians took
over Bethlehem pursued into the Oslo Cords of the mid
nineteen nineties, Bethlehem was under Israeli control in his population
was eighty percent Christian.

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
It was one of the centers of the Christian world.

Speaker 4 (01:33:49):
Since Oslo and the resulting Palestinian rule, Bethlehem became eighty
percent Muslim and Christians are afraid, but they don't speak
out against Palstini authority because you just can't survive.

Speaker 3 (01:33:58):
You know, this is an interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:33:59):
Point because you talk about the Azads, you could talk
about I mean, you could go into a lot from
that point. But it's also just this idea that because
Tucker interviewed this pastor, he doesn't believe that there are
also Muslim persecutions of Christians like that happens too, Like
he's not saying it doesn't. And so it's just this

(01:34:22):
this is what I meant earlier about the boxes and
the bubbles that like, if he asked questions, he's immediately
categorized with this full suite of opinions that he may
or may not hold. But in this case, it's very
likely that he would never dispute that in a million years.
You would never dispute that, because he talks about it frequently,
you know, the sort of like what's happened in Paris
and different places in Europe. So I just it's very frustrating,

(01:34:46):
but that's also I guess the nature of Twitter. We
can put this next sweet up on the screen from
Dan Crenshaw, Sager's best friend, Dan Dan Crenshaw. He took
the opportunity to say, this is who Tucker is, a
click chaser. Tucker's mo is simple, defend America's enemies and
attack America's allies again just immediately prescribing to him this
full suite of opinions. Because and Crenshaw then mocks the

(01:35:08):
idea that you're just asking questions. I would really prefer
that people did just ask questions as opposed to people
just swallowing the line that Dan Crenshaw feeds them.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
Look, I don't have a high opinion of Tucker Carlson,
but you have to deal with like what he's actually
laying out here and not just below always just chasing clicks.

Speaker 5 (01:35:26):
Yeah, I mean, that's just cheap and easy.

Speaker 1 (01:35:28):
To go back to the Freedman comments about oh, Bethlehem
was under Israeli controlled its populous to eighty percent Christian.
He says that resulting Palestinian rule is why Bethlehem became
eighty percent Muslim and Christians are afraid. This goes back
to the polling that I had before. Yeah, that's just
not true if you ask the people that left, that's
not the Muslim rule was what did I say three

(01:35:49):
percent said that the rise of Islamic movements like Humas
were the reason that they left. Seventy eight percent said
it's because of Israeli occupation. And even if you put
the West Bank aside, you look at what's happening in Gaza,
like Christians are being killed, their churches are being attacked.

Speaker 5 (01:36:07):
These things are undeniable.

Speaker 1 (01:36:09):
So you know a lot of and you hear this
not just with regard to Christians, but you hear this
with regards to other minority groups within Israel outside of.

Speaker 5 (01:36:18):
The occupied territories.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
Oh well, you know, if you're a Muslim in Israel,
you'd rather be a You have more rights there than
in many other countries in the Middle East. But they
never want to talk about people who are living under
occupation under this apartheid system. Yes, if you are a
small minority group that does not threaten the demographic majority,
they'll you be okay. But then if you say okay,

(01:36:40):
well just extend those rights to the palestinane thrower living
in the West Bank and in Gaza.

Speaker 5 (01:36:46):
Can't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:47):
And you know, to your point Emily about the about
more universalist values, like I have no interest in and
am opposed to Muslim fundamentalist governments, and I opposed to
Jewish fundamentalist governments and Christian fundamentalist governments. And you know
that's I believe in the pluralism and secularism that we

(01:37:10):
have at our best here in America, and that is
across the board and not subject to, you know, my
feeling about one religion or another religion.

Speaker 4 (01:37:18):
By the way, a lot of the Chinese nationals coming
over the border right now say they're Christians who are
seeking asylum here because of religious persecution in China, and
so I think it's just another great illustration of how
sometimes our reflexive categorization. And you know, we have different
opinions on what's happening at the border, but we so

(01:37:40):
many like human stories get lost in that categorization that's
fueled by places like Twitter. It's sad, well, Christal, I
got a preview of your monologue a little bit earlier,
and there's some real deep cuts in it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:56):
I'm excited to hear it. What have you got for us?

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
There are countless Washington who've made an entire career out
of being perpetually wrong, but in all the right ways.
It's amazing how you can excel in this down simply
by adopting all of the DC approved wrong takes, some
by the way, with utterly disastrous consequences. One of the
individuals who has successfully charted such a career path is
New York Magazines Jonathan Chate, and now he has added

(01:38:19):
another doozy to his list of extraordinarily bad takes. Ready
for this one at a time when our country is
blocking aid to people who are starving by defunding UNRA
and shipping two thousand pound bombs to be dropped on
babies in refugee camps. Jonathan Chate has identified the real
villain in the situation the activists who disrupt democratic elite

(01:38:39):
political events calling for a ceasefire and an end to genocide.
Here is that piece. The headline is the left wing
authoritarians shutting down the Democratic Party. In it, Chate invites
us to imagine a world in which trump aline protesters
are able to disrupt and drown out a Jamie Raskin's
speech on democracy the horror. He then posits that it

(01:39:01):
would be obvious that such a tactic was unacceptable in principle,
but since its pro Palestine, protesters using this method criticism
has been muted on a fear that to aggressively disagree
with such protesters would risk permanently alienating them from the
Biden coalition. Chit writes, quote, this pattern of behavior is
illiberal and dangerous. Drowning out speakers and disrupting exercises in politics,

(01:39:25):
regardless of its cause or the target, is wrong on principle. Now,
before I engage with the details of his willfully bankrupt arguments,
let's start with the most obvious and frankly most important point.
Jonathan Chait is a well paid, well connected calmnis for
New York Magazine who can apparently write and publish pretty
much whatever the hell he wants, And his choice right

(01:39:45):
now is to tone police the protesters desperately trying to
feed starving babies, block an ethnic cleansing, and stop a genocide.
Imagine tutting the abolitionist for their unseemly tactics. You know,
harboring fugitive slaves is wrong on principle. You can imagine
a nineteenth century Chait opining, or imagine scolding civil rights
activists for disrupting ordinary americans lunch counter experience. Sure, I

(01:40:09):
may have some quibbles with Jim Crow, But these lefty
Marxist are out of control.

Speaker 5 (01:40:13):
Or had he lived in Germany during.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
World War II, excoriating those secretly plotting Hitler's overthrow, these
are illiberal tactics, Chait may have declared. Now, not a
single reasonable person would look back upon such a person
in making these arguments and see righteousness, justice or liberalism. Instead,
it is atrocity apologia. Or more to the point, if
disrupting a Joe Biden's speech is illiberal, how shall we

(01:40:37):
describe secretly expediting over one hundred shipments of weapons to
massacre children who are simultaneously helping to starve to death.
But Jonathan Chate is a man determined to place himself
on the wrong side of history at every chance he
possibly can. During the Iraq War, you could find him
in the pages of the Washington Post castigating liberals not
to go along with those crazy lefties who were doubting

(01:40:58):
the ironclad evidence of Saddam WMDs.

Speaker 5 (01:41:01):
He wrote, and I quote.

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
The notion that Bush made up the whole thing about
weapons of mass destruction has taken root on the left
and is creeping ever closer to the liberal mainstream. My
fellow liberals who have taken up this line are once
again making a disastrous misjudgment.

Speaker 5 (01:41:18):
He argued in twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:41:19):
Sixteen that liberals should quote earnestly and patriotically support a
Trump nomination because Chate was so confident that Trump would
lose to Hillary. Now after getting his Trump nomination, which wish,
he then wrote this column, which Age, like sour Milk headlined,
Trump won't win Michigan. In general, Chate's beat is to
serve as an anti left reactionary. Where we find the

(01:41:41):
left taking out some position on an issue, whether it
is opposing the Iraq War correctly, criticizing Obama correctly, supporting
Bernie over Hillary correctly, or opposing genocide correctly, you'll find
Jonathan Chate working feverishly on a column explaining why these
positions are an affront to decency and not the stuff
of serious fellows such as himself. And so it is
with this particular column let's go ahead and dive in,

(01:42:03):
shall we first. Chake claims in his initial setup that
these activists, the pro Palestine activists, have been handled with
kid gloves by those who should be trashing them, writing quote,
because Democrats perceive some of the protesters as potential Biden voters.
They have soft peddled their criticism of their tactics. Oh really,
tell that to Nancy Pelosi, who just reiterated her suggestion

(01:42:25):
that Ceesfire protesters were effectively traders doing.

Speaker 5 (01:42:27):
The bidding of Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 1 (01:42:29):
On the contrary, Pro Palestine activists have been relentlessly smeared, doxed,
and subjected to abuse since the outset of this conflict
and before.

Speaker 5 (01:42:37):
By the way, you may.

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
Recall an entire multi day news cycle around the activities
of protesters on college campuses. This smear campaign was then
supercharged by billionaire Bill Ackman, who sought to blacklist pro
Palestine activists from ever getting hired by anyone. You might
recall Rashida t Lee being officially censured by Congress, backed
by the votes of dozens of Democrats, for retweeting a
protest call for equal rights for all over to the Sea.

(01:43:01):
Similar censures for those Republicans calling for Gaza to be
nuked or for all Palestinians to be slaughtered have not
been forthcoming. You might also recall Karreean Jean Pierre standing
at the White House podium and saying that sees fire
calls were quote repugnant and is not even remarkable at
this point when protesters are branded anti Semitic for criticizing
a genocide in the ideology that lies behind it. But

(01:43:23):
if these relentless attacks were not enough for you, don't worry.
Jonathan Chait is on the case now. He argues his
qualm is not with all protesters, just with those who
use what he deems to be illiberal tactics.

Speaker 5 (01:43:34):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (01:43:35):
I'm not referring to tactics like holding protest march's speeches,
social media posts, organizing uncommitted votes in the democratic primary,
or other exercises of First Amendment rights. I'm specifically referring
to a campaign to shut down speakers who oppose or
even in many cases, simply decline to endorse the movement's agenda.
He argues that he is simply looking to protect the
speech of those like the President, who is just doing

(01:43:56):
his earnest best to participate in this glorious democracy of ours.

Speaker 5 (01:44:01):
First of all, with.

Speaker 1 (01:44:02):
Regard to the president, specifically, if Joe Biden would like
to avail himself of more opportunities to speak to the
American people, I know I for one, would really welcome
that perhaps he could sit for more news interviews, since
he has done vastly fewer than any other president in
modern history. Perhaps he could agree to debate as opponents,
as he refused to do in the Democratic primary and
has as of yet not committed to do in the
general election. Speaking though more broadly, of the speech rights

(01:44:25):
of Democratic Party congress people, let's compare, shall we, the
amount of speech permitted by the pro zionis side versus
the antidenticide side. Last week I interviewed Motaz Salem. He's
a Palestinian American activist. He's seen more than one hundred
of his family members killed in Gaza. I cannot even
begin to comprehend this level of loss, or what it
might do to me, or what actions it might lead

(01:44:47):
me to take. Frankly, but Motas has channeled his grief
and rage righteously. He spends his days stocking the halls
of Congress, confronting members wherever he can find them, hoping
that some waste, somehow their humanity and shame will catch
up with them as they realize what they have done.
Hoping that perhaps if they can see him as a real,
full human being, they might also see those children starving

(01:45:09):
to death, or those parents slaughtered seeking aid his own
family members, maybe they will see them as real, full
human beings too. Yesterday, Motaz was part of a group
in which some members were arrested for shutting down the
Senate cafeteria. In other words, he is engaging the sort
of confrontational tactics that Chaite deems quote unquote illiberal. Now
Motaz is doing everything he can to non violently make

(01:45:31):
his speech heard, but in American politics, all of the
odds are stacked up against him because not only is
speech speech, money is also speech, and one of the
best funded political organizations in the entire country is dedicated
to making sure that Motaz's speech is never heard. That
be a pack, of course, which has pleasure to spend
one hundred million dollars to block any candidate with even
the potential to criticize the Israeli government and to punish

(01:45:54):
those who already have the long standing bipartisan commitment to
unconditional Israeli governments. Is a testament to the strength of
APEC's extremely well funded speech. What's more, Biden and the
Democrats will have literally billions of dollars in this election
cycle to back up their de facto progenocide speech. So
while Motaz and his fellow activists, God bless them, are

(01:46:16):
undoubtedly a constant source of irritation for Joe Biden and
Kareem Jean Pierre and Tony Blinken and many others, it's
not because it seriously impacts those people's free speech. It's
an insult to all of our intelligence to pretend that
is actually the case. How can the speech of Motaz
compete against the billions of dollars in presidential bully pulpit
a arrayed against it. It's an irritation because these powerful

(01:46:38):
people must be confronted on a daily basis with what
frauds they really are, how they use the language of
humanitarian values in international law right up to the moment
that it became uncomfortable for them, And now they have
Greenland armed and assisted one of the worst atrocities in
recent history. Adding insult to injurious stupidity, Chade has a

(01:46:58):
suggestion for how these protests should properly go about making
their views heard in our great democracy. He writes, the
pro Poalestinitian movement is barely even attempting democratic participation. The
movement could have run an anti Israel candidate against Biden,
but never bothered, no doubt, anticipating they would lose. Okay,
First of all, both Cornell West and Jill Stein do

(01:47:21):
exist and are running. And in case you were wondering
about Chate's enthusiasm for allowing such candidates to participate in
our democratic process, he's also the type that will definitely
smear third party candidates as being secret Trump lovers. But
I also wonder if Jonathan Chait is aware Joe Biden
had primary opponents and they were completely shut out by
the Democratic Party and the corporate press. How's that for illiberal?

(01:47:43):
And I am not talking about figuratively speaking here. The
DNC ordered the primary states to best benefit Joe Biden.
They refuse to host any debates, and as if that
wasn't enough, key state Democratic parties just blocked Biden opponents
from being placed on the ballot and canceled their primaries
all together. There literally was not an electoral process to

(01:48:03):
participate in the party effectively canceled it. As David start
to point it out, quote, when a political party makes
it impossible to express dissent inside a normal process, it
should probably expect that people will then try to express
descent outside the normal process. If you want activists to
use more polite tactics, maybe get outraged about these genuinely

(01:48:24):
illiberal and authoritarian tactics that have left so many feelings
like their democratic free speech rights are effectively meaningless. Or
if you're looking to be outraged, maybe just maybe get
outraged at the powerful politicians who are responsible for this annihilation,
providing diplomatic cover, shipping weapons that make such destruction possible

(01:48:46):
and inevitable, Those who are responsible for starving these children
through their inaction, and through actively defunding the primary aid
organization that could serve them. I might suggest this could
be a more worthy use of your.

Speaker 5 (01:48:59):
Time and of ours.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
By the way, Jonathan Chate closes out his piece with
this line quote, If your movement's goal is to prevent
those who disagree from expressing themselves, and you delight in
meeting out abuse and humiliation to your targets, you're showing
the world you cannot be trusted with power.

Speaker 5 (01:49:16):
Yes, let's allow.

Speaker 1 (01:49:18):
The serious people to hold power, the ones who are
serious about supporting the slaughter of more than fifteen thousand children,
As the world watches in horror. These are the types
in whom Jonathan Chate places his trust. And if you
don't like it, then you can send a strongly worded letter,
so long as that it is in the proper cordial
tone and doesn't have a prayer of changing a goddamn thing.

(01:49:40):
And Emily, I also think this calm.

Speaker 2 (01:49:42):
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:49:48):
All Right, guys, thank you so much for watching today. Emily,
thank you so much for sitting in with Sager for Sager,
thanks for having Sager in spirit.

Speaker 4 (01:49:55):
Scaga was here in spirit, not in the chair, but
he was here in spirit.

Speaker 1 (01:49:59):
Zaga or we'll be back next week and we'll be
back with our regular scheduled program.

Speaker 5 (01:50:03):
And so guys, enjoy the weekend. We'll see you soon.

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