4/15/24: Israel Vows Retaliation, Iran Sets New Red Line, Trump Endorses 'Genocide Joe' Chant, Shock Poll On Trump V Biden, Republicans Flip On Ukraine Aid, Cornel West VP 'Racist' To Be Taylor Swift Fan, Bill Maher Says Abortion Murder But Good, CNN Defends OJ

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
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Coverage that is possible.

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the absolute world to have your support.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show
for everybody today, extra amazing. It's a bro show out
of its people, Live for the pound.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
That's what we got going on today. Chrysal.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
We'll be back.

Speaker 5 (00:33):
Tomorrow though, so don't and she'll be here Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
That's right, she'll be in on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
So we're swapping things around or making things a lot
more fun over here at Breaking Points, the most ambitious
crossover show of all time. But we've got some great
topics for everybody today. Let's go ahead and come up
on me. Let's see what we got.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Iran.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Okay, so we're going to start obviously with the Iranian
attack on Israel. Some of the fallout watching the Israeli war,
Cabinet what their response will be. President Biden issuing a
warning to Israel, saying don't widen the war, but we
will remain and we will see what happens, as Trump
often used to say.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
We will also have doctor Tree Deparsi in the show.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
He's going to analyze some of the attack, the ramifications.
He accurately predicted last week on our show that an
attack would be forthcoming and that the fallout from the
embassy was much bigger than much of the media was
letting on.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
We're going to talk about Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Who had a very interesting moment at his Allentown, Pennsylvania
rally where he seemed to concur with genocide Joe as
the nickname. He's trying to foster some dissension in the
Democratic ranks. And then we're also going to take a
look at some new interesting poling both good for Trump,
bad for Trump, and some public oswele signals about how
abortion is going to play out in the race. Ukraine,

(01:40):
some fascinating stuff going on there. Trump's seemed flip flop
and endorsing some sort of lend Lease style program for
Ukraine aid, while Senator jd Vance, part of the MAGA
contingent speaking out against the idea of at Ukraine entirely.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
We're going to dig into that.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Cornell West, one of the third party candidates, has picked
his vice president. It's a BLM activist who's had some
interesting takes in the past. And then Bill Maher of
course making just some interesting, let's just say interesting again
comments on abortion. Ryan and I are going to break
that down, and I'm doing a monologue on the OJ
Simpson trial and its lasting effects and how it manifested

(02:16):
itself even upon his death here in the media. But Ryan,
before we get to that, as you and I were
just discussing, we've got some interesting plans in the works.
So people need to subscribe so you can hear a
little bit more about that Breakingpoints dot com. So I
think people will enjoy that. Let's go ahead and start
with those attacks on Iran. Guys, Let's go and play
this and put it up on the screen so I
can talk a little bit over it. We've got some

(02:38):
video here. This was released by Channel fourteen News in Israel.
It appears to be pulling from Iranian media, which actually
shows the launch of some of those ballistic missiles that
were launched towards Israel. It took several hours to go.
What you've see in front of you was also released
by the Israelis. This shows some of the drones that
we're heading into Israeli skies. The flashes that everybody can

(03:00):
see are those actually being shot down by Iron Dome.
In some cases you can see that they did make
contact and they were attacking largely military installations. It appears
in Israel, but still I mean stunning. Nonetheless, that image
in particular right over Jerusalem you can see the Temple
mount and you can just see hundreds of drones that
are there in the sky with the Iron Dome program that.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Was engaging it. I mean, what did you make of this? Ryan?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I did a breaking news segment, but this is the
first of the audience will get to hear from you
on it.

Speaker 5 (03:27):
So the reporting that we have from this is that
the United States told Iran that if they were going
to respond, they had to do it within certain parameters.
And you know Iran can you know, Iran is not
a client state of the US, right, it can do
what it wants to do. However, it understands that if
we draw a line and they go outside of that line,
then the cost that they're going to pay is going

(03:49):
to be higher, whether it's it might not necessarily be
immediately kinetic, but we have lots of ways that we
can make life difficult for them. And the assault that
they eventually launched was referred to was compared by a
friend of mine to you know that scene in Austin
Powers where Austin Powers are driving the steamroller. Yes, and
there's the security guard is he has like an hour

(04:11):
to get away from the steamroller. And that's kind of
what they did with these drums. Okay, what they did
is they created an international spectacle. So the entire world
is watching, and the domestic audience sees the entire world watching.
So just by virtue of that, the Iranian regimes then satisfied.

(04:31):
Kind of it's the domestic demand that there'd be some
type of a response to this attack on the on
the consulate in Damascus. But what it also does is
it gives this entire armada from Jordan to Egypt to
the US to the UK to Israel hours to intercept everything.
And you saw a lot of kind of Israeli pundit

(04:55):
saying how embarrassing for Iran they sent all of these missiles,
and yet Tel Aviv still stands. Look at our beach
chat how Christine it remains. That was probably Iron's hope
that they want to launch an attack. May it look
like they're launching an attack, but not actually do the
kind of thing that requires Israel to then response.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
We got to spend a lot of time on this
because this is going to be a huge matter of
debate now. Currently, that was the way that the White
House interpreted the attack. However, that is not the way
that the Israeli right wing is. Oh absolutely, In fact,
the Israeli right wing is like, no, this was just
a victory of Iron Dome without Iron Dome, without the US,
the UK military, the Jordanian military, the Saudi military all

(05:37):
allowing our jets.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
I mean, that's another big question.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
How many of these things were shot down by the
United States and how many were shot down by Israel.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
They ain't telling us that number.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I can tell you that they claim ninety nine percent interception.
I would love to know what the actual Israeli interception rate,
and then what the US assistants rate Sentcom. The United
States military has not released that. We do know that
all of our Western militaries were engaged actually in shooting
down some of these drones. Now, the reason why I'm
sticking to this is because the way that you look

(06:05):
at the attack matters a lot.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
If you think that it.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Was intended to have a mass casualty incident and was
not designed, as you said, to telegraph for an hour's
long approach and attack, well then that colors one way
you're going to respond. If you think it was an
intended mass casualty incident and it was good design to
kill a lot of people, well then obviously you want
to hit them back ten times as hard and it's
not your fault that the defense worked.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
Go ahead, I would flip it around, Okay, I'd say
people start from their desired response, right, So like Ben
Gavier American Smocher's like these guys they want a massive
war with Iran, and so then they're going to retcon
onto the attack whatever they need to justify that response.

(06:51):
So they were always going to say that this was
before you know, just as soon as it started, you
started seeing from the Israeli right, this is a strategic
victory for US. We now have the international legitimacy to
launch a full scale attack on Iran and not to
pick on them. Everybody else is the same way, Like
people like me that don't want to see World War

(07:11):
III A are biased in how they see it and say, like, look,
it's it's obvious why Iran didn't cause more damage, because
causing more damage would have led to World War three.
It's a rational actor. They don't want to lead to that.
So we all do have to put our bias.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
It's important, the important to note that because this is
here what we have from the War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz,
let's go ahead and put this on play on the screen.
I'm going to read some of what he said in
terms of a translation. He says, yesterday Iran launched an
attack on Israel and met the strength of the Israeli
security system. Iran is a global problem, it is a
regional challenge, and it is also a danger to Israel. Yesterday,

(07:50):
the world clearly stood together with Israel in the face
of the danger for Israel against Iran, the world against Iran.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
This is the result.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
This is the strategic achievement which we must leverage for
Israel's security.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
This incident is not over.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
The strategic alliance and the regional cooperation system that we
built and stood is a significant test. It needs to
be strengthened.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Right now.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Israel proved yesterday that it is an anchor of military
and technological power and an anchor of security in the
Middle East. Faced with the threat of Iran, we will
build a regional coalition and collect the price from Iran
in a way and at a time that suits us.
So that is the line that I'm zeroing in on,
in a way that in a way and in a

(08:35):
manner at.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
A time that we choose.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
This is after an Israeli war cabinet meeting occurred. Now,
this war cabinet meeting allegedly took a very interesting turn
from what we know in the inside. We're going to
put this up there on the screen here. President Biden
allegedly told Netta Prime Minister Netanyahu during a call immediately
after the attack on Saturday. He says, listen, United States

(09:00):
is not going to support any Israeli counter attack against Iran.
Inside of the war cabinet, allegedly Benny Gantz and also
the Defense Minister both supported an immediate strike retaliatory strike
on Iran. Netsonyahu appears to have backed away from that,

(09:21):
at least allegedly because Biden told him not to.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
But and this is where I want to hear you
make big butts. At the very.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Same time, the Wall Street Journal and others are reporting
that there's still a significant contingent in the Israeli military cabinet,
within the Israeli right and domestic populace that is clamoring
for a response to the Iranian regime. So just because
Biden said, hey, you guys had your strategic victory, don't
do it and we won't join you, that doesn't mean
that they won't do it. I mean, Israel almost advanced

(09:48):
military technology in the world.

Speaker 5 (09:50):
So if we're going to give Biden credit, we can
say that there was a moment amid the attack and
in its immediate aftermath where the Israeli right was promising,
not just demanding, but they were promising that there was
going to be an unprecedented response, an immediate and unprecedented response.
People were saying things like, you know, April twelfth or

(10:11):
April fourteenth, or whatever, this attack was going to happen
is a day that we'll live on in history, and
that could have happened, like if certain people had their
fingers on certain buttons. You know, those attacks could have
been launched. Biden did say, look, if you do that,
you're on your own. Take the win, like take the
w was the line he gave to Yahoo. And so

(10:34):
we'll give them credit that the world has not ended yet.
Here we are. The sun has risen again, so here
we are. But like you said, there is still an
intense pressure from the Israeli right. What we're going to
find out is who is really guiding Israeli foreign policy here?
Is it the far right or is it the kind
of left of net and Yahoo? Which is a kind

(10:55):
of hilarious concept to think about. But Ronald Bergman, Israeli journalist,
I got it in a pretty mind blowing quote from
this Israeli situation room, where the person said something like
if these talks in the war room war cabinet were
aired live on YouTube, there would be four million people
at Ben gury In Airport rushing to get out of

(11:15):
this country.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, that is such an important point, because that is
exactly the question is. Inside they're trying to telegraph restraint.
They're saying that the US won't back them, and all this.
We want to believe rational actor theory. But one of
the things that I was honestly annoying the crap out
of me is that I continue to see US politicians

(11:36):
be like, this is an unprovoked, unprecedented attack, and I'm like, Okay, listen,
I'm not saying that the Iranians are good people or
the Irgc are our friends or our enemy. But you
blew up their embassy in Damascus, And what they're like
is they're saying, They're like, well, it wasn't a real embassy,
it was a military outpost.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
You're probably right, but guess.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
What, guys, c I a bases inside every embassy in
the world. I mean, under this logic, yeah, the Russians
would be well within their rights under this logic to
blow up the US embassy in Kiev, or the US
outpost in levav in Poland, which is like the major
thoroughfare of all the weapons then, or the US embassy

(12:23):
and warsaw its Like, what do you think is happening there?

Speaker 3 (12:26):
These are all military outposts.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
Time didn't they let the New York Times in there
to show them how they were? Like war gaming? The
entire thing? It is a what do we call it?
When Hamas has a head go to command and control
center like it is like we have we have command
and control center right and we would absolutely not tolerate it.
And it doesn't mean you're justifying the attack to acknowledge
that it was provoked, like it's it's okay to say,

(12:49):
it's okay to say that I saw some of those
posts too from I think maybe it was Steve Danes
and some others. These are like the US senators, the
US centators like this unprovoke, just absolutely out of nowhere.
Except in response to the thing they said, they're going
to respond to it.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
And that's why I want to put that in contact.
By the way, Lavov is in Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
I apologize it used to be part of Poland, but
I do know that that's it's right on the border
with Poland, and that is where the weapons are coming across.
My point is only being that you know, we have
embassy outposts and other people all across the warhol that
are engaged in this type of activity. What do you guys,
what you like, who wants to guess what's going on
in the US embassy in Moscow? Like, what do you
think is going on in the US embassy of riot

(13:29):
or the US embassy in Kabble or I guess we
don't have that one anymore.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
US embassy in Baghdad. They're all military outposts.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
And they did kill a top general and many of
his staff, right, So like, even if you say that
that was completely fine and hey, they're all fair game,
they still did kill them. Yes, so it's not unprovoked.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, exactly, I mean exactly right. And you know, let's
think back to the solar money killing. Whenever Trump green
lit the Souli money killing, we got lucky. Trump actually
called off an imminent attack.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
You know.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
That was response after the Iranians shot down some US
Navy spy plane. I think he was unmanned at the time,
but it would have killed like several hundred Iranians. And
Trump found that out and he's like, forget this, We're
not doing this. But then you also have you know,
there were several US soldiers who were wounded actually in
retaliatory attacks in Iraq as a result of that. So

(14:19):
we can't say that it didn't have no response. All
things are going to have a response, whether you view
it as legitimate or not. But it was very certainly
not quote unquote unprovoked it didn't happen inside of a vacuum.
You could defend it, you know, if you want to.
But let's just all be honest. There's also a big
question here about the matter of Iron Dome and the
amount of money that the defense of this one attack

(14:43):
actually costs. Let's put this up there on the screen.
The current estimate according to the IDF is who was
an economic advisor of the IDF Chief of Staff, says
that the overnight defense against the Iranian attack costs between
four to five billion Israeli shekels, which is equivalent to
one to one point three billion dollars. Now, what was

(15:03):
also noted by your colleague Mortaza is that because the
vast majority of this took place within the Iron Dome system,
those interceptors are all manufactured and paid for by the
United States, which means all of us are the ones
who just paid for that missions.

Speaker 5 (15:20):
Plus we shot a lot of mississes.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
I will say, that's another question here, which is the
type of aircraft that we're used to shoot down some
of these ballistic missiles that shoot down some of these drones.
The current estimate on how much these drones cost is
anywhere from like a couple hundred to tens of thousands
of dollars, not that much money, so asymmetrically, I mean,
it was a huge economic cost to the US. The

(15:44):
iron dome system also has been significantly strained ever since
the war with Hamas has gone on, and of course
we're the ones who are replenishing all of that technology
and bearing the brunt and the costs of that.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
It just what I always like to.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Highlight with these things. Ryan Is was like, well, everyone
said missile defense doesn't work. I'm like, well, that's not
the point. The point is what does it look like
in a sustained attack. One of the things that we've
learned from Ukraine is that the Russians have developed the
perfect strike package to get through Western defense systems. Sure
they can't use some and they frequently will have some

(16:19):
shot down, but they figured it out. And that's the
point is, Yeah, it works once, that's awesome, but what
is it? How does it work on day two hundred
and ninety six level war. That's actually a question where
not a lot of people want to know the answer
in terms of working rate and the cost.

Speaker 5 (16:33):
Yeah, on the on the cost point, this is the
same thing we've seen with the Huthis where they're sending
these you know, yeah, drones that cost hundreds or at
most like thousands of dollars towards ships in the US
is sending two million dollars cruise missiles to like knock
to knock them out, or whatever they're sending is in
the in the millions of dollars each each and every time.

(16:53):
And that's that's just not a calculation that you can
take forever. But you're point on the strategic benefit of
this is interesting as well. Like you said, the Russians
have learned through the practice, trial and error of how
to get through this super expensive curtain of defense. And
last night the Russians and the Iranians and actually well

(17:17):
the entire world it's curious about it got to see
what it would look like with Israel and all of
its allies launching a full fledged anti anti missile defense approach.
So now they know, like, okay, this is where they're
coming from from the sea, this is where they're coming
from face now they probably knew let's say eighty percent

(17:38):
of that already, with a lot of valuable intelligence was
picked up last night.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
You get a ton, yeah, from the Chinese from the Russians.
Everybody is looking at this. The other thing that I
would note is you could see the President Biden basically
knew the exact time and hour of the attack. So
one of the things that we gave away is how
deeply the CIA, the NSSA and others have penetrated the
highest sessional of the Iranian military. And they don't think
they're not going to respond to that, Like you don't

(18:04):
think they're immediately going to change their comms. This was
something that happened after the Russian invasion where we basically
gave away the whole game as to how deeply we
penetrated the Russian military hire and command, the command and control,
We knew everything from the time of the attack to
Ukraine and all of that. My mea culpa was I
didn't believe them, but clearly they are good at some things,
these intel folks. And what did we give away, like, yeah,

(18:27):
we know everything about what you say, what you do,
the time of your attack, the hour, et cetera. Now
maybe that's my intention, certainly possible, but you know, if
you're smart, what do you say. Okay, the enemy has
total you know, visibility into our comms. So let's change everything.
So that was an attack not on us, on somebody else.

Speaker 5 (18:45):
Right, So right, you are giving that up. At the
same time, some of it was was intentional.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
There was a direct line that and Turkey was to
go between MM and it was it was through Turkey
that the US actually communicated back to Iran like, here
are the parameters within which should we expect it if
an attack is going to take place.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Well, that's what's complicated.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
So actually it's interesting because people are seizing upon that
report saying that Biden greenlit the attack.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
At the same time, this is the problem with Biden.
I mean, what he.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Continues to do is just put himself in a situation
where he just gets humiliated on the world stage. But
basically everybody from his allies to the enemies, to the aggressors.
Here we have President Biden imminently before the attack, the
day before the attack.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Here was his message to Iran in this moment, don't yeah,
how did that work out?

Speaker 2 (19:33):
He said the same thing to Russia if people want
to remember, back in February of twenty twenty two, He's like,
my message to putin don't well they did, so no
one It's like, this is where you know, you're putting
yourself in a situation where you'd be like, look, we
will we will immediately respond. You know all of this,
but you know this is this is where he gets
he Now he's flanked from his left and his right,

(19:55):
because now what we have here is it's clear that
people are not listening to President Biden, just embarrassing for
a global superpower. But then you've got a huge invitation
right now from the Israeli and the US right wing
who are attacking Biden saying that we need more deterrence
through force, and that we need to employ even more
force on behalf of Israel and the Iranians and employ

(20:17):
like more military action, get more deeply enmeshed. Then at
the same time, you know, you see also that the
Israelis don't necessarily listen whenever they're told what to do
or what not to do. That kind of brings us
back to the genesis of how do this all happen?
That strike on the embassy. Apparently this is from what
we know so far, Biden and the White House told

(20:39):
the Israelis are like, listen, don't hit the Iranians without
telling us about it. And they said, yeah, okay, cool,
and then they just didn't tell us anything about it.
That strike was totally within their purview. And this is
what bothers me about it too. I'm like, okay, you
guys want to do that, be my guest. But then
you bear the costs, you bear the consequences whenever people

(21:00):
And this is what we've seen through the emboldening of
the Israelis is because we've set no red line, nothing,
we have no conditions on our aid, they feel perfectly
in their power to do whatever the hell they want.
And that's how you get to a significant departure point
of miscalculation. The anti gets upped one thing goes wrong.
I mean, just imagine one iron dome missile goes wrong

(21:22):
and that Temple Mount gets it. Now what I mean,
we're in that whole new world living in that Yeah.

Speaker 5 (21:28):
No, yeah, I think that that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah,
I mean I forgot what I was going to say. Anyway,
go ahead.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Really, what I think is important just to underscore from
the Iranians, the communication here with the Israelis is that
Biden has injected a tremendous amount of uncertainty into the
international system. Will defend Ukraine. Putin's war criminal, he's got
to go. What does that signal send to the Ukrainians?
Fight to the last man. Now we're like, well, you know,

(22:00):
really mean it, and it's like, well, and they're all confused.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
I don't think we should said in the first place.
I think right, and it should have been very clear
from the beginning, and the only shift.

Speaker 5 (22:07):
From Biden this was what I was going to say.
Has it's been to use the word iron clad over
and over and over again.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (22:12):
And so if you're Israel, what you hear from Biden
is that his commitment is iron clad. Iron Clad means
it does not matter what Israel does, the US will
have their back. So if we say, hey, we would
prefer a heads up before you strike, let's say in Iran,
in embassy somewhere in Damascus, like okay, but your commitment
to US is ironclad, right of course, guys, iron clad

(22:35):
commitment Like okay, Well, then we're just going to do
what we're going to do, and you're gonna support us. Now,
maybe Israel feels like it can't launch an offensive attack
on Iran without the support of kind of US aircraft
and USC power and so that had something to do
with their decision not to launch it yet. But they

(22:59):
certainly feel like no matter what they do, the US
is going to put its resources behind them in a
way that is self destructive to its own interests in
the region.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, I think this is all.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
This is very important for people to underscore just we
are and a moment of a lot of uncertainty. US
military equipment was involved in shooting this down. US service members,
including US warships, were involved in shooting some of these
down we've had. Apparently the US S. Eisenhower hasn't had
a port call in months because they're just stuck in

(23:34):
the Middle East waiting is sitting there, waiting to shoot
down things and to be engaged in the war. There's
a high level of readiness and of anxiety in the military,
and just because something didn't pop off in forty eight
hours doesn't mean that it won't. It took the Iranians
what it was, about a week, I think, to respond
to the ambassy attack. People have in their heads this

(23:54):
idea that things, the escalation ladder and other things move
at a lightning pace, And that's sometimes the case, but
very often it's slow and then fast all at the
same time. So you take a week to deliberate that
you make it saying, and you make a decision. So
the Israelis right now are in that you know system right,
They could wait a month, but even if they do,
we could still see things get to that point. It's

(24:15):
been more than six months now since October seventh, and
this was the nightmare scenario from the very first day,
is that we were going to get to a broader
regional war, and every single month that the conflict has continued,
we get closer and closer at bombs on Lebanon, wo
these Now we're striking Yemen. Now we're you know, now
we're shooting down Iranian missiles. Now we got drones flying

(24:36):
over the sky. What comes next month? That's my big worry.
What comes next year? Hell or ten years from now.
That's one of those where you know, could we can
easily look back on this and say it was a
significant moment. But we have a great guest standing by
doctor Treta Parsi is going to break this down.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Let's get to it.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
Bringing in now doctor tree to Parsi is executive vice
president over at the Quincy Institute for Response simple state craft. Tredah,
thanks as always for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Good easure.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
I wanted to talk to you about something that that
you flagged, which is that the head of the IRGC,
Hossein Salami, came out and we can put this element
up from tree to here, came out explicitly saying that
we have decided to create a new equation with Israel.
The equation is that from now on, if Israel attacks

(25:28):
Iranian interests, basically, Ron will attack Israel from Iranian soil.
Kind of moving beyond the status quo of deploying various
proxies around the region, were not necessarily even deploying the
various proxies, but sort of taking the leash off them

(25:48):
a little bit, because I think what people think that
and I'd be curious to get your take on this.
People think that it's it's a it's a relationship where
Iran instructs its proc around the region. Okay, now I
need you to attack, Whereas I think it's more realistic
to say that those proxies are actually much more militant

(26:09):
and radical than the Iranian regime itself, and Iran is
constantly holding a leash on saying no, do not, do not, please,
do not, And when they do want an attack to happen,
they let the leash out a little bit and say, Okay,
you know what, actually, go ahead, you've been saying you
want to hit that base, go ahead and hit that base.

(26:31):
Curious a first for your take on that, but then
also for your reflection on what it means that Iran
is now saying forget all this, We're coming straight from
Iran from now on.

Speaker 6 (26:41):
So your description of Yvonne's relationship with some of these militias,
I think is true for some of them, perhaps less
so for others. I mean, Yvonne has helped build up
a network of various militias throughout the Middle East.

Speaker 7 (26:56):
That all are sharing an interest with Yvonne when it
comes to a larger vision for the region.

Speaker 6 (27:03):
Some of them may not be ideologically aligned with van
in a religious sense, but nevertheless they shared a larger perspective,
which is that many of these Arab regimes are allied
with the West. They're there to serve the domination of
the West, and the region needs to take its future
in its own hand, and as a result, joined.

Speaker 7 (27:26):
Together to fight this what they call the occupation. This
is why they call it the access of resistance.

Speaker 6 (27:32):
Now, some of them actually absolutely are more hawkish and
have their own motivations to go after the US troops.
For instance, many of the Iraqi militias are looking for
revenge for what the US has done in Iraq, which
is not necessarily the motivation driven by the Vons. In
regards to what the IRGC commander said, though, I think
the interpretation there is Iran is actually taking this to

(27:54):
a much higher level because it's no longer going to
hide behind any of its allied proxiesli is, whatever you
want to call them. And what we see here is
a clear attempt of articulating a new doctrine for deterrence,
meaning that this entire choreographed attack that was clearly designed
to make sure that it inflicted next to zero damage

(28:16):
on Israel, certainly no casualties, was not designed to start
a war, was not designed to actually showcase what limited
capacity YVON has, but to actually showcase that YVON actually
has extensive capacity. Because remember the reason why all of
these missiles and drones could could be shot down is

(28:37):
because the yvoniance gave the US a seventy two hour
heads up even told them exactly when these things are
going to be shot They wanted this to be shot
down because they wanted to show that yvon is ready
to attack from its own soil. It wants to establish
this new deterrence, this new red line, but it doesn't
want to go towards a full scale war. But in

(28:58):
that message also something else that is very important that
I think has largely been missed. Had it not been
for the seventy two hour heads up, the United States
would not have had time to put itself in place
to be able to help the Bricks, nor the French,
and without the help of these other countries.

Speaker 7 (29:18):
Without the heads up, it is quite likely that a.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
Much larger garage of missiles from Yvon actually would have
penetrated Israel's air defenses and would have caused a tremendous damage.
But that was not the intent would distract. The intent
was exactly as the IRGC commander said, as that establishing
new redline. If these Raelis going forward kill Yvonian officials,

(29:41):
attack Yvanian embassies, it will be responded to, and it
will likely be responded to very quickly. And the hope
of Yvon as appears to be to deter Israel from
doing this in the.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Future, Doctor Parsi, One of the things we're trying to
understand here is the calibration of the Israeli response. The
Israelly war cabinets seems to be all of the map.
They're vowing our response. The Iranians say, if look, this
is it from in terms of what they put out there,
like will we will say that this matter is closed.
If we do see some sort of retaliation by the Israelis,

(30:14):
then what sort of decision matrix does that open up
from the Iranians as it relates to the United States
in our own military.

Speaker 6 (30:22):
Well, I think Biden actually has put himself in a
bind with the formulation that he used. He come out
and said that he would support Israel defensively, the support
is iron cloud, but the United States will not support
or participate in any offensive operations by Israel. Well, this
distinction between offensive and defensive ends up being brought the

(30:44):
meaningless the second the war begins, because what it has done,
he has given Ntagnau a clear pathway on how to
drag the US into the war. Israel responds to this
Iranian attack with missile strikes et cetera. Against Yron. Iran
will then obviously respond back. The United States will not
participate in the first attack, but as soon as Yvon

(31:06):
is counterattacking, then the United States gets dragged in. At
that point, it was completely meaningless whether the United States
was involved in the previous attack or not.

Speaker 8 (31:15):
So previous presidents, even very hawkish ones like Trump, actually
resisted pressure from Netaniaho in particular to get dragged into
war with Iran because it does not serve US interest.
Now Biden has actually given Nataniahu a roadmap on how.

Speaker 7 (31:32):
To drag the United States into that war.

Speaker 6 (31:34):
If he instead had focused on the maingle or prioritized
the mingle, which is to avoid a regional escalation and
avoid getting the US into that war, it actually would
have been better for Israel as well, because he would
not need to provide any defensive iron cloud support for
Aitel because there wouldn't have been an Ivanian counter attack
in the first place. That would have served Israel's interest better,

(31:57):
and most importantly, it would have served us interest much
but because we would not get dragged into another war
in the Middle East.

Speaker 5 (32:03):
Trieda I've heard Iatola Kamani described as risk averse almost
to a fault, And I'm curious if you think that's
an accurate description. How his approach to the conflict between
Israel and I Ran plays into this and who is
really making the decisions in the Iranian government.

Speaker 6 (32:21):
So the decisions are ultimately made by the Supreme National
Security Council in Iran, which of course reports to the
Supreme Leader, and the final decision is with the Supreme Leader,
but it's really that he overrules everyone. There has been
grumblings and quite loud ones within the IRGC and other
elements of the Iranian government who believe that comedy has

(32:43):
been two risk averse that he should have done this
much sooner, and the fact that he didn't have enabled
the Israelis to cheap on moving forward with increasingly blatant
attacks against Iranian commanders and officials. And now we saw
any Onion consulate in Damascus, and essentially the argument being

(33:04):
that if he had reacted sooner and asserted yvons, the
terrens and the Israelis would have stopped sooner. Now the
reason why it happened this time around, I think is
because this attack against the consulate with the final straw,
and it also violated a clear redline because it was
an attack on Iranian soil. The Iranian response at the
end of the day was also a clear violation of

(33:26):
an Israeli redline because these Radis had said that they
had implicity message that they would not have responded if
the attack it did not come from the Iranian soil,
but now it did. And not only was it using
cruise missiles, it was also using ballistic missiles. So it
is clearly risky. But nevertheless, within that operation, it was

(33:47):
designed to make sure that it didn't cause any damage,
because if the Yvonians wanted to cause damage, there was
no reason to give any heads up to Israel or
to the United States.

Speaker 7 (33:58):
And not less you know, I said in the.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Two hour heads up, last thing I wanted to ask you, sir,
in terms of the geopolitics of the Middle East, there's
a lot being made here in Washington of the Jordanian
a guess allowance of the US and Israel to shoot
down projectiles and drones over their airspace, of the Gulf
Arab involvement as well. Can you break down some of
the dynamics of that. Will there be lasting effects? Can

(34:24):
we expect that to be some sort of coalition against Iran.
How do we make sense of it?

Speaker 7 (34:29):
I don't think that's what it is pointing to.

Speaker 6 (34:32):
You're right to ask the question, though, of course, because
the other countries Turkey, et cetera. Did not allow the
United States to use their airspace for this, Jordan doesn't
have much of an option. Jordan is completely dependent on
the protection of the United States, and it's clearly not
a particularly popular decision amongst Judainians either, mindful of how

(34:54):
angry the population is with what's going on in Gaus
and what they've received to be Judanian and broader Arab
potents towards Israel. But I think Jordanians are trying to
defend it by saying, at the end of the day,
they have to assert their independence and not allow Jordan's
airspace or territory to become an arena for a confrontation.

(35:14):
The question is if the Israelis now use attacks, begin
attacks against Iran and fly over Jordanian airspace, will Jordan's
shoot down those missiles as well or is it only
Ivani missiles that will be shocked there.

Speaker 5 (35:28):
I noticed from some Chinese news sources they were arguing
that the Iranian attack on Israel was only made kind
of possible and necessary by the United States blocking the
United Nations Security Council from condemning Israel's attack on Damascus.

(35:49):
When I first see that analysis coming on, like really
just just a condemnation is all around needed and would
have stepped away from that. I've seen it kind of
so frequently and with so much, you know, the velocity
in those spaces that it does seem like the US
willingness to block condemnation did actually give a Ron more

(36:14):
incentive to go ahead with a more robust response. But
I'm curious for your take on the relationship between those
two things.

Speaker 6 (36:23):
It's not clear whether a condemnation by the Security Council
would have prevented this, and we will never know, essentially
because it was blocked by the US, France, and the UK.
But I pointed to a previous example that is very
similar in some.

Speaker 7 (36:38):
Ways, because you had a situation with a ninety.

Speaker 6 (36:42):
Ninety eight in which the Tallebahb took math that to
show even Afghanistan, they executed a very large number of people,
but they also attacked the Yvanian consonants and they took
eleven Yranian diplomats and executed them as well.

Speaker 7 (36:57):
The Yranians mobilized on their borders that were to go
to war. They didn't want to go to war, however,
because it was nothing.

Speaker 9 (37:03):
To gain from actually going into war with Afghanistan, a
lesson that perhaps the US should have also taken to art.

Speaker 6 (37:09):
But nevertheless, they felt the strong expectation that they have
to respond given this very blatant attack on their territory
through the consulates.

Speaker 7 (37:19):
They went to the Security Council.

Speaker 6 (37:21):
I worked as a security council at the time for
the Swedish Permanent Mission. Sweden was the president of the
Council in that month, and they demanded a very strong
condemnation by the Council, and that was provided. The Swedes
orchestrated it and make sure that was a very very
harsh reaction by the international community for what the Taliban
had done. And that very strong reaction ended up being

(37:43):
the exact face saving excuse the Yvani Is needed not
to go to war with the Taliban, which they avoided.
Now the parallels are very interesting. Once again, the Yvanis
are not looking for a war, but their consulate was attacked,
their personnel was killed, but the difference is time was
that it wasn't a strong combination because of the blocks

(38:03):
by the US, the UK, and the French. Now again
we don't know for certain if the parallel would have
worked out, but I think it's interesting in terms of
the role that the US's defense of Israel and political
protection plays here because the US did what.

Speaker 9 (38:22):
Essentially Biden has been doing for the last seven months
in the US is done for more than twenty years,
which is to constantly provide political protection in the Security
Council for Israel, so it is not condemned. Well, that
approach appears to also incentivize other countries and to take
harsher measures than they otherwise.

Speaker 7 (38:41):
May have to.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
And then that a couple days later you see Ecuador
be like, oh, okay, then maybe we can just raid
the Mexican embassy here in Quito. But up next, we're
going to talk about Trump in Allentown, hitting on a
new nickname for genocide Joe that he seems to actually
appreciate but treated Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy

(39:03):
Institute for Responsible Statecraft, thank you so much for joining us,
Thank you, sir, Thank you Donald Trump. Over the week
and went to Allentown, Pennsylvania, just northwest of that beautiful
Lehigh Valley, and I wanted to play this absolutely just
mind blowing clip from that rally. We're going to unpack

(39:25):
what this means for twenty twenty four. Here's here's Trump
and Schnecksville.

Speaker 7 (39:29):
He is a big problem. Jo Jo the side, Joe,
Joe right side.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
They're not wrong, They're not wrong. I swear saga.

Speaker 5 (39:55):
I have watched that clip like twenty different times trying
to figure out how on earth we got there. Now.
On one hand, it's just it was completely predictable and
predicted that Trump would start to capitalize on the anger
at Biden for his facilitation of what a majority of
Democrats believe is a genocide, despite the fact that a

(40:17):
majority of Trump's supporters kind of support what's going on,
and that Trump himself and that's at that same rally,
you know expresses you know, continuing support for is There's
there's so many different layers and levels on which Trump
can attack this. What my read, and I'm curious as
a Trump connoisseur yourself, is that you know, Trump for

(40:38):
people to all not this like take drain the swamp
for instance, Like When that was first rolled out to Trump,
He's like, this is kind of cliche, and the.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Lane stupid, this is dumb.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
He rolled it out at a rally boom roar, yeah,
and he's like, oh you like y'all like that?

Speaker 3 (40:53):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
He's like, well, here's here's some more of that.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Build the Wall was actually the exact same thing. I
don't know if people know this build a Wall was.
He thought it was corny. He didn't even think it
was smart. He never really came up with it. I
think he made an offhand comment where all of a
sudden he just saw it ripped through the crowd and
be shouted back at him, and he said, all right, well,
you know, I'll seize on that. Let's go for it,
and what's the next line? And Mexico will pay for it.

(41:19):
Who do you think he got that from? It was
from the crowd. So Trump, as you said, he is.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
A connoisseuring focus groups.

Speaker 5 (41:26):
Use those.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
It's actually smart. That's one of the things you learn.
It's like what actually catches on? What does anybody's ever
done speaking or live performance or anything knows exactly the
feedback loop that you can get into with the audience
My big thing was I was like, how much of
this was just those two guys, because what's clear in
the clip is that there were two guys who were
behind him, and they i think by chance, had access

(41:49):
where they could hit the microphone so we could actually
hear what they were saying, and they were behind him.
For people who don't know the people who are placed though,
behind Trump, you kind of have to be selected for that.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
They don't just give it to you. It's not like
first come, first serve.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
In general, the campaign is very you know, very weary
or very it's very They take a lot of care
as to who gets placed behind him. That's why it's
usually diverse and women all of it. Sometimes you know,
the blacks or Trump guys who are behind him. So
I'm curious, you know, if they asked to be able
to do that, if this was something that was greenlit,
possibly by the campaign. But what's fascinating about it is

(42:24):
not just that we have two guys in MAGA hats
chanting genocide Joe, which is interesting. I mean, all right,
there's a libertarian right coalition right that certainly believes that
it was Trump's embrace of They're not wrong, and the
reason why that's important is if you loo, if you
google it and you look into it. We're talking about
write ups in the Washington Post. We're talking about right
ups in the Times of Israel. And even though no

(42:46):
Republican politician was criticizing Trump for saying this and all that,
you can bet your ass that this was viewed very interestingly,
I think by the Israeli population, and I mean from
my count right now, the clip has millions of views
all across of social media, and it was shared. I
think what Trump has always been a genius at is
he's always trying to spot cleavages in the in coalitions

(43:08):
of his enemies. So with Hillary, he was always doing
the same thing. He was encouraging people who were anti
Hillary not to vote for Hillary, right, and he would
very often, you know the same thing with black voters.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
What do you have to lose?

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Why would you continue to support them? They're not going
to do that. We see some of that here, And
I mean, look, he reads the news and he watches television.
He knows that Joe Biden has a problem. Let's say
he can get even one to two percent of people
who believe that it's a genocide or to either not
vote for Biden or he may be somebody who could
support something that they have.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Well, you know, it will be a political victory for him.

Speaker 5 (43:44):
And we're going to talk about the polling later in
the show and the way that nostalgia plays a role
in how people think about Trump. And then also people
are so desperate they're willing to kind of overlay onto
any politician, but in particular Trump, what they want to
see if they're so deeply frustrated by Biden. So it

(44:05):
is not hard to find people who will make the
argument that Trump would actually be better for Palestinians because
Biden is ideologically a Zionist and willing to take political
heat back home, you know, in pursuit of that ideology
that he is dug in on his position that he

(44:27):
really believes in. People don't think that Trump believes anything.
That he's the most kind of narcissistic and nihilistic finger
in the wind politician that you could ever produce, and
that the second anything is causing him a problem, he's
going to throw it overboard. And so there is a
hope among some out there that well, maybe if the

(44:51):
war becomes difficult for Trump and is causing him problems
that he'll just throw Israel overboard.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Yes, that is a very important thing for people to
understand this. There was a case to be made, that's
what it would be. His track record is not necessarily
good right on the issue.

Speaker 5 (45:04):
But what we could say, we've a lot of good choice.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
So Trump doesn't believe anything.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Actually, I think he believes one thing, which is America's
being ripped off, which I support.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
I thought he's right.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
But outside of a few foundational things he's been talking
about for let's say thirty forty years, America is getting
ripped off.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Our leaders are.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Idiots and a genius and manipulation of the media. He
doesn't believe anything. He doesn't care abortion, Israel, etc. He
thinks Israel is very politically beneficial to him, basically behind
the scenes and even in front of the camera. He's
we got in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He's
been like, there's a lot of good businessmen here.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
In the stream.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
You know, he just openly he just doesn't care. And
they don't care either, because they give him money and
he does what they want.

Speaker 5 (45:42):
And he may or may not used to have had
my comp next to his bad according to his Wow
really yeah, wow, like that he was one book he
would actually read, like according to a vantage promp.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Listen, you know there's you can study history in any way.
There's some annotated versions out there that I've taken a
look at before.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
So if that's the guy, if you're the Israel lobby,
and that's the guy that you're putting all your chips.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
On, well you saw that too in the Trump interview
when with the Israelis when he said you gotta wrap
it up, you gotta wrap it up, because they were
like they were shocked.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
What do you mean you got to wrap it up quickly?

Speaker 2 (46:14):
He's like, well, we got to bring peace, and you
know your pr you know, you guys are losing getting
killed the war and all that, and I mean.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
They were stuned. They couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
And that's because he's not ideological in the same way.
So if he senses that it becomes politically unpopular to
support Israel, then he'll just turn on a dime. No,
he will always care about himself more than anybody else. Now,
the other question, though, is what are the people around
him believe? Who do they support, what are they trying
to do. Another interesting thing that I thought paired with this,

(46:42):
let's put the next one on the screen, was a
recent truth just the day.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
Before from truth Social where Trump.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Said I would vote for RFK Junior if I was
a Democrat because he is a better man than Joe Biden.
So what he said actually in the video is RFK
Junior is, as you know, the most radical left candidate
in the race. He's more so than the Green Party,
He's more so than even Crooked Joe Biden. But he's

(47:10):
got some nice things about him. I happen to like him,
Trump said in the video. And he says, I guess
that would mean that RFK Junior is going to be
taking away votes from Crooked Joe Biden, and he should
because he's basically.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Better than Biden. He's much better than Biden.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
If I were a Democrat, I would vote for RFK
Junior every single time over Biden because he's frankly more
in line with the Democrats, and he's a better man
than Joe Biden that I can tell you, saying it
was great for MAGA that he was in the race.
So clearly he sees RFK Junior as a spoiler. But
this is the thing that Chrystall and I continue to
look at. If you look at the polling, it's pretty

(47:44):
even who the man pulls from, and if his favorability
ratings are so much higher with Republicans, there's a decent
chance he pulls more from Trump than he.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Does from Biden.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
To you're going to have this spectacle over the next
several months of Democrats calling RFK Junior right way right
and Republicans calling him radical.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Ironically, both are true.

Speaker 5 (48:03):
Actually, he does have positions that fit on both. And
I think a key moment, if it ever comes, would
be if Trump affirmatively just uses genocide Joe rather than
like crooked, crooked Joe or sleepy Joe. Very hard to
see him kind of use it without being prompted. And
I'd love to see a future rally because I think

(48:24):
you're right, like those two dudes, those American heroes, they
single handedly or double handedly you got that chant going,
and it wouldn't have wouldn't have been a news item
if Trump had not responded in the way he did, saying,
you know, they're they're not wrong. Yeah, if it hits
another rally and becomes a thing, that's my question that

(48:46):
becomes a wild question. I still think that Trump believes
that the pro Israel crowd still trusts Republicans more than Democrats.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
They do have a question.

Speaker 5 (48:59):
Even with the even with the difference of an ideologically
zionist committed Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee and the
kind of ambivalent Trump as the Republican nominee, the apparatus
around each is more likely to continue to support it Israel,
probably from the Republican signe Yes.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Look, I think that's probably the correct bet. But with Trump,
you genuinely have no idea. He could scramble everything and
then he can scramble right back. That's always the fun
thing about covering him. We have some really interesting polling
that's been coming out. Let's go and put this up
there on the screen. This, I think, more than anything,
really explains Trump's staying power and why I think he

(49:41):
has such a major political advantage. So this is and
let's keep this up here, please, How respondence views of
Trump have changed from twenty twenty to now In terms
of his approval of handling the economy. From twenty twenty
to now, he's seen a ten point bump from fifty
percent or so past sixty two thirds of the are
now approof of his handling the economy when he was president.

(50:03):
Think he left the country better off plus nine. Approve
of his handling of maintaining law and order, plus eight,
Approve of his handling of unifying America, plus four, approve
of his handling of COVID, plus three approve his handling
of the Supreme Court, plus one. Note that one, because
we're going to come back to that. But this is
where I think is really important. From twenty sixteen to now,
think electing him is a safe choice plus eleven, but

(50:26):
there has been a minus four in think.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
He respects women, which is kind of funny. But let's
go to the next one.

Speaker 5 (50:31):
Four percent that thought he did. Yeah, now give it up.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Let's go to the next one. Guys, because this is
even more important.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Do you generally remember the years that this candidate was
president as mostly good or mostly bad For Joe Biden?
Twenty five percent say mostly good, not really good or bad,
twenty seven percent mostly bad, forty six percent don't know
one percent Trump, forty two percent mostly good, twenty three

(50:57):
percent not really good or bad. Only thirty three percent
say mostly bad for America To me. That is the
single most important one that we could take away. And
the reason why is because, and I've said this so
many times, the nostalgia for pre COVID America is so strong,
and why shouldn't it be. Gas was cheap, Inflation was

(51:19):
not there, interest rates were low. All the madness had
not yet happened. Things were mostly fine. Twenty nineteen of
January is the highest level of Republican identification that we
ever had in this country in modern history. I did
a whole monologue about it at the time because I
remember being stunned.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
But what can we take away from that? People want
the good times back.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Throughout all pandemics in history, there's always a mass amnesia afterwards.
People are like, Wow, that was terrible. Let's go back
and guess who was President Trump. That's a huge benefit
that he has.

Speaker 5 (51:48):
And what's incredible is that people living at the time
had a chance to kind of express how they felt
Trump fit into that utopia that we have now kind
of retconned. And that was the twenty eighteen midterms, and
it was an absolute bloodbath for Trump. So while you
did have the highest Republicans edification January twenty nineteen, you

(52:10):
also at the polls, you know, had Republicans tossed out
of power and voters turned things over to Democrats because
his presidency was just this ongoing train wreck of a
spectacle that really galvanized Democrats in a way that gave
them the ability to kind of swamp you know, Republican

(52:32):
turnout in those midterms. But now as people look back,
that eleven point shift from you know, a safe choice
is profound because that eleven points right there, those people
who thought that he was just an unsafe person, like
a lunatic in the oval office, you cannot trust him

(52:53):
with power. Now he's been in power. And as people
say it, while we survived, well, you know, lots of
people did not survive. Yeah, but those people are not
around to vote. And it's it's incredible actually to think
about how COVID is and his handling of COVID is
not really hurting him as as an issue in this campaign.

(53:17):
And I think that that's a reflection of our desire
to just forget the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Yeah, and why shouldn't we. I mean, it's not like
Biden's got his hands clean, you know on COVID. I
could go on forever and this is one of.

Speaker 5 (53:27):
These because I locked down and people like, you know.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
What's vaccine mandates, all the stuff. I mean, we can
go through every I think both sides.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Neither hand, nobody else, nobody wants to. Why should you know,
why should we relitigate all of it? If especially if
we're going to try and you know, do checks and
balances and all that in the moment, it's very very difficult.
Let's we'd be remiss though, if we didn't highlight this.
This is probably the singlet biggest confounding variable. Let's put
it up there on the screen. From the risk of
losing suburban women on abortion. So what we have here

(53:58):
is actually a rating of the most important issue for
we're a suburban women in swing states.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
So that's why this is a good poll.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Abortion is thirty nine percent most important issue. Number two
is immigration sixteen, economy seven, left wing ideology for inflation,
for anti writing ideology.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Three.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
But then if you look here, share of suburban women
in swing states saying that the presidential candidacies on abortion
are too restrictive. With Trump, it's fifty seven percent, just
about right, is there? The twenty eight percent and then
not restrictive enough? Is like negligible, But then check out
Joe Biden. They say, seventeen percent is too restrictive. Forty

(54:39):
nine percent, nearly half of the suburban women in these
swing districts say that Biden is just about right. And
in general, if what we can see, if abortion is
going to be that much of the most important issue
in general, if abortion is your top issue post row,
you're voting for a Democrat Ryan right, and that is good.
That chart right there. If by And wins, it's going to.

Speaker 5 (55:00):
Because of that right and that seventeen percent are you know,
they're to the left of Biden. They recognize, they recognize
that Biden is out there saying things like, you know,
I hate abortion of all. You know, he's doing this
very kind of catholic you know, eighties nineties Democrat things.
You've got seventeen percent of Democrats are like, that's you know,

(55:21):
that's not for me. I want I want more than that.
But they're still going to vote for him because he's
the he's the one that's on the ballot. I think
what's going on here is that A. It's it's a
fundamental right that affects people's lives. H and b people
are seeing policy change as a result of politics, very.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Direct change, Yeah, because of the ballot with.

Speaker 5 (55:44):
Everything else, inflation, like wars spiraling out of control, unemployment,
you draw people do draw a connection between, oh, this
is the party in power. So I'm I either am
punishing or crediting the party in power because of how
things are going here. But the direct line to how

(56:06):
the policies are kind of creating the downstream effect is
not that clear. It's more like it's more based on vibes.
When it comes to abortion policy, it's very clear, yes,
Like Republicans are writing laws that are banning abortion, banning IVF,
going back to the eighteen sixty four pedophile author law,

(56:29):
and Democrats are writing laws that are expanding abortion rights.
Like you don't need economists to come in and explain
to you how you know the ARP is linked up
with the federal results interest rate policies, and so they're like, Okay, well,
I don't really believe that politics is worth participating in.
I'm very cynical and jaded about this, but I do

(56:51):
know that if I go out and vote for this,
this particular thing will actually change.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
That is a fantastic point. I've not been on the show.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Since that Arizona thing came down, Bill cannot believe that
it happened. It is the greatest gift to Democrats that
I could have possibly thought.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
And I think if again, if.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Arizona goes blue again, we're going to know exactly why,
especially in the context of a multiple blue representatives being elected.
Carrie Lake doing herself no favors, being on camera straight
up supporting the law and now is like, no, I
actually don't support the law.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
I'm like, yeah, good luck with that, Carrie.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Let's see whether that video is blanketed on the entire
state of Arizona. I think all of this explains too.
Let's put another confounding variable. Biden is shrinking Trump's edge
in this latest time SIENA poll forty six to forty
five don't know is about eight percent quote. President Biden
has nearly erased Trump's early polling advantage, signs at a

(57:47):
Democratic base has began to coalesce around the president, despite
the lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy,
and his age.

Speaker 5 (57:54):
So and the Times looked at like, yeah, sixteen or
so polls that were taken were where a poll was
taken by the same polster before and after the State
of the Union, and on average by it a little
bit more than a point. The public is moving towards Biden,
which is not which is not huge, but given that
significant of a data set, it does it does mean something.

(58:17):
And a lot of the polls, like the Siana one
you saw, you saw more significant swings. One explanation would
be he's now definitely the nominee. And so you've got
some percentage of Democrats who are like, all right, you're
really going to make me vote for Joe Biden. Yeahs
Bo Burnham says in that song like yeah, all right,
are really going to make me do this? Well?

Speaker 3 (58:38):
All right?

Speaker 2 (58:38):
I mean if you're fortunately your top issue and that's
all that you care about, then yeah, you should vote
for Biden.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
You'd be an idiot, not too right.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
I mean one of those where like, let's be real,
like when we're talking about that now, I don't vote
that way.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
I don't have like a.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Tope issue you know that vote on. You gotta kind
of think holistically. But I'm not going to blame people
who do. That's fine. You know, you get to it's
your decision. You get to care what you care the
most about, and that's like, why will inform your decision.

Speaker 5 (59:00):
Like people who supported herschel Walker, yeah, okay, or Broy
Moore or John Father.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
It's fine, yeah, you know, yeah, you make your enjoyments.
I guess that's one of those where I.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Mean the Faederman one is a perfect example because it's
a straight up vegetable on the day of the election,
can't even speak and wins the election by five points.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Because people have him, well would rather have him. All
he's got to do is vote blue. That's all it takes.

Speaker 5 (59:23):
Turned out to be that is rabid, yeahsh.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
But I mean that is very informative for how people,
if an issue is so overwhelming, will look well past
candidate flaws and much more to go ahead and to
vote for somebody. So just keep that in mind and
we will continue to pay attention because that I still
think is the most. It's covered a lot, but it's
such an unknown variable and unknown unknown as Donald Rumsfeld

(59:51):
used to say that, Actually I guess this would be
a no, yeah, you're right. At the same time, there's
some major developments here in Washington. The Iranian attack on
Israel is very likely to spur possibly some movement in
terms of not only Israel Aid being passed through the Congress.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
But Ukraine Aid as well.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
President for former President Trump also making some news. I
did a joint press conference at mar A Lago with
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and appears to have
now flipped and supported actually more aid to Ukraine as
long as it's alone.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Here's what he had to say.

Speaker 10 (01:00:23):
They're talking about it, and we're thinking about making it
in the form of a loan instead of just a gift.
We keep handing out gifts of billions and billions of dollars,
and we'll take a look at it. But much more
importantly to me is the fact that Europe has to
step up and they have to give money. They have
to equalize. If they don't equalize, I'm very upset about
it because they're affected much more than we are. The
Ukraine situation would have never happened if I was president,

(01:00:46):
would have never ever happened. And everybody says that, including Democrats,
that it happened to such an outrage people. Millions of
people are dead right now, both sides. Millions of people
are dead.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
So as we had to say, look, he's not wrong
in terms of the European rhetoric that he had there Ryan, but.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
Casualties here is the problem.

Speaker 7 (01:01:06):
People.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Well yeah, probably probably not correct in terms of millions,
but it is hundreds of thousands on both sides, that's
no question.

Speaker 6 (01:01:13):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
The issue is that this is now some trojan horse
idea which appears to have gotten to his head from
none other than Lindsey Graham, who figured out from Trump.
He's like, well, if we con him into saying it's alone,
then Trump will be like, oh, well then we're not
actually spending. If you think you're going to dime that
money back from Ukraine, you are an idiot. Okay, these
people can't even pay their own government bills. Who do

(01:01:38):
you think is running it right now? But America is
paying for their bills.

Speaker 5 (01:01:41):
Well, so they most of the money is not going
to leave Northern Virginia anyway.

Speaker 11 (01:01:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
No, that's another good point.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
And that's actually that's this is the irony, and let's
all let's explain this is. The Hawks are like, well,
the reason why this money is good is because we're
just reinvesting it into our defense supply chain. So if
you presume that it is alone, then you're basically asking
Ukraine to have money that they don't have to then
send over here to buy weapons and then to send

(01:02:08):
it back to them and then miraculously in the future
when Ukraine, formally, when it was intact one of the
most corrupt and frankly like poor nations in all of Europe,
is somehow just going to be able to pay back
hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons loans, Like, let's
live in reality, it's never going to happen.

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):
It's way outside of their GDP potential exactly, Like, it's
just mathematically impossible. And if you believed that one hundred
percent of the money that we're spending on weapons for
Ukraine is for the benefit of Ukraine, then you could
make an argument that okay, Ukraine should pay that back

(01:02:46):
and little interest on the top there for our trouble.
But the money that we're spending is for the benefit
of the of the United States. And when I say
the United States, I mean you know, Northern Virginia, the
military industrial complex, the kind of the heads of the empire. Yeah,
so to speak, that's that's that's what's going on here.
And so to try to say that you're going to

(01:03:08):
make the Ukrainians pay for that when you know they
are just rapidly fleeing to get away from the draft.
Like you know, if this was a fight where you know,
there were you know, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who
were demanding AMMO and weapons to go to the front

(01:03:28):
lines to defend you know, the integrity of their of
their nation, and that all they need is the world
to support their effort. Then that's one thing. Now you
could still a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
By the way, we already passed that and guess what,
they're all dead or.

Speaker 5 (01:03:41):
They've lost their links. Yes, exactly, that's not the situation.
The situation is the government, which is indefinitely postponing elections,
is running around trying to round up anybody like under
sixty five seventy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Years, kidnapped of old, including people with down syndroms, video training.

Speaker 5 (01:03:59):
Them for a couple of weeks, and then throwing them
into the into the front lines to fight against refreshed
and trained Russian reserve troops. Yes, Russians. We're so kind
of propagandized here in the US that that everybody seems
to believe that the Russians are the ones that are collapsing,
and the Russians are the ones that had had to

(01:04:20):
do this like enforced conscription. The front lines don't have
any conscripted Russian soldiers. They do have conscripted Russian soldiers,
but those are those are in the back end doing
the doing the basic glen of grunt work that needs
to happen to make sure that an army can continue
to function. It's the Ukrainians who have had to conscript endlessly,
forcing people to front lines. And I just don't see

(01:04:42):
how it's a moral use of my tax dollars to
put a gun in somebody's hand who doesn't want to fight, Like,
if they themselves don't want to fight, who are we
to force them to?

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
I totally agree. And here's let me read this to
you from Senator mc romney. Here's his argument for more
A to Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Providing weapons Ukraine may not change the course of the war,
but not providing it to Ukraine sherwood.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
So, in other words, just keep using them as cannon fodder.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Right, they could sit there and we can plug them
full of artillery and bullets, and we'll just get more.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
Ukrainian guys that are in there, and more.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Ukrainian sixty year olds, more mentally retarded people, and all
of them will just kill them off as much as
the government, you know, is at its whim when they've
already lowered the draft age to twenty five.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
This is the other Iron Europe.

Speaker 5 (01:05:26):
Trying to get the other European countries it's sent back.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
It sounds nuts that they've only lowered the draft age
of twenty five. You know why, because they already have
a population problem where they don't have that many young men,
and the young men don't want to serve. It's tremendously unpopular.
Their families don't want them to do so why are
we even providing them with the weapons to be able
to continue this madness?

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Yet?

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
Speaker Mike Johnson appears to be going in the hawk
direction and very likely to possibly include here Ukraine aid
on top of some sort of Israel rider. He gave
an interview to Fox News Sunday, and here's what he
had to say.

Speaker 12 (01:05:57):
How does this change your plans this week in terms
of voting on an aid package for Israel.

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
Well, we've understood the urgency of this from the very beginning,
I mean a few days after I became speaker. Way
back in October, we passed our Israel support package. It's
been sitting on Chuck Schumer's desk ever since because we
included a pay for as you remember, what a concept
we took from the IRS expansion slush fund to pay
for the Israel priority. We tried it again just about

(01:06:26):
a month and a half ago, a clean Israel that
many Democrats one hundred and sixty six as I remember,
in the House voted against. Why because President Joe Biden
said that he would veto that. So the House Republicans
and the Republican Party understand the necessity of standing with Israel.
We are going to try again this week and the
details of that package are being put together right now.
We're looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.

Speaker 12 (01:06:47):
Well, the former president President Trump has talked about the
possibility of turning aid for Ukraine into a loan. Is
that what you're considering?

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
Yes, you know, I had a great visit with them
at Mary Lago on Friday, and he and I are
one hundred percent united on these big agenda items. And
when you talk about ad to Ukraine. He's introduced the
lone lease concept, which is a really important one I
think has a lot of consensus, as well as these
other ideas, the Repo Act which we've discussed, which is
seizing the assets of corrupt Russian oligarchs to help pay

(01:07:19):
for this resistance. I think these are ideas that I
think can get consensus, and that's what we've been working through.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
There you go from the horse's mouth and now it's live.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
And if you think the neocons aren't going to use
this to their best advantage, well just watch and see
what happens this week. Same thing. Mitch McConnell. It's going
to put this up there on the screen. He says
that the consequences of failure are now clear and devastating
and avoidable, and that is why they immediately need to
have passage of Ukraine and Israel aid through the House

(01:07:50):
of Representatives. So this Iranian attack in some ways has
been like the biggest boon to Ukraine aid that has
happened in some time. The House of Senatives has already
said all week this is our number one priority is
sending aid to Israel. Now the question is would Senator
Schumer and them back down if they sent aid to Israel,

(01:08:11):
which is not tied with Ukraine aid. But I increasingly
see it unlikely Ryan, that anything gets through the House
which doesn't have some sort of Ukraine rider.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
What do you think that's right?

Speaker 5 (01:08:20):
Because you know, Democrats have been unable to get a
majority for Israel only aid because permilajaiopaul AOC, a bunch
of folks on the left have said, no, you know,
not not amid this genocide, are we going to send
you money for Israel. That means that you need to
get Republicans and Democrats to come together. And you know,

(01:08:44):
the Republicans need to be able to move forward without
the Freedom Caucus kind of America first wing, and the
Democrats are gonna have to go forward without the squad
and the Progressive and a decent chunk of the Progressive Caucus.
And so, like you said, this running attack was probably
a gift to the McConnell's of the world and to
the people who are pushing for Ukrainian aid because it

(01:09:06):
ramps up the pressure on getting aid to Israel and
coming at the same time that you've got Mike Johnson
and Donald Trump saying okay, you know what, we don't
want to give aid to Ukraine. But as long as
the Europeans are paying their fair share and we turn
it into a lend lease, which will be a completely
forgivable loan, and you know, it's never never coming back
except in terms of kind of a more American.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
Pace, except in an accounting thing where you know, just
technically having debt on our books for the nest two
hundred years from from Ukraine.

Speaker 5 (01:09:34):
Yes, so that that does seem to be the most
likely path that they'll put both of these through together.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah, and this is ironic too, because all it would
do is stop the Europeans from actually trying to get
their act together and.

Speaker 5 (01:09:51):
Also and also stop the eventual end to this war,
Like exactly there has to be at some point, you
would think an end to this war.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
The best they hold what they currently have, which is
way worse than the peace deal that was on the
table in.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
The first at risk, right, if we send all the
weapons by listening to it, Romney, we won't. It may
not make a.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Difference, Okay, So you know it's one of those where yeah,
sixty billion dollars or whatever that would be sent to Ukraine,
Why exactly is that worth money to so that for
the integrity the Eastern Dunboss region.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
How does that affect my life? Oh wait, it doesn't actually.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Senator jd Vance gave an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper
where he argued strendlously against any aid to Ukraine.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
Here's what he had to say.

Speaker 13 (01:10:33):
Let me ask you about Ukraine because you wrote an
op ed in the New York Times saying that you
don't think it makes sense the Biden pitch for at Ukraine.
You've been accused of appeasement, You've been accused of surrender.
Even the National Review had a column about that. And again,
I'm going to get to Iran in Israel, which I
know is a big pressing story, but I do want
you to address that because the National Review is basically

(01:10:56):
saying that your solution to the problem of Russia invading
a sovereign Ukraine is to just surrender. Are they wrong?

Speaker 5 (01:11:03):
No, Look, my solution to.

Speaker 14 (01:11:04):
The problem is to rebuild our own country. The reason
that we're in this position, Jake, is because we're stretched
way too thin.

Speaker 5 (01:11:10):
We're stretched way too.

Speaker 14 (01:11:11):
Thin, and the number of weapons systems that we need,
the Ukraine needs, the Taiwan needs, that Israel needs, and
we can't do all of these things at once. So
when you're stretched too thin, you've got to focus and
you've got to rebuild your own country. Let's take just
one of those weapons systems that we're talking about, one
hundred and fifty five millimeters artillery shelves. The Russians currently
have a five to one advantage over the Ukrainians. The

(01:11:34):
Israelis will need this stuff, the Taiwanese need this stuff,
and of course America needs this stuff. Can we possibly
fight all of those conflicts that wants to know?

Speaker 5 (01:11:43):
The math just doesn't make sense.

Speaker 14 (01:11:44):
So what we should be doing is with Ukraine, encouraging
them to take a defensive posture, not these disastrous counter
offensive the Biden administration has been promoting.

Speaker 13 (01:11:53):
Is within Ukraine. The counter offensive is within Ukraine. They're
not seeking land from Russian In.

Speaker 14 (01:11:58):
Fact, just today, I'm just asking judgment on the morality
of what they're doing. Of course it's their territory, Jake,
but you have to acknowledge military reality on the ground.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Yeah, I mean, it's sensible and it's obviously true. Even
like we just talked about in our Israel block, we
just spend one point three billion dollars in defense on
a single attack from Iran.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
How do you think it's going to look like we're
going to full on war.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
That's exactly how when we were in Afghanistan, the toll
at some point was some two hundred million dollars a
day that we were spending in the war in Iraq
as well. That's how that six trillion number got as
high as it was. People really have no idea like
once the ball is rolling, and just the amount of
money that gets printed and spent on this stuff is astounding.

(01:12:39):
The Republicans, though, do have a genius plan, by the way,
to pay for A to Israel.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Let's go and put this up there on the screen.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Johnson apparently has a proposal which will condition A to
Israel on domestic spending cuts. It's not just from the IRS,
it's from other programs that we have here. So let's
just all just ruminate a little bit on that.

Speaker 5 (01:12:59):
And we could argue about this endlessly. But the quote
unquote cuts to the IRS actually add to the deficit,
because if you defund the IRS, you get less tax
money coming in. And by the way, just one fun detail,
the one hundred and fifty five millimeter shells, those are
the ones that Pakistan has been making for the US
since we overthrew in ron Khan. That's basically that's why

(01:13:19):
we overthrew. Oh where there's a result of overthrowing in
ron Khan is that it pushed Pakistan in our direction.
And what Pakistan does is makes lots of those shells,
and so we got those factories humming for for Ukraine's benefit.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
As a result.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
And just even with all of that, it doesn't really
matter because the best estimate for a bifiscal twenty twenty
eight is eighty five thousand shells a month. That's according
to the US Army, and the Russians are currently at
like one hundred and seventy five thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:13:49):
So just so people understand just how far.

Speaker 5 (01:13:51):
Bea we're dropping those all over the bread basket of
the world. Yeah, how's that working?

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
Yeah that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Okay, Well we'll see thank you Trump. Len Ley's program
genius absolutely genius scam by the neocons here, But as
usual for him, he's like, well that sounds good, we'll
make it alone. Great, great idea. Cornell West, the Independent candidate,
has chosen Black Lives Matter activist Melina Abdullah as his

(01:14:17):
vice president. The Independent candidate says he needs a VP
pick to gain access to the ballot. This actually explains
also why RFK Junior announced his VP picks so early.
There's some contestation right now whether he actually qualified for
the Arizona ballot or not, because he didn't have his
VP listed whenever he made his petition. So that's why
the two of them are announcing their VP candidates much

(01:14:39):
earlier than everybody else. But what's your immediate reaction to
Cornell West choosing a BLM activist here?

Speaker 5 (01:14:48):
Cornell West said, he he wants to run with somebody
who brings some joy and then he feels proud of me. Obviously,
this is not a he's not playcating any kind of
he's a triangulating. He's he's leaning completely in right. Uh,
he's as as he said it. Uh, you know, he's
he's running. Uh, he's running for Genius Malina. Uh is

(01:15:09):
running for Allah. So you're kind of a Christian Christian
social justice warrior and a Muslim social justice warrior on
the on the ticket together. Malina was a basically an
original founder of of b l M like this, so
as as you know, it began with kind of a
hashtag on Facebook. Uh, that really took off. And then

(01:15:30):
the organizers captured that energy, got together in a room
and decided, you know how they were going to you know,
take that energy and move it forward. And Molina was
among among those people. And and she's also she's kind
of been a kind of an elder in that in
that space, as you know a lot of a lot

(01:15:51):
of the original BLM founders were you know, teens twenties.
She's a more kind of accomplished professor. Uh, you know,
like any radical leftist in this country who hasn't scrubbed
her Twitter feed, you're gonna find all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Let's take a let's take a trip down memory lane,
shall we. Let's go and put some of these up
there on the screen from miss Abdullah we have. Why
do I feel like it's slightly racist to be a
Taylor Swift hit?

Speaker 5 (01:16:20):
This one got some trash in real time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
That actually was literally only two months ago. This isn't
some old tweet that we're looking at here. Let's continue
to play some of the greatest hits. The American flag
symbolizes the genocide of Indigenous people, the theft of their land,
the enslavement of dehumanization, exploitation of black people, and settler colonialism.
Critique around Beyonce's artistic choice is important and healthy, not
hate hashtag cowboy Carter. As Ben Jacobs, the political reporter notes,

(01:16:47):
is this our first anti American flag candidate? Let's go
to the next one here as Well says these are
some older ones, but none is older than July of
twenty nineteen. On Pete budaj Edge apparently saying the word Niger,
she says nobody white should ever refer to the nation
of Niger period misspelled period?

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
Does anybody else.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
Resent that COVID nineteen has made it acceptable for old
white men to hijack Black culture and give each other
a DAP and fistball. Wait, Ryan, that's us, we fist
pump each other. I guess we're hijacking Black culture with
the DAP. No self respecting black persons should be singing
the white national anthem hashtag demned debate and not digging

(01:17:27):
the white children referred to as Mama La.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Didn't she just get married?

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
That's a dig at Kamala Harris for having the temerity
to embrace her step children.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
So all very popular positions, each one actually less popular
than the next. Here's another one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
In July twenty nineteen, I was compelled to step off
the sidewalk three times during my thirty minute walk so
that white folks and their dogs could pass. Got me
feeling like hashtag gentrification is hashtag Jim Crow revisited. I'm
going to say that the next time that I'm forced
off bi pitbull. So these are these are all let's

(01:18:04):
just say, interesting choice here by Cornell West.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
I mean, what is he thinking.

Speaker 5 (01:18:08):
Let's be honest, they're like obvious racial dimensions to gentrification
and then they do walk.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
Let's let's not even try. Let's not even try and
rescue this abdella here? All right, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:18:18):
About the dog.

Speaker 3 (01:18:19):
The dog, come on, what.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Are you talking about? But I think, look, I guess
if you want to defend it, you can. This is
just pure gobbledegook. Looking at this woman's background, Pan African studies,
University of California, totally poisoned with activist type rhetoric. And
that's my thing here with Cornell and like, what are
you trying to do? You know, it's interesting too, because

(01:18:43):
look I get that BLM social justice and all that
is foundational to some of his political identity. Fine, okay,
but don't you have some political reason as to why
you are running beyond trying to capture this kind of
activist base and vote, which, let's be honest, these people
long to vote for Biden anyway, In terms of the
practical realities, I see no political calculus other than becoming

(01:19:06):
a laughingstock by picking somebody like this.

Speaker 5 (01:19:08):
Yeah, Cornell has always had kind of a broader lens
when it comes to his radical love and his radical politics,
one that you know what you know. He endorsed Obama,
for instance, I remember campaign for Obama and has always
tried to unite people and make the argument that racism

(01:19:30):
is dividing us so that the one percent can walk
away with all of the spoils, which is probably an
argument that Molina would would agree with, but she doesn't
lead with it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:19:44):
Well, whereas where Cornell West does lead with that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
Yeah, And that's why I found it confounding, is this
is very much the opposite, at least from what I've
watched and listened to him. He's generally I mean, I
wouldn't call him like a race first person. He definitely
indulges in a lot of racial rhetoric, but has always
at least tried to adopt that this is something that
is downstream of classism. But you know, from a pure

(01:20:08):
political lens, it's like, why would you give this gift
to to not only for media, I mean, we wouldn't
be covering it otherwise otherwise, you know, otherwise it's like,
who barely even cares he's even going to be on
the ballot, But for this, I mean, just to me,
seems like a profound political misjudgment.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
Maybe it's just what he believes. I think that's fine too,
if you want to do that.

Speaker 5 (01:20:26):
Coroner West has almost seemed I hope we can get
him on the program.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
By the way, we have tried. His campaign has been
a pain in the ass. So if anybody who's listening,
who is out there, doctor West, We've invited you on
the show more than a dozen times, and I have
yet to receive a proper response.

Speaker 5 (01:20:40):
Yeah, it feels like he has regretted the decision to
run since he launched it and has and has been like,
my conspiracy theory, if I were going to get it
in his mind, is that he has been consistently trying
to undermine his own campaign so as not to undermined
by it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:55):
Interesting. Oh wow.

Speaker 5 (01:20:56):
First he launched with the People's Party, clearly doing anything that.
Immediately as soon as he realized what he'd gotten into,
he's like, WHOA, what is this mess? Then he goes
over to the Green Party. Apparently he hadn't done much
work with the Green Party because I could have told
you that thing is a complete and total mess. And
so he was like, whoa, the Green Party is extremely
difficult to deal with. They're not going to just coordinate me.

(01:21:19):
He didn't want to fight for the nomination.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
Why should they coronate because because there are a self
respecting parties. Yes they're they're actually by the way, on
the ballot, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:21:30):
But then I think he started to worry, Oh wait,
now I might be if I win this, I will
be on ballots and then I might throw the election
to Trump. So then he's like, I'm going to run
as an independent. And running as an independent, I think
he's only on like three ballots at this point. Running
as an independent, it's very difficult to get on the ballots.
He's raised less than a million dollars, and he doesn't

(01:21:50):
seem to have the energy to kind of get on
the ballot in fifty states. And is that deliberate? Like
that is that expression of his Wait a minute, because
he is very clear that he believes that Trump is
a more dangerous that's form of fascism than Biden's form
of fascism. Like that is? That is and he has

(01:22:12):
ticked off an enormous number of people on the left.
You with that position, but that is his position. And
if that is your position.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
Then what's your raise on? What are we doing here?

Speaker 5 (01:22:23):
And I think what he's doing here is not running?

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
Oh well, I like the psychoanalysis. Maybe that's why I
won't come on the show. Doesn't want a big enough program.
All right, all right, let's see. All right, let's move
on to Bill Maher Ryan and I had to break
this one down. Bill just injecting himself into the abortion
debate in the single most bill way possible.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
Let's take a.

Speaker 15 (01:22:41):
Listen, not if you believe it's murder. You know, That's
why I don't understand the fifteen week thing or the
Trump's plan is let's leave it to the states. You mean,
so coming babies is okay in some states. I couldn't
respect the absolutest position I really can I scold the
left when they say, oh, you know what, they just

(01:23:02):
hate women people who aren't pro wife they do the
pro choice, they just they don't hate women. They just
made that up. They think it's murder and it kind
of is. I'm just okay with that, I am. I mean,
there's eight billion people in the world. I'm sorry, we
won't miss you. That's my position on them. What, Yeah,

(01:23:25):
exactly is that not your position if your pro choice is.

Speaker 3 (01:23:29):
Maybe because you don't like children? No?

Speaker 15 (01:23:31):
No, I mean but if you are, you said your
pro choice, that's your position too.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
So yeah, there's a lot going on there. So Bill,
I mean, I guess we should note he is sixty
eight years old and unmarried. So I don't think Peers
is off by saying, you know, do you just not
like kids? Like what exactly is going on here?

Speaker 2 (01:23:54):
The problem for Bill is that he's basically embracing the
og pro abortion argument by Margaret's Anger and other eugenicists,
which is like, hey, we need abortion so that black
people in particular will stop having a bunch of kids.

Speaker 3 (01:24:07):
This is why a lot of white.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
Supremacists, eugenicists, and others were original supporters of abortion. You'll
actually hear this from a lot of pro life people
in general.

Speaker 5 (01:24:15):
They took Martin Sanger's name off the Planned Parenthood building.

Speaker 3 (01:24:18):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, as a result of that. But Ryan,
give us the pro choice critique of what Bill has
to say.

Speaker 5 (01:24:25):
I mean he's he's pro murderer. Yeah, you know, most
reasonable people are anti murder.

Speaker 3 (01:24:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:24:32):
The argument that it's okay to murder people because there
are too many people on the planet is evil. Like,
it's just deeply evil.

Speaker 3 (01:24:43):
This straight up depopulation.

Speaker 5 (01:24:44):
Man, that's crazy. So at what age? So okay, how
about sixty eight year old?

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):
Oh yeah, like, like you.

Speaker 5 (01:24:51):
Said, Bill mar sixty eight, right, he thinks contributed to
the population, he be killed. Yeah, Like taking that logic seriously,
it is impressive to be able to make the absolute
least the absolute worst argument on either side in this spate. That. Okay,
he says, I say that life begins at conception, but.

Speaker 3 (01:25:12):
It is good to murder children because there are too
many because there are too many people. Yeah, I mean
this is where this is the issue. And look, I
mean I'm not even going to as people know, I
don't believe in God. Okay, So for me. This is
a it's a difficult issue.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
As everybody always says, the general societal consensus for some
reason is that we seem to accept it in the
first trimester and all of that. Even with medical advances
and all of that, it actually becomes more complicated at what.

Speaker 3 (01:25:39):
Exactly fetal viability is, et cetera. Go ahead.

Speaker 5 (01:25:42):
I know he is right that there's a contradiction between
believing as you know the pro life crowd does, and Emily,
I'll talk about this that you know, if you believe
life begins at conception, but you're okay with fifteen weeks, then.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
Yeah, what is that exactly?

Speaker 5 (01:25:56):
He is correct. No, that is if it is murdering,
how do you leave it? How do you go back
to the state. The pro choice croud just does not
believe that, yes, that having an abortion is murder And
also mar is just wrong to completely dismiss the misogynistic
angle here. That doesn't mean that every pro life supporter
quote unquote hates women like he said, but it is

(01:26:16):
a it is a fundamental part of upholding the patriarchy. Well,
and I think even most pro life supporters would it
would acknowledge that and say that, yeah, it is related
to our resentment of and opposition to this sexual revolution
and everything that is that, everything that is unfolded since
then we would like to go back to pre nineteen

(01:26:38):
sixties version.

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
I think that's fair, and that's where I agree that
it's wrong because it's one of those where it hates women. Okay, yeah,
I mean that's it's a little bit hyper hyperbole. However,
when we look at polling and we see that the
number one issue for suburban women or even for a
lot of women is abortion, something is going on there,
and in general, the vast majority of them are pro choice.
In general, especially here in America, what we individually select

(01:27:04):
for is our right to self actualization. Now, this is
where the pro life community and the religious community gets
upset because at the end of the day, individualism is
the enemy of collectivism, and specifically collectivism whenever it's related
to religion and organized religion. So what they are trying
to go against is exactly as you said. The ideas
in the genesis of the sexual revolution, which was enabled

(01:27:25):
by birth control, is the idea that the sex act
itself can be disaggregated from procreation. That is literally the
enemy of the Christian conception of procreation and of why
the existence of sin and all that is here in
the first place, as it's been explained to me. So
my point though, is that this is an enemy. These
are two competing ideologies, one very clearly is trending in

(01:27:50):
a different direction when it comes to an increasingly secular America.
One of the most underreported like stories of our lifetime
is I grew up and so did you, Ryan in
a Christian country. I grew up in nineteen nineties Texas
where some ninety percent of the people around me were
straight up evangelical believers. If I go back now today,

(01:28:13):
even today in a very Christian Christian place, you don't
feel it just quite as much. You don't see that influence.
And we see declining church attendance, declining religiosity, declining religious identification.
The secularization has been such a mass change in American
religious identity. We haven't seen anything like it since the

(01:28:34):
Great Awakening in the eighteen hundreds when we saw mass
Christian adoption or I guess church attendance, and that revolution
in our lifetime is a huge part of this debate.
It's funny because I noted all these people were attacking
Trump for saying leave it to the States, and I
was like, hey, the entire time I was growing up,
the pro lifers always just said leave it to the states.

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):
But somebody was like, no, no, no, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
But you don't understand if they didn't, if they realized
leaving it to the states would mean pro choice referendums
would passing red states, they never would have said that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
They didn't believe it in the first place. And I
do think that is undred percent.

Speaker 5 (01:29:06):
The other fascinating part about the great unawakening that we're
living through is that some of it, some of its
connected to the spread of evangelical Christianity in the sense
that those types of folks are not actually.

Speaker 3 (01:29:22):
Going to church much. Yeah that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
Yeah, they consider themselves evangelical, but they don't even they
don't really.

Speaker 5 (01:29:26):
Be iheard, you know, evangelicals, but are ye not going
to church because they believe that they have their own
relationship with Jesus, and you know they don't. They don't
need the institution to get in the way of it.
Or you've got the megachurches, which are a very it's
a very tenuous kind of connection to a church that's
not a it's not a neighborhood that is organized around

(01:29:47):
this particular thing. It's just just a fun thing that
people do on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:29:52):
Right, Yeah, it's it's it is very interesting. I would
just say though, part of the problem, and this is
one of the things I think that some of the
religion folks are correct about, is that it does lead
to the normalization of some straight up ghoulish rhetoric like
what Bill Maher just said, which is depopulation. When you
remove yourself from morals and you start to think purely

(01:30:12):
in these terms, then you can arrive at eugenicism and
just think like, hey, why doesn't this stuff make sense?

Speaker 5 (01:30:18):
He seems surprised by the reaction. He watched the crowd.
He thought he was going to get some guffaws at
his like pro murder stance and even even yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
Even peers, why, I guess peers from Britain. Yeah, in Britain,
I mean they're not religio. They haven't been religious for
like fifty.

Speaker 5 (01:30:31):
There was some collar tugging going on, and the crowd
that comes to a Bill Maher show has to be
ready to hear some pretty impolitics stuff. And even they were.

Speaker 2 (01:30:41):
Like yeah, because look That's the whole point in terms
of the messy issue, and the way that the consensus
and all of that has been arrived is, as you said,
is that a lot of people just don't believe that
life does begin at conception, and it's much more fetal viability,
and so thus they're like, I don't believe in murder.
There in a way, Bill was like accepting like the

(01:31:01):
Christian framing, saying it is kind of murder.

Speaker 3 (01:31:03):
But I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
Because we have eight billion people on the planet, I
will expect actually to see more of these types of
discussions in America. What I'm really interested in is the
fact that even though as Americans become much more secular,
is we do still seem to have a moral code
carried over through many civilizations which are non religious, where
we still are like, yeah, murder is bad, eugenicism is bad.

(01:31:26):
It's like, these are all lessons that, even in a
non Christian nation, that we're arriving at our own kind
of social, individualistic consensus, which is interesting. Nonetheless, there's certainly
a lot else going on that is important in this world.
But something I couldn't just let go by without at
least a word is media assessment of the death of

(01:31:47):
OJ Simpson. The OJ case is one I never really
cared about. I was only one year old at the
time of the murders. I have no memory of the
verdict or any of the media environment at the time.
My interest came many decades later after the release of
the FX series The People Versus OJ Simpson. It inspired
me to actually do a deep dive on the case
and read several books about it. What I came away

(01:32:08):
with is a disgust that I can barely describe. Reading
an exquisite detail how OJ's defense team and the tabloid
media transformed a narcissistic, abusive murderer into a black panther
police justice icon one of the most insane things that
happened throughout the nineteen nineties. I will not re litigate
every detail here, but suffice it to say that the

(01:32:29):
media and Johnny Cochran got what they wanted. They split
this country completely apart by race. You can see it
clearly in the famous reaction shots to the verdict. Black
audience is cheering the OJ not guilty verdict, many others
repulsed by it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:42):
Let's take a listen, Oh kid.

Speaker 11 (01:32:52):
I think it's great. He deserves to go free. They
had no evidence on him.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
So much evidence for as short as they did and
come back with a not guilty verdict.

Speaker 7 (01:33:03):
I think it.

Speaker 11 (01:33:04):
Shows that the jury was pretty irresponsible, and.

Speaker 3 (01:33:07):
I'm just don't think justice has served. I don't think
the jury did their job. I think they knew what
they were going to do from the gate.

Speaker 16 (01:33:14):
I think it was racist based and it was racist
from the black point of view.

Speaker 4 (01:33:20):
This is terrible that he's going to get away with this,
you know, because I do believe that he did it,
and it's just not fair.

Speaker 3 (01:33:29):
He's guilty. He's got to live in himself. Man, he
knows he did it.

Speaker 5 (01:33:33):
DNA.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
He's not racial. It doesn't see black and white. It
guess sees that he was there and he did it.
He's got to live in himself, that's all.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
I thought we'd at least left all that behind in
the nineties where it belonged. But I couldn't help but
find that rage build back inside me when I started
to see media reactions to the announcement of OJ's death
the same race huckster collapse trap in twenty twenty four.
Let's take a listen from CNN.

Speaker 17 (01:33:56):
It's not like OJ Simpson was the leader of the
civil rights movement of his error. You know, he wasn't
a social justice leader. But he represented something for the
black community in that moment, in that trial, particularly because
there were two white people who had been killed, and
the history around how black people have been persecuted during slavery.

Speaker 3 (01:34:17):
There were just.

Speaker 17 (01:34:17):
So many layers, and I guess I would just close
with this is that there was racial tension. Then there
is racial tension. Now it might not be the backdrop
of the Trump campaign, but until this country is ready
to actually have an honest conversation about the racial dynamics
from our origin story till today, we will always have

(01:34:38):
moments like OJ Simpson that manifest and our country will
always be divided if we don't actually deal with the
issue of race.

Speaker 3 (01:34:45):
So let's break that down.

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
This woman, Ashley Allison, former Obama staffort, says that OJ
Simpson represented something to the black community because he murdered
two white people, and then somehow connects OJ's not guilty
verdict to slavery. I cannot tell you how angry that
makes me because it is the exact strain of thought
and exploitation that Johnny Cochrane, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson
used in the nineteen nineties to transform his case into

(01:35:09):
something it was not.

Speaker 3 (01:35:10):
What's insane is that it wasn't even.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
The first case of OJ apologia on CNN in the aftermath.

Speaker 3 (01:35:17):
Of his death. The very first was this live reaction.
Take a listen.

Speaker 16 (01:35:20):
It's also just worth noting how much was impacted by
this trial, Jake. So many things happened, we saw policing
changing here in the city. And it's also worth noting
because of that unrest, that racial unrest in the nineties,
that is why so many people who may not have
been invested in OJ Simpson were just happy to see
that someone who was rich and famous and black could

(01:35:42):
get away with what other people did in the system
as well too.

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
What was that so many people who was rich and
famous and black could get away with what other people
did in the system too? What strikes me about the
OJ case was how much it parallels the fightce that
we've had ever since the nineteen eighties. Take race out
of it, and instead you see a different picture. A multimillionaire,
world famous athlete who routinely beat and abused his wife,
paid off or used his influence to quash police investigations,

(01:36:06):
then bought his way out of a double murder homicide
by throwing money at the most extensive attorneys in Los Angeles.
His victims were a waiter who was trying to be nice,
returning Nicole Brown Simpson's glasses, and Nicole Brown Simpson herself,
who Oj married when she was an eighteen year old
girl and was routinely and financially, emotionally and physically abused
by Simpson up until the day she died at his hand.

(01:36:28):
You instead have a tale here of the rich and
powerful able to get away with literal murder, while people
with less resources and fame lie dead with no recourse.
Look no further than the New York Times to see
the media legacy of the OJ trial. Their obituary of him,
the Times wrote, quote, he ran to football fame on
the field, made fortunes in the movies, but his world

(01:36:49):
was ruined after he was charged with killing his former
wife and her friend. His world was ruined. Poor guy.
Can't believe it ever happened to him even after all this. Today,
the trial affect lingers the race politics that were pioneered
by Cochrane and Jackson and Sharpton and the media. They
went into overdrive in the interim decades. That's what poured
gasoline on the fire of DEI initiatives, affirmative action, and

(01:37:12):
the division that we have today, the parallel track, the
path of the rich and the famous and the powerful.
They were able to get away with whatever they want.
It's only accelerated in the last thirty years, using race
politics like they did as their shield. That is the
true and the lasting effect of the OJ Simpson trial.
It is one of the most shameful periods in modern
American times, and one whose true lesson should be how

(01:37:33):
much damage that it wrought over that time.

Speaker 3 (01:37:35):
That was what I couldn't get away with Ryman.

Speaker 1 (01:37:37):
And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue,
become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
Chris will be back tomorrow Counterpoints. She will be in
for you on Counterpoints, So I guess you'll have three
days of Chrystal and a row, So enjoy that and
we will see you all tomorrow.

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