4/17/24: Congress Pushes Billions For Israel And Ukraine, Israel Blocks Oct 7 UN Investigation, USC Cancels Pro-Palestine Valedictorian Speech, Tom Cotton Calls For Violence On Protesters, SCOTUS To Rescue Trump On Jan 6 Charges, Biden To Sue Ticketmaster, Bill Maher Flames CNN'

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Coverage that is possible.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
If you like what we're all about, it just means
the absolute world to have your support.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. Ryan is on spring break,
so we are very lucky to have Crystal joining us,
and Crystal actually also has a little bit of an
announcement about something that's going to be on the channel tonight. Crystal,
how you doing and what have you got for us?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Doing good? Always a pleasure to be joining you on
a Wednesday, Emily, although it does deeply confuse me in
terms of what day of the week it actually rhythm
all thanks, so yeah, really throw me off, but I'm
very happy to be here. Yeah, so thank you for
reminding me. Sager is actually moderating a debate tonight. It's
via zero Hedge, but it's going to be live streamed

(00:59):
on our channel as well. The topic is Israel always
you know, a light, easy breezy, no major disagreements there.
And on one side you're going to have Jane Huger
and Dave Smith. On the other side you're going to
have Batya Angar Saga and Dennis Praeger. So I'm personally
looking forward to tuning into that and seeing how it goes.

(01:20):
But that'll be on our channel tonight at seven pm,
so make sure you don't miss that. We got a
lot though in the show to get to this morning.
We've got major speaker drama, We've got new sanctions being
announced against a Ron, We've got a whole bunch of
free speech issues. We want to get to some very
consequential SCOTUS oral arguments that happened yesterday that could be

(01:41):
very significant for a lot of J six defendants and
also for Donald Trump himself. Looks like the DOJ is
going to sue Live Nation and Bill Maher making some
interesting comments and also comes in the context of this
whole NPR liberal whatever's going on at NPR. You can
help me understand that as well, Emily, and.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
Katie Kirk is back talking to Bill Maher. Just so
much going.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
On, Yeah, Katie Kirk you know, I that'd be a
fun one for us to interview. We should try to
get her. We should try to get her on I
have some questions for her.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
That's a great idea.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
The only other thing I want to say before we
dive in is that the debate that Sager's modern tonight
sounds like a Stefan joke on Saturday Night Live. It'll
have every everything, Dennis Prager, Sager and Jetty conversations about it.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah. I was saying to you, it's such a weird world.
We didn't habit, but this is what counts for, you know,
A good time in my book is tuning into this
and seeing how it goes. But I know Soger will
do a fantastic job playing the you know, even handed moderator. There.
So interesting to see the sparks fly.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Absolutely, make sure to tune in seven pm. Right here.
Let's start though, also just down the street with Congress
here in Washington, d C. Where you're a weekly dose
of Groundhog Day. Yes, Mike Johnson might be ousted now
Thomas Massey has joined Marjorie Taylor Green's motion to vacate.
They still need to do the parliamentary procedure privileging the

(03:12):
motion to vacate if you want to get really nerdy
to actually force a vote on the motion to vacate
the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson over his foreign
aid package. This time, Thomas Massey actually called on him
to resign. We're going to break all down all the details,
but let's start with a clip of Mike Johnson talking
to reporters yesterday in the Capitol. Here's what he had

(03:34):
to say about the possibility of him resigning. What is
your response to Republicans who say this move should cost
you your job and that if.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
You don't resign they will try to oust you.

Speaker 5 (03:44):
I am not resigning, and it is in my view
an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion
when we are simply here trying to do our jobs.
It is not helpful to the cause, It is not
helpful to the country. It does not help the House
republic Pigan's advance or agenda, which is in the best
interest to the American people here a secure border of

(04:05):
sound governance, and it's not helpful to the unity that
we have in the body.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Right.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
So again, that was Speaker Mike Johnson, responding to push
for him to actually just resign, and this came really
from Thomas Massey. We can put Thomas Massey sweet up
on the screen. This is a two he said. I
just told Mike Johnson in conference that I'm co sponsoring
the motion of a Kate that was introduced by Marjorie
Taylor Green. He should pre announce his resignation as Bayner did,

(04:31):
so we can pick a new speaker without ever being
without a GOP speaker. Christy who might remember that reference
to what John Bayner did as the writing kind of
ended up on the wall with Mark Meadows and Jim
Jordan all the way back in like twenty fifteen. That's
what Thomas Massey is referencing there. And this all over

(04:52):
a bill, the text of which actually has not yet
been released, but Mike Johnson has signaled will include half
the aid to U Ukraine, to Israel, to Taiwan with
none of the border security measures that his fellow Republicans,
especially the sort of Freedom Caucus and Freedom Coccus adjacent
people like Thomas Massin, like Marjorie Taylor Green who was
ousted from the Freedom Caucus. But we don't need to

(05:14):
get into all of that have demanded it be paired
with border security or some other offsets, and they are
furious with Mike Johnson for essentially working with Democrats, who,
as Politico is reported, seem to be open to potentially
saving Mike Johnson from this motion to vacate in order
to get their aid to Ukraine, their aid to Israel.

(05:37):
This is a three A tweet from Jake Sherman over
at punch Bowl. He broke some of this down. He said,
House Republicans plan to try to pass four bills this
week to send aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. According
to four sources familiar with the plan, maybe he had.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Like one per bill.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
The fourth bill will include a ban on TikTok, a
bill to sell, a bill to sell ob seized Russian assets,
a lend Lease Act for military aid, convertible loan for
humanitarian relief, and other provisions. The GOP leadership will try
to move this plan under one rule, the sources said.
So four bills under one rule, and those are some
of the details of what those bills might actually look like,

(06:13):
and Crystal'll toss it to you. But let's first take
this tweet from Matt Stoller, which is aimed actually at Democrats.
He said, this move is responding to Jake Sherman, will
require Democratic support and as a move to create a
de facto war party caucus that is beyond partisan reach.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
I hope Dems vote no. Mike Johnson has a one
vote margin in.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
The House of Representatives right now, so Stoller is absolutely
correct that it will completely, no question about it, involve
Democrats saving Mike Johnson to pass that bill.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
Stoller seems to me to be dead on Crystal.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah. I completely stand with Matt Stoller in his stands there.
I hate basically, I mean, I do hate all four
of these bills. I don't want any of them to pass.
I could rank them in terms of which ones I
hate them, but the unconditional support for Israel probably reaches
the top of the list, although you know, the banning
TikTok stuff I also am opposed to. But just to

(07:09):
explain the legislative machinations here and why someone like Thomas Massey,
who I have plenty of disagreements with but I consider
to be a genuinely principled and actually courageous actor in
the United States Congress, why I think he's correct to
be very upset about this maneuver. So they've long been

(07:31):
trying to push through more Ukraine AID, more Israel AID,
more Taiwan AID, and you know, there's will put the
border security piece from the Republicans to the side for
a moment. And it's been difficult because you've got Republicans
who some number of whom are opposed to Ukraine AID,
You've got Democrats, some number of whom are now opposed
to the Israel AID, and so you know, the thing

(07:53):
that passed through the Senate, which pushed all these things together,
was unlikely to pass through the House. What Mike Johnson
is doing is basically a sort of legislative trick where
he's saying, okay, well, let's break these pieces apart. We
have enough pro war bipartisan consensus on Ukraine to pass
just Ukraine through the House. We have enough pro war

(08:15):
bipartisan consensus on Israel to just pass Israel through the House.
So if we do those two things and these other
pieces separately, and then after the fact, combine them together
so that it resembles basically what got through the Senate,
then there you go. We get our uniparty bipartisan pro

(08:35):
war consensus funded all across the board. And so what
Thomas Massey is saying is, basically, this is the polar
opposite of what was promised to us when you were
you know, when you were elected Speaker of the House,
You're to be honest with you, Emily, some of the
previous speaker machinations back when it was Kevin McCarthy and
Matt Gates and whatever, didn't really make a lot of

(08:58):
sense to me, and seem to be more performative on
the part of Matt Gates here, my understanding at least,
was one of the key reasons that McCarthy was ousted
in favor of Mike Johnson was Mike Johnson's supposed opposition
to Ukraine aid. You also had the specter of him
completely folding and reversing with regard to Faiza and you know,

(09:20):
the deep state and surveilling Americans. So I actually, you know,
to me, Thomas Massey stand here makes sense. Is entirely principled,
and I am certainly cheering for the whole thing to fail.
I'm not all that helpful that it's going to fail.
But to Stoler's point, what he's referring to here is
for these bills to even get to the floor, they

(09:42):
have to pass this, you know, the rules through committee.
Typically Democrats don't vote for Republican rules through those committees.
That's sort of like the traditional way, but it would
require Democrats in order to accomplish that. So that's why
if Democrat that's decided they wanted to block this, they could.

(10:03):
It doesn't seem to me entirely likely that that is
going to happen, though at this point it seems like
once again we're on track, very likely for the pro
war consensus to get their money, as they seem to
always be able to accomplish.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
And to that point, Actually, the House Intelligence Committee put
out a statement yesterday, a joint statement from Chairman Mike Turner.
Obviously was a huge sort of it was just on
his victory lap over the FAISA win that the UNI
Party had last week.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
But they put out a.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Joint statement Mike Turner and the ranking member Jim Hymes,
a Democrat, and said we must pass Ukraine aid now
today in a classified briefing.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
Where have you heard that before?

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Our committee was informed of the critical need to provide
Ukraine military aid this week. No specifics, of course, that's
just how they like to frame these things. The US
must stand against Putin's war of aggression now as Ukraine
situation on the ground is critical. So Mike Johnson actually
is allowing the uniparty to attach Ukraine AID to Israel AID,

(11:03):
knowing that a lot of Republicans who are opposed to
Ukraine AID at this.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Point support Israel AID.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
That was a red line for many of these people
that said, this is the ultimate betrayal. You know, we
don't know exactly what we expected from you, Mike Johnson,
but we heard you say many, many times that you
opposed tying Ukraine AID to Israel AID, that you oppose
continuing to fund the war in Ukraine without funding American
border security. So it just feels like a big stab

(11:33):
in the back and to those members. And on top
of that, now there is this real, I think, principled
blacklash from people like Thomas Massey. I couldn't agree more
with you, Crystel that he is courageous and genuinely is
committed to the principles on this question to prevent from
happening exactly what Stolar is predicting. And I feel like Crystal,

(11:54):
that is a it's something that if I had to bet,
I would probably say won't happened because the politics of
it for Democrats are so difficult right now. But then again,
the margin here is so small that it wouldn't take
that many Democrats to break away. If you have Jim
Hymes already putting on a statement.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Like that, Yeah, no, I mean, it's unfortunately been my
view from the beginning that some way, somehow they were
going to push through their Ukraine money, they were going
to push through their Israel money, because they always do so,
whether it's through this particular legislative maneuver or the next one.
You know, it seems like somehow they always find some

(12:36):
way to get this type of money through. And it's
it's almost a cliche at this point, like there isn't
all this legislative maneuvering and pressure and repeated attempts to
get the minimum wage lifted, or to get healthcare to
more Americans, or to get you know, affordable childcare, or
any other number of things that would benefit us. But
when it comes to making sure that their donors, many

(12:58):
of you know, plenty of whom come from the defence industry,
are going to get paid or their future jobs in
the defense industry are going to be locked up, or
you know that APAK is satisfied with, you know, with
their return on investment for their donations. When it comes
to those things, they figure out some way. And even
people who like Mike Johnson, who claim to be opposed

(13:21):
to some of these things, suddenly when the pressure's on,
he flips on a dime and he's right there standing alongside,
you know, Mitch mccondell and Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden
and all of the worst warhawks in the entire country.
So you know, I'm so you actually think though, that
there's a chance that these things will fail because of

(13:41):
the consternation on the Republican and the Democratic side this time.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, I wonder because we haven't totally seen the pressure
campaign ratchet up on Democrats yet. Does it look for Democrats,
especially in the House side where a lot of them
are up for re election, like they're saving a Republican speaker.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
Do they worry about that? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
I think those dynamics are what people are thinking about
over at the d TRIP and the DNC today, and
we might see some we might get like spidy senses
as to where they're pushing people as this continues on,
But there is reporting that they've talked about being open
to doing it. That's even that was even you know,
rumored back when it was McCarthy on the chopping box.

(14:22):
So who knows how real it is if it's just
a tool to keep having these conversations. But to put
a fine point on what you just said, Crystal about
Mike Johnson, it's like he said, he went into the
skiff where you know, you get those confidential briefings and
of classified information, and on section seven of two Phizer
Reform last week said, you know, he wanted to prevent
another nine to eleven from what he heard in the skiff.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
That's what he was really worried about. And it was
actually a joke.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
In some sort of like freedom caucasy circles before that
that Mike Johnson would go to the skiff and completely
flip flop on Fiza, and that's exactly what happened. And
it's funny because that's the language that Mike Turner and
Jim Heimesi in that joint statement that we got a
classified briefing today about the urgency for passing Ukraine Aid
this week I mean, it is always the same thing,

(15:08):
and that FAISA reform is now looking to be an
even worse bill that within you know, just a couple
of days between when everyone saw it when it was
passed that it already looked.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Like so you're right. I mean, they always always, for
the most part, get what they want and the rest
of us just have to sit back and take it.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Well, and that tactic is so incredibly typical, like, oh, well,
there's something really scary that we can't tell you about,
but I promise you it justifies completely trampling on your
constitutional rights. Yet again, just trust us? Why should we
trust you? And remember when we were originally beginning to
talk about this PISA reform, remember they leaked to the

(15:48):
press about these Russian news. Yeah, like that was the
you know, Oh, we've got to find the scariest thing
we can possibly sell to the American people about why
we are, you know, taking away their right to privacy
here and going to continue surveilling them with a without
a warrant. So yeah, it's a classic tactic to use fear. Frankly,

(16:10):
it works all too often. But at this point, you know,
there is at least some bipartisan skepticism of the you know,
surveillance state, and so there's a little bit more of
a roadblock to just you know, rolling everybody with their
Russian space nuke you're mongering or whatever else they're going

(16:31):
to roll out. But yes, it's a classic tactic and
it has worked plenty of times, and ultimately, you know,
they do all kinds of things that don't really have
the backing of the American people, they find a way,
and I think this latest gambit which weaponizes the fact
that there's so much support for you know, just constantly
unconditional support for Israel, uh, you know, sufficient amounts amongst

(16:55):
both the parties, and sufficient amounts to continue the Ukraine
war indefinitely in spite of the fact that there's no
real plan at this point. I genuinely don't know what
the plan is at this point to help secure victory
for the Ukrainians. It seems like we're just going to
kick the can down the road. Brian made a comment
that I thought was really important, which is we've covered

(17:17):
the fact that the Ukrainians are struggling to find people
to fight this war, are pulling men off the street,
including men who are disabled physically and mentally disabled to
send to the front lines, and we're using our tax
dollars to put guns in the hands of people who
have no desire to fight. I mean, it's it's frankly

(17:39):
unconsfortable and moral at this point, especially with no plan
of what's going to happen. So so in any case,
it's you know, it's a disgusting consensus that exists in Washington,
and I figured at some point they would they would
come up with the legislative mechanism to get their way
and to you know, fulfill the fondest wishes of the

(18:00):
all the folks who live inside the Beltway who make
millions off of continuing these conflicts.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
And just to end on a pessimistic note, actually, I think,
you know, the consensus is building against the uniparty, and
we saw that in Mike Johnson himself, someone who was
friendly with Republican leadership. You know, he wasn't in the
Freedom Caucus, he wasn't sort of on the fringes. He
was against the Pfiser reform at first, he was against tying,
he was against Ukraine without border spending and changed on that.

(18:29):
And that's where I think it is really like room
for there's plenty of room for pessimism because if even
somebody like him, who you know, was sort of against
all of these like obvious uniparty priorities, gets into office,
there's no question he's in a really difficult spot. I mean,
I think, big picture, it's clear that Austin Kevin McCarthy,
while I have no tears for Kevin McCarthy, was tactically

(18:52):
in error. You know, we don't have to roll the clip,
but Kevin McCarthy basically said recently that he's not in
he's not speaker because of Matt Gates, and McCarthy was
way more sympathetic in style to that sort of wing
of his party that he needs to get these bills
across than Mike Johnson is. And Mike Johnson is friends
with those guys. So it just feels to them like

(19:14):
a slap in the face. And I think they're right
to have that feeling, because he's someone who understood them,
who spent time with them, who said the right things
to them. And again, he's in a difficult spot. He's
got a one vote margin, he doesn't have George Santos anymore.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
That's a real tragedy for him.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
But it's the math is tough, and their perspective on
that is, well, the math is tough, so don't cave
to the uniparty. You don't have to so, and I
think that argument is obviously correct.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
But we'll see what happens.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
We actually don't even have the text of this bill
yet again, so that'll drop at some point this week.
It could really happen at any time, but I don't
know that they'll even try to bring these bills to
the floor as they plan to now until later this week,
maybe in early next week. But we could be looking
at billions billions more to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. We

(20:06):
could also be looking at even if after they passed
that they could oust Mike Johnson. So could be some
really big changes to foreign policy and Congress in the
days ahead.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
Crystal.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, And the last two things I'll say about this
is I just want to note once again the way
that Trump has also completely flipped in the way he's
talking about Ukraine is you know, now, embrace this ido.
We're going to give them a loan. It's not really
just a blank check. It's actually alone. Of course, we
would never it's the same thing, right, We would never
see that money against a posterous notion, and he can't

(20:37):
be stupid enough to think otherwise. So there's that. The
other thing just with regard to the philosophy of Mike Johnson,
and this was why I was always skeptical of him
in this position, you know, apart from other major ideological
differences I have, but of course I'm going to have
those with any Republican. At this point, he is a
true believer when it comes to Zionism and comes to Israel,

(21:01):
and it comes from this religious, evangelical place. So I
can't even say it's like the money or the corruption,
like I think he is a fervent believer in we
got to support Israel no matter what they do, no
matter what the cost, no matter how many people are killed.
And so the minute you have that on someone, then

(21:25):
it's basically all right, well, if you want so badly
to ship that aid to Israel, what are you going
to be able to do for us on these other
pieces in terms of Ukraine. And so I think that
for him is a big part of the reason why
he flipped so quickly on some of these items.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, I mean after October seventh, the cause for Ukraine
with voters became you know, maybe even it may have
actually hurt how voters feel towards Ukraine because of exactly
the dynamics you just outlined, Crystal.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
We're getting more of a look at how the US
is going to respond to, you know, first Israel's attack
on the Iranian embac and Damascus, and then the Iranian response.
So no sanctions or accountability for Israel. However, we are
going to levy even more sanctions on Iran. Apparently, let's
put this up on the screen. This is initially reported

(22:20):
by Barack Ravid Treasury to greenlight new Iran sanctions after
Israel attack. If you read his report, he says Treasury
Secretary Janet Yellen preparing fresh sanctions for Iran, vowing that
the US will not hesitate to inflict economic punishment in
response to the Islamic Republic's unprecedented attack on ISRAELI goes
on to say, why it matters present Biden is urging

(22:41):
bb to exercise military restraint, but in the economic sphere,
the administration is demonstrating a willingness to retaliate against Iran.
You know, one of the things obviously that has absolutely
enraged me in the discussion of this, you know, Iran
Israel incredibly dangerous escalation is the attacks on Israel were

(23:02):
described by many as quote unquote unprovoked, when of course
they were not unprovoked. They were very directly and by
the way, very intentionally provoked by net Yahoo with that
attack on the Iranian consular building in Damascus. So the
US to avoid having to condemn Israel over that attack

(23:26):
on the embassy, which you know is very clear cut
violation of Vienna Conventions, violation of international law, just complete
warding of all sorts of international norms, and by the way,
makes our own embassy officials and consular employees less safe
because it opens up this door to any state actor
around the world. So to avoid condemning them, but also

(23:47):
to avoid signing on to the notion that embassies are
just like open season and fair game. At this point,
the administration has been playing this game of pretending like
they don't really know whether or not this was actually
an Iranian consular building. Matthew Miller was pressed on this
by the incomparable Matt Lee. Let's take a listen how
that went down.

Speaker 6 (24:06):
Have you guys decided to get our minute determination about
whether what Israel hit in Damascus was a diplomatic or not.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
We have not.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
We have not.

Speaker 6 (24:16):
So how long is this going to take?

Speaker 7 (24:18):
I can't answer that question. We're continuing to look into it.
I don't have a time to but it's something that
we need to. We need to gather enough information that
will allow us to make a determination.

Speaker 6 (24:28):
You have no one on the ground in Syria.

Speaker 7 (24:30):
We have a range, as I said to you when
the last time you engage with me on this question,
we have a range of abilities, a range of ways
to gather information. They're partner countries of ours who are
on the ground. We have intelligence capabilities off obviously, and
we're continuing to gather information, but we've not yet been
able to determinate.

Speaker 6 (24:49):
I get it. But you were pretty quick into you know,
condemning the you know, the invasion of the Mexican embassy.

Speaker 7 (24:55):
And that was a very clear, well established This is
something that is taking a little bit more time. And
that's not the question. The question was what is it
is it was it an embassy or a consulate or not,
And it was very clear, very clear in the case
of the Mexican it's something that we're gathering information on

(25:18):
and we continue to gather information, we don't have a determination.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
How hard is it to figure that out? I mean,
the truth of the matter is, of course they know
they answer, because if it wasn't a consulate building or
some sort of a diplomatic building, they would instantly have
said so. But the fact that they're dragging their feet, Oh,
we're doing an investigation, we promise, we'll get back to you,
tells you everything that you need to know, and is

(25:41):
yet another instance of how they completely ignore or dispatch
with any sort of the previous norms that they claim
to care about when it comes to Israel. So no
sanctions forthcoming on Israel or their incredible provocation here that
any country would be rightly outraged by, but they are

(26:02):
going to apparently retaliate against Iran or responding to that provocation.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, this is the one thing that drives me absolutely
crazy in the diplomatic conversations about these conflicts. It's that
the sanctity of international law is obviously and this is
not new, but it is used as just a blunt
force object and tossed around like a football. But it's
not serious, and we know it's not serious. Matthew Miller

(26:31):
knows it's not serious. Republican administrations and democratic administrations know
it's not serious. It's publicly very sanctimonious. But they know
that they're using international law, that sort of shield of
international law as a tool as a political weapon when
it suits them, and then they drop it when it's inconvenient.

(26:52):
And there are serious geopolitical implications for doing that, which
is why they do it in fact. Actually, but I
don't think that they've you know, even after all of
these decades reckoned with how seriously it hurts the credibility
of the United States.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
And again, you can go back years, you can go
back to the Cold War.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
And have conversations about how we talk about international law
and such, you know, rarefied terms when it suits us,
and then drop it when it doesn't. And this is
a pretty clear cut example, as Mattley was getting at,
just their crystal of us doing that.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, and it once again raises the question of how
is any of this in our interests? Because, yeah, now
our people who are at embassies around the world are
less safe because we have allowed this door to be
completely opened, and of course the storming of the Mexican embassy,
you know, immediately after that is not an accident, and

(27:46):
yes we had something to say about that, but it
was not nearly the condemn nation that likely would have
come without Israel's actions, because they know that they look
like absolute hypocrites. And same thing with the language that
was previously used about Ukraine, you know, the humanitarian language,
language about international law, about atrocities, about genocide, eve and

(28:07):
suddenly we don't hear anything about that because they know
how hypocritical they sound. And how you know when it
comes to Israel, Oh, is was it a war crime? Well,
we don't know. We need to get a lawyer. I'm
not a lawyer who can really say. When it was Russia,
they could say right away and they knew right away
what was going on. The Other thing I wanted to

(28:28):
mention about that Matt Miller interaction is that is such
a classic tactic of oh, we're doing an investigation, but
you never hear the results of these investigations, right, they
never come so and you know, there was an investigation
into the murder of the young girl Hinn who was
assassinated by the way. Washing Post has a new report
on this while she was in a car waiting for

(28:50):
medics to come rescue her. Also, her would be medic
rescuers were also targeted and assassinated, even though they were
coordinating directly with IDF deconflicted, giving them their coordinates, telling them,
waited hours to respond, telling them where they moved. These
investigations are apparently you launched by the State Department and
never come to any sort of conclusion. Something else that

(29:12):
by the way, matt Lee has pressed Matthew Miller on
all these variety of you know, massacres and atrocities that
supposedly they're looking into. That. Oh, we never get the
results of those, We never hear anything more about it,
and we just move on to the next outrage. Speaking
of investigations into atrocities, the UN has been attempting to

(29:36):
conduct an investigation into atrocities committed against Israelis on October seventh,
and somewhat shocking, Lamb and I guess I shouldn't be
completely surprised, but Israel has actually blocked and obstructed them,
according to that UN panel, in their attempt to investigate
the acts that occurred on October seventh. Let's put this
up on the screen. So this is from the Jerusalem Posts.

(29:59):
They say un Commission accuses Israel of obstructing in October
seventh probe, one of the members of the commission said
they saw active obstruction by Israel of our efforts to
receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims. And I'll read
you the quote from this individual, Chris Sadati. He says,
so far as the government of Israel is concerned, we've
not only seen a lack of cooperation, but active obstruction

(30:21):
of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and
victims the events that occurred in southern Israel. And he said,
we have contact with many, but we would like to
have contact with more. The Israeli's claim they say, oh, well,
victims would never get any justice or the dignified treatment
they deserve from the Commission of Inquiry and its members,
which they describe as having a track record of anti

(30:43):
Semitic and anti israel statements. Obviously the go to anytime
you want to smear someone and you don't like what
they had to say about you in the past, just
throughout that they must be anti Semitic. But I think
it's pretty extraordinary Emily that basically they've instructed witnesses and
survivors inside of Israel not to cooperate with this investigation,

(31:04):
not into Israel's actions now in the Gaza Strip, but
into the atrocities that were committed by Hamas and other
Islamic militant groups on October seventh, and Israel apparently doesn't
want the details of that day to come out. I
think there's a lot of logical conclusions as to why,
or speculation that you could get into. One is that

(31:25):
the Israeli IDF response was pathetic. You had many people
who were desperately waiting for hours and hours for anyone
to come and help them, and that help was not forthcoming.
So that's a very unflattering light. And then we do
have some of these instances which have been documented by
the New York Times and Haratz and other outlets at

(31:46):
this point where some of the victims, not a majority,
not all. I'm not trying to downplay the atrocites of
Hamas on that day, but some of the victims did
come from quote unquote friendly fire from the Israelis on
that day, and I'm sure they don't want a light
shone on that either.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
And you know, this is one of the I agree
with both of those points.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
And one of the complicated things of the UN in
this region is that talking to Ryan about this last week,
it's absolutely true that in such a concentrated and densely
populated area like Gaza, it's really like for the UN
to operate for aid, for humanitarian aid.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
For geopolitical diplomacy.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
For all of that to happen, you're you're going to
have crossover between the population that is supportive of Hamas,
maybe even some active supporters of Hamas and the UN
and things like UNRA because Hamas is the de facto
government and so for that from Israel's perspective, UNRA does

(32:51):
have some real problems where if you're Israel and you
look at you know, for example, the much publicized textbooks,
you're going to be like, oh my gosh, why would
I want to, you know, hand over all of this information,
et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
But it gets back to what we were just talking about.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
That countries like the United States and Israel will use
the UN when it's convenient and not use the UN
when it's not. And I do again, I think that
is a real problem. So on the one hand, I
totally understand in some cases why Israelis are like, this
is the most sensitive information. Uh, this is you know, victims,

(33:28):
this is people's lives, people's deaths, And we don't trust
the UN right now because of you know, some of
these legitimately documented patterns at UNRA but and in other
parts of the UN. But that's not consistent with the
approach towards the UN. And I think it is, you know,
in some ways more political, but it's it's an unfortunate

(33:50):
situation all around because what we do want our answers
on what happened about what happened on October seventh, that
might make the Israeli government look pretty bad, yeah, or
might make anybody you know look pretty bad. And we
can't get that information from an investigation in a way
that we can trust, because nobody trusts the investigators. So

(34:12):
we're not getting any closer to the truth. And what
we really need is the truth, but we're not in
a position to get it right now.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
These Israelis are so funny when it comes to the
UN because you know, when it comes to the nineteen
forty eight UN partition plan, well, that's that's set and stone.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
Right, that's the UN.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
It was the UN, and they didn't listen to the UN.
How could you, right, Yes, when it comes to this
ceasefire resolution that just passed the UN Security Council, Oh,
we're just going to pretend that didn't happen at all.
We're not going to listen to that whatsoever. When it
comes to the report that was issued regarding the rape
in the context of October seventh, well that they were

(34:51):
very happy to embrace. When it comes to this report,
which they expect would shine an unflattering light on them
in a variety of ways, well, we're not going to cooperate.
What's and we're going to claim that you're anti Semitic.

Speaker 8 (35:03):
Right.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
When it comes to Iran's Israel attacking the Iranian Consulate, well,
I don't want to hear what the UN has to
say about that. But when it comes to Iran responding,
suddenly they want an emergency meeting of the UN Security
Council to issue some sort of a condemnation. So it's
just so incredibly naked. And then just the blanket calls

(35:25):
of anti Semitism at every turn, are you know, I
just don't think that they're landing By the way the
same way that they once did. Because at this point
even Joe Biden has been smeared as like pro Hamas.
It's just ridiculous the number of things that have been
labeled anti Semitic, pro hamas, pro terrorist, et cetera. So
it starts to fall on deaf years, and that's a

(35:46):
real loss because anti Semitism is a real problem, it
is a real scourge. And when you casually throw around
this language anti Semitism blood libel about accurately describing what
happening in Gaza or about accurate or legitimate criticism of
the Israeli government, the term becomes meaningless, and then it

(36:09):
helps to fuel an actual, you know, legitimate rise in
anti Semitism as well, it makes people more skeptical of
that claim being made in every instance, speaking of you know,
some of the mythology around October seventh that we know
there were horrific atrocities. Those atrocities should be condemned by

(36:31):
any decent person where they were committed against civilians. Yet
we know there were some stories that were fabricated in
order to serve as a real justification or barbarism against
Palestinians in Gaza. You know, the beheaded babies, the baby
baked in the oven. We've got a new example of that,
although this one got shot down almost immediately. Put this

(36:52):
up on the screen. So you had a number of
outlets reporting that among survivors the Nova Music Festival, which
was one of the worst scenes of carnage on October seventh,
there was a claim made that there had been almost
fifty suicides among those survivors. Now, this claim on its

(37:15):
face seems fairly outrageous and outlandish, but a number of outlets,
including the Daily Beasts here report this just uncritically. Well,
this was so sort of out there of a claim
emily that it was almost immediately shot down, even by
the Israeli health ministers. Put this up on the screen.
Head of the Israeli Health Ministry was asked about this

(37:36):
and said directly that this was not true. He said,
based on an examination connected with the Nova Community Association
as well as with other parties, it emerged such data
is unknown. But he also said directly that the rumors
about number of suicides and hospitalizations are not true. So
another attempt to you know, again, the atrocity on that

(38:00):
day were enough, they were horrifying enough, but there's this
constant desire to create the most horrifying, you know, visual
imagery and notion of what occurred on that day in
an attempt very directly to justify things that are even
under the worst circumstances, not justifiable, being done against children

(38:22):
and women and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza strip.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
This is I mean again, we're talking about the Jerusalem Post.
It's not like this is and this is in where
the Health Ministry pushed back on this, So it's not
like this is just coming from this This pushback is
just coming from the Israeli government either. I mean, this
is media is actually focusing on it. I think that's
worth noting too, that there's you know, a real again,

(38:49):
I think, thirst for the truth on these questions, because
you know, for Israelis, they're so sensitive and rightfully so,
about the truth and about what really happened and about
the victims here. And so I feel like, actually, Crystal,
it's interesting even to see places like the Jerusalem Post
looking critically at claims like this and as they should

(39:12):
be and as all of us should be, and this
particular one based on the Health Ministry, which I can't imagine.
I'm trying to think of what reason they would have
to sort of actively push back on this if it
were you know, plausible, if it were true. This narrative
really had holes poked in it just about right away.
And you know, to your point earlier about how there's

(39:34):
a lot of a lot more skepticism than maybe there
was in the past, I think this really goes along
with that. With that argument, This totally confirms that.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
I think.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
I don't want to lose cite of as we talk
about what might happen between Iran and Israel and the
US and sit here on the brink of you know,
potentially terrifying further escalation, all of which is still very
on the table, very much on the table. I don't
want to lose sight of what continues to be the
reality in Gaza, where you have millions of people continuing
to starve, You have northern Gaza in famine. You had

(40:08):
people that we covered yesterday trying to return to their
homes in northern Gaza who were shot at The very
latest report out of Gaza is that you had eleven
children who were killed as they were playing at a
playground in Rafa, of course being the place where there
is a planned invasion where more than a million Palestinians
have been pushed in are sheltering in imporrent conditions at

(40:32):
this point. So they had built this playground for the
children to help take their mind off of the horrors
and the trauma that they've all experienced, and they came
under fire and were killed by Israelis. Let's take a
listen to a little bit of this report from Anjazira.

Speaker 9 (40:46):
Looking at a very horrific talk that just took place
at a Maazi refuge account within the past forty five
minutes or so and a drone fire, the missiles and
a group of people.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Later on, we learned.

Speaker 9 (40:57):
It from eyewitness in the area that this were a
group of children at a playground that was set up
near a camp for displaced families, and those children are
regularly visiting displayground. And just as a father of three
children understand how why displaced families would send their kids
just for an hour or a couple hours, just to

(41:17):
keep them entertained and release the release the old, the
negative energy in them. Because right now, displaced families have
the hardest time inside tents or inside other people's residential
homes trying to stay protected and save, but it's as
necessary as also stay in safe just to give space
to those children. So eleven children have been killed in
this attack, and just one wonder what spread these children

(41:41):
have opposed to have the Israeli military fire and missilely
drawn on them. Eleven reported killed, with more with dozens
of injuries in the area. Those who had the scene
of the attack describe horrific scenes of children torn apart
by the massive explosion caused by the missiles.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Just unimaginable and emily. I think the fact that there
was starting to be more of a focus on both
the humanitarian situation and the level of devastation annihilation that
has been you know, committed in the Gaza strip. I
think that's part of the reason for the timing of
Israel's strike on the Iranian consulate was exactly to get

(42:24):
these sorts of stories out of the news. They're starting
to be, you know, a little bit of different language
being used, especially after the World Central Kitchen Aid workers
had been killed. That really structure the heart of a
lot of liberals who personally know Jose Andres and you know,
now a story such as this is not going to
really get airtime much of anywhere, as everyone just focuses

(42:47):
on and understandably the you know, the situation where Iran
is very grave, we're obviously covering it here. But I
think there was an intentional decision to try to push
these stories out of the news and focus on something
where you be felt he would be on stronger ground
with the world community, and also to continue his grip

(43:07):
on power in Israel, where he's deeply unpopular.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Well, this brings us back to what we talked about
earlier in the show in terms of US funding for
this war. I mean, you could even make the argument
about funding for the war in Ukraine that a lot
of these decisions, by the way, I mean this invasion
of Rafa, Apparently the Yahu said he has a date,
but our government said they weren't sharing it with them,
that the Israel was keeping that date private.

Speaker 4 (43:31):
They weren't sharing with the US government.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Apparently they're afraid of leaks from the US government, intel
leaks from the US government and from our intelligence community.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
That's what we heard.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
But the point is this conspiral so quickly and it
can spiral on our dime without our oversight, not that
our oversight would be that much better, mind you, but
that at at least, you know, people making decisions in
the US, even if they don't care about the American
people as much as they should and don't prioritize the
real interests of the American people as much as they should,

(44:00):
are responsive to the American public.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
And we're in a position right now.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
I think the attacks over the weekend really and the
attack in Damascus really have brought that into focus. You
guys have covered this, You and Soccer have covered this
so excellently. How precarious the situation is right now. Let's
not forget there are other adversaries that are aligned with this.
Russia are on China. All of the sort of recipes

(44:31):
for a broader conflict, all of the necessary ingredients in
that recipe of broader conflict are coming together. And I
don't think anybody feels confident that the Abiden administration or
that Yahoo are just firmly in control of mitigating any
potential explosions. In fact, the Damascus to what happened in

(44:54):
Damascus underlines that probably for a lot of people, Crystal
and such a fragile geopolitical ecosystem right now.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
And where bb knew he could take such an extraordinarily
provocative and honestly outrageous act and he could get away
with it because he's gotten away with everything else. So yeah,
Joe Biden, I mean, listen, Bibe has the lion's share
of the blame. I would say Joe Biden is basically
equally culpable for creating this incredibly dangerous situation, which is,

(45:27):
you know, something they claim to want to avoid From
the beginning of this conflict, they claimed they wanted to
avoid this broader war. Well, even without this direct Iranian escalation,
we had already seen this conflict spread beyond Gaza, talking
about Yemen, a rack, Syria ra and troops coming under
fire and in some instances being killed, So that cat
is already out of the bag. Now what we're staring

(45:50):
down is something even more terrifying, which you know, there
was a report. I don't know if you saw this,
I mean, I don't know if this is true because
it's from a new sources that I'm not particularly familiar with,
But there was this report that the Biden administration got
in touch with Iran after the you know, Iranian attack
on Israel and said, hey, how about you just let

(46:13):
Israel respond just like a little response and don't do
anything like can you imagine can you imagine another country
asking us like, hey, if they directly attack your country,
could you just like not really care about that? Would
that be fine with you? And according to the report,
which again I don't know if this is accurate, but
it was reported by a few different news sources, the

(46:34):
Iranians will of course like piss off, like no, we're
not going to listen to you, and just be fine
if Israel directly attacks us back after they were the
ones again with this initial provocation attacking our embassy and
killing our people.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
It's like, not that it is surprising, but it is
creepy and disturbing. How reports suggests that there's this almost
stage managing of the conflict and saying you're allowed to
know the reports are with Iran, with Israel, you're allowed
to do something you know at this like that is
proportional to this, and then they're allowed to do something

(47:10):
that's proportional to that, as though this is going to
totally mitigate the possibility of an explosion in this conflict, which,
by the way, the safety of Israelis and Netanyah, who's
popularity in israel I think speaks to this, or lack
of popularity or his difficulty with his political coalition speaks
to this. Obviously, israel Is we're not safer under net

(47:33):
Nyahu because of October seventh. That's not to blame him
for the actions of Hamas, but that is to say
that he was in charge of the country and there
are a lot of serious questions that need to be
asked about the security of the Israeli people on October seventh,
on October sixth, before October seventh, and going.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
Forward as well.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Is he managing is he prosecuting a war in a
way that protects the people of Israel as much as
they deserve to be protected?

Speaker 4 (47:56):
Are we doing that? Are we? Are we keeping American
lives out of the Middle East? Are we minimizing the
possibility of boots on the ground in the Middle East
right now? And our prosecution of this war and our
funding of this war, same thing goes for Ukraine. I
don't think anybody gone has confidence that the answer to
that question is yes.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Yeah, And the last thing I'll conclude with and then
we can move to other ways in which Congress you know,
really has their eye on the ball with all of
this and the you know, I think the free speech
moment on the right being officially dead and gone. But
it brings me back to that quote that was leaked
to an Israeli news station where someone who's in the
room said, you know, if Israelis were privy to the

(48:37):
conversations that are going on in the war cabinet right
now about how to potentially respond to Iran, there would
be four million Israelis rushing to the airport trying to
get out of this country. So shows you some of
the insanity that is at least being contemplated from the
Israelis right now, and which obviously directly implicates all of

(48:57):
us in a way that should leave a genuinely fearful
and quite wary of where this is all headed.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
In part because, by the way, there's similar insanity in
Iran about what they want to happen to Israel. Like
that's why the threat is so acute and so real,
because these are deep religious and in some ways irrational
conflicts that you can't stage manage out of existence, and
that there are like actual desires among some radicals to

(49:29):
wipe Israel off the face of the earth in the
way that you know Israel wants a one state solution
or something like that. There are also people like in
Iran that don't want Israel to exist and in fact
don't want Jews to exist. So the possibility for something
that jeopardizes the safety of Jews in Israel, of Jews

(49:50):
around the world is not nil. And you know, obviously
not Yah who knows that. Obviously supporters of Netanyaho.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
Not in Yahoo know that.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
But whether you know the sort of bold like boisterous
provocations are the best way to minimize that possibility is
an open question at best.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Yeah, I don't really think it is an open question.
But your right to point to the fact that BB
has wanted this war with Iran for a long time
and was deeply opposed to any sort of improvement in
diplomatic ties with the US, deeply opposed to the Iranian
nuclear deal as one example, you know, sort of made
the initial split and made support for Israel more partisan

(50:37):
by coming here under Obama. So yeah, there's a long end, complicated,
intense history, there no doubt about it. Let's go ahead
and move on to some of the things that the
Congress is up to so in addition to passing yet
another resolution on anti semitism, this one condemning the protest
chant from the River to the Sea as being anti

(50:59):
semit No word on whether it's the anti semitic when
it comes from b B himself or from the LACUD
party charter, from his son or whatever. Anyway. They also
are convening yet another panel and calling forth yet another
university president to speak on their actions to combat anti
Semitism on campus. The Columbia University president is set to

(51:25):
testify to that same Congressional panel that caused the whole
uproar last time around, which we of course covered here
and led to a number of them losing their jobs.
That president is out with a Wall Street journal at
ed to try to sort of set the stage for
what they're going to say. The headline here at Columbia

(51:46):
University President, what I plan to tell Congress tomorrow. Anti
Semitism and calls for genocide have no place at a university.
My priority has been the safety and security of our community,
but at leaves plenty of room for robust disagreement and debate.
Let me read you a little bit of this. Also,
her notes were leaked about how she plans to talk
about this issue, and very similar to what's laid out

(52:08):
in the op ed here. But the op ed reads,
while disagreement and debate are to be welcomed at a university,
that should happen within specific parameters, calling for the genocide
of a people, whether they are Israeli or Palestinians, Jews, Muslims,
or anyone else, has no place in a university community.
Such words are outside the balance of legitimate debate and
unimaginably harmful. Second, well, there may be some easy cases,

(52:32):
drawing the line between permissible and impermissible campus speech is
enormously difficult, And then she continues and thinking about these
boundaries of permissible speech. One idea we have adopted at
Columbia is to define a designated space for protests. This
approach allows for fewer limits on speech, usually a desirable
value at a university because those who don't want to

(52:52):
hear what is being said need not listen. It also
means the core functions of university teaching and learning can
continue uninterrupted. There's a few things about this. There's actually
a lot to say about the SAP ed. First of all,
on the alleged calls for genocide, and this came up
in the context of the initial congressional hearings that caused
such a fuss on this. There's no specifics, there's no

(53:16):
specific examples of students actually doing this. And so are
you talking about just a call for equal rights from
the river to the sea, are you calling about you know,
talking about the chance to globalize the Intifada? What are
you referring to tiers specifically? Because there's been this pretense
that there's some outbreak of outright genocidal language occurring on

(53:40):
college campuses. And I'm not going to say there's not
a single instance or there isn't genuine anti semitism out there.
I think that'd be a ridiculous thing to say. But
we never seem to see these instances of this supposed
call for genocide against the Jews happening on college campuses,
So it's left very vague. And then in addition, what

(54:03):
you've actually seen in terms of Colombia is a real
crackdown on the rights of students, and in a very
one sided way. Colombia is being sued actually right now
for unlawfully banning multiple pro Palestine groups. So the New
York Civil Liberties Union and a Palestinian rights organization filed

(54:23):
a lawsuit against Columbia University so that you had Justice
and Students for Justice in Palestine and Columbia barn Are
Jewish Boys for Peace both banned and Columbia administrator previously
said the group's repeatedly violated college policies like holding unauthorized
events and that the gathering included threatening rhetoric and intimidation.

(54:46):
But once again, there's no specifics given about what that
rhetoric or what that intimidation is. They just sort of
came in over the top and shut down these two groups.
And you also have an incident which was pretty horrif
buying where a number of pro Palestine activists were sprayed
by some sort of a chemical irritant. There was a

(55:08):
recent Al Jazeera documentary about what happened, and the investigation,
which from the university side has basically gone nowhere into
what was effectively a chemical attack against pro Palestinian demonstrators.
Let's watch a little bit of that kind of got
oh my gosh, it smells like someone is dying.

Speaker 8 (55:30):
We smelled that.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
That's what I was hospitalized for severe bored version.

Speaker 10 (55:34):
These students are describing the moment they suffered an alleged
chemical attack during a pro Palestine rally at one of
the world's most prestigious universities. Students say the chemical smelled
like skunk, which has been used by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
We're not safe in the West Bank, We're not safe
in Gaza. Even in the US, we aren't safe.

Speaker 10 (55:53):
In this report, we revealed previously unpublished images and footage
of suspicious activity at the protest. More than two months
after the incident, no suspects have been named, while students
speaking up or Palestinian rights have received death threats, been doxed,
and targeted by professors.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Does me being Palestinian? Does that inherently mean I'm a terrorist?
That's how they're treating us so emily to me, The
bottom line here of this congressional inquiry is you'll have
a lot of people who talked a big game about
free speech who suddenly are dragging university president before them
to demand more censorship and more crackdowns on free speech.

(56:33):
And I doubt, at least from the Republicans side, we're
going to hear much in terms of questioning about the cancelation,
the banning of these activist groups and the investigation into
what happened to these students.

Speaker 3 (56:47):
Yeah, I mean, I agree that this is a real
challenge for conservatives, for elected Republicans who have held all
kinds of hearings on campuses in the last several years,
and Columbia is a place where that dilemma I think
is in sharp focus. They had from the very pros
or a Washington Free Beacon right now, but they have
an interesting report, they say. During a January fifth interview

(57:07):
with socialist podcast Revolutionary Left Radio, Islamic scholar Mohammad Abdu
declared his support for Hamas and the quote resistance the
terror groups quote dedicated few. He said admiringly worked in
quote stealth mode on October seventh to defeat a larger
enemy in Israel. Just days later, on January sixteenth, Columbia
University's Middle East Institute extended a quote warm welcome to Abdu,
the Ivy League School's latest visiting professor in Modern Arab studies,

(57:30):
and it goes on later in the article to quote
him four days after October seventh, saying, yes, I'm with
the resistance be it Hamas and Hesbalah and Islamic jihad,
and he talked about false reports accusing Arabs and Muslims
of decapitating the heads of children and being rapists, and
he said, I might be with Hamas and support the
resistance absolutely.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Look what the fifteen hundred did.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
They were organized, and they worked in stealth mode, and
they divested. Judith Butler, who is an academic, also has
referred to Hamas and has as the quote resistance for
a long time, and I think that's honestly, I think
that's protected speech. That's I think it's a challenge for
conservatives and Republicans to sort of live up to the
game that they've talked. Now, whether it's protected speech is

(58:15):
somewhat a different question as to whether that's someone worthy of,
you know, being a visiting professor of Arab studies. You know,
I think it's entirely an ideological disagreement. People can can
talk about Hamas and Hezbollah in the context of being
the resistance. I personally find that to be abhorrent. But it's,

(58:37):
you know, something that should be debated obviously, out in
the open and not sort of relegated to these corners
where it festers. I don't think that's healthy, whether it's
happening on the fringes of the outright or the sort
of fringes in this situation.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
Either.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
If I were the head of Columbia University, I would
look at that and I'd be like, well, maybe we
need someone who brings like slightly more balance to this
question at our school, or slightly more nuanced to this
question than referring to Hamas and Hausbla as potentially the
resistance and admiringly talking about their stealth mode on October seventh.

(59:14):
But this is a I actually think this is a
really helpful example for Republicans that it is really difficult
to stand up for free speech on campus when it's
you know, somebody like this, as opposed to when it's
you know, your own speakers.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Well, that's the point of free speech, That's the whole thing.
Is it only matters when it's speech that you disagree with,
that you may despise, that you may find abhorrent. That's
when the principle actually matters. When it's something everybody's cool
with and comfortable with, well, you don't really need those
protections because it's going to be fine, you know, in

(59:49):
another instance of how quickly the language from the right
on all of this has flipped. You know, all these
concerns about like student safety, You see that in this
instance of the Columbia University president being called to testify
about protecting Jewish student making sure they don't feel unsafe
on campus, not because they're physically threatened, but because they

(01:00:12):
might hear something at a protest that makes them feel unsafe.
You also had that same safety language being used by USC.
And let's put this up on the screen. I find
this so disgraceful. So they announced that their valedictorian, Asna
Tobasom's commencement speech has been canceled. The reason is they said, oh,

(01:00:36):
it was necessary to maintain the safety of our campus
and students. So Asna was selected valedictorian. She happened to
minor in genocide studies, and apparently the university was very
fearful that she, as someone who has expressed pro Palestinian views,

(01:00:56):
might use some of what she learned at their university
about genocide and discussed that in her commencement speech. So
they just canceled the whole thing altogether. And just so
you know that the whole you know, Oh, we're worried
about kids safety and safety at graduation, etc. Is complete nonsense.

(01:01:17):
When she spoke to them, they couldn't give her any
specific examples of credible threats or other legitimate safety issues
that they could identify. But they came under all kinds
of pressure from the right and from Jewish groups, in
particular who pro Israel groups, I should say, because there
are plenty of anti Zionist Jewish groups at this point

(01:01:39):
as well. They came under a lot of pressure from
pro Israel groups to cancel this speech on a fear
for what this accomplished young lady may have to say.
She wrote quite an extraordinary response. She said, I'm surprised
my own university has abandoned me. She went on to
say that she's student of history and chose to minor

(01:02:01):
and resistance to genocide, and had learned that ordinary people
are capable of unspeakable acts of violence when they are
taught hate fueled by fear, and due to widespread fear,
I was hoping to use my commencement speech to inspire
my classmates with a message of hope. By canceling my speech,
USC is only caving to fear and rewarding hatred. Matt

(01:02:22):
Tybee had a notable responses as well that we can
put up on the screen. He says, all sorts of
people are blamed for undermining confidence in institutions, but it's
usually the institution itself that does the most damage, as
in this case. And you know, not hearing a lot
from the usual suspects who used to be all about
free speech and against cancel culture, etc. At the valedictorian

(01:02:46):
of the school being blocked for speaking because she might
say something that they're uncomfortable with.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Yeah, and you know, my position is that ideologically, the
people who have been quote unquote canceled on college campuses
and worked with a lot of them, like it's like
I've actually had jobs like working on that stuff before
should be more mainstream than someone like the Columbia professor
that we were just talking about. But that doesn't matter

(01:03:12):
in this context. The point is that speech is speech,
and as long as it's not outright incitement, especially at
public universities, but at universities in general.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
I mean, there's nothing new under the sun you can
go back to. You know, for example, here's a great example.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
You know, anybody, let's say there were professors of I
don't know professors of history, professors of war back in
the Cold War that supported the contrast.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
I don't know that there were a lot of them,
But I.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
Don't think conservatives would have had a problem about conservatives
making this kind of ideological argument that it was necessary
to fund the contras in order to, you know, defeat
the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. There's Hanoy Jane,
you know, talking about people like Jane Fonda that were
a supportive of the other side in the Vietnam War

(01:04:02):
that was killing American soldiers and just making this argument intellectually,
building this case that it was morally necessary to support
this force of violence because in their perception, they were
pushing back on a bigger threat of violence.

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
Whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
We act like some of these dilemmas are new, and
they're not. There have always been these arguments on campuses,
and they have to be aired out on campuses. If
they're going to be aired out literally anywhere, it should
be on college campuses where the academics who are the
kind of backbone of the media and the policy world

(01:04:38):
are coming to the sort of different points on how
we think about these things. So I mean, I agree, Crystal,
I think that you know, there's way too little appetite
for true, genuine freedom of expression, the exchange of ideas
in the interest of the common good, in the interest

(01:05:00):
of understanding each other. So I don't disagree that this
is a real challenge for conservatives. I still think it's
a real challenge for the left, and you know, constantly
deal with that all the time. But when the going
gets tough, the tough get going, and I don't see
as much of that as I think we should.

Speaker 4 (01:05:17):
But that's no surprise.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
I guess I at least listen not to pat myself
on the back, but I really made an attempt, even
with regard to the next individual about to talk about
Tom Cotton, to support free speech, even when I genuinely
find it horrifying. Right, I have tried my very best
to be consistent, because that's the whole point, and it's

(01:05:42):
not hard. It was not hard for me in those
instances to see, Okay, well, this censorship is coming against
a political adversary right now. But you know, I'm a leftist,
and no one has been more censored throughout American history
than the left. So you can see very clearly like
these tools may be used again them in this particular instance,
but they can be used against my ideology. And by

(01:06:04):
the way, that's not really the point anyway. It's about
having a commitment to this bedrock principle, whether it's about
your side or their side, or something in between. So
it's just it has always been clear to me because
there was never any willing to speak out a pro
palestining people have been getting canceled, you know, long before
October seven. You're gonna ask Mark Lamont Hill and any

(01:06:24):
number of other folks, Norman Finkelstein how their careers fared
when they stepped out of the bipartisan consensus with regards
to Israel, and there was never any sort of solidarity
with those individuals from the right. So as underno illusions here,
but it's certainly never been more clear that any purported

(01:06:48):
like right wing free speech moment is outside of some
notable exceptions yourself included, is officially over. I've got another
example where you hear the aforementioned Senator Tom Cotton, who
had put out a tweet regarding some of the protests
that have propal Simee protests that have shut down roadways,
including the Golden Gate Bridge for some five hours. He

(01:07:10):
called on people to quote take matters into their own
hands with regard to these protesters, and then when asked
to clarify whether he was serious about violence directly against
protesters exercising their First Amendment speech rights, he doubled down.
In an interview with Fox News, Let's take a listen

(01:07:31):
to what he had to say.

Speaker 8 (01:07:32):
I agree with you that you have to get to
the or these criminals early. If something like this happened
in Arkansas on a bridge there, let's just say, I
think there'd be a lot of very wet criminals that
have been tossed overboard, not by law enforcement, but by
the people who's road their blocking. If they glued their
hands to car or the pavement, well, probably pretty painful

(01:07:55):
to have.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Their skin ripped off.

Speaker 8 (01:07:56):
But I think that's the way we'd handle in Arkansas,
and I would encourage most people anywhere that gets stuck
behind criminals lack this who are trying to block traffic
to take matters in their own hands. There's only usually
a few of them, and there's a lot of people
being inconvenience. It's time to put an end to this nonsense.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
So skin ripped off, thrown off the bridge, take matters
into their own hands. Emily, your thoughts.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
So, Tom Cotton, I think is making a big mistake
by saying that for you know, just a pure Let's
just talk about the style, the public relations superficial level
right now. If something happens to one of those protesters,
Tom Cotton, the finger is going to be pointed straight
at him for incitement. I despise the traffic blocking protests.

(01:08:42):
In fact, one of my favorite images from the last
year is all of these like working class DC residents
of all different stripes, all different backgrounds, all different you know, ethnicities,
all of that just like pulling these protesters off one
of the major roads in DC. But they were climate
protesters because you know, nothing violent, but just like moving

(01:09:05):
them because I just think it is one of the
worst possible ways to protest. I think it is you know, illegal,
and it's not the best use of civil disobedience.

Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
All of that is all of that said, two things
can be true.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
It can be a really bad and illegal way to
protest without also being something that weren't violent, and something
that you know, gives Republicans any reason to even wink
and nod at potential violence. You know, wasn't it in
Panama that someone shot I think it was a climate

(01:09:42):
protester just last year who was blocking traffic shot and
killed a climate protester who was blocking traffic just last year.

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
So no, I don't think it's right to play fast
us with this rhetoric.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
Tom Cotton obviously served in both The Rock and Afghanistan,
I think actually in combat units, and so I'm sure
that this is really.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
This role for him in a way that it's not
for myself.

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
But it's still I think, really really unwise to be
playing fast and loose with that physical, violent rhetoric like
he did there, even if it's a you know, at
least from a perspective of myself and a lot of
conservatives and probably a lot of people in general, a
really annoying form of protest.

Speaker 1 (01:10:21):
You could object to the form of protest without calling
for people to be thrown off a bridge and have
theirs get ripped off. You just did it. And Tager
and I had a whole debate on some of these
protest tactics, which you know, at this point, I.

Speaker 4 (01:10:36):
Saw, here's pro traffic blocking.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
He loves that. No, here's my thing that bothers me
is you have a majority of Democrats and a plurality
of independence who are looking at what's happening in Gosen.
This is a genocide. And yet the amount of emotion
about that versus some protest tactics that people disagree with

(01:11:02):
coming from Tom Cott, I mean, it's just it's nowhere
near equivalent. And the other thing is, you know, we're
talking about hypocrisy, and I remember this amount of upset
about the inconveniencing of people, et cetera, et cetera. When
we were talking about this convoy in Canada. What was
it called? I can't remember freedom kN What was the
thing that shut down an entire Canadian city? This was celebrated.

(01:11:27):
They weren't criminals, they weren't you know, being called for
them to throw thrown off a bridge and their skin
ripped off and whatever. So it's only when it's protests
that Tom Cotton disagrees with. But certainly suddenly we hear
this language, and you know, he is. I think he
is very credibly the most authoritarian and one of certainly

(01:11:50):
the most pro war senators, which is pretty extraordinary thing
to say. I think pretty consistently, you know, his instincts
are incredibly authoritarian, crack down police, date, call in the
military to crush Black Lives Matter protesters, et cetera. But
that he can say this on Fox News, which is
a very the largest cable news network and you know,

(01:12:12):
very mainstream in terms of conservatism, with zero pushback. In
some ways, I find that to be the most disturbing
part of all of this, that the idea that people
should who are people who are trying to get a
ceasefire and end a genocide, deserve to be thrown off
a bridge because you disagree with their protest tactics. Yeah,

(01:12:35):
I've got a problem with that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:36):
And I think, by the way, that's one of the
reasons that this is just totally it's.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
Kind of a tangent. But I think that's one of
the reasons, like why people like you and Sager and
Ryan and me and all of us can sit down
and have these conversations is that we understand that there
are legitimate reasons, that people have real reasons and real
arguments as to you know, if you believe something is
legitimately a genocide, then why would you not be blocking traffic?

(01:13:03):
People have real reasons to do what they're doing that
are rooted in principles, and we might disagree with them,
and we might find them, you know, abhorrent, or we
might you know, disagree with the sort of ends or
the way people justify those ends, but you kind of
understand that people have their principles, just like by the
way the warmongers have had their principles of supporting the

(01:13:26):
contras in the nineteen eighties. You know, there's the people
have deeply held beliefs and they act on those deeply
held beliefs. And the best way to come to consensus
that serves everyone and to seek justice is to debate it,
to debate it, and to have a country that allows
for that debate to be aired out. So, yeah, really

(01:13:46):
unfortunate decision, I think from Don Cotton yesterday. And you know, Crystal,
there's more more bad news really for the fate of
protesters around the country, just coming out of the Supreme
Court yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
But yeah, so this is maybe the most magnificant thing
that happened. I know, we've done like a world tour
of censorship for attacks of First Amendment, but honestly, this
may be the most significant. Put this up on the screen.
So the Supreme Court is the headline from box effectively
abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states.
That would be Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. So basically, the

(01:14:21):
Supreme Court decided to allow a lower court decision to stand,
and that lower court decision stood with a Texas law
that criminalized a Black Lives Matter protest organizer because something
illegal happened at his protest that he helped to lead

(01:14:42):
and organize. This is de Ray mcasson, who very well
known Black Lives Matter organizer and activist leader. So the
idea here isn't that Deray himself did anything illegal, or
even that he incited anyone to do a anything illegal.
The idea is that he created by even hosting this

(01:15:05):
protest where something illegal and violent happened, that he himself
is culpable and can be found criminally liable or those
acts of these random people at the protest. I mean,
this is insane and the reason that the Box article
I think rightly says this effectively bans protest in these

(01:15:27):
three states as long as this decision holds. And like
I said, it's not that the Supreme Court made a
decision they allowed this to stand. So there may be
there may be a decision down the line that overturns it.
But you can imagine if you are responsible for the
actions of every single random person who happens to show
up at your protest, you could also have bad actors

(01:15:48):
who just want to like get you legally in trouble,
who show up and cause mischief knowing that it can
be pinned the blame can be pinned on you. So
who's going to want to risk that that type of
criminal liability when the stakes are so extraordinarily high as
you know, Currently, this Fifth Circuit decision is the law

(01:16:09):
in much of the American South.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
Yeah, I mean, I think this is just so the
Supreme Court declining to hear this case is one thing.
It's now being kicked back to the lower courts, who
could still sort of come to a question on this,
And it's about.

Speaker 4 (01:16:22):
Sort of the vagueness of a statute.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
And you know, there's there might be really legitimate legal questions.
Actually clearly there are, because it's ping ponging back through
the court about how to interpret something. And it might
be the case that a law needs to be changed
in order to prevent the legal confusion here because there
should be no legal confusion. A person who organizes a
protest should not be able to be held liable, you know,

(01:16:49):
for any violence that happens. And the argument is that
Duran McKesson was organizing what was you know from it's
from the outset by design in illegal protest. But we're
talking about then civil disobedience, and that doesn't mean, you know,
you can't have civil disobedience without the violation of laws,
which means you know, there are laws that you're violating.

(01:17:11):
Civil disobedience is that's the concept of it. And so
if we're going to virtually make it completely impossible by
holding people liable for things that others do, that's a
sad day. But I actually expect that as a ping
pellings through the lower courts, someone's going to figure out
that a law needs to be changed. Maybe I just

(01:17:33):
have more faith in the system. But I think both
sides obviously benefit from protests at this point.

Speaker 4 (01:17:39):
Everyone knows that. So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
I mean, we're about to talk about a Supreme Court
case involving January sixth defendants, and so I just think
there's heightened sensitivity about this, and we're going to have
a better outcome eventually. The sad thing is that, you know,
justice delayed is justice denied, and it might take too
long to get to that point.

Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
Yeah. Well, I mean Donald Trump used a lot of
language on January sixth that could be seen much more
directly as incitement than anything de Ray McKesson is, you know,
even alleged to have said on that day. They're not
even saying like, oh, he incited this, that's not even
part of the argument. But can you imagine the reaction
of Donald Trump was found liable in some ways for

(01:18:19):
people who did assault police officers, not because he incited it,
but just by being involved in the organization of the protests.
I think the right would probably have something negative to
say about that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
Yes, I mean, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
Jenny Thomas and the sort of organization of buses for
people to march in d C.

Speaker 4 (01:18:38):
On January sixth.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
There was an original protest that was planned to be peaceful,
and I talked to tons of people that day that
were there just they had no idea that there was
anything that was going to spiral. They were there to
see Trump's speech, and they were there to like make
their presence known just in DC and weren't planning to
go into the Capitol.

Speaker 4 (01:18:57):
They didn't even know that was on the radar.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
But you know, there were people that supplied resources to
that original protest that could easily in with really problematic
interpretations of this law be you know, if DC had
similar language, could be brought up on charges like Deray McKesson.
So hopefully this has opened up all of our eyes

(01:19:22):
to the dangers of that because you know, conservative protests
and conservative I guess riots like January six was, you know,
just not something that a lot of conservatives had to
think about in the past.

Speaker 4 (01:19:36):
They are now thinking pretty hard about it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
So let's hope we can come to some good legal
consensus on this question in those states, because there's just no.

Speaker 4 (01:19:46):
There's no way that can stand. I mean, it's wildly wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
All right, let's talk a little bit about GOTUS and
what they were contemplating with regard to January six.

Speaker 3 (01:19:57):
Yeah, so absolutely we can go ahead and put this
first element up on the screen. This is from Megan Kelly,
who was following the Supreme Court arguments yesterday on this case.
Megan's a big Supreme Court argument on whether quote, obstructing
an official proceeding can form the basis for a criminal
charge versus J six defendants, including Trump. This is the

(01:20:20):
heart of Smith's J six case versus him. Is not
going well for the government at all. All six Conservatives
sound like they're on the side of the defense. If
they sided with the defense here, it guts Jack Smith's
DC case against Donald Trump. So let's break down a
little bit about why that is. There's this tear schuet
here from scotus Blog. They write, the Supreme Court heard

(01:20:43):
that oral argument in the case of a former police
officer from Pennsylvania who entered the Capitol during the January sixth,
twenty twenty one attacks. Joseph Fisher, who was charged with,
among other things, assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct in
the capital, and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, has asked
the justices to throw out the charge that he obstructed
an official proceeding, arguing that the law that he was

(01:21:05):
charged with violating was only intended to apply to evidence tampering.
More than three hundred other JA six defendants have been
charged with violating the law, which, and this is very interesting,
was enacted as part of the Sarpines Oxley Act in
the wake of the n Run scandal, and I guess
people can understand why and then also sort of understand
why it's narrowly been interpreted in the past to talk

(01:21:27):
specifically about that question of evidence tampering Scotis blog rights.
It's also at the center of two of the charges
brought by Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump and
Washington d C. That is the same case in which
the justices will hear argument on guess what. April twenty fifth,
so coming right up right around the corner regarding Donald
Trump's claims of immunity. So Fisher had sent some text

(01:21:50):
messages in which he indicated to acquaintances Scotis Blog Rights
that members of Congress can't vote if they can't breathe
dot dot dot lol, and that he might need his
police chief to post my bail it might get violent.
On January sixth, prosecutors say Fisher urged rioters to charge
and hold the line. In a message on social media

(01:22:10):
on January seventh, Fisher wrote that he had been pepperbald
and pepper sprayed, but entry into the capital was needed
to send a message that we the people hold the
real power. So the reason it's important to note those
quotes is because you can see that Fisher saw, according
to these messages, at least his entrance into the capitol,
his sort of violent entrance into the Capitol as an

(01:22:31):
intentional act of obstruction of the proceeding of certifying the electors.
So that's the I think relevant context in that case.
But if the statute can be interpreted as something that
goes beyond evidence tampering is actually at the heart of
the question. That's it's sort of like what we're talking

(01:22:52):
about in the last block, Crystal, like two things can
be true. It can be true that he clearly intended
to obstruct the proceed without this charge specifically being applicable,
this post end run charge specifically being implicable. I believe
Scotis Blog actually has in this article. I'll find the

(01:23:13):
exact quote that it's true. This hasn't been interpreted in
the past. There's not precedent for interpreting this to go
beyond that narrow question of evidence tampering.

Speaker 4 (01:23:24):
And if the justices.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
Come down in June July with the ruling here that
you can't have evidence tampering, that you can't go beyond
evidence tampering, that's pretty devastating to the case.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
Yeah, so you had one judge in the context of
this case making its way up to the Supreme Court
acknowledging that outside of the January sixth cases brought this jurisdiction,
there is no precedent for using the obstruction provision to
prosecute the type of conduct at issue in this case.
To be honest with you, amazing this will surprise you.
I didn't think that the government had good answers to

(01:23:59):
this question of Okay, well, how do you get this?
Where's the limiting principle? So if you have protesters who
pull a fire alarm during a you know, congressional vote,
is does that count? Do you can you get thrown
in prison for that? Now, in reality, none of the
January sixth protesters who were charged with this, it wasn't

(01:24:22):
the only charge they were faced with. So, in other words,
if you just had someone who you know, trespassed and
wasn't hit with any other charges, there was no one
who this is the only thing. It was used as
a way to sort of up the ante in terms
of what the government, what sort of sentences the government
could obtain here in the language, First of all, you

(01:24:43):
do have the context of this was about Enron and
sarbainez Oxley and all of that, And the language is
very vague and honestly bakes me pretty uncomfortable. It says impeded.
One of the words is if you impeded a government proceeding.
So again, what's the limiting principle there? And how do

(01:25:03):
you make sure that in applying this law you are
not taking a sledgehammer to other protected speech and other
sort of protest activities that any of us could easily imagine.
You even had Katanji Brown Jackson in these arguments expressing
reservations about what the government is arguing here. She said

(01:25:26):
the court should not lose sight of the backdrop of
a real world context, which I think is what I'm
speaking to here. And Emily, I think we have some
of the clips of some of the conservative justices asking
these critical questions.

Speaker 4 (01:25:41):
Yeah, let's go ahead and roll that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
You can cure conservative justices Ammy, Conny Barrett and Neil
Gorsich poking some serious holes in the government's case.

Speaker 11 (01:25:50):
What does that mean for the breadth of this statue
would to sit in that disrupts a trial for access
to a federal courthouse qualify. Would a heckler in today's
audience qualify? Or at the State of the Union address,
would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify? For

(01:26:14):
twenty years in federal prison.

Speaker 12 (01:26:16):
What if on January sixth, the capital itself had not
been breached, the protest is going on outside the capital,
stop the steal, Stop the steal, police, or you know
in megaphone saying disperse, disperse, they're too close to the capital.
Their goal is to impair, impede, stop the proceeding, stop

(01:26:37):
the counting of votes. Does that violate the statute in
your view? Under this impede language?

Speaker 13 (01:26:43):
So, I think I think that one relevant question would
be whether we could satisfy the nexus requirement and show
that actually the natural and probable effect of that conduct
would be to have some effect on what's going on
in the capital and in the myran you can yes.
So if you're assuming that the same thing happened where
Congress to go into recess and couldn't hold the joint
session after Ahill because there was such a security risk,

(01:27:04):
I think that that probably would be chargeable if we
had the intent evidence. Now, as I mentioned before, even
with respect to the riot that happened, which was a
much more serious breach. We don't have that evidence of
intent for everyone, but if we had, for example, organizers
where it was absolutely clear that they were the ring
leaders who had intended to obstruct and undertook the action
with that specific intent and did so knowing it was wrongful,

(01:27:26):
and especially if they went you know, I'm assuming you're
saying they're in the unauthorized area right outside the capitol.
That is unlawful conduct committed with consciousness of wrongdoing, if
we have the proof of it.

Speaker 12 (01:27:35):
Let's say that I am having a hard time seeing
accepting your limiting construction of the verbs obstruct, influencer impedes
to have this extra element. Tell me why I shouldn't
be concerned about the breadth of the government's reading just
relying on corruptly and the nexus requirement. Should I be
concerned or could you just embrace it and say, yeah,

(01:27:57):
there might be some ads applied First Amendment challenges or
that sort of thing. I mean, can I be comfortable
with the breadth if that's what I think.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
Yes, you can be.

Speaker 13 (01:28:05):
You certainly don't have to agree with us that a
deminimus hindrance wouldn't qualify. If you thought that this was
unqualified and swept broadly to any kind of hindrance whatsoever,
there would still be really important limits in the statute.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):
Christ So can I say that Biden's solicitor general there
sounds very conservative. It actually reminds me of a lot
of conservative arguments about protests and speech in the past, because, Yeah,
this idea that you should curve down on any sort
of public I guess, disobedience, anything like that, You can

(01:28:41):
just really easily see it kind of reminds me what
we're talking about in the campus speech block. It kind
of you can easily see how when you have interpretations
like that, they can be applied wildly to just protests
in general, because in essence, every protest is trying to
quote unquote obstruct maybe not a technical, narrow constitutional proceeding

(01:29:06):
as is in this case, but in a lot of
cases they're trying to obstruct some type of proceeding. There
is some type of like legislative proceeding that they don't
want to happen. So you can see how language like
obstruct and proceeding being interpreted in this way could get
really really out of control for you know, government sensors

(01:29:28):
or would be government sensors and people who want to
crack down on legitimate protest.

Speaker 1 (01:29:33):
Yeah, the languages obstruct, influence or impede, so influence, I mean,
right exactly. I mean that's it really is written in
this very broad way that I think should make us uncomfortable.
And obviously we reference that this not only impacts the
I think hundreds of January sixth defendants who had this

(01:29:55):
as one of the charges that was brought against them,
but it does directly impact Donald Trump in terms of
the January sixth cases, Megan Kelly was pointing out. So
he was charged. Of course, he's got a whole wrapped
of charges that he's facing, including the hush money situation
that he's dealing with in court in Manhattan as we speak.
He's got the Document's case, he's got the Georgia case.

(01:30:18):
But in terms of the federal January sixth case, he
was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the
United States. That's about his efforts to spread false claims
about November twenty twenty election, knowing they weren't true, tempting
to illegally discount legitimate votes, all with the goal of
overturning the twenty twenty election. According to prosecutors, one count

(01:30:40):
of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, that's the one
we're talking about here, due to the alleged organized planning
by Trump and his allies to disrupt the electoral vote
certification in January twenty twenty one, another count of obstruction
of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, which has
to do specifically with those elections vacation efforts that we've

(01:31:01):
been talking about. And one count of conspiracy against rights
referring to Trump and his co conspirators allegedly attempting to oppress,
thread and intimidate people in their right to vote in
an election. So you've got four different counts that are
related to January sixth. So if the official preceding one
is out the window, then you're left with two counts,

(01:31:24):
this conspiracy or fraud the US and this conspiracy against
rights that Jack Smith is left with in terms of
the January sixth case. So it is definitely quite consequential
in terms of Trump's legal jeopardy in that particular, in
that particular situation that he is in legal jeopardy.

Speaker 3 (01:31:44):
From not to quote the Bachelor, But to quote the Bachelor,
whether or not you believe that the conservative justices are
in this for the right reasons, By the way, I
hate the Bachelor, but whether or not you think they're
in it for the right reasons, I actually hope that
they push back on this and they really set precedent
to interpret this narrowly, because you couldn't. You know, it
already feels like we're sort of lurching ever closer to

(01:32:05):
banana republic territory.

Speaker 4 (01:32:07):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
But you know, you can see how when Republicans, for example,
you know, just in Congress, when they started to push
back on you know, for example, Nancy Pelosi wouldn't seat
the members that they wanted on the January sixth committee,
or uh, you know, Republicans or Democrats you know, peached

(01:32:28):
Trump for his quote perfect phone call to Zelenski, and
then Democrats went and or Republicans went and started to
seriously talk about impeachment for Joe Biden doing this kind
of escalating tit for tat. You can easily see actually
how Joe Biden. You know, you have a bunch of uh,
liberal activists, progressive activists protesting something like the voting rights

(01:32:50):
legislation in Georgia and Joe Biden, you know, giving the
saying something that you know aligns with them, trying to
influence the official proceeding of.

Speaker 4 (01:33:00):
The vote on that like you can like this can
just get blown up.

Speaker 3 (01:33:03):
And you never underestimate the cynical tactics of people in
positions of power to wield statutes like this for immediate
political ends that do not serve the sort of best
interests of the country, that do not set long term
standards in the best interests of the country, and do
not serve frankly, the constitution and the growth of office.

(01:33:26):
So never underestimate the cynicism of our elected officials, because
they will wield these things in ways that absolutely bring
us closer to the brink.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
You want to Tom Cotton to a future president Tom
Cotton or future president Donald Trump, or where you want
them to have the power to wield this, you know,
to its fullest extent, not personally, not me. There was
one liberal argument though, that did land with me about
Justice Thomas. I'm curious your thoughts on this. Emily can

(01:33:56):
put this one up on the screen. So this is
from Jeffrey. He says, in the most credible of sources
here anyway, put that aside in oral argument today, Justice
Thomas is minimizing the severity of the January sixth insurrection
at the Capital. Perhaps that's because his wife was part
of the conspiracy. What a disgrace that he's sitting on
this case. I actually do think it's inappropriate for Thomas

(01:34:17):
to be involved in this case. His wife, as you
referenced earlier, Emily was involved in some of the organizing
for that day. There were a bunch of infamous, you know, tweets,
sorry texts between her and then Chief of Staff Mark
Meadows about the stop the Steal conspiracy in which she
was incredibly encouraging, et cetera. And so I do think
that it's inappropriate that he's involved here. But and it

(01:34:41):
just speaks to you know, there's any number of cases
that he and other justices, by the way, should have
recused themselves from if we're upholding a high standards of ethics,
where even the appearance of a conflict of interest should
be enough for you to recuse yourself. But the Supreme
Court doesn't have an official code of ethics, which is insane.

(01:35:02):
They're just left to like make their own decisions about
whether they or not they feel conflicted and feel like
they want to recuse, and so Justice Thomas doesn't ever
feel like he needs to recuse himself, even from cases
that in which he has a direct financial interest. That's
always also been an issue in the past.

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:35:19):
Yeah, So this is interesting because I agree completely that
the Supreme Court needs a code of ethics and that
conflicts like this are not are far from ideal. I
do think that there's a good argument for being a
conflict of interest in this case. I think that's always
been an issue for Clarence Thomas, and I don't think.

Speaker 4 (01:35:39):
Again that's ideal.

Speaker 3 (01:35:39):
You know, I think it's unfortunate that Jenny Thomas wants
to be a conservative activist, and you know, like she
wants to do.

Speaker 4 (01:35:46):
It for good reasons, like she really believes in the cause.

Speaker 3 (01:35:48):
So I don't think it's ideal that it creates these
conflicts of interest, because you know, I feel for anybody
that wants to be involved and advocate on behalf of
ideas that they believe in really strongly. But you know,
that's been kind of the problem is that there is
no consistent code of ethics. So Clarence Thomas is like,
there's this big effort on the left, and you know

(01:36:10):
this would create this could blow up into a huge
like we could spend a whole show on this. But
I from my perspective, I think there's been a decades
long effort to discredit Clarence Thomas, specifically because he is
a black sort of conservative jurist, and that he's gotten
a lot of racism frankly because of all of that,
and so that lack of consistency is what has allowed

(01:36:33):
for I think some of these conflicts of interest to fester.

Speaker 4 (01:36:35):
So I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:36:37):
I think it's it's sort of a problematic conflict. But
I think, you know, we talk about it, not us,
but I think the media talks about it specifically with
Clarence Thomas more than some other justices.

Speaker 4 (01:36:48):
But that doesn't make it right. So I ultimately kind
of agree.

Speaker 3 (01:36:52):
I don't think it's an ideal situation to have the
different interests at hand here. I do want to mention
Megan Kelly another Megan Kelly tweet, this time at Jeffrey
Tubin in response to that tweet you just read Crystal,
and Meghan said, Hi, Tubin, FYI you waived your right
to use the term disgraced about other lawyers when you
took your dick out of your pants and jerked off
in front of your colleagues.

Speaker 4 (01:37:13):
Not safe for work, folks.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
Nice. Nice, But his point stands about Clarence Thomas. I mean,
I listen, I am not going to dispute. There's been
plenty of racism, you know, directed towards him, especially with
regards to He infamously doesn't really usually chime up during
oral arguments, and this was sort of used to smear
him as unintelligent. If you read about his actual philosophy,

(01:37:39):
I mean, he's this weird sort of like almost like
right wing black Nationally, he's very cynical about racial politics.
It's once I, you know, really learned about his ideology
is actually a little different than what I thought he is.
Probably he is just as cynical about the possibility of
sort of racial co existence and reconciliation as like a

(01:38:02):
Nicole Hannah Jones. I mean they actually share. There's a
weird horseshoe there in terms of racial pessimism. We'll put
that ideology aside for another day. But I think part
of that cynicism from him is his willingness to accept
like these large monetary gifts and monetary assistance and you know,

(01:38:25):
the trips and the helping to pay for the r
V and his mother's house and all of these things,
because first of all, that is completely corrupt, and he
is an outlier in terms of how much he appears
to have accepted these types of gifts. Not that he's
the only one who's done it, but the frequency, the amounts,

(01:38:46):
the unwillingness to disclose, etc. I do think is at
another level with Clarence Thomas. So in that way, the
additional scrutiny of him is very justified, and I think
it comes from this deeply cynical place of his view
of politics, which is like, yeah, rich people have their way.
It's a corrupt system, and I'm part of that corrupt system.

Speaker 3 (01:39:09):
He also has this sort of uniquely inspiring story that
I think has been has made him more attractive as
sort of a compatriot to that donor class, you know,
you know what I mean, the sort of like billionaire
donor class that has all of these massive charities that
they you know, he's used the Supreme Court to have ceremonies.

(01:39:30):
I think he's just sort of especially attractive for them
because he grew up like speaking Gulla dialect and like
the most rural place that you could imagine in the
United States and had this like weird like you said,
he was basically in college, he was basically like a
left wing black nationalist and then had this interesting evolution.
There's a good documentary called Clarence Thomas Created Equal that

(01:39:51):
was done by people who are favorable to Thomas, but
it's still just him kind of telling his life story,
and you get a different glimpse than.

Speaker 4 (01:39:57):
What the media tells you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:58):
But I think basically the bottom line, Chris, is that
we agree the Supreme Court has a big ethics problem
on its hand, because you know, when you have in
your family these interests or personally these interests. I think
with Ruspader Ginsburg it was like different things with the
ACLU and different kind of like left wing groups that
found her story to be frankly very inspiring and her

(01:40:19):
evolution as a jurist to be inspiring. It does it's
impossible to see how that wouldn't weigh on their minds
or be something that you know, is present in their
minds as they're thinking about these cases.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, Let's talk about
some more legal action here. This incredibly significant. Put this
up on the screen from Axio's Department of Justice planning
to sue Ticketmaster parent Live Nation. So there was a
Ticketmaster Live Nation merger acquisition back in the Obama era
that made them this giant in terms of the live

(01:40:54):
music and live arts industry. So the dog planning to
sue them for anti trust violations. We don't have a
lot of details about what the specifics of that case
are going to be, as it has not come to
light yet, but just as a reminder about the history here,
So back in twenty ten, Live Nation acquires Ticketmaster, the

(01:41:15):
Obama DOJ Anti Trust Division does very little about it,
you know, even though some of the concerns which would
later become manifest were already quite predictable at that point.
But you know, there were decades in which Democrats and
Republicans joined together to basically stop enforcing anti trust violations.

(01:41:36):
This was Reagan, this was you know, first Bush, this
was Clinton, this was second Bush, this was Obama, all
of them very similar approach, and the Biden DOJ has
taken a markedly more aggressive and I would say a
return to you know, more true application of the law
when it comes to anti trust. This article reminds that

(01:41:57):
there was a ten year consent decree when they were
allowed to acquire Ticketmaster in twenty ten, which was meant
to keep them from abusing their market dominance, like to
punish artists that don't use their services, etc. To punish
venues that don't want to partner with them for ticket sales.
That consent decree has really not been enforced, which is

(01:42:20):
pretty typical, which is why it's more important to block
these things to begin with, because the enforcement after the
fact is very, very difficult. And they go on to
say artists have long spoken out about Ticketmaster's practices, but
those murmurs turned into rallying cries after Ticketmaster's site crashed
for thousands of Tailor Swift fans in twenty twenty two.
So we also have ilhan Omar celebrating this action, calling

(01:42:42):
for them to be broken up. We can put this
up on the screen. We also have She says, let's go,
I've said it before and I'll say it again, break
up Ticketmaster in Live Nation. You've got more perfect union
talking a little bit more about this suit and that
they're being accused of running an illegal monopoly over the
ticketing industry. The corporate monopoly charges too much for tickets,
exploits venues, hurts fans and artists so effectively, Emily, what

(01:43:06):
you have is this industry giant that as someone who's
put on these you know, little live performances can attest to,
they give you no other choice. They can charge whatever
they want. Not only do they control the ticket sales,
but then through Live Nation, they control you know, the

(01:43:27):
concert promotion. They can in fact, you know, punished venues,
punish artists who don't want to work with them. They
also own the ticket resale platforms. So not only was
a fee charge on the front end to ticket Master
when the tickets initially purchased, but then if it's resold
and there's indications they encourage people who are reselling to

(01:43:48):
you know, really gouge the final consumer. When it's resold,
they get another fee on top of the one that
you that was already paid in for this ticket. So
they really have control over a bunch of pieces of
this ecosystem and have weaponized it against everyone who is
a consumer of music or the artists, the fans, the venues,

(01:44:11):
et cetera in a way that I think is very
clearly abusive, and some of this has really been hidden.
I want to get your reaction. And then Matt Stoller,
our great partners, who's you know, anti trust expert. He
also did a breakdown of some of the specifics of
the way that they have been cooking the books to

(01:44:31):
try to avoid the very clear implications of the way
that they're overcharging people. But first, your reaction to this,
you know, this new action that is being reported by
the DJ.

Speaker 3 (01:44:41):
Well, first, I think it's really important to see like
ilhan Omar more perfect Union. They're right, They've been on
top of this case for a really long time, and
it's unfortunate I think that the right hasn't picked up
on what a populist cause this is, and actually, frankly,
what a free market cause this is because there is
no competition. And that's one thing I wanted to toss
back to you, Crystal, because you guys, when you've you've

(01:45:02):
gone out into different cities all over the country and
hosted these events, the ability to find competition to Ticketmaster
first of all, to like how Ticketmaster wields its power
as a virtual monopoly is one thing, but then also
if you want to find some way to bypass Ticketmaster,
it is virtually impossible.

Speaker 4 (01:45:23):
I mean, there are some ways that.

Speaker 3 (01:45:24):
Some people can do it, but in your experience, I
remember talking to you guys about this, is like impossible
to have an event, a major event with without Ticketmaster,
or even with Ticketmaster.

Speaker 1 (01:45:36):
They make it so hard to Yeah, so basically you
have to be in order to avoid using Ticketmaster, you
have to be really big to start with and basically
be able to do your own sort of like ticket sales.
But that's not it. Then you also have to have
a venue that's willing to work with you when you
are going around Ticketmaster knowing that they then because they

(01:46:01):
also own Live Nation, and say, okay, you want to
have you know, crystalin Sager, that's fine. Guess what next
time Ariana Grande's coming to town. Nothing, we're playing same venues.

Speaker 4 (01:46:12):
As first Saga or I have both.

Speaker 1 (01:46:17):
What's your choice?

Speaker 14 (01:46:18):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:46:18):
So yeah, so they can put pressure. Okay, well, these
other comedians, artists, act whoever that's going to come through
your town, they're going to go to a different venue
because we're going to put them there. So that's the
sort of buying that they put people in. There was
a case recently in New Jersey for two Stoller's explainer
that he did, which was excellent, and we should go

(01:46:38):
check out the whole thing because I can't possibly do
a justice. But there was some discovery in this case
that was very interesting because effectively, you had some sort
of a festival that wanted to you know, local New
Jersey festival. They wanted to hire, they wanted to put
on a music show. They hired these established concert promoters
to you know, do that work for them. And ticket

(01:47:00):
Master just basically came in like a bully over the
top and was like, no, no, no, you're going to
have to deal with us. So that was number one,
number two. And this gets to the argument that Ticketmaster
makes about how no, no, we're not gouging, we're not exploiting.
They claim they actually, we really don't make that much,
but we don't charge that much money on the tickets.

(01:47:22):
We don't make that much money. Here's our books. Look
at this money that we're losing in terms of tickets. Okay,
well you look at that. Well, I guess it's not
a monopoly if they're not charging these monopoly fees. But
what comes out in this case is that what they
would do is they would contract with these different vendors
with regards to this concert, and they would have these

(01:47:43):
secret deals where okay, Ticketmaster and the local concert promoter,
they're going to equally share the cost seems even steven
fifty to fifty, et cetera. But they would have these
secret deals with the vendors where they wanted the vendors
to overcharge on the front end, but then give a
secret rebate just to Ticketmaster on the back end that

(01:48:06):
the artists, the venue, and the concert promoter had no
idea about. And they actually went so far as to
keep two sets of books, one that showed this purported
loss on oh see, we're not even making that much
money in this industry, and the other one that reflected
these secret deals that they were making with vendors, which

(01:48:28):
were hugely profitable, you know, throughout the entire country, the
tune of hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars. That's
one of the things that maybe will come out in discovery.
Let's listen to a little bit of how that Stoler
described this approach.

Speaker 14 (01:48:43):
Live Nation negotiated third party expenses like rental custom with
the venues directly with vendors in exchange for exclusive financial
gains not disclosed to their artists or their agents, managers
or independent coke promoters in the form of rebates. So,
in other words, Live Nation had seek side deals with
vendors to inflate costs by overpaying those vendors and venues,

(01:49:06):
which meant that any profit from the event would evaporate.

Speaker 15 (01:49:08):
It would look like a loss.

Speaker 14 (01:49:10):
Co promoters and artists who share in profits would lose out,
but and would be told that the show just wasn't profitable.
But the thing is those vendors those venues who had
gotten extra money by being paid inflated costs would in
turn remit that money back to Live Nation in the
form of secret rebates. In other words, juice would pay
the inflated costs that would get furtively funneled back to

(01:49:32):
Live Nation along with all the profits from the show.

Speaker 15 (01:49:35):
At Live Nation kept two sets of books.

Speaker 14 (01:49:38):
So in one case they posted an entry of ninety
thousand dollars rent for settlement, but only seventy five thousand
dollars internally for the same item. They routinely put in
profit and loss statements large losses while admitting that events
actually made money.

Speaker 1 (01:49:53):
So there you go, and Juice being the concert promotion
promoters who were originally hired and so having these secret
deals on the front end, Juice is getting charged these
exorbitant prices and then that's just getting funneled back to
Ticketmaster's last Live Nation in the form of these secret rebates.
It's also funny, Emily he talks to the piece about

(01:50:15):
how we came to know this because they actually got
their way of keeping these documents that were revealed through
discovery secret. The court ruled like, okay, yeah, you can
keep the stuff secret, and then Live Nation accidentally posted
it online themselves so that we could all know what
they're up to. And again it will be very revealing,

(01:50:35):
I think, to have more of these accounting practices and
tricks that they use to wield their monopoly power revealed
to the public.

Speaker 3 (01:50:44):
And you know again, they're also spending around a million
dollars on lobbying just in the last couple of years.
I think they're up to one point seven million in
the current election. According to the Guardian. It's a lot
of money on lobbying. It's not you know, compared to
other industries or other companies. You know, they're people who
spend more, but it's an increase, and there's a reason
it's an increase. So to that question of competition in

(01:51:05):
the marketplace, to your point, Crystal, if you are a
small intended competitor, want to be competitor to help the
state of quote consumer welfare, to borrow the phrase from
Robert Bork and that sort of standard that people, you know,
whether it was during the Obama administration or the Bush
administrations or even right now, who defend this. If you

(01:51:29):
want to bring consumers a better state of welfare, if
you want to help bring prices down, and you're a competitor,
not only is the bar already so high because Ticketmaster
Live Nation, they're all established, but they're also then spending
more than a million dollars lobbying to keep themselves that way.
So the barrier to entry for a competitor is it's

(01:51:51):
like almost impossible, and there is no consumer welfare here, which,
as Lina Kahn said, you know, the Taylor Swift Ticketmaster
thing that you guys covered so well turned gen Z,
like tons of gen Z people into monopolists, so anti
monopolists overnight. I think it is the quote from Lena
Khan at the time, and again that's because the consumer

(01:52:11):
welfare is harmed by this particular situation, and you just
hear no conservatives talking about it, even though it was
something that happened under the Obama administration and Chuck Schumer
was like against it at the time, but it happened
under Barack Obama, and it is harming consumers, and it
is the most anti free market conduct unless you are

(01:52:32):
a full iron rand like let everyone just be monopolists
and monopolies are good. Unless you're sort of on the
libertarian fringe. This is not a competitive marketplace anymore. It's
a classic case of anti competitive behavior, and there's just
so little Republican concern about it, despite the fact that
it's clearly a populist cause.

Speaker 1 (01:52:53):
This is one of the areas where I have to
genuinely give kudos the Biden administration. They have broken with,
you know, the Obama neoliberal approach in this, and they
also have been significantly better, not perfect, but better in
terms of labor rights. Those are to me to the
two strongest areas and where they have the two sort
of strongest teams of personnel acting, and it is consequential.

(01:53:16):
It's also the reason why like the Wall Street journal
man they hate Lena Khan, they hate this new antitrust enforcement.
It's why you see, you know, even liberal Wall Street
figures like Jamie Diamond being like, yeah, maybe they aren't
so bad with Trump, like maybe he was okay. Because

(01:53:37):
you also have to remember a lot of sort of
like rank and file Wall streeters, their bonuses come from
these big merger and acquisition deals. So to the extent
that the Biden administration and they have significantly has sort
of like put a freeze on those deals happening, they're
all waiting it out and hoping Trump comes back and
there's less scrutiny over their actions. That has really put

(01:54:00):
a hit on the wallets of a lot of denizens
of Wall Street. And so there's a real CNBC Wall
Street journal hatred of Lena Khan Jonathan Canter in this
whole direction of the Biden administration. But if you are
not a Wall Street denizen, if you are an ordinary
person out there who would like to go see a
concert or comedian or whatever it is that you're into

(01:54:21):
and not be completely gouged at every turn. You should
be very pleased with this lawsuit.

Speaker 3 (01:54:26):
But there's nobody for the most part representing your interests
in Washington because who has the money to spend on
that kind of lobbying. Well, Wall Street does, and the
people who oppose Ticketmaster really don't.

Speaker 4 (01:54:38):
So I think that's just an important point, Crystal.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
The Wall Street Journal has written like one hundred op
eds against Lena Khan. If you talk to people in
that sort of world, the sheer hatred.

Speaker 1 (01:54:48):
Of Lea Khan is genuinely unhinged.

Speaker 4 (01:54:51):
It unhinged, unhinged.

Speaker 3 (01:54:53):
But it's because of what you said. The stakes for
them are so high. There's so much on the line
with these murders and acquisition. So you know, we'll see,
we'll see if any Republicans take up the ticket Master
cause at some point, even ones that have been good,
because there's this question of antie, there's a question of
big tech. You know, Ryan and I have said for
the last couple of months, one of the questions in
our interview with Ted Cruz, we ended up talking so

(01:55:15):
much about Israel. We wanted to ask him actually about
he wrote a whole book that he was here to
promote about big Tech and how big tech is too
big and it is anti competitive, but he's super postedly
to con So it's a genuine dilemma I think for
a lot of conservatives, kind of like the speech questions
we were talking about earlier, Crystal.

Speaker 1 (01:55:33):
Very true. Yeah, it all is filtered through a partisan
lens versus a principal lens.

Speaker 3 (01:55:39):
Well, speaking of new alliances in the culture war, let's
move on to this Bill Maher clip, Crystal. Bill Maher
had Katie kirk on Club Random this Sunday and they
got into a debate about the media. Bill Maher has
sort of joined the conservative critiques of CNN and another
kind of corporate media outlets that I think both of

(01:56:02):
us in a lot of cases would agree with their
their their bias in different directions. And there are a
lot of cases selection bias, what they choose to talk
about versus what they don't choose to talk about, and
all of that good stuff. But it was an interesting conversation.
So let's roll this clip of Bill Maher and Katie
Kuric on Club Random this Sunday.

Speaker 16 (01:56:22):
Okay, remember the town hall he had on CNN about
six months ago and the audience loved it. The audience
loved it. I mean, you can't.

Speaker 1 (01:56:30):
You can hate it.

Speaker 15 (01:56:30):
It stacked with Trump's supporters.

Speaker 16 (01:56:32):
Well they said Republicans and independents, that's what they said. Okay,
maybe it was. How did they get in? If they did,
that's on CNN.

Speaker 15 (01:56:41):
Yeah, I agree, I think it is on n and
the vetting process.

Speaker 16 (01:56:45):
Well, then you've got to get a better audience person obviously.

Speaker 11 (01:56:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:56:50):
Yeah, it's like the person who handed the gun to
Alec Baldwin. Yeah, you know, you got to get good
people in all these positions.

Speaker 15 (01:56:58):
I agree.

Speaker 16 (01:56:59):
Okay, So if that was about whatever, if in if
it was, here's what happened. Here's what people saw in America.
They saw Trump killing it, killing it with the crowd.
Then you come to a panel of six people who
all just do nothing but dump on him and call
him a liar. And America goes, oh, didn't you just

(01:57:20):
see that? We like him?

Speaker 15 (01:57:22):
And now a stand up comedian, what he's killing it?
He's not a stand up comedian.

Speaker 16 (01:57:27):
But popularity, it doesn't matter. The people loved him and
what he was saying. And then you cut to a
panel of six no it alls in Washington who just
do nothing but talk about the native and like, I'm
all in on the negative. No one's bit harder on
Trump than me, but I get it and I'm bored
with it. And there's a different way to do this,

(01:57:49):
I think is not to defend Trump, but to defend
the people who still vote for him, because what they
see on the other side side to them is even
more dangerous because it's very closer to home. My kid
is coming home from school and he thinks he's a racist.
He's five. What have you been telling him? You know,

(01:58:12):
my son thinks maybe he's not a boy, and maybe
that's true. That happens, but you know, those kind of
things are what they say. That's why I'm voting for Trump.

Speaker 15 (01:58:26):
Backlash, the pendulum swinging.

Speaker 16 (01:58:29):
The conservative guy one said to me, what you don't
get about Trump is we don't like him either. Now
that's not true for all people. There are people who
just love his dirty draws and they are dirty. But
lots of people it's like that, we don't like him,
but he's all that stands between us and madness.

Speaker 4 (01:58:46):
That's their view.

Speaker 3 (01:58:47):
So Christal, I think that's really interesting because there are
a few people that have reckoned with the reality that
a lot of Republican voters again really don't like Trump.
There's like thirty percent of the hardcore magabase that actually
loves him, and there's a lot of polling that puts
that number around twenty to thirty percent of that sort
of hardcore, diehard maga, the people who are at rallies

(01:59:09):
versus the average Republican voter or Republican leaning independent that
sort of tolerates Trump.

Speaker 4 (01:59:15):
And they tolerate Trump not.

Speaker 3 (01:59:16):
Because they love him, they see him as a stand
up comedian, but because you know that Flight ninety three
election essay that went really viral in twenty sixteen by
Michael Anton that was very influential and conservative intellectual circles,
not probably with Republican voters, but put that into words
that the threat of Hillary Clinton presidency because of some
of those culture war questions was so big that people

(01:59:38):
are willing to sort of swallow the pill of Donald
Trump because they think four years of Hillary Clinton or
Joe Biden is worse.

Speaker 4 (01:59:45):
And people can disagree with.

Speaker 3 (01:59:47):
That argument, that's fine, but at least acknowledging the argument.
I kind of can't believe that we're just having this
conversation in a.

Speaker 4 (01:59:56):
Somewhat mainstream venue. I mean, it's Bill Maher's podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:59:59):
It's not like that conversation itself is happening on CNN
all the way in twenty twenty four. I mean, that's
what should have been understood in twenty sixteen, and there
should have been people willing. You know, Katie Kirk obviously
wasn't agreeing with him, but there should have been people
willing to even hear that argument out in twenty sixteen
instead of automatically shouting down Bill Maher as a enabler

(02:00:21):
of racism or whatever else. But CNN will not even
air a conversation like that. I think that's what he's
talking about. There's nobody on the panel to represent that perspective,
even though it's coming from a huge chunk of the electorate,
you know, north of what sixty million people voting for
Trump in twenty twenty, and there's no representation in that
in CNN because there's no tolerance for it, because you know,

(02:00:41):
a lot of the younger staffers there see it as
being an enabler of racism, that it's necessarily sort of bigotry, racism, transphobia, homophobia, etc.
So you can't even have that conversation, you can't even
hear it out, and I just kind of monologued there.
But I do find it frustrating that, like he's having
this conversation while smoking a joint in a shadowy sort

(02:01:01):
of podcast venue, when that's the conversation that should be
had by the so called mainstream press, but everyone's too
afraid to even talk about it.

Speaker 1 (02:01:11):
There's a lot to say here. So, first of all,
with regard to Bill Maher himself, he's been on this
very noteworthy like right word shift journey for years at
this point. He started out in twenty sixteen, he was
Bernie Sanders guy. Then in twenty twenty suddenly he was
with Amy Klobashar. Now he's most of his noteworthy comments

(02:01:35):
are directed at the left and the excesses, the woke
excesses of the left. He's very much consistently on that beat.
So in that venous commentary, it's not like surprising to
me at all that seems to be where Bill Maher
is at this point. That's number one. Number two with
regard to the comments about trying to put yourself in

(02:01:59):
the show shoes and give the most charitable reading of
ordinary Americans and their motivations. Obviously, that's something I have
advocated for very strongly for a long time, very consistently.
I will just say Bill Maher does not show that
charity when it comes to many other groups, specifically young
people who he has nothing but unbridled contemp for, and

(02:02:22):
the left, which he also has nothing but unbridled contemp for.
So where is this supposed empathy for differing perspectives when
it comes to, you know, the young people who are
overwhelmingly protesting the atrocities in Gaza, or who just have
a different view of the world than he does. He

(02:02:44):
has no problem very consistently smearing any and all young
people as stupid and foolish and lazy and ill informed
and whatever else. So if it was a consistent principle,
like I like to hear people out, I like to
try to understand their perspective, think about where they're coming from,
et cetera, these comments might land a little differently with

(02:03:07):
me than coming from Bill Maher, who, as I said,
is happy to smear people who he at this point
sees as his biggest ideological opponents, which is those on
the left. You know, he feels very comfortable doing that
on a very very regular basis, who probably did it
in this same interview with Katie Kerr if I had
to guess the other thing. And this ties into the

(02:03:30):
we're about to talk about like some updates with with NPR,
and that ties into this conversation. As a leftist, I
find it offensive when people assume that I'm being represented
somehow in CNN or the New York Times or at NPR.
There is no ideological group that is more shut out
of any sort of mainstream news outlet than actual class

(02:03:55):
first leftist Like it's like we don't exist, and we're
supposed to pretend like Jake Tapper is our ideological ally
or somehow our worldview is it all reflected in these
corporate neoliberal spaces and there's never any crying about where's
that diversity of viewpoint?

Speaker 4 (02:04:15):
You know?

Speaker 1 (02:04:16):
This is why occasionally, when like anin eternal Turner will
sneak on for one segment or something, we're all like,
oh my god, it's like we exist, but otherwise we
understand what the game is because our ideology is threatening
to capital. It doesn't sit comfortably with the advertisers or
like the donor class that at this point backs NPR,

(02:04:37):
and so we're just invisibilized and you know, casually smear, dismissed,
et cetera. And I never see any concern about that.
At least conservatives have Fox News and it's bigger than
CNN the other The last thing I'm saying, and this
really does transitions to that NPR conversation, is like, let's
just be serious about where we are in the medio

(02:04:58):
media ecosystem. At this point. These places are not trying
to play to a general audience. Their corporate they need
advertiser money. They have a specific audience that they're super serving.
It's a business model. It's not news, that's what it is.
So we shouldn't be surprised when CNN doesn't platform my
ideology or your ideology, because we aren't for the audience

(02:05:23):
that they have and that they want to keep and
that they're trying to super serve. We aren't for the
advertisers that they want to keep buying ads. So the
more that we're clear about what's actually happening here, and
I think drop the pretense that this is some like
neutral journalistic endeavor, I think the more easily we'll understand

(02:05:43):
what's actually unfolding before our eyes at all of these
various outlets.

Speaker 3 (02:05:48):
Yeah, I agree completely that like the number one thing
the media could do to improve instantly would to be,
quite literally, just drop the pretense for New York Times
to say our editorial slant on the opinion.

Speaker 4 (02:05:58):
Side also guides our news side.

Speaker 3 (02:06:00):
It just dropped the idea that this is the paper
record for the country as a whole. That would do
so much, whether it's CNN, NPR, Washington Posts, that would
go so far to restoring trust in media and allow
some of the genuinely brave and excellent reporting those outlets
do overseas, you know, in actual war zones, to actually

(02:06:23):
build credibility back with readers that rightfully have no trust.
And I'm not saying all that reporting deserves credibility, but
just that you know, there are people that are doing
some good work that the critics of media aren't doing,
mostly because they don't have, you know, the funding or
the institutional infrastructure to do it. But you know, that's
the number one thing that should start happening. CNN says,

(02:06:44):
we don't have people on that make that perspective of
Republican voters or that will give that perspective that amplify
that perspective and give it anywhere near proportionality because we
disagree with both sides is because we're mostly cultural progressives.
And that chan key argument that has been around for
decades is important.

Speaker 4 (02:07:02):
And it was about class. It was about foreign policy
and war.

Speaker 3 (02:07:06):
And now there are a lot of class first conservatives
who are also finding themselves just as ostracized as class
first leftists have been for a long time in corporate
media spaces because this is deemed out of bounds. It's
it is beyond the bounds of what is acceptable, of
what is allowed to be speech in this country. So
I think it's really interesting, and let's move on to

(02:07:28):
this NPR thing because it's been a fascinating sort of
turn of events. Let's put F two up on the
screen speaking of class. I mean, it's just so interesting.

Speaker 11 (02:07:37):
Here.

Speaker 4 (02:07:37):
This is Steve Guest.

Speaker 3 (02:07:40):
He posted these old Twitter posts from the new CEO
of MPR, who I think got the job back in January.

Speaker 4 (02:07:50):
She's pretty new on the job.

Speaker 3 (02:07:52):
She was saying the best part of Arizona Get out
the vote is my Biden Grandpa hat. So she's in
a Biden for President hat. Back on November one, twenty twenty.
She said in twenty sixteen, I do wish Hillary wouldn't
use the language of quote boy and girl. It's a
racing language for non binary people. I'm an unalloyed progressive
and supporting Hillary this time around, she tweeted in July

(02:08:13):
of twenty sixteen. Yes it is girl boss, like insufferable
girl boss sanctimony. Matt Tayibi did a hilarious piece running
down all of the time Katherine Marr, the new CEO
of NPR, was just like destroying all of the fun
in holidays by just doing this like virtue signaling political correctness.

(02:08:36):
It was a really wonderful sort of journey through her
political arc. But she used to be at Wikimedia. I
think she's like had some like fellowships with World Economic
Forum in those places, and Wikimedia is Wikipedia is a
place that a lot of people see as being sort
of unbiased and neutral.

Speaker 4 (02:08:56):
It is not.

Speaker 3 (02:08:56):
We've done some reporting on the federalist set, like the
horrifying levels of powerful influence over Wikipedia Wikimedia. I think
she had positions on other sort of big corporate friendly
places before.

Speaker 4 (02:09:10):
Landing there, But this all has bubbled to the.

Speaker 3 (02:09:15):
Surface because a guy named Darry Berliner wrote an essay
for The Free Press, which is Barry Weiss's outlet, last week,
and we can go ahead and put F three up
on the screen, making some pretty clear accusations of just
bias that was culture based, class based at NPR that

(02:09:35):
he's worked there for twenty five years, he just saw
it escalate in recent years, for example, calling the lab
leak conspiracy theory and discrediting it immediately. Now he was
suspended yesterday, and so this happened as all of these
posts from Catherine Marr were circulating.

Speaker 4 (02:09:57):
And it is pretty.

Speaker 3 (02:09:58):
Funny because the New York Times and TABI another great
piece about this. The New York Times totally dismissed and
like downplayed all of the serious concerns about this woman's bias.
You know, she's never been a journalist, but she has
overseeing journalism at NPR, which has the added kind of
credibility benefit built into it of being National Public Radio,

(02:10:20):
a place that you know, Ryan and I talked last
week used to be. People have a lot of nostalgia
for different eras of MPR, even if it used to
be kind of slanted left.

Speaker 4 (02:10:28):
People liked NPR and Now, I don't know, Crystal Hoften,
you listen to it.

Speaker 3 (02:10:33):
I listened to it a lot, and I listened to
it mostly to get like the Cultural Progressive I mean,
they're like anti free speech now, even though they have
a show called one a Like, it's just amazing the
turn of events at MPR, like pro censorship on social
media and all of that. So, you know, I actually
think there's probably a good reason to suspend a guy

(02:10:53):
who publicly airs your dirty laundry if you're a media outlet,
like that's you know, I'm sure that's against some type
of contract agreement. So I kind of get that, But
I do find it somewhat interesting that you have this
breathless sort of defense of mar or protection over mar

(02:11:14):
or whatever in the media and then this like, well
this Berlin or guy like he's getting suspended while the
media is sort of defending her, rushing to her defense.
It's just like, come on, guys, like both sites can
be wrong here. It's pretty clear that NPR has gone
in one direction over the other.

Speaker 1 (02:11:34):
Yeah, I mean I think this dude was pretty much
asking to be fired, right, Like, yes, if you work
for an outlet and you go on a different outlet
and you're like, I hate this outlet I were in,
here's all the problems, Like you're kind of asking to
be fired. I don't have a whole lot of sympathy
for that. I think he probably knew that was the
likely outcome of his actions, and he was ready to
move on for some of the reasons that he laid out.

(02:11:54):
That's fine. In terms of this CEO, I don't know.
To me, she seems like a fit for what NPR
is today. And if you consider those the views that
you put up there, you know, like I'm on your
canvassing for Biden and I love Hillary, and you know,
the like language PC language obsession stuff. How safe is

(02:12:17):
that for rich people, corporate donors as that are.

Speaker 4 (02:12:20):
I mean that it's the public relations strategy.

Speaker 1 (02:12:23):
Yep, this is their business model. They are not actually
really public radio at this point. They receive very little
funding from the federal government. Most of their budget comes
from rich donors and advertisements. So guess what you get,
this neoliberal ideology that is really safe for rich white people.
That's their constituency, that's who they're applaying to. And in

(02:12:47):
that context, the CEO is an absolutely perfect fit. So
I know, ironically, a lot of the response to the
right of NPR's you know, intense identitarian liberal turn is well,
we should defund them. The defunding is actually part of
the problem, because the fact that the business model now

(02:13:07):
is reliant on these like rich donors and advertisers is
a big part of the story of how they've become
what they are. You know, the original concept, if you
go back to the seventies, it was this very like
populist public access. We're going to talk to Mississippi about
what's going on with his soybean crop or whatever. We're

(02:13:30):
going to hear from regular Americans all around the country.
I think that's very valuable. I appreciate that, like, you know,
public access. I think about remember Bernie those like TV
shows he used to do from the local mall or whatever. Yes,
like that's kind of a vibe, but it's not super profitable.
So if you have to actually like make money on

(02:13:52):
this thing, and you can't be reliant on federal government
just backing you to do this thing that's genuinely like
an educational or public search, then you're going to end
up acting like the rest of corporate media. And we
really see this. You know, we really see this turnaround
Trump where he is this very divisive figure, and some
media outlets go in the direction of We're going to
be the Trump people, and others go in the direction

(02:14:13):
we're gonna be the anti Trump people. George Floyd is
another Fisher in American society. And so no one should
be surprised since NPR really is basically like a corporate
media outlet at this point, that they follow the same
trajectory of every other corporate media outlet.

Speaker 3 (02:14:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:14:29):
No, it's actually so interesting.

Speaker 3 (02:14:31):
And the last thing I'll say on this because that
the sort of Chansky argument has been papered over by
the culture War in recent years to the point where
you know, you use the sort of necessary shorthand about
liberal media or left wing media, and honestly, I do
that all the time because there's really I mean, you
can launch into a tangential two minute thing about what

(02:14:55):
you mean when you say that, but you know, it's
it's really what you mean is cultural sort of progressivism
in the along the lines of what Catherine Mahr is
just displaying so clearly when she stop using the language
of quote boys and girls posts that to her Twitter page, Yeah,
I mean, that's it. It's hard to even have these

(02:15:16):
conversations now because the terms have been scrambled because of
that culture war embrace just in the last decade or so. That,
by the way, stems from real class biases in ways
that have been uniting to both the left and the right.
And that's not to say the left and the right
have found common cause on like medicare for all so

(02:15:36):
much as it is to say, when you pull working
class people on some of these cultural issues, like using
the word Latin X for example, you find a very
different position from what the corporate media has. And I
think that's one of the openings in the marketplace that
you and Sager.

Speaker 4 (02:15:53):
It's not like you were trying to, you know, fill
that gap. You just naturally do.

Speaker 3 (02:15:57):
And that's what people initially responded to, and hopefully that's
what people respond to on the show, is that, like,
you need media that is responsive to what people actually
want to hear, and in so many cases that is
absolutely class based, and you just don't get that anywhere,
even from purportedly left wing media at all.

Speaker 1 (02:16:17):
Yeah, this lady does not represent me.

Speaker 4 (02:16:21):
Yes she does, Crystal, Yeah, she does not.

Speaker 1 (02:16:24):
I think you guys, go Hillary Christian to be proof
of that.

Speaker 4 (02:16:29):
You guys, you guys need to have That's fine.

Speaker 1 (02:16:33):
We could be friends. You know, I've got friends who
were on team Hillary in twenty sixteen and were, you know,
very aggressively and still are pro Biden. That's fine, but
you know, she does not reflect my political ideology, and
very few people in mainstream press actually do, if any,
To be honest with.

Speaker 3 (02:16:52):
You, absolutely no, it's it's just the whole MPR saga
has been fun to watch, and I think partially is because,
I mean, I don't like the concept of state media
at all, honestly, but I do like the nostalgia. That's
I like hearing people's nostalgia for the different era of
MPR because I think it does harken back to a

(02:17:12):
time when there was just generally more consensus, and some
of that consensus was bad, but some of it actually
was good. There was this touchstone culturally in NPR that
a lot of people listen to and could talk about
it as a water cooler, the proverberal water cooler, and
that was important, I think to just a lot of
our shared values.

Speaker 1 (02:17:30):
Yeah, I mean, I think there is a way public
funded media can be done well, and obviously we need
different models of media than what we've collapsed to, which
is this you know, corporate funded model, and then you know,
in independent media there are good parts about it, but
it's also subject to its own risks and perils of
audience capture and trying to play to you know, narrow

(02:17:53):
of an audience in a bubble, et cetera. So definitely
need a whole whole media rethink because I don't think
these outlets are serving the American.

Speaker 3 (02:18:02):
People well well, speaking of platforming, genuine debate that represents
the actual American public. Stay tuned to this channel, right, Crystal,
because Sager is moderating one such debate tonight here on
the channel at seven pm on Israel.

Speaker 1 (02:18:18):
That's right, it is going to be Sager as moderator.
We've got on one side Batya Ngarsargon and Dennis Prager
as the pro Israel side, and we've got Dave Smith
and Jank Uger on the pro palestinior anti. However you
want to raise that side pro ceeds fire will say

(02:18:39):
side of the equation. So I'm excited to watch. It
should be really interesting. I always learn a lot from
these things. Too, on a more serious note about the
way everybody's thinking about it, new historical facts and new
things for me to personally grapple with two in terms
of how I'm viewing the conflict.

Speaker 3 (02:18:54):
Absolutely, and Ryan's on spring break, but he'll be back
here next week for another edition of Points, and the
weight is almost over.

Speaker 4 (02:19:02):
I think we can start teasing this a little bit
more heavily, Crystal.

Speaker 3 (02:19:06):
There will be some new Counterpoints content coming down the pike,
so make sure that you subscribe. You get the full
version of Counterpoints when you subscribe right to your inbox,
you know, not just the couple clips that we post
on Wednesdays from the show, but the whole thing right
to your inbox, and you get all kinds of different
benefits of your premium subscription for Breaking Points as well.

(02:19:28):
So that's Breakingpoints dot com and I would highly recommend
everybody stay tuned for next week.

Speaker 1 (02:19:33):
Yes, speaking of giving the people what they want, we
had many, many requests, seriously for more Ryan and Emily,
and we were trying to make that happen for you
good people. So thank you for your support and hoping
to enable that, and Emily, thank you for having me.
I'll be back here again with Sager tomorrow. So hope
you guys aren't sick of me yet.

Speaker 3 (02:19:51):
I was gonna say, I don't know if you saw
this Chrystal, but now Ryan and Emily there's competition in
the Ryan and Emily department because Ryan Gosling and Emily
Blunt are in a new movie together and they just
covered Taylor Swifts all too well on Saturday Night Live,
and Taylor referred to it as Ryan and Emily's version,
and we had some great viewer viewer response to that,
they like, this is not the Ryan and Emily that

(02:20:13):
I've come to know and love. Of course, Ryan, Grimm
and Emily get much more famous, uh and iconic duo,
but we name.

Speaker 1 (02:20:22):
It more iconic Ride and Emily than Ride Grim and
Emily Skies.

Speaker 3 (02:20:27):
Well, stay tuned for more of that and Soccer will
be back with Crystal tomorrow. Thanks so much for tuning in, everyone,

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