4/29/25: Israeli Ambassador Reveals Biden Never Asked For Ceasefire, Pro-Palestine Jewish Woman Assaulted In NYC, Billionaire Cabal Shaping Trump Admin, 60 Mins Calls Out Parent Company

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 2 (00:30):
All right, well, shall we turn to the Democrats and
what's going on with them? So you guys will probably
remember there was a significant race for a leadership fight
in the House between AOC who wanted to be ranking
member on the Oversight Committee, which basically it's a very
public facing role. It was a good fit for her
because she understands the media, she's feisty, she does well

(00:52):
in these committee hearings, etc. So she'd be in this
prominent forward facing role in the Democratic Party. Nancy Pelosi
intervened and instead got her man Jerry Connolly to across
the finish line to be ranking member of this committee. Now,
it was known at the time that Jerry Connolly is
he's in his seventies and he also is suffering from

(01:13):
cancer and apparently that you know, the cancer prognosis has
just recently gotten worse. So he is now saying he's
stepping away from that role as ranking member of Oversight
that he had just won over AOC. Let's put this
up on the screen. This is his official statement. Jerry Connelly,
by the way, I've met him before a number of times.

(01:36):
He represents a northern Virginia suburban like Fairfax County District
in Virginia and has for a while. He used to
be the head of the Board of Supervisors in Fairbacks County,
so long time public official. Anyway, he says to your friends,
I want to begin by thanking you for your good
wishes and compassion as I continue to tackle my diagnosis.
Your outpouring of love and support has given me strength

(01:56):
in my fights both against cancer and our collective defensive
democracynnounced my diagnosis six months ago. I promised transparency. After
grueling treatments, we've learned the cancer which was initially beaten back,
has now returned. I'll do everything possible to continue to
represent you and thank you for your grace. The sun
is setting on my time in public service. This will
be my last term in Congress. I will be stepping
back as ranking member of the Oversight Committee soon with

(02:20):
no rancor, in a full heart, I'm move into this
final chapter full of pride in what we've accomplished together
over thirty years. My loving family and staff sustain me,
my extended family. You all have been a joy to serve,
your friend and public servant, and you know I don't
want to be an asshole here. I've met, like I said,
I met Jerry Connolly, you know, interpersonally, very nice person.

(02:41):
But if you truly believe yourself to be which I do,
in this existential threat for the future of the country
and democracy, you need to put your most effective players forward.
And it was always very clear that that would not
be Jerry Connell at seventy years old in battling cancer.

(03:02):
It would be someone like AOC who is leading the
fight and is out there, you know, touring the country
alongside Bernie Sanders and garnering record breaking crowds. And understands
new media, et cetera. And so here we are four
months into the Trump administration and he's already having to
step back emily from this role whatsoever. In terms of

(03:22):
the who's going to be the replacement, it's not going
to be AOC. She is no longer actually on this committee.
She I guess got switched or booth committees or whatever.
Can put Ken Klippenstein, who's been all over this from
the very beginning, put the information to.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Say the very least about Ken.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
I tried.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
I tried to book Ken for us today, but he's
like traveling right now and is just like killing him
because yeah, all over this other beginning.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
But anyway, put this next piece up on the screen.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
This is who looks to be set to replace him,
another seventy year old representative, Stephen Lynch. Ken goes on
to say his background is colorful. Lynch was apparently arrested
some point for drunkenly attacking a group of Iranian students
protesting US intervention abroad. There are some other members on
this committee who could have been interesting. Rocana is on
this committee. Jasmine Crockett is also on this committee. So

(04:12):
you don't have to go with another seventy year old,
but yet here they are just like this is the
guy who's next in line seniority or leadership can rely
on them or whatever. And it's absolutely incredible. I mean,
Democrats have had multiple members die in office this session,
which have led Republicans to you know, expand their margins

(04:34):
by a little bit, and that little bit can make
all the difference in terms of, you know, getting close
legislation through the House.

Speaker 5 (04:41):
I'm so there's no committee that Democrats would should have
wanted a like very aware and healthy person on more
than oversight for the first one hundred days of the
second Trump administration. Like, I am furious on behalf of
Democratic voters just thinking back on how insane was like
this is a concession that everyone who was concerned about

(05:04):
Connolly getting this position was correct. This is him basically
throwing in the towel and saying I'm not up to
the job. Well, if you had had the humility and
your supporters had had the humility to say that one
hundred days ago, the Oversight Committee could have been much
more robustly energetically pushing back on the Trump administration. It

(05:27):
is just completely it's you know, all of this is obvious,
what we're saying right now, but it is such a
just obnoxious example of how wrong the old guard is,
and how stubborn the old guard is, and how stuck
in their way as the old guard is, and just.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
How not up to the moment they are.

Speaker 5 (05:46):
It's just the sort of arrogance of the political class
just being I think, you know, to some extent here
put on full display and again predictable and obvious. But
the Oversight Committee is doing exactly what it says, like
they have powers to call witnesses, like when Republicans were
in the minority recently under Biden, the Oversight Committee, the

(06:09):
Oversight Committee is where they felt they were doing their
most important work. And it's because you can then call
hearings and do Hunter Biden and Benghazi and all of
those things come out of oversight.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
It's very powerful if you use it correctly.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, And I remember when he won this or was
going for this position at the time, which I could
remember the exact language that he used, but he said
something like like I've waited a long time for this.
It was very like I did my time. I'm next
in line, so I'm getting this seat. And Nancy Pelosi
made sure that he had the votes to be able

(06:45):
to and again, like we all knew this was the reality.
They knew this was the reality. This was utterly predictable.
And so not only was it really you know, self
serving for Jerry Connelly even to put himself up for
this position is extraordinarily you know, extraordinarily short sighted and
weak move from Democratic leadership to push him for this

(07:08):
spot and just speaks to a lack of seriousness and
a lack of meeting the moment that has been characteristic
across the board from the official Democratic leadership. And buydo
have another example of that Senator Schumer, who of course,
you know, capitulated the Republicans the one thing that where
Democrats in the Senate really had some leverage. He completely

(07:29):
you know, hands Republicans major victory there. Now he's on
CNN saying that don't worry, he's in the fight. He
has sent the Trump administration a strongly worded letter, Emily,
so he will await their response. Let's take a listen
to what he had to say.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
But it's also going to hurt the kind of medical
research and other kinds of great research that has done
at Harvard and other universities. So we sent him a
very strong letter just the other day, tail asking eight
very strong questions about why this isn't just a pretext.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Well, you'll let us know if you get a response
to that letter.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
I do want to say, I love yeah, seven not
seven strongly worded questions.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Eight strong, very strong, very strong questions.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
He said, I love that.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Dana's like, okay, you let me know when they get
back to you on that one, sure, buddy, Like, it's
just you can't make it up.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
It's so pathetic. It is so utterly pathetic.

Speaker 5 (08:27):
It's insane that he was on live television and thought
that was a good thing to say, Like, are you
listening to yourself? You know that you were stepping straight
into a joke, buddy. This is the minority, this is
the head of Democrats for how many years and he
can't even get through an interview without.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Saying something as stupid as that. I mean, it's come on.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Man, I miss Harry Reid. That's what I got to
say about that. I miss Harry Reid. He would never, No,
he would never. Meanwhile, you've got you know, they're they're
just the again the leadership. They are just thrashing around
trying to figure out where to be, what to say.
They've recognized at this point that the base wants them
to do more, so you know, their response is things

(09:10):
like Senator Schumer sending eight strong questions and a strongly
worded letter, and then Hakeem Jeffries and Corey Booker did
some sort of a like live showlong else on the
capital steps, which everything it's just, you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Just a little odd.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
I will say that the Corey Booker speech, it didn't
really it really didn't do it for me because of
a variety. You know, it wasn't really about anything, and
you know, it's felt to me very performative, although impressive,
like listen, to hold your bladder that long is extraordinary,
if in fact that's true. Just to speak for that long,
I can't even imagine. But I have to say, liberals

(09:49):
ate that shit up. They loved it, They absolutely loved it.
They see him as a hero, and this shows you,
like the bar is not that high. They just want
people to do something, even I thought something was just
like standing and talking for a while, right.

Speaker 5 (10:03):
Because that's a great that's a great point, because that
philibuster didn't have any legislative goal. Like literally, they just
were lapping up Corey Booker demonstrating how like passionately he
was anti Trump and anti this administration. And it was
actually smart because he was like live on TikTok and
breaking records and it, you know, as I think vapid

(10:23):
as it was, it just rallied the troops because people
are desperate.

Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yeah that's right.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
But in any case, it came Jeffrey's Corey Booker, do
this hangout live stream thing on the Capitol steps. Let
me give you just just just a little taste of
it them like just a little taste, And.

Speaker 7 (10:38):
I worked you all to know, I miss Obama, I
miss Obama.

Speaker 8 (10:43):
I miss Obama, I miss Obama.

Speaker 9 (10:46):
And I miss I miss her husband too.

Speaker 7 (10:51):
We'll be pushing back against the Republican efforts to jam
this far right, extreme budget down the throats of the
American people, and we wanted to make sure that heading
into that fight, we were very clear with our Republican colleagues,
there will not be a single Democratic vote to take
away the healthcare of the American people.

Speaker 9 (11:13):
Not a sing law.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Don't worry, Emily, the spirit of Barack Obama is alive
and well in the fake ass speech cadence of people
like Pete Boodaget and Corey Booker. So never fear. It
just feels so try hard, you know. It just feels
very like we're going to be cool, We're going to
do a thing. Here, we are doing a thing.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
I don't know. It just lands weird.

Speaker 5 (11:33):
And Hakim Jeffries is clearly his staff has clearly made
a considered effort in the last couple of weeks to
make sure that he does media mostly out of a suit.
So like now they're putting him in a baseball cap
and T shirts and his like sneakers. It's just so like,
I'm casual every man, Like I'm just you know, your friend.
It's very to your point try hard. When it's so sudden,

(11:57):
it looks just cringe and it's again We've we talked
about this recently, but it's so strange for me because
this used to be even like younger Republicans how they
came across. And I'm not saying Republicans are like hip
and spry either, because they're not. But it used to
not be like this for Democrats, Like it used to
be a lot easier for them, especially in the Obama era,

(12:18):
to come across as normal human beings. But they're so
they're overthinking it so much because they're so thrown off
by like the youth shift and working class Hispanic voters,
some changes in the black electorate, so it's just hard
for them to figure out what they should do and
they haven't landed on anything, so it ends up looking
really awkward and there's no sign of that, you know,

(12:40):
there's no sign of the light being at the end
of that tunnel at all.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
And some of them, I mean, they're just so many
of them are just like old and kind of lost
at sea in the world of like the new social media.
Like they be like I should be doing a thing,
but I don't really know what that thing is. And
so much of this too, is like just stop trying
to be something you're not. Like Kim Jeffries. You're never
going to be a firebrand. You're never going to be that.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Like super relatable, cool guy. That's just not who you are.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
I mean, look to go back to the Canada Black
Mark Carney is like the ultimate technocrat and he just
leans into it and people are like, Okay, that's who
he is, you know, I mean Bernie Sanders, like, he's
not out there trying to do a thing.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
He just is himself. That's that's it.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
That's just stop trying so hard. On the other hand,
I'd be remiss if I didn't say Chuck Schumer's strategy,
I just basically like, wait around and let the Republicans
hang themselves is kind of panning out. Not only have
we covered extensively Trump's numbers at one hundred days, obviously
they're really bad across the board. Even his best issue

(13:44):
of immigration, he's now underwater, especially when you ask about
specifics foreign policy, but most importantly, his economic numbers have
fallen off a cliff, and predictably that is having a
major impact on the down ballot races. I think Republicans
just basically expect to lose the House at this point.
It's almost like a foregone conclusion, given that we're nowhere

(14:05):
near out of the woods with regard to the economic
pain either. Harry Enton just did a piece on the
unpopularity of the Republican Party and how it may translate
to midterm losses. Let's go ahead and take a listen
to that.

Speaker 10 (14:16):
Democrats versus Republicans. We have three polls out within the
last few weeks.

Speaker 8 (14:20):
What do they all show?

Speaker 10 (14:21):
They all show the Democrats up by two points in
the CNBC poll, the Fox News poll that was out
on Friday.

Speaker 8 (14:27):
Look at that, Democrats up by seven.

Speaker 10 (14:28):
The New York Times poll that was out this Friday
as well, Democrats by three.

Speaker 8 (14:33):
And keep in mind the House.

Speaker 10 (14:35):
GOP won the popular vote back in twenty twenty four
by a little less than three percentage points. So when
you see three seven to two averaging four, that is
a tremendous shift. That is a shift of seven points
from the November twenty twenty four elections away from the GOP.
You look at Trump's net federal rating in October of
twenty twenty four coin in the New York Times those

(14:55):
minus nine points. Look at where it is now minus
thirty points among independence That's horrific, that's historically awful. Take
a look at the generic ballot in October of twenty
twenty four. The Democrats were ahead, but only by three,
well within the margin of our Look at where they.

Speaker 8 (15:09):
Are now, up seventeen points.

Speaker 10 (15:11):
There is no way on God's green Earth that the
Republicans can hold on to the House of Representatives. If
they lose independence by seventeen percentage points.

Speaker 8 (15:20):
My goodness, gracious.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
What do you think about that?

Speaker 5 (15:23):
M I mean like, this is despite Democrats' best efforts,
I think, And that's part of this is interesting too.
Did you see Alyssa slock and dropping like F bombs recently?
Did you see the stories about that?

Speaker 4 (15:36):
I did not see that.

Speaker 5 (15:38):
Yeah, The Hill had a whole story yesterday about how
Dems are like embracing the F word.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Oh my god.

Speaker 5 (15:44):
I feel like that happens every time a political party
gets a little bit besperate. But you know, it reminded
me of the Hakim Jeffrey's Corey Booker like just sitting
on the steps chatting with people moment.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Because it's like, you.

Speaker 5 (15:57):
Guys, what's working right now is Bernie Sanders and Alexandria
Acosio Cortez going to Red States and holding fighting oligarchy,
fighting oligarchy rallies, Not Alissa Slockin, you know, thinking that
she's like a cool mom for dropping F bombs in

(16:17):
an interview, like forcing herself to drop an F bomb
in an interview.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
It GE's just so bizarre.

Speaker 5 (16:23):
But I think the reason they're doing it, Crystal, is
because they like Hakim Jefferys and Corey Booker can't go
full quote fight oligarchy. This is there and that's, by
the way, what's good for the party. Uh, what's good
for them would be to embrace this anti oligarch message.
But because they are also bankrolled by oligarchs, they're uncomfortable
with that messaging. And that's why Alyssa Slockin is now

(16:45):
explicitly pushing back against it. And I think it's why
Hakim Jeffries and Corey Booker maybe they clear the very
low bar of you know, looking like they have at
least some energy and aren't you know, full connolly. But
at the same time, I think what's what what Trump
is struggling with is coming without actually a decent resistance
from the Democratic Party, and so that goes to show

(17:08):
like what could this be? Like I mean again, like
Donald Trump has barely won a couple of elections. This
man came off being the host of Celebrity Apprentice, Like
Hillary Clinton was terrible, Joe Biden was terrible, Kamala Harris
was terrible. That's how bad Dems have been. It's not
any I think special testament to Donald Trump being super
attractive and likable. I think he's a smart politician with

(17:29):
his base. But it's not like the entire country loves
Donald Trump despite what he may say. It's just that
consistently Dems have been worse than Trump, except for Biden
in twenty twenty in the middle of the pandemic. So yea,
in ten years, they have not figured out a way
to be slightly better than Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Well, your point about slock and Jefferson Booker too is
really well taken. And I've never seen anything more manufactured
than the like pushing slot Eliza Sluckin.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
Honest, I would wanted this.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
The Democratic leadership for some reason was like this lady,
she's the.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
Real future of a party. We're going to have her
do the response to the state of the Union.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
We're gonna have her lead our effort to you know,
tant down all this anti oligarchy talk that's getting a
little too popular among our normy Democrat base. But to
your point, you know, I think the I think the
things that have really landed with the liberal base has
been number one, the stop Oligarchy Tour, the fight Oligarchy tour.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
Number two.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
You know, people like Jasmine Crockett who just can like
dish it out and really is it just has this
vibe and this energy. She's not going to take any shit,
and she's gonna like get out there and get in
your face.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Cory Booker's speech, whether I like it or not, I mean, listen,
he did a thing, okay, like liberals loved it. The
other thing is the Chris van Holland going to El Salvador,
which you know, to me is a study in contrast
between Corey Booker's thing, which was actually basically about nothing
like him positioning himself as a resistance fighter, whereas Chris

(19:04):
van Holland, you know, he actually did a thing like
he went. It was a real issue. It was some
personal risktue himself. It's a risky political issue, and obviously
b Kelly did all he could to make the optics
as terrible as possible, et cetera. And you know, I
think his actions really kept that story alive and has
helped to move public opinion dramatically against the Trump administration,

(19:26):
not only specifically in that case, but that's what helped
to drag them underwater on immigration in general. So and
since then, you've seen some other representatives and senators follow
suit and going to visit people who are detained because
they you know, published an not bed or had some
you know, pro Palestine speech or whatever. You saw other

(19:46):
members also travel down to El Salvador. So that really
set a model for Democrats moving forward who actually wanted
to do something and not just like sit on the
steps of the Capitol and talk about how much they
miss Barack Obama.

Speaker 5 (19:58):
Well, okay, so I think with the base, it makes
sense to me that that would be sort of that
all of that would be a shot in the arm.
I still think the Van Holland and what was the
oh the uh yeah, Well, I think the Van Holland
example in particular is like, I don't think they quite
nailed the messaging for a broader audience, but I think
he understood that what the Democratic Party's base, like the

(20:19):
grassroots type people want right now is someone to like
actually take personal risk and sect.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
You know, I really disagree with that, and I think
it shows up in the polling. I mean, when we
were looking yesterday at the best and the worst issues
for Trump, his best issue and this was the New
York Times Siena polling, which is you know, considered to
be one of the more credible pollsters, and they.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
Do a large stample, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Best polling numbers were on immigration, though he was still
underwater by four worst polling numbers was the handling of
Kilmara Brego Garcia. So I think, I mean, the numbers
I've seen are like twenty percent support what the Trump
administration is doing there. So I do believe that the
efforts of Chris van Holland and others to shine a

(21:00):
light on that and to consistently explain, you know, this
isn't really about this one guy, and however you may
feel about him, this is about due process for all
of us. This is about protecting all of our rights
and your right to have your day in court before
being sent for life to this you know, foreign goolog.
I think it's undeniable at this point that that messaging

(21:21):
has landed and that it has dramatically turned people against
the Trump administration's handling in that one specific case, with
bleedover into how they feel about the immigration program read large.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
I think people definitely agree with that sentiment. I don't
disagree that that's where the public has landed on it.
I think it's a for me it's an interesting case
study and how Dems can misread or not misread that's
the wrong word, how they can over maybe overread the
public's position. Like it's easy to say, and actually I
think Trump does this sometimes too. It's easy to say, Okay,

(21:57):
the public is with us, this is a winning issue.
Can't be sending people to see caught on, you know,
mistakes that your own administration's attorneys, your own DJ attorneys
admit and like sucking up to the CALA and doing
that weird stuff like nobody is like here for that.
I think what Van Holland did then looked like the

(22:20):
Trump administration was able to message it in a way
that probably resonated with a lot of people as Dems
actively trying to keep people who are not in the
country legally in the country, even though it's not what
the case is about. I think it's easy to get
we probably just disagree on it. I just think it's
easy to get caught in that trap of like not
sticking on the narrow issue, but then also looking like

(22:42):
you're in the position that most people disagree with because
you kind of misread where people are on the narrow
issue in and of itself.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
But we probably.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Disagree with that.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
I mean, I do, I do, just disagree with the
assessment there. And I think at this point the polling
bears it out pretty clearly that, you know, because the
Trump administration had admitted fault in this case, it made
it fairly clear cut of like you screwed up.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
Bring the guy back, like what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (23:09):
And also because the Trump Trump himself was like, we're
going for us born, you know, homegrown criminals next, it
didn't take any imagination to go, oh, this isn't just
about rights for undocumented immigrants. This is an assault on
all He wants to be able to send anybody he
wants and disappear into this dungeon. And you know, I

(23:29):
think that really made it easier for Democrats to make
the case that this matter is for everyone. And you know,
the Teriff stuff politically is obviously extremely toxic, and it's
also something that everyone is aware of their own material
circumstances and the way they're being negatively impacted. So I
think they were able to push the message about kil

(23:51):
Mar Abrego Garcia and the assault on rights and the
way that the implications this has for the broader immigration agenda. Well,
obviously the tariff stuff is there, not going away anytime soon,
but we can we can agree to disagree on that
one if you'd like.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
We'll come back to it, I'm sure another day.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh yeah, there'll be plenty to talk about.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah, so let's go Deportations to come, yes.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Indeed, no doubt about it. A long way from through
with that. Let's go ahead and talk about some updates
with regard to Israel and with regard to our own country.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Edamar Ben Gavier has been doing a tour here in
the US. He is, you know, actual terrorist of Israel,
but part of the NETANYAHUO coalition and government. He routinely,
you know, he's loud and proud about, Hey, I think
we should bomb aid depots, and I don't think there
should be any food going into the Gaza Strip. And
he goes to these resettlement conferences and is a real

(24:42):
hero to you know, the sort of like extremist settler
community who are also very overt about we want to
push all the Palestinians out, and we want to be
able to completely take over the Gaza Strip and all
of Palestine. So let's go ahead and take a look.
He was here in the halls of Congress and madea bench.
Men of Code Pink was protesting him along with others.

(25:04):
We can go ahead and put this up on the screen.
So this is their headline from Code Pink Israeli war
criminal Itamar Ben Gavie. And you know, she's confronting him
and he's just sort of like completely losing his mind.
He's not one to just you know, to just kind
of take it and keep moving. He's very this is
his persona is He's this kind of like thuggish character

(25:25):
who you know, will has pulled down a gun on
someone previously and is shouting back and he's been making
the rounds.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
We'll get back to that.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
He was at Yale, he was protested there, and he
was also speaking at a synagogue in Brooklyn where there
were protests and you know, one pro Palestine Jewish Israeli
woman was viciously assaulted there.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
But we'll get to that in a moment.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
I wanted to highlight for people there's a new documentary
out at from BBC done by Louis Thrue about the
settlements in the West Bank and the settler idlogy. He interviews.
I really recommend the whole things about an hour long.
I watched it last night and it's really fantastic. We
were probably watching it at the same time, Crystal.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
Oh really that's last night too.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were probably watching it at the
same time.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
We should have you know, we could have could have
gotten together and I should have done it. Yeah. Anyway,
he interviewed Daniella Weiss, among others, and she really is
sort of like the the godmother of the settler movement,
and I really recommend people listen to what she has
to say about what the Israeli government's program is, because

(26:36):
what I've found is that the more like extremist elements
within Israel are much more upfront and much more accurate
about the actual project that Israel is engaging in at
this point. So let's go ahead and take a listen
to a little bit of that documentary.

Speaker 11 (26:51):
So the idea is to force the government by putting
people starts with small settlements, then they get bigger than
they get recognized by the State of Israel and basically
creating a new demographic reality.

Speaker 12 (27:04):
We do not force the government. We do for governments
what they cannot do for themselves. Even if you're take
Nathaniel now, he is very happy with what we do
here and also about our plans to build in Jewish
communities in Gaza. Is happy about it, but he cannot

(27:25):
say it. He says the opposite. It's not realistic.

Speaker 13 (27:32):
Good, we will make it realistic. It's not forcing the government,
it's helping the government. It's step number one one in politics.
You don't force the government. You give the government the courage,
the ability, the public support, the political support.

Speaker 12 (27:54):
I think you understand what I said, even if you.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Disagree, and I think we understand Emily. I think she
makes it quite plain. And what Louis, you know, really
uncovers this won't be surprising to people who have followed
this closely, is just how much of the illegal settlement
activity and the violence against Palestinians is directly backed by
the Israeli government. And Daniella is correct, she has you know,

(28:21):
she's absolutely one hundred percent correct that what they are
doing is with the tacit support of the government and
helps to enable the you know, explicit project of Natanyahu
and his coalition.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
You know, I was thinking about that clip while we
were watching Medea. Benjamin kind of shout at Bengavir because
in a sense, there is. So it is so much
more you know, as she says at the end, you know,
I think you understand what I'm saying, even if you
disagree with it. It is so much more like the so

(28:55):
much more respectable to be Danielle Weiss and Ben Gavir
than to be Benja Yahu, because it is or to be,
for example, Joe Biden or the Republicans who try to
have it both ways and say, this is not what
we're doing, but this is what we're doing. The the
at least like transparency of the project that they're involved in.

(29:18):
U is so much clearer and more discernible than the
people who try to have it both ways and say, no,
we're following all international law. This is uh, you know,
we are doing everything right. It's you who are in
the wrong here. No, they're being honest about what the
project actually is. And again most people disagree with it

(29:39):
very strongly, but you know, it's it just seeing that
puts in stark contrast the sort of muddled bs that
you get from Neta Yahu and Joe Biden. And I
mentioned Biden in particular because we have the next element
to put up on the screen.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
D three. This is some reporting from.

Speaker 5 (29:58):
Drop site about the quote unquote tireless work that Biden
was putting in to get a cease fire in Crystal.
I just wanted to see your reaction to the strap
site story and a little bit more from it as well.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, so this is a synopsis of an Israeli Channel
thirteen investigation, and you know, it's incredible out the information
you can get from the Israeli press that will never
be repeated in the US media. But in any case,
the former Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog said, God did the
State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president
during this period we fought in Gaza for over a year.

(30:33):
The administration never came to us and said ceasefire. Now,
it never did, and that's not to be taken for granted.
So you know, you can't help but think of AOC
at the DNC saying Kamala Harris working tirelessly for a ceasefire.
In fact, I saw Ilhan Omar kind of take a
shot on Twitter saying, oh, look, it turns out they

(30:56):
were as we all expected. They were never working tirelessly
for a ceasefire. And you know, the Democratic base and
much of the country has completely turned against Israel in
an extraordinary manner because even in spite of the wave
of propaganda, we are fed about what is being done
in the Gaza Strip. It could not help but break

(31:18):
through the images, the immorality, the war crimes, the starvation,
the utter decimation of the Gaza Strip broke through, and
people are looking at that with horror and say, how
can my tax dollars go to support this?

Speaker 4 (31:34):
I don't want to be any part of this.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
And so to have it overtly said what we all knew,
what we all expected, but just to be brazenly open
about it. No, the Biden administration, they didn't want a ceasefire.
They didn't ask for a ceasefire. They never did. And
so there was always a question emily during the Biden
administration of whether, you know, they really wanted the war
to end, but they just were afraid of the political

(31:58):
pressure and they didn't want to apply leverage. But really
they'd like it if the bomb stopped or whatever. And
I think that this demonstrates that Biden himself, who you know,
was a kind of died in the whole ideological zionist
committed to it, had an outdated view of Israel forge
in like nineteen seventy two or whatever, that he supported this,

(32:20):
he's supported, He'd never asked for it to stop. He
was not working tirelessly for a Seasar Kamala Harris certainly
was not working tirelessly for a ceasefire in spite of
the fact that, yeah, at this point, the people who
have power and are running the show and are driving
the agenda within Israel are Danielle Owiss much more than
any sort of like rump liberal internationalist political group that

(32:45):
may still sort of like exist on the margins within Israel.
It is Itamar Ben Kavie. It is Daniel Owiss who
are driving, who are driving the train and running the show.
So what I've been saying for a while is, you know,
if you had been listening to Danielle Owis and Smochurch
and Ben Gavie and the most alarmist lefties from the beginning,

(33:07):
you know, from October eighth about what was going to
unfold and what were that was going to look like,
you would have a much much, much more accurate, greater
understanding of everything that unfolded from then until now. Now
there is a little bit of possible there's some talks
going on about a potential cease fire. I'm not even

(33:29):
going to come close to getting my hopes up at
this point because it just looks so incredibly dire. And
this comes at a time too. It could put the
next piece up on the screen.

Speaker 8 (33:37):
Yo.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
The whoever is left in Gaza, However, many people are left,
two million maybe less. According to Trump and things that
he've said, they're being starved to death in real time.
Right now, nothing has entered this from the American Conservative
Nothing has entered Gaza for more than fifty days. Charity
kitchens now they've said they are out completely of food,
they're shuttering services. Two million people on the break. We

(34:00):
are currently witnessing israel solution to the Gaza question, an
unmistakable humanitarian crisis engineered by the Israeli government to remove
from its borders and entire people. It has deemed the
equivalent of Locus. That's where we are, I mean, and
all of the debate about you know, and the from
the early days, oh did they really bomb a hospital?

(34:20):
They would never do that, And here's our PowerPoint presentation
about the real tunnels and all of that. I mean,
now there's just no even pretense anymore Emily.

Speaker 5 (34:28):
And this is so again, it's not entirely surprising that
the American conservative would publish ASTs surrealist and you know,
been smeared by you know, conservatives for a really long time.
But it gets to it gets back to Bengavir Danielle Weiss,
the at least like consistency of their argument, which is
that yes, the people of Gaza, the people of the

(34:51):
West Bank, but especially the people of Gaza in this context,
starve them.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
This is war like.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
That's their argument, and they're honest about it, whereas the
nets and Nahu of the world, will, you know, say
this is, you know, we're doing the best that we can.
You know, this is we we did this, we did that,
we follow all the rules. This is you know, totally
in compliance. We're doing the best we can under tough circumstances.

(35:15):
When in reality there's this underlying sort of ideological marriage
of the millenarian approach of people who are trying to
settle areas of the West Bank, but then also the
secular people who believe secular Zionists, who who want Israel
to sort of be protected from enemies. They are not

(35:38):
honest about the means to that end. They both share
the same end, which is uh more land and in
all of the various ways to accomplish that, but they're
not honest that they are pursuing those beings to that end.
And that is that contrast is really clear when you
watch the documentary.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
Especially, Yeah, no doubt about it.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
And if you watch the documentary and you talk to
some of these settlers, a number of whom, by the way,
are Americans, by the way, and you'll say, well, what
about this is illegal? Like what you're doing is illegal,
These settlements are illegal under international law. They'll say, one
of them said directly, don't care. Don't care. As the
Bible is the land. Deed is what the Bible is.

(36:21):
The land need some things are greater than the law.
And that's their view, is that they don't have to
abide by anything. God has promised this land to them.
That's what they believe, and whatever it takes, they're going
to do it, including starving people, including you know, reducing
Gaza to rubble, including ethnic cleansing, whatever.

Speaker 5 (36:44):
Testament justice, Yes, that's right, that's yep. And again that
it is so much more honest and like that's the
you know, again, as Danielle Weis says, disagree with it,
but that puts it all on the table for people
to judge what the tactics are as opposed to again
hiding behind this sort of nonsense problem about following international

(37:08):
law and everything. That's just posturing, and it forces American politicians,
our own politicians to lie and stretch the truth on
their behalf in order to keep funneling the money that way.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I have a feeling on the Democratic side it's this
is going to be a real litmus test issue in
twenty twenty eight because the Democratic base is eighty percent
on board with we're not sending any more weapons to Israel.
You know, there has just been an absolute seat change
among Democratic base voters. And I have to think that

(37:42):
this is going to be a significant litmus test issue
in the twenty twenty eight primary, and I think it
will be very hard for a candidate to get through
who holds the old line Joe Biden like whatever Israel
once Israel gets position moving forward, but well, we'll have
to see how the politics of that play out. And

(38:03):
you know, whether there's uh, there are enough Palestinians and
enough of Palestine left for it to even really matter
at that point, which is increasingly an open and very
concerning question. At the same time, let's go ahead and
talk a little bit more about Benavier. Who is I mean,

(38:23):
this man is convicted to hers. People like this used
to be pushed to the fringe of Israeli society. Now
he is an important and influential and powerful part of
the Netanyahu coalition. So he went to Yale, there were
protests there. He went and spoke at a synagogue in Brooklyn.
There were protests there as well, and the counter the
pro Israel counter protesters turned quite violent. Can put this

(38:46):
up on the screen, and in particular, and you know,
just warning like this is disturbing. So this is a
pro Palestine woman who you know, is surrounded by this
like mob of counter protesters who are screaming at her
and all sorts of you know, horrible insults and death
to Arabs, et cetera. She's being escorted by police officers,

(39:09):
you know, and it was quite a fraud scene. Could
put the next one up on the screen. You can
see this woman who was assaulted. You can see her
on the left there, you know, bloodied and here after
receiving some treatment and with her bandages. So this is
a pro Palestine woman who happens to be Jewish and

(39:30):
also only happens to be Israeli. And I just have
to say, if this was a Jewish Israeli woman who
was pro Israel who had been viciously assaulted in this way,
we would have heard endless media coverage over it, and
it would be used to smear the entire pro Palestine

(39:51):
movement as violent anti Semites. But because she happens to
be a pro Palestine Jewish Israeli woman, we get very
very little mainstream coverage, and certainly it's not used to
tar all of the pro Israel side of the equation
as being anti Semitic or being violent and out of bounds,

(40:13):
et cetera.

Speaker 5 (40:15):
Things were getting really wild in Brooklyn last night, and
I feel like that hasn't penetrated the media. I think
it's just sort of just happening in the background, and
people weren't talking about what's happening on the streets of
New York. I mean, you see it pop up on
social media. But am I wrong thinking like the sort
of quote unquote mainstream media just isn't really touching this.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well, I mean, I think you do know why. It's
because it's uncomfortable because so far the violence has been
one sided, and you know, I don't know what chance
were said. There's allegations that some of the pro Palestine
chants were quote unquote anti Semitic. I just you know,
I need to see some evidence and some proof of that.
But rally chants are very different than actual assault and

(40:59):
violent and part of this will help to explain why
the media is very reticent to talk about those. You
can put Eric Adams up on the screen here saying
he's gonna there's going to be an investigation into this assault.
He says, the NYPD is investigating a series of incidents
stemming from clashing protests on Thursday that began when a
group of anti Israel protesters surrounded the Jabad Lebovich World headquarters,

(41:20):
Jewish House of Worship. Initial reports indicate one female protester
was isolated from a group, harassed by counter protesters, suffered injuries,
and another incident second one was surround and subjected to
vile threatening by counter protesters. One ar us was made
several summonss and he goes on to say that you
know there's going to be an investigation here, and commending
the NYPD police officers who were there on the scene,

(41:44):
and just from him saying you know that there is
going to be an investigation into these assaults. There has
been a complete freak out. We can see this extremist
group Bitar that they're the ones that have been like
compiling the risks, the lists and bragging that the Trump
administration is listening to them about which students university students
should be arrested and detained for their pro Palestine speech.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
They say New York has fallen, Jews are unsafe in
New York City. We urge all Jews to flee. Pagrams
are imminent.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
And this is what I say. I have to say.

Speaker 5 (42:20):
I kind of it's surprising to me that there just
isn't more again quote unquote mainstream media coverage of this
because of posts like that, because it's sort of becoming
it's being used as almost a roar test where the
groups like Patar are saying pagrams are imminent, flee New
York City, and what you see as an Israeli supporter
of Palestine getting bloodied and punched in the face. I

(42:43):
mean it's just bizarre. How I guess maybe the right
way is the media doesn't know how to deal with
stories like this. It's so I think it's so lost
right now. It's like it's leading to a complete blind
spot where people don't see what's happening on the streets
of New York.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Let me also make the Glenn Greenwald point, which is,
you know, when these students were being rounded up and
arrested for writing an op ed or being a negotiator
or at a protest or whatever. What I heard from
a lot of people on the right who defended this
was if you are a foreigner in this country, you
need to zip it, keep your mouth shut, be a
good boy or girl. Don't let us know. We don't

(43:21):
want to know about your politics. And now you have
ben Gavier here, who is obviously a foreigner here in
the US, going to Yale, going to Capitol Hill, going
to Brooklyn. And again, this man is a convicted terrorist
and is out there. You saw the video with him
and Medea. Benjamin like, he's not being shy about he's

(43:44):
not being a good little boy and keeping his views
to himself while he's abroad in the United.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
States of America. So hmm.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Interesting, there's a little bit of a double standard there
about who is allowed to aggressively assert their views in
whatever form and venue that they care to, even as it,
you know, as he is like the ultimate insider, and
if anyone has ever deserved for their visit to be protested,
it is that man. He's allowed to do that, no problem.
But God forbid you write a student op ed calling

(44:12):
in your university to dive us from Israel, then you
deserve to be locked up indefinitely and deported from the country.

Speaker 14 (44:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (44:19):
It reminds me of the push the pushback of the
pushback to Bryan and Sager's drop site story last week
where people were saying, you know, why is someone in
the NSC formerly working for the Israeli defense Ministry? Well,
why why are you upset that she was on the
Israeli Defence Ministry and sort of saying it smacks of
anti Semitism to say that there's anything newsworthy about that,

(44:41):
and people going back and being like, well, if it
were any other country, we would be allowed to say
that's a little bit weird. Is there an espionage connection?
Is there a conflict of interest? But it's the one
place that if you highlight it, you end up getting
accused of fomenting or perpetuating discrimination against Israel.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
And it was quick someone worked for another country. It's
just like and is on the National Security Council. So anyway,
reminded me of that point, Crystal.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
Yeah, very very good point on that one.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
All right, let's go ahead and get to Ben Smith,
who broke open his extraordinary internal dynamics of some of
these group chats which have taken off on the right
and the way that they have shaped the current government
and also sort of the fallout as this government has
become more unpopular, and especially with regard to tariffs.

Speaker 4 (45:37):
So let's go ahead and get to that.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
We're excited to be joined now by Ben Smith.

Speaker 5 (45:43):
He is the co founder and editor in chief of
Semaphore as well as the host of the podcast Mixed Signals,
and has a huge group that we are very eager
to dissect.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
Ben, thank you for joining.

Speaker 9 (45:53):
Us, Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 5 (45:56):
Of course, let's put this first element up on the
screen because this was the already heard around the world yesterday.
Ben's headline over at Semaphore was the group chats that
changed America, and Ben I don't even want to try
to explain the story myself, because you reported it out
and it is really remarkable. And I have to say,
as somebody on the right, conservatives really love signal. Signal

(46:20):
chats are all the rage right now. But this also
wasn't just explicitly conservatives. These are sort of billionaires, power brokers,
the kinds of people who maybe give a little bit
to Dems, a little bit of Republicans and rub elbows
with everyone. So can you just tell us about these
group chats that changed America? Like what the heck is

(46:40):
going on?

Speaker 4 (46:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (46:42):
Sure, I mean I think you know, basically, starting in
twenty twenty, around the time as some people may remember
that the app Clubhouse was popping off, a number of
kind of powerful Silicon Valley people. Mark Andresen by far
the most important of them. He's the sort of old
school silicon adventure capital leader who created the web browser,

(47:02):
among other things. Tall guy egghead, you've seen him. He
you know, had the feeling which I think a lot
of people had, that it was sort of like impossible
to have open conversations on Twitter as it was known then,
and particularly that it was sort of that it was
in his view like dominated by progressive speech policing and
so that you know, and that tech leaders needed new spaces,

(47:25):
and a colleague of his, again named Shruerham Krishnan, who's
now the White House AI advisor, started eventually dozens of
WhatsApp groups for him and other tech leaders to talk
about their industries, to gossip and I think to somebody
read to complain about their will employees.

Speaker 9 (47:39):
Basically, who were.

Speaker 14 (47:40):
You know, demanding that they put up whatever symbol was
the sort of trendy at that moment, and they didn't
want to but didn't know how to say no.

Speaker 9 (47:48):
And this was the shared experience.

Speaker 14 (47:50):
And he then asked another colleague to set up and
he himself set up a bunch of signal groups, first
with like Harper's specifically with Harper's letter liberals you know
who were pro speech and people like Camille Foster from
the Fifth Column podcast and Thomas chatterthan Williams, Yasha Monk,
and then I think he and recent and Christopher Ruffo

(48:13):
is a conservative activist who was also in that particular group,
basically decided the liberals were too interested in speech and
not interested enough in power, got sick of them, moved
and moved on to another set of chats, and again
in Richard Hanania organized a more I'm saying his name right,
a more like a more right wing chat. Eventually, Richard
felt like he wasn't right wing enough for that chat

(48:34):
as in his view, and recent kind of kept moving
right and you know, and basically these wound up being
very important organizing nodes for Silicon Valley's embrace of Donald Trump.
And the final group, which like through three hundred plus
people are in. I'm honestly a little surprised that you
guys aren't in it, although maybe you are. It's called
Chatham House now, which is like which is basically devolved

(48:56):
into a space where conservatives fight with Mark Cuban all day.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
I mean, yeah, well it is extraordinary. Actually, I saw
Richard Hannania's response to this. He's like, these people have
all the money in the world and the o they're
like online try and they're in these groups trying to
impress Mark Cuban or like random anonymous racists. That's what
they spend their time doing. It is kind of extraordinary.
And then the trajectory you sketch out is also I

(49:21):
think important to understand the particular bubble that this Trump
administration is in as well, because you're talking about this,
like increasing okay that the chat that included Thomas Chatterdan
Williams or whoever, that wasn't right wing enough, and they
were too. They actually had some principles around free speech.
It wasn't just a cudgel to use to, you know,
to crush the left. And then they start a new

(49:43):
group and that one's not right wing enough. And then
we can put this extraordinary screenshot that you got your
hands on on the screen that shows David Sachs getting
pissed off because this group now has become worthless since
the Lattice voices have TDS.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Trump arrangement syndrome.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Then he leaves the group and instruct someone to create
a new one with just quote unquote smart people. Brian
Goldberg responds, I'm not sure we have Trump arrangements in Rome.
I think we Republicans who supported Trump are just seeing
this as a failed administration. Followed by departures from Tucker Carlson,
Sean maguire and one of the Winklevoss twins. Just absolutely
amazing moment there.

Speaker 14 (50:21):
Yeah, and I think you do see, I mean I
think there are two things happening. One is that the
original reason that they started these groups, which was that
there was no safe space in their view, sort of
you know, I don't know to I mean, it was
basically true if you felt like the progressives had gone
too far, you were going to get beat up on Twitter,
and they felt like they wanted a place to talk,
to have open conversations.

Speaker 9 (50:41):
In general, the notion that you should have your political.

Speaker 14 (50:43):
Conversations in an open air in saying asylum like Twitter
is you know, I actually don't think I think that's
a pretty justifiable impulse that you don't want.

Speaker 9 (50:51):
To do that.

Speaker 14 (50:52):
But now, of course, since Elon bought Twitter, with the
rise of substack and a whole podcast and all these
alternative media channels, there are lots of places that you
could have conservative conversations. And so I think they I
mean this, you know, this being an early entry actually
in a place some pretty heterodox conversations this show. And
so I think the point of these spaces has eroded

(51:14):
a little bit. I mean, Andreson says that he sort
of feels like this era is drawing to an end.
The other things that the consensus they built and kind
of talk themselves into that Donald Trump was going to
be this sort of ideal leader for you know, a
Silicon valley that is most focused on something in recent
talked about in a twenty twenty essay called It's Time
to Build, which is most focused on let's like race

(51:35):
to launch rockets and you know, robots and all these
new products and into sort of an economic boom that is.

Speaker 9 (51:41):
Rooted by the way in free trade.

Speaker 14 (51:43):
They really just missed the tariff thing, like did not
when Trump was talking about tariffs. They were not listening
and they are like genuinely very very upset about that.

Speaker 5 (51:53):
Well, that's interesting because they were also sort of confident
that they would be able to stack the administration or
that the administration and be really favorable to them. And
one of the things that the story helped me understand
is just what was going on behind the scenes, because
you could kind of without knowing this, you could kind
of see that there were new alignments and groups of

(52:14):
people who were expressing similar thoughts at similar times. And
I think this just like blows it all wide open.
You can kind of see the background of it. And
I want to ask Ben about one of the things
that stands out to me, which is just the David
Snacks message that Krystal put on the screen recently was
reflective of how much this chat mattered to them, or

(52:36):
these chats I should say, mattered to them, Like it's
very bizarre how much they seem to care about the
quality of the discussion that it's like angering them to
be surrounded by people who have trumped arrangement syndrome. Like,
they really seemed to be relying on these chats as
places that were shaping the way that they thought, shaping
the way they thought about other people, shaping the way
they thought about the world. My takeaway from that exchange

(52:59):
is just how important these chats seemed to be. They
weren't something that was happening in the background. This was
like a really active part of the way they were
working through the world.

Speaker 14 (53:08):
Yeah, I mean, as somebody who's pretty who is I
mean probably mostly beaten my addiction to Twitter, But has
the times in my life been like very had my
brain rewired by social media? I think you kind of
understand if you've been there, like how a sort of
really vibrant conversation between smart people can just sort of
pull you in and particularly during the pandemic.

Speaker 9 (53:28):
I mean, this was this, like, I mean, and somebody told.

Speaker 14 (53:31):
Me Andresen was spending like twenty hours on these some
days and the overwhelming reflet I mean, my first way
I ran across these would be friends or sources being
like this is crazy. Marc Andreessen is blowing up my
phone like that's so cool. But also what you know,
like he's.

Speaker 4 (53:46):
Very important to have something better to do.

Speaker 14 (53:48):
Yeah, yeah, And all of them were like, you know,
he should be busier than I am, and yet I
can't keep up with the text. And he's in like
dozens of these groups, and any other given person is
in one or two of them.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Typically the wealthier you are, I think, the less busy
you actually are is the reality.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
But anyway, go on in.

Speaker 14 (54:06):
The dreamy they definitely something One of the jokes going
around was that somebody repeated to me is that in
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, at the very very pinnacle is posting.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
I think there really might be something to that.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
I'm curious a little bit more of the makeup of
who was in the group. Was it just more of
the tech right figures? Were there some of the og
maga types, and how much is the quote unquote like
independent right wing influencer community influenced by like you know, whatever,
prob whatever these billionaires happened to think on a given day.

Speaker 14 (54:41):
So I don't have a complete list either of the
groups or of the of who was in them, but
I think there were lots and lots of groups. This
is like a whole archipelago, the it and so I think,
you know, a lot is very Silicon Valley centric though,
like you know.

Speaker 9 (54:55):
When when the when the.

Speaker 14 (54:58):
Open Ai stuff was, you know, the sort of coup
attempt was going down, people were telling about being in
a group with Sam Altman, like watching him react to
posts in the group. As this whole story is playing out.
When there was a run on Silicon Valley Bank that
was really largely through these WhatsApp groups. The reason that
bank collapsed so fast is that all these big investors

(55:19):
are texting each other into a panic, which is how
bank runs happen.

Speaker 9 (55:24):
And wow, way, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 14 (55:28):
It was Bloomberg Sport didn't explain which groups it was,
but Bloomberg reported that at the time. Oh wow, you know,
I don't think Musk personally was in these groups, but
he's obviously a huge kind of they kind of orbit
him a bit, and a lot of people around him
were in them. No sure Peter Teal was, or at
least not in the big ones, but also sort of
his world and recent is by far the most kind

(55:49):
of influential central figure in them.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
And so how much of the how much have the
tariffs caused a rift even you know, within this this world,
this worldling archiple eco as you called it, How significant
have they been in creating a genuine rift there?

Speaker 14 (56:07):
I think, as you see in public, like very because
you know, ultimately I do think people sort of you know,
people like us in Washington, New York often read these
Silicon Valley people as basically political and ideological figures, but
they are basically entrepreneurs and spend most of their time
thinking about investments in companies and could not believe that
Trump would do something this dumb. And there's a guy

(56:29):
named Bilagi Strinivasan who was another one of the really
big kind of dominant chattery voices in these.

Speaker 9 (56:35):
Groups, who has written.

Speaker 14 (56:36):
And by the way, they're saying the same things in
public and in private, as is often true, like you
get to the very core of the like inner Sanctum
sanctauram of the most important people in the world. And
what they're saying is, hey, did you see that tweet
by Taylor Lorenz?

Speaker 8 (56:49):
You know.

Speaker 9 (56:50):
So it's not like they're saying in power for.

Speaker 14 (56:52):
What they're saying in public, just they're just there's just
more like personal disappointment about it.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
Interesting. Interesting, This is absolutely wild.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
The Silicon Valley Bank thing is wild too, just because
you know, just the real world impact there. And I
suspect also, I mean, David sax was one of the
people most aggressively pushing for a bailout. I would guess
that some of that, like messaging, was also coordinated within
these chats, are being floated and surface within these chats for.

Speaker 9 (57:18):
Sure, and it's really influential on the administration.

Speaker 14 (57:20):
I mean, somebody told me that they had the impression
that these these public arguments with Mark Cuban that have
been going on all your because chathamass was intended to be,
you know, a more centrist place or at least a place
where you can kind of pull normies to the right
depending on who you ask it.

Speaker 9 (57:36):
So so there's some Democrats in there.

Speaker 14 (57:38):
But somebody who was saying to me they felt like
arguing with Mark Cuban was a way to audition for
the Trump administration and that people have gotten jobs through
these groups for sure, And you see, like I mean,
Sacks obviously is a huge role in the administration, but
there's a number of people who've gone into various jobs.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Who were some of the others who left along with
David Sachs. We saw the you know, the screenshot that
had him and Tucker and one of the Winklevoss twins.
Who are the people who are still in and who
are the people who.

Speaker 14 (58:10):
Are like, ah, I kind of I don't have a listration,
you know, I don't have a list. I honestly feel
like I just got a tiny snapshot of this, and
you know, one of the things that's disappearing messages, and
so maybe there was some crazy person out there who
was screen chatting everything. I kind of hope so, because
it's a really interesting piece of intellectual history. But I
basically publish everything I knew, which is then a complete picture.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Do you see a tie over between this and the
signal Gate controversy with with Peate tag Zev, Like Emily
was saying, apparently Republicans just love signal chats totally.

Speaker 9 (58:40):
I mean, lots of people work in love signal.

Speaker 14 (58:42):
You just saw like a comfort of like, hey, let's
jump on a signal chat. That means they're in signal
chats all the time. By the way, like signals amazing,
that's great, Like the Signal is by far the best
and most secure app, and everyone should be in signal
chats all the time. Like I'm I think that, I mean,
I think you should not. If you would not like
to have Jeffrey Goldberg in your signal chat, do not
add him. And I'm not an expert in sort of

(59:04):
classification issues, but it is actually as these things go.
And again maybe not if you're in Russia, Steve Whitcoff,
but because it doesn't if your device has been compromised,
it doesn't protect you. But it really is an incredible
piece of technology and if you care about privacy, we
should all be in signal shots all the time.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yeah, I mean we use it for our show planning.
Go ahead, him, Yes we do. Oh I was going
to say, yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:28):
Just my last question is how active are these Did
you get an indication of how the chat reacted or
how the chats reacted to your story yesterday, Did any
of that trickle down to you?

Speaker 14 (59:39):
You know, nobody has sent me any screenshots. I mean,
one thing that I honestly find kind of endearing about
this is like a lot of people find these.

Speaker 9 (59:45):
Incredibly lovely and rewarding, and a lot of.

Speaker 14 (59:47):
People who talk to me on the record or off
the record wouldn't share screenshots because they didn't feel you know,
they felt like they wanted to talk about.

Speaker 9 (59:54):
This thing that's been important to them, but didn't want
to betray it.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
That's so interesting.

Speaker 9 (59:58):
But if that said you, if you're.

Speaker 14 (01:00:00):
And you have, I would of course love to see
how they're talking about that story. I've gotten some feedback actually, Honestly,
the pre story thing was, of course the usual like
the liberal journalists are coming to destroy us and be
mean to us. Friend Bilagi tweeted that, and the schedule
Linsdale to we're tweeting about how I mean, obviously the
story was going to be all about them also because
they're extremely important. But then actually, since the story, I

(01:00:22):
think I've been I've gotten a lot of feedback from
people in the groups that they were surprised that it
kind of captured the vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Very interesting. Fair if you don't mind sticking around. I
wanted to get your reaction to on what's going down
at sixty Minutes, so long time executive producer there Bill
Owens resigned, saying, effectively, I can't be independent anymore, and
sixty Minutes took the extraordinary step of calling out their
own parent company.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
Let's go ahead and take a listen to what Scott
Pelly had to say.

Speaker 15 (01:00:49):
In tonight's last minute. A note on Bill Owens, who
until this past week was executive producer of sixty Minutes.
He was our boss. Bill was with CBS News nearly
forty years. Twenty six years at sixty minutes. He covered
the world, covered combat, the White House. His was a

(01:01:10):
quest to open minds, not close them. If you've ever
worked hard for a boss because you admired him, then
you understand what we've enjoyed here. Bill resigned Tuesday. It
was hard on him and hard on us, but he
did it for us and you. Stories we pursued for

(01:01:31):
fifty seven years are often controversial lately, the Israel Gazo
War and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were
accurate and fair. He was tough that way. But our
parent company paramount is trying to complete a merger. The
Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our

(01:01:53):
content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked,
but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.
No one here is happy about it. But in resigning
Bill proved one thing he was the right person to
lead sixty minutes all along.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
So, Ben, what's your understanding of what went down here?

Speaker 14 (01:02:20):
I mean, you know, exactly exactly what he said and
exactly as it seems so. In particular, what Max Tani,
my colleague at Semaphore, reported was that Sherry Redstone, who
owns the company, had been had started to ask for
information about what was you know, what what kind of
mean thing they might be saying about the Trump administration,
which you know, which people internally took, as you know,

(01:02:42):
was brand new in the history of this, you know,
probably the most important news show in this in the
US history, and which they interpreted accurately as the parent
company getting nervous that Donald Trump would you know, react
to a story by blocking the merger and trying to
figure out how to navigate that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
Yeah, and sixty minutes.

Speaker 5 (01:03:04):
I didn't realize this, but I think he was like
only the third executive producer of sixty minutes period, and
then maybe you can speak to a little bit about
how significant it is, particularly that this happened at sixty
minutes in the whole like paramount CBS universe, because it
seems like sixty minutes has traditionally sort of been maybe
a bulwark against those types of winds shift.

Speaker 14 (01:03:27):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know, but I
think we all, like I came up in a media
universe where there were kind of like fringy groups on
the right and the left who would complain that like
the owners of media were pulling the strings, you know,
Like there was a group called Free Press which on
the left kind of NATO rite groups and you and
if you worked in media, you'd be like, you're crazy,
that's not how it works.

Speaker 9 (01:03:48):
I've never had my owner or bother me about anything.

Speaker 14 (01:03:50):
There's a strong tradition of separate like here that like
you had, the journalists are left alone from newspapers, television, magazines, whatever,
you know, and if it happened even the tiniest way,
be a huge scandal.

Speaker 9 (01:04:01):
And what happened in the last year is that has totally.

Speaker 14 (01:04:04):
Changed Trump's you know kind of focus on leverage and
using financial leverage against his enemies and rivals has meant
that He's very focused on Jeff Bezos, on Patrick Sonsheong
and what he can and they are very sensitive to
the way in which Trump will obviously use you know, space,
it will use Jeff Bezos' space company against the Washington Post,

(01:04:24):
things like that, and have responded by doing whatever he
wants more or less incredibly effective.

Speaker 9 (01:04:31):
And I think you see that, you know, he Trump
Trump went after.

Speaker 14 (01:04:34):
The Time Warner at and T Merger in his first term,
lost the case, but did a lot of damage. And
I think they it's it's CNN, which was inside Warner.
They interpreted that as a you know, as a response
to they didn't like their coverage.

Speaker 9 (01:04:46):
I mean, the government has a ton of power, the
FCC and.

Speaker 14 (01:04:49):
Brandan Carr has totally openly said that, in his view,
the Biden administration behaved in inappropriate political ways, and so
the Trump administration is planning to behave in inappropriate political ways.

Speaker 9 (01:04:59):
He literally said that to.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Me, how much do you think that this will change,
you know, the character of our media a lot.

Speaker 14 (01:05:07):
I think these big corporate places are really afraid and
by the way, are already very weak. I mean, part
of it, of course, is that if sixty Minutes were
a you know, and if Paramount, if CPS, whatever kind
of collapsed merged parent company, there were were, as it
was thirty years ago, a massively profitable juggernaut that could
afford to tell the president to screw himself, it would.

(01:05:30):
I think you'll see places that are It's actually interesting,
like this is why the kind of financial health of
media is so important. I mean, I think the New
York Times, which is doing great, has a subscription base,
will be able to be independent and stand up to
the president.

Speaker 9 (01:05:43):
I think it's very hard for the Washington Post too,
because it's.

Speaker 14 (01:05:45):
Dependent on a billionaire who seems to really want for
the president to like it. But I think that stuff
is totally real right now.

Speaker 5 (01:05:53):
And how much you got, well, yeah, I was just
maybe we were going to ask the same question as
just this was this is in the report a bit,
But how much was this reflective of discomfort with Israel
Gaza coverage versus Trump coverage. It seems like there was
a little bit of both going on.

Speaker 9 (01:06:10):
Yeah, you know, I.

Speaker 14 (01:06:11):
Mean, I think it is fascinating the degree to which
Israel is being used sort of as a cudgel against
the administration's enemies. Oh, you know, I don't think that's
why the Trump administration and why conservatives like that's not
the sort of pre existing reason that they're upset at

(01:06:32):
universities which they think are too left wing and which
are very left wing, but it is the it's sort
of the it's sort of the issue that has come
to hand and the one that they're beating them with. Yeah,
I mean, I haven't particularly got that impression at CBS,
like I think the Sherry Redstone separately, the owner is
I think unhappy with the you know, with critical coverage

(01:06:55):
of Israel that's been reported separately. But and I'm sure
Trump is happy to throw, you know, the kitchen sink
of its enemies, and that's one of the that's one
of the elements of it.

Speaker 9 (01:07:04):
But I don't think that's fundamentally what's driving it is.

Speaker 14 (01:07:07):
I mean, maybe it's Trump's concern for you know, the
coverage of Israel gocopy straight up the middle, but I
don't think that's his main concern.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
We've seen with some of the other civil society groups
like with the law firms. We've seen with universities where
there was an initial instinct to just completely capitulate to
the Trump administration, and now there seems to be a
little bit more backbone starting to grow. Do you see
any sign of that with media organizations or do you

(01:07:35):
feel like it just comes down to who has the
finances to weather the storm?

Speaker 9 (01:07:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:07:39):
I think, you know, the less, you know, Trump has
seen his kind of this his momentum collapse in the
sense that he could kind of run the table and
do anything, sort of collapse with the tariffs, you know,
with the sort of debacle of the tariff rollout, and
so yeah, that has affected things a lot. I think also,
right the I think that these places underestimated, whether it's

(01:08:00):
Paul Weiss or Columbia, the internal backlash they'd get from capitulating,
from students, from donors, from lawyers, right, Like, every big
law firm that did not capitulate is currently poaching Paul
Wes's associates, right because it's embarrassing to work there. And
you know, even I mean, honestly, I think even if
you agree one hundred percent with the criticisms, it's embarrassing

(01:08:23):
to work there. And so that's yeah. I think that's
true in media too. I think, I mean, I think,
you know, there's this illusion. I think the CBS people
and believe that basically, like you know, sometimes like when
you're selling a company, old management will do all the
hard stuff, they'll fire everybody and then neon managing it
and be like, hey, we're the good guys, like welcome
to your new home, Survivors.

Speaker 9 (01:08:46):
And I think that this is the philosophy here.

Speaker 14 (01:08:48):
It's like the old company will do all this bad
stuff with Trump and then Skydance, which is buying it,
can say, hey, that was terrible, so sorry about that,
although of course they're coordinating. And I think it's a
huge mistake, like look at look at what happened when
there was like a year and a half when Warner
had bought CNN, and all they wanted like they're not
really in the news business, they don't want to be

(01:09:09):
in the news business. They just wanted it to be
chill and like instead it was an absolute garbage fire
for a.

Speaker 9 (01:09:14):
Year and a half. And I think that I think
that the.

Speaker 14 (01:09:16):
Idea that these folks in Hollywood Skuydance, who are buying
Paramount mostly for the entertainment assets. Imagine that just like
they're going to like bring a news organization that is
just like literally in flames on board into their company,
and that that will be like a RESTful and normal experience.

Speaker 9 (01:09:33):
I think is not the case.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
Final thought for me.

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
We talked obviously in an earlier segment about your group
group chat story at Smophore, and now we're discussing sixty minutes.
It seems like the theme between both of these stories
is that American elites in business and media, in academia,
in the legal world are actually experiencing a schism in
a way that didn't happen and Trump one point zero,

(01:09:59):
that there's this like survival mode maybe that people have
entered and it's causing panic and it's causing decisions to
be made rationally or otherwise, that it's really becoming a
serious wedge in a way that it hadn't before. Ben,
I don't know if you if that sounds right, or
if you have any thoughts or pushback on them.

Speaker 14 (01:10:18):
Yeah, I know, I mean, I think that's a great point,
and I think that I mean, one of the things
that somebody said to me yesterday was that every day
before was that whereas these signal groups were started because
people were afraid to say conservative things on the internet
and get beat up for it. Now, the thing that
you can say in the signal group that you're scared
to say in public is criticism of Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
Yeah. Really interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:10:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
And last last thing, Ben, you know, how do you
think journalists should think about some of these choices? I mean,
you have obviously Bill Owens resigning, Scott Pelly making the choice,
and the sixty Minutes team presumably like we need to
say something, but we're not going anywhere. We're going to
stay here and continue to do the best that we can.
You know, from an ethical perspective, how do you think
journalists should think about these challenges?

Speaker 15 (01:11:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 14 (01:11:00):
I think it's like a tough situation and I don't
want to tell people how to do their jobs. I mean,
I do think it sort of brings home and I'm
genuinely not trying to like talk my book into your
book here, but there you see why news organizations ought
to be independent because they become a headache for the
parent company, and the parent company has an obligation to
its shareholders to like get the merger through, and you

(01:11:22):
have these maniacs at sixty minutes insulting the president. This
is from the point of view of the you know,
the lawyers and bankers running the merger, like that's not
a normal company like that CBS News shouldn't be inside
that company. But on the other hand, that means they've
got to figure out a way to run a business
on their own. I mean, it's a it's not an
easy thing. But you see why sticking independent news organizations

(01:11:43):
inside these conglomerates that have all sorts of other hostages
to fortune becomes a real problem.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
So basically you're saying, when Bernie was criticizing Jeff Bezos
owning the Washington Post, he was right.

Speaker 14 (01:11:55):
You know when I started, he was right, Bernie Bernie.
Bernie was right about everything. When I was at BuzzFeed,
I remember I sat down with him and the first
thing he said was thank you for standing up to
the corporate media. And I was sort of like senator,
like and recent Horrorwitz is one of our investors, Like
we're like, we're never're like pretty capitalist, and like this
idea that the corporate media is like influenced by its owners,

(01:12:16):
Like that's not that's not really how it works, and
I think he's been totally vindicated.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
He was like, the billionaires are paying for the listicles.
You're telling me that.

Speaker 14 (01:12:24):
I'm not sure he was a reader, and I think
he may have confused us with there's a left wing
site called buzz Flash.

Speaker 4 (01:12:30):
Hmmm.

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):
I don't even interest that.

Speaker 14 (01:12:32):
He was, but I remember thinking, like, huh, this is
not exactly how I think about my job.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Amazing, Ben, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
It's so great to have your insights, and you know,
really appreciate your reporting on all of these things.

Speaker 9 (01:12:46):
Great to see you both. Give my regards to Megan Emily.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
Well do all right?

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
That was fun hearing from Ben on those stories. Always
his interesting insights into media in particular.

Speaker 5 (01:12:56):
Yeah, he was referring there at the end of that
segment too. The last a couple times ago that was
on Megan Kelly. She had just done an interview with
Ben and she excoriated him for not kind of fully
getting new media and I agree with her, still agree
with her on that point, so stand by it. But
it was good to have a friendly conversation with him,
and that report was fantastic and like very worth going through.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Oh yeah, I have no idea what the Megan Kelly
drama was, so I will just stay I'll stay unaligned
in that conversation. I'll stay neutral on that one. However, Yes,
great to see him, Great to see you. I think
Ryan and Emily will be counterpoints per normal tomorrow, and
I will be back on Thursday, maybe with soccer.

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 5 (01:13:41):
We'll see it could be baby time on Thursday.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
It could be baby time, so we're all on the
lookout for that. In any case, thank you guys so
much for watching and joining. Like I said earlier, if
you're having trouble with Spotify, please check your email. If
you're still having trouble, email us and we'll get it worked.

Speaker 4 (01:13:55):
Out for you. Love you guys and appreciate you, and
we'll see you back here soon.

Speaker 9 (01:14:00):
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