5/20/25: Trump Bailing On Ukraine, Dave Smith Vs Ben Shapiro, Epstein, MKUltra CIA Secrets & MORE!

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

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of the show.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and
all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points, where it is
a very exciting, very special day because we have special
celebrity co hosts Dave Smith joining us.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Dave, welcome, Good morning, Crystal, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
So you guys, of course know Dave as host, a
part of the problem and comedian. He also is going
to explain to me why he's being smeared as the
woke right and also potentially katarifunded today, so I'm looking
forward to this.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
Wach.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
He also deserves special gratitude because he is you know,
subbing in here for Sager while Sager is on parental leave,
and Dave firmly rejects such outrageous coddling of new parents,
So we especially appreciate you violating your own principles for this.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Well, listen, I am a great admirer of breaking points.
It's an honor to be here. I am very opposed
to paternity leave.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Women deserve all the time off in the word listen,
just men.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
So you're just anti this is part of your war
on men, that's what you're telling.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yes, well, Crystal, you have kids, I have kids. We
both know for certainty that wherever Sager is, he is
not helping right now, and he might be trying to,
he might want to, but he's not somewhere. I can
hear Seger's wife going, all right, I'll do it. Just
I got it. It's no problem. You know he should
be here, He should he should be working more, if anything.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
To get him out of her hair. Yes, well, I
know he had aspirations of being as helpful as possible.
So we'll we'll get an update from him when he
gets back. And let me just run through a few
the things that we're going to go through today. There
are a bunch of topics that I'm really interested to
hear your thoughts on, Dave. We've got updates on Ukraine.
Trump talked to Botsolenski and Putin yesterday. You're going to

(02:12):
explain to me this woke right situation, which was very
confusing to me, is still very confusing to me. Tim
Dillon gave an interesting interview to CNN about whether he's
part of a new establishment and his interview with Jadie Vance.
Definitely want to get your thoughts on that. Cash Batalon
Dan Mongino say actually nothing to see there in terms
of Trump's assassination attempt, and also Epstein definitely did kill himself,

(02:36):
so everyone can just move on. And then I'm not
sure how long Dave will be able to stay for,
as I want to respect his time. But we've also
got a lot of updates Israel going full mask off
on their completely genocidal plans, updates with regard to deportations,
a member of Commerce is actually being charged by the
Trump administration for alleged assault of an ICE agent. And
I'm going to interview and author with a new book

(02:57):
out on mk Ultra, which should be really interesting. So
lots of good stuff to get to before we jump in.
If you can support us breakingpoints dot com. Thank you
so much to everybody who's become a premium subscriber that
has enabled us to expand to five days a week.
With that, let's go ahead and jump in. So, as
I just mentioned, President Trump spoke yesterday both to Zelenski
and to Putin separately, in hopes of, you know, coming

(03:20):
to some sort of a resolution to this horrific war.
He was asked some questions about it by the press
corps after the fact. Let's go ahead and take a
listen to a little bit of that. Did you ask
President Putin to meet with you about what about Ukraine?

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Of course I did. I talked to him about it.
I said, what are we going to end this? Flatter me?
I've known him for a long time now, I said,
when are we going to add this bloodshed?

Speaker 4 (03:41):
This blood bath?

Speaker 5 (03:42):
It's a blood bath, and uh, I do believe he
wants to end it. You know, when I made the call,
I told the people last night, I spoke to the
heads of the different countries Germany and Finland. We had
Italy as you know, and uk the line today and
a couple of others, and then they were in turn

(04:03):
calling the everyone. Ursula was there from the European Unions.
She was terrific and we you know, we spoke for
a long time about it, and uh, they got a problem.
It's a big, big problem. But I said to him,
we got to get going. And I did say also,
if I thought that you couldn't do it, I'd step away,

(04:26):
because what are you going to do. We don't have
boots on the ground. We wouldn't have boots on the ground,
but we do have a big stake. And the financial
amount that was put up is just crazy.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
And let's just go ahead and put up a six
which is the Financial Times right up of what transpired yesterday.
Their headline is Trump says Russia and Ukraine to immediately
begin talks on ending the war. Donald Trump has claim
Russian and Ukraine will immediately begin those negotiations, but signaled
he was leaving Moscow and Kiev to find a deal
without the US as a broker. After phone calls with
Putin and Zelensky, Trump posted that quote, Russia and Ukraine

(05:01):
will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire and more importantly,
an end to the war. Putin's readout of the call
was more tentative. He offered no substantive change in the
Kremlin stance. Well Zelenski implored the US leader to not
distance himself from efforts to secure piece. The only one
who benefits from that is Putin, Zelenski said in a statement.
In remarks that indicated Washington maybe stepping back from a
role as a mediator, Trump said the conditions for a

(05:22):
deal could only be agreed by the warring parties because
they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would
be aware of. And Dave, to be honest with you,
I am having trouble following the pieces of where we
are with this at this point, because you know, we
had the big Oval Office blow up with Zelenski, then
the minerals deal was off. Then the minerals deal is
back on. Then there were going to be negotiations in Istanbul.

(05:43):
Then Putin doesn't go, Trump doesn't go. Then we have
these phone calls. The Europeans are pushing for sanctions on Russia.
Lots of Republicans also pushing in that direction of leving
additional sanction. I mean it's already extraordinarily sanctioned on Russia
to put pressure on them. Now you've got these phone calls.
So are you making sense of where we are with
regard to this war?

Speaker 4 (06:04):
Yeah? Well, just like you said, that's all it. Yeah,
what doesn't make sense about that?

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, well it's particularly right, and it's very hard to
get a real gauge of it, of course, because number one,
Donald Trump is, as we all know, he's such a showman,
and he's always kind of saying what's politically expedient for
him to say. So of course he's saying, we're close
to ending this. Everybody's talking, we have to end this thing. Look, obviously,
he ran on ending the war on his first day,

(06:29):
and it has proved to be more difficult than he
made it sound on the campaign trail. I do think
that at least, you know, there's a lot of things
that Donald Trump is getting wrong as president, but at
least he does seem to want the end goal to
be an end to this war. And I will say
I just find Zelenski's comments appalling that the only one

(06:51):
who would benefit from a peace deal would be Vladimir Putin.
I mean, how about the young men that you're conscripting,
or maybe not such young men that you're conscripting, who
are dying by the hundreds of thousands. I mean, how
about the American taxpayer, how about the European taxpayer, how
about the you know, even as even though it's unfashionable
to say, how about Vladimir Putin's conscripted army. You know,

(07:14):
so often in these wars we just end up thinking,
you know, in these collectivist mindsets. But like the young
Russian boys are also being forced into this conflict.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
And you know, I just I find it wild.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Particularly, you know, this is one of the things that
infuriates me about Israel too. It's like these countries that
are completely dependent on America, and yet they talk this
big game as if you know, Netanyahu gives these speeches
we can touch anywhere in the Middle East. Well, no,
you can't, we can, and you just take it for
granted that will do whatever you want. And so I

(07:47):
do think, you know, Zelinski has done himself no favors.
I'm you know with you. I thought after the Oval
Office blow up that that would be the end of
the mineral deal. Unfortunately, it looks like I was wrong
about that, and I think that's a disaster for America
to get drawn in more. But from what I've heard
from people kind of on the inside, and this does
match a lot of the reporting. The real obstacle here

(08:10):
is not even that Putin doesn't want to make a
deal with Donald Trump. I think he would be happy
to is that Putin doesn't trust that the permanent government
is going to keep to its word. And while he
is the bad guy in this war, and he launched
an aggressive war that's killed hundreds of thousands of people,
he does have a point there that you know, as

(08:31):
we've seen over the last many years. I know Bernie
Sanders thinks we just became an oligarchy yesterday, but actually
we've been one for quite a while.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Arnie's been talking about it for a long time.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Dave in fairness, well, yes that is true, but he
does still speak about it as if this is something
new with Donald Trump, which is like he's not necessarily
even wrong about what he's saying with Trump, but it's like,
I don't know, I think when City Group is picking
Obama's cabinet, you could probably describe that as an oligarchy.
But regardless, the point is that there's going to be
a new president in a few years, and there are already,

(09:04):
you know, the forces that really control the government, who
are very at odds with Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
I think he knows that.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, I mean, the minerals deal is a real It
really does confuse the situation because both a Trump administration
and Zelenski portray this as a sort of a security guarantee.
And I mean in the sense it is because the
bet is Okay, if you have a bunch of capitalists
who are very invested in the minds and the rare

(09:29):
earths in Ukraine and whatever else they're getting a piece
of here, then we're only going to allow so much
Russian threat to those capitalists interests. I don't think that
they're wrong about that. And so let me actually play
for you. Jd Vance made some interesting comments yesterday as
well with regard to this, and see what you think
about this piece. Guys, this is a five. Let's go

(09:51):
ahead and play that.

Speaker 6 (09:52):
I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself
for how to unwind the war, of course, that's been
going on for a few years now. And I think
there's also just a little bit of Look, there's fundamental
mistrust between Russia and the West. It's one of the
things the President thinks is frankly stupid, that we should
be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been

(10:15):
made in the past. But that takes two to tango.
I know the President's willing to do that, but if
Russia is not willing to do that, then we're eventually
just gonna have to say, this is not our war.
It's Joe Biden's war, it's Vladimir Putin's war, it's not
our war. We're going to try to end it, but
if we can't end it, we're eventually going to say,
you know what, that was worth the tribe, but we're
not doing anymore.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
So that's the position that like you know, a lot
of America firsters, Steve Bannon in particular, would want this
administration to take basically like, look, we tried, we're backing away.
You guys figure it out eure of good luck. But
like I said, the minerals dealer really kind of complicates
that because we have our hands in the country no
matter what at this point. So what would that look

(10:53):
like if this administration did just sort of withdraw from negotiations.
Obviously Russia has you know, significant advantage in terms of
the longer that this war goes. There's signs that the
Ukrainian frontline is kind of collapsing right now, you know,
I do I think Zelensky's demands for what he would
want to see in terms of an end to the war,

(11:15):
which is a total Russian withdrawal from all areas, are
just completely unreasonable unlikely. So where does that leave us all?
Do you think?

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Well, it's uh, you know, you're you're absolutely right. And
of course Trump himself speaks out of both sides of
his mouth when it comes to the mineral deal, so he'll,
you know, he'll say, no, we're not giving you a
security guarantee. This is what Zelensky's big sticking point has been,
although weirdly, he's in no position to demand anything, and
yet he demands a security guarantee. But then Donald Trump

(11:45):
will kind of sell this mineral deal as if that's
what it is, and of course the major problem with
that is, well, it's kind of twofold.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
Number one. This is the cause of the whole conflict
to begin.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
With, was the US involvement and the threat of the
US giving Ukraine a security guarantee essentially and moving NATO
hardware into Ukraine, which has always been Vladimir Putin's concern,
but just for for us as Americans. Just think about that.
I mean, what do you mean by a security guarantee?

Speaker 4 (12:15):
Now?

Speaker 3 (12:15):
What are we going to get? Listen, We've already I
think I'm right about this. We've already met the threshold
of what Article five would require us to do if
Ukraine was a NATO country.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
It's not.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Article five doesn't explicitly say that you have to go
to war. Also, it says kind of like that you
have to aid in the defensive effort. What more are
Americans prepared to do that we've I mean, what are
we talking about? Are we going to send in the
eighty second airborne to go fight the country with the
biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons on their border to make
sure that lu Hansk is ruled by Kiev and not Moscow? Like?

(12:50):
Come on, so, like, what could we even possibly be
promising here? And look, I'll take I'm much more non
interventionist than even Steve Bannon is, and I I would
say that, Look, I know, people, I did a debate.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
On this on Counterpoints about six months ago or so.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
And look, there is this golden piece of leverage that
the US has that nobody in Washington, including Trump, is
even willing to consider. But US withdrawal from NATO, we
could probably get whatever we wanted. We could probably this
would be the one thing that we could probably get
Vladimir Putin to stop the war. Today, we could probably

(13:28):
even get him to give back much of the territory,
not Crimea, but probably get a lot of the territory
in the Donbass region back on Ukrainian hands. Because this
would be the ultimate victory for Russia, but it would
also be a victory for the United States of America.
There is absolutely no need for US to be you know,
you could argue that it made sense after World War Two,
with Western Europe destroyed in the Soviet Union in the East,

(13:50):
that America had to guarantee put Europe under its nuclear
umbrella and subsidize its defense and guarantee its protection. But
we'th thirty six trillion dollars in debt and you're up
is rich. It makes absolutely no sense of Russia's GDP,
I think is what a third of what our government
spends every year. There are no threat to take over
all of Europe, and so there's no reason why Europe

(14:12):
can't go at this alone. And I think if we
did that, we'd be in a much better situation.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
But there's simply no political will to do it.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
I mean, that's that's very interesting. I mean, and also
just the whole justification for you know, like the Cold
Wars theoretically over, you know, so there was never any
reckoning with that, and you know, any interest in reorganizing
NATO to deal with a new reality. So I think
all of that is really fair. I mean, I think
if we truly did sort of withdraw from the talks, Okay,

(14:41):
you guys, leave it up to yourselves. Zelenski has dug in,
I think for his own, you know, political reasons. He's
promised we're not going to give up any territory, and
I don't think he's gonna move off of that. I
think it would take a lot for him to move
off of that, even though you know, it's devastating to
his own to his own people, to his own country,
et cetera. I mean, probably what you would end up

(15:02):
with is Russia continuing to you know, to march to
take additional territory, and ultimately something approaching a kind of divided,
failed state is what you would likely be looking at
at the at the end of this. And you know,
it's would a, coulda, should have. But obviously the you know,
the original sin was when there were peace talks with
the chance of success in the very beginning, when the

(15:24):
Ukrainians had a stronger hand and there was you know,
more leverage that could have been applied to Russia. And
you know the fact that the US and you know,
with Boris Johnson, that they really scuttled you know, I
mean this is just absolutely confirmed at this point that
they scuttled those potential talks. Note not that there's ever
any guarantees. You know, that's the really what puts us

(15:47):
in this horrific situation where at this point I don't
think there is a great and a great solution that
can that can really be achieved.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, well, look, I agree with you, and I think
your right to highlight that as one of the you know,
just key blunders. But you know, I highly recommend for
anybody who has not read Scott Horton's phenomenal book Provoked,
which really details the history all the way from the
collapse of the Soviet Union to through this war, and
I mean, the thing is just you know, Scott Horton,

(16:17):
I mean, the guy is just like a machine. There's
like thousands of footnotes in this book. It's all right
there for you. And look, I mean it's Look, that
is a great like point that you made of Boris
Johnson going over and killing the peace talks. But the
whole thing from from NATO expansion to color coded revolutions
that the CIA and the NED and the USAID were

(16:40):
backing all through Eastern Europe to even just if you
just think, you know, in the last eight years, we
framed him like we always think about how Trump was
framed for being a Russian spy, but that was also
framing Vladimir Putin. You had every leader of the CIA
and the military. You know, I'm not just talking about
like Rachel Maddow saying it. Think about this from the

(17:02):
Russian perspective. When you've got John Brennan on television every
day saying, this guy just launched an attack worse than
Pearl Harbor against US, Well, how.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
Are you gonna view that from?

Speaker 3 (17:14):
You know, if you're outside of the American Empire and
you see the United States of America, the most war
hungry country in the world, who's destroyed seven nations in
the last twenty five years, is now saying the aim
is on you making up these ridiculous lies that they
knew were lives. You know, he put bounties on our
soldier's head in Afghanistan, these things that like the entire

(17:35):
corporate media just walks away from now because they don't
have a leg.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
To stand on. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Right, But so when JD.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Vans is sitting there saying, you know, there is this
mistrust for yeah, no kidding, I mean, how would how
would there not be? All you have to do is
try to put the shoe on the other foot for
a second and go imagine the Soviet Union still existed
and they were toppling the government in Canada and Mexico
and Al Salvador and propping up their own, you know,
side puppets there.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
How would we feel about that? And so it's very
tough to unwind.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's a good point, you know, to be honest with you.
I always assumed he just sort of enjoyed the illusion
that he was this like grand puppet master who had
such power and control over you know, all these governments
around the world. But your perspective makes a lot of
sense to let's go ahead and get to this this
woke right situation. I want to set this up with
some news with regard to Project esther It's called which

(18:27):
is this plan that was hatched by the Heritage Foundation,
which has really been implemented almost completely by the Trump
administration to silence any sort of dissent from the Israel consensus.
And we can put this article up from the New
York Times. I mean, this is again, you know, the
mainstream press reporting on something that both drop site News
and Zeteo reported on. I think I don't know quite

(18:48):
a while ago, maybe a year ago, but they have
some interesting details here. The headline is the group behind
Project twenty twenty five has a plan to crush the
pro Palestinian movement. Project Ester outlined and ambition w plan
to fight anti Semitism by branding a broad range of
critics of Israel like you and me, Dave as effectively
a terrorist support network, so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized,

(19:12):
and otherwise excluded from what it considered open society. Project
Ester's architects envisioned outcomes that at the time might have
seen far fetched. Curriculum believed to be sympathetic to a
Hamas support narrative would be taken out of schools and universities.
Supporting faculty would be removed. Social media would be purged
of content deemed to be anti Semitic. Institutions would lose

(19:33):
public funding. Foreign students who pushed for Palestinian rights would
have their visas revoked or deported. And they said, once
a sympathetic presdential administration was in place, according to the plan,
we will organize rapidly, take immediate action to stop the
bleeding and achieve all objectives within two years. Now, four
months after mister Trump took office, Heritage Foundation leaders are
taking an early victory lap. So when I look at

(19:57):
these extraordinary efforts which have a you know, clear identitarian
lens and are using authoritarian tactics to enforce that identitarian worldview,
to me, that is the complete definition of woke. Now
woke at this point maybe one of these terms that

(20:17):
just needs to be retired because it's just sort of
an all encompassing smear and people mean different things with it,
and it's become sort of like content free. But to me,
using authoritarian tactics to enforce an identitarian worldview is the
definition of woke. And so to me, when I look
at this, this is the woke right, and not that
it's all the right, but this is a Trump administration.

(20:39):
Many right wingers are on board with this, and so
when I started seeing this term woke right thrown around,
I just assumed that was what people meant, because that's
really logical to me. You know, even some of the
same language about like safe spaces and you know, we
have a clip we could play, but I will just
reference it of a rabbi and a hearing who was like,
it's not enough to be ti Semitic, you have to

(21:00):
be anti anti Semitic. And I'm like, oh my god,
it is you know, the very same thing that we
saw on the left previously. So when I was informed
that no, this term woke right is being used somehow
against people like you who are dissenters from the Israel consensus,
I just I've had a very hard time wrap in
my head around it. So I wanted you to help

(21:22):
me understand the contours of this fight that is going
on here on the right.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
So yeah, So I I initially started using the term
in exactly the same way that you mean it. And
one of the things that's amazing, and it really is
just the hypocrisy is all over the place. And so
I mean, here you have the Heritage Foundation demonizing the
people like me who might go, hey, you know, we
spent eight trillion.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
Dollars on the war on terrorism.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Hey, Heritage Foundation, do you see an issue with that
when we're thirty six trillion dollars in debt? Okay, Well,
here's the biggest part of it, you know. I mean,
like you could allay that entitlements drive it the most.
But however you feel about entitlement programs, they are something
that people have paid into and are now receiving. Starting
catastrophic wars that you don't need to fight at all
is just a pure waste of money. And it does

(22:12):
come with this other little nasty side effect of murdering children,
which you know we should probably not do.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's controversial to say, apparently, but you know I am
opposed to that personally.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Well, isn't there something to this, crystal, Because I always thought,
you know, for many years, the left leaning people would
as a retort to like the pro life position, they
would say, well, don't you oppose the death penalty? And
I always thought that was not a good argument, and
conservatives would rightly come back and say, yeah, but that
person's like been convicted of a crime, Like we all

(22:45):
accept that you lose some rights when you've committed a
heinous violent crime. But by the way, I oppose the
death penalty for other reasons. But you know, like, but
this is such a good response, like how do you
claim to be the pro life party and you you
are unaffected by the fact that there are children dying, Like,
I'm sorry. And then the same people who are pro

(23:07):
life advocates will say, well, what's your plan for eliminating hamas?
And it's like, wait, so now I have to have
a plan. I can't just be opposed to the intentional
killing of babies anyway. But look, I mean, as I
was saying the other day with Tucker, you have Ben Shapiro,
who made his career opposing identity politics as a proud Zionist.

(23:28):
You have people like Ron DeSantis who made his name
as being the anti woke guy. But then as soon
as the question of Israel comes up, it's like, oh
my god, these college kids and they're hurt feelings, and
so all of it is just. And look, the most
the most basic one to me is the shutting down
of legitimate criticism with accusations of bigotry, which really was

(23:53):
the calling card of the woke. That's what most people
mean when they say the word. And what you have
examples like Thomas Massey made the argument, Now, feel however
you feel about this, I agree with it, but it
is certainly a legitimate argument. When he voted no for
the Israel funding, he was like, look, we're thirty six
trillion dollars in debt and we can't afford to fund

(24:14):
other countries' wars. That that's it. And he's consistent on this.
He votes against all these spending bills. And and then
John pod Horritz from a commentary magazine, in response to this,
called him anti Semitic filth.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
He said something similar about me, by the way, But yeah,
well I'm.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Sure, yeah, and he's said some things about me as well.
I mean, the guy is just, you know, by the way,
his father at least wrote some interesting books. He's just
totally unimpressive. But anyway, but so, yes, so you have
in this moment when the supporters of Israel's destruction of
Gaza are.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
Look, they are.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
Supporting the war on identitarian grounds, claim eternal victim status
for one identitarian group. They are shutting down dissent with
accusations of bigotry and supporting speech laws as you know,
ranging from as the stuff that you guys have covered
on the show so much. And then they're also calling
the other side woke for you know, opposing these wars,

(25:20):
and they, you know, the ones who have come up
with it, come up with the flimsiest of justifications.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
You know.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Essentially they are forced to just view our arguments through
like a critical theory lens and say, oh, well, you know,
you're saying that you woke up to the reality that
Israel has too much influence on our government, as if
now waking up to anything makes you woke. Like it's
just the most ridiculous, you know, like like the it's

(25:50):
such a loose definition that it could be applied to anyone. Yeah,
so it's just kind of meaningless. But I do think
that really and and you know, I'm curious to get
your thoughts on this, but I've I've been saying this
for years that I think many of the popular, the
most popular kind of anti woke, anti social justice warrior thinkers.

(26:11):
They all kind of got wokeism wrong, yes, all along,
and this includes Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, all all of
the guys who kind of were famous for battling it
out with these college students. They and this also includes
people like James Lindsay and Brett Weinstein, I think, even
who I like very much, but I do think kind

(26:32):
of a lot of them they always viewed wokism as
a as the left taking over the liberals. And I
do understand like there is a surface level plausibility to
that to view things like that, because certainly, like the
influences of critical race theory, and you know, even stuff

(26:52):
from the Frankfurt School, kind of the cultural Marxism type stuff,
the Long March through the institutions, these were left wing ideas,
and so when you see every giant corporation and the
political establishment regurgitating kind of left wing talking points, it's
easy on the surface to say, oh, well, look the
left took over the liberals and now they're all a

(27:13):
bunch of leftists. But it's really missing the point, and
so many of them get lost in focusing. Unlike the
intellectual history of wokeism and how you can trace it
through the universities and what thinker said what, and you know,
but really that's not the interesting component to wocism. The

(27:34):
interesting component is what happened right around twenty twelve when
every single giant corporate media apparatus decided they were all
going to go all in on this stuff.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
And it was it was from the highest levels of power.

Speaker 7 (27:47):
You know.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
You can look at those like Nexus charts where you
track the words like racism and and you know, toxic
masculinity and transgenderism, and they.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
All shoot up.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
And so the theory that like these kids got out
of colleges and then got jobs in the corporations, well
then you would expect like a slow increase, not like
they didn't take over the New York Times in one year.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
So what's going on here?

Speaker 3 (28:14):
And then the more you look back at it, you realize, like, okay,
like why are the CIA and the Federal Reserve pushing
these commercials of like I'm a Latino with the anxiety
disorder who's a single mom and I worked for the CIA.
Like I don't think a college kid got in and
took over the CIA, So what did happen. And what
happened was after Barack Obama won his historic campaign in

(28:36):
two thousand and eight on the promise of ending the
wars and closing Guantanamo Bay and repealing the George W.
Bush error catastrophe, he went the other direction and expanded it.
And so for his re election campaign, he couldn't say, Hey,
remember how I said I was going to close Montanamo Bay.
It's closed. Remember how I was going to end the wars. Okay, yeah,

(28:57):
I expanded them. But but I'm for gay marriage, but
I'm the f And so essentially what they did was
in the in the wake of the occupy movement, they
were like, hey, here's here's a Thaustian bargain for the left.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Well, listen, we're not going to give you back. Listen.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
The banker bailouts are going to continue, the banker profits
are going to continue, but we will send all of
our white executives to diversity training.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Right that. No, that's one hundred percent. And you know
another and my colleague Ryan Graham has really like literally
written the book on this. But another seminal moment is
when you have Bernie Sanders, who represents especially in the
you know, in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, this much more
class focused and much less identity focused, true like leftist ideology,

(29:46):
and he's rising in the polls, and he represents this
threat to the you know, entrenched interest in the Democratic Party.
And so what Hillary Clinton does, recognizing that this progressive
movement is a senate in the party, she tries to
out left him by saying, you know, if you break
up the big banks, that's not going to end racism,

(30:07):
that's not going to end sexism. And so she substitutes
in these cultural identitarian concerns for the universal class based
concerns that were represented by the Bernie Sanders movement. And
by the way, it's kind of effective. You know, That's
how you end up with Bernie Brose being to how
they're sexist and they're racist and he doesn't care about
civil rights and all of this stuff, and it works.

(30:29):
And then, you know, because it's effective, he and much
of the left, I think almost all of the left, frankly,
the elected left at least, feel the need to also
lean into this language and this worldview, etc. But it
comes from the neoliberals and the corporate establishment that want
to virtue signal and want to you know, want to

(30:51):
block any sort of more extensive or more revolutionary type
of reform. And that's where it really originates. So that
has been something that has really frustrated me as well.
And you know, and that's a good point and one last,
one last thing on this and then it gets your reaction.
But you know, you can see it now with how
the corporations on a dime, they flip from their virtue

(31:14):
signaling to like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg, I'm going to do
content moderation in Austin. I'm gonna wear a big chang,
I'm gonna get into fighting, I'm gonna go on with
with Joe Rowan. You know, you can see the way
that they wore this as a convenience to meet the
mom and then the minute the vibe shift is a oh,
well we're done with that. We're going to be over here,
you know, hanging out with Trump and his inauguration.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Now, well, right, I.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Mean, of course, right, like so these giants, you know,
because we live in such a globalized world and these
are multinational corporations, so like you know, a lot of
these corporations are in almost every country. Do you think
they're they're flying the Pride flag in Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
Yeah, you now, like, do they really believe in this stuff? No,
they don't.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
This is pure and and of course, you know it's
such a great example. You said that Bernie Sanders. Of course,
those two Black Lives Matter girls who went up and
took the microphone from him. And then every single time,
you know, the accusation from Elizabeth Warren was, oh, he
was sexist. Many years ago, they would always say the
Bernie bros. Are sexist. This was always so like essentially,

(32:14):
what it really was was a neoliberal takeover of the
left using some leftist rhetoric. And so the focus because
if you just think about it, right, the focus in
the first let's say, ten years of the twenty first
century from the left, like what were they protesting? Though
they were protesting the war in Iraq, they were protesting

(32:36):
the Patriot Act, and they were protesting the Banker baillouts.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
I mean, they had their eye on the prize.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
And like, I'm not a leftist, I probably wouldn't agree
with a lot of their solutions. For well, I would
with the war in Iraq, but I probably wouldn't agree
with necessarily their solutions for the economic stuff. But at
least they were focused on power. They were focused on
the people who were actually screwing over the American people.
And so of course, what do you want to do
get them distracted? They love the powerful, love a distraction,

(33:05):
especially a distraction that hits the people against each other.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
It's divide and conquer.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
It's really like the oldest propaganda that you can find.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
And you know, and.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
I'll just say this because I think it's particularly to
say to you that the intellectual kind of background of
the woke stuff, which i've just you know, I've read
some of it. It's just it's a waste of time.
Like it's like, look, that isn't leftism. That was one
sliver of leftism. It was one school of thought on

(33:36):
the left, and it is by far the worst. And
if you really want to see somebody like tear apart
the postmodernists, listen to Noam Chomsky do it. Nobody on
the right has ever torn them apart better than that
guy did. He just absolutely destroyed their entire worldview.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
And you know, there are great schools of thought on
the left.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
I mean, like like Noom Chomsky is required to read
it if you want to be like an educated person,
you have to read his stuff. And I'm not an
anarcho syndicalist. I don't agree with him on everything, but
he's a brilliant mind and he's got like a real,
you know, solid worldview and a way of looking at
things that you can benefit from even if you don't
agree with him. This other stuff, the postmodernists, they're just

(34:19):
it's just garbage.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
It's nonsense. And so it's not as if like.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
That it was the worst school of leftism that they took.
And again, I think that there is something about and
I know this, like I'm you know, obviously I'm I'm
known for being a libertarian, but I'm like, I'm a
Jewish kid who grew up with a single mom in Brooklyn,
New York. Like I understand the kind of liberal left worldview.
That's what I'm from. Those people are my people. And

(34:46):
there is something where it.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Was like it it's.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
They find a way to play on your weaknesses in
the same way they did to right wingers after nine
to eleven, where.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
It's like what are you?

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Are you a wimp or you a big tough guy
who wants to go f war to protect your country.
That was just like kryptonite to right wingers. You couldn't
fight that, you were like an evil person if you didn't.
And the same thing with leftists with racism, you know,
and for leftists it's like their Achilles heel. And I
think they're kind of growing out of this now after
the last few years. It was so abused, but understandably

(35:20):
given our nation's history and the history of humanity. If
you care about egalitarianism and you care about abuse of power,
well what's always the worst version of that has always
been how racial minorities are treated, and not just in
our society, but particularly in our society, and so to
be accused of being racist was always the thing that
would make liberals and leftists go like, wooh no, no, no, no, no,

(35:42):
not me, I'm the opposite of that. That's what they
It's their whole identity. And so once you weaponized that,
and you could see it even with Bernie Sanders, how
weak he was. Those two girls were so obnoxious and
came up and stole his microphone in the middle of
his rally where ten thousand people were there to see him,
and he went, okay, okay, go ahead, and here's.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
And here's a guy who you know was genuinely like
involved getting arrested in the civil rights movement and has
a spotless record that you could put up against anyone
when it comes to you know, racism, sexism, whatever. You
want to say one last thing before we move on,
because I want to get your reaction to these Tim
Dillon clips. But on the woke right piece, it seems
like a lot of what they're doing too is guilt
by association, because you do genuinely have like overt anti

(36:26):
Semites who are using the issue of Israel Palestine to
you know, to ascend and they end up you know,
backing some of the things that we back, but it
does genuinely come out of anti semitone thinking of like
the nick quentteses of the world, where it's like, you know, undeniable.
And so it seems like part of what's going on
here too is to say, well, since you support some

(36:48):
of the same things that they support, aren't you also
in anti Semite right.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Which is like, you know, the worst argument ever is
the most ridiculous non argument, Like you know, I think
I told what I was arguing with Wilt Chamberlain online,
which who I do like but is very bad on
this issue. But he said something like, you have the
same position as like the College you know, blue hair Gids.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, you said you're like AOC and Code Pink or something. God,
I mean, we should all aspire to be like Code Pink.
By the way, they're very admirable and brave and courageous people.
But anyway, go on.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Well, yes, I mean, while I disagree with some of
their tactics at times, from a strategic point of view,
they're right about the wars objectively, and they've been right
about them since the beginning.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
And unlike you know, so many of the fair.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Weather liberals, what I respect about them is they didn't
shut up during Obama. They're one of the few like
leftist groups out there that was just as good under
him as they were under George W.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
Bush. But what is it?

Speaker 3 (37:44):
First of all, AOC is not nearly as good as
them or me on the issue.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
But correctly, what does it? What does this mean? I said?

Speaker 3 (37:51):
My response to him was, I was like, I know,
and you're just like Stalin when it comes to the topic.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
Of Hitler, Like, what does that mean?

Speaker 3 (37:57):
So if you if I oppose the war in the
invasion of Iraq in two thousand and three. I guess
I'm on the same side as Saddam Hussein, but that
doesn't mean anything, like what point does that prove? And
the question is is the policy correct or incorrect? Not
who you might agree with, I know. So it's all
it's all just these and look, you know the thing
that's kind of.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
About it, you know, David, I have to say, I
think a lot of people operate that way where they
look at like, oh, AOC thinks this. I have to
think that, Oh Trump thinks this. I have to think that.
I mean, unfortunately that I mean, that's what negative polarisation is. Unfortunately.
I think that is how a lot of people operate politically.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, no, no question, I mean I think I think
there's the in my opinion, the greatest living American hero
and the greatest person ever run for president, Congressman doctor
Ron Paul. I think he is single handedly a huge,
huge factor on why the right wing went so non
interventionist over the last few years, and a lot of

(38:59):
it was because he was a Republican from Texas who's
a very personally conservative guy, and he got on stage
and said I oppose all of these wars, and right
wingers would listen to him in a way that they
just weren't going to listen to Michael Moore, like you
should throw out a fat communist and tell me that's
who I got a bit, I got to give up
my entire identity in order to oppose these wars. And
then here you have a country doctor telling you, like, no,

(39:21):
you can keep your identity, you just can oppose the wars.
And so there is powerful social psychology to that, and
that's why people use these tactics. But intellectually it's completely bankrupt.
It makes no sense whatsoever that we agree left wingers
and right wingers agree on lots of things, that doesn't
mean they're the same. And of course this tactic was
this By the way, the same tactic is what was

(39:43):
used on Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein when they were
challenging the woke orthodoxy. They'd always be referred to as
alt right adjacent, like as if they had anything to
do with the fact that there were white nationalists, you know,
in Charlottesville or something like that, because they're like one
degree of separation where some of the people who like
them might also listen.

Speaker 4 (40:03):
To their podcasts.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
But again, the game with the people who are calling
people like me woke right is to do the exact
same thing, to invoke the worst you know of the
racialist jew haters online and then say that also represents
Tucker Carlson or Daryl Cooper or me or whoever, and

(40:26):
it's just not true. I mean, there is you know,
there certainly are people who are Jew haters who oppose
this war. We Israel and the neocons are giving them
a lot to work with. They're handing them talking points
every single day to basically help their recruitment efforts. But
there is a huge and I believe much bigger percentage

(40:49):
of the American people who just oppose this war because
it's awful and it's not in our national interest to
fund and arm the thing, and don't have any animosity
toward Jews. So they know, Look, it's like it's always
the same, It was the same when I debated Douglas Murray.
They know they can't win the argument because it's indefensible
on every level. Then so they always have to go

(41:10):
to these these tactics. But the world Right one is
particularly ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
They go to sophistry, you know they go to like,
you know, appeal to X. Oh you're not an authority,
you couldn't know. I mean this is this has been
a very effective tactic I think for years on Israel
Palestine of like it's complicated, you just don't understand. And
because the images have been so horrific and so constant
and so undeniable, I think it has if you look

(41:34):
at the polling of the American people, I take it
has finally broken through, Like no, I am allowed to
oppose the bombing of babies with my tax dollars and
I don't need to know one hundred years of history
to know that that's something that's wrong and that I
oppose and do not want to be any part of.
Let me go ahead and move to this Tim Dillon
CNN interview because there are a couple of parts here
I want to get your reaction to that I think

(41:56):
are interesting. So this is a long interview. I watched
the whole thing yesterdays, about an hour long. They posted
the whole thing uncut. The interviewer is a woman named
el Reeves who became kind of famous for the documentary
she did on Charlottesville when she was with Vice News.
And so she asked him, Dylan, this question of whether
he is part of a new establishment. Let's take a
listen to that.

Speaker 7 (42:16):
Do you feel like you're part of a new establishment
that's being created.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
I don't think I'm part of a new establishment.

Speaker 7 (42:23):
I think it would be pretty difficult to look at
these podcasts. I know it's a popular thing right now,
especially in certain media circles, to say that after running
an incredibly unpopular candidate who is introduced very late in
the race, because an elderly man who could not be
the president, who everyone told whose function is the president

(42:46):
for four years? I don't think I'm a new establishment.
If you weigh again a few comedians with podcasts verse
all of the people that supported Kamala Harris, you know,
Democrat Toner. There's billionaires, big people. If the idea is
that me and a few comedians have more power than

(43:07):
multi billionaires, huge media institutions, of whole political party apparatus,
I just don't think most people are going to buy that.
I think it seems like a great way to excuse
running an unpopular candidate on a platform that American people
weren't sold on.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
What do you think about that?

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Well, full disclosure. I loved him and he's a friend
of mine. But there's I think Tim is right. I
think there's a bit more to it than what he
was saying. And I think that you know, it's almost like,
you know, when you use this term the establishment, it's like, well,
what are you really saying?

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, it's sort of like woke. It becomes like, you know,
it can mean anything to anyone.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
So right, so in terms of the in terms of
political power, like you know, okay, there are big shows
that have big audiences, and so yeah, maybe you know,
we just saw the sitting president of the United States
kind of leverage that. It's kind of insane that every
politician is not attempting to leverage that. But right, what

(44:15):
Tim is saying about how you have Look, you have
the three letter agencies, you have the Congress and the
Supreme Court and the presidency, and you have huge gigantic
news corporations, and you have Hollywood and academia.

Speaker 4 (44:28):
There are all these things.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
So yes, it is ridiculous to call theovonn the establishment.
But the dynamic that what has happened is that the
American people have lost all trust in every institution and
so now they are flooding over to the podcast scene,
and they have much more trust in those people because
they're just real people. Like however you feel about Joe
Rogan and theovone, they're just real people and they're just

(44:51):
telling you how they feel about something, and they're sometimes
they're spot on about that stuff. The point is that
it's not that any of us are the new establishment.
It's that the establishment lied through their freaking teeth over
and over and over again to the American people, to
the point that the American people just went, we don't

(45:14):
believe a word you say anymore, and because it was
they were intentionally lying to cover up their unbelievable levels
of corruption. And again, like you could just rattle these
things off, but like in the twenty first century, what
has the establishment handed the American people? Okay, like they
we got nine to eleven, which they did not protect

(45:35):
us from. Then they lied us into war after war
after war, each one being a catastrophe, lying us through
the entire thing. I mean nineteen years in Afghanistan, they
were saying, the army we're building up is doing a
great job, and they're going to totally keep the Taliban
down as soon as we leave, over and over, you know,
like we were just going through the stuff with putin
lie after lie after lie, the stuff. The way they

(45:57):
screwed Bernie Sanders out of the nomination, just blatantly cheated
against him. Then they just blatantly interfered in the election
in twenty twenty, you know, silencing people.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
The hunter Biden laptops.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Killing that story after a year, you know, of locking
the country down, which was kind of proven to be
all based on pseudoscience from a virus that they freaking
made themselves and then lied through their teeth about that
so they could cover it up. Then they tried to,
you know, tell us that this clearly senile man was like,
how much do.

Speaker 4 (46:28):
You think you can lie? Oh?

Speaker 3 (46:29):
And by the way, there was a giant pedophile ring
that is still redacted for national security purposes.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
Like what you know? But I like, what the hell? Like,
it doesn't take that much.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
You don't have to be a super genius to look
at this and go, I know what's going on here.
You're all a bunch of corrupt liars. And I trust
Theovonne and Joe Rogan more than I trust you know,
Anderson Cooper.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah, right, I think there's I think that's a big
piece of it. I think because that term establishment is
so you know, up for grabs at this point point
that it's easy for Tim Dillon in that moment to
make her question look just like silly, like what you
think I'm more powerful than the CIA? Get out here.
But I also think he doesn't grapple with the way

(47:11):
the world has changed in the way you're talking about,
and also the fact, like, look, Republicans have the White House,
the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court. There's been a
huge cultural shift. You know, the podcast sphere that Tim
Dillan is part of was you know, broadly supportive of
Donald Trump. The richest people in the world are behind
the you know, the the MAGA movement at this point,

(47:33):
they're all lined up behind him at the inauguration. Elon
Musk is literally the richest person in the world and
probably the second most powerful person, if not the most
powerful person in the country. And so you know, if
if that, if that grouping, if that ecosystem of power,
doesn't represent some kind of establishment, then to me, the

(47:56):
word is just completely meaningless. At this point, one saying
like Tim Dillon or you or like you know, Theo
vonn or Rogan or whatever, like the pinnacle of these
noun but part of the ecosystem. Like if you are,
you know, broadly in sort of that ecosystem, then I
think it is fair to say, and I do think
you're right that in part it's because the previous quote

(48:17):
unquote establishment had so clearly failed that there's been you know,
a kind of regrouping and an interest in alternative voices,
certainly in terms of the media ecosystem.

Speaker 4 (48:28):
Yeah. Well, I think that there's no question that there's
kind of.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Like like an upstart want to be new elite that
have through their support behind Donald Trump, like they would
like to be the ruling elite now, you know, and
they're kind of like, hey, the Rockefellers and the Morgans,
that their turn, and we'd like to be the new
ruling elite. I don't know that they they certainly have
a lot of wealth. I don't know that they've acquired

(48:52):
that level of power, but I guess.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Some of them are the same people, you know, I
mean basis that you know, and now even Elon Musk,
you know, was previously bestie's with Obama and now he's
all in with Trump. And yes, Miriam Addales, like the
you know, the Israel lobby is certainly bipartisan, et cetera.
I mean, I guess that is part of I was
watching your coverage of I think you were talking about

(49:16):
the crackdown on to set et cetera, and you were saying,
you know, the new boss feels a lot like the
old boss. And you know, I would say that the
tactics deployed by the Trump administration are extraordinary and beyond
what we've seen in the past. Just the overwhelming leveraging
of the state, students being kidnapped off the street for
writing out eds, et cetera. But I mean that also
speaks to the fact that even though there was a

(49:37):
revolutionary energy and a rhetorical challenge of the status quo
that was represented by the Trump movement, like some of
the pieces are too just you know, continued upholding of
the status quo. And I would say, you know, as
evidence of that, you know, another tax cut for the
wealthy coming up in the you know, as a follow
on to his tax cuts for the wealthy in the

(49:57):
first administry. Again we have differences on e but you know,
the Ukraine War is still going on. We still have
saber rattling with Iran, we still have crushing of dissent
in you know, an accelerated way, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Yeah, well, and there's and obviously we're only you know,
one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty days into
this administration. And the big question that you just touched
on is what's going to happen in the Middle East.
And you know, it seems like they are moving forward
with these plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza for the Israelis,
which is just that is something that is not like
the old boss.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
I mean, this is a whole new step.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
I would say that, as with the term the woke right,
it is every single person who they're smearing with that
term are all the anti war people, all the people
who are are non interventionist. And one of the things
that leaving aside kind of the billionaire class who got
behind Donald Trump or not. Obviously there were a lot

(50:54):
of billionaires behind Kamala Harris as well, but those billionaires
that did get behind Donald Trump, what I will say
about the Kamete podcast sphere, which I do find to
be pretty interesting, is that all of them, every last
one of them, is anti war. And I'm not saying
that that means that Donald Trump is anti war, or

(51:15):
that they were right to support Donald Trump, or that
Donald Trump's administration will end up working out that way.
But one of the things that is really interesting is, like, dude,
I mean, you saw, I know you were talking about
the other day theo Vane's recent moment where he's talking
about the genocide in Gaza was really I thought it
was really beautiful moment. And I mean, certainly, like Joe

(51:36):
Rogan has been great on this issue, Tim Dillon is
probably the best out there at just mocking the whole thing.
I mean his bid about has Sam Harris has a
meditation app and then supports bout it was like one
of the funniest things I've ever seen. And so I
think that one of the things that I think is
really positive about this is that going forward, this is
kind of the new standard, is that politicians are going

(51:58):
to have to sit down for these unedited, unscripted long
form conversations. I actually thought my good friend Andrew Schultz
did a great job with Bernie Sanders the other day
and got some really interesting moments out of him that,
like I never Bernie Sanders in so many interviews in
the last ten years, and I never saw anyone get
some of the stuff that Andrew got out of him.
I think the the Democrats and the left more broadly

(52:22):
speaking are going to have to figure out how to
play this game too. And I think and I think
Bernie Sanders was good for him for going on and like.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
Attempting to do this.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
The thing is that it's gonna be It's it's the
death of candidates like Kamala Harris. It's the death of
candidates who require this extraordinary amount of protection so that
you can never really see who they are. I think
those days are gone, and I think that ultimately that's
a huge net benefit.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
That's that's I think that's a fair point. I will
say I'm more skeptical of the shift even as I am,
you know, myself and this ecosys, because there doesn't see
first of all, I mean, I think in terms rather
than of individual people, of like the incentive structures, you know,
corporate media and center structures like you know, whatever, the
corporate boss's bottom line is upholding that, you know, making

(53:15):
sure that you're maintaining your access, playing to your audience. Whatever.
That audience is and in new media, the incentive structure
is not really different. I mean, it's if anything, it
exacerbates some of the worst elements because you see people
become even more aggressively audience captured because there's more of
a connection there. There's no wall between you and the

(53:36):
advertisers whatsoever. So there's you know, that direct concern and
there's still and you see this. I mean, I'm sure
you have in mind people as well who just want
to suck up to the powers that be and do
the propaganda for their audience, and all the incentives are
aligned for them to do that. So I'm a little
less I'm a little more wary of the shift. While

(54:00):
being very cognizant of the failures of you know, legacy media,
I'm also wary of the shift. And I also feel like,
you know, I do think if you're going to have
the president on the vice president on et cetera, even
if you are a comedian, you do have some sort
of responsibility to press them on. Okay, you say you're
anti war, but here's what the track record was in
the first administration, or well, then why are you taking

(54:21):
all this money from Maria and medalson Like I think,
I think there is a responsibility to do some of
those that pushback in those interviews, even if you are
not yourself a journalist, if you're giving someone who has
huge power or aspires to huge power this tremendous platform.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
Well, I don't disagree, like I mean, as I'm sure
you know, like, yeah, if I interviewed Donald Trump, it
would be a different interview than like the interviews that
some of my friends have done with them.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
That being said, you know, it's everything is compared to
what it's not, you know, perfection versus what we have.
It's would you rather have this happening honestly and end?
Or would you rather be Theovonne and Joe Rogan? And
I will say that while neither THEO or Joe gave
Donald Trump like up pressing, you know, like interview, like

(55:11):
they weren't grilling him, right, But I did think with
THEO Vaughan, you saw a different side of Donald Trump
than you've ever seen before. And I thought it was
kind of fascinating in a way. Like the stuff him
getting into, like his brother killing himself with alcohol and
stuff like that, I actually thought was very interesting.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
And like you know, Donald Trump is such a weird guy, like.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
He's just however you feel about Donald Trump, he is
the strangest freaking human being. And that like he doesn't
speak like other people, he doesn't look like other people.
He looked he's like a cartoon character. Like it's like
you're watching the news and then a cartoon like Roger
Rabbit or something. His skin color is different than everybody
else's and so it was just kind of interesting to
me to see that. And I will say that on

(55:49):
the Joe Rogan interview, I actually thought that Joe Joe
exposed something in Donald Trump when he asked him about
the election that I think nobody else has been able to.
And part of that is because it was a friendly
environment and they were just having a conversation.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
And then when he gets to asking him.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
About the election, you saw that Donald Trump just really
had nothing. He had no argument for why twenty twenty
was stolen, and then he almost like kind of resorted
to just laughing about it because he didn't have a
real answer.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
So look, I'll I'll grant you that. And I remember
I talked to.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
Mehdi Hassan about this once and he was basically saying
the same thing. He was like, no, this is even
worse than the corporate media because they're not just giving
like puff interviews to Donald Trump. And I was like,
how many CNN interviews has Donald Trump done? It's not
doing anything like just ask it when CNN asked about
the election. He's just gonna dunk on the CNN anchor
and then that's gonna be his base. Is gonna love

(56:44):
that at least now, you know, Yes, is audience capture
a thing? Yeah, of course, but that's that's a lot
better than corporate capture. I mean, at least you're be
responsible to your audience and not some weapons.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
But I think it's corporate capture too. I mean again,
like the advertisers all right there as well. I mean
with the Rogan interview, you know, I just I think
what people took away, what most people took away from
that wasn't like, oh, he looked like a fool on
the election denial stuff. It was at a time when
he was being framed as extreme, and I think he
is extreme. I think his actions in office this time

(57:18):
have really proven he's even more extreme than I expected.
He got to go on and like people are like, oh,
he just seems like a normal guy. Like I think
that's what most people took away from that. And Joe himself,
when he previously didn't want to interview Trump because he
didn't he said, I don't want to help him. You know,
he recognized that there was power in giving someone three

(57:39):
hours to just look like a normal, everyday guy. And
so listen, I'm not I'm like, I'm not mad at
any of these people for doing the interviews. I think
it's a very difficult balance to strike all of that,
But I do think that it would be better served
having more pushback and that you know, at least in

(57:59):
you know, in the corporate media structure, there is some
sense of Okay, we've got to ask the tough question,
we've got to be prepared for the follow up, etc.
And so, you know, that's my concern about the direction
we're going in. And you know, at least, let me
give Trump the let me be charitable to him. He
does all of those mainstream interviews too, right, So it's

(58:21):
not like he's only but I think for a lot
of politicians, and I see this because we have a
lot of politicians who won't come on this show because
they know we will ask them difficult questions. And I'm
talking actually more about Democrats than Republicans. When you have
an ecosystem set up where you know, you can just
go and do an hour or two hours or three
hours or whatever and not get asked really a single

(58:41):
challenging question. Of course, most politicians, that's what they're going
to gravitate towards, because that feels a lot more comfortable.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Well, I mean, you know, when Joe changed his mind
to have Donald Trump at the decision he made was
that he was gonna have both of them on. And
so one politician did not want to go into that environment.
And so you know, I just look, I get your point,
and you know, there's something to the whole thing, like
it is, you know, it's it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that

(59:13):
all of us are in the position that we're in.
I don't mean you, I mean me and the comedians.
It's it's ridiculous. But again it's like here we are
like I don't know, you know, I mean, this is
look if well.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
You're absolutely right that the Democrats have to like this
is the world that we live in now. And so
we see Pete and you see Gavin. You see the
ones who you know, were able to string together a
few sentences going out there and trying to play in
the pond.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Now, yeah, and the ones who aren't so incredibly insecure
about their own corruption that they're terrified of being exposed.
And you know, and and Gavin Newsom, is that, I
think because he's a sociopath. But you know, Bernie Sanders,
is that because he really believes in the stuff he's saying,
or at least to some degree, more than most politicians.

(59:58):
And but I think that, you know, really the the
kind of lesson here for anybody who's like, you know,
who doesn't like the way, say Joe Rogan interviewed Donald
Trump or something.

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
Like that, is that you know, they.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
Joe was pushed by the establishment toward Donald Trump in
the most aggressive manner. I mean, they literally tried to
ruin the guy, and they went after him on stuff
that he was right about. I mean, like it's like
he would if his doctor recommended he take iver mexic.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
He was right to take it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Like I don't know, the whole thing with iver mectin
the reason why doctors recommend it is because it can't hurt.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
It's like it's a drug that really doesn't have any
negative side effects.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
What you know, well kind of whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Yeah, there were a couple studies that seemed to indicate
that if you take it early on, it might help
with COVID, And then there were a bunch of other
studies that kind of were like, now, it doesn't really
seem to be doing anything, but a lot of doctors
were like, well it can't hurt, so throw this in
the cocktail as well. And then they they colored his
face on CNN. They went this like vicious cancelation attempt
against him. It's like, maybe don't do that to the

(01:01:07):
guy with the biggest show. What were you think of?
What was the game plan here, Brian Stelter, You thought
you were gonna take Joe Rogan down? Like how removed
from reality these people are? And so look, I hope
I hope that shows like Breaking Points continue to grow.
I hope it gets to a point where, like, yeah,
like if if a presidential candidate had to go through

(01:01:30):
Crystal and Sega in order to get to.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
The White House, I think that would be a great world.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
That's the world we all want to live in.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Yes, And so we got to keep we gotta keep
pushing forward with this, but that the corporate legacy media
apparatus had to be destroyed in order for us to
have any any chance of, yeah, replacing it with something better.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
I just hope what is built in its wake is better.
And I'm concerned about that. Cashpitel and Dan Bongin now
got quietquestion by Maria Bartiromo about Hey, like, what's going
on with this Epstein situation? And it was pretty pretty
interesting their responses. Let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 8 (01:02:08):
You said, Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don't believe it. Well,
I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion.
But as someone who has worked as a public defender,
as a prosecutor, who's been in that prison system, who's
been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing,
you know a suicide when you see one, and that's

(01:02:28):
what that was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
He killed himself again, you want me to get I've
seen the whole file. He killed himself.

Speaker 8 (01:02:36):
I know it's hard work.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
There you go, Dave case closed over. Nothing to see here.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
Well, I have no more questions, that's right, I mean,
there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
They answered every question you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
It doesn't It really doesn't help that. My co host
Rob Bernstein is a very very funny comedian, a very
bright guy. But he made this point the other day,
but he's like, it's just their body language looks like
it's like like a hostage tape or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
That doesn't really help.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Look in Cashertel always looks like, I don't know, wild eyed.
It's just there's always a look there where you're like,
whoa buddy, relax, you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Know, agree, Yeah, his stiff and wide eyed for sure.
But it's just the thing that was so pathetic about this,
and they do it on a several different topics, is
that this is just like, what is this? Trust me,
I've been there, I'm a prosecutor seeing the file.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
It's not a thing.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
It's like, yeah, I'm gonna need a little bit more
than that, particularly on you know, look, with Jeffrey Ebstein,
like you never he was clearly like an intelligence asset
or operative. And with these intelligence you know, operations, we're
probably never going to get one hundred percent of the
story and then we'll know everything. But we really do

(01:03:50):
know enough with Jeffrey Ebstein to know that this was
clearly some high level conspiracy. I mean, the guy is
like he's he's teaching at Dalton with no background that
would like lead to that. Then he's at bear Sterns,
He's made partner within like a couple years, he's like,
I think, a billionaire, and no one can trace where
he made any of his money. That doesn't exist, like

(01:04:12):
that never exists. And then he's he's caught, and we
have the prosecutor on record saying I gave him a
sweetheart deal because I was told by intelligence that he's
connected to them. So then when he dies, he's in
a secured prison and there's multiple camera failures. Like all
I'm saying is like I don't even know if he

(01:04:33):
did kill himself or didn't kill himself. I think perhaps
he did under duress. Who knows. But the idea that
you're just gonna be like now, looked at it. Nothing
to see here when you, like your administration ran on
the promise that you were gonna release this stuff and
then made a whole spectacle about giving it to some influencers,

(01:04:54):
and really you release nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
It's just too ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Yeah, And I would just say, like to to the
broader point, because this is like my number one you know,
like theme right now with the Trump administration is that
you know, as I was talking about before, like there
have been there have been these very serious crimes committed
by the government against the American people over the last
few years, and whether this is with the health stuff

(01:05:19):
or in terms of wars, in terms of like lockdowns,
in all of these things, and the people who Donald
Trump has put in, many of them, Bobby Kennedy, Toulcy Gabbard,
Cash Pateel, Dan Bongino, Pete Hagsath, They've basically made a
living and Donald Trump himself in calling out these crimes,
and yet there is no move not to expose them,

(01:05:43):
let alone hold people accountable. And I do think that
there is gonna be like ultimately, and I think this
kind of ties into the podcast or conversation. I mean,
I'm actually fairly optimistic, like see where this goes over
the next few years. I don't think any of these
people are just Trump sick ephants who are gonna love
Donald Trump no matter what. And I do think that
there's a realization universe.

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
I think I think a lot of people are obviously
Trump has a cult like following, and there are those
that will defend him no matter what, but there are
a lot of people who are going to be like,
oh no, this is this is BS.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
Like I'm sorry, you can't just come up here and
tell me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
Yeah, I know we stoked these flames about this obvious
conspiracy for all of these years. But eh, got in there,
looked at it. Nothing to see here, trust me.

Speaker 4 (01:06:28):
Yeah, it's pathetic.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Well, and I love when he's like, oh, I've seen
the file, Okay, we'll show us the file, Like what
was in that file? Tell us more, you know, like you.

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Just take you There's basic, basic, basic, basic questions about
the Jeffrey Ebstein thing.

Speaker 4 (01:06:41):
Okay, just like the very basic ones.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Okay, the prosecutor who's on record saying intelligence told me
he was connected to us? Who told you that? Who
was he connected to? Number two? Where did the tapes go?
Forget release the files or the plane logs? Where are
the tapes?

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
And it's a little bit of a weird area because
you know, you're talking about like child pornography, so like
I'm not saying release the tapes, but like, is there
one expert who goes through them or something?

Speaker 4 (01:07:07):
And like I don't know, but like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
I want to know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
I want to know who the adults are in that
in that equation. And then you know, even if you're
going to say this stuff about his death. Okay, so
why did the cameras all go out right like explain
those basic things to me and then we're talking. But
don't tell me I've seen the files. You don't get
to see him. There's nothing there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
I mean, I think you know this is I never
had any expectations about the Epstein files getting released under
this administration because for one thing, look, Trump was a
friend of him for years. I mean, Epstein claimed take
it for what it's worth that they were bus runds
for a decade. And Trump has always on the on JFK,
was always like, yes, we're going to release the files.
You know, on other UFOs, yes we're going to release

(01:07:49):
the files. By the way that you know, the UFO
one hasn't happened either, but the JFK one, we did
get something. When it came to Epstein, he was always
a little cag He was always like, oh, well, you know,
I'm not sure, and we got to worry about people's privacy.
And when Ghlaine when he was asked about Glaine Maxwell
being in prison, he was like, I wish her well.
So there was always a weird It was very strange
there with Trump with regard to Epstein, which is why

(01:08:12):
is not a surprise to me at all that we've
gotten less than nothing. You know, the binders that they
gave to the influencers had documents that were more redacted
than what Gawker had released in like twenty fifteen. That's
what we're talking about here. So that wasn't a surprise
to be that we got nothing out of this administration
with regard to him, because I mean, we know, like
I'm not, you know, accusing Donald Trump if anything for Taylor,

(01:08:34):
but we know they were associates. We know he was
on the plane, we know that they were friendly in
swimming in some of the same circles.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
And there's that one very very bizarre tape of Donald
Trump where he's actually talking about how young Jeffrey Epstein
likes the girls. It's like the creepiest thing you've ever seen. So, yeah, look,
I agree with you that. And then the obvious other
elephant in the room is that you know it was
Dan Bongino. I think he was on Tim Poole's show,

(01:09:00):
but at one point he said that he was connected
to Middle East intelligence.

Speaker 9 (01:09:05):
Oh I didn't know that Crystal, middle East Crystal. You
know that she was sure he was probably Middle East. Yeah, yeah,
somewhere you know, the UAE or something like that. Right, right, right, exactly, yes,
all of us. Where is that Katari money?

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
By the way, But so you know, when you have
this element too, and you have the most zionist you know,
uh administration in American history. Yeah, I'm not holding my
breath for them to release any real information about this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yes, indeed, all right, Dave, Well, I will let you
go at that. Thank you so much. It's been fun.
I really enjoyed it, and you know, always appreciate you.
Obviously we have like political ideological differences, but what I
really appreciate is that you try to be honest and
don't just didn't just turn into like a Trump sick
of fant because you were, you know, more favorable towards

(01:09:57):
him than Kamala Harris and it's a fairly red trait.
So I really appreciate and respect.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
You for that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
Well, thank you so much. And as I've said many times,
I love breaking points. I watched the show every day
and so thank you guys for everything you do.

Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
This was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
All right, Good to see you. Take care, Dave. Israel
is now going full mask off, genocidal ethnic cleansing, just
announcing the most horrific plans you can imagine in public.
Let's start with Israeli Finance Minister Bezial Oil Smotrich, who
made some just outrageous, horrifying comments. Let's put this up

(01:10:31):
on the screen that really exposes what their plans are here.
You know we covered yesterday they've decided to let in
this pitdling amount of aid, and he explains why. He
gave a speech Monday defending Israel's strategy of mass devastation
and Gaza, saying humanitarian aid is only being allowed in
quote so the world does not stop us and accuse
us of war crimes. The goal, he insisted, is to

(01:10:53):
conquer Gasa clear and stay until that area is dismantled
beyond recognition. We could put the next one up on
the screen as well. Boasting of the scale of destruction,
Smotritz said, we are dismantling Gaza, leaving it in ruins
with unprecedented destruction and the world still hasn't stopped us.
He also indicated that Trump and him and the Net

(01:11:17):
Yahoo government are all sympatico with regards to what they
want to happen in terms of a total ethnic cleansing
of the Gaza Strip. He said, quote the population will
reach the south of the Strip and from there God
willing to third countries as part of President Trump's plan.
So this is crucial context for understanding what is happening,

(01:11:39):
for understanding how bb Netnyahu and Trump and the whole
BB's terrorist extremist coalition, how they all are apparently completely
aligned in their final solution, end goal. And it's also
important for contextualizing this pitdling amount of aid that is
being let into the Strip. And I'll have more on
that in just a moment. Let's go ahead and put

(01:12:01):
bib Netnahu's comments up on the screen here as well,
which echo what's Mootrich was saying. He says, the Gaza
aid scheme offers Israel symbolic cover to finish the genocide.
This is reporting from dropside quote drop site. We're going
to take control of all the Gaza Strip, bb valwed
Monday in a video released by his Office announcing that
Israel would begin delivering minimal humanitarian aid, food and medicine only.

(01:12:23):
Net Yahoo claimed to an international pressure, including from pro Israel,
Republican senators and the White House, required the appearance of
humanitarian intervention. Put the next piece up on the screen
here as well, so we can see this joint statement
from the leaders of the UK, France and Canada, which
is pretty extraordinary in terms of the pressure that net

(01:12:45):
nyahoo is now responding to. We strongly oppose the expansion
of Israel's military operations in Gaza. The level of human
suffering in Gaza is intolerable. Yesterday's announcement that Israel will
allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inaccurate.
They say, we condemned the abhorrent language used recently by
members of the Israeli government. That's like Smotrich what I

(01:13:06):
just showed you, threatening that, in their despair at the
destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent force
displacement is a breach of international law. And so for
these nations to be we'll see if they follow through,
we'll see what happens. But for these nations to be
threatening some real potential sanctions on Israel for their continued

(01:13:30):
genocidal atrocities in the Gaza Strip. Is a significant development,
and in fact drop site also reported on the fact
that the EU is going to review Israel's trade packed
over human rights violations in Gaza. That trade pack grants
Israel terror free access to most of the EU market,
It enables joint work in research, innovation, and security. It

(01:13:51):
requires respect for human rights and democratic principles as a
core element. So this is some of the pressure that
Natanyahu is responding to by allowing in this absolutely pathetically
inadequate amount of aid, thinking that will give them cover
to continue their genocidal assault and effectuate their and Trump's

(01:14:14):
shared goal of completely ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip, pushing
Palestinians out to third countries. We've seen there been reports
on discussions with some of those third countries to know,
to push them to take in Palestinians. This has long
been the parent goal. Now it's just being overtly stated

(01:14:34):
to create so much misery and suffering and death and
starvation in the Gaza Strip that Palestinians would be pressured
to flee the area and allow Israel to totally annex
it and take it over. So let's talk a little
bit more about the quote unquote humanitarian aid being allowed in.
Put the next piece up on the screen. As of yesterday,

(01:14:55):
five trucks, five trucks of aid had entered the Gaza
Strip at a time when more than two million people
were not sure how many Palestinians still remain in the
Gaza Strip after all of this horror and death. Are
living under siege, the majority suffering from famine and malnutrition.
The entry of the trucks was purely formal and media driven,
aimed at polishing the image rather than providing relief to

(01:15:18):
the starving and afflicted. Put the Al Jazeera tear sheet
up on the screen. Necks. That provides a little bit
more information. First trickle of eight and three months after
Israel allows limited food into Gaza. By the way, there
were also some indications that okay, five trucks or so
have entered, and some of those trucks did not even
contain food. Is the indication you read you a little

(01:15:40):
bit from this article from Al Jazeera. Un Aide chief
Tom Fletcher on Monday said Israeli authories had cleared nine
they say aid trucks to enter Gaza through the Karam
abou Sealm crossing known as Karam Shalom in Israel, calling
it a drop in the ocean when so many more
supplies are needed to address a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
Figure is far short of the more than five hundred

(01:16:02):
trucks that entered Gaza daily before the start of the
war in October twenty twenty three. Food security experts last
week warned of famine amid accusations that Israel is using
starvation as a weapon of war. Quote. Significantly more aid
must be allowed into Gaza starting tomorrow morning. The numbers
I've seen are that what really needs to enter is
roughly one thousand trucks per day to sufficiently feed the population. Obviously,

(01:16:27):
five trucks, nine trucks is utterly pathetic and meaningless, and
you know, truly backs up this idea that the Israeli
government is just trying to provide some sort of a
show so that they can continue their war crimes unimpeded.
We also know over the past several days it has
been one of the most horrifically bloody times. Hundreds of

(01:16:50):
Palestinians killed just in the past several days. As Israel
has renewed their onslaught in Gaza. People are being forcibly
relocated once again again. And uh, you know, the Trump administration,
after making some noises about oh maybe we'll maybe we'll
garner a ceasefire and securing the release of the American

(01:17:11):
Israeli idea of soldiery down Alexander who had been taken
by Hamas. After securing that release, it seems like they're,
you know, allowing bb All systems go to do whatever
he wants to do. So that's where things stand today.
Truly dire and horrific circumstance, and at least as of today,
appears that Trump, Smotrich and bbnat Noaho all on the

(01:17:33):
same plan with what they want to accomplish in the
Gaza strip. All right, there's another story I wanted to
get to here, some updates with regard to the Trump
Administration's deportation policies. The Trump administration has announced that they
are charging a sitting Member of Congress Lamonica Mackiver after
an incident involving ICE agents outside of a facility in Newark,

(01:17:55):
New Jersey. That they are using for immigrant detention. So
let's go ahead and put this announce up on the screen.
This is from US Attorney Alena Haba. She says she
is going to dismiss misdemeanor tres passing charges against Mayor
Ross Baraka invites him to toward the ICE facility. However,
she says she is going to pursue assault charges against

(01:18:17):
Lamanica machiv Leave this up on a screen for a second.
I'll just read a little bit of that. She says,
Representative Lamanica MacIvor assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement
in violation of Title eighteen US Code, Section eleven a one.
This conduct cannot be overlooked by the chief federal law
enforcement official in the statement New Jersey, and it is
my constitutional obligation to ensure our federal law enforcement is

(01:18:40):
protected when executing their duties. We also have a statement
from Representative Mackivor on these charges, which, by the way,
as of last night, had not yet been officially filed,
but are expected to be filed. She said. Earlier this month,
I joined my colleagues to inspect the treatment of ICE
detainees at Delaney Hall in my district. We were our
lawful oversight responsibilities, as members of Congress have done many

(01:19:04):
times before, and our visit should have been peaceful. In short, instead,
ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they
chose to arrest Mayor Baraka. The charges against me are
purely political. They mischaracterized and distort my actions, and are
meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight. This administration will
never stop me from working for the people in our
district and standing up for what is right. I'm thankful

(01:19:25):
for the outpouring of support I've received, and I look
forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court.
This type of a charge, if they do in fact
move forward with it, could result in prison time for
this sitting member of Congress. So this all goes back
to an incident that we covered. I actually got to
interview the mayor of Newark about what unfolded. The Mayor

(01:19:47):
of Newark, alongside three Congressional representatives representing New Jersey, arrived
at this facility that ICE is being used over the
objections of the city. By the way, the city is
suing ICE over the use of this facility, claiming they
don't have the proper permitting. So in any case, these
three members of Congress and the mayor decided to go
and attempt to perform an inspection of the facility. Now,

(01:20:09):
there's legislation that was passed during the first Trump administration
that allows members of Congress to conduct surprise inspections without
requiring any sort of prior authorization of any DHS used facility.
So they were well within their legal rights to conduct
that oversight. The mayor, however's not included in that legal provision.
So when he shows up, he's allowed to be on

(01:20:32):
the property for some period of time, he said, roughly
an hour. Then the agents there said, okay, you have
to go. He exits the facility onto public property, and
then he's there for a while, and then he starts
to get word that they are going to come and
arrest him for alleged trespassing. That is when a very
chaotic scene unfolded as these massed agents of the state

(01:20:54):
attempted and eventually did arrest the mayor of Newark for
this alleged trespassing. And now by the way, that charge
has been dropped. There was a rush of the crowd
and the agents were struggling to get a hold of
the mayor. And that is when the state is claiming,
when this government is claiming that Representative McIvor quote unquote

(01:21:14):
assaulted an ICE agents. So let's go ahead and take
a look at the video. This is from DHS. This
is some of the body camera footage. The woman in
the red blazer here is representative of mcivory. You can
see she's being pushed by the crowd at one point.
This is I think what they're really pinning it on
her elbow there makes some contact with one of these
masked agents of the state, and they are claiming this

(01:21:38):
represents assault. I mean, it won't surprise you that very much.
In my opinion, I think that she is right that
this is blatantly political and his attempt to frighten other
members of Congress from conducting oversight and from opposing this
administration's deportation policies. Overall, we know also that this administration
has threatened those not just memory of Congress, but anyone

(01:22:01):
who opposes their deportation policies as potentially providing material aid
to terrorist organizations. Seb Gorka, who is this administration's counter
terrors are, has floated that so This is a dramatic
escalation and as I said, could theoretically, if she was
found guilty, result in Representative MacIvor being held in you know,

(01:22:25):
having to serve a prison sentence for some period of time.
So huge escalation here from the Trump administration, something they
have been threatening. You know. Tom Homan has been out
there also threatening AOC and others over their seminars that
they've given allowing immigrants to know their rights if they
are faced with, you know, if a nice agent shows up,
if they are faced with potential deportation. He has also

(01:22:46):
threatened representatives before with pursuing legal action against them, and
the Trump administration has also lifted a previous guideline that
required an escalation sort of up the chain of the
DOJ in order to charge elected officials, so they have
taken those protections off. So this is something they've been
telegraphing for a while, and in this incident they've found

(01:23:08):
their opportunity and the perfect excuse to go after Democratic
members of Congress. At the same time, there's a lot
unfolding in the courts that I want to update you
on going in both directions. So let's put this first
piece up on the screen. The Supreme Court yesterday lifted
a block on deportations of Venezuelans who'd been given protected

(01:23:31):
status under the Biden administration. Let me just read you
a little bit from this article. So, the Supreme Court
on Monday let the Trump administration for now remove protections
from nearly three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelan immigrants who
had been allowed to remain in the US without risk
of deportation under a programming program known as Temporary Protected Status.
The Court's brief order was unsigned, gave no reasons, which

(01:23:54):
is typical when the Justices rule on emergency applications. No
vote count was listed, although Justice Katanji Bran Jackson noted
she would have denied the administration's request. The Justices announced
they would allow the Trump administration to end the protections
pending appeal of the case, potentially allowing the administration to
move ahead with deportations. The Justice also appear to suggest
that some of the Venezuelans who had been able to

(01:24:15):
receive documentation of their legal status before the Trump administration
terminated the program could sue to challenge their deportations. In
a separate case, the Justices on Friday criticized the Trump
administration for seeking to provide only a day's warning to
a different group of Venezuelan immigrants in Texas that had
been trying to deport under the Expansive Powers of the
Alien Enemies Act. So with regards to this particular court ruling,

(01:24:39):
they effectively sent it back to the lower courts, but
they lifted the nationwide injunction that would have protected these
three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelan immigrants who had been
granted temporary protected status under the Biden administration. They've lifted
that nationwide injunction, so they are now subject to deportation.
Now they can go to the court and seek recourse there,

(01:25:01):
and there are already cases that are making their way
through the courts. So this isn't fully resolved at this point,
but a significant win for the Trump administration when you're
talking about hundreds of thousands of people who now have
been stripped of their legal status that had been granted
by the prior administration and could be subject to deportation,
So significant win there for them. That article can put

(01:25:23):
the next piece up on the screen referenced another decision
that came on Friday, in which the Supreme Court ruled
seven to two to further enjoin the government from summarily
deporting alleged gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. The
government did not give enough notice, and the Fifth Circuit
aired in refusing to provide relief. According to the justices,
so this is a seven to two decision. This has

(01:25:45):
to do, as noted, with the invocation of the Alien
Enemies Act and what sort of process is due to
migrants who are the administration is attempting to deport under
that act. So you'll re call that the Supreme Court
ruled unanimously that they had to provide due process, and

(01:26:06):
I believe the language of that original ruling was that
they had to give them quote unquote reasonable notice. Well,
the Trump administration interpreted that as twenty four hours. Twenty
four hours is reasonable notice in their opinion, in order
to allow you to find a lawyer and gather your

(01:26:26):
your arguments and file your habeast petition. The Supreme Court here,
in assemned to two ruling, is saying no, No, that
is not reasonable notice. That is not sufficient and is
not consistent with the ruling that we had issued previously.
Now I would say they should have anticipated that this administration,
given how bad faith they've been and how defiant they've

(01:26:48):
been on any number of court orders, would seek to
interpret their ruling in the most narrow and most bad
faith way imaginable, which is exactly what they did and
have laid out from the start what exactly that due
process should look like and what sort of time frame
we're talking about. They didn't do that. But now we
have additional ruling from the Supreme Court saying okay, twenty

(01:27:12):
four hours, that ain't it. It's got to be longer
than twenty four hours. Has a significant setback from the
courts on that one. And I will tell you there
were so many Republicans who were really going wild after
that decision and saying, effectively, it doesn't matter, we don't care,
just ignore the courts, full on calling for outright defiance

(01:27:34):
of what the Supreme Court had to say on this
one because they didn't like the decision and the direction
that it went in. A couple more just quick updates here.
One is, let's put this up on the screen. Those
thousand dollars self deportation deals that the Trump administration has
been offering the first flight of those has left. So

(01:27:56):
immigrants who decided to avail themselves of this deal, they
have now been on a charter flight and dozens of
them took off from Houston early Monday. Those are some
of the incentives that have been offered for people to
quote unquote self deport I think this is actually an
important part of the Trump administration policy because they have

(01:28:17):
been unable to effectuate their actual mass deportation on the
level and scale that they would want to see and
that their boss hardcore supporters would want to see. Instead,
they've been doing these, you know, outrageous spectacle spectacles of cruelty,
like the deportation of people to this foreign gulag and

(01:28:37):
El Salvador with no due process as one example, or
get Mo or using the military flights potentially exploring a
similar situation with Libya. So this is an important part
of their program to try to actually achieve the mass
deportations of their dreams and the other part of it,
but this last piece up on the screen. The Republican
budget would make ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement

(01:29:01):
component in the history of the US, bigger than the FBI,
with a larger budget for detention than the entire Federal
Bureau of Prisons. So currently they may not have the
resources to do their full mass deportation, but they are
working on changing that rapidly. Very excited to be joined
this morning by John Lyle. He is a history professor

(01:29:24):
at the University of Texas, but more importantly for our
purposes this morning, he is the author of a brand
new book on the history of mk ultra. Was going
to put that up on the screen book jacket Project
mind Control, Sydney got leave the CIA and the Tragedy
of mk Ultra and John joins us.

Speaker 10 (01:29:40):
Now, great to have you, welcome, Thank you, thanks for
having me. I'm excited to talk about this. It's a
wild story to say the least.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Yeah, of course, so give us like, let's start from
the beginning. What is the context, the geopolitical context in
which mk ultra is launching, and just give people a
little reminder of what this was all about.

Speaker 10 (01:29:58):
Yes, So mk Ultra was this CIA's project to determine
whether mind control is possible. Is it possible to give
someone a drug that might be used as a truth
serum and an interrogation to get them to tell the truth.
Is it possible to control someone's behaviors and beliefs. That
was the kind of the goal of mk Ultra. And
the reason this started in nineteen fifty three is because
right at the end of World War II, especially after

(01:30:20):
the development of the atomic bomb, proximity fuses, radar science
was starting to be seen as integral, integral to national security.
And during the Korean War there were several American POWs
who were captured and they confess to things that they
didn't do. They confessed to conducting biological warfare against Korea,
dropping anthrax and typhus and cholera and bubonic plague. And

(01:30:43):
the question within the CIA was why are they confessing
to these false charges against them? And one concern was
that perhaps the Communists have developed some method of mind control,
whether it be hypnosis or drugs, and so if that
were possible, the CIA wanted to determine how can we
defend against that, or how can we offensively use something
like that. The mind control might be the next arms race,

(01:31:04):
and we want to stay ahead of the Communists. Therefore,
we're going to start this program mk Ultra to see
what we can do.

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
Yeah, And it seems like they really took this as
like an existential threat. You know, it kind of reminds
me actually a little bit of the way that our
government talks about AI now, where there's this sort of
like AI development race in the sense that whichever country
between US and China wins the AI race is going
to own the future and own the future of warfare
as well. So talk a little bit about how that
sort of existential mindset informed the extreme and wildly unethical

(01:31:36):
nature of the experiments, the human experiments that they conducted.

Speaker 10 (01:31:39):
Here pretty quickly within mk ULTRA, one of the main
drugs that they started using was LSD. It had been
discovered in nineteen thirty eight, but then really realized what
it was in nineteen forty three. So it was a
pretty new drug and extremely potent. And the existential part
especially came with LSD because it's such a powerful hallucinogen
and so such a finite dose can have such a

(01:32:01):
profound effect. They'll worry was that if some foreign power
wanted to dose a city's water supply, let's say, with LSD,
maybe they wouldn't need that much of it. And so
that was the concern about the existential threat and why
mk Ultra went to the links it did in many
cases to determine whether that would work. Some of the
things that mk Eltra was involved in was dosing unwitting

(01:32:22):
people with LSD to see how they would react. Again,
because if the Soviets, let's say, were to dose a
city with LSD, we want to know how to defend
against that and how to deal with people who have
been surreptitiously dosed with this drug. So Mkultra personnel like
Sidney Gottlieb, the head of the program, he would dose
unwitting people with LSD to monitor their behaviors to determine

(01:32:43):
what kind of effects this would have on them. This,
in several cases led to tragic consequences. The most famous
person whom this happened to was Frank Olsen, who was
dosed with LSD at a retreat with Sydney Gottlieb, and
he ended up kind of having a psychotic break. His
wife didn't understand what his mind state was after that,
and a few days later he jumps out of a
hotel window and dies.

Speaker 2 (01:33:05):
So are you of the opinion that he did jump
out of that window, because there is some dispute, including
from the family who had his body exhumed and further
analysis indicated he may have had blunt force trauma before
he ended up out of the window. And you know,
at the time, he wasn't just some random, unwitting subject.
He was one of them and knew a lot of

(01:33:25):
you know, the secrets of what they were doing, all
these you know, sensitive national security information. So I know
there's long been skepticism about the you know, the events
surrounding his death.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
Yes, there has been.

Speaker 10 (01:33:36):
In fact, Frank Olsen's own son, Eric Olsen, is one
of the main proponents of the idea that his father
was murdered by the CIA potentially because Frank Olsen was
involved in what was called the airborne distribution of pathogens.
How is it possible to create weapons that we can use,
you know, anthrax or germ bombs, and how is that
going to spread in the air. That's what Frank Olsen

(01:33:56):
was working on. And so Eric Olson and some others
who were up the opinion that he was murdered think
that maybe Frank Olsen started to have moral compunctions about
what he was doing and maybe he was going to
expose it, and so the CIA had to get him
out of the way, and so they threw him out
of this hotel window. I don't think that's the case.
In fact, you mentioned that they had his body exhumed
and analyzed to determine whether there was this blunt force trauma.

(01:34:19):
David Stars led that process, and he did determine that
he thought there might have been some blunt force trauma
before Frank Olson went out the window. However, there were
several people on Stars's team who negated that conclusion and
said that Stars was someone who kind of sought the
spotlight and made things a little bit more sensational than
we would have, and so we don't think that's the case.
In fact, they said they thought it was consistent with

(01:34:40):
his head hitting the window on the way out. So
I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that Frank Olson was murdered.
There are several other people who were victims of MK
ultra who had very similar symptoms to him. They've been
dosed unwittingly with LSD and they ended up in psychiatric
institutions for the rest of their life. So I think
it's more likely that he had that same kind of
psychotic break that several other people who are victims of

(01:35:01):
this did as well.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
So what was your motivation to write the book. Now,
I know there were newly discovered documents depositions that really
got to the heart of some of the inner thinkings
of people like Sidney GOTTLIEB. So talk about a little
bit of what's new on what you were able to
uncover here.

Speaker 10 (01:35:16):
Yeah, thank you, because that's the really exciting part of
this book is the fact that the basis for it
is these depositions I found as part of a lawsuit
in the nineteen eighties, there were several victims of mk
ultra who sued the CIA. That lawsuit was eventually settled
out of court, but as part of the lawsuit, the
lawyers representing the plaintiffs, Joseph Row James Turner, famous civil
rights attorneys, they took the depositions of dozens of people

(01:35:38):
who were involved in this case, dozens of the perpetrators
like Sidney gottlie Of, Robert Lashbrook, Richard Helms, the head
of the CIA, eventually and they took several depositions of
the victims of mk ultra. Since this lawsuit was settled
out of court, the depositions just kind of stayed in
the papers of Joseph Row until he passed away, and
those were donated to the Library of Congress, and I
was rooting around in there and I happened to find

(01:35:59):
these depositions, thousands of pages of verbatim transcript of him
asking the perpetrators and victims of MK Ultra what they did,
what they went through. So it's so exciting for a
historian because I can actually use dialogue now because I
have dialogue between these attorneys and these depponents. And usually
in fiction you get to invent dialogue. In history, you

(01:36:20):
don't invent dialogue, and so you can't really have that
exciting part of getting into the heads of the characters
as well. But now with these depositions, that's exactly what
I have. So that was one of the main catalysts
for wanting to write this book. I had so many
great verbatim transcripts, thousands of pages. In fact, Sidney Gottlieb's
transcripts of his depositions run to over eight hundred pages alone,
So I have eight hundred pages of him talking about

(01:36:42):
exactly what he did.

Speaker 2 (01:36:43):
What do you think is the cultural legacy of MK Ultra?
And I mean, I just was thinking about I know
this is something you've thought about as well. There's a
lot of wild conspiracy theories out there at this particulars.
I think this happens anytime there's sort of a breakdown
and institutional trust. So when you look back at our
own history and you look at the government doing things
like this, it's like, oh, well, I mean, you can't

(01:37:05):
put anything past them. They'll do wild, you know, mind
control experiments to try to create assassin animals, and you know,
and try to mind control random unwitting subjects. You know,
prostitutes dosing their clients and even some of their own,
you know, specialists getting unwittingly dosed, et cetera. So it's

(01:37:27):
hard to put anything past them when you have such
an incredibly wild and proven conspiracy that is lurking in
the background.

Speaker 10 (01:37:35):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's such a good point
because mk Ultra really opens the door for a lot
of conspiracy theorists to latch onto it for a few
reasons and to say, oh, well, if the CIA was
doing something so crazy in the past and so patently unethical.
In fact, the CIA's own Inspector General in nineteen sixty
three said that this was illegal and unethical. So that's

(01:37:55):
coming from the CIA itself. So the fact that the
CIA did something like that, it leads the conspiracy theorists
to say, if they did that, what else must they
be doing today? And there are a few reasons why
m k Ultra in particular is suited towards this kind
of conspiratorial thinking. One reason, like you just mentioned, is
because it is just so absurd that it opens the
door for any possibilities. The other is because in nineteen

(01:38:17):
seventy three, Sidney Gottlieb, the head of this program, he
retired from the CIA, as well as Richard Helms, the
Director of Central Intelligence, and they decided when they retired
to destroy the mk ultra files, at least most of them.
They didn't get all of them. There were thousands of
pages that still survived. But the act of that destruction,
the fact that they incinerated these files, really opened a
Pandora's box because now anyone can say, well, we can't

(01:38:39):
know exactly what mk ultra was in total, because we
don't have those files. Therefore, maybe they were doing this,
or maybe they were doing that. The fact that we
don't have those files really opens the Pandora box for
anyone filling in the record with their wildest imagination, and
that has led a lot of conspiracy theorists to argue that, well,
maybe mk Ultra was involved in traffic king children, or

(01:39:01):
maybe it was controlling celebrities like Britney Spears. Now that
the Pandora's box is open, because those files are destroyed,
anyone can say anything about the program. However, I don't
think that's a great mode of argument because it's kind
of ironic. But we almost know more about mk Ultra
than almost any other secret project. It seems counterintuitive because
a lot of these files were destroyed, but we have

(01:39:22):
so many files and sources on mk ULTRA. We have
thousands that actually survived. We have the memoirs and interviews
of people who were involved in this. We have thousands
of pages of depositions that I found. We have institutional
records that have been released since, we have government reports.
We have the Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, Pike Committees, these
congressional and executive committees that were set up in nineteen

(01:39:43):
seventy four and five to investigate these past abuses. So
we have so much material about mk ULTRA. I actually
think that we can know a good deal of what
it was, and even better, we can know so much
about it that we can know what it wasn't, and
it wasn't something that trafficked and child sex slaves or
whatever the conspiracy theorists are saying.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
And tell people where they can find the book.

Speaker 10 (01:40:02):
I think you can find it in bookstores wherever you know,
hopefully at any good bookstore it'll be there. You can
find it online, and I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 2 (01:40:11):
Thanks, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for taking
the time to join us. All right, guys that we'll
do it for me here today. Thanks again to day
Smith for hanging out with me today. Enjoyed that and
hearing his thoughts on all the things. Emily and Ryan
will be in for the non counterpoints. Counterpoints tomorrow and
I'll be back with Ryan on Thursday. Until then, have
a great day.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}5/20/25: Trump Bailing On Ukraine, Dave Smith Vs Ben Shapiro, Epstein, MKUltra CIA Secrets & MORE!

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

All Episodes

5/20/25: Trump Bailing On Ukraine, Dave Smith Vs Ben Shapiro, Epstein, MKUltra CIA Secrets & MORE!

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial