6/27/25: Hegseth Meltdown On Iran, Gaza Ceasefire, Zohran & MORE!

Krystal and Emily discuss Pete Hegseth melting down on Iran nuclear strikes, possible Gaza deal amid aid attacks, Zohran on CNN & MORE!


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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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 (00:30):
Good morning, everybody, Happy Friday, A little ladies Friday show
for everyone. How's it going, Emily, It's going great. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
I don't know what's up with the guys.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
They'd been working hard.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
We'll give it that.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
We'll give them that.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, I mean, Ryan Griffin, we're both in New York.
I mean, you know a lot going.

Speaker 5 (00:49):
There's a one hundred degrees.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I am seriously, I don't know how you do in
that weather. I just am not cut out for it.
I will take a delicate flower.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Hey, but you're a Virginians, so you should be used
to it.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I know, but I don't. I just can't. I don't know.
There's something about the way I'm I'm put together that
it just doesn't go that well. And I'm really and
I'm a really sweaty person, like oh nice, oh I sweat,
so it's disgusting. So yeah, I was very glad when
I saw that situation because I was tempted to be
jealous that they were the Zoran watch Party because that

(01:23):
the like the energy seems super fun. But then I
remembered it was like one hundred degrees and it was like, no,
it's better for me to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
So now I wish that I had seen you watch party,
because you're making it sound like this like freakish, like
there's some genetic anomaly in your.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
It borders it borders on freaquish, freakish. You have to
be honest with you. I don't know if there's any
other swimmers out there, but the many of the sweatiest
women that I know are swimmers, so I don't know
if there's something about like all that time in the pool. Anyway,
this is way too much too much information for a friend.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
I know, it is but I'm okay with it.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
In any case, there's a lot to get to. We've
got updates on Iran. We'll do play some clips from
the little Pete heag Seth performance yesterday that was kind
of interesting. And we've got new potential deal with Iran,
new potential deal with Israel. Also some horrifying reporting from
Haretz about this won't necessarily come as a surprise, but
they actually got soldiers to confess that the AID massacres

(02:18):
are intentional, that they know these are innocent people that
they're sluttering as a matter of course. So talk about
that bunch of stuff going on with Zoran Richie Torrez
defending him, some Republican congressman saying he should be denaturalized
and deported. You've got a bunch of Democratic leaders who
are you know at Krek, Kirsten Gillibrand just like aggressively

(02:40):
racistly attacking him, Kathy Hochel sort of I guess, keeping
her options open. It's like, y'all, this is the Democratic nominee.
Voters chose him, So what happened to the whole vote?

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Blue?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
No matter who?

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Thing?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Zoren also was on CNN, so interesting clips there, so
a bunch of stuff going on there. Donors are plotting
to try to see what they can do to, you know,
overcome this horrifying communist Muslim takeover of New York City
that they're apparently terrified of. We've also got the Jeff
Bezos wedding that you were interested in chatting about, so
we got that. We also have Peter Teal getting asked

(03:14):
if he's anti christ by Rosstatat of course, and it's
sort of like yeah, and him, it's like sort of
awkwardly contemplating whether that could be the case for a moment,
so that.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
On the New York Times podcast. I mean, where else
should you be contemplating such things? But on the podcast
why not?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah? I mean I have Ross in a certain sense
kind of the perfect person to ask this question. Right.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
You've also neglected to tease that we have a wonderful
Eric Adams Club. It's not the best Eric Adams clip,
but it's a good Eric Adams clip.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I mean, the competition is so it's so stiff that.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
He's now he's now in competition with Lori Lightfoot for
like Greatest Blue Mayor.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Like it's oh, he's in terms of the content there
he has no, there's no comparison. You know that the
searching of the child's room video is legendary, Like, you
can't beat that. And then the sum up the year
in one word New York because you can see someone
opening a business or the planes flying into the town. Like,

(04:20):
you can't beat this guy in terms of content. You
can't beat him.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Sorry, you're cooked.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, I mean your helal cart video was great, zoron,
but I'm sorry. You just you can't compete with that
kind of that kind of inspired content creation truly.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Can't come for the king.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's right, Yeah, that's right, all right. So let's go
ahead and jump in with some of what's going on
with this Pete Hegseth presser yesterday. Should we start with
him raging at his former colleagues or should we start
with his uh dictating that the media needs to talk
more about how how you know good our fighter pilots are?
Which one do you prefer?

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Both are good? Maybe we shoul start at the fighter
pilots because the Jennifer Griffin clip gets us into that
question of what the intelligence actually says.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yes, very true, all right, let me get rid of
my dms here, let me slow down to one point
zero speed. All right, I think we're ready to go.
Here is Pete Hegsath yesterday. And this whole purpose of
this briefing was to rebut the idea that the nuclear
program in Iran was not completely obliterated and to insist
that it was, and mostly to berate the media, I

(05:27):
think was the true purpose of it. So let's go
ahead and take a.

Speaker 5 (05:29):
Listen to this.

Speaker 6 (05:30):
How many stories have been written about how hard it
is to, I don't know, fly a plane for thirty
six hours?

Speaker 5 (05:36):
Has MSNBC done that story? As Fox?

Speaker 6 (05:39):
Have we done the story how hard that is? Have
we done it two or three times? So that American
people understand, How about how difficult it is to shoot
a drone from an F fifteen or sixteen or F
twenty two or F thirty five, or what it's like
to man a Patriot battery, or how hard it is
to refuel mid air, giving the American people an understanding
of how complex.

Speaker 5 (05:57):
And sophisticated this mission really was.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
There are so many aspects of what our brave men
and women did.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
That because of the hatred of this press, corps.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
Are undermined, because your people are trying to leak and
spin that it wasn't successful.

Speaker 5 (06:13):
It's irresponsible, and folks in this.

Speaker 6 (06:17):
Room are privy to that information because of the proximity
here in the Pentagon.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
It's an important responsibility.

Speaker 6 (06:23):
And time and time again, classified information is leaked.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
Or pedaled for political purposes to try to make the
president look bad.

Speaker 6 (06:30):
And what's really happening is you're undermining the success of
incredible B two pilots and incredible F thirty five pilots,
and incredible refuelers and incredible air defenders who accomplish their
mission set back a nuclear program in ways that other
presidents would have dreamed.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
How about so Emily, there's a lot going on here,
but it reminds me so much of the attacks that
those of us who were against the Iraq war received
back in the days, in the day of like, oh,
if you don't support this war, then you hate the troops,
You hate the troops, you hate America, you're unpatriotic. And
so here he is saying, like, you know, what the

(07:09):
media really needs to cover is how difficult these missions are.
I don't doubt that's the case. But it also gets
into this is the other part of this is one
of many things that are driven me crazy about the
way that the administration is talking about this is they
act like it's something special for an American president to
be able to drop bombs on a place, and that's
actually the easiest thing in the world to do. The

(07:31):
hard thing, apparently based on you know, the experience of
our lifetimes is to not drop bombs and to get
us out of conflicts rather than get us into conflicts.
So what did you make of Pete Haggs's little performance here?

Speaker 3 (07:44):
He sort of reminded me of like my basketball coach, like,
how many of you have thanked the point guard for.

Speaker 5 (07:54):
All these rebounds?

Speaker 3 (07:55):
How many of you have done that two times, three times?
It was just like, you know, from their perspective, to
be honest, it's politically smart right to go out there
create this spectacle. And I feel like they're starting to
do this more to stage the spectacle where you have

(08:16):
a TV performer like Pete hegseth absolutely laying into the
media over something. The kernel here is legitimate. Someone leaked
part of an intelligence report and we're about to get
into that to CNN and the New York Times, And
it was something that said the administration strike was not successful.

(08:37):
Now I'm curious whether these reporters, these Pentagon reporters, allow
themselves to be used as props in these spectacles going forward,
because that's basically what they were. That's it.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
But Emily, you also have to say, like, I think
there's two things going on here. Number One, I don't
doubt that whoever leaks this information wants us to get
back into the lore. I don't doubt that that's the case, probably,
But I also don't doubt that the information was accurate
because we now have corroborating information from other sources that say, yeah,
the enricheranium is probably removed, Yeah, it was not really

(09:11):
completely obliterated. In fact, even the things this administration has
put out has not say that, it said that it's
been completely obliterated. So, yes, you have a motivated actor
in putting out this leak, but the information is also accurate.
So if you're a journalist, oh, you have a response,
you have a response. It's not the journalists fault, Like
you have a responsibility to put out information that is
accurate and will help people understand the fact that the

(09:34):
truth of the matter is. Trump wants to claim a
victory and Okay, if that's going to let him not
go back to this war, which by the way, I'm
still skeptical about whatever, but it is probably a lie.
And you know, so they want to attack the media
over presenting what is in all likelihood accurate but yes,
motivated information. But almost every leak, whether it's from within

(09:56):
the government or from a source or whatever, it's very
common that it will be a motivated leak to try
to achieve some information, and you know, one way or another.
So if you're as a journalist not going to publish that,
then you're picking and choosing what information the American public
is allowed to have access to.

Speaker 5 (10:15):
Oh totally.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
And it's interesting to see Pete Hegseth in this situation
because to your point, and any Trump administration official in
this situation, because to your point, this is the administration
that campaigned on being anti war and the peace president
or the President for peace, however they phrase it. And
they now find themselves saying that the Pentagon Press Corps

(10:38):
is insufficiently patriotic, which is amusing because the Pentagon Press Corps,
I think crystal notoriously is like intertwined with the I
don't know what was the best way, but like the
military industrial complex and is eager to sell stories about
how incredible these planes are, how incredible the you know,

(11:01):
new munitions are, and like it. It's so to see
the Trump administration then come in and say you're not
selling this war enough after I mean, it's just it's
a kind of an interesting like she was on the
other foot moment, And I do have a lot of
thoughts on the intelligence itself. I think I totally agree
with you. So we should probably roll the Jennifer Griffin
clip because that gets into what the administration is actually

(11:23):
saying happened.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, indeed, all right, let's take a listen to this.

Speaker 7 (11:27):
It's about highly enriched uranium. Do you have certainty that
all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Four Dome
Mountain or some of it? Because there were satellite photos
that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days
in advance. Are you certain none of that highly enriched
uranium was moved?

Speaker 5 (11:45):
Of course, we're watching every single aspect.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Before he answers ys, let me just say that is
a totally legitimate question, and part of what the intel
that was leaked said is that and there were satellite
images of like trucks lined up to move the in richeranium,
and there have been other assessments as well that indicate
probably most of the highly in richeranium stockpile was moved.
So this is the most basic, obvious, like legitimate question

(12:10):
you could possibly ask. So let's see how Pete Hegseth
responds to this perfectly legitimate, fair question being asked by
his former colleague.

Speaker 6 (12:19):
But Jennifer, you've been about the worst, the one who
misrepresents the most intentionally what the president says.

Speaker 7 (12:29):
I'm familiar the ventilations chefs on Saturday night, and in fact,
I was the first to describe the B two bombers,
the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy. So I
take issue with that.

Speaker 6 (12:43):
I appreciate you acknowledging that this was the first, the
most successful mission based on operational security that this department
has done since you've been here, and I appreciate that.
So we're looking at all aspects of intelligence and making
sure we have a sense of what was where.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
So she says, I did your bullshit propaganda, bro, Like,
why are you coming at me? But she has also
accurately reported on you know, some of the things he
doesn't want to be put out there, and so he
you know, he takes this moment to attack her as
quote unquote one of the worst.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, it's not surprising at all because everyone at well
everyone in like Trump world already doesn't like Jennifer Griffin
because she does do a lot of the propaganda to
the point that you just made Crystal and Tucker Carlson
has since reacted by calling Jennifer Griffin a liberal. I
think it's probably true that she's like anti Trump. I

(13:39):
don't know if she's like conservative or liberal, but she's
definitely sort of like pro military industrial complex and anti Trump.
So it was like, and Heike Seth has attacked her before,
so it was like he was ready to just unload
this years of resentment from working at Fox towards Jennifer Griffin.
Interesting that her voice sounded like it was shaking a

(14:01):
little bit, like she was she was rattled and genuinely
very angry. Totally totally fair. You are being dressed down
on a Actually the question that she asked him, and
this is how we queued up the video is completely, completely,
completely legitimate. There were reports, obviously that trucks were moving

(14:24):
away from the facility facility in the days before the strikes,
and actually, if you I mean, there are a couple
of ways that that could that could be a that
could have been a deterrent and attempted to turrent to
say like Trump, don't bomb for dough because we already
moved everything. Or it could be legitimate, it could be real,
and the administration is using two lines. They're saying total

(14:48):
obliteration and severely damaged. There's daylight between those. There's actually
a lot of daylight between those. So she actually was
not asking a bad question, but it.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Seems like, yeah, and this is the European assessment says
Aron's uranium is largely intact. So yeah, it's you know,
I mean, it's a pretty key question when you're thinking about, okay,
well did you actually set them back and how much
did you set them back by? This is you know,
a core piece of this. And you have multiple assessments,
including the one our own that was leaked to you know,

(15:21):
New York Times among other places that says and CNN
that says, no, the uranium stockpile is largely intact. So
you know, I mean, which understores Listen again, if they
want to pretend that you know, it's completely obliterated, and
if that helps prevent us from getting into a war
with Iran, okay, But it also underscores emily how stupid

(15:42):
and pointless and risky this whole mission was and how
ultimately counterproductive. Like if your goal was to actually set
them back and make it impossible for them to develop
nuclear weapon, there's no doubt that they that failed, like
you have made it much more likely that they will

(16:03):
rapidly pursue a nuclear weapon. The thing that had the
chance to succeed was the negotiations that you yourselves blew up.
So I think it is actually important for people to
understand that no, not, actually nothing was accomplished by dropping
these bombs. In fact, you have set back your own
stated goals of preventing around developing nuclear weapon, not to

(16:27):
mention that you have also set back the overall global
goal of non proliferation, because other countries will be looking
and assessing what happened in Libya, what happened here, you
know what happened and what happened in Ukraine. Even and
the fact that we don't mess with North Korea and
we're fearful to get involved in a direct fight against Russia,

(16:49):
and they will logically come to the conclusion that the
only thing that can keep the US and Israel from
completely fucking with you and trying to destroy your country
is by developing a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
The administration is in I mean, this is why I
think they put together that spectacle, because they need answers
for what actually happened. And they keep saying that that
initial report which was leaked was low confidence, and they've
been using another word that illuse me at the moment,
but it's a preliminary low confidence report, and that means

(17:24):
they now have to convince the public that the strike
was absolutely successful, but they don't actually seem to know.
They don't actually seem to have the intelligence yet. And
it seems crystal from all of the points you just
laid out, there is a non zero chance that the
Jennifer Griffin report, in this case, which likely was leaked

(17:44):
by somebody who wants more action in Iran, she was
reporting that it was set back by quote one to
two months, and that's similar to The Times and to CNN.
So that's why it's really getting under their skin because
it undercuts the entire higher premise of what they did,
and that's why, to your point, it was always really risky.

(18:05):
So they need to they really need to come up
with answers. I don't think it's impossible that the program
was set back years. I don't think it was impossible
that it was set back one to two months, but
they haven't produced the intelligence yet to suggest that it
was longer than one to two months.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
That's right. Yeah, just a couple more things on this topic.
So we now have reporting that the White House is
going to limit intelligence sharing with Congress. They are trying
to blame Democrats for this leak possible, I don't know.
I don't know how much access Democrats had to this
intelligence to begin with. They also are additional sidelining Tulsi

(18:44):
to a greater extent, apparently than she already was, So
they planned to limit classified intelligence sharing with Congress after
leaks amid a political battle over what the intelligence shows.
White Houses expected to send four of its top national
security officials to brief lawmakers Pete hag Seth, Marco Rubio,
John Ratcliffe, and General Dan Caine that he's the chair
of the Joint chiefs of Staff. You will note who

(19:04):
is not there. The Director of National Intelligence. That would
be Tulsi Gabbard. It says she testified March that US
intelligence agencies assessed a Run was not building a nuclear weapon,
and she will be notably absent. According to the senior
Trump administration official, Ratcliffe will represent the intelligence community. The
media is turning this into something it's not emily, so

(19:27):
that is their line on that, any thought, any thoughts
on that report and on the you know, the sidelining
of Tulci Gabbard, which is significant at a time when
they're claiming also that they're following more of her what
she would want to see, right since they are claiming
that this is, you know, the end of the war
and the ceasefire will last forever and ever and peace
will reign for all time, I don't know why you

(19:48):
need to sideline, you know, one of your most prominent
sort of anti interventionist voices.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
That's a good point. I you know, simultaneously love and
hate these types of news cycles where you know that
it's a matter of years until you find out what's
actually going on behind the scenes because people just flatly
will not talk about it about like the personnel conflicts
with Tulsa Gabbard, which could be minor, could be major.

(20:16):
She could be significantly pushing back, she could be not
pushing back at all, But we don't really know right now.
We just have to put together the pieces from reports,
from what they're saying publicly, like Tulsa Gabbard coming out
and putting that post up that said her presentation of
the intelligence was being misconstrued and you know, taken out

(20:39):
of context by the media ahead of the strike. That
was quite an interesting moment. And it's came the week
after she put out that cryptic video about her what
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So it seems that, you know, there's
something serious brewing, but I don't know how serious it

(21:01):
is behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, and she you know, it could be the case too,
that she just like annoyed Trump, right because she sort
of stepped out from the you know, she she freelanced
with that video and that pissed him off, and so
now she's just sort of like out of the in
circle because certainly publicly she's been pulling the administration's line
on everything and backing Trump up and claiming she didn't

(21:24):
say the things that she said, et cetera. But it
could just be he's sort of irritated with her on
a personal level because she, you know, grabbed the spotlight
in a way that was not sanctioned by him. We've
actually got Dave Weigel standing by to talk about Zoron,
which I'm excited about hearing, you know, to hear from
Dave about what he's seeing inside of the Democratic Party

(21:45):
and efforts to stop Zoron in the general election. But first,
just let me just mention this. So there is reporting
from CNN the Trump administration has discussed a new potential
Iran deal helping them access as much as thirty billion
dollars to build a civilian energy producing nuclear program, easing sanctions,
freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds, all

(22:05):
part of an intensifying attempt to bring Tehran back to
the negotiating table. For sources familiar with the matter said,
and you know, listen, who knows what they really are
aiming for here? Who knows if these new gestures towards
diploma diplomacy are legitimate or part of some new ruse.
But it's clear that if you're the Iranians like you're

(22:29):
not going to trust these people there's no way you're
going to trust these people. And so even the framing
here that they would have to offer all of these
things in advance in order to get them back to
the negotiating table where they previously were, and there were, like,
you know, indications that it was fairly close to being
able to make a deal if the Trump administration didn't
have this hardline zero enrichment policy. It shows you that

(22:50):
again in terms of their stated goals, the military action
set them back from being able to achieve some sort
of diplomatic and may have made such a thing completely impossible.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
And that gets again to the question of what the
intelligence actually is, because if Iran is coming to the
table with no nuclear weapons or well not weapons but
no nuclear capacity and no highly enriched uranium or no
ability to quickly enrich uranium, then they're in a different
spot at the negotiating table. So it's just we don't
know right now, and I don't know that the Trump

(23:25):
administration knows right now because they don't have full intelligence yet.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
All right, well, let's go ahead and jump to Zoron.
Since we've got Weigel waiting, let me go ahead and
welcome him in. Hey, Dave, Weigel. How's it going.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
That's good, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, no problem, you hear, It's okay, and all that
good stuff I do. Yeah, excellent. So curious to get
your thoughts first of all, before I planning elements or whatever.
I mean, what is just your sort of takeaway of
the significance of Zoran's win and decisive victory over Andrew
Cuomo in this week's Democrat A primary for New York
City mayor.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
I don't you want to argue with the hyperbole. Often
people overrate. I think there's an overrating of what this
means for every Democrat everywhere. For what it means in
New York, this city has been Democrats have been voting
for progressive candidates people they thought for progressive candidates for
a while, since twenty thirteen, build a Blasio. But the
amount of things Zorn did and said that the media

(24:27):
establishment said we're disqualifying, and the voters didn't care about
that was fascinating. So the idea that New York Democrats say,
we're tired of austerity and we don't need it right now.

Speaker 7 (24:39):
And we.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
That I think was intensified because Trump was president and
Zorn's strategy was always see where the puck is moving.
Don't just run a twenty twenty two campaign where you're
going to apologize for their being crime. Run on affordability,
run on housing. That made sense, But the degree to
which he got more votes than Eric Adams did in

(25:01):
the final round of voting last time, he got more
votes than I think anyone who's won this primary since
David Dinkins in eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
This Yeah, And you know New York's population has grown
a bit, but the Democratic Democratic electorates has dipped. Sometimes.
They just didn't the idea that he was going to
be disqualified by being a socialist or criticizing Israel in
the ways that he was happy to do, or having
tweeted about defunding the police. That was significant, just that
he was not disqualified, That Guomo was disqualified. There are

(25:30):
so many elements to this, but just the reason he
was covered to somebody who was interesting but probably not
going to win those merits and re examination. A lot
of New Yorkers said, no, I'm fine with it. I'm
fine with everything else he's saying, because I went to
my city to be more affordable.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Right, And the question now is whether that extends beyond
the Democratic primary, we have this video. Ken Clippenstein posted
that we'll get your reaction to Dave of Zoran going
on CNN with Burnette. Much more of this to come, surely,
but let me go ahead and play this video and

(26:08):
get your reactions of capitalism.

Speaker 8 (26:10):
And I think ultimately the definition for me of why
I call myself a democratic socialist is the words of
doctor King decades ago. He said, call it democracy or
call it democratic socialism. There must be a better distribution
of wealth for all of God's children in this country.
And that's what I'm focused on, is dignity and taking
on income inequality.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
Do you like capitalism?

Speaker 8 (26:31):
No, I have many critiques of capitalism, and I think
ultimately the definition Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Okay, he's going to get this NonStop from now until November. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
And also but look at LOOKU won the financial district.
It's not that everyone who works in financially they live,
they live, they live in fancier places people who work
in financial districts. But yeah, this was not an athema,
This was not just qualifying for people. And I mean
trying not to just recapitulate the last fifteen years of
politics Plicans. No, Republicans who are now attacking him. They

(27:02):
know that there's just a collapse of faith in every institution,
uh even even theirs, even the even even the ones
that they control right now. But being the party side
of Donald Trump win and down Trump win by saying
I'm going to protect Wall Street. I love capitalism, he didn't.
It's assumed he loves capitalism and say he hates it
is he's a critic. But the idea of a rig

(27:24):
of a rig system, there have been different ways to
talk about that. We've had ten years now at Bernie
Sanders talking about it his way. We've had ten years
of polls. Now, Bernie has never been a general election
where he could beat him up with a billion dollars
of ads. But but Poles saying, yeah, the guy who
says as a socialist need and he thinks banks are
destroyed or screwing us, and healthcare companies screwing us, I
agree with that guy. There's just so much overlap. Joe

(27:45):
Rogan's very helpful here, but shows like this personify this.
And so when I hear the Bill Lackman's of the World,
you shudder at that and say, well, this is going
to make capital flee from from the city. Look, there
are other externalities there but you but there are there
are Trump voters. There are people who vote who voted
against Harris for Trump, I should say, in New York
who voted for Mom Donnie. And it's in that delta

(28:07):
is those people who say, yeah, all the systems are rigged.
And Eric Adams, who a lot of them probably also
voted for, seemed like he was bowing down to donors,
cutting services, reversing promises he made when people gave him money.
If you say you're against that, even if you say
you don't love capitalism, again, I'm pretty easy for a
lot of people to swallow.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, so let's talk about some of the scrambling you mentioned,
Bill Ackman that's happening right now behind the scenes to
try to you know, for anyone but zoron effort for
this fall. And let's also keep in mind Eric Adams
has a twenty percent approval rating in New York City.
That is the lowest for any New York City mayor
as long as they've been doing polling, and well earned

(28:48):
because he is a sort of cartoonishly corrupt, likely criminal mayor.
The number of people who were like indicted or resigned
from his administration in shame. I've completely lost track of
at this point, he only is able to get out
of his charges by appearing to make some directly corrupt
deal with the Trump administration. Not exactly beloved within New
York City. And yet now you have business leaders who

(29:10):
are like, uh, maybe we've got to just stick with
Eric Adams. Cuomo was also now said he's sort of
waiting to see he's going to keep his ballot line
and wait to see whether he actively competes in the fall.
But you've got this New York Times report about Eric
Adams meeting with business leaders who are desperate to stop
mom Donnie's rise. Mentioned in here is you've got the

(29:33):
Polymarket CEO in here, among others. Uh so, what do
you know, Dave, about the sort of efforts that are
going on with these business leaders to try to figure
out some anyone but Zoron kind of a strategy.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
You summed it up pretty well. They're they're flopping around,
They're not they're not quite sure what to do. They're
they're looking for some diotix mac gonna that that will
prevent him. You even have Andy Ogle's the trollish congressman
from Nashville. I wonder if there's some way to board him.
There was a panic because they know that, Yes, it.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Was so aggressive that it caused even Richie Torres to
defend Zoron.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
No totally tell him how out there that was. Yeah,
absolutely absolutely, and I do I wonder for them that's
going to backfire. But what they're what they're doing right
now is honestly, again, people forget that a Blasio reaction
a different, different climate. But if you go back and
read the coverage whin to Blasio won the primary in
twenty thirteen because he won a large part running and

(30:30):
stopping frisk, there was a lot of the same editorializing
it was New York is going to implode, crime is
going to surge, the wealthy are going to leave the city,
and Mom Donnie other parts of that scene and interview
which I watched yesterday, he says, one, there's data that
says most people who are leaving New York are actually
working class people who can't afford it. And two they

(30:51):
say this all the time, and the other just to say,
Mom Donnie's premise and this is the thing that to
be fair to actman if I want to. He just
doesn't believe Mondanni's premise. And I interviewed him a few
weeks ago about this is you need to prove that
you vote for progressive you pay taxes and things get better,
and people have not been doing that. Every Democrat agrees
like there's has been this overlap between the as reclined

(31:13):
abundance people and this are on people, whether I've like
it or not, because that's where they agree. They want
Republicans to not win elections, and they worry when Democrats
win and screw up their Republicans win. So this is
where the Adams theory is not very compelling. He's saying
that the city has improved since he got elected, and
it has in some ways. Crime is down, but it

(31:34):
got more expensive. He has no answer for how it
got more expensive. It's is the same position Kamala Harris
is in last year and the Mandanni. It's very well
put up put by him. I have to I praised
him too much, but I interviewed him. He says it everywhere.
It's he looks at Bernie Sanders and Burlington or progressive
mayors in other cities.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
They have it.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
All the successes who raise some taxes and then suddenly
you're seeing more public transit, you're seeing better services. Is
if you gave an actman the chance to pay her
taxes and he never had to be not that he
takes a subway, but see homeless people sleeping on the subway,
would he take it. It's a quality of life thing

(32:15):
that mont Donnie's running on. These folks were talking about,
don't believe because they have a vision that socialists are
just going to direct the economy and everyone's gonna be
on the streets. This is their view of what happened
in San Francisco. I get that, but the Mount Donnie
premise is, you know, we're going to raise taxes and
improve things to everybody. When congestion pricing, I'm not trying
to swerve too much, but talking to people when I
was in New York covering this race, they're saying, that's

(32:36):
an example. It's a tax. It has made more people
go in public transit. That's been fine. There have not
been a crisis. It's not really been working class people
use who are changing their habits. That's been well. For
people who are no longer driving into the city. They progressive.
If there are anything, but please vote for us because
Republicans screwed up. They need to be the party that

(32:58):
can win and govern well and will include raising taxes
on people. That that is the premise. They just don't
buy it because every in their mind, every liberal city
is San Francisco, but some liberal cities are Boston. Some
cities are able to do this a lot better.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Yeah, I think Mayor Wilhelm does also loom large over
this because and I but I also sense that mom
Donnie is aware of that because as he has his
communications director told us on election night that it's really
important for them to talk about tangibles and deliverables instead
of values are actually Mom Donnie told us instead of

(33:34):
values and ideas, And that juxtaposition that like it has
to be about it sort of reminds me what you're
saying on the abundance front. It's like about putting things
in front of people and making the social compact like
more obvious so that it doesn't look like somebody's just
talking about the police being racist and then crime goes up.

(33:55):
You want people talking about the city being too expensive
and having the rent go down or their rent be
frozen or something like that. It just seems that he's
actually sort of very aware of that dynamic too.

Speaker 6 (34:07):
He is.

Speaker 4 (34:08):
And there are people we have been talking about who
view this a different way because the left is pretty
global and it's thinking, as you guys know, the right,
here's socialism, it thinks pulpot and the left says, here's socialism,
it thinks like Oslo or Stockholm or Copenhagen or something.
And what you've seen in the last forty eight hours

(34:28):
is other elements of the right not even going beyond
what Ackman's saying and saying. This is Charlie Kirsch, this
is Matt Walsh, this is Ogels to an extent, saying well,
this is what happens when you let in immigrants and
they turned the city into a Third world hellhole. And
their premise is that is going beyond the economic argument
and saying that, well, pluralism and mass immigration doesn't work,

(34:48):
and he's going to be the mayor of mass immigration
that'll wreck the city. He wants to bring his anti
colonial values from Uganda and India and wreck the cunt tree.
I've noticed. I bring that up not because Acman's saying that,
it's because there really is this cacophony of reasons not
to trust Mom Dannie. And you've seen also this comparison

(35:09):
to London, which is very popular JD Vans who made
this joke, I think just once, but you've seen the
clip a bunch of times saying you know, what's what's
the first Islamist nuclear power going to be? It might
be the UK because there are all these Muslims living
living in the UK living, and there's a Muslim mare
of London. But again I've I've been London fairly recently.

(35:30):
There are things that could improve, but people pay a
lot to live there. It has congestion pricing, it has
some homelessness, it has a lot of things where if
you copied them in American City, you'd say that's working
really well and it's worth paying for all that. So
that is that is the challenge is part of you're right,
the Deblaso experience looms. But the first term in Deblasio
people were pretty happy with it was the criminal defist

(35:53):
perform movement and the other big topics that you put
into it. But the intersection of crimindust reform happening just
when COVID happened, how much of the rising crime was
people shutting down and social cohesion breaking down? How much
of it with bail reform and things like that. Yeah,
Tom Dundee, and I did not run on his twenty
twenty positions about defunding the police. He said that he's

(36:17):
just going to hire more people to make the city
safer without fighting with the end of NYPD, without shrinking it.
That is important too. I want to see how that
is litigated because right now there is Democrats who's like
Cursey jail Brand, who have not endorsed him yet are
saying they want to talk to him, and I, honestly
I have an open mind about that. I want to

(36:38):
see as he does these interviews. He's very accessible. What
he says he might tack in if he no longer says, hey,
I'm going to I'm going to be there and we're
actually not going to touch the NYPD, We're just going
to hire more public safety officials. Is that offensive to
Bill Ackman? Do they not trust it? Because that's actually
what's been happening in places like Philadelphia and Boston Standy
eggobs obviously places where Democrats run things, but you don't

(37:00):
care nightmare stories about how scary they are.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, I mean Bill Ackman and the CNBC crew. There's
nothing that Zoron is going to say that's going to
satisfy you know. I mean Akman has the twin concerns
of like, oh my god, he's an anti Semiti and
it's going to be sure Rea law and also that
you know, God forbid that people get taxed a little
bit more and buses are free, you know, like he has.
And there's no amount of assuaging of those types that

(37:27):
is going to ultimately satisfy them. And I don't even
know that that would benefit Zoron because the fact of
their freak count, in my opinion, benefits him. It proves
that he's uncomfortable for them. But you brought up Kirston Jilbrand.
I want to get your reacting. I'm sure you listen
to her on this radio show. I'm just going to
play a piece of it because it's like six minutes long,
but you'll get a sense. So a caller calls into
Brian Lair's radio show and is asking about, you know,

(37:49):
oh my god, isn't Zoron antisemitic? And what's your response
to this? And Center Kirsten Gillibrand is on the show,
and interestingly, Larr is actually trying to someone defends. Zoron,
who he spoke with, had asked some of these questions too,
and the specific thing they start getting hung up on
was Zorn's explanation of why he won't condemn the phrase
globalize the into fada, and I'm going to pick up

(38:11):
here you can hear. I think this part that I'm
about to press play on is where Lair is trying
to say, you know, I uh, I understand, this is
why people are concerned, but this is also something that
he hasn't himself personally said. So let me go ahead
and see if we can start this here.

Speaker 9 (38:32):
Then he has supported or has supported violenceihawk, As that
caller was asserted, can you.

Speaker 10 (38:43):
Again, Brian, I don't have all the data information, and
I've never sat down with mister mom Donnie, so I've
asked to have that meeting. I'm going to have that meeting.
We will talk through all these things. He can tell
me his views of the world and I can learn
them firsthand. I think the reference that I had read
with global intofada specifically, which is has very serious meetings
that are violent and destructive.

Speaker 9 (39:03):
So it's which he says, and I pressed him on
this on the show on Monday, but which he says
are not calls for violence because into fada is a
much broader term involved in all kinds of uprisings and
resistance and things like that. So I just want to
be clear about how, at least he defines it, and
maybe he needs to be more clear. I don't mean this.

(39:23):
I don't mean that. He did say here that he
didn't want to be the word police, even as the
mayor of New York if he's elected. But I do
also want to be clear, and he said he does
not support violent into fada. Is that there?

Speaker 10 (39:35):
So, Brian, I didn't hear your exchange with him, but
if I was speaking to him directly, I would simply
say that is not how the words are received. And
it doesn't matter what meaning you have in your brain,
it is not how the word is received. And when
you use a word like intofada to many Jewish Americans
and Jewish New Yorkers, that means you are permissive for
violence against Jews. It is a serious word. It is
a word that has deep meaning. It has been used

(39:57):
for wars across time and violent and destruction and slaughter
and murder against the Jews. It is a harmful, hurtful,
inappropriate word for anyone who wants to represent a city
as diverse as New York City with eight million people.
And I would be very specific in these words, and
I would say you may not use them again if
you expect to represent everyone ever again, because they are
received as hateful and divisive and harmful.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
And that's it.

Speaker 10 (40:19):
So I appreciate that he told you he didn't mean that,
and that's great.

Speaker 9 (40:21):
That's also clarify or he was clarifying that he never
said globalized the antifader. He was asked in an interview
if he would denounce the phrase globalize the Intifada, and
then that led to this kind of conversation. You know
that you were just referring to, but that he was
never out there saying globalized the antifighter. He was asked
about other people who used it. So just just to
be precise about about what happened there.

Speaker 10 (40:42):
Yes, well, as a leader of the city of diverses,
New York City with eight million people, as the largest
Jewish population in the country, he should denounce it. And
that's it, period, and you can't celebrate it. You can't
value it, you can't lift it up. And that is
what That is the challenge that Jewish New Yorkers have had,
certainly since October next it is assuming October seventh. It
is exactly what they have felt. It is why Jewish

(41:04):
students in our universities have felt unsafe. It is why
Jewish students have felt that their schools did not have
their backs and cared about them or their learning. Because
the people doing these protests use words that have meetings
that are far more violent and horrific than they may
have intended.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
So anyway we get the sense of what a Delibrand
is up to there, David, what is your reaction to
Kirsten Gilibrand, you know, picking up on this is one
of the things that Cuomo and Whitney Tilson and all
sorts of others in the primary tried to, you know,
to corners or on on and to make him unacceptable
because he's supposedly anti Semite, who you know, supports violence

(41:39):
against Jewish people. And clearly in the primary context this
did not work. And in fact, I think it's possible
actually inord to his benefit, because while on the debate stage,
all the other candidates were clamoring for saying how quickly
they would run to this or that foreign country, most
prominently Israel. He says, I'm going to be the mayor
who stays here in New York and delivers for people,
including Jewish people here in the city.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
A couple of things about that interview, I think a
different part she says she doesn't want to be the
word police, but being mayor sometimes you got to be
the word police. That's not crazy. So when I heard
that Bulwark interview, which is where this answer came from,
I remind me a little bit of Bernie Sanders winning
the Vada caucuses and then Anderson Cooper Asenholm that Cuba
not a top voting issue for Democrats and standers is

(42:24):
not backing down, and you do have that choice right
as politicians to not back down. And generally Mom, Donnie
has never has not backed down. This is a answer
on should Israel exist as a Jewish state has been
it should exist as a democratic state with rights for everybody.

Speaker 5 (42:36):
I E know, I E.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
It shouldn't be what it is right now, which should
it should change its constitution basically, and that shocked people
because you're usually not you know, can't say that in
New York can win election. An he won an election.
So you're right that Democratic voters did not see this
as a litless test worth voting against him on. That
is that is a factor in this race that has
huge applications for.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Many Jewish voters, including well, yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
Look a the neighborhoods he won.

Speaker 7 (43:02):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
And so the idea that and this is very very
prominent story is you go to the neighborhood, you ask
me what they're They're scared. They say they're scared. What's
the context though? Six months of don Trump being president
and Columbia University having money pulled away from it, people
being deported because they criticize this role and they have visus. Uh,
the context changed in the last six months. It went

(43:23):
from who I feel unsafe because of this rhetoric to
it looks like I'm not allowed to criticize this country anymore.
And I'm not saying these are different people we're talking
about who had these reactions. But I think, one, mom,
Donny benefit from that, but two he has what is
he going to choose just to not say some things that,

(43:45):
beyond losing votes, would make people worry? And he said that.
Another point says victory speech, he sort of needs to
he needs to speak for everybody, even if he didn't
vote for him. How was he going to interpret that?
Does that mean he's gonna he's going to piss off
some people who vote over him by not renouncing bds,
which he has not renounced these sports bds, but not

(44:06):
using some of these phrases. You don't want to be
in an announcement with Olympics, which which sometimes happens in
campaigns where you're asking to anounce this statement, that statement,
this Endorsemer saysn't crazy to do denounce it. But again
he said in November twenty twenty on Twitter, queer liberation
means defund the police. And he's not running around every

(44:27):
TV show is saying yes, I still mean the queer
liberation means to the police. So I think he's going
to be consistent as a progressive who thinks that Israel's
one committing a genocide to should have its government changed constitutionally,
three in the meantime should be boycotted. He believes those things.
There might be a mayor of New York who believes
those things, which is unprecedented. But how do you express it,

(44:49):
that's the question. The only thing I'd say is that
the interview is not very long, the bull arg interview.
And if Democrats, i think, are risking a backlash that
will help Mandanni if they Russian and repeat what somebody
else said about him and don't look at what he's
what he said. Adams has already been doing this. Adams
just accused him of saying things he never said, supporting
hamas being an anti anti semi and Adams Adams is

(45:13):
not just generally not very honest. But there is a well, yeah,
there is a risk. There is a risk though if
if Mount Donnie is called out for something he said,
that's a problem. But if he's slandered you've already seen
Democrats are pretty sympathetic to that, and they're a little
bit tired. Not all of them, but let's say forty

(45:34):
four percent of New York are a little bit tired
of being told you might lose your job. Well, the
port you will shame you if you criticize what is
Reel's doing. That is that doesn't feel very American to people,
even if they even if they agree with with with
like eighty percent of what is Reel's doing.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Oh, Emily, we lost you. We're not hidding you.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
Here.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Let me pull up for you, David. I wanted to
get your reaction to Kathy Hochel getting asked about Zorn,
so you can talk about some of you know how
the the powers that be in New York are responding,
and they don't seem to be responding with a vote blue,
no matter who message here. They seem very much to
be weighing their options, which again is it's extraordinary. I mean,

(46:18):
this guy won, he didn't. It wasn't a squeaker. He
went overwhelmingly Democratic voter said this is the person who
we would like to see normally, that's the end of
the story in terms of the Democratic Party supports the nominee.
And that does not seem to be the end of
the story here. So let's take a listen to this.
Will you support his candidacy and will you back him?

Speaker 3 (46:38):
The election is just completed.

Speaker 11 (46:39):
I get a chance to call and congratulate him on
the Tuesday's primary and look forward to having a conversation. Honestly,
there's areas of difference in our positions, but I also
thinking have those conversations in the meantime. I really am
not focused on the politics for six months away from
the inauguration date, and that will determine who I'm working

(47:00):
with for the next four years. And that's important that
I'm doing on affordability and making New York City state and.

Speaker 7 (47:09):
Making the state. So that's my primary objective right now.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
So are you skeptical then of him?

Speaker 11 (47:14):
And then also the will of New York City voters
new York Democratic primary voters.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
Do you think that their choice is not valid?

Speaker 6 (47:20):
No?

Speaker 11 (47:20):
I don't see how you can possibly include that from
what I just said. I said that I'm going to
be having conversations. I want to find out your positions
on specific issues. But in the meantime, I'm working closer
with Eric Adams, who is the mayor who we have
a lot of work to do to get through a
crisis right now. We just have a lot of people
in our city under siege with expressive temperatures. We have

(47:44):
to making sure our subways are safe, building more housing
on the city of yes, which were the finish line.
So as much as there's a lot of people, perhaps
even in this room, who are very focused on the politics,
I don't have the luck. I focus on governing and
delivering for New Yorkers and working with the people that
are in government today.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
What do you make of this, Dave? And how do
you think Democrats ultimately, I mean you have seen so
like came Jeffreys and Chuck Schumer said basically congratulations, will
meet with you, but noncommittal. You saw Jerry Nadler come
out and you know, directly support zora On. You actually
saw Bill Clinton come out and basically say good luck
in November, which you know seems to be a direct
support even though Clinton was behind Cuomo in the primary.

(48:28):
Where do you think that this is going? Are they
going to try to pull basically another India Walton, who
was the lefty candidate in Buffalo who knocked down a
long time corrupt incumbent and then he came back and
was able to defeat her in the fall with the
coalition of establishment Democrats or like corporate Democrats and Republicans.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
Yeah, yeah, I covered that race and honestly that was
that was no offense to Buffalo, but it's Buffalo is
not the media center of the world. And also Walton.
The way that they went after Walton and beat the
Democrat who ended up beating her was just going after
her poverty, basically just unpaid taxes. Then she later paid
stuff like that, and it was a lower profile race

(49:10):
that they could do it with Doron. We just talked
about all the flailing they're doing, and Adam's just done
some of this, all the truss On baby did not
figured out an effective line. But if you're a national Democrat,
what is the risk of something this sign profile ending
with Democrats betraying the Democratic nominee? How does that play

(49:30):
out in two years? Four years? Look at how much
anger Bernie Sanders engendered just for saying he was recruiting
candidates to run for office Democrats or independents. And he
would tell anybody he told me, but anybody who asked
him he meant independence in like a place where Democrats
can't win. He did not mean I'm a recruiting be
able to run against them. But you saw the knee jerk.

(49:51):
How dare he do this? He's not a real Democrat reaction.
The party has very little credibility left, and I might
be overstating it by saying very little. If it looks
like it is undermining a duly nominated Democratic candidate, then
it will be hurt in ways that we can't even
predict right now. And I think that's where clets to
me from what we're Hope's doing, because Hopel if I

(50:14):
were calling, correctly endorsed Walton but didn't do anything for
if she does that in this race, well, the complication
is that she's got a challenger at Tendo Dogatu who
is very pro Zorn and endorsed him already and says
she should what she's doing right now. I was giving
some giving space, I suppose for the Gila brands and
vocals if they do want to have conversations with him

(50:36):
and say, look, this is what happened with Trump in
twenty sixteen. Trump wins the nomination and there are a
lot of people who didn't support Trump who get meetings
with him and say, hey, I represent ten million pro
life voters. You should really be doing this and say
this now, and you should can't this interview answer you
gave and he did. Like this is the thing that
actually Zorn learned a lot from having talked to him

(50:56):
in the campaign that it's not like Trump got away
with everything. Trump actually did change some of his rhetoric,
change some of his answers moderate and so if they're
doing that, I feel like they can get away with
that if they if they undercut him, it will hurt
the party long term. What would Democrats prefer? Would they
prefer this situation or one where they can ever winn'

(51:18):
the Senate ever again? Because there's a fifty to third
party left wing organization that gets fifteen percent of the vote,
Like that is that is the risk right now they
have progressives in the tent and the best situation, I
might sound what to do. It's the best situation for
them clearly is Zoran Mom Dannie winning the election, being
successful and in four years people saying that wasn't so bad.

(51:44):
That is for the party. That's what makes sense. For
some donors in the party, they don't want that, and
that's complicated. But if you're elected Democrat and you want
Democrats to want elections, your your choices are sabotage him
and sabotage yourself, or try to just get him to
move in your direction so you're both successful.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
It's been interesting to see the pod bros. I shouldn't
use that as kind of derogatory, but like.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
We've decided bros as a slur now that yeah, I
don't know. I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Dan Feiffer and others being like, well, I just think
it diminishes podcasting. Actually not not bros to be, to
be honest.

Speaker 6 (52:23):
But.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
They have sort of started saying, what the hell is
the Democratic Party doing in its reaction to Zoron? And
that's been I guess I'm just curious if you think
that's indicative of where other sort of younger establishment Democrats
are going.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
I've been careful with this. I was joking with an
editor that I probably popped myself traffic because I I
think I my headline said that Democrats are keeping a
respectful distance, and then some people said Democrats are in
disarray and pointing fingers, and if we quoted the same people,
there are some there are some suburban Democratic congress who
are not endorsing Mom Donnie. I don't think Tom Swasey

(53:03):
ever will. For example, even I just said that Swazi
has to win a seat that's a tiny bit of
Queen's and mostly in Nassau County. Pat Ryan in Westchester
County hasn't said something the Mom Donnie. My understanding of
Mom Donnie, I haven't talked to I talked to him
last night. But about this is yes, he's going to

(53:25):
give some people some room to not get on board
with everything, which is what again Donald Trump did in
twenty sixteen. He is not demanding every Democrat anywhere around
the country. He says, I love Zora Mandanni. He's the
future of the party. I agree with him on everything
that he's not doing that. It's actually us in the
media who were asking Democrats if they agree and the
answer we're getting are I guess they're this in the

(53:46):
two camps. One is or three one is just pure excitement,
like AOC Yes, this is the way the party should go,
or Bernie one is. Alyssa Slockin did this. I was
talking to Abigas Banger span Burgerk yesterday and she did
this is well, voters want things be affordable. We learn
it in November. We're learning that now, which is a

(54:07):
very diplomatic way. I think that's where most Democrats will
end up. Is I don't agree with on everything, but
if somebody like him can win. This is what they
say about Trump, right, Like Trump's victory proves that people
are worried about some of these issues and we need
to we need to figure that out. That is the
diplomatic way to do it. The least diplomatic is the
Swazi way of I can't support this guy, and that
camp is pretty small. So right now they're still on

(54:29):
the hill. They're gonna be chased around, asked if they
endorse them or not. I think that'll last for two
or three more days. It might pop up again, because look,
I have mentioned New York as the media capital the world,
so specifically New York Post is there, and Fox News
is there, and the New York Post can make anything famous.
So there will be news cycles or Zoran does something

(54:49):
where something is revealed and Democrats are asked about it.
But I don't think that there'll be other stories that happen.
I think the Democrats were safest will be the ones
who have some yeuristic that says, yeah, I see why
he's winning and people are angry, but I don't agree
with him on X y Z. That's where I think
most of them are ending up, because that's my conversation

(55:10):
so far, and that's what makes the most sense.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Gotcha all right, Dave Weigel, thank you so much for
your reporting and for jumping on with us this morning.
Always a pleasure to see you.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
Sir, thank you, no gree to do it.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Interesting perspective from him about where the Democrats are right now,
basically like most of them are going to get to
the Slotkin answer of like, well, he ran on affordability,
and that's what we need to focus on. So at
the same time, you've got you know, you do have
these Concerner, you still have Cuomo hanging out there, You've
got Eric Adams obviously on the ballot line. Apparently there

(55:43):
was some effort to try to pressure Curtis Leewa, who's
the Republican nominee, to take some Trump administration job. He
has ruled that out quite definitively, in a very Curtis
Leewa kind of a way, with rhetorical flourish, and you're
not gonna. But I think I think probably the most

(56:05):
important point is that if Democrats really do try to
rat fuck him, or even appear to try to rat
fuck him, then it is devastating for them because here
you have them having just lost this election, and they're
all running oud, oh, we need someone who's younger and
has ideas and that the bros Are into, and you know,
can we back young people? And you know, create new

(56:26):
energy in the party. And then he shows up and
they're like, nope, we want Andrew Cuomo over the sky.
It's crazy, and it comes at a time when democratic
leadership is already deeply unpopular with their own base. And
this is what's so different this that's what makes this
moment so different, even from the burning moments, from the
AOC moment, is at that time, most of the Democratic

(56:48):
base was still enamored with democratic leadership. That is not
the case anymore, so, you know that, which is part
of why Zorn's able to succeed. Even though you had
all of the establishment lining up behind Cuomo and saying
you can't possibly elect this guy. He's an anti Semite,
he's a radical, et cetera. People didn't listen and they
didn't care because those leaders are now not only failed

(57:09):
in the eyes of the broader public, but they're failed
specifically in the eyes of the Democratic base.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
And into all of this chaos, a hero emerges.

Speaker 5 (57:21):
We utilize the letter F.

Speaker 9 (57:25):
We utilize the letter F for faith.

Speaker 6 (57:29):
Yeah, our opponents usually lettter F for profanity.

Speaker 11 (57:33):
Wa. We need to stay focused, no distractions and gry,
no distracting and grad.

Speaker 8 (57:49):
And Rah we're straight ahead.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
Because.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Do you remember when he won all the ezra klines
and all the like, all the centrists who were like,
this guy's going to be a national figure, and now
he literally has the lowest approval rating in New York
City mayoral history. That's that's what's happened with him.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
And yet Focus, No Distractions and Grind would push him
to re election seriousness, No, but but actually it could
because it depends on how freaked out they're able to
make people about their own mom, Donnie, and they're going
to try able to get Bill Ackman into the race.

(58:29):
It's just like many like, if you don't like zoon mom,
Donnie in the city right now, you are absolutely cooked
because you have Eric Abdams out there chanting Focus, No
Distractions and Grind in front of a crowd of boomers
seemingly like it's.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Well, and it's just wild. The mask off with the
oligarchs because Ackman is literally tweeting out things like I'm
in group chats where we could raise one hundred million,
you know, hundreds of millions of dollars for anyone who's
willing to get in this race. It's like, Wow, they
truly think they can just buy any seat in the
country up to and including the presidency, by the way,
with Elon Musk, and they're not ashamed of it. Like

(59:07):
he has no subvlts. Just put that out into the
world of like this guy wants to make the buses
free and make it, you know, your rent cheaper. God,
we can't have that, God forbid. So we're willing to
spend one hundreds of millions of dollars. And I'm in
the group text where we're trying to control everything behind
the scenes, you know. Again, like that is part of
the reason why so many people voted for Zoran because

(59:30):
he represents a repudiation of that type of politics that
Ackman is just openly professing to, you know, to believe
in and be a part of.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Yeah, they've painted themselves into a corner, and it's a
catch twenty two for them. You know, you're damned if
you're doing You're damned if you don't. You're damned if
you from their perspective, if you embrace Zoron, because they
don't believe in a lot of the things that he believes.
And so that's just even the like ideological component, not
even the political component, but if you don't, then you

(01:00:03):
look like you are trying to thwart like as establishment democrats,
you're trying to thwart the will of the voters. And
so you really don't have any good options, Like if
you organize an alternative candidate, it looks completely astroturfed. It
looks like what they did to Bernie and Zora not
benefits from this interesting scenario that the establishment has found

(01:00:25):
itself in where they know if they if they try
to beat him with some other mechanism, whether that's a
third party candidate pouring tons of money behind like Eric
Adams or Curtis Leewa, it has the effect of proving
his point.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yeah, Hot Commedy Summer, that's what their Bloomberg's headline is. Well,
Street's freaking out of her Hot Commedy Summer. Incredible stuff.
Incredible stuff. Well, this is a good Well, we're gonna
go ahead and transition to the premium show at this point, guys,
Thank you to all of you guys for watching, and
if you want to watch the full show on Friday's,
make sure to subscribe at Breakingpoints dot com. In the

(01:01:04):
portion that's Paywalld. We're going to talk about the Bezos wedding,
and we're going to talk about Teal getting asked if
he's Antichrist and the anti Christ. I'm very interested. Emily's
done a deep dive on this one, so I'm super
excited to get her take on that. And we got
a few other clips that I wanted us to react
to as well, including we didn't get to Joyreid on CNN.
Sager and I are supposed to talk to it, yes,

(01:01:24):
talk about it yesterday. We didn't get to that, so
I want to try to get to that as well.
In any case, thank you guys so much for watching,
and the premium portion is going to start right now.

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