6/30/25: Trump 'Beautiful' Bill, Dems Smear Zohran, Gaza Aid Site Massacres, Karen Read Trial & 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 3 (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 3 (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 4 (00:36):
Happy Monday, Welcome to Breaking Points. As you saw, no
overhead shot because there's nobody in the studio, although the
crew is holding down the ford there so today. I'll
be joined later in the program by comedian Dave Smith.
We're going to start with Dave Smith and I are
going to interview Amir Tabona, columnist at Howarett's, about the
recent Howaretz report about the aid site massacres and IDF

(01:01):
soldiers being instructed to shoot at or toward civilians who
are seeking aid. We're also going to talk about to
Bone's new column suggesting that Donald Trump is once again
screwing up with Netan Yahoo by pushing to have the
charges dropped against him rather than putting pressure on him.
We're going to start the program with Dave day, an

(01:23):
editor of The American Prospect, to talk about the Big
Beautiful Bill, which is hurtling towards passage in the Senate today.
We're also going to talk about the reaction over the
weekend to zoron Mom Donnie's win by Democratic elite Sakeen
Jeffries saying he's not willing to endorse him as of yet.

(01:43):
And then we're going to finish with Aiden Karney, who
many of you may know as doctor Turtle Boy. Aiden
Carney is the local reporter in Massachusetts who really brought
the Karen Reid trial to national attention. We'll talk a
little bit about the Reed trial itself, but mostly we're
going to talk about what is becoming a very important

(02:06):
press freedom case. This part has been overlooked by the
media that has been focusing on the Karen Reid trial.
But Aiden Carney, who the reporter who effectively broke this story,
is facing multiple charges directly related to his journalism in
this case, and so we're going to talk about that

(02:26):
and why it's so important for us to keep the
focus on it even as Karen Reid has been acquitted
and people are moving on now to the phase of
doing more documentaries and movies about it. But to start
the program, we're going to be joined by Dave dan
to talk about the ongoing debate and senate over the
Big Beautiful Bill. So the Big Beautiful Bill. Joining me

(02:48):
to talk about that is American Prospect editor Dave Dayan. Dave,
thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 5 (02:54):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
So this thing is barreling through Congress. The House said
that they were going to get it done by Memorial Day.
Kind of people scoffed at that they got it done
by Memorial Day. The Senate said they're going to get
it done by July fourth. That's the arbitrary deadline that
they set. They had. They got it through a procedural

(03:16):
vote over the weekend and are have now moved into
the debate phase. As you and I are speaking, the
debate is ongoing and they're going to be moving towards
you know, votes, towards eventual final passage, you know, any
any moment now like this is, this train is as
far left, the station is about to pullland to the
White House unless something calamitous happens between now and then

(03:40):
to Klambus for Republicans. Uh So, let's let's unpack some
of the objections to this bill that Republicans are are
putting forward and then talk about what this thing means.
So let's start with a six. This is Tom Tillis,
who announced right around this time that you're seeing him
on the floor, that you know what, he's not going
to run for reelection for it in North Carolina after

(04:01):
Trump got ticked with him and said he was going
to recruit a primary challenger to him. So here's Tilli's
talking about some of his objections to the bill.

Speaker 6 (04:10):
Between the state directed payments and the cuts scheduled in
this bill, there's a reduction of state directed payments and
then there's the reduction of the provider tax. They can't
find a hole in my estimate. So what they told
me is that yeah, it's rough, but North Carolina's use

(04:32):
the system.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
They're going to have to make it work, all right.

Speaker 6 (04:35):
So what do I tell six hundred and sixty three
thousand people in two years or three years when President
Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid
because the funding's not there anymore, when the White House
richer's advising the President are not telling him that the

(04:57):
effect of this bill is to break up promise. And
you know, the last time I saw a promise broken
around health care with respect to my friends on the
other side of the aisle, is when somebody said, if
you like your health care, you.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Could keep it.

Speaker 6 (05:13):
If you like your doctor, you could keep it. We
found out that wasn't true. That made me the second
Republican Speaker of the House since the Civil War, Ladies
and gentlemen, because we betrayed the promise to the American people.
Two years later, three years later, it actually made me

(05:34):
a US Senator because in twenty ten it had just
been proposed and just anticipation of what was going to
happen was enough to have a sea change election. That's
what Republicans into the majority for the second time in
one hundred years. Now, Republicans are about to make a

(05:57):
mistake on healthcare and betray sang a promise. It is
inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray
the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the
Oval office or in the cabinet room when I was
there with finance, where he said, we can go after

(06:18):
a waste, fraud and abuse on any programs.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
And we can get into some moment. The fact is
probably the fastest growing in industry in North Carolina is
the clean energy industry, which this bill also just takes
an absolute sledgehammer two. So it's not just the medicaid
cust to till us is gonna you know, has a
problem with Let's let's uh, let's let's roll Holly quick
because Holly voted yes, Josh Holly, but made a passionate

(06:44):
argument for why he should have voted no. So let's
let's roll a little bit of Holly.

Speaker 7 (06:48):
We can't be cutting health care for working people and
for poor people in order to constantly give special tax
treatments corporations. Others said, we've we've built in the spill,
but unless we take further changes, take for.

Speaker 8 (07:05):
The steps that will happen in future.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Understand, I sweep if.

Speaker 7 (07:09):
We're gonna be working fort party, we've got for ten
thirty people and I just to medicate stuff here. I
think it's bad. I think we've we've delayed the worst
in it and in a short term for my state,
you know it's going to be fine, but we as
on going forward basis we cannot but one like this.
I think that part of has a lot of thinking
to do.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
An Alabama Senator Katie Britt appeared on I believe was
Jake Tapper's program, was pressed on this as well. Let's
her argument is basically, na uh, this is not happening.
So let's roll, Katie Britt, talk about.

Speaker 9 (07:41):
Them in terms of your constituents, because they are about
seven hundred and sixty thousand Alabamas who.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Rely on Medicaid.

Speaker 9 (07:47):
The bill will also cut federal funding for food stamps
or require states to kick in more and shift a
lot of that cost to Alabama. And that's more than
seven hundred and fifty thousand Alabamas who rely on what
we're what we're gonna call food stamps, including three hundred
and thirty thousand children. So are you guaranteeing that these
changes that you were voting for Monday presumably will not

(08:12):
hurt recipients in Alabama of Medicaid, of food stamps or
SNAP for those who are citizens and for those who
truly need it and deserve it absolutely.

Speaker 10 (08:22):
So when you look at Medicaid children, obviously we have
the Children's Health Insurance Program, so children are absolutely not
touched by this same thing when it comes to SNAP benefits,
So we've made sure that that is taken off the table.
What you're talking about is able bodied, working aged Americans
without dependence at home, having them work, train, volunteer in

(08:43):
some capacity twenty hours a week in order to receive
those government benefits. This goes back to Bill Clinton era politics,
when you know that being a part of something bigger
than yourselves, helping to contribute is ultimately what we need
to do. And it's actually the American people agree with
us on this. But when you look at what's happening
in Alabama specifically, you think about what you mentioned with

(09:04):
regards to SNAP. What we're doing on that is ensuring
that states have some skin in the game. If you
have an error rate that is down below six percent,
which Alabama is about a percentage point a little bit
over that above that, we will have time. We have
several years to make sure that we get that percentage
point down, and I have every faith and belief that
we will. We've got to make sure that these overpayments

(09:25):
under payments that are happening. We've seen it in our
own state, where people's benefits are being stolen from other states,
that that stuff stops if states. Obviously under the Biden administration,
we stopped that accountability during for the SNAP program. Reinstituting
it and ensuring that states have some skin in the
game will ultimately help us be able to deliver these
resources and services that these people so desperately need.

Speaker 9 (09:48):
Yeah, I mean, I've heard your fellow Senator Taberville talk
about he's worried that your state can't afford it, Your
state can't afford to pick up the slack.

Speaker 10 (09:54):
What we can afford to do is get it right,
all right, Dave.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
So the Medicaid cuts are the debate really zeros in
on the work requirement that is being put into place here.
There's a lot more going on than just just a
work requiring because I think for the the Republicans thought
that by talking about the work requirement they would win
a public debate because people, you know, a lot of
people are like, all right, you know, hey, it's not

(10:18):
so much to volunteer or to you know, make sure
you're trying to work if your state's going to give
you this benefit. There's a lot more going on, and
Tillis alluded to a lot of it. There you unpack,
you know, a little bit more of what's going on,
Like why is why is Tillis so so convinced that
this actually will deal a significant blow to people on Medicaid.

Speaker 5 (10:40):
Well, I forgot my bolo tie today, but I'll try.

Speaker 11 (10:44):
We can.

Speaker 12 (10:44):
We can, like photoshop from New Mexico to wear a
bolo tie on the Senate Florida.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
But when when you're when you're retiring, you do whatever
you want.

Speaker 11 (10:54):
Okay.

Speaker 12 (10:54):
So what Tillis is talking about are two things that
the Senate build added the Senate version of this bill.
One is provider taxes and the other is state directed payments.
These are both ways in which states get additional resources
to fund their Medicaid programs. You know, Republicans have called

(11:17):
them gimmicks, but the reality in the context of this
bill is it's just more money for Medicaid. The way
the provider tax works is states tax healthcare providers but
then also give them higher reimbursements on Medicaid payments, and
so the hospitals and clinics make out even but the

(11:40):
states aren't really kicking.

Speaker 11 (11:41):
In that share.

Speaker 12 (11:42):
They get the taxes, but they don't kick in everything
because there's a state federal match on Medicaid payments. So
it's a way to get more federal dollars into the
state that pays for the Medicaid program. And if that
is capped or actually ramped down, so those tax provider

(12:03):
taxes have to be lower over time, starting I believe
in twenty twenty eight and moving on through twenty thirty two,
then there's simply less money for Medicaid. And the state
directive payments are a similar thing, where Medicaid pays a
fairly low reimbursement rate, and what states have done have

(12:26):
appealed to the federal government to top off that reimbursement
rate so to ensure that hospitals and doctors actually care
for Medicaid patients.

Speaker 5 (12:39):
And the Senate bill cuts that and limits that to
a degree.

Speaker 12 (12:43):
So both of those things basically stop the states from
getting the amount of money they need right now.

Speaker 5 (12:50):
They don't have.

Speaker 12 (12:50):
Extra money sitting around in the states for Medicaid, so
what they would have to do is cut the program.
And this is the interesting way in which the federal
government can say, well, we're not cutting medicaid, we're just
doing this and that and the other thing. But they're
forcing states to cut medicaid, right, So it's it's just
sort of a one step removed kind of situation.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, And I want to try to give the Republicans
there the Pharos shake in their in their argument here,
and you mentioned that, you know, they they say these
aren't really cuts, we're just kind of getting rid of
of gimmicks. And there's some semantics going on here, but
I understand what they're saying. And like one of the
things Katie Britt was referring to there is if you
move from you know, Alabama to California, you know, in

(13:36):
a lot of situations, the state Alabama, for instance, will
still be getting credit for you living in you know,
you might you don't automatically just leave the roles necessarily,
so you might still be Alabama might be getting credit
for you being on the roles in Alabama, while California
also gets credit. And so the federal government on on

(13:57):
some level is double paying. It's like in California and
paying out Alabama to treat the same person. So what
they're saying is we're going to cramp down on that.
But what it leads to, well, we don't know how
frequent that is. But what then it leads to, it's
just less money for Alabama. Then, so the reason why
they're getting less money is almost besides the point because, right,

(14:21):
they've been counting on it for many years. That's just
how the system runs.

Speaker 12 (14:26):
They've built their Medicaid program around the expectation.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
That this money comes in that it's going to be
pretty stable, right.

Speaker 12 (14:32):
And the other thing in the bill, and it's not
just work requirements but changes to biden error enrollment efficiencies
that were put in by rule. The entire idea here
is to make it harder to sign up for Medicaid.
I mean, once again, the idea is, oh, no, we're

(14:52):
not cutting the program, but we're just going to make
it impossible to get it.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
You know.

Speaker 12 (14:57):
It's the example is in the pre Obamacare days, the
insurance office would be on the seventh floor and there
would be no working elevator, so no sick people could
actually get to the insurance office to enroll for insurance.
And it's a similar kind of thing. They're just making
it harder to sign up for Medicaid and the ideas

(15:20):
a lot of I believe it's something like Matt Brunneck
had this number, something like sixty percent of the eligible
population here works and is on Medicaid. But the churn
is expected because you have to constantly update and constantly
add forms to make sure. So there's like a strangling

(15:40):
of Medicaid through the bureaucracy here. And there are work
requirements on SNAP as well that have the same function.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
Right, It's like, if it's you against the bureaucracy, the
bureaucracy is going to win most of those fights. Don't
win those fights against me, Like I cannot keep up
with the forms and the and the requirements and when
this is due, and like you have to have it
in triplicate, and you have to you know, send a
notarized copy of your driver's license and like. And if

(16:10):
the goal of them is to set up a process
that most people will fail, they will succeed at that.

Speaker 11 (16:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (16:15):
I would just add one more thing that hasn't been
talked about a lot with respect to Medicaid, which is
there are new cost sharing requirements for individuals who are
on the Medicaid program in certain contexts. So that means
that people on Medicaid will just have to pay more
if they want to do a doctor's visit or a
test or anything like that.

Speaker 5 (16:35):
And the likely result, these are very poor people.

Speaker 12 (16:39):
When you're talking about the Medicaid population, the likely result
is they will not be able to pay and therefore
will not try to pay, they won't go to the doctor.
So the savings, once again, they can say, we're not
cutting Medicaid, but we're making it harder to use. And
if you're making it harder to use, that's an effective cut.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
And so Musk has been, you know, absolutely melting down
over over this bill. And let's let's put up the
first multiple tweets that people can go find. So here
here's one of his where he says, the latest Senate
draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and
cause immense strategic harm to our country. Utterly insane and destructive.

(17:21):
It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely
damaging industries of the future. So he's talking here about
the sledgehammer that the bill takes to not just the
clean energy industry, but kind of the energy industry overall,
because the energy industry also is going to require the

(17:42):
production of more transformers and transmission lines and general federal
investment into building the infrastructure that they say we will
need for all the cloud storage AI plus the you know,
ramping up of electrification of.

Speaker 8 (17:59):
Ug on people.

Speaker 5 (18:01):
Some people would say that this is just a reversal
of the inflation reduction acts investments in energy, mostly clean energy,
but it was technology neutral, so a lot of things
could be subsidized. It doesn't just take away that does
tax credits for clean energy. It actually adds a new

(18:21):
tax on solar and wind.

Speaker 12 (18:24):
And the only way to get out of that tax
it's to ensure not a single speck of your project
includes anything that's Chinese made.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
And this is kind of an impossibility right now.

Speaker 12 (18:35):
It would require complete change to supply chains, which maybe
is something we should do, but is not something we
can do in the time period scheduled because the tax
would kick in in twenty twenty seven, and that's two
years away, and so I've heard energy experts describe this
as a total kill shot for wind and for solar.

(18:57):
In the meantime, there is a new tax incentive production
tax credit for metallurgical coal, the kind of coal that's
made used in steel. There's a tax break on big
oil that was stuck in by Oklahoma Senator James Langford.
That is for domestic drillers, mostly based in Oklahoma, who

(19:17):
would be exempt from the alternative minimum tax for corporations
that Elizabeth Warren put into the Inflation Reduction Act, So
it would mean that domestic oil drillers might not have
to pay any taxes at all. And there's also the
only tax that it not only tax credit from the
IRA that it not only maintains but expands, is a

(19:40):
tax credit for biofuels, which is basically ethanol, the use
of corn and soy to make fuels, which studies have
shown is actually worse for the environment than if you
would use gasoline because it's such an immense land use.
This completely upends the energy market in the US. We

(20:03):
already have strains on the grid because of data centers,
because of increased demand, and not only will this likely
raise electricity rates, but there is a very strong likelihood
that you will get blackouts more often.

Speaker 5 (20:20):
Because of this bill.

Speaker 4 (20:22):
Let's put up a four real quickly, and I want
to dig in on your point there. This is again
another Elon Musk tweet where you know, he's elevating somebody
else who said, like, by twenty twenty thirty, China could
have the ability to produce enough solar and storage infrastructure
each year to match the entire electricity generation capacity of
the United States. Contexts there, of course, being you know,

(20:44):
the the AI race and the tech race between the
US and China, and energy being you know, the most
important fundamental input. So you could imagine our strategic decision
makers if given the choice and we're there now forcing
the choice upon themselves of powering AI and storage and

(21:05):
cloud or powering your home, They're going to choose powering
the AI and the cloud storage, and you are going
to get a blackout. And I don't think people have
really internalized the likelihood of this. As somebody from California
who's a little closer to the edge of the energy

(21:27):
debate tell us a little bit about why we may
wind up in this world where the richest country in
the world is going to kind of foist rolling blackouts
on itself.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
I mean, it's a simple demand situation, right.

Speaker 12 (21:43):
We currently are at the limits of demand that we
have for energy, and with this rollout of more data centers,
more of the components used in AI, that's going to
require a massive amount of electricity, meaning demand is going
to go up. And if demand goes up and you

(22:03):
don't have the supply available, you know they're talking about,
oh well, we'll build nuclear. There really is no schedule
for more than maybe one or two nuclear plants to
be built in the next decade. It's just not a
quick acting kind of situation.

Speaker 5 (22:20):
And whereas you could.

Speaker 12 (22:24):
Continue the massive increase in solar in particular that we've
seen over the last couple of years, Basically something like
eighty to ninety percent of all the new electricity generation
that has been installed over the last several years is
from either solar or battery storage. And so if you're
taking that away, if you're making that impossible to pencil out,

(22:47):
you're making that not cost effective to build. You're relying
on natural gas on nuclear things that have basically stagnated,
and that means you're not going to keep up with demand,
and the result is that somebody can't get power. I mean,
if you don't have enough enough power that people want,

(23:08):
someone's going to be left holding the.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
Bad And so paying for all this, what we're paying
for is massive tax cuts for the rich, right, Can
you talk a little bit about what the other side, like,
who's getting the benefits of this bill and to what tune?

Speaker 12 (23:23):
Sure, So it's an extension of the twenty seventeen Trump
tax cuts. Those were certainly tilted towards the wealthy. There
are also these new tax cuts, these kind of populous
tax cuts that Trump talked about during the campaign. No
tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on overtime.
There's an alleged no tax on Social Security, but it

(23:44):
has nothing to do with Social Security. There's a temporary
boost to the standard deduction if you're over the age
of sixty five. There is also, and the Senate added
this a number of business tax cuts that are being
made permanent in this bill, on research and development and

(24:04):
business expensing and things like that. So you know, you
put that all together. There's also an increase that effectively
repeals the estate tax.

Speaker 5 (24:13):
I mean the increase.

Speaker 12 (24:15):
Now the threshold for actually having to pay the federal
estate tax is so high that you're effectively eliminating any
any family or estate from having to pay it.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
What you're putting it at it's something like thirty million.
I think.

Speaker 12 (24:34):
It's a pretty extreme number. You know, there are all
kinds of tricks that are done. I mean, if you're
if you're holding this, you know, you still have to
step up in basis. So if you're holding all of
your assets in stocks and equities, and when you die,
you step up to the level that it was at
and you don't pay an additional tax on that. So

(24:57):
I mean, there's a whole host of ways to gain
the system, and now it's not as hard to gain.

Speaker 5 (25:06):
So you know, basically you put these all together.

Speaker 12 (25:11):
And by the way, all of those tax cuts are
much more expensive than the spending cuts that have been
put into offset it. Congressional Budget Office came out and
said three point three trillion dollars and that's before interest expensing.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
Is how much this bill would cost.

Speaker 12 (25:31):
The way that the Republicans get around this is through
a gimmick known as the current Policy baseline, and my
understanding that may have already been voted on by the
time we're talking, because that was going to be the
first thing to be voted on in the vote rama
here on the Senate floor. The current Policy Baseline says that, oh,

(25:51):
if the current policy is these Trump tax cuts, these
individual tax cuts. If we extend that, that doesn't cost
any money because it's just keeping the same system that
we have in place now. If you use a current
law baseline, which says those expire at the end of
the year and you have to pay to fund those

(26:14):
tax cuts, it would be three point eight trillion dollars.
This is why you'll hear Republicans say, actually, this bill
saves the federal government five hundred billion dollars, because they're
waving a magic wand around the Trump tax cuts and
say those don't cost any money. So it's actually important
because the budget reconciliation rules dictate that this bill would

(26:37):
be out of compliance and unable to pass under these
rules if they didn't use the current policy baseline.

Speaker 4 (26:44):
So if you give me twenty dollars today, that'll cost
you twenty dollars. But if you give me twenty dollars
every day forever after that, it doesn't actually cost you anything.

Speaker 12 (26:55):
I mean, the good analogy is that the analogy is
that Democrats and they should they get a trifecta again,
could pass the Medicare for All for One Day Act,
which would cost one day's worth of Medicare for All,
and then the next bill after that would extend it
for ten years and say, hey, it's just the current

(27:15):
policy today.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
So I guess I guess that's okay.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
Unfortunately, reality is a thing, but I guess we'll see
whether we have to deal with that or not. Dave Dan,
editor of The American Prospect, thank you so much for
joining me on breaking points. So the Democratic freak out
over ZORONMM Donnie's victory in the Mayora primary continues. Who

(27:41):
better to talk to us about that than a long
time New York City resident, Although I guess expat now
in Jersey, you are telling me Davia smim.

Speaker 8 (27:52):
Well, think I'm a refugee of the twenty twenty lockdowns
I escaped over the border.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yes, it must been a harrowing journey. I'm I'm impressed
that you made it. Somebody must have, you know, smuggled
you into like a horse and drawn carriage and taken
you over the bridge.

Speaker 8 (28:08):
Well there's not listen, it was As far as political
refugees go, it's not very common that you end up
getting a house for the price of your apartment when
you get to the other side, so that it was
a happy ending.

Speaker 11 (28:20):
So there you go.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
So So, Mom, Donnie, let's start with hickeen Jeffries. He's
the Democratic leader in the house. Mom, Donnie was on
a bunch of Sunday shows, as were a bunch of Democrats,
all kind of circling around each other. Here's Jeffries getting
asked whether he's going to endorse the Democratic nominee for mayor.

Speaker 5 (28:38):
Let's start with the big news leader, Jeffries.

Speaker 11 (28:41):
Out of your hometown. Mom, Donnie won a big victory.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Have you endorsed him yet? I have not.

Speaker 13 (28:49):
We had a conversation on Wednesday morning where I congratulated
him on the campaign that he ran a campaign that
clearly was relentlessly focused on the high cost of living
in New York City and the economy.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
He outworked, he out.

Speaker 13 (29:05):
Communicated, and he outorganized the opposition, and that's clearly why
he was successful.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
So what's holding you back from endorsing him right now?

Speaker 13 (29:15):
Well, we don't really know each other. Well, our districts
don't overlap. Globalizing the Antifada, by way of example, is
not an acceptable phrasing. He's going to have to clarify
his position on that as he moves forward. With respect
to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our
nominee is going to have to convince folks that he
is prepared to aggressively address the rise in anti Semitism

(29:39):
in the City of New York, which has been an
unacceptable development.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
Before we get into that, let's roll in Eric Swalwell
and then talk about some of this. So Swallwell, many
people do not know this. He actually ran for president
at one point, tied with Kirsten Jelibrand for the most
forgettable presidential candidacy in American history. Nonetheless, he did. Here
he is on the Sunday Show sporting the new Democratic thing,

(30:06):
trying to look regular with a beard.

Speaker 9 (30:07):
And frankly stylistically, and I'm not a socialist, and I
don't associate myself with what he has said about the
Jewish people.

Speaker 14 (30:15):
I think the reference that I had read was global
intofada specifically, which has very serious meanings that are violent
and destructive.

Speaker 15 (30:24):
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 involving all kinds of uprisings and resistance and things
like that. So I just want to be clear about
how at least he defines it. But I do also
want to be clear that he said he does not
support violent into fada.

Speaker 14 (30:44):
Is that there 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 you.

Speaker 9 (31:04):
What specifically has Moum Donnie said that you think is
anti Semitic.

Speaker 16 (31:08):
Pro Hamas Muhammas is a dangerous terrorist organization.

Speaker 9 (31:15):
When did he praise I don't recall him ever praising.

Speaker 16 (31:19):
There's several there's several videos, even during his days of
being a rap artist, of praising Hamas and other terrorist groups,
and so a little research you will be able to
find it.

Speaker 17 (31:34):
Do you condemn that phrase globalize the atada?

Speaker 18 (31:38):
That's not language that I use. The language that I
use and the language that I will continue to use
to lead the city is that which speaks clearly to
my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief
in universal human rights, and ultimately that's what is the
foundation of so much of my politics, the belief that
freedom and justice and safety are things that to have
meaning have to be applied to all people, includes Israelis

(32:00):
and Palestinians's life.

Speaker 15 (32:01):
But do you actually condemn it?

Speaker 4 (32:03):
So Eric Swalwell that probably had the most egregious and
unsourced claim there where he said, you know, I had
I take issue with things that he has said about
the Jewish community, which he's never said anything negative about
the Jewish community ever, like nobody's even until Swalwell accused
him of that. He can't point anything. I reached out
that his office to see if they would point anything.

(32:25):
They haven't gotten back to me yet. The Jilibrand one
I wanted to get your take on because if you
take the anti Semitism debate out of this, the language
that she was using there feels ripped out of like
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty cancel culture, so like it doesn't
matter what you think the word means. And what's so

(32:46):
crazy is that we're talking about an Arabic word which
means resistance. Like that's not there's no no debate. That's
what the word means. You can go go to Google
Translate and put in antifada. It means resistance. But according
to jail Brand, it doesn't matter what it means. What
matters is how it makes people feel on the other end,

(33:07):
which to me is the very familiar cancel culture language.
And she even then says, we have the same thing
when it comes to black brown in LGBTQ communities. We understand.
So she's making the argument to the left like, look,
you guys have adopted this cancel culture rubric. This fits
into it, so you should cancel him. What I'm curious

(33:29):
about for people who've been critical of cancel culture, how
are they squaring this language policing around mom Donnie.

Speaker 8 (33:39):
Well, Ryan, it's a good question. I've been asking that
question for about two years now. Across huge swats of
the political portion of Americans that are supporting Israel. Nobody
seems to have an issue squaring. It's just we will
just pretend that everything we stood for or five minutes
ago doesn't exist and move on. It's really it's I

(34:01):
think the worst aspect of wokeism and cancel culture and
even political correctness as it used to be called when
when I was a kid. Is that it's this this
thing where you try to shut down conversation based off
a term that someone's using, and nobody it becomes an
excuse to never grapple with the point that the person

(34:21):
was making. It's like, you know, you just you used
the wrong term, and therefore everyone has to freak out
about this. But what's really truly remarkable about this race
to me is there's this it's like there's this denial
amongst the Democratic establishment of how bad the situation is
for them, you know, like it's it's you know, going

(34:45):
back to twenty sixteen, where there was a civil war
in the Republican Party and a civil war in the
Democrat in the Democratic Party with the Trump campaign, in
the Bernie Sanders campaign, and it's almost like because you know,
the Republicans were they just surrender and Donald Trump took
over the whole party, the republic But the Democrats cheated
Bernie Sanders out of the nomination, and so they were

(35:07):
able to pretend that this didn't really happen. But now
after the humiliation that was, you know, running Joe Biden
and then Kamala Harris against Donald Trump and then losing
to the man who you said was a threat to
democracy and an insurrectionist and a Russian spy or all
these things, and then to come back and what the

(35:28):
option was Andrew Cuomo? Like that was the alternative that
you put up against this guy, the disgraced former senior
citizen murderer, Andrew Cuomo. And anyway, everybody's ignoring the obvious here,
which is that Mom Donnie ran a campaign about the
unaffordability of New York City. It's clearly the number one crisis.

(35:51):
And I certainly disagree with a lot of his solutions,
but at least he's talking about it. And then it's
like they're they're beating up on him at the debate
by saying, but you won't commit to going to visit Israel,
or we're having some debate about whether he favors a
two state solution or a democratic one state solution. I mean,
who cares. This is a mayoral race for New York City,

(36:13):
And so that even trying to make the major issue
whether he uttered the phrase intifada instead of using a
different term, which I've never even heard him use the term,
And I just at this point, I totally tune this out.
I hear every single day that I'm a Hamas supporter,
and which is not true. I've never supported Hamas in

(36:34):
my life. I don't hate Jewish people. But this is,
as you know, in America, everyone who's critical of the
Israeli government gets this stuff labeled, and I just think
it's gotten to a point where it's meaningless. But even
if he had said the term, who cares? You know,
what's his plan for the city? And every time I've
ever heard him asked about Jewish people, which he's asked

(36:55):
about all the time, he always gives the right answer
and says he's critical of the power policies of the
Israeli government, but has nothing against Jewish people. So the
whole thing just seems it seems to be this like
impotent flailing around where they can't take on anything of substance.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yeah, And the irony to your point is that he
didn't actually say that. This scandal quote unquote scandal started
from a Bulwark interview where Tim Miller asked him, I mean,
what about a phrase like globalize the anti fada? Would
would you condemn that? And his answer was, well, I
don't use that phrase because I know that, you know,
it rings offensive to some people's ears. He's like, but

(37:31):
I'm not going to condemn it outright across the board,
because there is this demand that we condemn just basic
Arabic words, So I'm not He's like, I'm not going
to condemn an Arabic word because that would mean that
an Arabic speaker who was using the word intifada is
condemned by me when I don't know what they're saying.
And so it's it's too much because people hear it differently,

(37:53):
and so I don't use it. But people mean different things.
A lot of people mean it non violently, as you know,
like the first anti fat it was nonviolent. INTI fought
across into fund. It just means resistance. It's the word
for resistance. So therefore I'm not going to condemn an
entire word that covers like many different things. So that's
the that's the context where this arose. And then you

(38:17):
have people like Eric Adams saying that he goes around
chanting it, or Eric Swalwall saying he says terrible things
about Jewish people. But real quickly, Hakeem Jefferies before we
move on the Democratic leader that we played there his
calling card for why he needed to rise up the ranks,
and his establishment supporters argued that this was a man

(38:37):
who was going to be an effective communicator for Democrats
like he was. He's the charismatic, articulate guy who's going
to deliver the message in a way that like Nancy
Pelosi and Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer and some of
these stumbling older folks can't. He's the young, fresh voice.
You're not a Democrat. I'm curious for your perspective when
you saw him there on me on that Sunday show.

(39:01):
Did you were youmoved? Did you feel like, Okay, this
is a communicator that is finally going to break through
to the American public.

Speaker 8 (39:10):
Yeah, it's just it really just pulls at your guts
and your heart, and yeah, it's just all so ridiculous, man,
And you know it's I think this is one of
the things that because now kind of like the media
environment is so much less controlled than it used to
be and so much more decentralized, and we have shows
like this and lots of other ones, and it's just

(39:31):
like the overwhelming hypocrisy of all of this. It's almost
like they relied on a controlled environment to be able
to sell these type of arguments. Because the thing that
comes up to me, you know, with haw came Jeffreys.
You're like, okay, so you can't endorse this guy because
he's said some things that you think might be offensive

(39:52):
to the Jewish community, Like have you ever applied this
to the Muslim community? Have you ever? You know what
I'm saying, Like even if the word even the word intifada,
if you're gonna say, well, that could have violent connotations
with it, which is like it it certainly could, and
some people certainly use it to me and violence as well,
But like, how about the term war? I mean, the

(40:14):
term war almost always comes with women and children dying,
But yet people can advocate for that, and we don't
put that term under a microscope and go you know
what I mean, And that people could advocate for flattening
Gaza and in the Democratic Party, you know, and like
nobody is sitting here and going, well, hey, I got
Muslim constituents. I can't endorse this guy, which you know,

(40:35):
like if you were to take that position and then
also held the same thing for the term into fada,
then maybe I could start listening to you. But again,
I think it's just it's so it's so naked and transparent.
It's like, no, you you're beholden to the war party,
and so obviously you don't want to support this guy
who's outside of that, even though it's just the mayor
of New York City. It has absolutely nothing to do

(40:56):
with the war. And the funny what was so amazing,
so remarkable about this race to me is that while
all the other candidates in the primary debate and and
the moderators are all trying to get this guy for
like not supporting Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state,
he insists it must be a democratic state, as if
that's unpopular. You know, It's like, now, somehow you're supposed

(41:18):
to convince people that, he goes, I support Israel as
a state with equal rights for everybody, and then someone's
supposed to that's Adolf Hitler talk right there, like that's evil.
Equal rights for everybody is what Nazis say or something.
But while the bottom line in reality is that the
war is unpopular, and Cuomo and everybody else is insisting

(41:40):
that they carry this baggage they carry this unpopular baggage
which mom Donnie gets to be free of and say,
oh yeah, no, I'm not for that war. Anyway, Let's
talk about why Chicken over races twelve dollars instead of
seven dollars. It's like they just hand him the win.
It's fascinating.

Speaker 4 (41:59):
Over the weekend at the Glassonberry Festival, which is apparently
this gigantic cultural event over in England. Uh, the the
monitors over at BBC were on guard, uh to make
sure that uh, what's what's the Irish band that they
are that they're all scared of the uh the one
that says free Palestine. Uh, yeah, yeah they were. They're

(42:23):
they're basically they accused them of like waving a Hesbala
flag at a previous route, so they're they're like, we're
going to make sure that these mixed do not say
the words, you know, free Palestine. They're on guard. They
kept them from performing live over the airwaves, said yeah,
you have to get them on demand later, and then
they just let their guard down for the top performance

(42:45):
by about Villain. So he comes on stage. Let's roll
a little bit of what the centers missed.

Speaker 19 (42:51):
Free, free, Free, Free, fru Hi have you heard this
one though?

Speaker 4 (42:58):
Bef beft to the eye, the iff to the id
iff to the.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
I d FtF to the I d F stef to
the I d F.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
Kind of remarkable visual because you've got the BBC logo
up in the corner there, and you've got the like
the well produced you know, cameras that are rolling over
the crowd, while you also hear the crowd chanting along
with him. Uh, which has led to a predictable uh
out meltdown in England and around the world. In response

(43:36):
to it, Villain himself came out with a statement which
said he's where he said. I said what I said.
That was a statement, and then he had a longer
statement about how political change is important and you got
to speak from whatever blackborm notes. So not not backing down.

Speaker 13 (43:50):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
They the English British are saying they're even going to
like open an investigation into whether charges ought to be brought. Dave,
did you did you happen to watch the glass Very
Festival in real time? Is this in a cultural event
you're tuned into or did you only pick up on
it after the meltdown?

Speaker 1 (44:07):
No?

Speaker 8 (44:07):
I have I've never heard of this I've never heard
of the event. I've never heard of the band or
this guy, which is it's funny because that's I think
the case counting.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
I was trying to think of, yes, yes, I think, yes,
that's right.

Speaker 8 (44:22):
I'm sure a huge portion of the Breaking Points audience,
but so nobody, I think essentially of the people who
are outraged about this actually cared about it or knew
about it. But again, it is it's, you know, I've done,
like I've done so many of these debates on Israel
Palestine over the last couple of years, and so many
like shows about it, and it's, like we were saying earlier,

(44:45):
it's the double standards and the hypocrisy are just like,
what's so overwhelming, you know, it's it's the idea that
after all of these months of just women and children
being massacred in the most ruthless ways, that we're supposed
to be outraged about like a chant at a concert,

(45:06):
and that this is you know, this is really the
threat of our time, not what the IDF is doing
to Gaza. Is just it's very bizarre, and so yeah,
looks it's fairly predictable that this was a provocative thing
to do and I think the thing that should be
a wake up call is just as you point it out,

(45:27):
it's such a huge crowd and they're all in agreement,
and I think that's the thing that is is threatening
to people who are our supporters of Israel, but should
be something that everybody should take a look at, like, hey,
look what's going on here, and this is however you
feel about it, this is going to be one of
the costs that this that comes with the policy of

(45:49):
destroying Gaza. And I have been I still just cannot
believe twenty two months later, whatever we are since October seventh,
that the pro Israel crowd doesn't wake up to this,
that it's like, hey, look, yes, the poor Palestinians cannot
stop you. And as we were just discussing, it seems

(46:10):
like for whatever reason, the Americans, including the Trump administration,
are unable or unwilling to put pressure on Israel to
stop them. America really is the only the Americans are
the only ones who could stop the Israelis, and we're not.
We're facilitating it, and the poor Palestinians are helpless. However,
you are turning the entire world against you, and for

(46:32):
a group of people. I say this as a Jewish
you know person myself. I'm well aware of the culture
of kind of paranoia within Jewish Americans at least, and
I think maybe maybe that's understandable given the history of
Jews have been treated in the world. But if you

(46:53):
have that, if you have this concern that there's this
rise in anti Semitism, there's this rise in jew hatred,
and oh, my god, ought a next authoritarian Hitler esque
figure could be right around the corner, then, my God,
read the room. I mean, then advocate to end this
policy because it is coming with this you're listen. Turns

(47:13):
out you can only slaughter so many and women and
children before you make a lot of people hate you.
And the way that that manifests itself is not always
gonna be, you know, a man in a suit and
tie saying, excuse me, good sir, I disagree with this
policy decision of slaughtering women and children. It's gonna look
like this quite often, and if you don't want to
see more of it, stop slaughtering women and children.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
That's it's a really interesting point about the crowd response,
because you're right, they can prosecute Bob Villain. Maybe maybe
they can find some laws that he broke in in England,
you can end his career. You could have prevented him
from even ever going on stage. You know what, we've
looked into your past, you said some things. We're nervous

(47:57):
about what you're gonna say. We're not gonna put you
up on stage. What you can't do if you're an
Israeli defender is influence how that crowd is going to respond, because, yeah,
if Bob Villain goes up there and chance death, death,
the idf and the crowd looks at him like he's
a maniac. Then he looks he looks crazy, and he

(48:21):
looks like a he looks like a fool, and you know,
he moves on probably and you know, moves on to
some other song where you know, he had that one
reason attacking British people who want their country back, and
he moves on to that one instead. But that wasn't
the response. You've got hundreds of thousands of people screaming

(48:41):
along with him, and yeah, that if you're a defender
of Israel, that really has to be the problem. And
it's been interesting to watch the evolution around the arguing
around the language. You know, We started this in October
of twenty twenty three with people censuring Rashida Talib on
this floor of the House of Representatives for using the

(49:03):
phrase from the river to the sea in a video
that she had posted. And the argument was, if you
believe in you know one you know, one person, one vote,
you know, everyone with from the river to the sea
is treated with equal rights, that that is a rejection
of the Jewish supremacist nature of Israel, and the people

(49:25):
who then will be in control will slaughter everybody, like
who's Jewish from the river to the sea. So pretty
horrifying assumptions to make about people. But that like, that's
the argument for why that is. And that phrases an
attack on civilians globalize The anti Fada people say, well,
the second Antifada included bus bombings, cafe bombings, So if

(49:48):
you say the word antifada, you're you're supporting killing people
in civilians, killing civilians in cafes. Now it almost feels
like Bob Villain took that critis I'm in. I was like, Okay,
I'm going to tell you exactly who I'm talking about.
The IDF, the members of the military who just the

(50:11):
day before had been exposed as shooting directly at civilians
who were getting aid at a gas a Humanitarian Foundation
distribution site, which hasn't stopped people from saying that he
actually is calling for the death of all Jewish people
or civilians. But I thought, what did you make of

(50:32):
the fact that he zeroed in directly on the military
with that chant?

Speaker 8 (50:38):
Yeah, well, I think it It was probably a smart decision.
I mean, I guess I don't know how much thought
was actually put into it.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
At anti ranch up because he's like death, I'm not
leaving any room for ambiguity in what I'm calling for
on the death on the violence side, but leaving any
room for ambiguity on the target side, which is the IDEAF.

Speaker 8 (51:02):
That's right, And and it's so it's it's funny because
it's like you watch all of these people, the Israel
defenders kind of just constantly, as we have for the
last couple of years, just twisting themselves into all types
of pretzels to to somehow, you know, like try to
logically work out that it is somehow it is way

(51:23):
over the line to call for death death to the
IDF yet calling because somehow that's anti Semitic. Yet calling
for the destruction of Hamas is not anti Palestinian. You see,
there's a major difference there. And sure, if we if
as we are actually enacting the policy supposedly of destroying Hamas,

(51:46):
the innocent Palestinian Palestinians are being slaughtered in the process,
well that's okay, because we're really just targeting Hamas. Even
though we're shooting into crowds of people trying to get
food or destroying the entire gaza strip, that's still targeting Hamas. However,
just hollering death to the IDF is an attack against
all Israelis or all Jews broadly speaking. I mean, if

(52:08):
you can make both of those thoughts, you know, not
contradict each other somehow, good luck to you. But it
has been you know, Look, when you engage in a
war in the manner that the IDEF has over the
last couple of years, I'm sorry that you're you're you're
indistinguishable from a terrorist organization. And so if you're allowed

(52:30):
to chant death to terrorist organizations, which seems to be
the justification for this entire destruction of Gaza, then I
don't see why you shouldn't be allowed to do it
the other way. And obviously this is gonna you know,
this is gonna upset a lot of people. It's not
the way I would you know, communicate the issue. But again,

(52:53):
you know, there's something there's something like profoundly Freudian about
what you were saying there where it's like, well, what
if you know this this kind of like foundational Freudian
insight that if you repress, you know, you repress certain urges,
they re emerge in an uglier way. And so, I,
you know, I've had this thought a lot over the
last few years. I remember when there was that major

(53:15):
campaign to counsel my buddy Joe Rogan, and I remember
just even thinking at the time, you know, when they
were getting the artists to like boycott Spotify because he
was having you know, like you know, anti lockdown scientists
on his show or something like that. And you go, so,
what do you guys think, like Brian Stelter on CNN
every day advocating that Joe Rogan get you know, get censored.

(53:40):
What do you think they're all coming back to CNA
you think is fifteen million subscribers or what they're just
gonna they're gonna go, well, Rogan's gone. I guess we
got to tune into Don Lemon and Brian Stelter tonight.
I mean, come on, they're just And it's funny because
we kind of we ran this experiment of mass censorship
on social media for years and did that solve any
of those problems? Is there is there no more right

(54:02):
wing extremism now or no, it's it's worse than it's
ever been, or from their perspective, So again, it's like, yeah,
look when you got this many people, it's like governments
are by their nature their instruments of force, and all
they can do is repress this stuff. But that doesn't
that doesn't mean it goes away. In fact, that's probably
going to mean that it comes it re emerges in

(54:23):
a much more dangerous, uglier form.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Yeah, And I'm curious as somebody who's been engaged in this,
this dialogue and this debate, you know from the very beginning,
what you know, how you've seen it change over the
last you know, year plus, Like, have you seen are
people coming up to you who are like who have
changed their minds? That Dave, You're actually right, I wish

(54:48):
I had seen this earlier. Or are you've seen people
who like, after a year and a half of this,
I think you're you're crazy and you're obsessed, and you're
you've lost your mind about this. Like what you've got
your because you've been in so many different kind of
debates on this, on this issue, You've got your finger
on the kind of pulse I think in a way
that a lot of people don't. So what are what
are you sensing about, like how public attitudes have change?

(55:10):
Because you're right, like, you can censor all you want,
but if a chant like that is going to resonate
with hundreds of thousands of normies at a concert, that's
your problem, not the chance.

Speaker 8 (55:19):
Yeah. Yeah, well, so you know the it's like all
it's always been the case with every every war of
my lifetime that I can remember, is that it's always
like when the war first launches, the war propagandists are
at their strongest, and then as time goes on, their

(55:40):
case just gets weaker and weaker and weaker, and the
justification changes and the you know, the things they were
saying yesterday aren't even the arguments today. You know, there
was if you remember at the very beginning of this war,
whenever you would you would debate that somebody would always
say something like, uh, you know, we can't trust the

(56:01):
guys a health ministry. These numbers have been inflated. It's
not that many those talking points are pretty much all
gone now because it's the deaf count, as everybody acknowledges,
is way higher than what they were disputing back then.
In terms of like the reaction from people there, there's
no question that there are you know, Israel is a

(56:21):
particularly interesting issue, and it is one that is so emotional,
like there's so much emotion around it, and there are
the people who are just dug in and there's certainly
I've I've lost some fans and I've lost I don't
even know what to say. It's not even like people

(56:42):
necessarily that I'm friends with, but people say like in
the you know, in the commentator sphere, who would have
had just nothing but great things to say about me,
you know, like a if you had asked Dave Rubin
his thoughts about me two years ago, he would have
just told you what a bright guy I was, and
you know whatever, it would have been nothing but compliments.

(57:04):
Now it'll be he's a moron, he doesn't know what
he's talking about so like, I've gotten some of that,
but overwhelmingly the response from the people has been like,
just totally on the side of that, this is just
insane and it's indefensible. And I've heard from so many people.
I mean, I've gotten so many messages over the last

(57:26):
couple of years of people who were like, I was
a lifelong supporter of Israel, even a couple months into
the war, I thought you were crazy, and I liked
your takes on other things, but couldn't get on board
with this, And now they just look back at it
and go, oh, yeah, this is just totally indefensible. And
there's many different It's like, I don't think I've ever
seen any war or which I don't like using the

(57:49):
word war because it's really not a war. It's just
the destruction of a captive people. But you know, the
term genocide is much closer than the term war to
what you're seeing over there from So it's the most
like the defense of the policy is incoherent at every level,
at every and then the most basic one that I

(58:09):
think resonates the most with Trump supporters is that however
you feel about it, even if you were on Israel's
side of the conflict and say, you know whatever, after
October seventh, you have to respond and they have a
right to defend themselves or whatever the talking point is.
It's so clearly not in America's interest for this thing
to continue. It does nothing except in gender more hatred

(58:31):
against us, and it's it's a destabilizing force. No matter
how you feel about it. People over here are just
pitted against each other over a conflict thousands of miles
away that has nothing to do with America. It has
nothing to do you know, Hamas is probably Hamas. October
seventh is the by far the biggest you know, violent

(58:51):
achievement of the of the history of Hamas since it started.
They probably are no threat to repeat October seventh. There
are certainly no threat to the United States of America.
It is just too goofy. I mean, if you know,
somehow they'll try to make it out that Iran is
a threat to us, which is still pretty goofy. But Hamas,
I mean, come on, this is just not so you

(59:11):
just you can't defend the idea that America should be
funding something that is against America's interest. And so to me,
I've seen you know, I think it's been pretty overwhelming that,
like the people are opposed to this policy, and then
and and so I've you know, I kind of have
had the benefit it. Like the secret Ryan that I'll

(59:35):
share with you here is that I'm actually not that
good of a debater. I'm not the most brilliant guy
in the world. I'm not reinventing the world. Well I'm not.
I'm not. As Douglas Murray thought, this was a real gotcha,
I'm not the expert. There are people who know this
conflict in the history way better than I do. Norman
Finkelstein can recite every un resolution in his sleep. I

(59:55):
can't do that, you know what I mean. But I
know enough, and I just take the side that is
the obvious correct side. And then that makes it very
difficult to debate against because the truth has this ring
to it, you know, when people say something rings true.
Truth just has like a power that when you're in
an argument, it's very easy to win it when you

(01:00:16):
have the truth on your side. And so my experience
has been that this has been with the overwhelming majority
of people just calling out the insanity of this policy
has been resonating.

Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
And I think the podcast and YouTube format has also
changed it because if you're debating somebody for three minutes
on cable news, Douglas Murray talking point and a Dave
Smith talking point will both ring true, like they're both
you can each go back and forth for a couple
of minutes and sound reasonable to people who aren't steeped

(01:00:47):
in in the issue. And that's the point you're trying
to reach build aren't steeped in it. But you have
to go beyond three minutes. You know, once you're in
the minute thirty and minute sixty and minute ninety, then
that's when the truth starts to ring through, and and
the side that is incoherent just completely just kind of
crumbles in the face of those those facts. So I

(01:01:09):
think that's probably played a role too, And you're willing
to like engage long form makes it so that yeah,
over over the space of the debate, you're like, Okay,
wait a minute, none of this is making sense.

Speaker 8 (01:01:20):
Yes, that's right, long long form and you know not
a less controlled environment is always like that. That is
always a benefit to the truth teller. So whoever's telling
the truth, that's always going to help more and more.
And I think you're totally right. I mean it's it's
when you really think about it, it's like the cable
news in general is such a ridiculous format. Yeah, I

(01:01:43):
mean it's it's crazy that it ever existed.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
And you know, you go and do this Earth is
flat on there and sound reasonable for you know, two exchanges.

Speaker 8 (01:01:52):
There's I mean, I'm not even exaggerating. I've been on
you know, I used to do these shows. I don't
really do them anymore because it's like there's no point
and there's just the audiences on these internet shows, and
so what's the point in going back and doing cable news.
I get I get asked all the time to do
you know, like Fox News shows, but I'm just like,
it's not worth my time. But I've done a time.

(01:02:13):
But they would do this thing where it'd be like
it'd be literally three people on a panel, there's a
ten minute segment. The host of the show does you know,
two minutes up front, So now there's eight minutes to
be divided amongst three people to discuss the most important
topic in the world. And she's like this is the same,
like would you and so then it is you know, like, look,

(01:02:36):
it's a good exercise. I think sometimes to like, oh,
you're like, can I trim the fat and cut my
argument down to the most compelling two minute case? But yeah,
almost anybody can can even propagandas can sound compelling for
ninety seconds or two minutes. But it's not till you
start being able to push back on them and pull
the thread of all of their claims to kind of

(01:02:56):
expose how you know, It's like in my cousin Vinny
when he's you know, he says, you turn the card
to the side, and then you see how it's paper thin.
You know, It's like you have to be able to
do that. But now, and this is one of the
things that I'm really encouraged by. I just think it's
so amazing that we're living through this time. The new
norm now is long form shows, and that the politicians

(01:03:19):
even have to be able to go there. You saw
just Bernie Sanders going on Joe Rogan's show the other day,
and then of course Donald Trump doing all the show
is to help get his second term. That's the new
that's the new standard now. And I think that one
of the things that you know, people have seen with
a lot of this stuff, I think probably the biggest,
biggest example of it was Ted Cruz with Tucker Carlson

(01:03:41):
the other day. Is that you see that, like so
much of this war propaganda, they like they fall apart
with the like the most basic pushback, the most basic
just like kind of like just just one for one
follow up question and their entire case falls apart. And
so that is that is very encouraging to me, and

(01:04:02):
I think that's that's our best hope moving forward.

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
Yeah, I've had the same experience. I did cable for
many years, and my colleagues or my wife would say, like,
don't you have like see an n or MSNBC in
like two minutes, don't you to prepare for this? Like no,
they're going to give me thirty five seconds to talk,
Like I have thirty five seconds off the top, like
on whatever issue you've got, I've got thirty seconds on that.

(01:04:27):
And that's not a value to the viewer who wants
my surface thirty seconds. But that's what they do, and
then they just do it every hour on repeat. The
Israeli newspaper, Howarettes released a startling investigation over the weekend
or like gues startling to people who didn't believe the
many Palestinian eyewitnesses and medics and doctors who had been

(01:04:51):
making the same case. But what the howrets we could
put this element up on the screen investigation revealed is
that what we have been seeing and what we have
been hearing about is is the result of a policy
coming from at least some commanders in the field to
deliberately shoot at shoot toward starving Palestinian aid seekers at

(01:05:13):
the at and around the aid centers related to the
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Amir Tibon is a columnist at how
Reetz were still joined as well by Dave Smith. Late
later in this interview, we're going to talk about Amir's
latest column on Netan, Yahoo and Trump. We want to
start here with this how a Retz investigation, Amir, How

(01:05:36):
has it been resonating in Israel? This this feels like
a piece that broke through in a way that some
had not in the past. But maybe that's just my
hope kind of give you know, coloring my analysis.

Speaker 19 (01:05:53):
So, first of all, this is an investigation by three
of my colleagues, and Nil Sassoon and iv Kobovich and
Barb and I want to give them the due credit
for the hard work that they did here, and it's
mostly based on interviews with soldiers, with people on the
ground who are eyewitnesses to the very disturbing reality that

(01:06:14):
has developed around the question of the aid distribution in
Gaza and all these incidents where you have people being
killed from gunfire. Now, the investigation doesn't say that this
is exclusively the idea, if it doesn't rule out the
claim that we've heard from the Israeli side that also
Hamas has targeted people near the aid centers or some

(01:06:37):
of the workers, but it definitely includes testimonies from soldiers
who say that they were given orders to fire live ammunition,
let's say, at least in the vicinity of the aid
distribution centers. And I really think it's just worth reading.
It's a very very strong article. There's been strong pushback
against it. But what's interesting to note is that at

(01:07:00):
least I've seen one reporter, one military reporter for I
think it's Channel fourteen, which is a very right leaning
Prona Tanyao media outlet, who basically after denouncing the investigation
in Haretz, said that some of the orders and some
of the rules of engagement, you know, when soldiers can

(01:07:21):
open fire around the distribution centers was changed after the
publication of the story, which, you know, it's a weird
way to try to debunk something if you're saying it's
not true. But by the way it has led to
changes in the policy, and from my point of view,
I think what it really shows is that from speaking

(01:07:43):
of from an Israeli perspective.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
This is a war that has exhausted itself.

Speaker 19 (01:07:50):
I don't understand as somebody who you know, Ryan knows
this lived on the border with Gaza before October seven,
still plans to go back and live in the of
Israel when the war is over. I don't see how
this actually makes my family safer. There are other elements
of this war, and war is always a terrible thing,

(01:08:10):
but there are elements of it where I would read
a story and say, you know, this is terrible, but
we were attacked, and this is war, and this is difficult.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
I think we're at a point today where it.

Speaker 19 (01:08:21):
Seems like the war really has exhausted itself, and these
incidents are one glaring example of it.

Speaker 8 (01:08:30):
If you will do you do you have a sense
of the motivation behind giving orders like this. It's one
of the things that's really dumbfounding to me is you know,
you have so much pushback internationally on the you know,
the destruction of Gaza and the treatment of the Palestinian people.
What is the benefit of ordering IDF soldiers to shoot

(01:08:53):
live ammunition into a group of civilians looking for food.

Speaker 19 (01:08:58):
So, first of all, I I want to be very,
very kind of cautious here with the wording, because I
think what we know is that soldiers were given orders
to fire, let's say in that direction. We don't necessarily
know that they were told go and kill people. But
the thing he really is that we are at a

(01:09:18):
point where you have this war of a tuition in Gaza.
From the Israeli perspective, we are losing a lot of
soldiers there, and a lot of them, you know, young
people who have been in this endless war situation since
they joined the army.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Really their life is in danger.

Speaker 19 (01:09:36):
And when you are in a situation like that, a
lot of times you're saying, Okay, I'm going to take
extra precaution as a commander to try to protect my soldiers.
And if the soldiers are in this kind of stalemate situation,
there is very little movement. They see danger everywhere because
Gaza today is basically tons of rubble and destroyed building

(01:10:00):
and they are being faced with you know, explosives and
the land mines and RPGs and things like that. So
there's this heightened sense of danger and that a lot
of times will lead to decisions that you know, for
me as a civilian, I look at it and I say,

(01:10:20):
this is not leading us anywhere. But for a soldier
in the field on the ground, you're like, I guess
much more, you know, considering first of all your survival
and so and I think this is one of the
issues I tend here that when I look at it,
I say, okay, this is first of all terrible, and

(01:10:41):
second of all, I take it up to the government,
not to the soldiers on the ground. Again this is
from my perspective. I take it to the government and say,
what are you sending these people to do at this point?
What is this achieving for us for Israel as a country.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
The tank shells to me at a layer of complexity,
not complexity like depravity to the order, because I think
no aid organization thinks that using live ammunition and firing
warning shots at AID seekers is like an effective way
to do AID distribution, like you've never heard of World
Central Kitchen saying no, we apologize for the thirty seven,

(01:11:22):
you know, people that were killed at the World Central Kitchen.
We were firing warning shots and it turned out that
we killed thirty seven and wounded seventy two like that.
Never in the history of aid distribution has that happened.
But even setting aside the live ammunition warning shots, firing
shells towards civilian crowds is guaranteed to lead to I mean,

(01:11:47):
unless there's some miraculous situation where it lands nowhere near
they fired, it's guaranteed to lead to casualties at least,
you know, significant amounts of people wounded. But I take
your point that I imagine the soldiers were saying, who cares,
Like we're we're there's a risk to us, or we
perceive a risk to us, and we might might as

(01:12:08):
well fire, And so yeah, I think I think again.

Speaker 19 (01:12:13):
You know, you can look at the tactical question Ryan,
why did this specific tank fire, And honestly, I wouldn't
have the answer.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
I would assume it was because they felt in danger.
But I think the bigger question.

Speaker 19 (01:12:24):
Is what is happening with this entire experiment of changing
the mechanism of the aid distribution, which I remind you
about one hundred days ago when the war in Gaza
was renewed after the Trump wit CoV cease fire collapsed
because NATANIAO chose to renew the war. This was presented
at least domestically to people in Israel, but I think

(01:12:44):
also it on the international scene as the big game changer.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
You know, you would have this.

Speaker 19 (01:12:50):
Supposedly neutral but in fact very much aligned with Israeli
and American government's aid organization, you know, the Ghazi Hunanitarian
Foundation ache over the aid distribution. Hamas would no longer
be able to control it. They wouldn't be able to
loot and steal the a and everything would be run
through these encampments. It would all be very professional, and

(01:13:12):
a lot of eight organizations that have more experience working
in Gaza and elsewhere in the world said, this doesn't
make any sense. This is going to turn out into
a disaster, and they gave several.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Reasons for their warnings.

Speaker 19 (01:13:24):
One of it was again, he would have Hamas on
the one hand trying to stop it, and on the
other hand, the Israeli soldiers were supposed to bring some
layer of protection to these centers, and if you have
any situation where they start firing at one another, this
becomes a blood death. And I think after one hundred
days since the war was renewed, I don't see the

(01:13:45):
big change on the ground.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
I see still people dying every day.

Speaker 19 (01:13:49):
I see the hostages still held by Hamas, and Hamas
hasn't budged in their position that the war must end
in order to have the release.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Of all the hostages.

Speaker 19 (01:14:00):
And we are still seeing, by the way, apart from
these eight distribution centers and everything that's happening around them,
trucks coming into Gaza and being looted and people stealing.
One of the explanations you're reading now in Israeli media
is that it's not Hamas doing the looting, it's local
clans or you know, sometimes the clan can be a

(01:14:22):
nice word for a crime organization. I'm not sure how
that's better, honestly, but it's become a dystopia nightmare really,
and again, to me, it all comes back to the
fundamental question, why is this war continuing. Why aren't we
getting to a deal that would bring back the hostages
and end this insanity.

Speaker 4 (01:14:42):
And to the point of the war ending. Let's let's
move on to your piece that you wrote in how
Ratz yesterday. Again we're joined here by a mere to
Bone columnist for the Israeli newspaper, as well as Dave Smith,
so we can put up d one. This is your
column yesday where you and in the past when we've
had you on and you've made predictions that Trump or
Whitcoff were making particular strategic mistakes. Your your predictions have

(01:15:07):
very unfortunately borne out and been accurate. And so now
you're warning again here that that Trump is misunderstanding that
Yahoo and making mistake in if people have seen it, Dave,
I'm sure you've seen these Trump sending these long love
letters to net Yahoo and basically berating the Israeli judiciary

(01:15:30):
threatening to withhold us, you know, implicitly threatening to withhold
us funding if the judges don't drop all of these
different corruption charges against nen Yahoo, which presumably Trump thinks
is some there are some obstacle to net Yahoo reaching
a deal, which maybe in his mind they are. Let's
tell us like, what is what is Trump thinking and
why do you think this is wrong?

Speaker 19 (01:15:53):
So first of all, Ryan, I can say with one
hundred percent certainty, what is Trump thinking? But I can
look at his actions and made he tried to understand.
So he got the Iran war done. Right after those
twelve days, he got a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
There was that moment where Natania wanted to send more
planes over there, and he stopped the mid level. I

(01:16:16):
don't know, maybe now the pilots need to have truth Social,
you know, installed in those.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Thirty five so that they know what they're doing.

Speaker 19 (01:16:25):
And then everybody expected him to move to Gaza, because
I want to remind you a month and a half ago,
when we had that separate US Hamas Qatar deal to
release Idan Alexander, the Israeli American hostage, the soldier, the
lone soldier was taken by Hamas. At the time, Trump
already wrote on truth Social that it's time to end

(01:16:47):
this brutal war.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
That's a quote that he used. That was a month
and a half ago.

Speaker 19 (01:16:53):
But suddenly now instead of putting everything on Gaza, we're
seeing him pushing instead to cancel and Taniau's criminal trial,
you know, to length the angry posts on this issue
within forty eight hours.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
So what some people are saying is well, there's an
obvious linkage here.

Speaker 19 (01:17:10):
He wants the Natanio trial to be canceled or at
least to show Nathaniel that he's batting hard for him,
and then in return, Natanieo will.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Give him what he wants on Gaza again. You know,
there are several problems with this.

Speaker 19 (01:17:26):
First of all, the mechanism for ending the Nataniao trial
runs through some kind of a plea agreement between him
and the prosecution, and the prosecution has said, okay, we
can erase all the charges against Antanio, but he needs
to admit that he did something wrong, because that's usually
part of a plea agreement, And he needs to be

(01:17:48):
retiring from his position of power so that he cannot
do corrupt actions again in the future. And antania refuses completely.
I don't see how Trump's intervention can change that. And
he can put threats, and by the way, I understood
his threat, not specifically to take military aid from Israel,
but maybe to put sanctions on the prosecution in Israel

(01:18:12):
and on the judges and basically do something that would
hurt them personally. But even that I don't think would help,
because you would see strong pushback against that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
In Israel.

Speaker 19 (01:18:23):
Trump is very popular in Israel after what happened in Iran, especially,
he's seen as the savior who came to help Israel
against the Iranian nuclear threat. But you can throw a
lot of appreciation and goodwill away if you're seeing as
someone who's meddling in the internal affairs of the country
and trying to impose judicial outcomes on something that's really

(01:18:46):
none of any other countries business.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
To.

Speaker 19 (01:18:51):
The second issue is that the real obstacle to a
deal in Gaza, a deal to bring back all the.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Hostages and end the war, is not the natany out
There's just no connection between the two things.

Speaker 19 (01:19:04):
The real obstacle has been all along that NATANIEO doesn't
agree to end the war, and that's fundamentally what Hamas
are saying they will demand in order to release all
the hostages, and a lot of military pressure and a
lot of death and destruction in Gaza so far has
not changed their demand. Were six hundred and thirty two

(01:19:25):
days into the snipmer and we already had an agreement
in place right the agreement in January that Trump and
wikoff together with the last breath of the Biden administration
they brought together. But I give most of the credit
to Trump and Wikock because the Biden team was working
on this for months and they got nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Really Suddenly Witkof emerged and boom, it was done.

Speaker 19 (01:19:47):
That deal had everything spelled out already, you know, first phase,
thirty three hostages, thousand Palestinian prisoners, partial Israeli withdrawal, more
aid coming into Gaza. All of that was successfully implemented
in February and the beginning of March. But then Nataniao
invented new parameters for the agreement, walked away from what

(01:20:09):
he signed and he said, no, I want a partial ceasefire,
partial withdrawal, only some of the hostages come back.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
And that's when it all fell apart.

Speaker 19 (01:20:19):
It's going to be four months soon because time is
passing and people are dying and the suffering is continuing.
And that's the fundamental problem. It's not about Nataniao's trial,
it's not about Iran. It's about one question. Ken Trump
convinced Nathanieo to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
Stop the war. That's it.

Speaker 19 (01:20:39):
And so far, with all the talk and all the grandeur,
and there was a Trump tweet the other day about
you know, take the Gaza deal, get the hostages. The
real question is will there be any pressure from Trump
to make this happen? And it's binary, you know, one
or zero, that's what it will take.

Speaker 8 (01:21:00):
Did you feel like you mentioned the Witcough deal that
he got through during Joe Biden's lamed up, which I
agree with you certainly seems that, yes, the Biden administration
had this deal on the table, I think since May
of twenty twenty twenty four, and then it doesn't happen
until witkof comes in. From all the reporting that I
read about that, it does seem like they were putting

(01:21:21):
some pressure on the net and Yahu government. And it
seems one of the things that's kind of bizarre about
this whole thing from the American perspective is that Donald Trump,
you know, if any country was imposing this albatross around
his neck that Israel is, and he politically wanted to
get this thing done, and he was funding the thing,

(01:21:42):
you know, we'd see him insulting them, threatening to pull
the funding. It seems like very easy theoretically for America
to put pressure on Israel since they are funding and
arming this campaign. And yet in this case, it just
seems like that there was a little bit of pressure
that Witkoff put on Yahoo at the very beginning, and
now there is this inability to do that. It's something

(01:22:05):
that's kind of fascinating to me and I think a
lot of other Americans. Of course, we've seen Benjamin Netanyahu
on secret recordings bragging about how he can move America
in the past. What's your perspective on that, is Netanyahu,
is his administration concerned about this pressure or do they
feel like they can get what they want.

Speaker 19 (01:22:26):
I think that when with Kov came to the region
right before Trump's inauguration, everybody had one mission on their minds,
which was don't get this guy's boss angry at you.
And with Kov played that card very smartly. He played
it with Katar, he played it with Egypt, he played
it with Israel. And from Hamas's perspective, I think they

(01:22:47):
were willing to go along with Trump and not with
Biden because they said, Okay, there's a risk here, because
the mechanism of the agreement always included a loophole through
which NATANIAO could break the deal and renew the world.
But they said, if we do it with by the end,
you know, in a few months we get Trump and
then who knows what happens.

Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
But with CoV this is Trump's guy.

Speaker 19 (01:23:09):
So if this is an agreement that he is responsible for,
there's a bigger likelihood that this won't happen.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
And then it did happen. And now the question again is,
you know, does Trump want this war to end enough
to use his leverage?

Speaker 19 (01:23:25):
And by the way, I don't think he needs to
put any kind of threats like the ones that you
hinted at. I think his popularity in Israel, especially now
at this moment, you know, just a public call to
do it would pretty much be enough. And it would
actually help NITANIAO in a sense because NATANIAO could come

(01:23:45):
and say, well, you know what, we didn't achieve all
of the goals in the war supposedly, but President Trump
is asking us and look what he just did for
us in Iran. So it wouldn't even take a lot,
because you know, there is a political price to pay.
I said, you know, I'm going to go to a
great lengths to get the seasfire and have a full

(01:24:06):
on confrontation with NATANIAO. And I think he would emerge
victorious from a confrontation like that, I really do. But
right now it would even require less than that. So
why isn't he doing? Honestly, I don't have the answer.
And maybe in the few next few days we'll see
something change. Right Ron Dermer Nathaniel's closest aid is in

(01:24:26):
Washington right now.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
He's going to have meetings in the White House.

Speaker 19 (01:24:29):
There was a meeting over the weekend between Marco Rubio
and the families of some of the Israeli hostages, and
the families are pushing for this right The families are
basically saying, we want the war over. We don't want
another partial deal. Five hostages there, three hostages in three months.
We want everybody released. The war is over, it's done.

(01:24:51):
But the question what is Trump going to do? And
I guess that's you know, always the unknown territory. So
the war is over if Trump wants it, is the
bottom line. Amir Bone a columnist at how Retz. Thank
thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:08):
Thank you, guys. Let's hope for good news.

Speaker 4 (01:25:10):
Yeah, let's.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
So.

Speaker 4 (01:25:14):
On June eighteenth, Karen Reid was finally, after a multi
year saga, acquitted of a murder in Canton Massachusetts.

Speaker 11 (01:25:26):
Is that right, Aiden, Camp Massachusets is corrected.

Speaker 4 (01:25:29):
Massachusetts, And it was a case that captured international attention,
will be the subject of many has been the subject
of documentaries, will be the subject of movies and documentaries
and books and so on. And one of the reporters
or they maybe the reporter who helped bring it to

(01:25:49):
national international attention. Aiden Carney, who known online as doctor
turtle Boy, is here on Breaking Points. We're very I
did to be joined by doctor turtle Boy, Aiden Carney. Aiden,
thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 11 (01:26:06):
Thank you for having me Ryan, I really appreciate it
being there.

Speaker 4 (01:26:09):
Yeah, and so we want to talk a little bit
about the case, but mostly I actually want to talk
about your case because I think it's a fascinating, important,
and overlooked case of press freedom. Because as a result,
as a direct result of your coverage of this case,
you have gone up against the same kind of system
of law enforcement that you accused of corruptly mishandling at

(01:26:34):
best the case of Karen Reid, and they have retaliated
against you in an extraordinary way. You've already been behind
bars as a result of it, and you continue to
face down charges. But for people who don't know the case.
Let's let me try to give him a quick thumbnail sketch,
and you can you can tell people, you know, the
important bars that I'm I'm missing. But essentially, Karen Reid

(01:26:58):
was dating a police office her name, John O'Keefe in Canton, Massachusetts.
They go out to a bar drinking with a whole
bunch of other cops. Uh, there's a there's one cop
there who she's got some kind of a flirty text
relationship with. She and John drive to an after party

(01:27:18):
at at you know, one of the cops houses who
was at the bar with them. She just doesn't go
into the house. He says he's going to go, and
she tells him go in, tell me if it's cool
or not. She waits about he goes, He goes in. Well,
this is the debate. She waits about ten minutes and
she leaves. He is then found the next morning on

(01:27:41):
the front lawn of the cops house. The cops charge
her with hitting him, knocking him into the ground, and
then he dies of hypothermia overnight. They never go into
the you know, they don't go into the officer's house.

Speaker 11 (01:27:58):
We didn't, he didn't die.

Speaker 8 (01:28:00):
But right, So.

Speaker 4 (01:28:03):
Is there any important piece I'm missing there because I
don't want to spend too much time on the case itself,
but tell us, like what attracted your attention to it?

Speaker 11 (01:28:11):
So what attracted my attention to it? Initially?

Speaker 17 (01:28:14):
You know, it makes headlines when a police officer is killed,
and that's kind of a story that I write about.
So you know, I'm conservative, right and so like during
the whole like summer of twenty twenty, like I took
the back the blue.

Speaker 11 (01:28:28):
Position, if you will, on that, and that's kind of
like my bread and butter.

Speaker 17 (01:28:32):
And you know, when police officers are killed in the
line of duty around here in Massachusetts, it's always like
the same theme.

Speaker 11 (01:28:38):
The profile of a cop killer is like always the same.

Speaker 17 (01:28:41):
It's somebody who has a long and documented history of violence, arrests.
You could have seen it coming a mile away, and
they never should have been out roaming the streets.

Speaker 11 (01:28:52):
In the first place.

Speaker 17 (01:28:54):
So when I saw a police officers killed, you know,
I look into it and I see it's this, it's
the girlfriend who did it, And I'm like, well, does
she have a history of violence?

Speaker 11 (01:29:02):
Let's look in at her.

Speaker 17 (01:29:03):
And I looked into her and she's Jike, some you know,
number cruncher at Fidelity, working as a financial analyst, and
no history of violence whatsoever. And it appeared to all
be a horrible accident. It sounded like I didn't look
into it much. It's there was a blizzard that night,
and I'm like, well, it sounded like there was like
a foot of snow and she accidentally backed into him

(01:29:25):
without realizing it after dropping them off, And wow, what
a horrible, horrible way to die, like the tragedy for everyone.
So I really had little interest in the story because
it just it just sounded like a horrible, sad tragedy
that I wasn't that into. And so I honestly forgot
the name Karen Reid. And she was indicted, and I

(01:29:46):
didn't even pay attention to it, because the original arrest
gets a lot of attention, but not the indictment. I
didn't even know what an indictment was until I was indicted. Like,
it's just move your case to a more important courtroom
where you know you can face more years in jail, essentially,
that's what it means.

Speaker 11 (01:30:01):
And so I know forgot about it.

Speaker 17 (01:30:04):
And then in April of twenty twenty three, I saw
a couple headlines about something about a Google search at
two twenty seven someone inside the house where John O'Keefe
was found on the lawn of had googled how long
too that and cold at two twenty seven am, and
that this was suspicious and I hadn't really take it
into full implication of what that meant.

Speaker 11 (01:30:23):
And so then I got, you know, I put it
on my to do list of things to look into.

Speaker 17 (01:30:27):
It was busy that week, and then five days later,
April seventeenth, I got a message from a Duxbury police
officer or a retired Duxbury cop by the name of
Brian Johnson, who generally has the same position with me
on policing back to blue, et cetera. And he tells
me that, like, you need to look into this case.
It appears as if this woman is being framed. John

(01:30:48):
used to work with me at Duxbury Police. I actually
trained him because John used to be a Duxbury police
officer or a small town on the South Shore, and
you know, he's like, something doesn't add up about this.

Speaker 11 (01:30:57):
And the homeowner is a Boston cop named Brian All.

Speaker 17 (01:31:00):
Who has a notorious record as being a hothead, you know,
a boxer, a fighter, and he's not really well liked
in Boston police. So like, I think this woman has
apparently been framed. So that means more to you coming
from a police officer who's telling you that, Like, this
woman appears to have been framed.

Speaker 11 (01:31:18):
And so I do a deep dive.

Speaker 17 (01:31:19):
I read Alan Jackson had filed a ninety four page
affidavit a couple days prior that explained all of this stuff.
And it was like reading a movie script when you're
reading this, like this can't be real, Like this is crazy,
Like this doesn't happen in real life, something so brazen.
And you know, I'm a receipts guy. I like evidence.
I don't just take people at their word for it.
And Alan Jackson had cell bright reports from Jennifer McCabe's

(01:31:43):
cell phone, from John O'Keeffe's cell phone showing that he
was going up and down three flights of stairs. Karen
Reid doesn't have a flight of stairs, and or alexis
as nice as it is, you know, And so everything
came back with data and evidence, and when it finally
hits you what happened here, You're like, holy cat, Wow,
this is the story of the century. So I made

(01:32:03):
a post on April seventeenth that I was, you know,
writing a story about what appears to be a Boston
police officer who was killed inside the home of another
Boston police officer and a girlfriend was being framed for it,
and a lot of people were commenting saying, like, is
this the story out of Canton? Oh, I remember this,
and so people were really anticipating it. I spent all
night writing my story on this. I published it at

(01:32:24):
like three thirty am, and it kind of blew up,
and I did a show about it, and it got
a lot. You know, my audience grew greatly as a
result of my first coverage of this, and I really
thought that it was going to be the end of it.
I'm like, well, they have to drop the charges now, right, Like,
it's quite obvious this woman didn't do this and that
somebody else did. And because silly me, I was operating

(01:32:46):
under the impression that our institutions actually wanted justice for
people like John O'Keeffe and were actually interested in finding
who actually killed him. And I thought that anyone with
the brain looking at this knows that she didn't do this,
and these people over here right clearly are suspicious and
at the very least they should be looked into.

Speaker 11 (01:33:04):
But when they didn't, when they.

Speaker 17 (01:33:05):
Released a press release a couple of days after my
first story and they kind of put their pedal to
the metal and they're like, now we're doubling down, like
we're going harder at her Now, that's when I realized that, oh, wow,
this is much worse than I thought these are. It's
the DA's office itself that is participant, that is okay
with this, and our institutions are okay with this. And
so that's when, you know, the harder they pushed, the

(01:33:28):
harder I push back. And what kind of got me
into hot water was, you know, I say, I wear
three hats. I'm a journalist, I'm a satirist, and I'm
an activist. Right when I'm When i'm a journalist, it's
when i'm writing the stories and researching and doing all
that stuff. When I'm a satirist, it's when I'm on
my show and I'm cracking jokes and I'm being a

(01:33:48):
little bit outrageous. When I'm an activist, it's when I'm
showing up and i'm protesting and I'm urging people to
write letters and emails and stuff like that and become involved.
And so I put on my activist hat and I,
you know, I went up to I said Jennifer McCabe.
I saw her at a John o'keef hearing on May
twenty fourth, about a month after I started writing it,

(01:34:10):
and the woman who googled how long to die and
cold it to twenty seven was there with her, you know,
her husband, and she's wearing a Justice for JJ button
And that just really offended me because she googled how
long to die in cold in order to decide how
long it would take for John to die in the cold,
and then she shows up wearing that button. So I just,
you know, I have a phone. I go outside and

(01:34:30):
I start interviewing her, and I'm like, why are you
wearing a Justice for JJ button when you helped, you know,
cover up his murder? Like are you at all remorseful
of that?

Speaker 11 (01:34:38):
Why did you.

Speaker 17 (01:34:38):
Delete all these phone calls? It's this thing called journalism
that people used to do. You just go up to
people and you ask him questions and at the end
they walked away. And that's when my you know, my
wild side came out, and I'm like, oh, these people
are cop killers, ladies and gentlemen. They killed the Boston
police officer and they're getting away with it and blah
blah blah blah blah. So she went and tried to
get a harassment prevention order on me after that, and

(01:35:00):
the judge told her, sorry, like that's protected speech, He's
allowed to do that. But she told the judge that
is there anything you can do to get him to
stop blogging about me? And I thought that was pretty
telling about things to come. Anything you can do. She's
asking the government, can you do something to silence this

(01:35:20):
person's First Amendment rights? Because there I don't like what
they're doing to me. I don't it's making me uncomfortable.
I don't like him asking questions, et cetera. And the
judge said, no, he has a first memor right to
do it. So then about two weeks later, she I
knew that her daughter at a lacrosse game at a
town called bill Ricca. And you know, I knew that
she'd be there, and I'm like, well, this is a

(01:35:42):
public event. I have a right to go there if
I want to and ask her questions. So I went
there bought a ticket, and I went right up to
her in the stands and I had a camera out
and I her husband was there and he goes, hey,
tough guy, how you been. Oh you're a lot smaller
in person, like kind of mocking me whatever. And so
I go over to her and I'm like, Jen, why
did you go how long to die cold? At two

(01:36:03):
twenty seven am? And she's laughing, She's like smiling about this.
This is all like a big joke to her. I'm like,
is this funny to you? Like a Boston police officer
has been killed and you're laughing about it, and you know,
I cause it's a scene, A scene is being caused.
Security comes over from the school and they're like, this
is not here, not And I'm okay, and I leave
and I called her cop killer on the way out
and I left and I have been indicted for fellowy

(01:36:26):
witness intimidation for that because Massachusetts has a really broad,
to say, the least witness intimidation statute. Every state has one,
and they're they're necessary obviously, because you can't have witnesses
and cases who are afraid to testify out of fear
of violence from mobs.

Speaker 11 (01:36:46):
Or gangsters or whoever.

Speaker 17 (01:36:48):
Right, that's the traditional witness intimidation is supposed to be
in spirit, but in Massachusetts it's much broader, and it
says that you can't cause physical violence to a witness
or a motional harm whatever that means, which is the
most subjective term ever. And so all so that's part
one of the witness intimidation statue. Part two is you

(01:37:10):
can't cause emotional harm with the intent to or reckless
disregard for the fact that it may interfere or obstruct
an ongoing court proceeding. And so they get all these
people to go in front of the grand jury, Jennifer
McCabe and many others who I had done similar things with,
and they all went in front of the grand jury
and they testified that they were, you know, sad, scared, fearful,

(01:37:36):
not a physical harm because I've never physically threatened to
but they're just emotionally scarred from this all. So that's
part one they've covered of the statue. Part two is
to obstruct in a criminal proceeding. And so they prosecutors
would ask them these kind of leading questions at the
grand jury where there's no judge, there's no defense. You
just hear one side of this, and the bar for
probable causes very low. And they asked these witnesses, well,

(01:37:59):
why did you you you know what, why do you
Why do you think he's doing this? And they would
all say, like it was a script. I think he
is doing this because I am a witness in the
Carara reecase and he does not want me to testify.

Speaker 11 (01:38:12):
Like they all said the exact same thing.

Speaker 17 (01:38:14):
And so it's just very obvious that like they found
this kind of statute and like, this is how we're
going to get him, This is how we're going to
shut him up. And so you know, I was doing
this for like six months. I held a protest in
Canton that was actually inspired by like I went, so
we called it a rolling rally. We met in a
stop and shop in Norwood, a neighboring town of Canton,

(01:38:36):
where Brian Albert lived, and we went to his new
house in Norwood, and I announced we were coming ahead
of time, so if they didn't want to be there,
they didn't have to be there. And for seven minutes
I stood outside of his residence with a megaphone and
I just explained his involvement in the murder of John O'Keefe.

Speaker 11 (01:38:53):
I said, he's the.

Speaker 17 (01:38:53):
Homeowner, he didn't come outside, blah blah blah, And then
we left and nothing happened.

Speaker 11 (01:39:00):
We went to the next house.

Speaker 17 (01:39:00):
We went to Michael Procter's house, next, then Jennifer McCabe's,
then Julie Nagels. It was a nice Sunday afternoon. Women, children,
the elderly were there. There were no calls to the police,
no disturbing the peace calls, anything like that. It was
a nice It was as peaceful of protests as you get.
And honestly, what made me do something like that was,
you know, I had seen I think it was a

(01:39:22):
summer before, two summers before, when Roe versus Wade was overturned,
a lot of people went outside the homes of Supreme
Court justices like Trsus.

Speaker 11 (01:39:31):
Kavanaugh and others, and they protested.

Speaker 17 (01:39:34):
And I was controversial because it's like, you know, should
they be allowed to do this, should they not be
allowed to do this?

Speaker 11 (01:39:39):
And ultimately they were allowed to do it.

Speaker 17 (01:39:41):
And I said, well, if you're allowed to do it
to a Supreme Court justice, you're certainly allowed to do
it to Brian Albert and so and I didn't really
have any goal.

Speaker 11 (01:39:49):
I wasn't trying to get them to change.

Speaker 17 (01:39:51):
I know they're not going to change their testimony or
anything like that, but I just want to make my
voice heard, like I just have the right and so
do others. And because I'm outraged about this, I take
the position that John Keith was murdered inside Brian Albert's
house and that these people are framing it and it's
in person, and that really upsets me. So I do
the most American thing I can do, and I take
to the streets and I peacefully protest, and I did.

(01:40:13):
I didn't threaten anyone. I've never hurt anyone. I haven't
like caused a bruise. All I've done is hurt feelings.
And so I was On October eleventh, I dropped my
kids bust my kids bust Off is like right across
the street from our house. They were six and eight
at the time, and get them on the bus and
then I cross the street and you know, their bus
stops at the next house, couple houses away, and so

(01:40:35):
they could definitely see this happening. A truck pulls up
where I'm trying to go into my driveway, walk up
the driveway and a guy gets out and he's got
a vest on and he's like hey.

Speaker 11 (01:40:44):
I'm like, can I help you? And he's like, yeah,
you're under arrest.

Speaker 17 (01:40:47):
We got a bunch of warrants and put your hands
and he starts putting me in cuffs, and I'm like,
what is happening?

Speaker 11 (01:40:52):
What is going on right now?

Speaker 6 (01:40:53):
What?

Speaker 11 (01:40:54):
And then all of a sudden, six other on mark
cars pull up and one of.

Speaker 17 (01:40:58):
Them pops out and starts reading my rights, and it's
this guy named Brian Tully. And Brian Tully is the lead,
the head detective lieutenant at the State Police Norfolk County Unit,
and so he's like the head honcho of the Camera
Reid investigation.

Speaker 11 (01:41:13):
He signs all the paperwork, et cetera.

Speaker 17 (01:41:15):
So I I'm like, I've been extremely critical of this
guy and accused him of being involved in the cover
up of John O'Keeffe's murder. And so the guy that
I'm accusing of being involved in the police cover up
of a murder is now at my house arresting me
for accusing for doing exactly what I did accusing this
guy and being nefarious, thus proving my point here, Like

(01:41:37):
they're like the guy that's accusing them of cover up
and having all this influence and getting people outraged about this.

Speaker 11 (01:41:43):
You're now at his house arresting him.

Speaker 17 (01:41:46):
They had a search warrant for my house, and which
I thought was ironic because they didn't get a search
warrant for Brian Albert.

Speaker 4 (01:41:54):
Scha for the house where the dead body was found.

Speaker 8 (01:41:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:41:56):
I jokingly say this, but it's it's absurd.

Speaker 17 (01:42:00):
I say I should have if I threw a dead
cop on my yard, they would leave me alone, because
that's like kryptonite to the Massachusetts State Police. They will
just not They will just leave you alone if there's
a dead cop on the yard and blame someone else.

Speaker 4 (01:42:13):
I'm glad you mentioned your conservative politics because it's like
ow that it goes to the role of the importance
of the principle of press freedom. Our viewers will know
I'm not on the right, but your viewers, if they're
watching this, may not know that. But you know, press
freedom should not just apply to you, to your political allies.

(01:42:34):
And also, I think it's important to know that people
need to understand that press freedom applies to everybody in
the country. It is not limited just to journalists. Because
think about that. If you had to limit it to journalists,
then some government agency would then have to credential who's
a journalist and would say, okay, well you're a journalist

(01:42:55):
and you're not, so you get First Amendment and you don't.
So for people who would say he's he's doing satire here,
or he's an activist because he's got a bullhorn in
front of this cops house, and it actually doesn't matter,
like freedom of the press applies to all people who
are here in the United States and so, and it's
not just whether you agree with someone or not, it's

(01:43:17):
it particularly important if you don't agree with them, you
stand up for their their press freedom rights. I would
most of the things that you talked about here are
covered in this you know, forty five minute roughly video
that you have posted on your Twitter feed, which is
is it doctor turtle Boy. What's what's your Twitter handle.

Speaker 11 (01:43:37):
At doctor turtle Boy.

Speaker 4 (01:43:38):
So people should go check that out. But I wanted
to play just one, one little clip of it here
so people can get a flavor of the the actual
language that prosecutors have been using and compare that to
you know, the reality of what you were doing. So
let's let's roll this clip here.

Speaker 17 (01:43:59):
Actual video shows I was talking about returning to Canton
to see a d BW worker who was giving me
the run around ninety four.

Speaker 8 (01:44:07):
Throwboarding turnst the Canton.

Speaker 12 (01:44:08):
This is a video posted shortly after Karen visited Pups
of Weaknesses.

Speaker 1 (01:44:11):
This is not my last trips Canton.

Speaker 5 (01:44:13):
I will be back.

Speaker 1 (01:44:14):
I'll be back.

Speaker 11 (01:44:15):
Get used to this the staple part me, this staple.

Speaker 1 (01:44:18):
Think I'm fucking around.

Speaker 9 (01:44:19):
We haven't seen the last thing.

Speaker 8 (01:44:20):
Okay used to one nineteen to one.

Speaker 17 (01:44:22):
They combined sentences from two different clips. I will be
back was encouraging people not to be afraid of the mcalberts.
This is not my last trip to Canton. I will
be back, And more and more, I think people are
getting Like a year or so ago, people didn't want
to cooperate with Karen reid defense team because they're like, yeah,
it's easy to keep my head down and you know

(01:44:44):
whatever and keep a low profile. But now, you know,
now they're like, fuck it. You know, We've made people
realize that you don't have nothing to be afraid of.
The big bad monster's not gonna bite you. We newted
their ass. They can't do anything and not so tough anymore,
are they?

Speaker 1 (01:44:57):
This is not my last trips Canton.

Speaker 8 (01:44:59):
I will be back.

Speaker 1 (01:45:00):
I'll be back.

Speaker 11 (01:45:01):
Get used to this, people say, partly to see the
same fucking around.

Speaker 5 (01:45:04):
You haven't seen the last name one nineteen one.

Speaker 11 (01:45:09):
These people think I'm fucking around. You haven't seen the
last of me. Get used to it, Get used to it.

Speaker 17 (01:45:14):
But the Commonwealth makes it seem like I'm talking about
harassing to mcalverts, which obviously sounds bad, but this was
intentionally deceptive. I was actually referring to a DPW employee
who was giving me the run around, and I said
that I will be back to get information on who
plowed Fairview Road the night that John O'Keefe was killed.

Speaker 1 (01:45:35):
I can, I can leave a message and I'll get
it to him the field right now.

Speaker 17 (01:45:41):
She goes, how do I spell the last name?

Speaker 14 (01:45:42):
Stir.

Speaker 17 (01:45:43):
She had already written out my first name and spelled
it correctly. She knows who I am. She didn't have
to ask my first name. She didn't even have to
ask what my last name was. She just asked how
to spell it. She'd already spelled my name, so she
knows who I am. At this point people are messaging
me now and they're saying that she is a she
is a friend. She lives in tim Alberts, n And
she is best friends with the Week's Girls, that is
mckaeb's sisters. So this is what we're dealing with here.

(01:46:05):
This is the home cooking. So I'll be back, miss uh,
miss boys regular, I'll be back. You haven't seen the
last to me because he never called while she never
called me today, Try to never called me. If you
think you're gonna get rid of me that easily, you're
badly mistaken. I will literally sit there all day, all day, like, well,
what are Chinese? I'll make it. I'll make a day

(01:46:25):
of it. I'll just sit there all freaking day because
he's got to come back sometime. I'll be like, I've
unfinished business. We didn't see Michael morrisey today. I'll be back.
They get used to this, like these people think I'm
fucking around, like I'm missed the internet guy, like I'm
gonna sit here and I'm gonna write blogs all day
and that it's okay he's writing blogs and just ignore whatever. No, no, no,
I live an hour away. It's not I got alexus
now it's not a problem. Good it's got great mileage

(01:46:45):
and a good engine. I'll be there in an hour,
no problem, Like I'll get used to it.

Speaker 4 (01:46:50):
So bring us up to speed on where these various
cases are. So we just played this clip of this
clerk who kind of blew you off, and you said
on your live stream, you know, I'll be back because
I want I need these documents, which is the essence
of journalism. Like if journalism was asking for a document
and being blown off and then moving on, none of

(01:47:12):
us would ever get to the bottom of anything. So
you you ask after the document, you're told forget it.
You're like, I'll be back for this document. Like that's
the essence of investigative journalism. Everything else that you were
describing asking people questions, you know, having a hunch, like
you believed X about this person, You're asking them about that,

(01:47:32):
Like this is this is the basics of journalism. So
I know that you were recently acquitted of one set
of charges, talk about those, But then also like how
did you wind up? I understand you did what sixty days?
Sixty days it's right behind bars, yep. Or you're reporting
on this case, So what was that for and what

(01:47:53):
talk about the charges that you're still facing.

Speaker 17 (01:47:56):
So I've had six of them. We had a motion
of the Smiths in March, and six of them ended
up getting dismissed. Against the two cops, Buchennick and Proctor.
They were both dismissed just because it's absolutely absurd, absolutely
absurd that police officers have the audacity, who have guns
and badges and all the power in the world, to
say that they're intimidated by a journalist. I mean, it

(01:48:17):
looks ridiculous. So I had two of those taken away.
There was three conspiracy charges that were taken away because
I had reported that Jennifer McCabe was at the Proctor's house.
I posted a picture of her car parked outside there
when the district attorney had said that she didn't know
the Proctor family.

Speaker 11 (01:48:34):
And the way I was able to.

Speaker 17 (01:48:36):
Prove it was her car was I asked my followers,
can somebody run a license plate for me and just
kind of run.

Speaker 11 (01:48:42):
I wanted to make sure it was her car. It
looked like her car.

Speaker 17 (01:48:44):
I was pretty sure is her car, But being a
journalist and all I want to make I want to
double check. I don't want it to fame anyone. So
somebody volunteered to run a license plate for me, and
they did, and they came back McCabe and I said, okay,
thank you, and I wrote a story about it. And
they called that conspiracy to commit witness intimidation, and both
the person who ran the license plate and me were

(01:49:07):
charged with conspiracy to commit witness intimidation, three charges of it,
which each carried ten years in jail. So luckily those
three were dismissed because they were just outrageous, but I
still had the six. I have six more felony witness
intimidation charges which are ten years each, four picketing charges,
and I have since picked up two more charges of

(01:49:27):
witness intimidation, or what we call window intimidation. I was
outside Chris Albert's pizza shop, and I didn't know that
I was being audio recorded, and we had I had
about five sangrias that night, and there was a there
was a camera in the window that was, you know,
obviously picking up what was happening outside, at least the video.

(01:49:49):
You can't intercept audio in Massachusetts because it's a two
party consense state. So I was with a buddy and
we started doing like an act. It was like a
comedy act, and they called it witness intimidation. He wasn't
there and it was literally in front of an empty window.
So I picked up two more charges for that, and
then I also picked up the thing that sent me
to jail. So on October eleventh, I'm arrested for the

(01:50:12):
first time, and they set bail, and if you are
charged with a new crime while you're out on bail,
you can have your bail revoked and go to jail
without ever being convicted of a crime.

Speaker 11 (01:50:23):
And so it's very scary. You're just constantly on thin ice.

Speaker 1 (01:50:26):
And so.

Speaker 17 (01:50:29):
I was seeing some woman, not even seeing her like
I was just in a sexual relationship with some woman
who was a free kir and Reed supporter who had
just you know, kind of fangirled me, and I went
along with it. I would go over there Fridays. It
was nothing serious. Long story short. She turned out to
be a psychopath. She pretended to be pregnant, pretended to

(01:50:50):
have a couple abortions a couple times just to kind
of mess with me and I Finally, after I realized
there was no baby, I ended things with her. We
have since gotten her phone extraction, and I've seen that
on December ninth, she immediately got she was so upset
about this breakup or whatever, that she contacted enemies, people

(01:51:10):
who are dedicated to just destroying me, who got her
in touch with Brian Tully from the State Police and
the Special Prosecutor Ken Mellow, And within days she was
speaking with them, and unbeknownst to me, Brian Kelly and her,
according to her phone data, kind of conspired to He
sent her a grand jury summons, a fake grand jury

(01:51:32):
summons on December twenty second. We now know that there
was no grand jury being held in regard to this,
and he told her to send me the grand jury
summons and say we need to talk about this, and
she did, and so on December twenty second, she sends
it to me, and I'm like, how does Brian Tully
know who you are?

Speaker 11 (01:51:53):
Like what is happening?

Speaker 17 (01:51:55):
And she kind of confessed to me that I was
so mad, and I was mad at you, and I
just was I want to get back at you, and
now it's gone too far and now I have to
testify and I don't know what to do, and I
need help and I need a lawyer. And this and that,
and I fell bad for her, and I'm like, Okay,
even though you've like betrayed me, I still feel bad
for you, and I'd like to help you out, get

(01:52:17):
you out of this jam. And against the advice of
my attorney, I went to her house on December twenty third,
because she said she wanted to like show me all
of her communications with the police and show how they
were setting me up. And I thought this could help me,
you know. So I went to her, but I didn't
want to go in her apartment, and she's got like
a common area in her apartment building. So we met

(01:52:40):
there for an hour or two, and unbeknownst to me
now that we have her phone data and we've seen
the police report, she went into the bathroom in the
common area and she called them and she said that
I have him here, and she kept her phone on
and she attempted to record our conversation in this common area,

(01:53:01):
and they urged her to get them back. There's cameras
in the common area, and so she can't lie about
me in there. So she's there, like get them back
in your apartment, and so she had her son caller
and say, Mom, come back her son was like twelve
at the time. I need you to come back in here.
She's like, okay, I have to go back in there.
Can we just go in my apartment? And I said sure.

(01:53:23):
And the second I walked into her apartment, I was
going to jail, like I now know that, and so
she showed me everything in there. And then around two am,
I'm like, I have to go home. It's Christmas Eve morning.

Speaker 11 (01:53:35):
Now I have to leave.

Speaker 17 (01:53:36):
And she's like, you can't leave me, and I said, oh,
I have to go home. It's Christmas Eve. And she
then took the abortion pill in front of me and
she's like, now you can't leave. I'm going to be
in pain, and you can't leave me. I said, you're
not pregnant. Stop it, and she was just using it
as a way to keep me there. And then she
woke up her four kids who are two, three, five,

(01:53:58):
and twelve, and start like three in the morning and
starts taking their jackets out of the closet and said,
if you leave, I'm taking my kids and I'm driving
to your house and holding an hour away and I'm
gonna bleed out in your driveway and you can't leave me.

Speaker 11 (01:54:12):
You can't do this.

Speaker 17 (01:54:13):
And the five year old comes out and he looked horrified.
And I'm now taping this. I tell her, I'm taping
this for my own safety. This is getting out of control.
And I said, okay, I will put the boy back
to bed, please. I'm gonna sit here, and I don't
want to endanger these kids. I'm gonna sit here and
wait for her to fall asleep. So she falls asleep.

(01:54:33):
At five am.

Speaker 5 (01:54:35):
I leave.

Speaker 17 (01:54:36):
I'm so tired that I fall asleep beyond the wheel
of my car on the way home and I crash
on the highway.

Speaker 11 (01:54:41):
I'm woking up after crashing into a guardrail.

Speaker 17 (01:54:44):
Luckily, I'm able to make it home on Christmas Eve,
but I'm all messed up from this and I'm like,
I'm on no sleep. And we go to my sister's
house on Christmas Eve for like lunch, and then I
get a call from the Holding police and they say,
we just visited your house. We have something for you
we need to give you. Unbeknownst to me, I'm tipped
off an hour later by a Holding firefighter who says,

(01:55:05):
don't go home. The police just came to your house
with a warrant for your arrest. I said what for,
and they said an assault and battery in Medfield. There's
a warrant out for your arrest. And I'm like, oh
my god, she said that I hit her. Holy shit.
And you know that's automatic arrest in Massachusetts, like whenever
there's a domestic violence and basically whoever gets to the

(01:55:26):
cops first gets to have the other person arrested and
no marks, no nothing like that. As it turns out,
she has done this to four other men, including her father.
She had her father arrested for assault and battery.

Speaker 11 (01:55:38):
This is what she does.

Speaker 17 (01:55:39):
She gets people arrested, then she gets orders on them,
and then she has them arrested for violating the order.
So I am I'm a fugitive on Christmas, and I
make plans with my attorney on December twenty sixth, which
is my birthday, to We're going to go to the
courthouse quietly, get in there and get out.

Speaker 11 (01:55:58):
That's the goal.

Speaker 17 (01:55:59):
No media, nothing thing, just get in and get out.
So we go to the courthouse at nine am on
December twenty sixth. Brian Tully's standing on the series of
the courthouse with the Medfield Police. There's waiting to arrest
me when I go in there, so that's not an option.
My lawyer says, go turn yourself into midfield PD.

Speaker 1 (01:56:14):
I do.

Speaker 11 (01:56:15):
There's a big hubba baloo.

Speaker 17 (01:56:16):
Media comes down there, and you know, I am just
kind of praying, like, please don't let my bail get revoked.
We play the tape that I recorded of her like
threatening to take her kids, but there's no context to it,
and quite frankly, it sounds like a woman in distress.
At least that's how the judge must have taken it.
Because I am He revokes my bail for ninety days.

(01:56:38):
We later get that reduced to sixty because it turns
out he's not allowed to do that, and I am shelsha.
I'm like literally in shock because here I am going
to jail and no warning, Like I'm like I could
I've never met.

Speaker 11 (01:56:51):
I'm a home former high school teacher. I don't go
to jail like this is.

Speaker 17 (01:56:55):
And because I'm kind of a high profile person around here,
they don't put me in general popularly, which is actually
much worse because you're in isolation the whole time and
there's no one to pass the time with. There's no
one to play chess. With to have a conversation with.
And I'm just in shock and I'm sad and I'm depressed,

(01:57:15):
and you know, I do the sixty days. I develop
a routine that kind of helps me get through it mentally, physically.

Speaker 11 (01:57:22):
And when I got out of jail, in isolation the
whole time, the whole time.

Speaker 17 (01:57:26):
We actually had my lawyer at meetings with the jail
guard asking, like I said, I'd rather get the shit
kicked out of me, Like if I get beat up,
I get beat up, Like I'd rather do that than
sit here all day.

Speaker 11 (01:57:35):
This is torture, like this is and I'm in medical.

Speaker 4 (01:57:39):
The UN calls it, defines it as torture.

Speaker 17 (01:57:41):
Yeah, yeah, And I'm sitting in the medical unit, which
is where they send people who are having freak outs.
You know, there's a lot of people in jail who
should be in mental institutions, and they all send them
to the medical unit and they're yelling and screaming all
night and you can't sleep. One guy had just come
into jail and he had swallowed a bunch of heroin

(01:58:01):
packets beforehand, and I guess that's what they do, and
they shit it out and that you can get high
in jail that way, and so but it comes up
in the X ray and so they send him to medical.

Speaker 11 (01:58:11):
And it was a.

Speaker 17 (01:58:12):
CEO's job to sit there outside of a cell and
wait for him to take a shit, and just that
was his, I mean, worst job ever. And but it
smells so bad in the whole unit, and like that's
where I was living for sixty days.

Speaker 11 (01:58:23):
It was literal hell. And so I got out of there.

Speaker 17 (01:58:26):
On February twenty third, three days later, camer Reid has
a hearing, all right, and I go to that hearing
because I never miss a can't read hearing and it's
my job, and I'm back. And who shows up to
the hearing with the Jennifer McCabe and Chris Albert but
Lindsay Gattani, the person that sent me to jail in
the first place, in live and she has never come

(01:58:48):
to a hearing before. They have since befriended this woman
while I was in jail, and they know she has
a restraining order on me because of the arrest, and
they bring her like a toy and I am forced
to leave the courtroom, which I do because I can't
be within one hundred yards of her. I leave I
stand across the street where a police officer told me

(01:59:08):
to go, and ten minutes later the hearing's over and
everybody leaves. I didn't see her, she didn't see me,
and a few hours later she must have heard that
I was still outside the courthouse, that the Registry of
Deeds across the street. So she calls the police and
she says he was within one hundred yards of me
and he was yelling liar, liar at me, which is

(01:59:29):
completely untrue, and there's video to prove this. And so
I am charged once again, three days after getting out
of jail, with the misdemeanor of violating a restraining order.
I had also been indicted since then with witness intimidation
against her and wire tapping her for recording our conversation,
which she said I didn't give a permission to do.

(01:59:50):
And just like that, I'm facing another one hundred and
twenty days in jail, this time at a March fourteenth hearing.
So I didn't really feel free at all. Luckily, the
judge just kind of saw through this one and didn't
revoke my bail this time. But it was still very scary,
and that's what I had the trial for a couple
weeks ago was violating the restraining order against her and

(02:00:13):
I was acquitted.

Speaker 4 (02:00:16):
So have you gone? What about the original charges of
salt and battery?

Speaker 17 (02:00:21):
They dropped that the day I got out of jail,
so they made it obvious that they had no intention
whatsoever of pursuing this. They didn't believe her, and they
were just using this as a way to have your
bail revoked. I mean, I learned a lot about I
didn't know anything about bail revocation. I'm not a criminal,
and I've never violated the law before, and this is
all very new territory to me. And that's one thing

(02:00:44):
I've learned about this is that there are a lot
of people in jail temporary the ninety day stints for
bail revocations for crimes that they have never been convicted
of and probably will never get convicted of, and they
just and some of them, yeah, well yeah, some of them,
while they're in jail for ninety days to get out earlier,

(02:01:05):
will plea out to whatever misdemeanor. And it's like that's
how they get their stats, that's how they get their
you know, their convictions or whatever is. They just throw
you in jail for something you haven't been convicted of
and you want to get out, so you just like, whatever, Okay,
I'll take a plea.

Speaker 11 (02:01:21):
What do I have to do?

Speaker 17 (02:01:22):
I have to do community service for ten hours? Okay, whatever,
just get me out of here. And that's what they do.
And so it's really I think it's a huge problem.
I think bail revocation in general seems unconstitutional to put
people in jail for crimes that they have never been
convicted of, because you don't get that time back. Right.

Speaker 4 (02:01:39):
So, you went into this as a you know, conservative,
back to the blue guy who'd been publicly oppositional to
Black Lives Matter. I'm just curious, has it have you
rethought some of your politics along along the way, or
do you have a different understanding of policing and law
enforcement than you did when you went into this.

Speaker 17 (02:01:58):
Yeah, I certainly I view police as just like any
other line of work, potentially flawed, Like people are people.
I'm sure there's great cops, but I'm sure there's bad cops.
As a teacher, like there's a lot of great teachers,
and then there's some teachers who mess around with students, right, Like,
there's bad like every possession, every profession has their bad apples,

(02:02:19):
But yeah, I mean, I certainly think it's changed my
you know, opinions on the accused. Like I was this
person who, like many just viewed the person sitting in
the defendant chair must have done something because how else
did they get there? But now I know, with Karen
Reid and myself that actually anyone could be there, they
could put any It means not like being indicted or

(02:02:42):
charged with the crime does not mean you're guilty of
a crime.

Speaker 11 (02:02:45):
That is one big thing I've taken out of this.

Speaker 17 (02:02:47):
I always now will give the defendants the assumption of
innocence in any crime, and it is up to the
state to prove they have the burden of proving beyond
a reasonable doubt that this person did that. So I
don't know if that's a political thing, because I do
think that, you know, kind of cuts all. There's people
on the right and the left that you know, agree

(02:03:09):
with me on this issue, like for and there's also
people on the left that won't get on board with
me with this, and people on the right it won't
like so for instance, like people like you know, Glenn
Greenwald and Tucker Carlson, who you know, one is liberal
and the other's conservative, but I think it's I find
them interesting because they they both are very big advocates
for free speech and being able to say what you

(02:03:31):
want and just kind of against the weaponization of the government, uh,
in order to, you know, punish people who have spoken out.

Speaker 4 (02:03:40):
So what's what's next for you? I saw some news
that you're involved with a movie that's going to be produced.
Can you talk a little bit about that, and also
what does your lawyer say about the likelihood of these
charges like sticking and going forward?

Speaker 17 (02:03:56):
Yeah, So with the charges I had, like I said,
I still have, I'm facing one hundred and five years
in jail, and we're going to try to knock out
like the Lindsay witness intimidation ones. We're going to file
emotion to dismiss. I think we can win that one.
Same with the window intimidation's one. So hopefully I'm looking
at six charges still a felony witness intimidation.

Speaker 11 (02:04:13):
So at that point a number of things can happen.

Speaker 17 (02:04:16):
Worst case scenario is we bring it to trial, and
that's a very scary prospect because you're putting your faith
in the hands of twelve strangers. Or a judge if
you go bench trial, and so that's something we'd like
to avoid if possible. And I'm kind of hoping that
cooler heads will prevail in all this, and now that
Caaren Reid has been acquitted, that they'll take a step

(02:04:36):
back and say, why don't we just end this Karen
Reid saga.

Speaker 11 (02:04:40):
This has been embarrassing for us. We lost.

Speaker 17 (02:04:44):
He was kind of vindicated with the acquittal, and you know,
because if Karen Reid didn't do it, someone else did.
And he's accusing these people of doing it, and so
apparently twelve jurors believe that they did it. So you know,
maybe maybe it's best to take a step back. So
that's one thing I'm hoping for. There's also a DA
election coming up in twenty twenty six, and the people

(02:05:04):
who are looking at primary because it's a very liberal county,
a Republican can't win that seat. So the only way
he can be booted is with is if he's primaried
and one of the women running against him now is
taking the kind of pro free speech, pro CAUNRA reposition,
and so like, maybe there will be political change that
will save me. Who knows, but I can't count on that,

(02:05:26):
So that's how we're dealing with those charges, but day
by day. But as far as the movie goes, yeah,
I signed a deal with Compelling Pictures, a production company
out of Los Angeles, in last year, and they have
the rights to book my book, my movie, and the
documentary which we've been working on for several months now.

(02:05:46):
And we got a lot of great footage during the
week of Camera Read's acquittal, and that should be coming
out on four to six months. I don't know what
streaming platform it will be on. King Yeah, the documentary,
I don't know. There's a competitive, a competitor documentary that's
kind of coming out with a company called Sandpaper Films.
It's a British company and they have a deal with Netflix,

(02:06:10):
but they don't you know, I won't be in that documentary.

Speaker 11 (02:06:13):
I refuse to participate.

Speaker 17 (02:06:14):
They have kind of taken a turtle boy as the
villain approach to their documentary.

Speaker 11 (02:06:19):
That's at least what I understand.

Speaker 17 (02:06:21):
So it's not going to be a very popular documentary
because there's no market for Karen Reid is guilty. The
vast majority of the public beliefs Canon Read is innocent.
So I think that because they're a British company, they
don't really understand the vibe over here in Massachusetts that
actually the woman accused of murder is the protagonist in
the story and Turtle Boy is kind of the person

(02:06:42):
jumping in and helping her.

Speaker 11 (02:06:43):
And so I don't think that's going to go well
for them. But we're using the.

Speaker 17 (02:06:47):
Documentary to kind of build up the Hollywood movie. That's
that's what they're big into. And he's talking to directors, screenwriters, actors,
everybody's in the process of that and he hopes that
to have the dock out and force six months and
the movie within eighteen months.

Speaker 4 (02:07:03):
Last question for you, where's doctor turtle Boy come from?
Where's that? Where's that nickname? Well?

Speaker 17 (02:07:09):
I ran out of I've I've been kicked off of
Twitter so many times that I ran out of handles.
And I was honestly inspired to do it by Jill Biden.
Like my old my slogan used to be, well, if
Jill Biden's a doctored, then so am I. And so
that's how it started. And I have since transformed that
into if jud Welcher is a doctor. Jud Welcher was
the guy the crash reconstruction is for the commos.

Speaker 11 (02:07:32):
Then, so am I.

Speaker 17 (02:07:33):
But I kind of dig it, like it's cool being
called doctor, Like I get why people like being called doctor.
It makes you feel important, and you know, I'm not
actually a doctor, like if you're dying, don't call me,
but you know, I like the sound of it, so
I just stuck with it.

Speaker 4 (02:07:47):
Well, doctor, thank you for joining us. I really really
appreciate this. We'll continue to follow this this story too.

Speaker 6 (02:07:55):
Well.

Speaker 11 (02:07:55):
Thanks for having me Ryan, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (02:07:57):
All right, that was the good doctor, Turtle boy, and
that'll do do it for the program today. Thank you
to Dave Smith for holding down the fort with me.
Thank you Todave Dan for joining to talk about the
big beautiful Bill, and of course also thank you to
Aiden Carney. Thanks everybody for joining us, and the regular
crew will be back on Tuesday. See you there,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.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;}6/30/25: Trump 'Beautiful' Bill, Dems Smear Zohran, Gaza Aid Site Massacres, Karen Read Trial & 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;}Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

6/30/25: Trump 'Beautiful' Bill, Dems Smear Zohran, Gaza Aid Site Massacres, Karen Read Trial & MORE

Crime Junkie