August 12, 2025 • 54 mins
Krystal and Ryan discuss Trump's deployment of the National Guard in D.C. and Mike Huckabee denying starvation in Gaza.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 3 (00:33):
Good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. I am in
the studio here alone today. Crystal got caught up at
a National Guard checkpoint, did not have her paperwork in order.
She's joining us though from an undisclosed location underground.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Crystal luckily not Alligator Alcatraz, at least not yet. So
in any case, we are going to cover the Trump
DC takeover.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
We got a lot to get to you in the
show today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Actually, we were able to book a council member, a
DC council member, to come in and talk about her
perspective on what is going on in the nation's capital.
We've also got a really pretty extraordinary interview with Ambassador
Mike Kakabie Piers Morgan pressing him on starvation and on
the murder of five Al Jazeera journalists, so definitely want
(01:18):
to break that down for you, along with other developments
in Israel and Gaza. We've got a bunch of economic news.
The China tariffs have been paused, and Trump made a
pretty interesting deal. I'm actually very curious to get Ryan's
take on this deal that he made with Nvidia, where
basically they've got to kick back fifteen percent of their
chip sales to China to the US federal government. We
also have some updates on Andrew Cuomo crashing out hard
(01:40):
in his race with Zoran and offering a really nonsensical
and terrible law in order to try to spite.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Or shame Zoran, and I regret to and form everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We are going to take on the dildos at WNBA
Games controversy, along with some other gender related developments.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You definitely want to stick around for that.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Ryan, and you made a point discussing the formation of
the show yesterday that Republicans have made defense of the
integrity of women's sports central to their entire kind of
reason to be Yeah, and this is.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Probably not what people thought they meant by that, yet
here we are.
Speaker 6 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I mean, as you pointed out, I'm not sure
how many people really took seriously their undying devotion to
women's sports, an interest which had never.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Been exhibited in the past. But there's that to get to.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
And Pete Hegseth also elevating his pastor who doesn't think
women should vote. So there's a lot going on there
with regard to the lady kind that I have thoughts on,
and I suspect Ryan does as well. But let's go
ahead and get to this DC National Guard situation, with
Trump claiming crime is out of control and it is
(03:00):
such an emergency in the nation's capital that he needs
to call in the National Guard and evoke a rule
that has never been invoked before by president to effectively
take control of the city's law enforcement. Let's go ahead
and take a listen to a little bit of what
he had to say yesterday.
Speaker 7 (03:18):
I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital
from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse. This is
liberation Day in DC, and we're going to take our
capital back.
Speaker 8 (03:34):
We're taking it.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
Back under the authorities vested in me as the President
of the United States. I'm officially invoking Section seventy forty
of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, you know
what that is, and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department
under direct federal control. And you'll be meeting the people
that will be directly involved with that.
Speaker 9 (03:58):
Let me be crystal clear, crime and see is ending
and ending today. We are going to use every power
we have to fight criminals here. President, thank you for
caring about our capital.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So let's go and put a four up on the
screen and I'll get Ryan's reaction to this. But you know,
the portrayal from the President is a lawless city with
violent crime and crimes of all sorts spiking out of control.
In fact, DC, like many, if not all cities across
the country, has seen crime go down significantly. You've got
(04:31):
violent crime down thirty five percent year over year. I
know in Baltimore, just north of DC, a city that's
also often held out as like you know, a hotbed
of crime and justifiably so. In the past, they're on
track for a fifty year low in terms of the
number of homicides in DC specifically, the crime rate has
hit a thirty year low. So quite at odds with
(04:55):
the portrayal here from the President.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Ryan.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, and tomorrow we'll have both of our resident right
wingers on the program, so you'll be able to get
there take on this. But I think one thing they
could fairly say is that the left was in the
beginning of the kind of surgeon crime starting around twenty
twenty too dismissive of the increase that was related both
to the pandemic to the and to the protests from
(05:21):
that summer and the subsequent kind of going on strike
by police forces all over the country, And so you
did for the next couple of years, you know, have
a significant uptick in crime. Any crime is too much
if you're if you're if you're the victim of it
doesn't matter if you're the only crime victim the entire year,
(05:43):
it's too.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Much for you. So there is that.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
We can acknowledge that, But at the same time we
need to acknowledge that we are strongly, strongly on a
downward slope. Here, if you compare the capital of Washington,
as some on the right have done, capital of the
United States to other capitals around the world, which I've seen,
I've seen them compared to Havana and et cetera, which
is odd. It's like you really like, Okay, yes, there's
(06:10):
not much interesting Havana, but that's really like, that's the
comparison you're gonna make. Okay, anyway, then yes, we are
a much more violent nation than pretty much any other
country in the world. So yes, you know, because Washington
and DC is part of the United States, even it
doesn't get to be a state, it's going to have
more violent crime then you're going to see even in
(06:31):
Argentina or whatever. So that's that really isn't much of
an argument to take over.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
But I think.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You've been in this area your entire life. I moved
to this city around two thousand and three, and you know,
it's important for people to understand the context here. You know,
after the nineteen sixty eight riots, after Martin Luther King
was assassinated, a lot of the city was just laid
(06:59):
waste and there was no investment, no effort to kind
of turn that around. And then you've got the industrialization, neoliberalism,
manufacturing jobs rolling out, Union's getting crushed, and then you
have the crack epidemic. You know, come into to Washington
which and which is only abating kind of. In the
late nineteen nineties, I was in the basically the tail
(07:19):
end of the first wave of gentrification here in DC.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
And do we have the big Balls clip here?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Big Balls was you know, stopped attempted to stop a
carjacking and the fourteen hundred block of Swan Street northwest
and was beaten pretty severely. And the police, interestingly though,
there were like eight police officers very you know nearby
two you know, the officers like ran to the scene
(07:48):
and broke up the beat down, immediately arrested two of them,
and some of the other hooligans got away. And what
you've heard from people is that the fourteen hundred block
of Swamp Street, you know, that's a nice neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
But at the same time.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Twenty years ago, when I moved here, I moved close
to close there. I was fourteenth in w Street. It
was not particularly safe.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, I remember that area.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Even when I moved to DC, let's see early two thousands,
it was transitional.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
It was definitely transitional, right, So so that kind of
shows how much progress the city has made. That now
when there's if there was crime twenty years ago on
the fourteen hundred block of Swan Street, people like, yeah,
that's that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
That's what happens now. It's shocking.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So that that just I think, to me demonstrates like
how much progress the city has made, and that it's
one of the it's you know, it's it's not as
safe as it should be. No city is, but it's
safer than it was before. And I don't and I
don't quite see how bringing in the FEDS helps that.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, I mean, well that's one of the things that's
ridiculous about this is actually, let's put a five up
on the screen, like, you know, this was the scene
in DC's all these DEA agents because they not only
called up the National Guard, they also pulled agents from DEA, FBI,
and other federal law enforcement agencies. And there you see
(09:15):
them just like strolling along the mall as joggers are
going past, and no problem anywhere in sight. Presumably there's
other actual crime that these individuals could be focused on,
but instead they're going for this walk along the mall
and doing yes nothing. I also saw a report, i
believe from NPR Apparently there was some like minor incident
(09:38):
between a moped and a vehicle and the police were there,
and then you had two dozen federal agents also descend
on the scene to make sure that the car moped
situation was resolved. So that's the kind of absurdity that
you're talking about here. And you know, one of the
(10:01):
things I've been thinking about with regard to crime, because
there's always, you know, there's a heated debate among people
who study this about what causes these spikes and increases
in crime and which sort of police tactics are effective
in dealing with it. And because you had this spike
in crime really across the country in cities across the country,
(10:22):
and then a similar decline in crime following that, again
in cities across the country. Not to say that, you know,
the policing and the mayoral leadership and all that stuff
doesn't matter, but it does seem like the biggest determinants
of crime are these sociocultural factors, much more so than
you know, whether or not the National Guard has been
(10:43):
called up in this particular instance, I want to get
to the next Trump SoundBite here because I think this
one is really important. I saw a lot of people
saying yesterday DC was going to be a model for
this sort of like authoritarian, militarized crackdown across the country,
and I don't think that's really true. I think LA
was the model that you know, was the first one
(11:05):
to go, and they've been allowed to get away with it,
even though there was much more tenuous legal grounds in
LA than you know, the present does have powers under
this section seven forty. Now, granted, it's supposed to be
an emergency, and I think anyone would say, like, this
is not really an emergency that justifies this invocation, but
he does have more legal standing here. Nevertheless, in his
(11:26):
press conference yesterday, he made it clear that this is
a plan that he would like to roll out in
other cities like New York and Chicago and other you know,
notably more democratic cities across the country.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
So let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
We have other cities that are very bad New York
as a problem, and then you have of course Baltimore
and Oakland.
Speaker 8 (11:46):
We don't even mentioned that anymore. There's so they're so
far gone. We're not going to let it happen.
Speaker 7 (11:51):
We're not going to lose our cities over this, and
this will go further. We're starting very strongly with DC
and we're going to clean it up real quick, very quickly,
as they say, and if we need to, we're going
to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster.
Speaker 8 (12:08):
We have a mayor there who's totally incompetent.
Speaker 7 (12:10):
He's an incompetent man, and we have an incompetent governor there.
Speaker 8 (12:16):
Pritzker's an incompetent.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
His family threw him out of the business and he
ran for a governor. And now I understand he wants
to be president, but I noticed he lost a little wait,
so maybe he has a chance.
Speaker 8 (12:27):
You know, you never know what happens.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
But Pritsker is a gross incompetent guy, thrown out of
the family business. But when I look at Chicago and
I look at La, if we didn't go to La
three months ago, La would be burning like the part
that didn't burn. If he would have allowed the water
to come down, which I told him about in my
(12:50):
first term. I said, you're gonna have problems. Let it
come down. We actually sent in our military to have
the water come down into la They still didn't want
it to come down after the fires, but that was it.
Speaker 8 (13:01):
We have it coming down.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
But hopefully La is watching that may are also the
city's burning. They lost like twenty five thousand homes. I
went there the day after the fire. You were there,
and I saw people standing in front of a burned
down home.
Speaker 8 (13:18):
Their homes were incinerated.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So worth noting Ryan, as many did yesterday, that the
cities in the country actually with the highest crime rates
are in red states Memphis, Tennessee, and Saint Louis, Missouri.
Other notable high crime rate cities are Little Rock, Arkansas, Cleveland, Ohio,
Ohio being a red state at this point, Kansas City, Missouri,
New Orleans, Louisiana.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
So you have plenty of.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Red state city crime, yet that doesn't catch the attention
of the President of the United States.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
And you know, I think people are correct.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That this is another like attempted distraction from the Epstein
file stuff which has been Trump has obviously been like
scrambling and panicking, but it is. That's not to say
that it's not also extraordinarily important that you have the
normalization of using the military in standard issue law enforcement
(14:14):
and sort of just making that commonplace in America is
truly an extraordinary and you know, truly authoritarian step. So
he's going to succeed in distracting from the Epstein files
because he finally came up with something that is so
wild and so like detrimental that people have to pay
(14:35):
attention to it. And again, even as I think what
we're going to see from this is similar to in LA,
the National Guard is not doing all that much right there,
like guarding federal buildings. You'll have these you know, you
had ice do this, and a bunch of federal agencies
do this big show of force of like riding their
horses through a park. That's the sort of thing I
expect here as well. But that's not to say it's
(14:55):
not a major concern that we now have the as
in the United States, effectively saying he's going to seize
control of major cities where he disagrees with the political
leadership and the normalizing of this militarized law enforcement force
in you know, in the nation capital in LA and
projected in cities across the country.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, and we have really no idea what the what
the strategy is, and what the kind of orders are,
what the rules of engagement are for these you know,
deputized federal officers who are our roaming dseas, So we
don't know where it's going to add. My neighbor was
telling me last night that earlier in the day she
had seen a group of eight Secret Service agents, So
(15:39):
apparently Secret Service are also you know, being enlisted in
this in this situation, who were kind of corralling a
homeless guy into the and arresting him. That she said
that there had been an accusation that he might have
stolen something. It wasn't clear, but like, you know, a
whole bunch of you know, crowd gathered around like what
you know, wondering what's going on? Whires a Secret Service
(16:01):
picking up a homeless person here with this going on,
and it's an open question, like what is going on?
Like Trump saying that he's going to bring in the
National Guard and take over the city and very quickly
he's going to clean it up, Like what does that mean?
Like what is a DA allowed to do? What is
a Secret Service task with doing got fish and wildlife?
(16:24):
Like who else is like involved here. What are they doing?
Are they just patrolling?
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Are they.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Where are they taking the people that they're arresting? And
how is this supposed to accomplish the goal?
Speaker 5 (16:37):
And none of that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
It all feels like you said, I think he's wanted
to do this for a very long time, that the
pressure of Epstein made that inevitable.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
It's like, just yeah, let's do this, Let's create this mess.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, we're going to use the right stag fire that's
available to us of big balls getting you know, and
beaten in this car hijacking, and we're going to seize
on that for something he's been projecting for a while
and again that he's already done in LA. I do
believe we have our council member standing by, so let's
(17:11):
go ahead and get to her so we can get
her perspective on what's happening here.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Joining us now is Ward four council member Deanie Lewis
George council member.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Thanks so much for joining.
Speaker 10 (17:23):
Us morning, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
First of all, I want to play a little bit
of Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Watching the DC who
coincidentally represented Ward four before she became mayor, where you
now represent responding to Trump's press conference, if we can
roll Mayor Bowser here and then we're going to get
Lewis George's response here.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
We know, however, most have heard from the President's press
conference that he has prerogatives in DC unlike anywhere else
in the including his authority given by our Home Rule
Charter to require the mayor to require me to supply
(18:09):
services of the Metropolitan Police Department. And he also has
control and the ability to deploy the National Guard. But
let me be clear, as our Home Rule Charter is
also clear, and the President's executive Order restates Chief Pamela
(18:32):
Smith is the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department and
it's thirty one hundred members work under her direction. The
Home Rule Charter requires the mayor to provide the services
of MPD during special conditions of an emergency, and we
(18:53):
will follow the law, though there's a question about the
subjectivity of.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
That decor claration.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
In fact, the Chief has already provided a high level
liaison in point of contact with the federal government and
made those initial contacts. The executive Order is also clear
that the President has delegated his authority to make requests
(19:22):
of US to Attorney General Pam BONDI. I have reached
out to Attorney General Bondy and hope to schedule a
meeting so.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
To set some context for viewers. You know, you were
endorsed in your race by DSA.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Mayor.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Bowser is known as much closer to business here in Washington,
d C. So you know, I know you have your
political differences here in the city with her, But how
do you feel like she has handled the run up
to this crisis and this particular crisis, and what should
she be doing differently?
Speaker 11 (19:56):
You know, I think she has the cautionary approach in
how she's handled with the administration and sort of tried
to find common ground with the President and Republicans and
sort of tried in her best ways to sort of
appease whatever they are trying to do.
Speaker 10 (20:19):
I think.
Speaker 11 (20:21):
In some instances people could say, you know, say you know,
that's what we have to do because we're under.
Speaker 10 (20:26):
Home rule and we're in a vulnerable position.
Speaker 11 (20:28):
And I do think we are in a vulnerable position
because of not having statehood and the Home rule Charter.
But I think the mayor should be a little bit
more active and forceful in fighting for district residents and
saying and declaring sort of what Trump is doing is wrong, right,
Like you know, yesterday you heard mayors from all across
(20:50):
the country and in the cities that Trump indicated, like
Chicago and Baltimore and Los Angeles unequivocally say, you know,
our city is doing is handling crime, crime is low
here these you know, but also defending their city in
a more forceful manner. And I would like to see
this sort of notion of like let's find a common
(21:12):
ground and compromise versus let's defend our citizens and defend
our citizens' rights.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
At this point, it doesn't appear that there is going
to be a legal challenge of Trump's invocation here of
Section seven forty is is that something that you would
like to see going forward? Do you believe that he's
on strong legal ground in terms of his actions.
Speaker 11 (21:33):
Yeah, So one of the biggest outstanding questions is sort
of what is what is the emergency?
Speaker 10 (21:40):
Like what define emergency? Right?
Speaker 11 (21:42):
And I've asked the Attorney general and the Attorney General
and the mayor both said, well, you know, he has
broad sort of you know powers here, And I said,
that's great, but we have to challenge I think we
should be challenging or doing some type of injunction basically
to say, what are your grounds for an emergency, make
the prima facia case for an emergency that serves as
(22:06):
the predicate for seizure of control of the police or
deployment of the National Guard. And we know right now
the facts don't support Trump's claims of a public safety
emergency in DC because of the fact that you know,
our crime is down in every category over the last
two years, there's been a fifty two percent drop in
violent crime in DC and right now we're actually experiencing
(22:27):
some of the lowest crime rates we've seen in thirty
years in the city. So the real question is, if
you know, then what is the prime of facia case
that the President has laid out that justifies sort of
the notion of emergency. And I've asked the Attorney General
to investigate this question to determine the big you know,
what the district's best legal course of action moving forward
(22:48):
should be. But I think yesterday what I wanted to
hear is the mayor and the Attorney General say we
are going to go to the courts to get an
opinion to see if Trump hasn't met the leader requirements
for emergency before, just sort of leaning on, let's compromise,
let's find a way forward. You know, let's have conversations,
(23:10):
which we have to have, but also let's challenge the
actions because if not, we're we'll be in an endless
cycle of the President declaring emergency and with no clear
definition and no court guidance. Here, we're setting ourselves up
down a slippery road that could lead to us losing
our autonomy.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, and people can make up their own minds, but
watching mayor bows are there, I felt she looked kind
of shaken, like it didn't seem like this was a
person that's going to lead this fight here. If there
was someone who's going to lead the fight, what could
they do, Like, given the vulnerable position that everybody acknowledges
DC is in, you know, what assets do you have,
what leverage do you have? And how would you kind
(23:52):
of organize pushback against this?
Speaker 10 (23:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (23:56):
Well, you know, first and foremost I talked about one,
we have to pull our legal levers where we can.
I think it's so important for us to you know,
we've seen jurisdictions who are facing the same amount of
attack on their local autonomy, you know, going to the
courts and trying to get injunctions and fighting on the
legal level to be able to do that work. In
(24:17):
addition to that, let's be honest, the real threat fear
here is that we would lose Home Rule, which gives
us this ability to have autonomy. In order to overturn
Home Rule, this would require a majority vote in both
the House and the Senate, followed by presidential approval, and
even with the majority in the House, a repeal in
the Senate would likely face a filibuster, which will require
(24:40):
at least sixty votes to proceed. So another thing we
need to be doing is really getting going to Congress,
getting our allies on Democratic senators, the House of Democratic
House of Representatives.
Speaker 10 (24:52):
You know, we talked yesterday.
Speaker 11 (24:54):
We said, you know, we need to be going to
the Congressional Black Caucus within the within Congress asking for
this support, and many of them are calling us, how
can we support and so you know, we need to
be doing those things. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is our
delegate and warrior on the Hill representative, has put forward
legislation to give DC it's full autonomy. We should be
trying to get those type of things done as quickly
(25:15):
as possible. You know, when we're up against what we're
up against in this country. You know the idea that
you know, conforming is going to create a space where
we're not going to continue to have to give and
give and give.
Speaker 10 (25:32):
You know, it's just not based in reality.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, you can ask Columbia University how that's gone for
them when they you know, bent over backwards to try
to capitulate and it didn't matter. They still had to
pay the bribes administration. They've had the bed least studies
department taken over, and you know, there's there's no there's
nothing to be gained from capitulating to this individual. I
think that lesson should have been learned pretty well at
(25:55):
this point. As curious your perspective and what you're hearing
from constituents about their concerns about what this is going
to mean for their lives and also just what have
you heard? I mean, how is the National Guard going
to be used? We know that agents have been pulled
up from various agencies, DEA, FBI, Secret Service, How are
they going to be deployed? We were raising questions earlier
(26:19):
about what are the rules of engagement here? You know,
do you have any understanding of what this is actually
going to look like.
Speaker 11 (26:25):
Yeah, in our call meeting yesterday amongst the mayor and
the council and the ag what our understanding was is that,
you know, they are going to sort.
Speaker 10 (26:35):
Of just be a presence.
Speaker 11 (26:38):
Really, they don't have any sort of the goal is
to just be a presence across the city in different locations.
Speaker 10 (26:47):
I don't know how real that is.
Speaker 11 (26:49):
I will say I had a constituent reach out to
me because the Rock Creek Park, which is National Park
Service land, is in my ward, and her and her
son were on a run and they were sort of
stopped and told they couldn't, you know, sort of run
in a certain section, and you know, they just, you know,
(27:11):
they really wanted to know, Council member, you know, what
do we do in these circumstances. You know, there's a
vast amount of National Park Service land, which is federal
land that is a part of you know Ward War particularly,
but across the city in general. And the reality is
what I've been saying to residents is when you're on
National park land, when you're on federal land, they do
(27:32):
have you know, additional powers there I you know, recommended
people stay off sort of National Park Service land or
you know, make sure while you're there, you're there with
others and numbers. And you also remember, you know, you
have your constitutional rights, be very clear about that.
Speaker 10 (27:51):
Make sure you have your.
Speaker 11 (27:52):
Identification on you, make sure you let people know where
you are, because the reality is, with so many different
long entities on the ground in the District of Columbia,
it's really going to be hard. It's really hard for
us to sort of determine who's doing what and where.
And we've also been asking constituents to report to us
where they're seeing national law enforcement so that we can,
(28:15):
you know, try to make sure people can go to
that area and at least observe what is happening between
constituents and federal law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
And let me ask you about this billion dollars, DC's
missing billion dollars. You can put up a seven here.
It's tweet from my old colleague Sam Stein. Is one
way we could make DC safer and cleaner without using
the National Guard would be to restore the one billion
dollars and cuts to the city budget that was passed
into law with Trump's signature which Trump and Republicans were
supposed to reverse but never got around to. So this
(28:46):
was something they slipped into the budget or slipped into
the spending bill, stripped a billion dollars from DC's budget,
said that, oh, we'll fix that next time. Just trust us,
don't worry. Haven't what's the status of that billion dollars
and talk about the portion of the budget that that
makes up, Like how important to the city is this
(29:08):
amount of money. Like to the federal government a billion dollars,
you know they can lose that easily.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
But to the city, what's it mean?
Speaker 10 (29:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (29:15):
For us, Remember you know, our largest parts of pots
of money health, right, public safety, education, and human services.
And so when you have big cuts like this, it
means those are the four sections of our city budget
that have to take a hit. And this is not
the time where education can take a hit. Where public safety,
(29:36):
which you know as all the talks about wanting to
make sure the district is safe and this being about safety.
But you cut, you know, a billion dollars from our budget.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
And where is the city's whole budget if you count
all for those buckets plus.
Speaker 11 (29:50):
We have about a nineteen billion dollar twenty billion dollar
budget given the year, but maintain about a nineteen billion dollar.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Budget, So billion dollars, that's u that's cutting into bone there.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
So what gets hit? What gets hit if that billion
dollars does not get right?
Speaker 11 (30:05):
What gets what gets hit are the because it's such
a we have such a large parts of money. Public
safety takes a hit because that's one of our largest
budget expenditures.
Speaker 10 (30:16):
Our education takes a hit.
Speaker 11 (30:17):
And remember many of our schools are on quarterly payments,
especially our public charter schools, and so the inability for
us to be able to give the you know, actually
expend those funds, you know, was a real hit to
sort of our education nexus human services. The same people
they're saying they want to support our unhoused residents, which
have been i must say, is under attacked and being
(30:39):
scapegoaded in this moment in such a disgusting manner our
unhoused residents. A human services budget is the budget that
takes the cut when we lose a billion dollars, and
that's our ability to put unhoused residents into shelter, into care.
And so you know, that's what makes this sort of
just so hypocritical, because to say you want safety, and
(30:59):
you want to make sure we don't have homeless individuals
on the street, which in and of itself is sort
of outrageous to say, and to dehumanize humans in that way.
It's so hypocritical because you're cutting the same budgets that
support public safety, human services, and those things that you
(31:21):
say we need to clean up and fix as a city.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, that billion dollars, I'm sure could do a lot
more than some National guardsmen wandering around and federal agents
harassing people trying to jog in Rock Creek Park. Council member,
thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate
you taking the time, and we really appreciate your perspective.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
If you have a second, I did have one more question.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Oh sorry, go ahead, Ryan.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Wanted to get your defense of what I think is
the best criticism of the city. And you were elected
in twenty twenty, is that right. So during the pandemic,
DC had one of the most severe crack lockdowns. And
if you were in scho Let's say you're a fourth
grader in March when they when they shut down the schools,
(32:03):
you basically didn't come back into school until you were
a sixth grader, and you know they had this like
a year later in the spring, they brought kids back
for like two hours a week and Tuesdays and Thursdays
or something. But then they really don't start bringing kids
back till the year after that, and then you know
they're they're they're like doing lunch out and freezing cold,
and it was like it was a little bananas and
(32:27):
kids being out of school from let's say, going from
ten to twelve. They came back and you talk to
the teachers, you talk to the cops, they're like you
saw adults when they were when adults were coming out
of the lockdown, Like it took them a while to
like figure out how to engage in like society again.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
But for a kid who went from.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Ten to twelve or twelve to fourteen, felt like an
entire loss generation. Those twelve year olds are now seventeen,
and you're they're the ones you're seeing out there, not
all of them, obviously, but you know they went through
this experience which was in some wat some what are
you unnecessarily foisted on them? Yes, there was a pandemic,
(33:10):
but there was an overreaction to it. What's your response
in hindsight, I guess to to that criticism.
Speaker 11 (33:18):
You know, I think we were just in unprecedented times
and we were really trying to do what was best
for the safety of students and the safety of our educators.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Uh.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
And I think we did what we felt was best
and what we were given guidance was the best thing
to do at that time. And uh, you know, I
don't think there anyone could say it was the right
way or wrong way to do it, because of the
fact that it was just such an unprecedented moment in
our country and in our city.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Do you agree with the link that people make, not
that I'm making there, that that that that time away
for those kids at that vulnerable age had something to
do with this the spike in crime.
Speaker 10 (34:03):
I I I would disagree. I don't.
Speaker 11 (34:07):
I don't, I would disagree. You know, I think our
young people went through a lot and they needed to
process that, and we have no idea as adults what
it was like for them as students. You know, we
obviously needed to have more mental health supports for our
students in returning, and that's a whole other conversation about
the shortage of supports that we have in our schools
(34:28):
do the due to the pipeline issue we have. But
I think you know, I wouldn't correlate that to sort
of the uptick we saw in our young people acting
out in that regard.
Speaker 10 (34:44):
I wouldn't make that correlation.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Well, council members, I really appreciate, really appreciate you being here.
And you know we'll be following this story pretty closely,
so you know, I hope you can come back sometime soon.
Speaker 10 (34:55):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Here's we are going to host it a pretty extraordinary
I would say, interview with our ambassador to Israel, the
one and only my Huckabee, and we have a couple
clips here we wanted to share with you, starting with
Peers asking him about the number of people who are
being starved to death by Israel inside of the Gaza
strip right now, Let's go ahead and take a listen
(35:20):
to Huckabe's response.
Speaker 12 (35:21):
Why does Hamas hate GHF. One of the things they
demanded in one of the negotiations just two and a
half weeks ago was that GHF had to be shut down.
Why would Hamas want to shut it down?
Speaker 5 (35:33):
I'll tell you why.
Speaker 12 (35:35):
Because GHF method of getting food has really hurt their
capacity to control the food market, and it's costing them money.
Otherwise they would say, sure, couldn't bring the food, And
all we care about is people getting to eat. They
don't care about people getting to eat. They care that
they eat. And if you look at the people from
(35:55):
Hamas when they get photographed, they're well fed.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
None of them are hungry.
Speaker 12 (35:59):
Gus guarantee. You look at their faces, look at their bodies,
and instead of food, they could use some ozampic.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
So there is a lot to say about that.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Ryan, I mean, at this point, denying that there is
starvation in Gaza, it just is in such a defiance
of the clear reality there were more kids who starved
to death literally yesterday. Israeli military officials, not to mention,
the UN and other aid organizations have said there was
no significant looting of aid by Hamas.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
This is just a lie.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And in fact, the reason why the UN and other
agencies and Hamas or whoever don't like GHF is because
it is the weaponization of AID and Palestinians are getting
massacred at GHF sites practically every single day when there
is a distribution. Not to mention, being forced to traverse
(36:55):
through active war zones in order even to get to
those few distribution sites for their poultry, lentils, and you know,
rice or flour or whatever. The meager provisions that are
being provided, as Anthony Aguilar explained to us, not even
water because that would be too expensive. So all of
(37:15):
these food goods that require water but no actual water.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, this is a pretty easy one. If you're on
the side of defending GHF, then then you're the bad
guys in this situation. Like there's there's no question about it.
Boston Consulting Group just for two of its partners pitching
business and getting involved in the early stages of GHF.
There two of those two partners were fired. The BCG
(37:42):
is now facing an existential crisis with clients leaving, with staff,
leaving UH with their with their reputation in in you know,
completely tarnished simply for being connected to this GHF.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
And this is months ago.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
To have to this day the ambassador defending it and
saying that it's preposterous that that Hamas would oppose this
as part of a deal is utterly outrageous. Almost every
single day there are massacres at these aid sites. If
you remember a deal Khalil, who's a doctor from Dallas
(38:18):
who's been on this program. He's now back in Gaza
for his third mission, and he texted me when he
first got there and he said that a doctor told him,
you know, briefing him for his upcoming shift. He's like,
if there's an AID, if AID distribution is open while
you're on your shift, that is very bad luck for you.
(38:40):
But if there's no AID distribution while you're on then
you're going to have an ok You're going to have
an okay shift.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
So bear that in mind.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Like that, that is how the hospitals understand this, that
when the AID sites open, the bodies are coming.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
In ahead even sicker that I just I was listening
to THEO Vaughan to his great credit, and I'm extremely
grateful to him for this. Had on a doctor, American
doctor just returned from Gaza and he said, you know,
in Islam, it is forbidden to take your own life,
to commit suicide, and he heard of people who would say,
(39:17):
you know, if my wife, if my family are killed,
I'm going to one of the GHF sites basically in
hopes that they will take me out, like suicide by
GHF site. AID quote unquote AID massacre. That's how dark
it is. And he also attested, as numerous doctors have
(39:37):
at this point, he worked at NASA Hospital as well,
which is the primary hospital where these AID massacre victims
would be brought. He said, you know, when there was
an AID distribution, you would have roughly three hundred people
come in wounded with various wounds, and you know plenty more.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Who were killed.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
So that is that's what our ambassador Mike Huckabee, great Christian,
is defending.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Here.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
We also have a clip year of him being asked
by Peers Morgan to comment on the assassination of five
Al Jazeera journalists. Again, we covered this extensively yesterday. Israel
is not denying that they targeted and assassinated these five journalists,
including among them on Us Al Sharif. But they oh,
but they were you know, there were homas, so it
(40:24):
was fine for us to execute them. Let's go ahead
and take a listen to what could we had to
say about that.
Speaker 13 (40:29):
The IDF has killed five journalists from Al Jazeera amongst
seven people who were killed in a direct and targeted
strike in Gaza City. Al Jazeera called it a targeted
assassination and a blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom. Now,
the IDF immediately put out a statement saying that twenty
(40:51):
eight year old correspondent and Asked al Sharif, who had
become extremely well known in Gaza but his broadcasting during
the war, said that he served as the head of
a terrorist cell in her Mass and produced documents including
personal rosters, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories and
salary documents that they said proved he belonged to her Mass.
(41:13):
But since then a number of journalists, including many from
the BBC, have said that this evidence, to their eyes
very experienced war correspondence, is not convincing. And the reason
this matters so much is that if the IDF has
deliberately targeted a group of journalists in Gaza City and
(41:34):
it turns out that that man Alchherif was not a
Harmas terrorist, then that would constitute a war crime.
Speaker 12 (41:45):
I've also would point there are photos where this alleged
journalist is hugging the head of Hamas and smiling and
yucking it up for the cameras. There is evidence that
indicates that he was an asset for Jimas and if
it's proven that he isn't, then that's a different calculation.
(42:06):
But right now the evidence points to the fact that
he was. And why would someone pose as a journalist.
I mean, I know why they would do it, but
I think that's incredibly despicable if somebody is pretending to
be just reporting the news but is actually being a
participant in the outcome.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
It's like if a.
Speaker 12 (42:25):
Referee at an American football game, instead of wearing the
stripe jersey of the referee, decides to put on a
team jersey and actually root for one team over the
other and aid and a bet one team over the other.
But the big difference is that in football is just
a game, really doesn't matter. This matters. People are dying
(42:48):
there every day, and anyone who helps himas, who is
sympathetic to them, who aids and abets them, I can
understand they would be a target.
Speaker 13 (43:00):
But there is no actual hard evidence that he was
a Hamas terrorist. The only evidence that appears to be
old pictures of him with Hamas leaders, of which there
would be many people in Gaza who would do pictures
of that nature with the governing body. This is prior
to October the seventh. I think judging people as terrorists
prior to October the seventh, when this was a government
(43:22):
that was being financially supported by Israel amongst others, to
the tune of billions of dollars is pretty disingenuous.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
So, first of all, Ryan is Peers is pointing out
there there is no evidence that Annas was linked to
Hamas or a Hamas militant at any point, let alone
post October seventh, And you can all go out and
watch his work product if you want to know what
he has been up to for these past nearly two years.
Second of all, I just have to note it is
quite rich for a former Fox News host to take
(43:52):
this line about how if you're cheering, rooting for one
team specifically, and you put on the jersey and you're
not just being the neutral ref then that should make
you a legitimate military target.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Is quite rich.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Coming from this former Fox News propagandas.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, it's utterly preposterous. If you live in Gaza and
you're high ranking, you know, if you're a journalist of
serious repute like the Hamas leadership wants to be seen
with you like that's it goes the other way around.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
For the most part that.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Well, think about the other thing I was saying about, Hey,
all of our members of Congress are they're taking photos
with Benjamin Nan Yahoo right now? You know, does that
mean they're big congress people and they're legitimate military targets.
It's ridiculous, It's utter utterly absurd.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
And also Israel's own documents that they put out said
that he left in early twenty twenty three because of
some explosives accident that you know, cost him his hearing
in one ear and vision, you know, hurt his vision
and other eyes. Like, well, hey, none of that is
like evident in any of his work. But even even
(45:02):
assuming that this is the case, you're saying that he
has not been a combatant since October, since before October seventh,
twenty twenty three, the rules that you could only kill combatants,
like just because somebody previously served that, I'm not acknowledging
that he'd previously so I'm not saying that he did,
because there's really no evidence that he did.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
But even if he did.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Serve that, then that doesn't allow you to kill him
years later. You cannot kill Barack Revive just because Barack
Reviede served in.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
An idea, idea or same with en, which she did.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
And you know that's what people do for the most part,
They serve in the militaries of their country, but you
can't then later kill them as a result of it.
Speaker 5 (45:41):
So then yesterday Israeli Israel.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Put out again they said, oh, clarification, because they saw
they were getting clowned all over the world for this argument.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
That clarification.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
We have newly and uncovered new secret documents that show
he was still a secret terrorist. And people around the
world have been getting their news from on Us al Sharif,
and they know that he has been working from dawn
all the way off and through the night because you
(46:12):
can't sleep because of the drones and the explosions. He's
posting and doing live hits constantly, and so now is
really claiming that actually, in his downtime he was the
secret terrorist. And they're only saying that now the clarification,
because the last answer landed like a dud, and they're like, oh, yes,
(46:34):
isn't this is only working on our most loyal propagandists.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Everyone else is like, no, this is not credible.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Well, and they've murdered so many journalists, one hundreds at
this point, the number I saw was north of two
hundred and forty, more than you know, in any war since,
including the Civil War. They've murdered so many most of
the time, they don't even feel the need to justify it.
It's just they just killed them and nobody hears anything
about it. And there's I think cannot be disputed at
(47:05):
this point that journalists have been intentionally targeted. You know,
you have international journalists are barred from entering the Gaza Strip,
so they aren't aren't there to shoulder some of the
burden of being able to report out this genocide. So
it's fallen to Palestinians to be responsible for the full
reporting burden of you know, documenting their own friends and
(47:27):
family members being starved and brutalized and killed. And then
on top of that, they all I mean, Anasa was
receiving text messages he anticipated his own murder at the
hands of the IDF and put together, you know, his
final statement to be published upon his death. That's how
(47:47):
much danger he felt his life was in. And you know,
we can put put this next before this is you know,
Israel targeting another journalist. Now, Ryan, my understanding is this
journalist was able to survive this strike. But after the
initial you're seeing the rubble from the initial strike, and
(48:07):
while he's walking around seeing who's okay, you know, what
are the injuries, what's going on? There's another double tab
strike here, once again targeting them.
Speaker 4 (48:20):
And I think you pointed out.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
The likelihood likely they were trying to not only murder
this journalist, but any aid workers who would come to
try to assist.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yeah, and that was most of some Delula, very high,
very well known journalist in Gaza City. And yes, it
does seem like it was a double tap, and the
double taps are aimed at you know, you first hit
a site, and it's terrorist organizations that kind of pioneered
the use of these double taps. You strike a site
and then you know, loved ones and rescue workers come
(48:53):
to the site, and then you set off or you
launch a second explosion to hit them as well. Miraculously
he survived. At least ten people were killed in that strike.
He's also Gaza City, and so what's going on here?
And on us and his colleagues were in Gaza City
(49:13):
and have been in this entire genocide. Their tent was
known to be outside of Alshifa, hospital. They were broadcasting
from there constantly, which has also raised these questions about
to the idea like oh wait a minute, you're you
you have this evidence that he's a secret terrorist. Why now, like,
why why are you waiting until now? And the answer
(49:35):
is is quite obvious that they have. They have announced
that they're going to do this incursion and take over
Gaza City. So they are now methodically killing the journalists
in Gaza City. I hear myself saying this, and it
sounds insane that this is being done out in the open,
but this is what is happening on in a methodical,
(49:58):
day to day manner.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
Yeah. No, no, it's it's just you.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
You you know, you can't believe that these things are
unfolding and it's so clear, and yet somebody like my
Cuckabee goes on with with Peers and I will say,
you know, Piers asks a little follow up there. Peers
can be very dogged when he wants to be, and
his a little meek. In this particular segment with Ambassador Huckabee,
for whatever reason, also wanted to share with everybody a
(50:28):
US negotiator who was involved in the you know, the
negotiations that led to the release of the Israeli American
hostage Dan Alexander. He is now coming out and speaking
out about how he feels that it has not been surprise,
surprised Humas that was the problem of the most recent negotiations,
that it's actually the US side that you know, walked away,
(50:51):
and speculating about why that might be, this is b five.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 14 (50:56):
Both the mediators, the Egyptians and the countries said that
they felt that the Hamas response to the Israeli proposal
with regard to the maps was positive. Hamas was not
really rigid in terms of what it was willing to do.
It was willing to negotiate, you know. And the same
thing with the between the exchange of prisoners and hostages.
(51:19):
So there was the opportunity to come to a deal,
and honestly, I don't know why we did not pursue that,
because if we did, we would have had a deal
about two and a half three two and a half
weeks ago. But somebody cut off that line of negotiations.
Speaker 5 (51:39):
Somebody is Israel.
Speaker 14 (51:41):
I'm presuming that the decision at the end of the day,
it was Israeli decision. What I was told by the
mediators that the Israeli delegation, when they saw the what
was presented to them, said that they were cautiously positive.
I don't know what happens in Israeli behind the scenes politics,
but clearly it was not something that that was at
(52:04):
the time acceptable to Israel.
Speaker 5 (52:06):
And then and then we've been nothing.
Speaker 10 (52:10):
In the meantime, things were frozen.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
So there you go, Ryan, I mean, he's just basically
acknowledging outright that Israel was the problem in these negotiations.
What more can you tell us from drops Ice reporting
about this?
Speaker 5 (52:22):
Yeah, this is Bishop Baba.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
This is the guy who kind of set was the
kind of head of like Arab Americans for Trump and
like set up his back channel to Hamas for wick Cough.
And you know, it's important that the history is laid
out there just so we just so everybody understands, you know,
what happened here. It was reported in Israeli media that
(52:44):
he resigned from the negotiating team.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
That seems to be completely fabricated.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
He responded publicly saying, you know, I'm not technically a
member of the negotiating team either way, I'm I'm helping
h Envoy wit Cough. I retain enormous respect for Witkoff.
And then he and then he did this interview just
making clear what happened and in this and based on
all the documents that that Jeremy at scale obtained over
(53:16):
at drop site. This what he's saying there conforms with
exactly with what we understand as well, that Hamas responded
favorably to the offer, they were preparing to sign the
documents and move into the implementation phase, and Witkoff first
and then Israel announced that it was all off and
(53:36):
that they were going to try, you know, other means
to get the captives back, and those other means entail
assassinating a ton of journalists in Gaza City and then
and then moving into Gaza City and then we'll see
what comes next. So but that is that is the
accurate history. That Hamas was ready to make the deal
and the US and Israel decided not.
Speaker 5 (53:57):
To make it.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
So his dispute with I believe it was Cham twelve
Israeli Channel Top twelve saying he had resigned for the
negotiating team is basically like well, I was never officially
on the negotiating team and he's still resigned from it.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
Yeah, he's still he's still involved. There are just no
talks right now. There's got there. There's news of like
Israel in the United States kicking around ideas again that
might lead to something, but there are no negotiations that
he can be a part of.
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
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Speaker 3 (00:33):
Good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. I am in
the studio here alone today. Crystal got caught up at
a National Guard checkpoint, did not have her paperwork in order.
She's joining us though from an undisclosed location underground.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Crystal luckily not Alligator Alcatraz, at least not yet. So
in any case, we are going to cover the Trump
DC takeover.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
We got a lot to get to you in the
show today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Actually, we were able to book a council member, a
DC council member, to come in and talk about her
perspective on what is going on in the nation's capital.
We've also got a really pretty extraordinary interview with Ambassador
Mike Kakabie Piers Morgan pressing him on starvation and on
the murder of five Al Jazeera journalists, so definitely want
(01:18):
to break that down for you, along with other developments
in Israel and Gaza. We've got a bunch of economic news.
The China tariffs have been paused, and Trump made a
pretty interesting deal. I'm actually very curious to get Ryan's
take on this deal that he made with Nvidia, where
basically they've got to kick back fifteen percent of their
chip sales to China to the US federal government. We
also have some updates on Andrew Cuomo crashing out hard
(01:40):
in his race with Zoran and offering a really nonsensical
and terrible law in order to try to spite.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Or shame Zoran, and I regret to and form everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We are going to take on the dildos at WNBA
Games controversy, along with some other gender related developments.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You definitely want to stick around for that.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Ryan, and you made a point discussing the formation of
the show yesterday that Republicans have made defense of the
integrity of women's sports central to their entire kind of
reason to be Yeah, and this is.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Probably not what people thought they meant by that, yet
here we are.
Speaker 6 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I mean, as you pointed out, I'm not sure
how many people really took seriously their undying devotion to
women's sports, an interest which had never.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Been exhibited in the past. But there's that to get to.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
And Pete Hegseth also elevating his pastor who doesn't think
women should vote. So there's a lot going on there
with regard to the lady kind that I have thoughts on,
and I suspect Ryan does as well. But let's go
ahead and get to this DC National Guard situation, with
Trump claiming crime is out of control and it is
(03:00):
such an emergency in the nation's capital that he needs
to call in the National Guard and evoke a rule
that has never been invoked before by president to effectively
take control of the city's law enforcement. Let's go ahead
and take a listen to a little bit of what
he had to say yesterday.
Speaker 7 (03:18):
I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital
from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse. This is
liberation Day in DC, and we're going to take our
capital back.
Speaker 8 (03:34):
We're taking it.
Speaker 7 (03:35):
Back under the authorities vested in me as the President
of the United States. I'm officially invoking Section seventy forty
of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, you know
what that is, and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department
under direct federal control. And you'll be meeting the people
that will be directly involved with that.
Speaker 9 (03:58):
Let me be crystal clear, crime and see is ending
and ending today. We are going to use every power
we have to fight criminals here. President, thank you for
caring about our capital.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So let's go and put a four up on the
screen and I'll get Ryan's reaction to this. But you know,
the portrayal from the President is a lawless city with
violent crime and crimes of all sorts spiking out of control.
In fact, DC, like many, if not all cities across
the country, has seen crime go down significantly. You've got
(04:31):
violent crime down thirty five percent year over year. I
know in Baltimore, just north of DC, a city that's
also often held out as like you know, a hotbed
of crime and justifiably so. In the past, they're on
track for a fifty year low in terms of the
number of homicides in DC specifically, the crime rate has
hit a thirty year low. So quite at odds with
(04:55):
the portrayal here from the President.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Ryan.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, and tomorrow we'll have both of our resident right
wingers on the program, so you'll be able to get
there take on this. But I think one thing they
could fairly say is that the left was in the
beginning of the kind of surgeon crime starting around twenty
twenty too dismissive of the increase that was related both
to the pandemic to the and to the protests from
(05:21):
that summer and the subsequent kind of going on strike
by police forces all over the country, And so you
did for the next couple of years, you know, have
a significant uptick in crime. Any crime is too much
if you're if you're if you're the victim of it
doesn't matter if you're the only crime victim the entire year,
(05:43):
it's too.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Much for you. So there is that.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
We can acknowledge that, But at the same time we
need to acknowledge that we are strongly, strongly on a
downward slope. Here, if you compare the capital of Washington,
as some on the right have done, capital of the
United States to other capitals around the world, which I've seen,
I've seen them compared to Havana and et cetera, which
is odd. It's like you really like, Okay, yes, there's
(06:10):
not much interesting Havana, but that's really like, that's the
comparison you're gonna make. Okay, anyway, then yes, we are
a much more violent nation than pretty much any other
country in the world. So yes, you know, because Washington
and DC is part of the United States, even it
doesn't get to be a state, it's going to have
more violent crime then you're going to see even in
(06:31):
Argentina or whatever. So that's that really isn't much of
an argument to take over.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
But I think.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You've been in this area your entire life. I moved
to this city around two thousand and three, and you know,
it's important for people to understand the context here. You know,
after the nineteen sixty eight riots, after Martin Luther King
was assassinated, a lot of the city was just laid
(06:59):
waste and there was no investment, no effort to kind
of turn that around. And then you've got the industrialization, neoliberalism,
manufacturing jobs rolling out, Union's getting crushed, and then you
have the crack epidemic. You know, come into to Washington
which and which is only abating kind of. In the
late nineteen nineties, I was in the basically the tail
(07:19):
end of the first wave of gentrification here in DC.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
And do we have the big Balls clip here?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Big Balls was you know, stopped attempted to stop a
carjacking and the fourteen hundred block of Swan Street northwest
and was beaten pretty severely. And the police, interestingly though,
there were like eight police officers very you know nearby
two you know, the officers like ran to the scene
(07:48):
and broke up the beat down, immediately arrested two of them,
and some of the other hooligans got away. And what
you've heard from people is that the fourteen hundred block
of Swamp Street, you know, that's a nice neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
But at the same time.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Twenty years ago, when I moved here, I moved close
to close there. I was fourteenth in w Street. It
was not particularly safe.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah, I remember that area.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Even when I moved to DC, let's see early two thousands,
it was transitional.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
It was definitely transitional, right, So so that kind of
shows how much progress the city has made. That now
when there's if there was crime twenty years ago on
the fourteen hundred block of Swan Street, people like, yeah,
that's that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
That's what happens now. It's shocking.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So that that just I think, to me demonstrates like
how much progress the city has made, and that it's
one of the it's you know, it's it's not as
safe as it should be. No city is, but it's
safer than it was before. And I don't and I
don't quite see how bringing in the FEDS helps that.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, I mean, well that's one of the things that's
ridiculous about this is actually, let's put a five up
on the screen, like, you know, this was the scene
in DC's all these DEA agents because they not only
called up the National Guard, they also pulled agents from DEA, FBI,
and other federal law enforcement agencies. And there you see
(09:15):
them just like strolling along the mall as joggers are
going past, and no problem anywhere in sight. Presumably there's
other actual crime that these individuals could be focused on,
but instead they're going for this walk along the mall
and doing yes nothing. I also saw a report, i
believe from NPR Apparently there was some like minor incident
(09:38):
between a moped and a vehicle and the police were there,
and then you had two dozen federal agents also descend
on the scene to make sure that the car moped
situation was resolved. So that's the kind of absurdity that
you're talking about here. And you know, one of the
(10:01):
things I've been thinking about with regard to crime, because
there's always, you know, there's a heated debate among people
who study this about what causes these spikes and increases
in crime and which sort of police tactics are effective
in dealing with it. And because you had this spike
in crime really across the country in cities across the country,
(10:22):
and then a similar decline in crime following that, again
in cities across the country. Not to say that, you know,
the policing and the mayoral leadership and all that stuff
doesn't matter, but it does seem like the biggest determinants
of crime are these sociocultural factors, much more so than
you know, whether or not the National Guard has been
(10:43):
called up in this particular instance, I want to get
to the next Trump SoundBite here because I think this
one is really important. I saw a lot of people
saying yesterday DC was going to be a model for
this sort of like authoritarian, militarized crackdown across the country,
and I don't think that's really true. I think LA
was the model that you know, was the first one
(11:05):
to go, and they've been allowed to get away with it,
even though there was much more tenuous legal grounds in
LA than you know, the present does have powers under
this section seven forty. Now, granted, it's supposed to be
an emergency, and I think anyone would say, like, this
is not really an emergency that justifies this invocation, but
he does have more legal standing here. Nevertheless, in his
(11:26):
press conference yesterday, he made it clear that this is
a plan that he would like to roll out in
other cities like New York and Chicago and other you know,
notably more democratic cities across the country.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
So let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
We have other cities that are very bad New York
as a problem, and then you have of course Baltimore
and Oakland.
Speaker 8 (11:46):
We don't even mentioned that anymore. There's so they're so
far gone. We're not going to let it happen.
Speaker 7 (11:51):
We're not going to lose our cities over this, and
this will go further. We're starting very strongly with DC
and we're going to clean it up real quick, very quickly,
as they say, and if we need to, we're going
to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster.
Speaker 8 (12:08):
We have a mayor there who's totally incompetent.
Speaker 7 (12:10):
He's an incompetent man, and we have an incompetent governor there.
Speaker 8 (12:16):
Pritzker's an incompetent.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
His family threw him out of the business and he
ran for a governor. And now I understand he wants
to be president, but I noticed he lost a little wait,
so maybe he has a chance.
Speaker 8 (12:27):
You know, you never know what happens.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
But Pritsker is a gross incompetent guy, thrown out of
the family business. But when I look at Chicago and
I look at La, if we didn't go to La
three months ago, La would be burning like the part
that didn't burn. If he would have allowed the water
to come down, which I told him about in my
(12:50):
first term. I said, you're gonna have problems. Let it
come down. We actually sent in our military to have
the water come down into la They still didn't want
it to come down after the fires, but that was it.
Speaker 8 (13:01):
We have it coming down.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
But hopefully La is watching that may are also the
city's burning. They lost like twenty five thousand homes. I
went there the day after the fire. You were there,
and I saw people standing in front of a burned
down home.
Speaker 8 (13:18):
Their homes were incinerated.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So worth noting Ryan, as many did yesterday, that the
cities in the country actually with the highest crime rates
are in red states Memphis, Tennessee, and Saint Louis, Missouri.
Other notable high crime rate cities are Little Rock, Arkansas, Cleveland, Ohio,
Ohio being a red state at this point, Kansas City, Missouri,
New Orleans, Louisiana.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
So you have plenty of.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Red state city crime, yet that doesn't catch the attention
of the President of the United States.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
And you know, I think people are correct.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That this is another like attempted distraction from the Epstein
file stuff which has been Trump has obviously been like
scrambling and panicking, but it is. That's not to say
that it's not also extraordinarily important that you have the
normalization of using the military in standard issue law enforcement
(14:14):
and sort of just making that commonplace in America is
truly an extraordinary and you know, truly authoritarian step. So
he's going to succeed in distracting from the Epstein files
because he finally came up with something that is so
wild and so like detrimental that people have to pay
(14:35):
attention to it. And again, even as I think what
we're going to see from this is similar to in LA,
the National Guard is not doing all that much right there,
like guarding federal buildings. You'll have these you know, you
had ice do this, and a bunch of federal agencies
do this big show of force of like riding their
horses through a park. That's the sort of thing I
expect here as well. But that's not to say it's
(14:55):
not a major concern that we now have the as
in the United States, effectively saying he's going to seize
control of major cities where he disagrees with the political
leadership and the normalizing of this militarized law enforcement force
in you know, in the nation capital in LA and
projected in cities across the country.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, and we have really no idea what the what
the strategy is, and what the kind of orders are,
what the rules of engagement are for these you know,
deputized federal officers who are our roaming dseas, So we
don't know where it's going to add. My neighbor was
telling me last night that earlier in the day she
had seen a group of eight Secret Service agents, So
(15:39):
apparently Secret Service are also you know, being enlisted in
this in this situation, who were kind of corralling a
homeless guy into the and arresting him. That she said
that there had been an accusation that he might have
stolen something. It wasn't clear, but like, you know, a
whole bunch of you know, crowd gathered around like what
you know, wondering what's going on? Whires a Secret Service
(16:01):
picking up a homeless person here with this going on,
and it's an open question, like what is going on?
Like Trump saying that he's going to bring in the
National Guard and take over the city and very quickly
he's going to clean it up, Like what does that mean?
Like what is a DA allowed to do? What is
a Secret Service task with doing got fish and wildlife?
(16:24):
Like who else is like involved here. What are they doing?
Are they just patrolling?
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Are they.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Where are they taking the people that they're arresting? And
how is this supposed to accomplish the goal?
Speaker 5 (16:37):
And none of that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
It all feels like you said, I think he's wanted
to do this for a very long time, that the
pressure of Epstein made that inevitable.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
It's like, just yeah, let's do this, Let's create this mess.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah, we're going to use the right stag fire that's
available to us of big balls getting you know, and
beaten in this car hijacking, and we're going to seize
on that for something he's been projecting for a while
and again that he's already done in LA. I do
believe we have our council member standing by, so let's
(17:11):
go ahead and get to her so we can get
her perspective on what's happening here.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Joining us now is Ward four council member Deanie Lewis
George council member.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Thanks so much for joining.
Speaker 10 (17:23):
Us morning, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
First of all, I want to play a little bit
of Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Watching the DC who
coincidentally represented Ward four before she became mayor, where you
now represent responding to Trump's press conference, if we can
roll Mayor Bowser here and then we're going to get
Lewis George's response here.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
We know, however, most have heard from the President's press
conference that he has prerogatives in DC unlike anywhere else
in the including his authority given by our Home Rule
Charter to require the mayor to require me to supply
(18:09):
services of the Metropolitan Police Department. And he also has
control and the ability to deploy the National Guard. But
let me be clear, as our Home Rule Charter is
also clear, and the President's executive Order restates Chief Pamela
(18:32):
Smith is the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department and
it's thirty one hundred members work under her direction. The
Home Rule Charter requires the mayor to provide the services
of MPD during special conditions of an emergency, and we
(18:53):
will follow the law, though there's a question about the
subjectivity of.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
That decor claration.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
In fact, the Chief has already provided a high level
liaison in point of contact with the federal government and
made those initial contacts. The executive Order is also clear
that the President has delegated his authority to make requests
(19:22):
of US to Attorney General Pam BONDI. I have reached
out to Attorney General Bondy and hope to schedule a
meeting so.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
To set some context for viewers. You know, you were
endorsed in your race by DSA.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Mayor.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Bowser is known as much closer to business here in Washington,
d C. So you know, I know you have your
political differences here in the city with her, But how
do you feel like she has handled the run up
to this crisis and this particular crisis, and what should
she be doing differently?
Speaker 11 (19:56):
You know, I think she has the cautionary approach in
how she's handled with the administration and sort of tried
to find common ground with the President and Republicans and
sort of tried in her best ways to sort of
appease whatever they are trying to do.
Speaker 10 (20:19):
I think.
Speaker 11 (20:21):
In some instances people could say, you know, say you know,
that's what we have to do because we're under.
Speaker 10 (20:26):
Home rule and we're in a vulnerable position.
Speaker 11 (20:28):
And I do think we are in a vulnerable position
because of not having statehood and the Home rule Charter.
But I think the mayor should be a little bit
more active and forceful in fighting for district residents and
saying and declaring sort of what Trump is doing is wrong, right,
Like you know, yesterday you heard mayors from all across
(20:50):
the country and in the cities that Trump indicated, like
Chicago and Baltimore and Los Angeles unequivocally say, you know,
our city is doing is handling crime, crime is low
here these you know, but also defending their city in
a more forceful manner. And I would like to see
this sort of notion of like let's find a common
(21:12):
ground and compromise versus let's defend our citizens and defend
our citizens' rights.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
At this point, it doesn't appear that there is going
to be a legal challenge of Trump's invocation here of
Section seven forty is is that something that you would
like to see going forward? Do you believe that he's
on strong legal ground in terms of his actions.
Speaker 11 (21:33):
Yeah, So one of the biggest outstanding questions is sort
of what is what is the emergency?
Speaker 10 (21:40):
Like what define emergency? Right?
Speaker 11 (21:42):
And I've asked the Attorney general and the Attorney General
and the mayor both said, well, you know, he has
broad sort of you know powers here, And I said,
that's great, but we have to challenge I think we
should be challenging or doing some type of injunction basically
to say, what are your grounds for an emergency, make
the prima facia case for an emergency that serves as
(22:06):
the predicate for seizure of control of the police or
deployment of the National Guard. And we know right now
the facts don't support Trump's claims of a public safety
emergency in DC because of the fact that you know,
our crime is down in every category over the last
two years, there's been a fifty two percent drop in
violent crime in DC and right now we're actually experiencing
(22:27):
some of the lowest crime rates we've seen in thirty
years in the city. So the real question is, if
you know, then what is the prime of facia case
that the President has laid out that justifies sort of
the notion of emergency. And I've asked the Attorney General
to investigate this question to determine the big you know,
what the district's best legal course of action moving forward
(22:48):
should be. But I think yesterday what I wanted to
hear is the mayor and the Attorney General say we
are going to go to the courts to get an
opinion to see if Trump hasn't met the leader requirements
for emergency before, just sort of leaning on, let's compromise,
let's find a way forward. You know, let's have conversations,
(23:10):
which we have to have, but also let's challenge the
actions because if not, we're we'll be in an endless
cycle of the President declaring emergency and with no clear
definition and no court guidance. Here, we're setting ourselves up
down a slippery road that could lead to us losing
our autonomy.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, and people can make up their own minds, but
watching mayor bows are there, I felt she looked kind
of shaken, like it didn't seem like this was a
person that's going to lead this fight here. If there
was someone who's going to lead the fight, what could
they do, Like, given the vulnerable position that everybody acknowledges
DC is in, you know, what assets do you have,
what leverage do you have? And how would you kind
(23:52):
of organize pushback against this?
Speaker 10 (23:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (23:56):
Well, you know, first and foremost I talked about one,
we have to pull our legal levers where we can.
I think it's so important for us to you know,
we've seen jurisdictions who are facing the same amount of
attack on their local autonomy, you know, going to the
courts and trying to get injunctions and fighting on the
legal level to be able to do that work. In
(24:17):
addition to that, let's be honest, the real threat fear
here is that we would lose Home Rule, which gives
us this ability to have autonomy. In order to overturn
Home Rule, this would require a majority vote in both
the House and the Senate, followed by presidential approval, and
even with the majority in the House, a repeal in
the Senate would likely face a filibuster, which will require
(24:40):
at least sixty votes to proceed. So another thing we
need to be doing is really getting going to Congress,
getting our allies on Democratic senators, the House of Democratic
House of Representatives.
Speaker 10 (24:52):
You know, we talked yesterday.
Speaker 11 (24:54):
We said, you know, we need to be going to
the Congressional Black Caucus within the within Congress asking for
this support, and many of them are calling us, how
can we support and so you know, we need to
be doing those things. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is our
delegate and warrior on the Hill representative, has put forward
legislation to give DC it's full autonomy. We should be
trying to get those type of things done as quickly
(25:15):
as possible. You know, when we're up against what we're
up against in this country. You know the idea that
you know, conforming is going to create a space where
we're not going to continue to have to give and
give and give.
Speaker 10 (25:32):
You know, it's just not based in reality.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, you can ask Columbia University how that's gone for
them when they you know, bent over backwards to try
to capitulate and it didn't matter. They still had to
pay the bribes administration. They've had the bed least studies
department taken over, and you know, there's there's no there's
nothing to be gained from capitulating to this individual. I
think that lesson should have been learned pretty well at
(25:55):
this point. As curious your perspective and what you're hearing
from constituents about their concerns about what this is going
to mean for their lives and also just what have
you heard? I mean, how is the National Guard going
to be used? We know that agents have been pulled
up from various agencies, DEA, FBI, Secret Service, How are
they going to be deployed? We were raising questions earlier
(26:19):
about what are the rules of engagement here? You know,
do you have any understanding of what this is actually
going to look like.
Speaker 11 (26:25):
Yeah, in our call meeting yesterday amongst the mayor and
the council and the ag what our understanding was is that,
you know, they are going to sort.
Speaker 10 (26:35):
Of just be a presence.
Speaker 11 (26:38):
Really, they don't have any sort of the goal is
to just be a presence across the city in different locations.
Speaker 10 (26:47):
I don't know how real that is.
Speaker 11 (26:49):
I will say I had a constituent reach out to
me because the Rock Creek Park, which is National Park
Service land, is in my ward, and her and her
son were on a run and they were sort of
stopped and told they couldn't, you know, sort of run
in a certain section, and you know, they just, you know,
(27:11):
they really wanted to know, Council member, you know, what
do we do in these circumstances. You know, there's a
vast amount of National Park Service land, which is federal
land that is a part of you know Ward War particularly,
but across the city in general. And the reality is
what I've been saying to residents is when you're on
National park land, when you're on federal land, they do
(27:32):
have you know, additional powers there I you know, recommended
people stay off sort of National Park Service land or
you know, make sure while you're there, you're there with
others and numbers. And you also remember, you know, you
have your constitutional rights, be very clear about that.
Speaker 10 (27:51):
Make sure you have your.
Speaker 11 (27:52):
Identification on you, make sure you let people know where
you are, because the reality is, with so many different
long entities on the ground in the District of Columbia,
it's really going to be hard. It's really hard for
us to sort of determine who's doing what and where.
And we've also been asking constituents to report to us
where they're seeing national law enforcement so that we can,
(28:15):
you know, try to make sure people can go to
that area and at least observe what is happening between
constituents and federal law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
And let me ask you about this billion dollars, DC's
missing billion dollars. You can put up a seven here.
It's tweet from my old colleague Sam Stein. Is one
way we could make DC safer and cleaner without using
the National Guard would be to restore the one billion
dollars and cuts to the city budget that was passed
into law with Trump's signature which Trump and Republicans were
supposed to reverse but never got around to. So this
(28:46):
was something they slipped into the budget or slipped into
the spending bill, stripped a billion dollars from DC's budget,
said that, oh, we'll fix that next time. Just trust us,
don't worry. Haven't what's the status of that billion dollars
and talk about the portion of the budget that that
makes up, Like how important to the city is this
(29:08):
amount of money. Like to the federal government a billion dollars,
you know they can lose that easily.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
But to the city, what's it mean?
Speaker 10 (29:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (29:15):
For us, Remember you know, our largest parts of pots
of money health, right, public safety, education, and human services.
And so when you have big cuts like this, it
means those are the four sections of our city budget
that have to take a hit. And this is not
the time where education can take a hit. Where public safety,
(29:36):
which you know as all the talks about wanting to
make sure the district is safe and this being about safety.
But you cut, you know, a billion dollars from our budget.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
And where is the city's whole budget if you count
all for those buckets plus.
Speaker 11 (29:50):
We have about a nineteen billion dollar twenty billion dollar
budget given the year, but maintain about a nineteen billion dollar.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Budget, So billion dollars, that's u that's cutting into bone there.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
So what gets hit? What gets hit if that billion
dollars does not get right?
Speaker 11 (30:05):
What gets what gets hit are the because it's such
a we have such a large parts of money. Public
safety takes a hit because that's one of our largest
budget expenditures.
Speaker 10 (30:16):
Our education takes a hit.
Speaker 11 (30:17):
And remember many of our schools are on quarterly payments,
especially our public charter schools, and so the inability for
us to be able to give the you know, actually
expend those funds, you know, was a real hit to
sort of our education nexus human services. The same people
they're saying they want to support our unhoused residents, which
have been i must say, is under attacked and being
(30:39):
scapegoaded in this moment in such a disgusting manner our
unhoused residents. A human services budget is the budget that
takes the cut when we lose a billion dollars, and
that's our ability to put unhoused residents into shelter, into care.
And so you know, that's what makes this sort of
just so hypocritical, because to say you want safety, and
(30:59):
you want to make sure we don't have homeless individuals
on the street, which in and of itself is sort
of outrageous to say, and to dehumanize humans in that way.
It's so hypocritical because you're cutting the same budgets that
support public safety, human services, and those things that you
(31:21):
say we need to clean up and fix as a city.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, that billion dollars, I'm sure could do a lot
more than some National guardsmen wandering around and federal agents
harassing people trying to jog in Rock Creek Park. Council member,
thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate
you taking the time, and we really appreciate your perspective.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
If you have a second, I did have one more question.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Oh sorry, go ahead, Ryan.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Wanted to get your defense of what I think is
the best criticism of the city. And you were elected
in twenty twenty, is that right. So during the pandemic,
DC had one of the most severe crack lockdowns. And
if you were in scho Let's say you're a fourth
grader in March when they when they shut down the schools,
(32:03):
you basically didn't come back into school until you were
a sixth grader, and you know they had this like
a year later in the spring, they brought kids back
for like two hours a week and Tuesdays and Thursdays
or something. But then they really don't start bringing kids
back till the year after that, and then you know
they're they're they're like doing lunch out and freezing cold,
and it was like it was a little bananas and
(32:27):
kids being out of school from let's say, going from
ten to twelve. They came back and you talk to
the teachers, you talk to the cops, they're like you
saw adults when they were when adults were coming out
of the lockdown, Like it took them a while to
like figure out how to engage in like society again.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
But for a kid who went from.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Ten to twelve or twelve to fourteen, felt like an
entire loss generation. Those twelve year olds are now seventeen,
and you're they're the ones you're seeing out there, not
all of them, obviously, but you know they went through
this experience which was in some wat some what are
you unnecessarily foisted on them? Yes, there was a pandemic,
(33:10):
but there was an overreaction to it. What's your response
in hindsight, I guess to to that criticism.
Speaker 11 (33:18):
You know, I think we were just in unprecedented times
and we were really trying to do what was best
for the safety of students and the safety of our educators.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Uh.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
And I think we did what we felt was best
and what we were given guidance was the best thing
to do at that time. And uh, you know, I
don't think there anyone could say it was the right
way or wrong way to do it, because of the
fact that it was just such an unprecedented moment in
our country and in our city.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Do you agree with the link that people make, not
that I'm making there, that that that that time away
for those kids at that vulnerable age had something to
do with this the spike in crime.
Speaker 10 (34:03):
I I I would disagree. I don't.
Speaker 11 (34:07):
I don't, I would disagree. You know, I think our
young people went through a lot and they needed to
process that, and we have no idea as adults what
it was like for them as students. You know, we
obviously needed to have more mental health supports for our
students in returning, and that's a whole other conversation about
the shortage of supports that we have in our schools
(34:28):
do the due to the pipeline issue we have. But
I think you know, I wouldn't correlate that to sort
of the uptick we saw in our young people acting
out in that regard.
Speaker 10 (34:44):
I wouldn't make that correlation.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Well, council members, I really appreciate, really appreciate you being here.
And you know we'll be following this story pretty closely,
so you know, I hope you can come back sometime soon.
Speaker 10 (34:55):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Here's we are going to host it a pretty extraordinary
I would say, interview with our ambassador to Israel, the
one and only my Huckabee, and we have a couple
clips here we wanted to share with you, starting with
Peers asking him about the number of people who are
being starved to death by Israel inside of the Gaza
strip right now, Let's go ahead and take a listen
(35:20):
to Huckabe's response.
Speaker 12 (35:21):
Why does Hamas hate GHF. One of the things they
demanded in one of the negotiations just two and a
half weeks ago was that GHF had to be shut down.
Why would Hamas want to shut it down?
Speaker 5 (35:33):
I'll tell you why.
Speaker 12 (35:35):
Because GHF method of getting food has really hurt their
capacity to control the food market, and it's costing them money.
Otherwise they would say, sure, couldn't bring the food, And
all we care about is people getting to eat. They
don't care about people getting to eat. They care that
they eat. And if you look at the people from
(35:55):
Hamas when they get photographed, they're well fed.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
None of them are hungry.
Speaker 12 (35:59):
Gus guarantee. You look at their faces, look at their bodies,
and instead of food, they could use some ozampic.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
So there is a lot to say about that.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Ryan, I mean, at this point, denying that there is
starvation in Gaza, it just is in such a defiance
of the clear reality there were more kids who starved
to death literally yesterday. Israeli military officials, not to mention,
the UN and other aid organizations have said there was
no significant looting of aid by Hamas.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
This is just a lie.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And in fact, the reason why the UN and other
agencies and Hamas or whoever don't like GHF is because
it is the weaponization of AID and Palestinians are getting
massacred at GHF sites practically every single day when there
is a distribution. Not to mention, being forced to traverse
(36:55):
through active war zones in order even to get to
those few distribution sites for their poultry, lentils, and you know,
rice or flour or whatever. The meager provisions that are
being provided, as Anthony Aguilar explained to us, not even
water because that would be too expensive. So all of
(37:15):
these food goods that require water but no actual water.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, this is a pretty easy one. If you're on
the side of defending GHF, then then you're the bad
guys in this situation. Like there's there's no question about it.
Boston Consulting Group just for two of its partners pitching
business and getting involved in the early stages of GHF.
There two of those two partners were fired. The BCG
(37:42):
is now facing an existential crisis with clients leaving, with staff,
leaving UH with their with their reputation in in you know,
completely tarnished simply for being connected to this GHF.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
And this is months ago.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
To have to this day the ambassador defending it and
saying that it's preposterous that that Hamas would oppose this
as part of a deal is utterly outrageous. Almost every
single day there are massacres at these aid sites. If
you remember a deal Khalil, who's a doctor from Dallas
(38:18):
who's been on this program. He's now back in Gaza
for his third mission, and he texted me when he
first got there and he said that a doctor told him,
you know, briefing him for his upcoming shift. He's like,
if there's an AID, if AID distribution is open while
you're on your shift, that is very bad luck for you.
(38:40):
But if there's no AID distribution while you're on then
you're going to have an ok You're going to have
an okay shift.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
So bear that in mind.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Like that, that is how the hospitals understand this, that
when the AID sites open, the bodies are coming.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
In ahead even sicker that I just I was listening
to THEO Vaughan to his great credit, and I'm extremely
grateful to him for this. Had on a doctor, American
doctor just returned from Gaza and he said, you know,
in Islam, it is forbidden to take your own life,
to commit suicide, and he heard of people who would say,
(39:17):
you know, if my wife, if my family are killed,
I'm going to one of the GHF sites basically in
hopes that they will take me out, like suicide by
GHF site. AID quote unquote AID massacre. That's how dark
it is. And he also attested, as numerous doctors have
(39:37):
at this point, he worked at NASA Hospital as well,
which is the primary hospital where these AID massacre victims
would be brought. He said, you know, when there was
an AID distribution, you would have roughly three hundred people
come in wounded with various wounds, and you know plenty more.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Who were killed.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
So that is that's what our ambassador Mike Huckabee, great Christian,
is defending.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Here.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
We also have a clip year of him being asked
by Peers Morgan to comment on the assassination of five
Al Jazeera journalists. Again, we covered this extensively yesterday. Israel
is not denying that they targeted and assassinated these five journalists,
including among them on Us Al Sharif. But they oh,
but they were you know, there were homas, so it
(40:24):
was fine for us to execute them. Let's go ahead
and take a listen to what could we had to
say about that.
Speaker 13 (40:29):
The IDF has killed five journalists from Al Jazeera amongst
seven people who were killed in a direct and targeted
strike in Gaza City. Al Jazeera called it a targeted
assassination and a blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom. Now,
the IDF immediately put out a statement saying that twenty
(40:51):
eight year old correspondent and Asked al Sharif, who had
become extremely well known in Gaza but his broadcasting during
the war, said that he served as the head of
a terrorist cell in her Mass and produced documents including
personal rosters, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories and
salary documents that they said proved he belonged to her Mass.
(41:13):
But since then a number of journalists, including many from
the BBC, have said that this evidence, to their eyes
very experienced war correspondence, is not convincing. And the reason
this matters so much is that if the IDF has
deliberately targeted a group of journalists in Gaza City and
(41:34):
it turns out that that man Alchherif was not a
Harmas terrorist, then that would constitute a war crime.
Speaker 12 (41:45):
I've also would point there are photos where this alleged
journalist is hugging the head of Hamas and smiling and
yucking it up for the cameras. There is evidence that
indicates that he was an asset for Jimas and if
it's proven that he isn't, then that's a different calculation.
(42:06):
But right now the evidence points to the fact that
he was. And why would someone pose as a journalist.
I mean, I know why they would do it, but
I think that's incredibly despicable if somebody is pretending to
be just reporting the news but is actually being a
participant in the outcome.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
It's like if a.
Speaker 12 (42:25):
Referee at an American football game, instead of wearing the
stripe jersey of the referee, decides to put on a
team jersey and actually root for one team over the
other and aid and a bet one team over the other.
But the big difference is that in football is just
a game, really doesn't matter. This matters. People are dying
(42:48):
there every day, and anyone who helps himas, who is
sympathetic to them, who aids and abets them, I can
understand they would be a target.
Speaker 13 (43:00):
But there is no actual hard evidence that he was
a Hamas terrorist. The only evidence that appears to be
old pictures of him with Hamas leaders, of which there
would be many people in Gaza who would do pictures
of that nature with the governing body. This is prior
to October the seventh. I think judging people as terrorists
prior to October the seventh, when this was a government
(43:22):
that was being financially supported by Israel amongst others, to
the tune of billions of dollars is pretty disingenuous.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
So, first of all, Ryan is Peers is pointing out
there there is no evidence that Annas was linked to
Hamas or a Hamas militant at any point, let alone
post October seventh, And you can all go out and
watch his work product if you want to know what
he has been up to for these past nearly two years.
Second of all, I just have to note it is
quite rich for a former Fox News host to take
(43:52):
this line about how if you're cheering, rooting for one
team specifically, and you put on the jersey and you're
not just being the neutral ref then that should make
you a legitimate military target.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Is quite rich.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Coming from this former Fox News propagandas.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, it's utterly preposterous. If you live in Gaza and
you're high ranking, you know, if you're a journalist of
serious repute like the Hamas leadership wants to be seen
with you like that's it goes the other way around.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
For the most part that.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Well, think about the other thing I was saying about, Hey,
all of our members of Congress are they're taking photos
with Benjamin Nan Yahoo right now? You know, does that
mean they're big congress people and they're legitimate military targets.
It's ridiculous, It's utter utterly absurd.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
And also Israel's own documents that they put out said
that he left in early twenty twenty three because of
some explosives accident that you know, cost him his hearing
in one ear and vision, you know, hurt his vision
and other eyes. Like, well, hey, none of that is
like evident in any of his work. But even even
(45:02):
assuming that this is the case, you're saying that he
has not been a combatant since October, since before October seventh,
twenty twenty three, the rules that you could only kill combatants,
like just because somebody previously served that, I'm not acknowledging
that he'd previously so I'm not saying that he did,
because there's really no evidence that he did.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
But even if he did.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
Serve that, then that doesn't allow you to kill him
years later. You cannot kill Barack Revive just because Barack
Reviede served in.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
An idea, idea or same with en, which she did.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
And you know that's what people do for the most part,
They serve in the militaries of their country, but you
can't then later kill them as a result of it.
Speaker 5 (45:41):
So then yesterday Israeli Israel.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Put out again they said, oh, clarification, because they saw
they were getting clowned all over the world for this argument.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
That clarification.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
We have newly and uncovered new secret documents that show
he was still a secret terrorist. And people around the
world have been getting their news from on Us al Sharif,
and they know that he has been working from dawn
all the way off and through the night because you
(46:12):
can't sleep because of the drones and the explosions. He's
posting and doing live hits constantly, and so now is
really claiming that actually, in his downtime he was the
secret terrorist. And they're only saying that now the clarification,
because the last answer landed like a dud, and they're like, oh, yes,
(46:34):
isn't this is only working on our most loyal propagandists.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Everyone else is like, no, this is not credible.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Well, and they've murdered so many journalists, one hundreds at
this point, the number I saw was north of two
hundred and forty, more than you know, in any war since,
including the Civil War. They've murdered so many most of
the time, they don't even feel the need to justify it.
It's just they just killed them and nobody hears anything
about it. And there's I think cannot be disputed at
(47:05):
this point that journalists have been intentionally targeted. You know,
you have international journalists are barred from entering the Gaza Strip,
so they aren't aren't there to shoulder some of the
burden of being able to report out this genocide. So
it's fallen to Palestinians to be responsible for the full
reporting burden of you know, documenting their own friends and
(47:27):
family members being starved and brutalized and killed. And then
on top of that, they all I mean, Anasa was
receiving text messages he anticipated his own murder at the
hands of the IDF and put together, you know, his
final statement to be published upon his death. That's how
(47:47):
much danger he felt his life was in. And you know,
we can put put this next before this is you know,
Israel targeting another journalist. Now, Ryan, my understanding is this
journalist was able to survive this strike. But after the
initial you're seeing the rubble from the initial strike, and
(48:07):
while he's walking around seeing who's okay, you know, what
are the injuries, what's going on? There's another double tab
strike here, once again targeting them.
Speaker 4 (48:20):
And I think you pointed out.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
The likelihood likely they were trying to not only murder
this journalist, but any aid workers who would come to
try to assist.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yeah, and that was most of some Delula, very high,
very well known journalist in Gaza City. And yes, it
does seem like it was a double tap, and the
double taps are aimed at you know, you first hit
a site, and it's terrorist organizations that kind of pioneered
the use of these double taps. You strike a site
and then you know, loved ones and rescue workers come
(48:53):
to the site, and then you set off or you
launch a second explosion to hit them as well. Miraculously
he survived. At least ten people were killed in that strike.
He's also Gaza City, and so what's going on here?
And on us and his colleagues were in Gaza City
(49:13):
and have been in this entire genocide. Their tent was
known to be outside of Alshifa, hospital. They were broadcasting
from there constantly, which has also raised these questions about
to the idea like oh wait a minute, you're you
you have this evidence that he's a secret terrorist. Why now, like,
why why are you waiting until now? And the answer
(49:35):
is is quite obvious that they have. They have announced
that they're going to do this incursion and take over
Gaza City. So they are now methodically killing the journalists
in Gaza City. I hear myself saying this, and it
sounds insane that this is being done out in the open,
but this is what is happening on in a methodical,
(49:58):
day to day manner.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
Yeah. No, no, it's it's just you.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
You you know, you can't believe that these things are
unfolding and it's so clear, and yet somebody like my
Cuckabee goes on with with Peers and I will say,
you know, Piers asks a little follow up there. Peers
can be very dogged when he wants to be, and
his a little meek. In this particular segment with Ambassador Huckabee,
for whatever reason, also wanted to share with everybody a
(50:28):
US negotiator who was involved in the you know, the
negotiations that led to the release of the Israeli American
hostage Dan Alexander. He is now coming out and speaking
out about how he feels that it has not been surprise,
surprised Humas that was the problem of the most recent negotiations,
that it's actually the US side that you know, walked away,
(50:51):
and speculating about why that might be, this is b five.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 14 (50:56):
Both the mediators, the Egyptians and the countries said that
they felt that the Hamas response to the Israeli proposal
with regard to the maps was positive. Hamas was not
really rigid in terms of what it was willing to do.
It was willing to negotiate, you know. And the same
thing with the between the exchange of prisoners and hostages.
(51:19):
So there was the opportunity to come to a deal,
and honestly, I don't know why we did not pursue that,
because if we did, we would have had a deal
about two and a half three two and a half
weeks ago. But somebody cut off that line of negotiations.
Speaker 5 (51:39):
Somebody is Israel.
Speaker 14 (51:41):
I'm presuming that the decision at the end of the day,
it was Israeli decision. What I was told by the
mediators that the Israeli delegation, when they saw the what
was presented to them, said that they were cautiously positive.
I don't know what happens in Israeli behind the scenes politics,
but clearly it was not something that that was at
(52:04):
the time acceptable to Israel.
Speaker 5 (52:06):
And then and then we've been nothing.
Speaker 10 (52:10):
In the meantime, things were frozen.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
So there you go, Ryan, I mean, he's just basically
acknowledging outright that Israel was the problem in these negotiations.
What more can you tell us from drops Ice reporting
about this?
Speaker 5 (52:22):
Yeah, this is Bishop Baba.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
This is the guy who kind of set was the
kind of head of like Arab Americans for Trump and
like set up his back channel to Hamas for wick Cough.
And you know, it's important that the history is laid
out there just so we just so everybody understands, you know,
what happened here. It was reported in Israeli media that
(52:44):
he resigned from the negotiating team.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
That seems to be completely fabricated.
Speaker 3 (52:53):
He responded publicly saying, you know, I'm not technically a
member of the negotiating team either way, I'm I'm helping
h Envoy wit Cough. I retain enormous respect for Witkoff.
And then he and then he did this interview just
making clear what happened and in this and based on
all the documents that that Jeremy at scale obtained over
(53:16):
at drop site. This what he's saying there conforms with
exactly with what we understand as well, that Hamas responded
favorably to the offer, they were preparing to sign the
documents and move into the implementation phase, and Witkoff first
and then Israel announced that it was all off and
(53:36):
that they were going to try, you know, other means
to get the captives back, and those other means entail
assassinating a ton of journalists in Gaza City and then
and then moving into Gaza City and then we'll see
what comes next. So but that is that is the
accurate history. That Hamas was ready to make the deal
and the US and Israel decided not.
Speaker 5 (53:57):
To make it.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
So his dispute with I believe it was Cham twelve
Israeli Channel Top twelve saying he had resigned for the
negotiating team is basically like well, I was never officially
on the negotiating team and he's still resigned from it.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
Yeah, he's still he's still involved. There are just no
talks right now. There's got there. There's news of like
Israel in the United States kicking around ideas again that
might lead to something, but there are no negotiations that
he can be a part of.
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