Krystal and Saagar discuss Laura Loomer pushes block on Gazan children treatment in US, Mayor Pete panics over Israel, Fort Bragg book exposes murder and drug trafficking.
Fort Bragg Book: https://www.amazon.com/Fort-Bragg-Cartel-Trafficking-Special/dp/0593655087
To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com
Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of this show.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All right, so we got Laura Lumer now directing State
Department policy when it comes to the admission of kids
from Gaza who are seeking treatment in the United States.
Let's go and put this up on the screen. She
tweeted this exclusive. Despite the US saying we are not
accepting Palestinian refugees into the United States under the Trump administration,
(00:56):
I've obtained video footage of Palestinians who claim to be
refugees from Gaza coming into the US by San Francisco
and Houston, Texas this month. The Palestinians traveled from Gaza
to the US with the help of a group called Healed,
Heal Palestine. How did Palestinians get visas under the Trump
administration to get into the US? Did the State Department
approve this? How did they get out of Gaza? Is
(01:17):
Secretary Rubio aware of this? So after Lumar tweets, hey,
we don't want these kids coming in from Gaza, lo
and behold department. State Department says all visitor visas for
individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a
full and thorough review of the process and procedures used
to issue a small number of temporary medical humanitarian visas
(01:38):
in recent days. And I'll play in just a second
Marco Rubio. He was asked about some of this on
the Sunday Shows. Very actually lean questioning of him.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
But whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
In any case, just to be totally clear, you know,
even what she's saying here about Palestinian refugees, personally, I
would support it, but that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about temporary B two visas that are used
to allow people to come in and seek medical treatment.
They are good for six months at a time. You
have to seek an extension, prove you're continuing to receive
(02:09):
medical treatment. You're not eligible for work, you're not eligible
for permanent residency.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
That's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
We're talking about kids, oftentimes who had their arms and
legs blown off frequently by American bombs, who are being
allowed in in very limited numbers in order to seek
medical treatment here in the United States. And that is
what Laura Lumer objects to, and that is who, by
the way, describes yourself as a quote unquote proud islamophobe,
and who the State Department is listening to in blocking
(02:36):
these visas. So let's go ahead and take a listen
to Marco Rubio on the Sunday Shows, and then we'll
get soccersurrection on the other side.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Why did the State Department just announce that they're halting
visitor visas for all gossens coming here for medical aid.
Why would some of these kids, for example, who are
coming to hospitals for treatment be a threat.
Speaker 6 (02:56):
Well, first of all, it's not just kids, it's a
bunch of adults that are accompanying them. Second, we had
outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it, and
so We're going to reevaluate how those visas are being granted,
not just to the children, but how those visas are
being granted to the people who are accompanying them, and,
by the way, to some of the organizations that are
facilitating it. There is evidence been presented to us by
numerous congressional offices that some of the organizations bragging about
(03:19):
and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to
terrorist groups like Hamas, and so we are not going
to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas.
So we need it. We're going to pause those visas.
There was just a small number of them issued to children,
but they come with adults accompanying them, obviously, and we
are going to pause this program and reevaluate how those
(03:41):
visas are being vetted and what relationship of any has
there been by these organizations to the process of acquiring
those visas. We're not going to be in partnership with
groups that have links or sympathies towards Hamas.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
So there you go, Sager, they're Hamas well.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Listen, I agree that the Pals Union shouldn't come here
because I think they should stay in their current place,
and they should be allowed to seek medical care in
their own area, which they cannot do because they have
all been leveled. Also, there is a very developed country
called Israel, which has hospitals and specialized medical care. If
they really cared about Palestinian children, they could treat them
(04:19):
if they would like to. They're you know, open, they
brag about it, right, We've got all these five star
medical equipment, etc. The reason why, And again I looked
into it just like you did. These are not refugees,
people who are permanently living here. They're on a permanent
or on a temporary visa to seek specialized medical care,
which does not allow permanent residency. I guess it's fair
(04:40):
to say that sometimes that does lead to permanent residency.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So, okay, whatever, that's their objection.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
But what drives me nuts is the way that this
is what drives me nuts, is the way that we
have all this double standard. We literally just let it
is really pedophile flee the allegedly an alleged pedophile flee
the country after he was in a sting here.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That's no diplomatic outcry.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
The State Department, if anything, probably facilitated it allegedly.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, where's Laura.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Where's it exactly?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So what do we care about security or any event
More recently, our government actually launched a hate crime investigation
after a soldier returned from fighting in Gaza and faced
some backlash or whatever here in the United States. And
I'm like, yeah, I mean he's a foreigner. By according
to the US passport, you're supposed to lose your you
(05:31):
are literally supposed to lose your citizenship if you go
abroad and fight in a foreign military And now our
federal resources are being marshaled to protect so we have
not only just a double standard, but a six standard here.
So yes, let's make it so that they can stay
exactly where they're from and seek medical attention.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, that there's an easy way to do that. Maybe
that's not really something you want to do.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
You know what Gaza actually had.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, they had a lot of possible white I.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Remember extensive medical care inside of Gaza, especially given the
difficult conditions that have been imposed on them for years
and years and decades by Israel. But they had quite
a sophisticate No, yeah, no more, because you bombed it all,
you destroyed it all. And this is the thing, like
you know from if I'm to take a sort of
like right wing perspective or channel a right wing perspective.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
If you don't want.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
A lot of refugees displaced, then stop backing the fucking
wars that you think that Palestinians want to have to
have their kids' arms blown off and seek treatment here.
You think that's the life that they envision for themselves.
Of course not they would like to be in Gaza,
They would like to be in their homes. But guess
what our tax dollars went to destroying and turning all
(06:40):
of Gaza, including as the medical system into rubble. And
so given that context to then object to, we're talking
about a small number of kids coming here, and we
can put we can put this one eleven year old boy,
this is D four up on the screen, coming here
to speak, seek specialized treatment. And you object to that,
(07:03):
you I mean to me, it is so depraved, It
is so sick as to be almost beyond words. These
little kids who have had their childhood robed from them.
God knows the trauma that they've experienced, the loved ones
in their lives, the family members that they've lost, who
will never be able to gain back their limbs and
(07:24):
their their peace of mind that was stolen from them.
And then the one little bit of kindness we have
to be able to get them out of Gaza and
get the medical treatment. And you're mad about that. That
is so disgraceful, It is just unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Well, this was a big debate back o men during
the Syrian crisis that I remember over the Syrian refugee stuff.
And you know, the Europeans obviously invited all these Syrian
refugees and Afghan refugees into the country. Destabilized, responsible for Brexit,
has caused problems basically now to this day. But you're,
like you said, to channel or more right wing perspective,
the solution the whole time was why do we keep
(08:01):
funding this? We are responsible for basically creating the political
crisis and the problem here that is fueling all of this.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
There's a I'll get canceled for this one.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
But there is a term or a phrase come up
with a guy named Steve Sailor, which is invade the world.
Invite the world, which is basically like go abroad in
search of monsters to destroy, destroy them, destabilize them, either
on behalf of Israel or support policy to do so
and then invite them, you know, to your own country.
Now again, you know, the Israelis, out of two sides
(08:33):
of their mouth are like, these people are so horrific
that we cannot even be forced to live next to them.
And then the second breath, they're like, by the way
America and everybody else, you need to take them. It's like, well, okay,
so that basically you don't really believe that you just
don't want to live next to them. I support their
right to seek medical care in their own territory and
or in Israel for creating that crisis and to allow also,
(08:56):
you know, this is the other question of you're destroying
all the hospitals and then you're blocking all the aid
that's even coming in there with GHF. I mean, all
of these doctors who have gone into Gaza, all of
them report massive problems even getting in there. Don't they
have to go through the UAE or some other special
system to even to be able to provide it. They
lose power when they're doing. These things occur because of
(09:16):
what we are supporting. This is the classic invade and
invite scenario that Sailor described.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So I don't know, I mean, I think with Lumer. Really,
what you're watching.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Is kind of this like weaponized like hysteria over Palestinians
and others, where if they actually cared about not wanting
Palestinians to have to go anywhere, which of course they don't,
they support it, they actually support the mass ethnic cleansing
really of what's going on, then you would support basically
telling Israel no.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And you know, if we have a blanket.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Policy that Israelis and Gozins and all these others, and
I'm not going to get any of our more of
our money and have much more of a fair application,
but we don't. Our federal government basically rolls out the
red carpet for former IDF soldiers who are coming here,
who will response well, in some cases we're creating much
of this, but then you know, the victims of it
are then treated with contempts.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, I don't know. The whole thing is cool.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And just so you know the type of people that
she is objecting to being able to get treatment here,
let's go ahead and play D four. This is a
little eleven year old boy and his family who you know,
local news did a piece on and they arrived in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
You've seen Algabar and is slowly learning how to be
a kid again in the suburbs of Atlanta. He came
here all the way from Gaza after losing his legs
in an airstrike last year.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Okay, he doesn't want to talk.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
Arrived in the US for medical treatment through the nonprofit
Heal Palestine. Here in Atlanta. He'll need more surgery and
eventually prosthetic legs, he said, I'm fine for medical attention
nearly caused the family to split apart.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So that's who, you know, That's who Rubio was saying, Oh,
these are linked to terrorists. This is some mass this
is who Lumer is, you know, pitching a hysterical fit
about to try.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
To block their entry.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And I truly just find the whole thing to be
a grotesque and disgusting.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
I think it again is gross in Israel and the
pro Israel context. I mean, I don't think it's a secret,
but like, part of the problem is that there's always
weaponized empathy for mass refugee status. But I mean, it's
almost feels silly to have that argument or discussion right
now because we're not No one's proposing that no one
is saying, well, actually Israel is proposing some sort of
mass refugee expulsion. But there's not a serious debate right
(11:29):
now to invite hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of
Palestinians you know, here to America. That's not actually what's
even really part of the question. This is not even
like the starting point of any of it. It's not
a realistic political outcome other than the one that's being
pushed by these Really.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
If it were then way, I would be willing to
have it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Agree, we are the ones who we are the reason
this little boy doesn't have legs, right, he lost family matter,
I believe he lost his father, like we are the
reason for that. And like the tiniest bit of I mean,
this is a pathetic drop in the bucket. I think
a few hundred kids. I mean, it's so minimal, and
this is the thing that you're up at arms about.
(12:06):
It's again, it is so disgusting. And if it, like,
if you don't want for these children to have to
seek medical care abroad, then support the ending of the
bombing and starving of them so that yes they.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Could where they would actually like to be at.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Their homes with their loved ones with their limbs and
body syntact.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I believe.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Ryan also was pointing out that in many of the
cases it was a hyper specialized medical because people are like, oh,
why do they have to come here? And he's like, well,
in many of these cases, it's a very specific type
of medical treatment available in the United States that's being
paid for by donors and others. With the scrutiny of
the State Department on the B two visa, Lumer has
been saying like, oh, well, why don't they go to
(12:52):
Arab countries, And it's like, well, there in some cases
there are literally only specific procedures where they have doctors
like available in the United States.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That's what I saw him in his back and forth
with Lumor.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
But yeah, I mean, overall, it just goes to show
you the level of which we can have just like
complete hysteria and panic in some sort of service of Israel,
you know, here with the victims of a policy which
is directly supported by the last two administrations by tax
dollars and others. Yeah, what exactly is the way that
(13:23):
we square it? And by the way, if it was
a child like an October seventh victim and they were
blocked from coming over here. What do you think these
people would at Oh yeah, you know you want to
go there for a second, Like, let's do that.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Let me just before we get to pee, let me
just read this exchange from Lumour and Ryan just to
get it in here, because yeah, our man has been
doing doing battle. He's been doing battle in the trenches
over this one. So Lumor quote tweeted a drop site
report and said, why should Palestinians be treated in American
hospitals for free while US veterans are homeless on the street,
unable to get healthcare. This is why everyone hates them,
(13:55):
because they want to come to our country, get free
healthcare and never assimilate while Americans struggle to pay their bills.
Not even Americans get free healthcare. But you want Palestinians
to have free healthcare while you are America. Last unreal?
As if Ryan doesn't want Americans to get free healthcare.
By the way, and this lady, you think she has
ever supported free healthcare for all Americans? Okay, anyway, Ryan responds,
Trump slashed Medicaid, slashed the VA, slashed ACA exchange subsidies,
(14:21):
and increased the military budget to over trillion dollars.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
But Lumer wants people to think the.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Reasoning not of healthcare, is that a Palestinian child got
treated thanks to donations from people heartbroken at what Israel
and the US, by the way, is doing to children.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
This is a lie.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
The trillion dollars being spent to blow the arms and
legs off of children is the problem, not the children themselves.
Well said my friend, Well said Ryan Grimm. We covered
this last week, but just as a refresher pete footage
Edge went on pot Save America.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
John Faffer was doing the questioning and.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
He just made an absolute mess of his answers on Israel,
said a lot of words, said absolutely nothing. It was pathetic.
He got absolutely destroyed online, huge backlash to his comments.
So just as a reminder, because we've got an update
on this, just as a reminder of what he said.
This was his response to, Hey, do you think we
should recognize a Palestinian state?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Do you think it's time to recognize a Palestinian state?
Speaker 8 (15:16):
I think that that's a profound question that arouses a
lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's
survival or Israel's rights to survival in the diplomatic scene,
and many of the people who have taken that step
historically have done so for different reasons than what we
(15:36):
see happening with European countries. I think we need to
step back and we need to do whatever it takes
to ensure that there is a real two state solution
and that no one, not even likes in Thatta Yahu,
can veto the international community's commitment to a two state
solution where you have Palestinians and Israelis living with safety,
(15:57):
with security, with rights, that can happen. We have to
actually show some commitment to it.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So again the question was should we recognize a Palestinian state?
All of that long gobbledegook was the answer, which started
off with that's a profound question that arouses a lot
of the biggest problems with regard to Israel's right to survival. Oh, thanks, Pete. Thanks,
that was really useful, And all of his answers were
like that. So it was so bad that he actually
went to Politico to try to clean up the mess.
(16:26):
So we can put this up on the screen. This
is an interesting article overall about what they describe as
DEM's twenty twenty eight litmus test on Israel, and they
say Budhages discovered that this was and they're so out
of touch. It's crazy that he didn't realize this would
be an issue. But in any case, here's party for
what he said. He said Democrats like all Americans, but
certainly Democrats are sickened by what's happening and trying to
hold several things in mind at the same time, all
(16:47):
of which can be true. That what has to happen
next is the killing has to end. He told Politico
in an interview. The hostages have to come home, the
people of Gaza need aid unimpeded, and all of that
should be happening immediately. They describe that as a sharper
sponse than in his interview. I don't know how sharp
that is, but in any case, it goes on. He
says of the criticism of his podcast interview quote.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It's important to be clear about something this enormous, in
this painful. It's just that it's so enormous and it's
so painful soccer that sometimes his words can fail.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
It's just that he feels it so deeply.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
He didn't express himself properly, okay, but the next piece
up on the screen, we got one more here. So
Buddhajudg sees a larger paradigm shift on the issue. Falling
the blowback this week to his response on the podcast,
he's now trying to directly answer democrats questions about his
positions on Israel. Ask whether Pastinian state should be recognized,
he told Politico a two state solution has to come
(17:39):
in the context of a credible and enforceable and negotiated process.
I think if you just try to do it unilaterally,
it's not going to change anything for people on the ground,
and it'll just be words.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
On a page.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
As for passing more decades long military aid packages, buddhajij said,
we have to shift to a more case by case
approach instead of a blanket approach. And he added Nena
Who's military campaign is even more horrifying when you contemplate
this is happening with US support. So I don't know
how great he did cleaning this up. It's still a lot,
in my opinion of gobbledegook that completely misses the moral
(18:11):
clarity that Democrats certainly want to see from him.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
But Socger it was noteworthy.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
That he felt the need to go in and play
clean up at all after you know, the answers that
he gave. This classic like Pete McKinsey speak of, let
me like restate the question and then bullshit around until
you don't notice that I didn't answer your question at all.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
He would have gotten away with that just a few
years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
No question, And now people are like, no, we want
an answer. Where do you stand? And the Democratic base
is overwhelmingly of the view that this is a genocide.
All weapons need to stop, there needs to be an end,
and that this is horrifying and there needs to be
total and complete moral clarity when it comes to this systay.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I think what they horseshoe on it will be eventually
is and this is why Buddha Jedge made the mistake
of just like trying in the very beginning to give
his guy obboldegook answer is going to be the eventual
place that Slotkin ended up after our interview, which is
they're going to stay silent. The ambitious ones will stay
silent for now. I doubt they'll ever get to genocide.
(19:11):
I think what they'll say is I support no more
weapons to the state of Israel.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
That is the like.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Horseshoe between whatever is left of liberal Zionism and of
the activist class, who is going to rejoice at seeing
somebody like Gavin Newsom or others be like, yeah, we're
not going to support and you know, realistically, that's what
it's going to look like at an actual policy level.
So in my opinion, what budhaje Edge has shown is
the political trepidation of even trying to square the circle
(19:37):
by not just outright declaring several things at a concrete
level Palestinian statehood offensive web not even offensive weapons to Israel.
I think those will be the two actual litmus tests.
And if I think about it, in the Podsave America clip,
the one that went very viral was him saying we're
not going back to the pre October seventh status quo. Yeah,
that I think again is another Pods with the Pods guys. Yeah, No,
(20:00):
I think it was John Favreau who said it. And
who's the other one, I forget his name?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Love it, love it? Yeah, I love it. Yeah, they
were all.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
But my point is that that will be I think
where the eventual nexis ends, where the activist class will
be satisfied at a policy level and in terms of
the reality of like where this base and policy actually
looks like, that's what it means. It means the special
relationship is over offensive weapon or weapons period, while your
gangsterism continues. Is not on the table US protecting you.
(20:31):
With the United Nations not going to happen anymore, the
anti Semitism resolutions and the APAC stuff, it's like, no,
you know, I mean, think about it in the future
at a can you win a Democratic primary at the
presidential level if you appear recently on the A PACK stage,
I would say, no, I don't think it's going to happen,
especially with the and so looking at that politically and
(20:54):
how that operationalizes, like J Street itself is going to
be the only place where it's even remotely safe.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
A PACK is done for it.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And when we had Abdul sayat here on the show,
he kept calling it like a maga billionaire organization, and
I was like, okay, man, like that is kind of true.
But there's a lot of Democrats who support A pack
as well. But that's the framing I saw where this
is all going to end up.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I mean, I personally think that the language of
calling it a genocide is going to be important too,
because it's a signal I don't. I do, because it's
a signal of that sense of moral clarity. And so
while of course the policy is the most important thing
in terms of what you're going to do, that is
the real litmus test of do you get it? Like
are you willing to say the thing that is the
(21:38):
most difficult to say right now? And for people who
care a lot about this issue, but that's I will
tell you that is what.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's not the entire democratic base.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I mean, the No King's protest is bigger than any
other protests in the entire It's not it's not about Gossa.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
It's not the entire democratic base.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
But I do think it is becoming increasingly central dividing
line because it is a symbol of not just where
to stand on this issue, but are are you going
to be independent? Do you have integrity? Are you going
to fight? Are you going to be different? And it
really does come back to that tan of Hazy quote
quotes quote of if you aren't willing to stand up
against a genocide, how can we trust that you're going
(22:11):
to stand up against Trump stand up for democracy, and
I think that is increasingly the sense among a large
pertion of the demo.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I'm just skeptical. That just seems very like defund the
police logic. It's like, if you don't have the full
activists on board, I feel like they should have learned
their lesson. If you're going to get everything you want
on a policy level, just shut up and take it.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Like, why are you upset? I mean in terms of.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Because Sogers, it's about that signifier of you know, this
is the thing that's the hardest to do on this issue, right,
It's the hardest thing to do on this issue is
to actually say the truth that it's a genocide. And
so if you're not willing, if you're still trying to
dance around that reality and come up with some sort
of tortured rationale of why you you know, they're not
like you, they do believe that a genocide is such
(22:54):
a thing and a.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Board that should be used.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
If you're still dancing around, then yeah, you just look
like a army, dishonest politician who is not willing to
be clear, even you know, in defense of you know,
innocent people who are.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Being I just find it very hard to believe that
it is the sole litmus test for a Democratic politician.
Like I said, no, Kings is the biggest protest in
the country. That's much more like Gavin Newsom, We're going
to fight coded that's not about Israel at all. Gavin
one of the most popular politicians right now.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
You know, for a lot of younger people, this is
just again where I think with the defund logic is
going to come in, It's like, oh, is that going
to become the single troll of the Democratic primary?
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Like I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
And I feel like they should probably learn a lot
of their lesson from demanding you know, specific rhetorical concession.
If they agree with you one hundred percent in how
this is going to be actionalized and you're still not
going to support them, I think that would be preposterous
for the way that it goes about. And I do
think that the way that the Republicans are currently Like
if you look at the way that people are so
upset about Republicans' actions right now, a lot of it
(23:54):
is Israel, a lot of it is Ice, but I
would say broadly it's a feeling of gangsterism as in
they are getting away with everything that they want, from
jerrymandering to support for Israel to ice. They've taken over
and they're fighting with power. That's where I feel like
Newsom's energy in terms of saying things like we're no
longer going to sit around and hold up signs. We
(24:15):
have to fight back. That is the core nexus of
what the Democrat demands. If he doesn't say the word genocide,
are people really not going to support him? No, I
just I've see no way that that's going to work
out like this is very activist brain.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I think you're wrong about what it will, what it
indicates to people, and why it is going to be.
Because the thing with Newsom is he doesn't really have
to answer any questions on this right now because he's governor,
but he will when he runs.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
It'll be three years.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
You will have to answer questions on this. And what
people are looking for is almost like a democratic Trump
who is going to say the shit you're not supposed
to say. And yes, in the context of you know,
his fight on jerrymandering, he is doing that thing. But
if you're still a smarmy politician who is wrapping themselves
twist seeing themselves and pretzels about just this one word.
Then it's an indicator of who you really are and
(25:06):
how committed you really are to being clear, being forceful,
you know, having that moral clarity. But you know, we'll see, Look,
I will see how it all plays out here. But
I just I know there's going to be someone, because
the lane is wide open, someone who fully occupies that
sort of like Zoron lane and is truly like anti
zionist is you know, says we should arrast Netnahoo and
(25:28):
cutting off all the weapons, not just like oh the
offensive ones and the defensive ones, blah blah blah. There
is going to be a lane wide open for that person.
There will be someone who will occupy that lane, and
I think they will get significant support. It will, you know,
and it will push everybody else on the issue aside.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I wouldn't deny that. I think that certainly will happen.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I would look at as an overton window pusher and
somebody who will definitely kind of be looked at as
a pain in the ass or anything. Do I think
that person's going to win solely on that. No, And
I don't think that's why zoron one either. I don't
think it's the only reason you want at least is
the only reason.
Speaker 9 (25:57):
That he want.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
It's not the only reason you won, but I did.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
It's gonna have to be.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
It was more important than what even I initially thought.
Maybe let's go ahead and get to this next part,
because this does indicate the like how the Democratic leadership
is desperately trying to catch up to where the base is.
Catherine Clark, who is the Democratic House whip so she's
the number two most powerful Democrat in the House, appears
(26:21):
to have called Gaza, what Israel's doing in Gaza a
genocide at an event, Let's go ahead and take a
listen to a little bit of this, and.
Speaker 10 (26:27):
We each have to continue to have an open heart
about how we do this, how we do it effectively,
and how we take action in time to make a difference,
whether that is stopping the starvation and genocide and destruction
of Gaza, or whether that means we are working together
(26:48):
to stop the redistricting that is going on taking away
the vote from people.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So she says they're stopping the genocide in Gaza. She
joins a very small number of Democrats and very small
number overall of elected representatives who have called it a genocide.
Politico asked her about it. They said, you know, they
didn't walk back. Her office did not walk back the characterization,
said the massachiefs is Democrats position on the fighting in
(27:15):
the region has not changed. Quote what Clark's position on
the war has not changed, the Israelian polstining people deserve
security and peace. It can only be achieved through a
permanent ceasefire, immediate return on the remaining hostages, and a
surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza. It should not be
controversial to say that Israeli children did not deserve to
be kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, nor she would be
controversial to say Palestinian children, who bear no responsibility for
Amasa's atrocities, to not deserve to.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Be killed by war or starvation.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
A secure future for Israeli Palestinian children demands a real
two state solution and a permanent end to efforts to
deny their rights to exist. So didn't walk it back totally,
but did sort of, like, I guess, provide context for
the language here. Nevertheless, Sacer, I think it is quite
a significant development that you have the number two in
the House now, so again this position, and it will
provide a sort of it will provide a permission structure
(28:02):
I think for others in the House Democratic Caucus and
other elected Democratic leaders to take that position to the
other thing that I think provides a permission structure is
Obama back in Zoron.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
It's a big deal for that as well.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
That's fair. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I mean I still wonder how much of the NEXTUS
is on genocide and not what I said about October
seven status quo about policy levels of offensive weapons, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I'm willing to be totally wrong.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I mean, remember if you think words and all that
don't matter, do you remember how much Hillary refusing to
say radical Islamic terrorism? I know that was just popped
into my head is a counter argument to myself. I
was like, Wow, maybe I'm totally wrong. I mean, maybe
that's the only signal that some people want to.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Hear, because yeah, I mean a lot of times people
don't really dig into the policy details. It's like, what
are you signaling with your language? You know, are you
signaling that you're this just like doesn't give a fuck
on Barns truthteller or are you doing some sort of
weasly politician y bullshit that gives you room to, you know,
not piss off the donors too much and be able
to shift your position down the road.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
It's matter fair. I mean, in retrospect, it's crazy that
Hillary didn't just say it, like on the stage. What
did she say? She's like radical jahadism, right.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It's like, just say it. Lady gets the same thing.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
It doesn't matter, major fixation.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
It was huge.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
All right.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
We've got Seth Harp standing by, let's get to it.
Joining us now is journalist Seth Harp. He is the
author of an explosive new book. Let's go ahead and
put it up there on the screen. He's been teasing
it to us now for quite some time, the Fort
Bragg cartel, drug trafficking, and murder in the Special Forces. Seth,
(29:37):
you have been making the rounds now with this book
with some extraordinary new reporting and revelations. But at a
very high level, why don't you just describe what you
found at Fort Bragg, the consequences of our twenty years
of action abroad, and what it wrought with the US
Special Forces inside of their community.
Speaker 9 (29:57):
Sure, the book is basically an investigation into some unsolved
murders that took place on Fort Brag among Special Forces
soldiers who were involved in trafficking drugs. But in the
course of investigating those murders and trying to determine who
committed them, I came upon a much larger story of
drug trafficking and impunity at Fort Bragg, culminating in a
(30:20):
huge number of soldier deaths beginning in twenty twenty and
continuing all the way through twenty twenty four. So the
book really draws in a lot of those themes, and
as you said, tries to show how that very high
mortality rate and high rate of criminality in the Special
Forces in the airborne Wars is attributable fundamentally to the
(30:42):
way that our soldiers and troops have been used over
the past twenty years of forever.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
War and seth the book reads like I mean the structures,
I think really well done. It reads like a murder mystery,
and then you also zoom out and talk about these
broader implications. And one of the pieces you really did
get into, which shocked hasn't been fully explored to my
knowledge previously, is the way that our war in Afghanistan
(31:07):
helped fuel a drug crisis here at home. Can you
lay out some of those connections for people, because you know,
and I'm sure that this was part of the story.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
The story that we've told here is that.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
You know, you had the increase in Purdue farm and
these other pharmaceutical companies start pushing oxy, people get addicted,
then they turn to the street. I'm sure that's one
part of what was going on here. But take us
into the your reporting on how the Afghan drug trade,
you know, fueled by our war there, ends up coming
back home.
Speaker 9 (31:40):
So the narrative in which heroin addiction in the United
States is precipated are precipitated, excuse me, by overly lacks
prescribing practices around opiate drugs. That's true, that's not a
false narrative. However, what it leaves out is that during
the twentys and twenty tens, there was a flood of
(32:02):
supply of heroin in the United States, enormous availability, high potency,
and my book tries to show how the majority of
that heroin came from Afghanistan while it was under occupation
by US forces, which is an angle of the war
that has not been thoroughly explored today.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
So one of the things that I wanted to get
into are some of the really extraordinary stuff that you
uncovered in your book. I mean, just pure like wanton behavior,
you know by some of the troops that you're alleging there.
Can you go into that, including titanium teeth for dogs
and eating human flesh. These have been the most controversial
claims you've made in the book.
Speaker 9 (32:41):
So that detail is really passing detail in the book. However,
it is something that people seized upon online. There was
an operator who was suffering from extreme moral injury PTSD
drug addiction who was involved in the drug trafficking ativities
at Fort Bragg. His name was Billy Levine. He had
(33:03):
been a dog handler on Delta Force, and in fact
he had adopted one of the unit's working animals after
it had been retired. And I related a story that
Billy told to the sister of another Green Beret in
which he said that the dog had had its titanium
teeth removed uporn retirement in order to prevent it from
posing a danger to people, because while in service, the
(33:26):
dog had actually developed a taste for human flesh. Again,
this was something in the nature of hearsay that I
repeated in the book. It was a credible enough claim,
but people seized upon that online and were saying, this
detail has to be made up. However, no sooner did
that pylum begin than somebody anonymously posted a video of
(33:46):
a clearly marked Delta Force canine or a Special Forces
canine in the event, doing almost exactly what I had
described in the book. I don't want to horrify people
by describing it in graphic detail, but it was amazing
to see video evidence of exactly what I had alleged
emerge just like that.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
So not to turn this into a gotcha or anything.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
The reason I'm asking is I did have some people
in the community reach out to me about your book,
and they knew that you and I were close, and
they were alleging that you had not reached out to
them for comment in some of these specific instances. This
isn't to put down your work, but I do want
to ask you because the very specific claims have been
made here about not being reached out for comments, specifically
on some of these allegations using some of the hearsay
(34:30):
and other things, and then claiming a firing. I believe
of a person or sorry, claiming a voluntary leaving when
they were fired in one particular case, I want to
give you a chance to address that, just to get
it on the record.
Speaker 9 (34:41):
Sure, that's just not true. We contacted everyone who's named
in the book, or made an attempt to contact them
if they are named, we made an attempt to contact them.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
And all of the.
Speaker 9 (34:52):
Allegations that we make about the unit, we make about
Delta Force, about the Special Forces, all of that has
gone to the Special Forces Command with an opportunity for
them to comment. They have declined every single time, including
most recently when Politico did an excerpt. We sent them
a very long email outlining every single thing that we
were going to say in the article, and they said,
(35:13):
because your comment involves a special or because your question
involves a special mission unit, we cannot comment. So I
find it to be kind of a double game they're playing,
where at the one point they hide behind the unit
secrecy and say that we can't comment on any of
these allegations, and then when the book comes out, they say, well,
you didn't really talk to any of us. It's also
(35:33):
not true that I didn't interview Delta Force operators. It's quiet.
There's several who are named in the book, and there's
even more who spoke to me completely off the record,
on condition that I not even described them. So the
idea that no one was contacted, that there were allegations
that were a surprise, people are just simply making that up.
I don't know where they're getting that. We don't go
into that. We don't say every single note comment is
(35:55):
recited in the book because that gets boring, but that
that allegation is based this want.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
To make sure it was addressed.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Let's talk a little bit more about DELSA Force, which
is where you focus your reporting. I mean, first of all,
for people don't know who don't know where did Deltaforce
come from, how was it established, and in what way
have they been used and deployed during the War on
Terror in particular, So.
Speaker 9 (36:17):
Delta Force started out as a very specialized and very
elite counter terrorism unit in the early nineteen eighties or
in the late nineteen seventies. Originally, for many years it
was not used very often because of its high degree
of specialization and use in things rare missions such as
hostage rescue, it continued to have that niche roll after
(36:40):
nine to eleven, and it wasn't really until the surge
in Iraq in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
as I relate in an early chapter of my book,
in which the unit became something much more of a
death squad that was used in night missions, going out
night after night and just hitting targets that were believed
to have something to do with the insurgency in Iraq.
And that was a model that was expanded to Afghanistan
(37:04):
during President Obama's term in office, and we heard a
lot about this when it was called by the euphemism
night rates, dron strokes and drone strikes, and night rates
really became the entire American war effort, and Delta Force
was always at the leading edge of that. Other people
in the special forces community have criticized, because I follow
(37:26):
the message boards, the book has become very controversial among
these folks, And one thing that they were saying was
that a lot of times when they hit targets, they're
just capturing targets, and they're equivaling with the idea that
Delta just shows up and just massacres everyone on site.
Now it's true that Delta Force does do capture missions.
That certainly happens. I'm not in a position to say
(37:48):
what the exact proportion is. But also just last night,
I saw some comments by a former Delta Force commander
named Jeff Tigs in which he was saying basically the
exact same kind of things as I was saying about
the UNI. He says, when we show up, we will
kill you, your family, your village, your pets, your goldfish
was an exact quote from this individual, and he added
(38:11):
that when the black helicopters show up, everyone dies. That's
coming from ADULTA Force commander to a podcaster named Dalton
Fury just a few days ago. So I stand by
my portrayal adulta Force in the book. It was based
on rigorous research and investigations and interviews.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Seth to me if I zoom out, and I know
this all sounds tedious, but as you know, when dealing
with special forces people, they like to get into the leads.
Controversy is very big amongst them. They enjoy snipeing each
other on podcasts. Don't ask me why, but this has
been long part of their own community. When I zoom
out and I think about your book. It's about the
(38:50):
toll that the Forever War took on the people who
fought them, who fought them the most, the psychological toll,
and the lack of leadership from the Pentagon and others
to wrecktgnize of what fourteen fifteen deployments of gangsterism, of
just you know, wantonly going in running missions under the
cover of darkness, of killing people even capture even if
(39:12):
you're doing so legally. You're not doing anything wrong, I'm saying,
but what that is going to breed into you as
an individual, and what you write in the book is
to show all of these unsolved murders on a per
capita basis, you know, exploration of drug use, of the
psychological toll that it takes on anyone to serve in
this type of environment. And I'm just saying, within that context,
(39:34):
is that how you viewed the inevitable rise of what
you say is a Fort Brad cartel.
Speaker 9 (39:39):
Yes, absolutely. And I'm not trying to portray some of
the enlisted operators who the book follows their careers and
their lives and their deaths. I'm not trying to portray
them as monsters. On the contrary, I try to portray
them very much as humans and show how they started
off from a place of good intentions, started off as
normal guys, joined the military, progressively rose through the ranks,
(40:03):
and became more and more in nerd to the nightly
killing vests in Iraq and Afghanistan and the terrible consequences
that had on their bodies, their minds, and their souls. Inevitably,
this is what our foreign policy breeds and military bases
like for bragging and the lives of these people who
get chewed up and spit out by this system, which
(40:26):
you know, it's a policy to use these just the
special forces groups and the Navy Seals and other elite
formations to prosecute these wars that we maintain because American
voters don't want to see large divisions of troops deployed
to foreign countries. They don't want to see conventional troops
coming back in body bags, and so relying on the
(40:46):
special forces to wage wars out of sight and out
of mind of the public is really, I think a
deliberate policy choice. But you end up with having the
same guys deployed again and again ten times, twelve times,
fifteen times. These war zones. And that's just those terrible
things to a person.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
As you say, yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
And I can't imagine what it does too, if you've
killed on behalf of the US government and you come
to lose faith in that mission. Like the level of
moral injury and the level of nihilism that that would
instill in you, I, you know, is beyond fathoming. I'd
love for you to take us through a specific example
(41:28):
here if we can zoom into the micro just so
people can get a sense of some of the you know,
the murders that you detail. One consistent theme also is
the lack of accountability, because these guys are so valuable
to the US government and probably know so many things
that they don't want coming forward as well. So that's
(41:49):
another significant piece of the story that you're telling here.
But tell us about the beheading of Enrique Roman Martinez,
which is one of the stories that you detail in
the book.
Speaker 9 (42:00):
Yes, one of the strangest episodes of this spate of
murders at Fort Bragg was the death of Enrique Roman Martinez.
He was a little bit different from my other subjects.
He was a very young soldier in the conventional Army
in the eighty second Airborne Division. He disappeared on a
camping trip with several of his fellow soldiers from Fort Bragg,
(42:20):
who say who told police the next day that they
just woke up and he was gone. By the way
Enrique Roman Martinez, although by all accounts he was a
nice kid, he was dealing drugs on Fort Bragg. In fact,
he was deeply involved in that world. He was selling
psychedelic drugs in particular out of his barracks room. And
(42:40):
so that was an important detail because that same night,
the night they went on a camping trip, he also
took a large dose of LSD and was suffering a
bad trip. That was the last thing that his friends
knew of him. They said they woke up the next
morning he was gone. However, a couple of days later,
his decapitated head washed ashore on the beach where they
(43:00):
had been camping, or nearby on a nearby island, showing
that he had been murdered. Several medical examiners determined that
his head had been chopped off with a hatchet or
axe or some other kind of heavy and sharp hand tool.
It is one of the most mysterious and baffling cases
in the Annals of Military Crime, and I devote two
(43:23):
chapters dedicated to getting to the bottom of this mysterious case,
which almost ends up being like an episode of the
X Files more than some of the you know, sort
of like mafia style crime that the other murders were
characterized by. So the case of Enrique Roman Martinez is
in the mix and all of this, and I hope
(43:44):
that my book will provide the definitive account of what's
known of his murder today.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, that's actually an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
What was your goal in writing the book, Seth There
seems to be this theory amongst these former four Brag
guys like he wanted to embarrass us or any of that.
I mean, knowing you a little bit, I don't think
that was really your goal at all, outside of being
journalistically interesting. Were there any policy takeaways that you would
have liked to see as a result of the book.
Speaker 9 (44:09):
Yes, there certainly were policy takeaways that I came to,
but originally know that wasn't my intention. I certainly didn't
set out to write a book about policy. I really
wanted to get to the bottom of the murders of
Billy Levine. And Timothy Dumas that took place on for
brag that was fundamentally my goal, that drove the whole
project from the beginning to end. But in order to
understand those two men and what they were up to,
(44:31):
it was necessary to delve into their respective lengthy military
histories and provide the context for the wars they fought in.
And in doing so, I'm not going to sugarcoat what
these wars have been all about or what the unit
is like. And so regarding policy changes that I would
like to see, there are many. I think our militaries
(44:53):
in deep, deep need of reform. Really, the most fundamental
policy change wouldn't be directly to change any think about
the military so much is to wind down all these
foreign wars and not have the need to have these
small units going out and doing assassination and abduction missions
almost every night, which by the way, they continue to
do in a Rock and Syria with virtually no media
(45:15):
coverage of it and very little oversight from the Trump administration.
So foreign policy changes I think are more vital than
specific technical changes to the structure of the military. But
down there you could also you could also advocate for
certain policy changes I think the use of special forces
should be de emphasized. I don't think it's a I
don't think it's a successful strategic model. The idea that
(45:39):
we're going to use elite troops, intelligence agencies, you know,
the air force, and the surveillance apparatus, proxy forces, you know,
this whole model of war fighting that developed under the
Obama administration I think has been a total failure. And
so you know, moving towards a more conventional military, winding
down foreign wars. I think those are the two most
(46:00):
critical things that would alleviate some of the some of
the criminality and mortality we've seen a basis like Fort
Bragg and also fur Hood and other bases too.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Really well said, President Trump has increased the defense budget,
of course most presidents do, and it's now over a
trillion dollars.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
How how effective is our military? How capable are they?
Speaker 9 (46:22):
I think people complacently assume that because we spend a
trillion dollars in our military every year, that we must have,
you know, the greatest fighting for us on earth, And
that's just not true anymore. The military spending is so
incredibly outrageously wasteful that it's hard to see where all
the money goes when you're actually looking at the military.
You know, I was at Trump's military parade not too
(46:44):
long ago covering that, and it did not look like
a force that a trillion dollars had been spent on
by any means. You know, a lot of the armored vehicles,
all of the military's workhorse armored vehicles, are so badly
out of date, forty fifty years old in some cases.
You know, the black Hawk helicopter is performing really poorly.
(47:05):
There's been an incredible number of helicopter crashes recently. Another
subject that's been under reported, but it culminated in the
crash of that Army black Hawk helicopter with a Regional
jetliner over the Botomac River earlier in January. That was
symptomatic of all these crashes that are taking place. And
the military is struggling with recruiting. All of twenty twenty
(47:25):
five was a little better than past years, but it's shrinking.
It's at the smallest size ever. I really call into
question whether the Army is even capable of fulfilling you know,
it's core mission. If if a division needed to be
deployed on sudden notice or something like that because of
the institutional decline the scene a basis like Fort Bragg,
(47:46):
and I really think that, you know, the national defense
budget has got to be rained in because that spending
is not going where it needs to go. I don't
know where it's going, but you know, we saw earlier
in this year the US Navy went head to head
with who these I don't know what their military budget is,
but that's a country that's that makes that makes Haiti
look relatively affluent, and the who theis arguably prevail that
(48:09):
directation with the US Navy over the over the straight
uh controlling access to the red seat. I mean, that
was just such a pathetic performance that the military turned in.
That's another you know, uh symptom or another manifestation of
the weakness and decline that that that we have seen
in the military and are seen despite this gargantuan spending.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yeah, well, not only not only do you not know
where that money, apparently know what knows where that money
goes given the fact that the Pentagon is you know,
can't pass a budget, can't pass an audit, and can't
account for significant portions of their budget.
Speaker 9 (48:45):
Right and more and more things are being written to
like the laws that provide aid to Ukraine. It's written
into those laws that that that that spending can't ever
be audited, which is just crazy. You know, they're making
sure that the like Cigar, which cityed retrospective the Special
Inspector Jennifer Afghanistan Reconstruction provided some clarity and some limited
(49:08):
accountability for how the war in Afghanistan was waste. And
there's actually provisions of law that make sure that we'll
never learn that same kind of information about the war.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Yeah, you're s Sigar was one of the most important
journalistic resources in Washington. I actually think it was critical
in eroding support for the war in Afghanistan because people
just cover their claims, and we did it for years
and years.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Always the stories that.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
We wrote on it would go viral because people saw
how much of a waste it was. We don't have
a single clue, even though it's a similar amount of
money that we've sent over to Ukraine. Seth, I could
talk to you all day, man, Thank you so much
for joining us. Congratulations on the book. We hope everybody
goes and buys. We're going to link down in the description.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
Thank you, Seth, Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Thanks so much for watching guys, we appreciate it. We're
gonna have a great show for it. Buddy tomorrow, See
you then,
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of this show.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All right, so we got Laura Lumer now directing State
Department policy when it comes to the admission of kids
from Gaza who are seeking treatment in the United States.
Let's go and put this up on the screen. She
tweeted this exclusive. Despite the US saying we are not
accepting Palestinian refugees into the United States under the Trump administration,
(00:56):
I've obtained video footage of Palestinians who claim to be
refugees from Gaza coming into the US by San Francisco
and Houston, Texas this month. The Palestinians traveled from Gaza
to the US with the help of a group called Healed,
Heal Palestine. How did Palestinians get visas under the Trump
administration to get into the US? Did the State Department
approve this? How did they get out of Gaza? Is
(01:17):
Secretary Rubio aware of this? So after Lumar tweets, hey,
we don't want these kids coming in from Gaza, lo
and behold department. State Department says all visitor visas for
individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a
full and thorough review of the process and procedures used
to issue a small number of temporary medical humanitarian visas
(01:38):
in recent days. And I'll play in just a second
Marco Rubio. He was asked about some of this on
the Sunday Shows. Very actually lean questioning of him.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
But whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
In any case, just to be totally clear, you know,
even what she's saying here about Palestinian refugees, personally, I
would support it, but that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about temporary B two visas that are used
to allow people to come in and seek medical treatment.
They are good for six months at a time. You
have to seek an extension, prove you're continuing to receive
(02:09):
medical treatment. You're not eligible for work, you're not eligible
for permanent residency.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
That's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
We're talking about kids, oftentimes who had their arms and
legs blown off frequently by American bombs, who are being
allowed in in very limited numbers in order to seek
medical treatment here in the United States. And that is
what Laura Lumer objects to, and that is who, by
the way, describes yourself as a quote unquote proud islamophobe,
and who the State Department is listening to in blocking
(02:36):
these visas. So let's go ahead and take a listen
to Marco Rubio on the Sunday Shows, and then we'll
get soccersurrection on the other side.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Why did the State Department just announce that they're halting
visitor visas for all gossens coming here for medical aid.
Why would some of these kids, for example, who are
coming to hospitals for treatment be a threat.
Speaker 6 (02:56):
Well, first of all, it's not just kids, it's a
bunch of adults that are accompanying them. Second, we had
outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it, and
so We're going to reevaluate how those visas are being granted,
not just to the children, but how those visas are
being granted to the people who are accompanying them, and,
by the way, to some of the organizations that are
facilitating it. There is evidence been presented to us by
numerous congressional offices that some of the organizations bragging about
(03:19):
and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to
terrorist groups like Hamas, and so we are not going
to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas.
So we need it. We're going to pause those visas.
There was just a small number of them issued to children,
but they come with adults accompanying them, obviously, and we
are going to pause this program and reevaluate how those
(03:41):
visas are being vetted and what relationship of any has
there been by these organizations to the process of acquiring
those visas. We're not going to be in partnership with
groups that have links or sympathies towards Hamas.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
So there you go, Sager, they're Hamas well.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Listen, I agree that the Pals Union shouldn't come here
because I think they should stay in their current place,
and they should be allowed to seek medical care in
their own area, which they cannot do because they have
all been leveled. Also, there is a very developed country
called Israel, which has hospitals and specialized medical care. If
they really cared about Palestinian children, they could treat them
(04:19):
if they would like to. They're you know, open, they
brag about it, right, We've got all these five star
medical equipment, etc. The reason why, And again I looked
into it just like you did. These are not refugees,
people who are permanently living here. They're on a permanent
or on a temporary visa to seek specialized medical care,
which does not allow permanent residency. I guess it's fair
(04:40):
to say that sometimes that does lead to permanent residency.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So, okay, whatever, that's their objection.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
But what drives me nuts is the way that this
is what drives me nuts, is the way that we
have all this double standard. We literally just let it
is really pedophile flee the allegedly an alleged pedophile flee
the country after he was in a sting here.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That's no diplomatic outcry.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
The State Department, if anything, probably facilitated it allegedly.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, where's Laura.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Where's it exactly?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So what do we care about security or any event
More recently, our government actually launched a hate crime investigation
after a soldier returned from fighting in Gaza and faced
some backlash or whatever here in the United States. And
I'm like, yeah, I mean he's a foreigner. By according
to the US passport, you're supposed to lose your you
(05:31):
are literally supposed to lose your citizenship if you go
abroad and fight in a foreign military And now our
federal resources are being marshaled to protect so we have
not only just a double standard, but a six standard here.
So yes, let's make it so that they can stay
exactly where they're from and seek medical attention.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, that there's an easy way to do that. Maybe
that's not really something you want to do.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
You know what Gaza actually had.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, they had a lot of possible white I.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Remember extensive medical care inside of Gaza, especially given the
difficult conditions that have been imposed on them for years
and years and decades by Israel. But they had quite
a sophisticate No, yeah, no more, because you bombed it all,
you destroyed it all. And this is the thing, like
you know from if I'm to take a sort of
like right wing perspective or channel a right wing perspective.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
If you don't want.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
A lot of refugees displaced, then stop backing the fucking
wars that you think that Palestinians want to have to
have their kids' arms blown off and seek treatment here.
You think that's the life that they envision for themselves.
Of course not they would like to be in Gaza,
They would like to be in their homes. But guess
what our tax dollars went to destroying and turning all
(06:40):
of Gaza, including as the medical system into rubble. And
so given that context to then object to, we're talking
about a small number of kids coming here, and we
can put we can put this one eleven year old boy,
this is D four up on the screen, coming here
to speak, seek specialized treatment. And you object to that,
(07:03):
you I mean to me, it is so depraved, It
is so sick as to be almost beyond words. These
little kids who have had their childhood robed from them.
God knows the trauma that they've experienced, the loved ones
in their lives, the family members that they've lost, who
will never be able to gain back their limbs and
(07:24):
their their peace of mind that was stolen from them.
And then the one little bit of kindness we have
to be able to get them out of Gaza and
get the medical treatment. And you're mad about that. That
is so disgraceful, It is just unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Well, this was a big debate back o men during
the Syrian crisis that I remember over the Syrian refugee stuff.
And you know, the Europeans obviously invited all these Syrian
refugees and Afghan refugees into the country. Destabilized, responsible for Brexit,
has caused problems basically now to this day. But you're,
like you said, to channel or more right wing perspective,
the solution the whole time was why do we keep
(08:01):
funding this? We are responsible for basically creating the political
crisis and the problem here that is fueling all of this.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
There's a I'll get canceled for this one.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
But there is a term or a phrase come up
with a guy named Steve Sailor, which is invade the world.
Invite the world, which is basically like go abroad in
search of monsters to destroy, destroy them, destabilize them, either
on behalf of Israel or support policy to do so
and then invite them, you know, to your own country.
Now again, you know, the Israelis, out of two sides
(08:33):
of their mouth are like, these people are so horrific
that we cannot even be forced to live next to them.
And then the second breath, they're like, by the way
America and everybody else, you need to take them. It's like, well, okay,
so that basically you don't really believe that you just
don't want to live next to them. I support their
right to seek medical care in their own territory and
or in Israel for creating that crisis and to allow also,
(08:56):
you know, this is the other question of you're destroying
all the hospitals and then you're blocking all the aid
that's even coming in there with GHF. I mean, all
of these doctors who have gone into Gaza, all of
them report massive problems even getting in there. Don't they
have to go through the UAE or some other special
system to even to be able to provide it. They
lose power when they're doing. These things occur because of
(09:16):
what we are supporting. This is the classic invade and
invite scenario that Sailor described.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So I don't know, I mean, I think with Lumer. Really,
what you're watching.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Is kind of this like weaponized like hysteria over Palestinians
and others, where if they actually cared about not wanting
Palestinians to have to go anywhere, which of course they don't,
they support it, they actually support the mass ethnic cleansing
really of what's going on, then you would support basically
telling Israel no.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And you know, if we have a blanket.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Policy that Israelis and Gozins and all these others, and
I'm not going to get any of our more of
our money and have much more of a fair application,
but we don't. Our federal government basically rolls out the
red carpet for former IDF soldiers who are coming here,
who will response well, in some cases we're creating much
of this, but then you know, the victims of it
are then treated with contempts.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, I don't know. The whole thing is cool.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And just so you know the type of people that
she is objecting to being able to get treatment here,
let's go ahead and play D four. This is a
little eleven year old boy and his family who you know,
local news did a piece on and they arrived in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
You've seen Algabar and is slowly learning how to be
a kid again in the suburbs of Atlanta. He came
here all the way from Gaza after losing his legs
in an airstrike last year.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Okay, he doesn't want to talk.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
Arrived in the US for medical treatment through the nonprofit
Heal Palestine. Here in Atlanta. He'll need more surgery and
eventually prosthetic legs, he said, I'm fine for medical attention
nearly caused the family to split apart.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So that's who, you know, That's who Rubio was saying, Oh,
these are linked to terrorists. This is some mass this
is who Lumer is, you know, pitching a hysterical fit
about to try.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
To block their entry.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And I truly just find the whole thing to be
a grotesque and disgusting.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
I think it again is gross in Israel and the
pro Israel context. I mean, I don't think it's a secret,
but like, part of the problem is that there's always
weaponized empathy for mass refugee status. But I mean, it's
almost feels silly to have that argument or discussion right
now because we're not No one's proposing that no one
is saying, well, actually Israel is proposing some sort of
mass refugee expulsion. But there's not a serious debate right
(11:29):
now to invite hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of
Palestinians you know, here to America. That's not actually what's
even really part of the question. This is not even
like the starting point of any of it. It's not
a realistic political outcome other than the one that's being
pushed by these Really.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
If it were then way, I would be willing to
have it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Agree, we are the ones who we are the reason
this little boy doesn't have legs, right, he lost family matter,
I believe he lost his father, like we are the
reason for that. And like the tiniest bit of I mean,
this is a pathetic drop in the bucket. I think
a few hundred kids. I mean, it's so minimal, and
this is the thing that you're up at arms about.
(12:06):
It's again, it is so disgusting. And if it, like,
if you don't want for these children to have to
seek medical care abroad, then support the ending of the
bombing and starving of them so that yes they.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Could where they would actually like to be at.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Their homes with their loved ones with their limbs and
body syntact.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I believe.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Ryan also was pointing out that in many of the
cases it was a hyper specialized medical because people are like, oh,
why do they have to come here? And he's like, well,
in many of these cases, it's a very specific type
of medical treatment available in the United States that's being
paid for by donors and others. With the scrutiny of
the State Department on the B two visa, Lumer has
been saying like, oh, well, why don't they go to
(12:52):
Arab countries, And it's like, well, there in some cases
there are literally only specific procedures where they have doctors
like available in the United States.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That's what I saw him in his back and forth
with Lumor.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
But yeah, I mean, overall, it just goes to show
you the level of which we can have just like
complete hysteria and panic in some sort of service of Israel,
you know, here with the victims of a policy which
is directly supported by the last two administrations by tax
dollars and others. Yeah, what exactly is the way that
(13:23):
we square it? And by the way, if it was
a child like an October seventh victim and they were
blocked from coming over here. What do you think these
people would at Oh yeah, you know you want to
go there for a second, Like, let's do that.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Let me just before we get to pee, let me
just read this exchange from Lumour and Ryan just to
get it in here, because yeah, our man has been
doing doing battle. He's been doing battle in the trenches
over this one. So Lumor quote tweeted a drop site
report and said, why should Palestinians be treated in American
hospitals for free while US veterans are homeless on the street,
unable to get healthcare. This is why everyone hates them,
(13:55):
because they want to come to our country, get free
healthcare and never assimilate while Americans struggle to pay their bills.
Not even Americans get free healthcare. But you want Palestinians
to have free healthcare while you are America. Last unreal?
As if Ryan doesn't want Americans to get free healthcare.
By the way, and this lady, you think she has
ever supported free healthcare for all Americans? Okay, anyway, Ryan responds,
Trump slashed Medicaid, slashed the VA, slashed ACA exchange subsidies,
(14:21):
and increased the military budget to over trillion dollars.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
But Lumer wants people to think the.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Reasoning not of healthcare, is that a Palestinian child got
treated thanks to donations from people heartbroken at what Israel
and the US, by the way, is doing to children.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
This is a lie.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
The trillion dollars being spent to blow the arms and
legs off of children is the problem, not the children themselves.
Well said my friend, Well said Ryan Grimm. We covered
this last week, but just as a refresher pete footage
Edge went on pot Save America.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
John Faffer was doing the questioning and.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
He just made an absolute mess of his answers on Israel,
said a lot of words, said absolutely nothing. It was pathetic.
He got absolutely destroyed online, huge backlash to his comments.
So just as a reminder, because we've got an update
on this, just as a reminder of what he said.
This was his response to, Hey, do you think we
should recognize a Palestinian state?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Do you think it's time to recognize a Palestinian state?
Speaker 8 (15:16):
I think that that's a profound question that arouses a
lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's
survival or Israel's rights to survival in the diplomatic scene,
and many of the people who have taken that step
historically have done so for different reasons than what we
(15:36):
see happening with European countries. I think we need to
step back and we need to do whatever it takes
to ensure that there is a real two state solution
and that no one, not even likes in Thatta Yahu,
can veto the international community's commitment to a two state
solution where you have Palestinians and Israelis living with safety,
(15:57):
with security, with rights, that can happen. We have to
actually show some commitment to it.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So again the question was should we recognize a Palestinian state?
All of that long gobbledegook was the answer, which started
off with that's a profound question that arouses a lot
of the biggest problems with regard to Israel's right to survival. Oh, thanks, Pete. Thanks,
that was really useful, And all of his answers were
like that. So it was so bad that he actually
went to Politico to try to clean up the mess.
(16:26):
So we can put this up on the screen. This
is an interesting article overall about what they describe as
DEM's twenty twenty eight litmus test on Israel, and they
say Budhages discovered that this was and they're so out
of touch. It's crazy that he didn't realize this would
be an issue. But in any case, here's party for
what he said. He said Democrats like all Americans, but
certainly Democrats are sickened by what's happening and trying to
hold several things in mind at the same time, all
(16:47):
of which can be true. That what has to happen
next is the killing has to end. He told Politico
in an interview. The hostages have to come home, the
people of Gaza need aid unimpeded, and all of that
should be happening immediately. They describe that as a sharper
sponse than in his interview. I don't know how sharp
that is, but in any case, it goes on. He
says of the criticism of his podcast interview quote.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It's important to be clear about something this enormous, in
this painful. It's just that it's so enormous and it's
so painful soccer that sometimes his words can fail.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
It's just that he feels it so deeply.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
He didn't express himself properly, okay, but the next piece
up on the screen, we got one more here. So
Buddhajudg sees a larger paradigm shift on the issue. Falling
the blowback this week to his response on the podcast,
he's now trying to directly answer democrats questions about his
positions on Israel. Ask whether Pastinian state should be recognized,
he told Politico a two state solution has to come
(17:39):
in the context of a credible and enforceable and negotiated process.
I think if you just try to do it unilaterally,
it's not going to change anything for people on the ground,
and it'll just be words.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
On a page.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
As for passing more decades long military aid packages, buddhajij said,
we have to shift to a more case by case
approach instead of a blanket approach. And he added Nena
Who's military campaign is even more horrifying when you contemplate
this is happening with US support. So I don't know
how great he did cleaning this up. It's still a lot,
in my opinion of gobbledegook that completely misses the moral
(18:11):
clarity that Democrats certainly want to see from him.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
But Socger it was noteworthy.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
That he felt the need to go in and play
clean up at all after you know, the answers that
he gave. This classic like Pete McKinsey speak of, let
me like restate the question and then bullshit around until
you don't notice that I didn't answer your question at all.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
He would have gotten away with that just a few
years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
No question, And now people are like, no, we want
an answer. Where do you stand? And the Democratic base
is overwhelmingly of the view that this is a genocide.
All weapons need to stop, there needs to be an end,
and that this is horrifying and there needs to be
total and complete moral clarity when it comes to this systay.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I think what they horseshoe on it will be eventually
is and this is why Buddha Jedge made the mistake
of just like trying in the very beginning to give
his guy obboldegook answer is going to be the eventual
place that Slotkin ended up after our interview, which is
they're going to stay silent. The ambitious ones will stay
silent for now. I doubt they'll ever get to genocide.
(19:11):
I think what they'll say is I support no more
weapons to the state of Israel.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
That is the like.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Horseshoe between whatever is left of liberal Zionism and of
the activist class, who is going to rejoice at seeing
somebody like Gavin Newsom or others be like, yeah, we're
not going to support and you know, realistically, that's what
it's going to look like at an actual policy level.
So in my opinion, what budhaje Edge has shown is
the political trepidation of even trying to square the circle
(19:37):
by not just outright declaring several things at a concrete
level Palestinian statehood offensive web not even offensive weapons to Israel.
I think those will be the two actual litmus tests.
And if I think about it, in the Podsave America clip,
the one that went very viral was him saying we're
not going back to the pre October seventh status quo. Yeah,
that I think again is another Pods with the Pods guys. Yeah, No,
(20:00):
I think it was John Favreau who said it. And
who's the other one, I forget his name?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Love it, love it? Yeah, I love it. Yeah, they
were all.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
But my point is that that will be I think
where the eventual nexis ends, where the activist class will
be satisfied at a policy level and in terms of
the reality of like where this base and policy actually
looks like, that's what it means. It means the special
relationship is over offensive weapon or weapons period, while your
gangsterism continues. Is not on the table US protecting you.
(20:31):
With the United Nations not going to happen anymore, the
anti Semitism resolutions and the APAC stuff, it's like, no,
you know, I mean, think about it in the future
at a can you win a Democratic primary at the
presidential level if you appear recently on the A PACK stage,
I would say, no, I don't think it's going to happen,
especially with the and so looking at that politically and
(20:54):
how that operationalizes, like J Street itself is going to
be the only place where it's even remotely safe.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
A PACK is done for it.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And when we had Abdul sayat here on the show,
he kept calling it like a maga billionaire organization, and
I was like, okay, man, like that is kind of true.
But there's a lot of Democrats who support A pack
as well. But that's the framing I saw where this
is all going to end up.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I mean, I personally think that the language of
calling it a genocide is going to be important too,
because it's a signal I don't. I do, because it's
a signal of that sense of moral clarity. And so
while of course the policy is the most important thing
in terms of what you're going to do, that is
the real litmus test of do you get it? Like
are you willing to say the thing that is the
(21:38):
most difficult to say right now? And for people who
care a lot about this issue, but that's I will
tell you that is what.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's not the entire democratic base.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I mean, the No King's protest is bigger than any
other protests in the entire It's not it's not about Gossa.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
It's not the entire democratic base.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
But I do think it is becoming increasingly central dividing
line because it is a symbol of not just where
to stand on this issue, but are are you going
to be independent? Do you have integrity? Are you going
to fight? Are you going to be different? And it
really does come back to that tan of Hazy quote
quotes quote of if you aren't willing to stand up
against a genocide, how can we trust that you're going
(22:11):
to stand up against Trump stand up for democracy, and
I think that is increasingly the sense among a large
pertion of the demo.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I'm just skeptical. That just seems very like defund the
police logic. It's like, if you don't have the full
activists on board, I feel like they should have learned
their lesson. If you're going to get everything you want
on a policy level, just shut up and take it.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Like, why are you upset? I mean in terms of.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Because Sogers, it's about that signifier of you know, this
is the thing that's the hardest to do on this issue, right,
It's the hardest thing to do on this issue is
to actually say the truth that it's a genocide. And
so if you're not willing, if you're still trying to
dance around that reality and come up with some sort
of tortured rationale of why you you know, they're not
like you, they do believe that a genocide is such
(22:54):
a thing and a.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Board that should be used.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
If you're still dancing around, then yeah, you just look
like a army, dishonest politician who is not willing to
be clear, even you know, in defense of you know,
innocent people who are.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Being I just find it very hard to believe that
it is the sole litmus test for a Democratic politician.
Like I said, no, Kings is the biggest protest in
the country. That's much more like Gavin Newsom, We're going
to fight coded that's not about Israel at all. Gavin
one of the most popular politicians right now.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
You know, for a lot of younger people, this is
just again where I think with the defund logic is
going to come in, It's like, oh, is that going
to become the single troll of the Democratic primary?
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Like I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
And I feel like they should probably learn a lot
of their lesson from demanding you know, specific rhetorical concession.
If they agree with you one hundred percent in how
this is going to be actionalized and you're still not
going to support them, I think that would be preposterous
for the way that it goes about. And I do
think that the way that the Republicans are currently Like
if you look at the way that people are so
upset about Republicans' actions right now, a lot of it
(23:54):
is Israel, a lot of it is Ice, but I
would say broadly it's a feeling of gangsterism as in
they are getting away with everything that they want, from
jerrymandering to support for Israel to ice. They've taken over
and they're fighting with power. That's where I feel like
Newsom's energy in terms of saying things like we're no
longer going to sit around and hold up signs. We
(24:15):
have to fight back. That is the core nexus of
what the Democrat demands. If he doesn't say the word genocide,
are people really not going to support him? No, I
just I've see no way that that's going to work
out like this is very activist brain.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I think you're wrong about what it will, what it
indicates to people, and why it is going to be.
Because the thing with Newsom is he doesn't really have
to answer any questions on this right now because he's governor,
but he will when he runs.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
It'll be three years.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
You will have to answer questions on this. And what
people are looking for is almost like a democratic Trump
who is going to say the shit you're not supposed
to say. And yes, in the context of you know,
his fight on jerrymandering, he is doing that thing. But
if you're still a smarmy politician who is wrapping themselves
twist seeing themselves and pretzels about just this one word.
Then it's an indicator of who you really are and
(25:06):
how committed you really are to being clear, being forceful,
you know, having that moral clarity. But you know, we'll see, Look,
I will see how it all plays out here. But
I just I know there's going to be someone, because
the lane is wide open, someone who fully occupies that
sort of like Zoron lane and is truly like anti
zionist is you know, says we should arrast Netnahoo and
(25:28):
cutting off all the weapons, not just like oh the
offensive ones and the defensive ones, blah blah blah. There
is going to be a lane wide open for that person.
There will be someone who will occupy that lane, and
I think they will get significant support. It will, you know,
and it will push everybody else on the issue aside.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I wouldn't deny that. I think that certainly will happen.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I would look at as an overton window pusher and
somebody who will definitely kind of be looked at as
a pain in the ass or anything. Do I think
that person's going to win solely on that. No, And
I don't think that's why zoron one either. I don't
think it's the only reason you want at least is
the only reason.
Speaker 9 (25:57):
That he want.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
It's not the only reason you won, but I did.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
It's gonna have to be.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
It was more important than what even I initially thought.
Maybe let's go ahead and get to this next part,
because this does indicate the like how the Democratic leadership
is desperately trying to catch up to where the base is.
Catherine Clark, who is the Democratic House whip so she's
the number two most powerful Democrat in the House, appears
(26:21):
to have called Gaza, what Israel's doing in Gaza a
genocide at an event, Let's go ahead and take a
listen to a little bit of this, and.
Speaker 10 (26:27):
We each have to continue to have an open heart
about how we do this, how we do it effectively,
and how we take action in time to make a difference,
whether that is stopping the starvation and genocide and destruction
of Gaza, or whether that means we are working together
(26:48):
to stop the redistricting that is going on taking away
the vote from people.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So she says they're stopping the genocide in Gaza. She
joins a very small number of Democrats and very small
number overall of elected representatives who have called it a genocide.
Politico asked her about it. They said, you know, they
didn't walk back. Her office did not walk back the characterization,
said the massachiefs is Democrats position on the fighting in
(27:15):
the region has not changed. Quote what Clark's position on
the war has not changed, the Israelian polstining people deserve
security and peace. It can only be achieved through a
permanent ceasefire, immediate return on the remaining hostages, and a
surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza. It should not be
controversial to say that Israeli children did not deserve to
be kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, nor she would be
controversial to say Palestinian children, who bear no responsibility for
Amasa's atrocities, to not deserve to.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Be killed by war or starvation.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
A secure future for Israeli Palestinian children demands a real
two state solution and a permanent end to efforts to
deny their rights to exist. So didn't walk it back totally,
but did sort of, like, I guess, provide context for
the language here. Nevertheless, Sacer, I think it is quite
a significant development that you have the number two in
the House now, so again this position, and it will
provide a sort of it will provide a permission structure
(28:02):
I think for others in the House Democratic Caucus and
other elected Democratic leaders to take that position to the
other thing that I think provides a permission structure is
Obama back in Zoron.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
It's a big deal for that as well.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
That's fair. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I mean I still wonder how much of the NEXTUS
is on genocide and not what I said about October
seven status quo about policy levels of offensive weapons, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I'm willing to be totally wrong.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I mean, remember if you think words and all that
don't matter, do you remember how much Hillary refusing to
say radical Islamic terrorism? I know that was just popped
into my head is a counter argument to myself. I
was like, Wow, maybe I'm totally wrong. I mean, maybe
that's the only signal that some people want to.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Hear, because yeah, I mean a lot of times people
don't really dig into the policy details. It's like, what
are you signaling with your language? You know, are you
signaling that you're this just like doesn't give a fuck
on Barns truthteller or are you doing some sort of
weasly politician y bullshit that gives you room to, you know,
not piss off the donors too much and be able
to shift your position down the road.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
It's matter fair. I mean, in retrospect, it's crazy that
Hillary didn't just say it, like on the stage. What
did she say? She's like radical jahadism, right.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It's like, just say it. Lady gets the same thing.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
It doesn't matter, major fixation.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
It was huge.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
All right.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
We've got Seth Harp standing by, let's get to it.
Joining us now is journalist Seth Harp. He is the
author of an explosive new book. Let's go ahead and
put it up there on the screen. He's been teasing
it to us now for quite some time, the Fort
Bragg cartel, drug trafficking, and murder in the Special Forces. Seth,
(29:37):
you have been making the rounds now with this book
with some extraordinary new reporting and revelations. But at a
very high level, why don't you just describe what you
found at Fort Bragg, the consequences of our twenty years
of action abroad, and what it wrought with the US
Special Forces inside of their community.
Speaker 9 (29:57):
Sure, the book is basically an investigation into some unsolved
murders that took place on Fort Brag among Special Forces
soldiers who were involved in trafficking drugs. But in the
course of investigating those murders and trying to determine who
committed them, I came upon a much larger story of
drug trafficking and impunity at Fort Bragg, culminating in a
(30:20):
huge number of soldier deaths beginning in twenty twenty and
continuing all the way through twenty twenty four. So the
book really draws in a lot of those themes, and
as you said, tries to show how that very high
mortality rate and high rate of criminality in the Special
Forces in the airborne Wars is attributable fundamentally to the
(30:42):
way that our soldiers and troops have been used over
the past twenty years of forever.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
War and seth the book reads like I mean the structures,
I think really well done. It reads like a murder mystery,
and then you also zoom out and talk about these
broader implications. And one of the pieces you really did
get into, which shocked hasn't been fully explored to my
knowledge previously, is the way that our war in Afghanistan
(31:07):
helped fuel a drug crisis here at home. Can you
lay out some of those connections for people, because you know,
and I'm sure that this was part of the story.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
The story that we've told here is that.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
You know, you had the increase in Purdue farm and
these other pharmaceutical companies start pushing oxy, people get addicted,
then they turn to the street. I'm sure that's one
part of what was going on here. But take us
into the your reporting on how the Afghan drug trade,
you know, fueled by our war there, ends up coming
back home.
Speaker 9 (31:40):
So the narrative in which heroin addiction in the United
States is precipated are precipitated, excuse me, by overly lacks
prescribing practices around opiate drugs. That's true, that's not a
false narrative. However, what it leaves out is that during
the twentys and twenty tens, there was a flood of
(32:02):
supply of heroin in the United States, enormous availability, high potency,
and my book tries to show how the majority of
that heroin came from Afghanistan while it was under occupation
by US forces, which is an angle of the war
that has not been thoroughly explored today.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
So one of the things that I wanted to get
into are some of the really extraordinary stuff that you
uncovered in your book. I mean, just pure like wanton behavior,
you know by some of the troops that you're alleging there.
Can you go into that, including titanium teeth for dogs
and eating human flesh. These have been the most controversial
claims you've made in the book.
Speaker 9 (32:41):
So that detail is really passing detail in the book. However,
it is something that people seized upon online. There was
an operator who was suffering from extreme moral injury PTSD
drug addiction who was involved in the drug trafficking ativities
at Fort Bragg. His name was Billy Levine. He had
(33:03):
been a dog handler on Delta Force, and in fact
he had adopted one of the unit's working animals after
it had been retired. And I related a story that
Billy told to the sister of another Green Beret in
which he said that the dog had had its titanium
teeth removed uporn retirement in order to prevent it from
posing a danger to people, because while in service, the
(33:26):
dog had actually developed a taste for human flesh. Again,
this was something in the nature of hearsay that I
repeated in the book. It was a credible enough claim,
but people seized upon that online and were saying, this
detail has to be made up. However, no sooner did
that pylum begin than somebody anonymously posted a video of
(33:46):
a clearly marked Delta Force canine or a Special Forces
canine in the event, doing almost exactly what I had
described in the book. I don't want to horrify people
by describing it in graphic detail, but it was amazing
to see video evidence of exactly what I had alleged
emerge just like that.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
So not to turn this into a gotcha or anything.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
The reason I'm asking is I did have some people
in the community reach out to me about your book,
and they knew that you and I were close, and
they were alleging that you had not reached out to
them for comment in some of these specific instances. This
isn't to put down your work, but I do want
to ask you because the very specific claims have been
made here about not being reached out for comments, specifically
on some of these allegations using some of the hearsay
(34:30):
and other things, and then claiming a firing. I believe
of a person or sorry, claiming a voluntary leaving when
they were fired in one particular case, I want to
give you a chance to address that, just to get
it on the record.
Speaker 9 (34:41):
Sure, that's just not true. We contacted everyone who's named
in the book, or made an attempt to contact them
if they are named, we made an attempt to contact them.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
And all of the.
Speaker 9 (34:52):
Allegations that we make about the unit, we make about
Delta Force, about the Special Forces, all of that has
gone to the Special Forces Command with an opportunity for
them to comment. They have declined every single time, including
most recently when Politico did an excerpt. We sent them
a very long email outlining every single thing that we
were going to say in the article, and they said,
(35:13):
because your comment involves a special or because your question
involves a special mission unit, we cannot comment. So I
find it to be kind of a double game they're playing,
where at the one point they hide behind the unit
secrecy and say that we can't comment on any of
these allegations, and then when the book comes out, they say, well,
you didn't really talk to any of us. It's also
(35:33):
not true that I didn't interview Delta Force operators. It's quiet.
There's several who are named in the book, and there's
even more who spoke to me completely off the record,
on condition that I not even described them. So the
idea that no one was contacted, that there were allegations
that were a surprise, people are just simply making that up.
I don't know where they're getting that. We don't go
into that. We don't say every single note comment is
(35:55):
recited in the book because that gets boring, but that
that allegation is based this want.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
To make sure it was addressed.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Let's talk a little bit more about DELSA Force, which
is where you focus your reporting. I mean, first of all,
for people don't know who don't know where did Deltaforce
come from, how was it established, and in what way
have they been used and deployed during the War on
Terror in particular, So.
Speaker 9 (36:17):
Delta Force started out as a very specialized and very
elite counter terrorism unit in the early nineteen eighties or
in the late nineteen seventies. Originally, for many years it
was not used very often because of its high degree
of specialization and use in things rare missions such as
hostage rescue, it continued to have that niche roll after
(36:40):
nine to eleven, and it wasn't really until the surge
in Iraq in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
as I relate in an early chapter of my book,
in which the unit became something much more of a
death squad that was used in night missions, going out
night after night and just hitting targets that were believed
to have something to do with the insurgency in Iraq.
And that was a model that was expanded to Afghanistan
(37:04):
during President Obama's term in office, and we heard a
lot about this when it was called by the euphemism
night rates, dron strokes and drone strikes, and night rates
really became the entire American war effort, and Delta Force
was always at the leading edge of that. Other people
in the special forces community have criticized, because I follow
(37:26):
the message boards, the book has become very controversial among
these folks, And one thing that they were saying was
that a lot of times when they hit targets, they're
just capturing targets, and they're equivaling with the idea that
Delta just shows up and just massacres everyone on site.
Now it's true that Delta Force does do capture missions.
That certainly happens. I'm not in a position to say
(37:48):
what the exact proportion is. But also just last night,
I saw some comments by a former Delta Force commander
named Jeff Tigs in which he was saying basically the
exact same kind of things as I was saying about
the UNI. He says, when we show up, we will
kill you, your family, your village, your pets, your goldfish
was an exact quote from this individual, and he added
(38:11):
that when the black helicopters show up, everyone dies. That's
coming from ADULTA Force commander to a podcaster named Dalton
Fury just a few days ago. So I stand by
my portrayal adulta Force in the book. It was based
on rigorous research and investigations and interviews.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Seth to me if I zoom out, and I know
this all sounds tedious, but as you know, when dealing
with special forces people, they like to get into the leads.
Controversy is very big amongst them. They enjoy snipeing each
other on podcasts. Don't ask me why, but this has
been long part of their own community. When I zoom
out and I think about your book. It's about the
(38:50):
toll that the Forever War took on the people who
fought them, who fought them the most, the psychological toll,
and the lack of leadership from the Pentagon and others
to wrecktgnize of what fourteen fifteen deployments of gangsterism, of
just you know, wantonly going in running missions under the
cover of darkness, of killing people even capture even if
(39:12):
you're doing so legally. You're not doing anything wrong, I'm saying,
but what that is going to breed into you as
an individual, and what you write in the book is
to show all of these unsolved murders on a per
capita basis, you know, exploration of drug use, of the
psychological toll that it takes on anyone to serve in
this type of environment. And I'm just saying, within that context,
(39:34):
is that how you viewed the inevitable rise of what
you say is a Fort Brad cartel.
Speaker 9 (39:39):
Yes, absolutely. And I'm not trying to portray some of
the enlisted operators who the book follows their careers and
their lives and their deaths. I'm not trying to portray
them as monsters. On the contrary, I try to portray
them very much as humans and show how they started
off from a place of good intentions, started off as
normal guys, joined the military, progressively rose through the ranks,
(40:03):
and became more and more in nerd to the nightly
killing vests in Iraq and Afghanistan and the terrible consequences
that had on their bodies, their minds, and their souls. Inevitably,
this is what our foreign policy breeds and military bases
like for bragging and the lives of these people who
get chewed up and spit out by this system, which
(40:26):
you know, it's a policy to use these just the
special forces groups and the Navy Seals and other elite
formations to prosecute these wars that we maintain because American
voters don't want to see large divisions of troops deployed
to foreign countries. They don't want to see conventional troops
coming back in body bags, and so relying on the
(40:46):
special forces to wage wars out of sight and out
of mind of the public is really, I think a
deliberate policy choice. But you end up with having the
same guys deployed again and again ten times, twelve times,
fifteen times. These war zones. And that's just those terrible
things to a person.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
As you say, yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
And I can't imagine what it does too, if you've
killed on behalf of the US government and you come
to lose faith in that mission. Like the level of
moral injury and the level of nihilism that that would
instill in you, I, you know, is beyond fathoming. I'd
love for you to take us through a specific example
(41:28):
here if we can zoom into the micro just so
people can get a sense of some of the you know,
the murders that you detail. One consistent theme also is
the lack of accountability, because these guys are so valuable
to the US government and probably know so many things
that they don't want coming forward as well. So that's
(41:49):
another significant piece of the story that you're telling here.
But tell us about the beheading of Enrique Roman Martinez,
which is one of the stories that you detail in
the book.
Speaker 9 (42:00):
Yes, one of the strangest episodes of this spate of
murders at Fort Bragg was the death of Enrique Roman Martinez.
He was a little bit different from my other subjects.
He was a very young soldier in the conventional Army
in the eighty second Airborne Division. He disappeared on a
camping trip with several of his fellow soldiers from Fort Bragg,
(42:20):
who say who told police the next day that they
just woke up and he was gone. By the way
Enrique Roman Martinez, although by all accounts he was a
nice kid, he was dealing drugs on Fort Bragg. In fact,
he was deeply involved in that world. He was selling
psychedelic drugs in particular out of his barracks room. And
(42:40):
so that was an important detail because that same night,
the night they went on a camping trip, he also
took a large dose of LSD and was suffering a
bad trip. That was the last thing that his friends
knew of him. They said they woke up the next
morning he was gone. However, a couple of days later,
his decapitated head washed ashore on the beach where they
(43:00):
had been camping, or nearby on a nearby island, showing
that he had been murdered. Several medical examiners determined that
his head had been chopped off with a hatchet or
axe or some other kind of heavy and sharp hand tool.
It is one of the most mysterious and baffling cases
in the Annals of Military Crime, and I devote two
(43:23):
chapters dedicated to getting to the bottom of this mysterious case,
which almost ends up being like an episode of the
X Files more than some of the you know, sort
of like mafia style crime that the other murders were
characterized by. So the case of Enrique Roman Martinez is
in the mix and all of this, and I hope
(43:44):
that my book will provide the definitive account of what's
known of his murder today.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, that's actually an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
What was your goal in writing the book, Seth There
seems to be this theory amongst these former four Brag
guys like he wanted to embarrass us or any of that.
I mean, knowing you a little bit, I don't think
that was really your goal at all, outside of being
journalistically interesting. Were there any policy takeaways that you would
have liked to see as a result of the book.
Speaker 9 (44:09):
Yes, there certainly were policy takeaways that I came to,
but originally know that wasn't my intention. I certainly didn't
set out to write a book about policy. I really
wanted to get to the bottom of the murders of
Billy Levine. And Timothy Dumas that took place on for
brag that was fundamentally my goal, that drove the whole
project from the beginning to end. But in order to
understand those two men and what they were up to,
(44:31):
it was necessary to delve into their respective lengthy military
histories and provide the context for the wars they fought in.
And in doing so, I'm not going to sugarcoat what
these wars have been all about or what the unit
is like. And so regarding policy changes that I would
like to see, there are many. I think our militaries
(44:53):
in deep, deep need of reform. Really, the most fundamental
policy change wouldn't be directly to change any think about
the military so much is to wind down all these
foreign wars and not have the need to have these
small units going out and doing assassination and abduction missions
almost every night, which by the way, they continue to
do in a Rock and Syria with virtually no media
(45:15):
coverage of it and very little oversight from the Trump administration.
So foreign policy changes I think are more vital than
specific technical changes to the structure of the military. But
down there you could also you could also advocate for
certain policy changes I think the use of special forces
should be de emphasized. I don't think it's a I
don't think it's a successful strategic model. The idea that
(45:39):
we're going to use elite troops, intelligence agencies, you know,
the air force, and the surveillance apparatus, proxy forces, you know,
this whole model of war fighting that developed under the
Obama administration I think has been a total failure. And
so you know, moving towards a more conventional military, winding
down foreign wars. I think those are the two most
(46:00):
critical things that would alleviate some of the some of
the criminality and mortality we've seen a basis like Fort
Bragg and also fur Hood and other bases too.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Really well said, President Trump has increased the defense budget,
of course most presidents do, and it's now over a
trillion dollars.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
How how effective is our military? How capable are they?
Speaker 9 (46:22):
I think people complacently assume that because we spend a
trillion dollars in our military every year, that we must have,
you know, the greatest fighting for us on earth, And
that's just not true anymore. The military spending is so
incredibly outrageously wasteful that it's hard to see where all
the money goes when you're actually looking at the military.
You know, I was at Trump's military parade not too
(46:44):
long ago covering that, and it did not look like
a force that a trillion dollars had been spent on
by any means. You know, a lot of the armored vehicles,
all of the military's workhorse armored vehicles, are so badly
out of date, forty fifty years old in some cases.
You know, the black Hawk helicopter is performing really poorly.
(47:05):
There's been an incredible number of helicopter crashes recently. Another
subject that's been under reported, but it culminated in the
crash of that Army black Hawk helicopter with a Regional
jetliner over the Botomac River earlier in January. That was
symptomatic of all these crashes that are taking place. And
the military is struggling with recruiting. All of twenty twenty
(47:25):
five was a little better than past years, but it's shrinking.
It's at the smallest size ever. I really call into
question whether the Army is even capable of fulfilling you know,
it's core mission. If if a division needed to be
deployed on sudden notice or something like that because of
the institutional decline the scene a basis like Fort Bragg,
(47:46):
and I really think that, you know, the national defense
budget has got to be rained in because that spending
is not going where it needs to go. I don't
know where it's going, but you know, we saw earlier
in this year the US Navy went head to head
with who these I don't know what their military budget is,
but that's a country that's that makes that makes Haiti
look relatively affluent, and the who theis arguably prevail that
(48:09):
directation with the US Navy over the over the straight
uh controlling access to the red seat. I mean, that
was just such a pathetic performance that the military turned in.
That's another you know, uh symptom or another manifestation of
the weakness and decline that that that we have seen
in the military and are seen despite this gargantuan spending.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yeah, well, not only not only do you not know
where that money, apparently know what knows where that money
goes given the fact that the Pentagon is you know,
can't pass a budget, can't pass an audit, and can't
account for significant portions of their budget.
Speaker 9 (48:45):
Right and more and more things are being written to
like the laws that provide aid to Ukraine. It's written
into those laws that that that that spending can't ever
be audited, which is just crazy. You know, they're making
sure that the like Cigar, which cityed retrospective the Special
Inspector Jennifer Afghanistan Reconstruction provided some clarity and some limited
(49:08):
accountability for how the war in Afghanistan was waste. And
there's actually provisions of law that make sure that we'll
never learn that same kind of information about the war.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Yeah, you're s Sigar was one of the most important
journalistic resources in Washington. I actually think it was critical
in eroding support for the war in Afghanistan because people
just cover their claims, and we did it for years
and years.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Always the stories that.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
We wrote on it would go viral because people saw
how much of a waste it was. We don't have
a single clue, even though it's a similar amount of
money that we've sent over to Ukraine. Seth, I could
talk to you all day, man, Thank you so much
for joining us. Congratulations on the book. We hope everybody
goes and buys. We're going to link down in the description.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
Thank you, Seth, Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Thanks so much for watching guys, we appreciate it. We're
gonna have a great show for it. Buddy tomorrow, See
you then,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!