8/25/25: Bernie Backs Trump Intel Buy, Zohran Flamed For Bench press, Krystal Exposes Famine Coverup

Krystal and Saagar discuss Bernie backs Trump Intel purchase, Zohran flamed for bench press, Krystal exposes famine coverup, Trump admin fires Israel dissenter.

 

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.

Episode Transcript

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 1 (00:33):
Let's get to Intel.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
This is a very interesting story, actually, lots of perhaps
some left right horseshoe, a lot of the right people
are very upset about it. So let's go ahead and
put it up here on the screen. New announcement made
by Donald Trump. He says, quote, it is my great
honor to report that the United States of America now
fully owns and controls ten percent of Intel, a great

(00:55):
American company that has even more incredible future. I negotiated
this deal with the highly respected chief executive officer of
the company the United States paid nothing for these shares,
and the shares are now valued at approximately eleven billion.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Great deal for America.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Also a great deal for Intel, building leading edge semiconductors
and chips, which is what Intel does, fundamental to the
future of our nation, make America great again. Thank you
for your attention to this matter. And so this has
invited a lot of very interesting discourse. Just to give
everybody some more details, so we can put the Wall
Street Journal story up on the screen, which gives some

(01:29):
of the some of the details. Basically, what it does
is it converts Chips Act grants into equity. So they
were going to get this money anyways from the government.
What it does is converts to equity in the company.
And what it basically says is going to be followed
potentially by other types of these deals. Under the terms,

(01:50):
the eight point nine million in grants that had already
been awarded to Intel from twenty twenty two but had
not yet been paid, We'll just be transferred to equity
in the company with basically a swap of that. They
won't even have any voting direct control in the overall thing.
They're paying some quote twenty dollars and forty seven cents
to share, which is actually a discount apparently from what
was recently offered to the Japanese controlled SoftBank, just to

(02:12):
everybody aware. But the point is is that it's a
bigger question about government control and whether the government should
have a say in how these type of companies operate.
And this is a big libertarian more like Koch Brothers
traditional free market view and what I would say is
an industrial policy view. And it's actually important for everybody

(02:34):
to sit and to think about the story of Intel.
Intel was the flagship American semiconductor manufacturing company. It remains
one of the only major semiconductor manufacturers in the United
States today who creates their own fabs.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
This is another important thing. A lot of people don't
understand this.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Nvidia and AMD two of the largest shares of market
cap chip companies. They don't make anything, They design them
and TSMC makes all of it. Intel is the only
one that actually knows how to make it. Now, why
does that matter? Because if ninety percent of advanced manufacturing
for chips happens on the island of Taiwan, one of
the literally most geopolitically unstable places in the world, that
seems to be like a little bit of a choke

(03:13):
point and maybe one where America has an advantage in
moving away from that. That's why we're both supportive of
the Chips Act. Well, everybody needs to understand this. If
you leave it to the free market or to American capitalism,
Intel is the story. You shut down, the FABS become
less competitive. Meanwhile, Samsung, which is aka a branch of
the Korean government TSMC aka branch of the Taiwanese government,

(03:36):
SMIC aka branch of the Chinese government, are going to
eat your lunch because they don't care about profit and
loss statements on a shareholder. They will subsidize the shit
out of the industry to roll it up and to
let Intel basically sacrifice itself on the altar of quote
free markets because it's easier to outsource than it is
to actually build shit, especially here in America. So then

(03:57):
the question is how do you accomplish that the grants themselves.
Part of the problem is that they're not stringent enough
in my opinion, to make sure that they do not
continue a lot of this MBA style process. So the
question is how do you actually compete if it's even
possible with TSMC, with smi C, with Samsung, with all
of these chip manufacturers who build actual fabs. One way

(04:20):
is the current way with the Chips Act, where we're
trying to get those companies to build here in America.
I think I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
But part of the.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Problem is still, you know, it's not an American company.
You're still don't have nearly as much control as you
would for national security purposes. The Taiwan, Taiwan's always gonna
be Taiwan first, Korea is always gonna be Krea first. China,
I mean, what you know, they're the best at being
China first. So shouldn't we have some sort of answer.
And so before I get your take, Crystal, we got
to put out Senator Bernie Sanders, the goat, as always

(04:50):
sticking to his principle, let's put it up here on
the screen.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Here's what he had to say.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants
they received from the federal government, the taxpayers of America
have a right to a reasonable return on that investment.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
And so not only do I endorse.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
That, but I actually would say that if anything, we
should have more of control with intel here. Yes, I know,
crony capitalism whatever, All right, let me you know again
spell it out for you. There is no critical national
security interests which should not be under the control of
the government. It would actually be irresponsible to do so,
because if you don't, then you're going to end up
like America today, which is basically a Holida husk of

(05:27):
people who design shit and then let the Chinese, the Taiwanese,
the Koreans, the Japanese actually build all of a for us.
God help us if we're ever actually in a bad situation.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's my overall time Bernie's principle one hundred percent agree with. Unfortunately,
I just know that Trump is going to use this
to do some like stupid corrupt Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Gold ship, well, the first gold ship ever made factored.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
I mean not only that, Like, I think it's also
important for people to really sit with these chips are
incredibly important. They genuinely are, which is part of the
case for why we should have a direct in. And yes,
I think Bernie's principle is totally true that if we
are giving these companies all these subsidies into Bernie, I
think actually opposed. The chips and Science Actor had some
issues with it because of all the you know, the

(06:10):
taxpayer subsidies. So I think it's reasonable. We'll say, yes,
American people should benefit from profits. However, because this is
such a critical industry. We're talking about for defense, we're
talking about, for aerospace, we're talking about for evs, for like,
the industries of future renewable energy, so critical. You could
just see the way Trump would use this way to

(06:31):
you know, punish his political opponents, to reward his cronies,
all of those sorts of things. And so that's why
it's like, well, we'll see. I mean, it's kind of
like with the tariffs, right in general. Do I support
some you know, protectionist policy and key industries. Sure, does
this man execute that in any sort of like a

(06:52):
reasonable way in the American interest. Now, he executes all
his policies.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
In his own interests.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
It's all about him having him personally having more power, money, influence, control.
And so that's why I can't totally be like, let's.

Speaker 4 (07:06):
Go with this. Some of the same resumes some.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Crime reservation, right, Like I said, all they got to
do is build a gold chip and give it to
them and be like, oh, okay, coo, I'm good.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
You know, I don't need to make anything.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
Else here, But I still think it's worth fighting because
all of Wall Street and all these other people are
up in arms. They prefer the Nvidia AMD model, which
is paid for play, and I think that's ridiculous, which
is basically grants Endvidia and AMD. As long as they
pay their ten percent to the US government, they get
to do business in China. No, we decide whether you
do business in China or not. And again the question

(07:40):
is this is the value problem and the American problem
in a nutshell. Have you ever noticed every time you
buy a laptop and you open it up, what does
the word say? It says designed by Apple in California,
Designed by Apple in California, manufactured in Guangzhou, shang, you
know whatever.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Same thing with all these chips.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
The reason Nvidia and an AMD are so massively profitable
is because they take the service sector part of our economy,
which we're great at.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Right.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
We have all the world's talent and we design all
this stuff, but Taiwan makes it. Over eighty percent of
enviatorships manufacturing Taiwan. I think it's ninety percent of AMD
manufactured at TSMC. The actual nitty gritty of the manufacturing,
we don't do it. Why super expensive? If you look
at the history, there's an acquired podcast if anybody wants

(08:26):
to go and listen, I highly recommend on the history
of TSMC. Forty eight percent of initial startup capital for TSMC.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Taiwanese government. People don't understand.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
This is not an industry which you can compete by
the quote free market. It will not happen. You will
get crushed by state capitalism. And in fact this is
again I would ask all these conservatives and all that,
let's look at the model, because their claim is state
capitalism can't work. Really, BYD doesn't work. That's news to
the largest and one of the most profitable car companies

(08:56):
in the world. BYD doesn't work. SMC isn't a juggernaut
in terms of chip manufacturing. Look at their battery manufacturer,
look at their airplane manufacture, all their high tech manufacture.
None of it makes any actual profit. All of it
is subsidized by the government, and all of it is
frankly creating in many cases, much better products than so

(09:18):
called free market capitalism.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Here in America.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
This isn't to say, a whole endorsement of the Chinese model,
But you cannot sit with a straight face and say
it doesn't work. It obviously works.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
I mean the number of people that China has lift
it on a poverty that's what I'm genuinely in economic miracle.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Its crazy, genuinely an economic miracle.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
However, do we think that Trump with Howard Lutnik and
these people are going to be have the long term
interest of America ITAs in mind? And even even if
they did have the capability to like plan strategically and
execute on a you know, a whole industrial policy, of

(09:56):
course not. And so on the one hand, look, I
oh that there are some you know, bold democrat out
there somewhere who's looking at all of this and can say, okay,
well they sort of laid down the marker here. We
can take this model and we can't expand, and we
can actually do it in the American interest. I hope
that maybe that exists. Am I confident about that? No?

(10:17):
In the meantime, like we know, this is going to
be less of the China model and more of the
Russia model of like, you know, let me use the
state control to like reward my cronies and lock in
this you know, group of oligarchs who surround me and
bring me gold bars in the Oval office or whatever,
and pad my own bottom line and use it in
order to make sure I can punish the opposition. If

(10:39):
Gavin Newsom wants to do renewable energy projects in the
state of California, I'm going to make sure he can't
get the chips that he needs to be able to
succeed in his project, et cetera. Like that's more like
much more likely to be the direction that we go
in with it.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Well, let me give a defense of the Russian model.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Is whenever the sanctions hit, what happened, their GDP grew,
they actually survived because the Russian model, if correct executed
is yes, we will be massively corrupt and give it
out to our all of our friends, but at the
very least, it's all here because we're the worst of
all worlds. We're oligarchic and we've outsourced everything, so we
have a Russian style pay for play system without any

(11:14):
of the domestic manufacturing, domestic capabilities. And watching people freak
out about this, you know about socialism.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
And the scary word and all of that.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Well, it's it is funny to see like people who freaked.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Out about Zoron's five grocery stores.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Totally right, yeah, then turn around and be like, oh,
this is fine, you know yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
So here's a good taste of some of it.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Shall we This is from Sei Eric Erickson, one of
the classic you know never Trump style original conservatives.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Here's what he had to say.

Speaker 5 (11:42):
There's no national security justification for this. In fact, I
had some anonymous account on Twitter say, yeah, there's a
national security justification for having control of Intel. Really, we
don't have control of Raytheon. We don't have government control
of in Video. We don't have government control of Apple.
We don't have government control of Boeing. We don't have
government control of Lockeed Martin. We don't have government control
of any major weapons developer or defense contractor. But you

(12:07):
want ten percent control of Intel. It exchange for money
the government already promised to give them. That's socialism. You
may be comfortable with socialism. You may decide you like
socialism because someone from the Trump administration wants socialism. But
my god, people, what have we been fighting for for
the last decade? You want smaller government. This expands it.

(12:30):
You want the government not to go woke. Well, what
happens when the Democrats get in charge and they become
the largest shareholder of Intel. Good luck stopping that from happening.
You know, there's no such thing as permanence in politics
in the United States of America. You're not gonna stop
a Democrat from one day winning reelection or getting into
the White House having the government take control of a

(12:52):
private corporation in exchange for government funding. First of all,
they shouldn't even get government funding. You should let Intel
fall flat on its face for having a bad business
decision and let the creative destruction of the marketplace pick
them apart, let other companies buy up their pieces, or
let them regroup a government bail out. You know what
this does is it causes a distortion in the marketplace,

(13:13):
something called the moral hazard, where more and more companies
realize they can take extraordinary risks and fall flat irresponsible risks,
not extraordinary risks, irresponsible risks, and the government will just say, well,
give me ten percent of your company and I'll make
you right.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
That would be national suicide. That's literally a case for
national suicide. Is we should flet It's like the auto companies.
Don't bail them out, let them fail. Okay, yeah, great,
that'll be awesome for the people of Detroit. For any
story of manufacturing. During World War Two, the US took
control of a literally the War Production Board set the
actual amounts that every company in the America had to produce.

(13:49):
At many times they would come in, seize the minds,
seize the actual factory floor, no strikes, none of this bullshit.
This is the amount that we're pumping out today because
we have actual national securities concerned. The idea there's no
national security concern again on chips is pre possible.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
We are in the opposite where we.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
It is one of the most glaring problems that we
face as a country. It's like a slow moving crisis.
Every single day that we move forward and we come
to some sort of quote solution, as the Chinese like
to call it.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
To the Taiwanese question, we are so screwed.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
We literally as a country, we would have to turn
our laptops in.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
We probably have to stop broadcasting.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
We have to turn all of these computers in because
the government would need to rip the chips out of
them for missile production or any of that. People do
not understand how vulnerable we are. FABS and all that
takes five ten years to come online. It is so difficult,
massively capital intensive. Again, the only reason the Taiwanese are
where they are is because.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
They subsidize the hell out of it.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
It's because they knew that we were so dumb that
we would let our companies fail. And the best part
is Morris Chang. Where do you think he learned everything
that he got here from Texas instruments. He came to America,
he learned our learned our system, and he's like, yeah,
these guys are idiots. Went back to China, went back
to Taiwan. Game over killed us. Same with you know,
I mean with the Koreans and more so. Anyway, look,

(15:12):
I understand your concern, but the benefit actually is sure
three and a half years of Trump, it's probably gonna
be dumb. All right, let's all be honest. But it's
staying and that's a good thing. We'll think it's a
good thing.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
We'll see now it all pans out, I will say,
at least Ericson is consistent, you know, and the number
of Republicans who you know, panic over the five grocery
stores and then they have nothing to say about this
is pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
To Betty entertaining.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Nobody actually believes that first national security industry, that you
should leave it to the free market or creative destruction
that people will do.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
But I do.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
I mean this has been like, but you know a
lot of people do in this town.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
That's been the.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
De facto policy for years is like, let's let all
of the you know, pharmaceuticals go over see it. Let's
let you know, also any sort of critical production. Let's
not have any sort of a national strategy or you know,
and let's not care certainly at all about the way
that we're destroying the lives of the working in the
middle class in this country. I mean, that has been

(16:10):
the policy what Eric Erickson is describing, that continues by
and large to be the policy of Americas.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
And that's the.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Issue, right. I thought that we all fought against that.
I thought that we I mean, if you look at
a pole.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Or whatever, they would be like, it's preposterous the idea
that you should not have a chip manufacturing or frankly,
pharmaceutical manufacturing, hung oil refineries, nuclear reactors, anything that sustains
something we're so we are so outdated and increasingly embracing
national suicide, and it's like watching it all happen every
day is discussed. I just recently was talking to someone

(16:45):
about the old this just the old model of America
and World War Two, which a lot of people want
to look at and venerate as a production the country,
the B seventeen Boeing and who we are. One of
the benefits that we had as America was we were
a country that was able to churn out all of
this weaponry and these tanks. We did it with machines

(17:06):
and with a population and a troop force which knew
how to do that for to mobilize. And what we
were fighting were the Germans and the Japanese, who were
people who didn't have mass production but had highly specialized,
like almost artistic types of manufacture. Where for the Japanese
zero or for the very first jet engine that the
Germans were ever able to create, we're the Germans, now

(17:29):
we're the Japanese. We have these crazy expensive B two
bombers and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Do we have the fuel to fly them?

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Do we have all of the bombs or the ammunition
or the chips to actually put into them. No, we're
the Germans now, and putting it in that terms is
really important for people to understand, like we have moved
away from that mass production of comedy economy to this
highly specialized one that actually in a crisis would never
be able to function. And that's really honestly, it's scary.

(17:56):
Like Russia today is a much better model for a
country who able to survive as a result of a crisis.
And so anyway, this puts us, hopefully, I think, on
a better direction.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Well, if it all ends with you know, a Democrat
coming in and nationalizing pharma, I will expectively say, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
I mean, look what Den?

Speaker 3 (18:14):
What Den would be dumb enough not to at least
say that on the campaign trail? Serious, all of them?

Speaker 1 (18:18):
You really think?

Speaker 3 (18:19):
So?

Speaker 6 (18:19):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Maybe I don't name.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
One that would be like nationalized.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Farmbody's got to say or somebody's got to say something
about it.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
I mean, yeah, maybe right, Maybe we're.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Soul You think Gavin Newsom is going to say nationalized pharma.
I don't know if there's anything Greshen Whitmer these people are.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
I wonder the own I didn't need to look into
it for where their manufacturer bases are, because I mean
most of your European anyways, screw them all.

Speaker 4 (18:41):
Right, moving on too.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
That's against a segue to our to our socialist friend
up in New York. So he's catching a lot of
heat for this particular video of him. I guess this
was something called Men's Day in Brookland and in Brooklyn,
Brooklyn where they had all the like weightlifting stuff out
and a bunch of guys bench pressing, et cetera on sidewalk.

(19:08):
So they convinced him to come in and uh and
give his go at. This is apparently one hundred and
thirty five pounds that he is attempting to bench press. Here.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
Let's take a look.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
That is how you move up in a pole. Yeah's go,
let's go.

Speaker 6 (19:30):
Let's go, Love go, let go. Yeah, let me go,
let me go. Let me get three, let me get three, let.

Speaker 7 (19:37):
Me get three?

Speaker 2 (19:41):
All right, right, Matt, I'm like, every ray's having a
good time.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
What's the problem.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
But this became things unfortunately amongst fit bros.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
He's getting by. I am not a fit bro. I'm
simply an observer.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, I would never claim that's stolen bro. Noticer is
it's stolen ballot. But anyway, I'm aware of the discourse
in a fitness community and easy getting ripped.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
He's getting ripped apart. Now.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
I did ask my trainer, and my trainer says it's
unfair because they didn't really give him a chance, so
we didn't fully get to see spotter whether he could
actually do.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
For people who are just listening, the spotter is holding
the bar the entireme and so he doesn't fail, but
he also doesn't really try, like because the spotter is.

Speaker 4 (20:22):
Holding the bar the whole time.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, exactly, So look I mean.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
At the same time, politically, it hasn't ended up well,
at least for him. Yet Eric Adams and a lot
of others are capitalizing on this.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Here we have Eric Adams was on the screen.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
He says, quote a lifetime of hard work versus a
silver spoon. The results speak for themselves. The weight of
the job is too heavy for mom scrawny. The only
thing he can lift is your taxes. And I believe
Andrew Cuomo has weighed in as well.

Speaker 6 (20:51):
D three.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Please let's put it up there on the screen. What
have we got, Andrew Cuomo. It's easy to talk, it's
hard to carry the burden. This guy can't bench his
own body weight, let it alone carry the weight of
leading the most important city in the world. I actually
do want to know how much Coomo can bench because
if you'll remember, his nipples were often very prominent shirts

(21:14):
during COVID.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
I really comment that Trump.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, yeah, listen, here's right.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
You know he's running post for truity.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, it's true. It's gross. All right, it's gross.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Put a damn you know, put a jacket on, man,
if that's your physique. Anyway, this is this has gone
quite viral for mister Zoron, So anyway, I am curious.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
I do want to know what Coo could be.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
I mean, it's and whether Adams is on TRT because
sixty four lifting a lot.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
I mean, I'm skeptical personally.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
There's a whole dynamic in this campaign that's also like
a meme of them trying to like come up with
the silliest scandals for Zoran, like there was that whole
number of thing about like his college admissions and the
box he checked and whatever, all that sort of stuff,
or the other thing that like the New York Post
loves to do is they love to pull the DSA
platform and find something in that and be like, so

(22:02):
On supports this. I just even when he didn't say anything, I.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Literally just felt for that. It was the headline was like.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
Zoron once a British misdemeanors and.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
I was like, man, what an idiot. And I started
reading it. I was like, wait, this is the DSA platform.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
He's not the same thing.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, he didn't say anything about that, but they'll just
pull anything from the DSA platform anyway.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
So I do think this fits a little.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Bit in that vein of like finding the silliest possible
going to their flat.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
You know, it's just funny. I mean, it's personally fun.
By the way, I'm gonna I don't bench press at
the gym. My trainer doesn't have me do it because
he thinks it makes him very injury prone.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
But I have spoken to him and I will be
doing the one.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Thirty five challenge, even though I don't think I've done
bench press in two years. But I'm gonna do it.
It would be pretty embarrassing if I couldn't consider it
a recording my body. Yeah, sure, I'll post a video.
I'll do it here. I'll do the bench press challenge.
I happily will three. This is just one plate on
each side. I mean for my size and body weight,
I believe I should be able to do two twenty five.

(22:58):
That's like you're host, Isn't that the metric You're supposed
to able to bench your own body weight. The one
guy who is the goat in this is Jamal Bowman,
who we've had show because he benched four hundred pounds.
That's impressive, man, That is very strong. That is genuinely,
like shockingly impressive.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
He is very strong.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Maybe we should book Jamal to give us a breakdown
on all of this supporter that's.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Right, n supporter who can bench four hundred Yeah. Yeah,
Actually we should, especially on his form because again I
don't know enough about his form or whatever to see.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
If it's Jamal Bowman.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Also, he's it's we had him on KKF and we
had him on our live stream when we're on when
the primary, and he's just in his like giving zero
fox mode too. So he's fun to talk to right
now because he will just spill all the tea about
what he'saw in Congress and his interactions with APAC and
all of that. So in any case it'd be fun
to hear his thoughts on the race more broadly. At

(23:52):
the same time, we've got to yet another genuine corruption
scandal with regard to Eric Adams. The details of this
are soap preposters. We can put the up on the screen.
So he has this lady who's affiliated with his campaign,
who does outreach to the Chinese American community in the city.
And so apparently after some event she said, you know,

(24:15):
she said, oh, meet me over at the Whole Foods
because I want to give you something. And so this
reporter walks over with Greco as the Chinese American lady
who's the advocate for Adams, and it says while inside
this door, Greco handed the reporter an open bag of
chips with the top crumpled closed. The reporter thought it

(24:36):
was an offer of a light snack and told Greco
more than once she could not accept the chips, but
Greco insisted that she keep them. The two parted ways
before entering a nearby subway station. The reporter opens the
bag and discovers a red envelope inside, stuffed with cash
at least one one hundred dollars bill several twenties. Reporter

(24:56):
then called Greco and said, I can't accept this money.
Asked if she was still nearby so she could give
it back. Greco said she left the area. Reporter told
her she had to take the money back. Greco said
they could meet at some point in Chinatown. Reporter then
texted Greco, I can't take this. When can I give
it back to you? She did not get a response.
In an interview later Wednesday, the city that's this publication

(25:16):
asked Grego what her intention was in handing money to
the reporter. In response, she'd said she'd made a mistake
and apologized over and over and actually her specific comments
are really funny here. I don't know if we have them,
but I'll go I'll just go ahead and read them
because her explanation was kind of entertaining. She says, quote,
I make a mistake. I'm so sorry. It's a culture thing.

(25:37):
I don't know. I don't understand. I'm so sorry. I
feel so bad right now. I'm so sorry, honey. Then
she called the city back, advising that we call her attorney,
Steven Brill, and adding quote, can we forget about this?
I tried to be a good person. Please, please, please
don't do in the news. Nothing about me. I just
wanted to be her friend. I just wanted to have

(25:57):
one good friend. It's nothing.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Another age of sale is put Eric Adams responsive on
the stainless guy. You just can't make it up D five.
So there were some other issues with the same Chinese
American lady. There was like she roped a campaign volunteer
into helping her remodel her home. She lived at some
hotel for months at a time that was supposed to

(26:22):
be for formerly incarcerated people. There's all kinds of stuff
going on with this lady. In any case, when Mayor
Adams was asked about these findings previously, he deflected and
downplayed his relationship to Greco, saying he hadn't spoken to
her about the allegations. When I see her, I say
mehow you know that's hello, he told the press. So

(26:44):
that was that was his explanation.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
About what wasn't her defense. Also, she's like, I'm Chinese.
That's just part of our culture.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, just like just like Cuomo's Italian. So he's not
a sexual harasser. He's just Italian.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, little dicey there. Also, if you're gonna bribe somebody,
you gotta do more Thane hundred and forty books. I mean,
what are we doing here?

Speaker 2 (27:01):
These are you know, there's partners. It's tough times. You know,
there's tough times. The news industries in free fall. A
couple hundred bucks I can make a difference.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Adams.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, he's just one of the greatest ever do it.
I'm gonna miss him.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
He was still the cartoonish level of corruption with this man.
I long ago lost. Count Ross Barkin could break it
down for us of the number of aides who were
indicted under investigation. This lady herself had previously been under investigation.
I think she had like an FBI rre in her
stuff sees previously, if memory serves correctly. But it's just,

(27:33):
you know, he's just it's like a throwback, you know
to the old school, decades ago levels of big city
machine level corruption. And there was one other thing that
was interesting about this, which is after the city gets
there bag of cash and reports it all out and
reports her to whatever the Ethics Commission is, et cetera,

(27:54):
or law enforcement, then the New York Times publishes this piece.
That's like, yeah, reporters also saw cash being exchanged in
these envelopes from the campaign, and it's.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Like, why didn't why didn't you write that? Totally? I agree,
that is the sketuch.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Weird, right, I just totally lag you. Just corruptions just
so assumed to be a part of the Adam's campaign
that they didn't even find it newsworthy.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
I've seen a lot of corrupt shit here in Washington.
I actually have never seen cash change hands. That's the
one thing where everything is supposed to be you know, oh,
here's some free drinks, and here's a free dinner, and
you get to come to this and oh, you know,
if you're on your way there, you can ride on
my jet if you want. Everything is supposed to be soft,
like you're not supposed to be able to prove it.
Actual cash exchanging hands is wild. That's like Tammany Hall

(28:38):
level stuff.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Adams, he just needs to launch his own shit coin.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
People can just fuddle him cash via that, because that's
apparently a thing that politicians can do now, no problem whatsoever.
So Zorn as a little tongue in cheek response to
this latest scandal from Eric Adams, and also just I
guess because they came up with this idea. He actually
did a city wide scavener hunt over the weekend, and
here is how he announced that.

Speaker 7 (29:05):
Hello, my friends, I have to come clean. I have
something to hide. Many things is back because we're doing
a scavenger hunt. No, no, no, actually, we are doing a
scavenger hunt across from New York City. When you arrive
at the location, look for a campaign volunteer. We will
mark off your card and give you a clue to
the next location. At the first stop, you'll get this card.
At the final stop, you'll find a special surprise, not

(29:26):
a lot of cash, so make sure you go all
the way to the end.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
So for those of you again are just listening, he
starts with like the bag of chips, and he's like, oh,
I've got something to hide.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
Here a reference.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
It's the same type of chip in which the envelope
of cash had been stuffed, So that's a reference there
or whatever.

Speaker 4 (29:43):
But I love this scavenger hunt thing.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
I don't know, it's like millennial cringe, I guess people
are saying, but I support it. I love the celebration
of New York. That's really a key ethos of the
Zoron campaign. It's personally making me very like nostalgic for
the city of New York and for the time period
that I lived there.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
And apparently there's a huge response.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
We could put this up on the screen that images
while you say what you thought about it.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
On the one hand, thousands of people who showed up
for this.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
On the one hand, scavenger hunds, Pokemon go and all
of this stuff is deeply cringe and millennial.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
On the other we do have a crisis.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Of community and people going outside and doing things, So
I guess that's awesome. It's kind of like wome, kind
of like what's it called, like pickleball? You know, the
people in the tennis community really hate pickleball because it's
taking over the courts and all of that, but it's
the fastest growing sport in the country. I agree it
looks silly. Every time I played, I feel a bit silly.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
It's kind of.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Fun as Zero buried an entry, and you know, anything
that gets people moving, gets outside, it's probably a good thing.
So anyway, sorry tennis people, your courts were seizing them,
were taking them over, And I feel similarly about this personally.
I do think scavenger hunting is cringe I would not engage,
but you know, it gets people to If it gets
people outside, I guess people doing something go.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
One of my favorite things to do when I lived
in the city was just to explore New York because
you could explore that city and five burrows for your
entire life and constantly every time find something new, interesting, unexpected,
et cetera. So in the spirit of that, I am
a full supporter of the Zoran Scavenger.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Well, I mean, look, you know, we didn't say the
we didn't say that everything wouldn't be cringed, but it
can also be good, so you know, you never know,
all right, Chrystal, what are you taking a look at?

Speaker 4 (31:29):
Last week?

Speaker 2 (31:29):
You unbacked experts with the IPC or Integrated Food Security
Classification System officially declared Gaza City in a state of
man made famine, only in the fourth such declaration made
in that organization's history. Here you can see the steady
rise in those facing emergency levels of food insecurity and
catastrophic levels of food and security. Already, Gaza City has

(31:52):
reached that organization's metrics for an official famine declaration, with
thirty five percent of households at that catastrophic mark. And
another fifty five percent at the emergency level. The other
regions of the Gaza Strip are also on track for
famine if a ceasefire and surge in aid is not
immediately achieved. With conditions worsening everywhere, the authors of the

(32:14):
report sounded a dire warning, saying, quote, if a ceasefire
is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone
in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies and
basic health, nutrition, and sanitation and water services are not
restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially. Now, will Israel
use this official report to take a step back, reflect

(32:35):
on how they could have lost their way so badly
as to go from genocide victims to genocide perpetrators in
just a few generations, or even just to consider with
shame the way that they've torched the reputation as a
civilized nation, with the entire rest of the world obviously not. Instead,
they wage an immediate all out war to try to

(32:55):
deny the veracity of this assessment. Pseudoscience propaganda reports were crafted.
Net Nahoo, of course called it a blood libel, and
official Israeli Hasbara influencers were dispatched to debunk the claims,
but the real high IQ genocide denial take came directly
from the Israel Twitter account. Here they claim that the

(33:16):
IBC lowered their standard to fifteen percent malnutrition in order
to unjustly smear Israel. Quote in other countries, the IBC
declares famine at thirty percent malnutrition. In Gaza only, the
UN backed IPC lowered the bar to fifteen percent, and
it is based on unreliable data. They didn't find famine,
so they forged one. This, of course, is total and

(33:39):
complete bullshit, a made up lie to deflect and to
confuse you. Refugees International President Jeremy Kanandike posted an excellent
thread to explain the trick that Israel is trying to pull.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
Here.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
He points out that first of all, the exact same
metric was used for declaring famine and Sudan just last year,
so right out of the gate, this whole bl blood libel,
anti semitism double standard claim from Israel is completely blown up.
The TLDR is this There are two different assessments which
can be used to determine famine conditions, both of which

(34:12):
have been used by the IPC in the past. One
is weight for height, which is basically a BMI metric,
and the other is MUAC or mid upper arms circumference.
Connandike writes that both are valid ways of assessing global
acute malnutrition in a population and in line with IBC guidance,
Mid upper arms circumference is often used when assessors have

(34:35):
limited access, as is the case in Gaza due to
Israel's decimation of the healthcare system and attacks on international
aid workers. These two different metrics also have two different
thresholds for famine designation. Here so you know is the
relevant chart. You can see that for the BMI Weight
for height metric, thirty percent of children must be boundurished

(34:56):
for it to be deemed a famine. For the mid
upper arms circumference TAP, the threshold for Phase five famine
is fifteen percent of children, which is what was met
in Gaza City. As to why the different tests merit
different thresholds, Kanandike writes the following quote because they measure
different physical characteristics.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
Weight for height and.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
MUAC often manifest at different levels within the same population.
A lower MUAC usually equates to a higher weight for
height GAM that's a famine measurement. Hence the different thresholds
of fifteen percent and thirty percent, so essentially mid upper
arm circumference is a more stringent criteria, So if you're

(35:37):
seeing fifteen percent in trouble using that criteria, you would
likely have measured more than thirty percent if you were
able to do a full weight for height assessment.

Speaker 4 (35:45):
The Israelis are not stupid. They know all of this.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
They're just hoping you are stupid and that you won't
look past their surface level assertions and that the process
is rigged, or to be so terrified about being accused
of anti Semitism that you will back down at the
first challenge. There are other high ACU genocide denile claims, though,
and they are similarly dishonest. Israel claims that Gaza City
did not yet actually cross even that fifteen percent assessed

(36:10):
child malnutrition threshold as required in July. In fact, the
report breaks July into two halves. In the second half
of July, the threshold was in fact breached, clearly demonstrating
the trend is towards worsening conditions and that the most
recent data is in fact indicative of phase five famine.
Israel also claims that Gaza has not met the threshold

(36:31):
for famine based on the number of deaths from starvation. Here, too,
they are lying and they are gas lighting Hue. The
IPC standards take into account all famine related deaths, not
solely those in which the sole cause is starvation. As
Nir Hassan writes for Haretz quote, mass hunger is not
only a medical issue caused by food shortage. It is
a total collapse of the systems that sustained life. Elderly

(36:54):
people and infants die because their immune systems are weakened.
They suffer infections from living intense with sewage or clean water. Chronically,
ill patients died because they cannot access treatment or special food,
or are too weak to travel to clinics. Premature bursts
and pregnancy complications are rising, and this is only a
partial list. In other words, ignoring those deaths in which

(37:16):
starvation was a contributing factor is the equivalent of claiming
that there was no Holocaust because actually Ann Frank died
of typhus. But this is far from the only area
whereas Raeli propagandas echoed the despicable claims of Nazis and
Holocaust deniers. The Israeli government has been busy pushing their
influencer cutouts to back up all of their genocide denial.

(37:37):
According to Haretz, the Israeli Diaspora Affairs Ministry sponsored influencers
to take pr trips to the ghf Aid massacre sites,
where they, of course dutifully reported back that all was
well and no one was starving. Propagandasts like Al Yakabi
have been busily reposting videos purporting to show Gaza grocery
stores chalk full of food and Palestinia out there enjoying

(38:01):
lavish spreads of food. You should be very skeptical of
all of these photos and videos. There have been a
bunch of instances where they were actually old videos or
for somewhere else entirely, but even when they are actually
from Gaza in the present day, they prove nothing, and
as zed Jalani writes, they come straight out of the
playbook of Holocaust denial, drawing the parallel zed rights of

(38:23):
the way a few restaurants in the Warso Ghetto were
used to claim that Jews were not only just fine,
but they were actually gluttonous.

Speaker 6 (38:30):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
The Nazis didn't have access to social media, but they
did have cameras. They used these restaurants in the ghetto
to portray an image of Jews getting fat off of
plentiful food, ignoring the mass hunger and violence that gripped
ordinary life in the ghetto. The following is the recollection
from Samuel Peterman, who was there. The guests were supposed
to eat a lot voraciously and wash down the food

(38:51):
with alcohol.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
He said.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
They were filming waiters bustling around the tables laden with
trays on which gourmet delicacies were piled up. They photographed
the general view of the crowded rooms, single ladies who
were ordered to lift up their dresses high, Jews eating
sardines from the can with their fingers, Jews playing under
the table with the bare calves of the female companions
of the libation. Jews throwing half eaten goose quarters under

(39:13):
the table. The film reel did not show fainting women
and the black and blue faces of people hit with
a whip. Jacobi and his elk are pulling the same
detestable trick, showing a few decadent looking scenes and claiming
this is remotely representative, daring you to disbelieve the doctors,
the experts, Palestinians themselves and what you can see with

(39:36):
your own eyes, on your own timeline every single day.
Haretz did a virtual tour recently of Gaza hospitals, and
they found exactly the horrific conditions you would expect among
the trapped, starved, bombed population. Child after child with bones
jutting out, abdomens, distended, full body rashes from the diarrhea

(39:59):
caused by malnutrition and poor sanitation. There's little Amar, an
infant whose hair was faded to a reddish brown, whose
mom was too starved to breastfeed and too poor to
purchase the one hundred dollars per tin formula, so she
fed him all that she had corn starch in water.
Doctor say, if he survives, his brain will be permanently

(40:19):
damaged and he will suffer life long, severe retardation. There's Sham,
a tiny two year old weighing less than ten pounds.
She was a healthy child just before October seventh. Now
her body is wasted, her face is that of an
old man. Her family too, could find no milk substitute
for her. The doctor caring for Sham said, quote, as

(40:42):
you can see, she's in a miserable situation. She's always crying,
she's always suffering. Tell me they aren't real, you sick freaks,
you disgusting monsters. Tell me I'm an anti semi for
believing that their lives matter too. Your lives, you're gas lighting.
Your number games are so paper thin. I can't imagine

(41:03):
you even find them convincing yourselves. I hope that these
babies whose lives you've stolen haunt you for the rest
of your days. You are utterly disgusting and a disgrace
to humanity, Sager. I have lost words to describe how
despicable I find this game that they're playing.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
I hate that I had to spend And if.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
You want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become
a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Very excited
now to be joined by Shahed Garashi is a former
State Department employee who was summarily fired recently. Let's go
and put this up there on the screen. Fired this
official over internal debates over Israel. Gharaishi recommended expressing condolences

(41:51):
for slain journalists in Gaza and exposing the forced displacement
of Palestinians, According to documents reviewed. He was then fired
days later or so, Shi, thank you so much for
joining us on the show.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
We appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (42:03):
Glad to be here.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
All right, So let's start off with the top. You're
recently fired from the State Department. The State Department says
that they won't comment, but they're basically accusing you of leaking.
It appears that a lot of this comes down to
internal debates over Israel. First and foremost was about this
journalist statement. So why don't you describe this statement what
it was and why do you think got it what
it got you fired?

Speaker 6 (42:23):
Sure?

Speaker 8 (42:23):
So Sunday, August tenth, we got the breaking news that
on Us and his colleagues were killed in Gaza while
sleeping in a tent. It's very common when you're in
a press officer to receive one off questions from reporters.

Speaker 6 (42:36):
So we got on submitted is what's the response? The
general open ended?

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Somebody like me is like, hey, what's the departmentere Governments
really exactly?

Speaker 8 (42:43):
And when you're reading an article, you will often read
a State Department spokesperson said X. That's usual, just us
emailing one of the press office, emailing the off ed
or the journalist, and so in that specific instance, I drafted,
we're still gathering information. It's still true, like it just broke.
And my second bullet was we are sharing condunces, which
is I think a human and response is also in

(43:07):
line with us interests, like we do want to have
that line out there. And immediately I was told that
we don't know what happened and we don't know what
he did, so to pause. And then by tomorrow, by
the next day, August eleventh, which was a Monday, Israel
said that he was Hamas and then that was the
line we ended up going with by the press briefing.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Okay, and so that how did that lead to your firing?

Speaker 6 (43:26):
I think this is the first right.

Speaker 8 (43:27):
I think it was a build up, So it was
that was the Sunday Monday, I drafted a line saying
we were against forced displacement of Gazans to South Sudan.
They cut that line out and I think that was
some sort of flag for them as well. And then
by day three, I think the nail in the coffin
was me removing the line in reference to Judaan's Maria

(43:48):
in my press guidance that was not in line with
anything in State department had been saying at the time,
but it's something that the senior officials at MBACY Jerusalem wanted.
So at that point it was I was flagged up
and by Sunday I was gone.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Which senior officials and what is your did they directly
sort of confront you about these about you, you know,
expressing condolences for journalists and saying, okay, it's the West Bank,
not ju Day and Sabaria.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
By the way, what is your?

Speaker 2 (44:16):
How did you gain the understanding that those are the
reasons why they let you go?

Speaker 8 (44:19):
Sure, so some of it's obviously the Washing Post reporting,
but from my end, it was David Milstein that was
often pushing a particular agenda in the building and.

Speaker 4 (44:28):
This is hucks senior advisor, okay.

Speaker 6 (44:31):
And he would often.

Speaker 8 (44:34):
Ask for certain lines or certain statements, I know, the
Washing Post reported on the island statement, and he would
go around the building try to get this through, and
it was in a more basic level, was very annoying
to like navigate his his requests in that particular instance
with the Judaan's Mary line, that's not a line a
bass Huckabee is using it. But it wasn't common for

(44:54):
anyone in DC to use.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
It explain why what does that matter to Samara versus
West Bank and Gosa.

Speaker 8 (45:00):
Because that was as a rature for the Palacitians living
in the West Bank, and it also really undermines our
relationship with our partners in the region. And also the
third it's for an Israeli audience, So it makes sense
for Master Huck we do want to use those terms. Sure,
And at that point I wasn't the only one in
the ability that wanted that removed, and so I went

(45:22):
in cut that line, the line we had been using
for the West Bank, which was, you know, a very
general response. It was like, we support stability in the
West Bank, which protects is really security, and saying we
support stability in the West Bank could be perceived with
someone who is a pro Israel hardliner as like, somehow
maybe if you're in that mindset condemning Israel because like, oh,

(45:44):
you're sitting up, we're not, We're making.

Speaker 6 (45:45):
Unstable by doing these things.

Speaker 8 (45:46):
I think that's how it's perceived, even though I think
it's a very standard, kind of simple line. And by
the next day, Wednesday, I was asked by people in
the spokesperson's office that who draft who tried to draft
that line, and they wanted to connect with millstein to
discuss it around me. So if they're having discussions with
Millsteine on Wednesday, and those three events happened in a row,

(46:11):
and then on Thursday and Friday, which was my last,
happened to me the last two days, I didn't know.
It was odd. The question I was receiving from senior
number of people in leadership in NEA twice once Thursday
and again Friday morning was where did that lineup Monday
come from? About force displacement? I was like that line
on Monday, I was like, four days ago, Why are

(46:33):
people asking about it four days later? And I was
asked to compile like an entire history of where like
the evidence of how I cleared it? And I was like,
I have evidence of clearing this, and Special Envoy Wikoff
and President Trump technically said something similar in the spring.
So I'm very in line with what the administration had
been saying. But that seemed to be the excuse at
that point.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Can you explain what is your understanding of what the
administration's policy is viz a vi Gaza.

Speaker 8 (47:00):
Well, that's it's a good question, because I'm moving forward
with my firing, I think it's going to become even
more radical, which is I know, shocking, but I think
the language is going to lean into terms like Judae
and Samaria or are maybe more passive on these force
displacement I think cleansing rumors that are coming through. So
that's my concern moving forward now. In the past, on

(47:24):
West Bank or Tuesday Solution, we only have a straight response.
It was always hey, what's the review on Tuesday solution?
And it would be something like President Trump understands how
I don't.

Speaker 6 (47:35):
I can't.

Speaker 8 (47:35):
I want to use the right word, but it was
just something like, it's messy, so we're not there right now.
We need things, we need to release hostages and get
a right thing settled.

Speaker 4 (47:45):
So basically a deflection, a deflection.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah, okay, so now that you have been fired, you
can speak freely.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
How long have you worked at Day?

Speaker 8 (47:52):
How long we were to say, September twenty twenty four
was when I started. Okay, I started as the this
is not what I was technically hired for, but because
of capacity shoes, I ended up covering Lebanon, Jordan Press
right off the bat, which was a very quick start
because Lebanon was very hot at the time.

Speaker 6 (48:07):
Got it.

Speaker 8 (48:07):
And then then in January I was officially asked to
cover Israel pastine affairs, which was odd. As a contractor
I had just started. You don't typically put that person
covering that.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
Because it's very sensitive, so for your own person.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
So basically what i'd heard is, oh, he's a Democrat,
of course you fired him.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah, So what's your response to that?

Speaker 8 (48:22):
That's not true because day to day, if I was
an activist in the building, even the quote that Tommy
used the Washington Post piece that I was some activist,
I would have been fired much quicker. If this to
be short, like if I was going in fighting in
every single line, that would have hit up really quick
red flags.

Speaker 6 (48:40):
I did. There were flags I did make.

Speaker 8 (48:42):
I would go up to leadership and be like hey,
like on the podium because I'm only controlling press lands,
I have no influence or policy. I'm just gutrolling language, right,
So give me an example of like the yeah, like
what something you would flag?

Speaker 6 (48:53):
I was thinking about.

Speaker 8 (48:53):
Flag on the day to day lines. It was difficult
because I'm going through a clearance process. But I would
look back, I would look at the guidance, and I'd
be like, this is pretty hard line, and I would
briefit like I was doing my job. At the same time,
I would go behind the scenes and be like, hey,
these lines are at the very least they're not very empathetic,
Like when we're discussing fame in a month ago. I
was worried that the language was just like you can

(49:15):
if you want to do a hard line language of
the podium, you can acknowledge that you're seeing horrific photos
before you make your argument. But that was even happening.
So I was like, we on the strategic level, there's
a moral imperative, but on a strategic level, it just
it looks parable at the podium.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Let's talk a little bit more about that moral imperative.
We can put this next element up on the screen.
I suspect you probably have seen this news this morning.
This is just horrific video of these are a combination
of journalists in medical work, personnel, and people who are
there trying to rescue people who are on the scene.

(49:56):
This is a double tap strike. There's been a document
history of the idf using these double tap strikes, not
only to kill whoever they originally wanted to kill, but
then to kill any rescuers who are coming to the scene,
something that's been reported out you obviously part of what
got you in trouble was just the very basic, Hey,

(50:18):
we express condolences for these journalists who were killed, and
we know there have been hundreds of journalists who have
been killed in the context of you know, of the
Israelis targeting them inside of Gaza. How is a professional
Did you grapple with your own, you know, sort of
moral standing on this topic. And I don't say this
puts you on the spot. I'm just genuinely curious, like

(50:39):
day to day as someone who's trying to go in
there and do the best you can and figure out, Okay,
what is theration saying and what is our line for journalists?
How are you absorbing those images and how are you
thinking about your own sort of role in this capability.

Speaker 6 (50:55):
It's a very good question.

Speaker 8 (50:56):
And in terms of like the personal views, they're they're
not wrong and said show it as often a day
to day when I was doing my job, So it
was it was an issue and it was something that
like particular colleagues, we would discuss because I wasn't the
only one because it could be the Israel file, but
it could be another one too throughout the building. So
there was there was two I think response to that one,

(51:17):
like I said to the last thing, was I was
like flagged with people in leadership that I would trust
that certain try to make small changes. I do think
those small chaines do matter, not just because you're an
activist in the building, but because it's in line with
us interest Because you can just be outside protesting, but
you're not. You're just outside, right, So I think that's
that's important to have that balance. And then two, this

(51:40):
is a very more strategic response that I stepped back
and looked at President Trump's words, and if you look,
we started with a ceasefire in that context and in
the region, we were talking with the Iranians for example.
So I had on a macro level some hopes that
even though these lines are difficult right now, in this moment,

(52:03):
there could be a chance that something could come about.
But it was getting worse, not better by the summer,
because by June we're bombing Iran and now the EMBc
Jerusalem really took over the pushback that I did see
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Let's talk about that because that's what I'm curious about.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
There has been a flipping right in the initial policy
from ceasefire, talking with the Iranians, rocking with Putin to
now it's like the opposite. So you talk about there
are the embassy in Jerusalem, what was your observation having
seen that from the inside, how did we go from
Steve Wikoff constantly going to Doha and talking about ceasefires
or meeting with the Iranians, so then using that is

(52:41):
cover to bomb them and then also for basically allowing
my Kakabi to have carte blanche over the Israel policy.

Speaker 6 (52:48):
That's good question.

Speaker 8 (52:49):
So on the White House level, I can't say, because
President Trump I don't know what phone calls he's having
day to day that like that's shifting his direction. But
on my end, what I'm noticing is people were I
remember people when when President Trump was elected inaugurated, people
are happy that the Pompeo's and the Boltons and Nikki
Hayley's were God all true, they are all positivelopments. And

(53:10):
then you would see, you know, Elon was talking to
the certain like the Iranians at one end, and so
they were these small and the Wikcough wanted to make
deals when to end the war in Ukraine, want to
end the war in Gaza, wanted to make a deal
with Iranians. So I do think that the personnel is
still an issue, Like people are glad that John Bolton

(53:31):
might not be there, but having Secretary Rubio and Hukkabi
is kind of the same thing, but a more sneaky level, right,
you know, it's not as in your face as Bolden,
but Secretar Rubo does kind of mirror some of President
Trump's language, like he wants peace, he wants to end wars,
but you look at his team, it's all like a
number of Heritage Foundation guys. Now you can say it's

(53:52):
this prerogative, of course, it's present Trump point. He's gonna
have Heritage Foundation guys on his team, but on foreign
policy that's not in line with what his agenda was
supposed to be. And the same thing goes with a
Bassa Huckaby there. So they're going to say that I
was a political activist. I think they're the political activists
that are undermining what Present Truck claimed to have wanted
and campaigned on.

Speaker 6 (54:12):
Initially got it with.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
Regard to Huckaby, We saw one moment where there was
a little bit of pushback from him on the Israelis
after they had what was it, they had like bombed to.

Speaker 6 (54:23):
Church, right, yeah, was a Christians?

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Yeah yeah, yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
There was some sort of statement that went out, and
then after that he just went back to being, you know,
totally on board with the most extreme versions of the
net Nyahu government from the inside.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
What were the.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Issues that were most difficult for this administration to grapple
with because it seemed like, yeah, when Christians were being
killed and attacked, that was one that was hard for
them to ignore and hard for them just to accept.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
Were there other things like.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
That that you saw that were like, you know a
little bit difficult for them to just totally do the
pro Israel spin on.

Speaker 6 (55:02):
The Christian thing?

Speaker 8 (55:03):
Was the only like Christians being targeted in a by
settlers in the West Bank and the church in Gaza
was the only time I saw some verbal accountability.

Speaker 6 (55:12):
He even had a statement.

Speaker 8 (55:13):
Was like I was shocked at the time that was
like houses of worship must be protected.

Speaker 6 (55:17):
Like don't remember the exact language we brought up mosques.

Speaker 8 (55:20):
I'm like, well, yeah, right, Like there's more you can
say there, So that was the only accountability that I saw.
What was frustrating is that every time there was a
Settler attack that was horrific, or the case with the journalists,
or just your like terrible airstrike that killed X number
of Pala cities in Gaza, it was always defer to Israel.

(55:41):
And so it was like, well, we can defer to
the government Israel to just to explain their air strike.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Well, okay, so then here's the question.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
So did you work on any other countries while you
were on in state, on any other portfolios?

Speaker 6 (55:51):
It was levet On Jordan. I started for a few months,
but that shifted by.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
So based on your observation, is there any country else
in the world that we treat with the same level
of defference?

Speaker 1 (56:03):
No, give me an example from on the inside.

Speaker 8 (56:05):
No. No, So if there were, if someone had an issue,
we would we would like we would always have our
own intelligence or our own commentary on every issue. Now
I can't think of one off the top of my head,
but like in the loved On Jordan case, maybe we
would have a lot of our lines had accountability, like
we would say, again it's a different administration, and again

(56:28):
there are issues there too, obviously, but in terms of
like language, and again I'm working with words, not with policy,
so I'll use that as an example. But there would
be hair strikes against like these Roman ruins and Lebanon,
then they would be like, oh, these sisely easy protected
or journalists must be protected, and we would have those

(56:49):
lines built in very easily.

Speaker 6 (56:50):
It was very like made sense.

Speaker 8 (56:51):
But we're immediately like even in the case with on Us,
the line that our response was like, don't respond, we
don't know what he did. You're already pre emptying that
refer to Israel, like, oh, let's check, you could say.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Before they even came out before us, Yeah, yeah, we
were even.

Speaker 8 (57:05):
Yeah, they're already saying what did he do? And so
it's like, okay, let's say you want you're the government,
you're the US government, you wanted your due diligence. You
don't want to go out, you don't have to respond
right away. You're not tweeting your policy. If you want
to say, hey, let's get forty eight hours, we'll check
our sources, and then on Tuesday and the daily Press briefing,
then we'll give condolences that I would understand, but they

(57:26):
weren't even doing that. It was like he probably did something,
you know, and then the next day is what comes
out with those So.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
It was just total difference, the total difference.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
We witnessed some of this publicly in the context of
the decision to join Israel in striking Iran. Tulci Gabbard
famously testifie, hey, you know, we don't see any indication
they're pursuing a nuclear weapon. Then the justification given by
the Trump administration was actually reliant on Israeli intelligence versus

(57:54):
our own intel assessment. Were you witnessed to any of
that and how that played out internally?

Speaker 8 (58:01):
Right, Well, it went from third people like I mean,
I'm not I wasn't working on that file per se,
but obviously you have your colleagues are building you talk
people are working on it, uh and whatnot. And what
I would hear is that from it went from certain
people being like we're close with the next steps were
of the negotiations, to all of a sudden like, oh well,

(58:24):
even if certain people we are closer to the administration,
we're like, oh well, Iran didn't respond to are the deal?
We had a table that was like like two weeks
ago those same people might have said like, oh, we
might get a deal done, so it was quick to follow.
It's it's a very like on a more macro level,
it's more like a mega thing, right you kind of
like you're there with them when it's the talk, shopping,
there with them when the.

Speaker 6 (58:46):
Bombs are dropping.

Speaker 8 (58:47):
So but on the on the level of the intelligence
and on Tulsi just something on a personal front that
was ridiculous because she because they were automatic through undermining
her own words from the I think was a congressional discussion.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
So yeah, just months, Yeah, were there people so we
talked about like some of the problems and Hucky effectively
taking over a lot of policy visa the Israel. Were
there people who you worked with or who you know,
interacted with who were really trying to take a different approach,
who were upset about the you know, using diplomacy with
Iran is basically cover to allow Israel to bomb them.

(59:22):
Who were you know, looking to acknowledge journalists shouldn't be
murdered during a war. Were there people who were looking
for that different approach and who were committed to it
and you know sort of fighting that fight on the inside.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (59:34):
In general, I think the like the political points do
have the lead, so it's difficult to make those changes.
But when you're when you have influence understanding, you're on
a mid level you can be as a press officer,
you can have those discussions. There are people that like, yeah,
we're political point is that you have sit down discussion
with and be like, hey, this isn't right. And there
were actually people that were easier to talk to than others. Right,

(59:56):
you knew who to talk to, Like it was it
was a bit of a typewrope constantly of like okay,
like even saying this with this person might be what
it might be a flag, But with this person, I
can have this discussion and it was sometimes it was
it could have been effective. And I think those small changes.
I know people on the outside might be like like
why were you there or whatever, but those small changes
do make a difference because then someone says something about hey,

(01:00:18):
this airtrake was wrong or we have provided condolencence. That
leads to then journalists being able to provide accountablity because
it's say, hey you said X. Then when if you
go full hard line, then that's your policy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
So is that your assessment now with your firing. That's
where you think things.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
I mean, it's already kind of was the policy, but
you just think it'll be even more mad.

Speaker 8 (01:00:36):
Yeah, like if it is, so if if my replacement
or whoever goes in front of me, who knows. I'm
not sure what's going to happen. I think they realize that,
like it's gonna be a political points here what I'm
not sure, but no one's going to want to push
back after what happened to me. That wasn't someone who

(01:00:56):
was a random press officer like I was pretty well established.
I was the guy I not only was I was
doing the longest briefings I my colleagues in the room.
I had to do a full, like twenty minute briefing
with a spokesperson, where someone else might be on shorter.
I was also the person who was be on social level,
organized in the happy hours with just internally or with reporters.
I was like in a position of I felt very

(01:01:17):
secure and I was close with a lot of colleagues,
and so to go from that and firing me very quickly,
I think it sends like a chilling effect through the
building and an nea of toe the line and now
what's the spokeserson's going to do. They're going to listen
to the next press officer or are they going to
call the David Milsteins of the world or him specifically

(01:01:39):
before he goes to the podium to make sure he's
covered right?

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
And do you think that was part of the intent
and firing you was to send that chill?

Speaker 6 (01:01:46):
Oh? I do, Yeah, I did one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Well, Jod, we appreciate you joining us. Man's a lot
of insight. I think the audience will find it very insightful.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
Yeah, I certainly did.

Speaker 6 (01:01:53):
Thank thank you for having me appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Thanks so much for watching, guys. You appreciate it. See
you tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Batt