909: FBI Raids Home of John Bolton

Also, Kilmer Abrego Garcia is freed, Trump teases war in Latin America, Israeli media reports 83% of Gazans killed were civilians and activists challenged AIPAC Democrat Wesley Bell

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hell everyone, My name is Spencer Walsh. Welcome to today's show.
We have a good episode of Newslash for you. As
always on the show, today some big news. Trump critic
and former Trump National security advisor John Bolton had his
home rated by the FBI this morning. Caused a lot
of consternation in Washington, DC and a lot of mixed

(00:31):
feelings for me. I'll tell you what those are and
how we can process this investigation along with all the
other ones Trump is doing against his political opponents moving forward. Also,
we are taking a look at some real disturbing signs
that Trump may be planning to launch drone strikes, are
even boots on the ground operations in places like Mexico

(00:55):
and or Venezuela against Nicholas Maduro, all in the name
of fighting drug trafficking. And that's how we may get
into the next regime change war. Good news, Kilmar Abregio
Garcia is headed home to his family after being wrongfully
deported and held in both the US and El Salvador
in custody for months by the Trump administration. New information

(01:19):
from the Israeli government's own Datus is that eighty three
percent of those killed in Gaza are civilians, that's right, civilians,
not militant fighters. Not too much of surprise there, but
will tell you what the reaction to that is and
why those numbers are probably in reality a whole lot worse. Also,

(01:42):
the Democratic Party reckoning on their support for Israel continues
of pace. Wesley Bell twelve million dollars from a pack
in his last election, yelled at by his own constituents
in a big way during his most recent town hall.
We have a lot of stuff to get into. All
the clips from today's show will be on YouTube by

(02:04):
the end of Friday, so go check out the Spencewash
YouTube channel for a fun visual take on your favorite
news flash podcast. And without further do, let's get started.
So there was a lot of consternation in Washington when
this morning one of Trump's biggest critics the former National
Security advisor John Bolton, who Trump's formatational security advisor John Bolton.

(02:28):
Of course, so many of Trump's critics were his former employees.
H John Bolton had his home rated by the FBI
this morning under allegations that he mishandled classified documents. So
here is some of the footage about it. They're going
in roaming through and you know, this clearly is a

(02:49):
political weaponsation thing because you know, just like with the
Letitia James situation, just like with the situation where there's
doing a director at the FED because you apparently did
mortgage fraud. And this comes just as of course, Trump
is really pissed at the FED for not lowering interest
rates like he wants them to do. This is pretty

(03:10):
clearly a case of political weaposation of the FBI, which
funnily enough, was the exact same thing Trump claimed about
complained about when he was out of office and they
raided marl Lago because he misused classified documents. But whatever, No,
I don't know about it. I saw it on television
this morning. I'm not a fan of John Bull. He's
a real, uh, sort of a low life. And what

(03:35):
Trump had to say about the raid wearing a hat
that said in big capital letters, Trump was right about everything.
Like it's just it's you don't even know whether to
laugh or cry at this point. But when it comes
to when it comes to John Bolton, you know, the
things compared to the other kind of political weaponizations in
terms of the penalties that are behind the charges that

(03:55):
John Bolton's facing here are a lot less than you know,
for example, violating Trump's civil rights like he accused Leticia
James of doing for when she did her job by
suing him as a private citizen, for being incredibly corrupt
when it comes to the misuse of the charities, or
this Fed governor who I just talked about, who is
he's mad at for outlawering the interest rates, so she

(04:16):
gets a mortgage fraud case that she now has deal with.
Those two charges are much worse than the mishandling of
classified documents. And John Bolton really is a psychopath who
supported every bad war, every US foreign policy mis adventure,
who just believes that in America should be war everywhere
with everyone at all times as much as possible. He
really is a psychopath. So you should be under investigation

(04:39):
for many more severe things than mishandling classified documents. So
it's going to be interesting to see how, you know,
what charges these carry and how how much they are
actively pursued by the Trump adminstration. But to be clear,
you know, this is absolutely case of Donald Trump trying
to weaponize the federal government against his critics, and it

(05:00):
really does set up you know, a very dangerous situation
because now we've seen Democrats, as they get willing to
fight fire with fire, they're gonna turn this back against
their Republicans, and then there's gonna be a cycle back
and forth where we can't just let one party who's
Democratic elected carry out their vision with the people they

(05:20):
want to carry out their vision. I think that sets
up a very very dangerous precedent. And yeah, sure, it's like,
if you want, it really pays me to defend j
On Bolton. He's so so much because he's such a
pro war psychopath. But if you want to arrest him,
I guess this is the line Will said, Alan, if
you want to arrest him, arrest him for you know,
supporting Iraq war, Supporting you know, war with North Korea,

(05:42):
supporting all these crazy wars that would be devastating to
the US, and actually doing a lot to carry them out.
I think probably the Iraq war would be the biggest,
you know, thing that he the most of allment with
in his career. But you know, he played a big
role in stymying Trump's negotiations with Kim John Owen because
he just didn't approve of them. So he really has
done some some messed up things in his time, So

(06:04):
the FBI agents on Friday again spent hours searching that
home and office. Awader for Bolton did not respond to
a request for comment. There, you know again, in terms
of the he is definitely a frequent critic. And I
guess the real question is when it comes to going
after John Bolton, is not that, Oh no, you went
after John Bolton? And then again, as I said, there's

(06:26):
much worse things that you should be going after him for.
But the question is again, who's next? What do the
Republicans do? Are is any you know senator now that
comes after Trump or this says a bad thing about Trump?
You know? Is Chuck Schumer gonna be facing some sort
of investigation that just pops up out of nowhere by
the opposition party? Like this is the stuff that we
see in places that have no democracy, like this really is,

(06:50):
and really a great example of it is Turkey, where
they just launched a spirit airedwan. The president there just
launched a spurious investigation against the main opposition candidate. He
took away his university diploma so he couldn't run for
president against him. And now no one says anything because
you know, he's just got too much power, He's got
too much capture over all of Turkey's institutions. And that's

(07:13):
what if you look at the courts, if you look
at all these other institutions, and you know, the American cities,
now that he's deploying the National Guard to and things
like that, he is pushing for a lot of that
very same control. You know, we have Brandon Johnson here
responding to the President as he just deployed the National
Guard to Chicago, calling it unlawful and unsustainable. And apparently

(07:37):
the Bolton investigation here is linked to intelligence collected overseas,
which is very interesting. John Ratcliffe, the CI director, provided
cash FBI director with limited access to the intelligence involved
the mishandling of classified material by Bolton. The people said, so,
you know, he definitely raises a lot of questions and

(07:58):
is in all likelihoods some sort of a political attack,
But it was also very possibly could be handling mishandling
classified information. But it's also very possible on the other
hand that a lot of people in government mishandl classifide
information and they only get really charged for it if
there's someone else in government that wants to see them
go down. So yeah, I think there's a lot of
things that can be true at the same time. Here,

(08:18):
you know, Bolton is obviously a sociopath, psychopath, whatever, who
should be arrested for a bunch of other things. A
lot of people in government do get wrung up on
classified information and misused classified information. But it's really only
a thing that you get get gone after for if
you're on the wrong side of whoever's in charge and
they want to, you know, kind of take you down,
just like what it was with Trump and just like
it was with Hillary Clinton back in the day. And

(08:42):
then it's also true that you know, we see him
with the Letitia James case, the Fed Governorshi case, and
in this case, and then you also have the Pentagon
firing the Defense Intelligence Agency chief just now. The move
comes after weeks after the agency drafted a preliminary report
that can contradicted President Trump's contention the US had obliterated
quote unquote nuclear strikes and Iran. You also see that

(09:04):
he is using the government to attack his critics. You know,
where the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief you're talking about
firing the FED chair Drome Powell. You know, the people
who don't exactly produce what Trump wants to be produced are,
I think it's fair to say, are at risk here.
You know, whether it be in the economy, whether it
be in the security state, whatever, you could very well

(09:28):
be under some sort of legal threat or you could
lose your job if you are not following the Trump
administration line, which is a very disturbing place to be
as a country. And you know, as much as we
saw the corruption and the awfulness of you know, for example,
the Bush administration or even the first Rum administration, you
did not see this level of cold blooded lust for

(09:52):
authoritarianism that we see here today with these moves. You know,
this comes as you know, We've got all these different
examples of people being on the chopping block because they
decided to criticize Trump. And it is a very very
dangerous situation that we really have to keep monitoring. And

(10:14):
I think the most interesting thing about it is the
way you do it is you go after the weakest people,
the people that, yeah, I don't really care about this guy.
First they came for John Bolton. I said nothing because
I thought John Bolton was a psychopath. But then for
then they came from for example, you know, Zora Mamdani.
If he gets in there and Trump tries to do
some sort of legal case, sperious legal case against him,

(10:36):
it sets a very very slippery slope, and it's something
that we should all be very careful about because it
could be misused and maybe even abused by you know,
people that we want. Good politicians couldn't abuse it, but
it sets us down a very slippery slope that makes
our politics that much more dysfunctional than it already is.

(10:58):
So definitely something we should be keeping an eye on,
for sure. I want to talk about one of the
biggest developments of this week that really nobody is giving
any time to whatsoever. For some reason, Donald Trump is
planning for more war, this time in Venezuela and potentially
other places in Central America. Let's take a look at

(11:20):
this clip here from the White House Press briefing that
really caught a lot of eyebrows, including mine. Welcome, Emily,
Thanks Erlyn.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
I wanted to ask about the three DUS war ships
that are being sent to Venezuela and there's four thousand
marines on war.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Are you looking at postility of boots on the ground there?
What I will say with respect to Venezuela, President Trump
has been very clear and consistent. He's prepared to use
every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding
into our country and to bring those responsible to justice.
The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela.
It is a narco terror cartel in Maduro. It is

(11:57):
the view of this administration is not a legitimnt president.
He has a fugitive head of this cartel who has
been indicted in the United States for drafficking drugs into
the country. And with that, I will leave you all
and we will see you later, if not tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah. So she's out there after essentially not ruling out
troops on the ground, US boots on the ground when
it comes to Venezuela. She says, the President is prepared
to use every element of American power to stop drugs
from flooding into our country. So it's very interesting there
and it is to take a look at this and
really how it all started. I encourage you to go

(12:32):
check out my substack newsletter Vantages dot substack dot com,
where I delved into this topic this week, as I
do every Wednesday. With a major foreign policy topic. That's
again vantages dot substack dot com. But anyway, with the
self promotion essentially this yeh again here as he's preparing
to potentially devote you as military resources to Ukraine and

(12:53):
you have China going on, and you've got Israel, he
is now looking to extend more American militiy or influenced
trump Is to Latin America. And it all kind of
started with a long history of comments from Trump on
the campaign trail essentially saying and this was even held
by Republican primary debate attendees where even when he was

(13:14):
on the stage, all the other people Ron DeSantis, vivek Ramosuanami,
they all applauded, Oh, let's go in and go bomb
Mexico to stop the cartels. And that's something that as
we talked about here on this show I think a
few shows ago, Claudia Scheinbaum was absolutely one again. She
was like, no way we are. We're doing our own thing.
This is our own sovereignty. We get to decide what

(13:36):
the hell we want to do. So still four thousand
troops going to the Caribbean now on multiple warships with
the ostensible aim of tackling the cartels, so they could
do that in several ways. One of them really two ways,
and this is the two ways that it looks like
it may manifest. You either try and drone strike cartel

(14:00):
leaders and cartel targets. In these kind of assassination programs,
try and knock off the leadership of the cartel, which
is called the kingpin strategy and which has been tried
by the way in Mexico before during the era of
Felipe Calderone from twenty six twenty twelve, where US surveillance
flights provided intel on cartel kingpins, which US trained Mexican

(14:21):
special forces then acted on. Any future drone strikes would
likely follow this same targeted assassination strategy, hoping to disrupt
cartel operations by taking out top leaders, while of course
you know you had US law enforcement saying real victory
was just around the corner. When the program was stopped.
The program was stopped because it really did not work.

(14:42):
Multiple studies found that the strategy led to increased competition
within Gartel's fragmentation and violence and power vacuums created from
assassinations of regional and local leaders also increased extortion and
kidnappings coming back to fighte the very same communities the
assassination supposed to help. So these campaigns, they just created

(15:02):
a lot of chaos. When the strategy was tried back then,
of course it was done though with the complete support
of the Mexican government, which now won't even work. Claudia
Scheinbaum said at the time, we reject any form of
intervention or interference. Has been very clear Mexico coordinates and collaborates,
but does not subordinate itself. There will be no interference,

(15:22):
And she says what truly works is ongoing attention to
root causes arrest, driven by intelligence, investigation, coordination, and zero
tolerance for impunity. We cate categorically reject any such actions
and we don't believe they will happen. So she's essentially saying,
no way are US troops or US drones entering our
Mexican sovereign airspace. Yeah, it really would be an incredible

(15:46):
breach of soomnty no matter where these strikes happen, that
would delegitimize the country's government. And you know all this,
even if the strategy were to be tried, you know,
beyond the assass stations, even you tried to attack really
drug l life. The experts say that this wouldn't really
work that well because there aren't that many real big
drug labs or you know, smuggling factories or anything like

(16:08):
that you can take out. Mostly it's some guy in
the middle of the woods mixing all the chemicals you
need to make ventyl or something like that in a
bathtub with a stick or a shovel. So that's very,
very hard. It's going to be the agile operation. It
could rebound easily, go to different places. It's hard to
take out with a drone campaign, especially a drone campaign
that would piss off the government of the country that

(16:31):
you're trying to operate in and most likely a good
chunk of the citizens within that same country. So it
is a very very dumb idea. It's also a very
wrong idea, so in violation of international it's not the
best way to tackle the cartels. And it's also really
damaging to say, oh, this is how we tackle the
cartels when you leave them to thrive or exist in

(16:51):
other ways and completely ignore very accepted, you know, reasonable ways,
serious ways to actually reduce the influence of the cartels,
because you know they smuggle this in with American citizens
through legal ports of entry. That is how you can
also really cut down on this kind of stuff. It's
you know, it's really going to make it quite easy

(17:13):
for the cartels to rebound from many strikes when civilians
Latin American governments will be the ones really screwed over
with the bombing. And if you talk about a regime
change war in Venezuela, which the thinking kind of goes is,
Trump has this general appetite to strike against these drug dealers.

(17:33):
But Marco Rubio, who's the Secretary of State, who doesn't
really have too much else to do right now, is
a South Floridian Cuban who's a long history of you know,
being against these Latin American communist regimes. He's saying, how
about we take Trump's appetite to bomb these drug dealers
and say, you know who's a big drug dealer, Nicholas Maduro,
the communist in Venezuela. Let's go take him out with

(17:53):
American military force and with boots on the ground. And
as you could see, Caroline Levitt and Donald Trump at
the White House seem pretty open to this idea because
you know, they've taken this this whole you know, violent
appetite to get drug dealers as much as possible, even
if it's not a very effective way of going about it,
to regime change in Venezuela and Nicholas Maduro, which would

(18:15):
be even more disastrous. Yeah, any risk would have to
be or any action would have to be done with
a clear and popular domestic opposition, or risk facilitating a
Venezuelan rally around the flag effect all law aroan as
I say in the piece after the US ve Israeli
strikes in June, and as now, that opposition definitely does
not exist in Venezuela. Jones strikes without a popular domestic

(18:38):
opposition to seize the moment would almost certainly backfire. But
any boots on the ground in support of rebels, which
again as we saw Press Secretary Caroline Levitt refuses to
rule out, could go even worse. The arrest warrant which
was put out a few months ago by fifty or
fifty million dollars for the capture of Nicholas Maduro that
was put out by US leaders was last off by Caracas.

(19:01):
But now they are saying the worship deployment prompted this
four thousand troops in the Warship's deployment prompted Caracas to
mobiliz roughly four point five million militia members. So that's
going to be a tough thing for US troops and
any sort of rebels that they may support on the
ground to actually go in and defeat. So, even if

(19:23):
American military involvement is limited, Trump and Rubio risk at
best in boldening the regime they set out to destroy,
and a worse, creating a years long We're on terro
style slog with devastating consequences for Venezuelan civilians, America troops,
and the stability of the entire region. Besides sweeping US sanctions,
how block Venezuelans from accessing over five point five billion

(19:43):
dollars in their own assets, which many experts say has
led to food and medicine shortages, as well as, ironically
a refugee crisis, which Trump is currently railing against when
it comes to, you know, the migrants coming over our
borders from Venezuela and all these other places. Without would
military action a complete, by the way, confirmation of Maduro's

(20:04):
propaganda about American imperialism or what's coming to get me
you know, you essentially be approving them right with that.
Would that really do the trick though, to really make
people turn against the regime? Not likelihood, no, but it
would just like the cartail strikes because an immense amount
of suffering and chaos for Venezuelan's that probably would bring
them closer to their government anyway. So bottom line is,

(20:25):
with both of these two strategies, whatever Trump's plan for
the region ends up being, it's a not going to
solve the problem, and b cause a bunch of terror,
suffering and chaos and just political destabilization for the entire
Latin American region. So this is something that I think
is really really important to highlight here as these plans develop,

(20:46):
and especially with us of our military in this region
here in Latin America. So definitely something we'll keep following.
A new slash huge news today as Kilmar Abrego Garcia,
one of the first people to be wrongfully deported by
the Troadministration, sent to that awful Seacot prison in El
Salvador and then eventually brought back to the United States

(21:08):
for due process, has actually been freed. He has now
released from all custody and he is heading home to
his family in Maryland. It is a very good story,
and here's how it sounded on Fox News. You could
tell I always like to play the Fox News eclips
because you can tell they're not really that happy about it.
Breaking news on this as well.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
We are getting word now that Kilmar.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
Abrigo Garcia has been released from prison.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Let's go right away to Madison's Scarpino.

Speaker 6 (21:34):
She's in Atlanta with all the details. What can you
tell us, Madison?

Speaker 5 (21:37):
Hello, Jillian, Well, this is the first taste of freedom
that Abrigo Garcia is getting after months of legal battles.
He's been in jail in Tennessee for about eleven weeks
since his return to the US from El Salvador, and
we're still waiting on an order from a judge. But
according to our local affiliate in Nashville, his attorney says,

(21:58):
quote today of kill our a Breako Garcia is free.
He is presently in route to his family in Maryland
after being unlawfully arrested and deported and then in prisons,
all because of the government's vindictive attack on a man
who had the courage to fight back against the administrations continuing.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Assault on the rule of law.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
He is grateful that is access to American courts has
provided meaningful due process unquote. So we know that a
private security firm is in charge of taking him home,
but his freedom may be short.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Lived as and yeah, the thing there with that about
the freedom being short lived there that Thoughston was talking
about is because in the process of when people start
to get mad about the fact that it's like, hey,
you should not have deported this guy, and he doesn't
seem like he's a criminal at all. It just seems
like he's a family man in Maryland, they came out
with these allegations with very scant evidence. After trying to

(22:51):
accuse him of essentially the same thing multiple times unsuccessfully,
they now accuse him of federal human smuggling charges that
he's going to need to face in courts in I
believe twenty twenty seven. So that is the main kind
of long and the short of it here abrego. Yeah,
this is the the part here from MPR that kind

(23:14):
of expands on this. US Immigration and Custom Enforcement could
try and detain him upon his return to Maryland, but
a federal judge last month said that should he be
released from detention, ice is not allowed to take him
immediately into custody. Instead, he has to be transferred to
the Balls Baltimore Ice Jurisdiction, and his attorneys must be
given seventy two hours notice prior to his deportation. Abrego

(23:36):
Garcia was deported to El Salvador on March fifteenth. Upon
his return to the US on June sixth, he was
immediately detained on criminal charges. He was in US detention
for over two months, and the government accused him of
transporting migrants with that legal status from Texas to other
parts of the US for years, starting in twenty sixteen.
He pleaded not guilty that on June thirteenth. He's also

(23:57):
been accused of being a member of MS thirteen, which
he also denies. So though we'll see what happens with
those other cases here that the government is essentially trying
to bring against him. But this push, this fight is
really kind of a marked a turning point in the administration,
and I think it showed very interestingly what Democrats could

(24:18):
do if they actually felt confident, believed in what was right,
what they knew was right, and got up there and
fought for it. And we saw in that Fox News
clip they were showing pictures of kimmar meeting with senator
from Maryland Democratic Senator from Maryland Chris van Holland, who
got win of this outcry which originally, of course came

(24:39):
from the Democratic base, the people on the ground who
are most concerned about what Donald Trump is doing, and said, hey,
this guy, he got a no deportation order from a
judge back in twenty nineteen. He was deported anyway, this
is wrong. He's being put in this awful prison. You,
Chris van Holland, should go out there and doing something
about it. He does that and defines the leadership. There's
a huge amount of press sure on the Trump imistration

(25:03):
and the l Salvador in government. Bouquet is the president
there alike, and they put so much pressure on them
even though they say nothing can be done. Somehow he
ends up going back and he is now en route
in Maryland to Maryland to go be with his family.
And you know, again, we'll see what happens with what
Ice is trying to do with these other cases, the

(25:23):
MS thirteen cases and the human smuggling cases, which seem
to have not the best support in terms of the evidence.
So we'll see how that goes and it seems like,
you know, the judges have been ruling in kimar Abrego's
favor ever since he came back from Seacott territory there
in El Salvador. So we'll see what happens. But let

(25:44):
this be a reminder to people that we can fight
as people on the left on issues that don't seem
like they're that popular. You know, Chuck Schumer, Keim Jeffries
about this story, they're just wetting their pants. We can't
defend this guy. It's going to go badly for us.
We credit at absolutely to Chris van Holland, who's also been,
by the way, very good on the issue of Gaza,

(26:04):
who's come out and said, I'm not going to be
determined by this. I'm not going to wait for the
leadership permission. My base is calling me on me to
do this. I think there's something really wrong here. I'm
gonna go actually out and do this. He brought a
lot more legitimacy to it, and then what do you know.
You know, there's a huge dip in approval on Trump
on immigration. You know, it's a big part of why

(26:26):
his administration has lost so much popularity, especially with younger
and Hispanic voters, particularly over the last few months, and
the Kilmar Bego garciav case and the fact that the
Democrats actually fought for it and stood up for it
was a big part in that shift. And also, I
would say a big part in the reason why he's
actually home now is because the Democrats took the moment,

(26:47):
they saw that this was wrong, and instead of waiting
for the public to come to them, they made their
case to the public, and what do you know, the
public agreed. This is here inside the data. For NBC News,
fifty six percent of registered voters approved of Trump's handling
on immigration and a Morning Console poll in February. Other
polls around the same time found similar results. Fifty one
percent in an Economist you gub Pole, fifty four percent

(27:10):
of adults in a late February cbsu gub Pole, and
fifty one percent in a March CNN poll approved of
his performance on immigration. But across all these polls, there's
a clear downward trend in the last few months because
people are losing support for Trump. They're not buying into
his vision on immigration anymore. Ten point drop from March

(27:31):
to July in the CNN poll, forty five percent of
adults said they approved of his handling in a July
Economists yougup pole as if forty one percent in the
late June Quinnipiac Pole. So now you're getting to maybe
ten percent of independence now to just only Republicans really
approving of Trump's job performance, while narrowly half or more
still approved in Trump's handling of the issue in the
most recent Morning Console poll, which again was higher. So

(27:53):
we're seeing five to ten point drops over the last
three months from Trump's on his handling of immigration, which
is really quite significant. Of course, the Republicans have been
pretty good on this as well. But a possible reason
behind Trump's border numbers broader numbers of immigration could lie
in the administration's policies itself. Even when Trump's numbers on

(28:15):
the issues were higher, the harder edge parts of his
immigration policy, the ones the administration has trumpeted in recent
months have always pulled worse than his numbers on the
overall issues and the numbers on the kilmore Obergaeo Garcia
Kiss I'll never forget. They were awful. They were like,
really really bad, and I think that sent a trend
to give a broader perception of Trump as not entirely

(28:36):
connected to the law and criminal justice, which I think
was already kind of there from the start with a
lot of people, but you know, really only reinforced but
also said, Okay, this guy's not really that serious even
on immigration. He's just in it for the show. He's
just trying to you know, go against to take probably
the most worthy people, the most worthy illegal immigrants out

(28:56):
of the society, and not really go specifically after the
criminals like we want to him. We don't trust this
guy anymore on immigration, and we're going to therefore rate
him lower. And yeah, I think bottom line is is
because the Democrats, they didn't wait, the left, the broader
left of center in this country, they didn't wait. They

(29:17):
were confident, they were strong in what they believed that
they knew was wrong, and they made the case to
the American people. And what do you know, Not only
is k Albergo Garcia home with his family in Maryland today,
but Trump's immigration numbers are worse than they've ever been
in his entire second term. So that definitely should be
a lesson to the Democrats and the left more generally,

(29:40):
is you have power to fight for the world you want,
even in the chaos and the evil nature of the
Trump administration. So one thing's pretty not important to remember
for the future. Eighty three percent of all people killed
during Israel's genocidal war on Goza were civilians, according to
israel his own internal military database. That is the big

(30:04):
new report that the Guardian and Local Call, which is
an Israeli outlet, have been working on, and they really
just essentially delve into the idef's own database, and even
then the numbers don't seem entirely proportionate. Here's the introduction
on the BBC and then the journalist talks to the
Guardian report cupped work on the story. Pretty interesting, So

(30:26):
let's take a look.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
The Guardian newspaper and plus nine to seventeen magazines say
that figures from a classified Israeli Defense forces database that
they've been able to see, so that five and six
people killed in Gaza were civilians. Now the figures up
to May of this year, so that eighty three percent
of the people killed in Gaza since the war began
were civilians. It also said that of the fifty three

(30:49):
thousand people killed, eighty nine hundred were what they called
fighters from Hamas and Palestine in Islamic Jihad. Let's speak
now to the Guardians Middle East correspond and Emma Graham Harrison,
who is in Jerusalem for is And Emma, good to
have you here and talk to me first of all
about how you obtain these figures.

Speaker 6 (31:08):
Hi, good evening. Well, these are figures from a classified
military database, so I obviously can't really go into great
detail about how we obtained them, but we're very confident
in our reporting, and I should say this is the
database that military intelligence use for their planning of the war.
You do hear other figures sort of bandied around by
Israeli politicians in generals, but these are the figures internally

(31:30):
that the military is very confident about in terms of
militants who've been killed. So we took those figures of
militants who Israel says it has definitely or probably killed
in internal you know, in this internal database, and we
compared them to the overall casualty figures for Gaza from

(31:51):
the Ministry of Health, which again, although publicly they've been
criticized by Israeli figures, internally, the military the military consider
those figures reliable and use them for their planning, and
in fact we saw.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Really, yeah, so that's the Gaza health. This is a
umption with the media has been calling the Hamas run
Ministry of Health, which the same outlet Local Call in
Israel reported that, oh yeah, despite criticizing them, and despite
getting all the media most importantly to criticize these numbers,
the Hamas run Ministry of Health is actually doing a

(32:25):
pretty damn good job of counting up the numbers. And
really what they're doing is because their methods are so
air tight, like they have to have the ID number,
they have to have the name, they have to have
a positive identification from the family of the person who's
been killed before they put them on this list. That
was back in May was when they were doing this investigation.
It was around fifty three thousand, and then they had

(32:47):
eight thousand, as you saw there on the video, eight
thousand according to the Israeli database of militants that have
been killed. That fifty three thousand numbers that they got
from the Hamas run Ministry of Health, which they you know,
are saying is unreliable, but they really think is reliable,
is an all likelihood a complete gross undercounting of the

(33:09):
situation going on because of the things that I said.
Before they get the ID number from the Israeli issued ID,
they get the name, they get a positive family identification,
they are absolutely sure as to who this person is
before they put them on the list. And think of
how many people under the rubble, how many people who
have not been identified, how many people who have been

(33:29):
vaporized by a bomb that have not been identified. Those people,
if they're not reported, they're just considered missing. You need
a firm identification. So, in all likelihood, that fifty three
thousand number of which they're putting the Israeli eight eight
thousand and eight nine thousand number into to get to
that eighty three percent. Again, these numbers are as a

(33:51):
May of twenty twenty five, are likely completely and totally
inaccurate because a you're looking at the number that Israel
is saying are terrorists, and as we know that they
if you kill a certain militant at a certain point
in a certain area, Israel by law essentially considers them
terrorists because they're in this evacuated zone. And even if

(34:14):
they have a white flag, even if they're not posing
any threat, even if they're completely unarmed, if they're in
this quote unquote red zone evacuated zone of Gaza and
they're killed by is, they're just considered automatically a terrorist,
because that's what they say their policy is, if you're
in this zone past a certain point, you're considered a terrorist.
You'll be shot on site and you'll be counted as
a terrorist. So that is definitely a big part of

(34:37):
the calculation there, and because you know, relying on the
Israeli garment conception of who's a terrorist and who is
not really the best. But again the other side of
it is the other calculation, the total calculation that they're
using to derive the percent of militants killed from is
already incredibly inaccurate because it happened in May, but also
inaccurate because the Palestinian Ministry, the Godza Ministry of Health,

(34:59):
has really done an incredibly conservative job in terms of
actually counting these deaths. And we're talking about six digit
really at the minimum death tolls. In terms of what
we've been seeing on a daily basis with the famine,
with the all sorts of other causes of starvation, all
these air strikes, all these collaps and buildings, all these

(35:20):
unexploded bombs, and the high threshold for entry that the
Godsian Ministry of Health has to get your name put
down in these lists pretty much has led every single
respectable expert who's not directly in the pocket of the
daily government to say that, in all likelihood, the death
count here is quite a bit high. Let's take a

(35:42):
look at how they phrase it here in the nine
to seventy two mag So Yeah figures obtained obviously really
contradicts what they've been saying here. The Azai government has
been saying, which have generally claimed a one to one
to two to one ratio or two to one ratio
of civilian to militant casualty. As you can see here,
it's eighty three percent are civilian casualties, so seventy percent

(36:05):
are militant casualties. Again, this is off of incredibly pro
Israel numbers here for the reasons that I've just explained.
But the Israeli Army confirmed the existence of the database,
which is managed by the Military Intelligence Directorate aka Amman
in Hebrew. Multiple intelligence sources familiar with the database said
the army views it as the only authworitive tally of

(36:26):
casualty figures of militant because there is no other place
to look. According to the data which is obtained at
May of this year, the Israeli Armyblas, they are around
eighty nine hundred operatives killed since October seventh, the deaths
of seven thousand and three, one hundred and thirty of
whom were considered certain and fife five hundred and seventy

(36:47):
were recorded as probably dead. The vast majority of them
were junior, with the army suspecting and killed one hundred
to three hundred senior Hamas operatives. You can see here
the percentage of seventy percent. The black there is the
the militant deasts and the red eighty three percent is
the civilian deaths. Assuming that all of the certain and

(37:07):
problem militant deaths counted in the death toll, it would
mean that eighty three percent of Gaza's dead or civilians.
And then this is if the problem death we counted,
then the proportion were not counted. Excuse me, than the
proportion of civilian deaths rises to more than eighty six percent.
And this is by the way, again on total death
count numbers that are quite lower than pretty much every

(37:29):
other expert agrees that they should be, so it really
is a complete admission. I wouldn't say admission because it's
not the Israeli government covering these numbers. This is another one,
a final, another major nail here in the coffin towards
this idea that you know, this is a in any

(37:49):
way adjust war. This is any way a war that's
been targeting Hamas like you may. And the outer barrier
of a rate of a civilian to fight, or rate
that you would be willing to consider an actual just
ward probably be like fifty to fifty. This this is
eighty three, you know, seventeen here this is ninety ten.
This is a absolute slaughter. And these numbers, by the way,

(38:12):
coming directly from the Israeli government in these best case
scenario and reported by Israeli media. As I said, in
all likelihood, the situation here is going to be a
lot worse, and the numbers are in. The deaths are
really still coming here thick and fast. This is a
report here from the UN I forget the exact name.

(38:35):
It's the Intra Integrated Food Security and Phase Classification Initiative.
They said on Friday that famine was occurring in the
Gaza Government, a region where hundreds of thousands of palactine
thats live in northern Gaza, and that it was erectly
likely to reach the central region of darry Aballa and
communists in southern Gaza by the end of next month.
This is again according to the Global Hunger Monitor, the

(38:56):
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative, saying that on Friday,
here is the UN Chief of Osha, the Undersecretary General
for a Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher,
telling about this, talking about this famine in really strong
and really appropriate terms to the crime and the suffering

(39:18):
that the crime that's been committed, in the suffering that's
happening on a daily basis right now in Gaza.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
It is a famine on all of our watch. Everyone
owns this. The Gaza famine is the world's famine.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
It is a famine that asks, but what did you do?
A famine that will and must haunt us all. Please
read the IPC report cover to cover. Read it in
sorrow and in anger, not as words and numbers, but

(39:55):
as names and lives. In no doubt that this is
irrefutable testimony. It is a famine, the Gaza famine. It
is a famine that we could have prevented if we
had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because

(40:18):
of systematic obstruction by Israel. It is a famine within
a few one hundred meters of food in a fertile land.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
It is a.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Famine in twenty twenty five, a twenty first century famine
watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology
in history.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
It is a.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Famine that must spur the world to more urgent action,
that must shame the world to do better. It is
a famine that therefore also asks and what now will
you do?

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Yeah? So that is Tom Fletcher with some very strong
and very appropriate words there to the nature of the
situation regarding this famine. And we talked to it just
in the first story with the with the death rate
and the famine. Now the the real just soul crushing, tough, tough,
tough thing for anyone to watch and to bear on.

(41:20):
This is it. Everyone knows. Everyone who's taking a serious
look at this situation knows that it's happening, knows who
is doing it, and knows what needs to be done
about it, And there are people, you know, not beyond
just people who are who are sitting in their homes
like you or I, who actually have the power to
do stuff about it, who are not doing anything about it,
and who are gleefully letting happen. You know, like President

(41:42):
Trump saying in the Oval Office today that actually, you know,
it would be good for the hostages to go into
Gaza City and go in and kill everybody there, and
that actually get the hostages back faster. You know, these people,
they have the power to end this stuff tomorrow. They
have the power to end this suffering tomorrow, but they
chose not to do it because of you know, all

(42:03):
sorts of various reasons, whether you're you're you're bought off,
you're captured, or you genuinely believe in the project yourself.
The people with the power know what's going on, and
they know it as well as we do, but they
refuse to stop it. And the people, the people like
Tom Fletcher, the UN the humanitarians who have the ability
to stop it, they have been systematically denied from being

(42:27):
able to stop it, whether it be the air strikes,
whether it be the you know, the war crimes of
the ICT tried to prosecute benjaminett Yahu and his ilk
for or whether it be the aid that Israel is
letting pile up at the borders that everyone knows is
piling up, everyone knows is being blocked by the Israelis,
and nobody has the power to do anything about it.
And this this now comes as Gaza City is being

(42:51):
bombed right now. They've started their bombing of Gaza City
in their broader takeover of the Gaza Strip and their
you know, annexation and think cleansing of the Gadza Strip,
and they're now annihilating one of its most historic neighborhoods.
And I mean is is Yeah the headline there in
Mando weis. And it really is just an absolutely heartbreaking
situation because you think about just the with the genocide,

(43:14):
it's just so something like a gena. It's just so complete,
it's so total. It's just really hard to comprehend the
amount of life that's just been lost and the memories,
the culture, the buildings, that just countless destruction of humanity
on every single possible level that's been going on in
Gaza that we know it has been going on in Gaza,

(43:36):
and our leaders are choosing now systematically to let happen.
Democratic Congressant Wesley Bell of Saint Louis got an earful
from his own constituents at a recent town hall that
he held, and it was all about one issue, which
was Israel and Palestine. This is the headline here from

(43:57):
Saint Louis NPR protesters confront represented Wesley Bel at town
hall about a supportive Israel. That only tells a part
of the story. But the important thing that you also
have to understand with this is Bell's predecessor, Corey Bush,
was actually one of the first people in all of
Congress to actually call out Israel, criticize what they're doing,
say it's war crimes, saints or genocide, and really be

(44:19):
out early, early, early, like a year ago, when it
comes to criticizing Israel and recognizing what they're doing for
what it actually is. So the Israel lobby was incredibly
pissed at her. They said, no way is she surviving
the twenty twenty four election. They dumped twelve million dollars
into her opponent, which is the current congress in Wesley Bell.
He wins, beats her, and she's out of Congress. He

(44:41):
is in Congress now with twelve million dollars backing from
the Israel lobbies. So you see how it goes when
Israel commits war crimes and he as a representative of
the party that's supposed to be more critical than Israel,
the Republicans completely toes the party line. And that is
what he's doing here, just completely supporting Israel all the

(45:02):
way through. And he's facing some very very angry constituous
in this clip and trying to explain why what Israel
is doing is not a genocide. Let's take a look
and apologize in advance for this audio quality. Yeah, and

(45:59):
you can hopefully make out and again I apologize for
this awful, awful audio quality, but hopefully you can make
out a little bit of what he said there, which
is basically the same thing that we heard. Like his
talking points are probably on you know, Hasbara pro Israel
talking point version one point zero, because he's still saying that, oh,
it's Hamas, that's the genocidal organization's Hamas. That's saying they

(46:22):
want to kill all the Jews and all that stuff.
When you're not taking into account a the last twenty
two months of Israelis and the IDF clearly killing every
single Palacinian they can. You know, they're going with no
regard for civilians and all the horrific images that his
own constituents have seen, and there's no regard for any

(46:44):
of that and what they may be bringing to the
table in that discussion. And there's no acknowledgement also of
the really genicidal statements that have come out of the
Israeli government, including from Benjamin and Yahou and mar Benkavia,
Bezilos modrig talking about destruction of Gaza human animals. You know,
we're treating them like you know, Amlek, and all these
clearly genicatal statements that came from day one and have

(47:07):
continued to intensify throughout this whole entire time. And he's
not even addressing their plan to reoccupy Gaza. The reports
that we were talking about on the show, the past
segments about how eighty three percent of the people killed
in this war are civilians that weren't to internal Israeli
military data, So you know, all this stuff, it's not
following everyone. People are more informed on this issue than

(47:31):
a lot of the talking hands. A lot of the
conventional wisdom realizes and they're slowly starting. We talked about
it last week with Pete Buda Jeedge, and we talked
about it on the last show with Graham Plattner getting
in on a pro pal side message to the US
Senate race for Maine. And you know, people haven't really

(47:52):
realized that yet. They're still coming around to the conclusion
that this actually may be a big deal. But Wesley
Bell in his is twelve million dollars of a PAC
funding that he used to get this seat, are really
starting to get an earful of it. A good question.

(48:13):
You need to see that, you need to see the war. Yeah,
So he's just standing there at the Israeli lying to

(48:34):
a bunch of booze, and this trying to do this
in this kind of cool hip way is not going
to work. Like you're just completely reiterating the talking points
of Benjamin Etnia, who has to be one of the
most hated men in at least among democratic bass in
this entire country. So it's like, this stuff is not
going to work. And I just really need to wonder

(48:54):
My real question is when are people going to realize
it and start acting on it? And which, I'll tell
you what really is not gonna work is this. This
is from Ryan Grimm here, and what you're seeing is
a video that he got from an attendee that essentially
shows this woman I don't know will rewind here In
the beginning, there's this woman who's being dragged out by

(49:14):
the hair, this constituent I'm assuming by the security guy,
shoved up against the wall. An incredibly incredibly violent scene
people getting in this face to pushing, pushing, pushing of
attendees of the town hall. So really really graphic stuff
being caught on this cell phone video. You know, you
see some Jewish Voice for Peace activists kind of swarm

(49:35):
in the area, people eating, pushed chairs, being knocked over.
And this apparently reportedly took place after Wesley Bell tried
to go over and talk to the administrators, like, oh yeah,
I gotta go in this other room and give talks
to the media. I'll talk to you guys. I want
to speak to you. I want to I care about
what you just say all that, and then he says,
oh yeah, I'll just go right back this talk to

(49:58):
the media, give you interviews the media. And then the
moment he leaves the room, these security people crack down
on these protesters in it. It'll be brutal way. And
I'll tell you, you know, the audio quality in that
first video may have been bad, but it's really this
video of his hired goons brutalizing protesters at a town hall.
You know, I feel like if there's anything that's going
to resonate with the Democratic voters of that district, which

(50:21):
is an overwhelming the Democratic district in you know, the
red state of Missouri, it's the center around Saint Louis
and you know, possibly even provide a way for Corey
Busch to challenge him again in twenty twenty six. It's
going to be videos like this. It's going to be
him completely aping the Israeli line and just shooing out
you know, I don't even think of the word for it.
It's just regurgitating very basic, even outdated Israeli propaganda. You know,

(50:46):
even they are saying, you know, we're gonna take this
stuff over, We're gonna go go all the way through
regardless city. Like this kind of stuff is not working anymore.
And it's not just about gods that people need to
see that you're an honest person. People need to see
that you can see the same things that you know,
and you come off as a human being where you're
seeing the same things that they're seeing and you're reacting
to them in the same way, which is holy shit.

(51:08):
These these dead babies are really kind of disturbing. We
should do something about that. People want that for their congressman,
and they do extrapolate it to other issues. And so
if you're talking about resisting Trump in any other way,
which every Democrat cares about, how can you do that
effectively in a way that Democratic voters can trust. If
you're not honest about the genocidal pictures and the genocidal

(51:30):
statements that Democratic voters are seeing coming out of Israel
and Gaza, how can you do it? It just does not
add up. So this should be a really very serious
warning here. And he's looking at these pictures of these
constituents getting thrown out forcibly from this town hall. You know,
you get a sense that there is a true awakening,

(51:53):
a true reckoning coming for Democratic electives that aren't getting
with the times or even trying to get with the times,
in the form of a hefty, hefty primary season in
twenty twenty six. And honestly, that especially for people like
Wesley Bell, who's gotten in there with twelve million dollars
of a PAC money. That type of a primary season

(52:15):
cannot come soon enough. That's all the time we have
for you today. Hope you enjoyed the show. All the
clips will be on YouTube by the end of Friday.
Have a great weekend. We'll be back at the beginning
of next week. It's news flash.