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Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have

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an amazing show for everybody today, extra amazing. It's

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a bro show out of its people, Live for the pound.

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That's what we got going on today. Chrysal.

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We'll be back.

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Tomorrow though, so don't and she'll be here Wednesday.

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That's right, she'll be in on Wednesday.

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So we're swapping things around or making things a lot more

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ambitious crossover show of all

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time. But we've got some great topics for everybody today.

0:45

Let's go ahead and come up on me. Let's see what we got.

0:47

Iran.

0:48

Okay, so we're going to start obviously with the

0:50

Iranian attack on Israel. Some of the

0:52

fallout watching the Israeli war, Cabinet

0:54

what their response will be. President Biden

0:56

issuing a warning to Israel, saying don't widen

0:59

the war, but we will remain and we will

1:01

see what happens, as Trump often used to

1:03

say.

1:03

We will also have doctor Tree Deparsi in the

1:05

show.

1:05

He's going to analyze some of the attack,

1:08

the ramifications. He accurately predicted

1:10

last week on our show that an attack would be

1:12

forthcoming and that the fallout from the embassy

1:14

was much bigger than much of the

1:16

media was letting on.

1:18

We're going to talk about Donald Trump.

1:19

Who had a very interesting moment at

1:22

his Allentown, Pennsylvania rally where

1:24

he seemed to concur with genocide

1:26

Joe as the nickname. He's trying to foster some

1:28

dissension in the Democratic ranks. And then

1:30

we're also going to take a look at some new interesting poling

1:33

both good for Trump, bad for Trump,

1:35

and some public oswele signals about

1:37

how abortion is going to play out in the

1:39

race. Ukraine, some fascinating stuff

1:41

going on there. Trump's seemed flip flop and endorsing

1:43

some sort of lend Lease style program

1:46

for Ukraine aid, while Senator jd Vance,

1:49

part of the MAGA contingent speaking out against

1:51

the idea of at Ukraine entirely.

1:53

We're going to dig into that.

1:54

Cornell West, one of the third party candidates,

1:57

has picked his vice president. It's a BLM

2:00

activist who's had some interesting

2:02

takes in the past. And then Bill Maher of

2:04

course making just

2:07

some interesting, let's just say interesting again

2:09

comments on abortion. Ryan and I are going to break that down,

2:11

and I'm doing a monologue on the OJ Simpson trial

2:14

and its lasting effects and how it manifested

2:16

itself even upon his death here in

2:19

the media. But Ryan, before we get to that, as

2:21

you and I were just discussing, we've got some interesting plans

2:23

in the works. So people need to subscribe

2:25

so you can hear a little bit more about that Breakingpoints

2:28

dot com. So I think people will enjoy that.

2:30

Let's go ahead and start with those attacks

2:32

on Iran. Guys, Let's go and play this and

2:34

put it up on the screen so I can talk a little

2:36

bit over it. We've got some video here.

2:38

This was released by Channel fourteen News

2:40

in Israel. It appears to be pulling from

2:43

Iranian media, which actually shows

2:45

the launch of some of those ballistic

2:47

missiles that were launched towards Israel.

2:49

It took several hours to go. What you've see

2:52

in front of you was also released by the Israelis.

2:54

This shows some of the drones that we're heading

2:57

into Israeli skies. The flashes

2:59

that everybody can see are those actually being shot

3:01

down by Iron Dome. In some cases

3:03

you can see that they did make contact

3:06

and they were attacking largely military

3:08

installations. It appears in

3:10

Israel, but still I mean stunning. Nonetheless,

3:12

that image in particular right over Jerusalem

3:15

you can see the Temple mount and you can just see hundreds

3:17

of drones that are there in the sky with the Iron

3:19

Dome program that.

3:21

Was engaging it. I mean, what did you make of this? Ryan?

3:23

I did a breaking news segment, but this is the

3:25

first of the audience will get to hear from you on it.

3:27

So the reporting that we have

3:29

from this is that the United States

3:31

told Iran that if they were going to respond, they

3:33

had to do it within certain parameters.

3:36

And you know Iran can you

3:38

know, Iran is not a client state of the US, right,

3:40

it can do what it wants to do. However, it understands

3:43

that if we draw a line and they go outside

3:45

of that line, then the cost

3:48

that they're going to pay is going to be higher, whether it's it

3:51

might not necessarily be immediately kinetic,

3:53

but we have lots of ways that we can make life

3:55

difficult for them. And the

3:58

assault that they eventually launched

4:00

was referred to was compared

4:03

by a friend of mine to you know that scene in Austin Powers

4:05

where Austin Powers are driving the steamroller. Yes,

4:07

and there's the security guard is he

4:10

has like an hour to get away from

4:12

the steamroller. And that's

4:14

kind of what they did with these drums. Okay, what

4:16

they did is they created an international spectacle.

4:19

So the entire world is watching,

4:21

and the domestic audience sees

4:24

the entire world watching. So

4:27

just by virtue of that, the

4:29

Iranian regimes then satisfied. Kind of

4:31

it's the domestic demand that there'd be some

4:33

type of a response to this attack on

4:36

the on the consulate in Damascus.

4:38

But what it also does is it gives this

4:41

entire armada from Jordan

4:45

to Egypt to the US to the UK

4:47

to Israel hours to intercept

4:50

everything. And you saw a lot of

4:52

kind of Israeli

4:55

pundit saying how embarrassing

4:57

for Iran they sent all of these missiles,

5:00

and yet Tel Aviv still stands. Look at

5:02

our beach chat how Christine it remains.

5:05

That was probably Iron's hope that

5:08

they want to launch an attack. May

5:10

it look like they're launching an attack, but

5:13

not actually do the kind of thing that requires

5:15

Israel to then response.

5:16

We got to spend a lot of time on this because this is going to

5:18

be a huge matter of debate now. Currently,

5:21

that was the way that the White House interpreted

5:23

the attack. However, that is not the way that

5:25

the Israeli right wing is. Oh absolutely, In

5:27

fact, the Israeli right wing is like, no,

5:29

this was just a victory of Iron Dome without

5:32

Iron Dome, without the US, the

5:34

UK military, the Jordanian military, the

5:36

Saudi military all allowing our jets.

5:38

I mean, that's another big question.

5:40

How many of these things were shot down by the United States

5:42

and how many were shot down by Israel.

5:43

They ain't telling us that number.

5:45

I can tell you that they claim ninety nine

5:47

percent interception. I would love to know what

5:49

the actual Israeli interception rate, and

5:51

then what the US assistants rate Sentcom.

5:53

The United States military has not released

5:55

that. We do know that all of our Western

5:57

militaries were engaged actually in shooting

5:59

down some of these drones. Now,

6:01

the reason why I'm sticking to this is

6:04

because the way that you look at the attack

6:06

matters a lot.

6:07

If you think that it.

6:08

Was intended to have a mass casualty

6:10

incident and was not designed,

6:12

as you said, to telegraph for an hour's

6:14

long approach and attack, well

6:16

then that colors one way you're going to respond. If

6:18

you think it was an intended mass casualty

6:21

incident and it was good design to kill a lot of

6:23

people, well then obviously you want to hit

6:25

them back ten times as hard and

6:27

it's not your fault that the defense worked.

6:29

Go ahead, I would flip it around, Okay,

6:31

I'd say people start from

6:34

their desired response,

6:36

right, So like Ben Gavier American

6:38

Smocher's like these guys they want

6:41

a massive war with Iran, and

6:44

so then they're going to retcon onto

6:46

the attack whatever they need to

6:49

justify that response. So they were always

6:51

going to say that this was before you know, just

6:54

as soon as it started, you started seeing from the Israeli

6:56

right, this is a strategic victory

6:58

for US. We now have the international

7:01

legitimacy to launch a full scale attack

7:04

on Iran and not to pick on them.

7:06

Everybody else is the same way, Like

7:08

people like me that don't want to see

7:10

World War III A are biased

7:13

in how they see it and say,

7:15

like, look, it's it's

7:18

obvious why Iran didn't cause

7:20

more damage, because causing more damage would have led

7:23

to World War three. It's a rational actor. They don't want to

7:25

lead to that. So we all do have to put

7:27

our bias.

7:27

It's important, the important to note that because this

7:29

is here what we have from the War Cabinet Minister Benny

7:32

Gantz, let's go ahead and put this on play on the

7:34

screen. I'm going to read some of what he said

7:36

in terms of a translation. He says, yesterday

7:39

Iran launched an attack on Israel

7:41

and met the strength of the Israeli security

7:43

system. Iran is a global

7:46

problem, it is a regional challenge, and it

7:48

is also a danger to Israel. Yesterday,

7:50

the world clearly stood together with Israel

7:53

in the face of the danger for Israel

7:56

against Iran, the world against Iran.

7:58

This is the result.

8:00

This is the strategic achievement which

8:02

we must leverage for Israel's security.

8:04

This incident is not over.

8:06

The strategic alliance and the regional cooperation

8:09

system that we built and stood is

8:11

a significant test. It needs to be

8:13

strengthened.

8:14

Right now.

8:14

Israel proved yesterday that it is

8:16

an anchor of military and technological

8:19

power and an anchor of security in

8:21

the Middle East. Faced with the threat

8:23

of Iran, we will build a regional

8:25

coalition and collect the price from Iran

8:28

in a way and at a time that suits

8:30

us. So that is the line that I'm zeroing

8:32

in on, in a way that in a way and

8:35

in a manner at.

8:35

A time that we choose.

8:38

This is after an Israeli war

8:40

cabinet meeting occurred. Now,

8:42

this war cabinet meeting allegedly took

8:45

a very interesting turn from

8:47

what we know in the inside. We're going to put this

8:49

up there on the screen here. President

8:51

Biden allegedly told Netta

8:54

Prime Minister Netanyahu during a call

8:56

immediately after the attack on Saturday.

8:59

He says, listen, United States is not going

9:01

to support any Israeli counter attack

9:03

against Iran. Inside

9:06

of the war cabinet, allegedly Benny

9:09

Gantz and also the

9:11

Defense Minister both supported

9:13

an immediate strike retaliatory

9:16

strike on Iran. Netsonyahu

9:18

appears to have backed away from that, at

9:21

least allegedly because Biden told

9:23

him not to.

9:24

But and this is where I want to hear you make

9:26

big butts. At the very.

9:28

Same time, the Wall Street Journal

9:30

and others are reporting that there's still a significant

9:33

contingent in the Israeli military cabinet,

9:35

within the Israeli right and domestic populace

9:37

that is clamoring for a response

9:40

to the Iranian regime. So just because Biden

9:42

said, hey, you guys had your strategic victory,

9:44

don't do it and we won't join you, that doesn't mean that

9:46

they won't do it. I mean, Israel almost advanced

9:48

military technology in the world.

9:50

So if we're going to give Biden credit, we can say that

9:52

there was a moment

9:55

amid the attack and in its immediate aftermath

9:58

where the Israeli right was promising,

10:00

not just demanding, but they were promising that there was going

10:02

to be an unprecedented response,

10:05

an immediate and unprecedented response. People

10:08

were saying things like, you know,

10:10

April twelfth or April fourteenth, or whatever,

10:12

this attack was going to happen is a day that we'll

10:14

live on in history, and

10:18

that could have happened, like if certain

10:20

people had their fingers on certain

10:22

buttons. You know, those attacks

10:24

could have been launched. Biden did

10:27

say, look, if you do that, you're on your own. Take

10:29

the win, like take the w was the

10:31

line he gave to Yahoo.

10:34

And so we'll give them credit that

10:36

the world has not ended yet. Here we are.

10:39

The sun has risen again, so here we are. But

10:42

like you said, there is still an intense

10:45

pressure from the Israeli right. What we're going to

10:47

find out is who is really guiding

10:49

Israeli foreign policy here? Is it

10:51

the far right or is it the kind of left

10:53

of net and Yahoo? Which is a kind of hilarious concept

10:56

to think about. But Ronald Bergman, Israeli

10:58

journalist, I got it in

11:01

a pretty mind blowing quote

11:03

from this Israeli situation

11:05

room, where the person said something like if

11:08

these talks in the war room war cabinet

11:10

were aired live on YouTube, there would

11:13

be four million people at Ben gury In Airport rushing

11:15

to get out of this country.

11:16

Yeah, that is such an important point,

11:18

because that is exactly the question

11:20

is. Inside they're

11:23

trying to telegraph restraint. They're

11:25

saying that the US won't back them, and

11:27

all this. We want to believe

11:29

rational actor theory. But one of the

11:32

things that I was honestly annoying the crap out of me

11:34

is that I continue to see US politicians

11:36

be like, this is an unprovoked, unprecedented

11:39

attack, and I'm like, Okay, listen, I'm

11:41

not saying that the Iranians are

11:43

good people or the Irgc are

11:46

our friends or our enemy. But you blew

11:49

up their embassy in Damascus,

11:52

And what they're like is they're saying, They're like, well, it

11:54

wasn't a real embassy, it was a military

11:56

outpost.

11:57

You're probably right, but guess.

11:59

What, guys, c I a bases inside

12:01

every embassy in the world.

12:04

I mean, under this logic, yeah,

12:06

the Russians would be well

12:08

within their rights under this logic to blow

12:11

up the US embassy in Kiev, or the

12:13

US outpost in levav in

12:16

Poland, which is like the major thoroughfare

12:19

of all the weapons

12:21

then, or the US embassy and

12:24

warsaw its Like, what do you think is happening there?

12:26

These are all military outposts.

12:28

Time didn't they let the New York Times in there to show them

12:30

how they were? Like war gaming? The entire

12:32

thing? It is a what do we call it? When Hamas

12:35

has a head go to command and control center like

12:37

it is like we have we have command and control

12:39

center right and we would absolutely not

12:42

tolerate it. And it doesn't mean you're justifying

12:45

the attack to acknowledge that it

12:47

was provoked, like it's it's okay to say,

12:49

it's okay to say that I saw some of those posts

12:52

too from I think maybe it was Steve Danes

12:54

and some others. These are like the US

12:56

senators, the US centators like this

12:59

unprovoke, just absolutely out of nowhere.

13:02

Except in response to the thing they said,

13:04

they're going to respond to it.

13:05

And that's why I want to put that in contact. By the way, Lavov

13:08

is in Ukraine.

13:08

I apologize it used to be part of Poland,

13:10

but I do know that that's it's right on the border with Poland,

13:13

and that is where the weapons are coming across. My point

13:15

is only being that you know, we have embassy outposts

13:17

and other people all across the

13:20

warhol that are engaged in this type

13:22

of activity. What do you guys, what you like,

13:24

who wants to guess what's going on in the US embassy in Moscow?

13:26

Like, what do you think is going on in the US embassy of riot

13:29

or the US embassy in Kabble or

13:31

I guess we don't have that one anymore.

13:33

US embassy in Baghdad. They're

13:35

all military outposts.

13:37

And they did kill a top general and many

13:39

of his staff, right, So like, even if you say

13:41

that that was completely fine and hey,

13:44

they're all fair game, they still did

13:46

kill them. Yes, so it's not unprovoked.

13:48

Yeah, exactly, I mean exactly right. And

13:50

you know, let's think back to the solar

13:52

money killing. Whenever Trump green lit the

13:54

Souli money killing, we got lucky. Trump actually

13:57

called off an imminent attack.

13:59

You know.

13:59

That was response after the Iranians shot

14:01

down some US Navy spy plane.

14:03

I think he was unmanned at the time, but it would

14:05

have killed like several hundred Iranians. And

14:07

Trump found that out and he's like, forget this, We're not doing

14:09

this. But then you also have you

14:12

know, there were several US soldiers

14:14

who were wounded actually in retaliatory

14:16

attacks in Iraq as

14:19

a result of that. So we can't say that it didn't

14:21

have no response. All

14:23

things are going to have a response, whether you view

14:25

it as legitimate or not. But it was very certainly

14:28

not quote unquote unprovoked it didn't happen

14:30

inside of a vacuum. You could defend it, you know,

14:32

if you want to. But let's just all be honest.

14:35

There's also a big question here about the

14:37

matter of Iron Dome and

14:39

the amount of money that the defense

14:41

of this one attack actually costs. Let's

14:44

put this up there on the screen. The

14:46

current estimate according to the IDF

14:49

is who was an economic advisor of the IDF

14:51

Chief of Staff, says that the overnight defense

14:53

against the Iranian attack costs between

14:56

four to five billion Israeli shekels,

14:58

which is equivalent to one to one

15:00

point three billion dollars.

15:03

Now, what was also noted by your

15:05

colleague Mortaza is that because

15:07

the vast majority of this took

15:10

place within the Iron Dome system, those

15:12

interceptors are all manufactured

15:14

and paid for by the United States, which

15:17

means all of us are the ones who just paid

15:19

for that missions.

15:20

Plus we shot a lot of mississes.

15:22

I will say, that's another question here,

15:24

which is the type of aircraft

15:26

that we're used to shoot down some of these ballistic

15:29

missiles that shoot down some of these drones.

15:31

The current estimate on how much these drones cost

15:34

is anywhere from like a couple hundred

15:36

to tens of thousands of dollars,

15:38

not that much money, so asymmetrically,

15:41

I mean, it was a huge economic cost

15:43

to the US. The iron dome system also

15:46

has been significantly strained ever since

15:48

the war with Hamas has

15:50

gone on, and of course we're the ones who are replenishing

15:53

all of that technology and

15:55

bearing the brunt and the costs of that.

15:57

It just what I always like to.

15:58

Highlight with these things. Ryan Is was like, well, everyone

16:00

said missile defense doesn't work. I'm like, well, that's

16:02

not the point. The point is what does it look like

16:05

in a sustained attack. One of the things

16:07

that we've learned from Ukraine is that the

16:09

Russians have developed the perfect

16:11

strike package to get through Western

16:14

defense systems. Sure they can't use some and

16:17

they frequently will have some shot

16:19

down, but they figured it out. And that's

16:21

the point is, Yeah, it works once, that's awesome,

16:23

but what is it? How does it work on day two hundred

16:26

and ninety six level war. That's actually

16:28

a question where not a lot of people want to know the

16:30

answer in terms of working rate and

16:32

the cost.

16:33

Yeah, on the on the cost point, this is the same thing

16:35

we've seen with the Huthis where they're sending these

16:37

you know, yeah, drones that cost hundreds

16:39

or at most like thousands of dollars towards

16:42

ships in the US is sending two million dollars

16:45

cruise missiles to like knock to knock them out,

16:48

or whatever they're sending is in the in the millions

16:51

of dollars each each and every time.

16:53

And that's that's just not a

16:56

calculation that you can take forever.

16:58

But you're point on the

17:01

strategic benefit of this is interesting

17:04

as well. Like you said, the Russians have learned

17:07

through the practice, trial and error

17:09

of how to get through this super expensive

17:11

curtain of defense. And last

17:13

night the Russians and the Iranians

17:16

and actually well the entire world

17:18

it's curious about it got to see

17:20

what it would look like with

17:23

Israel and all of its allies launching

17:25

a full fledged anti

17:27

anti missile defense approach. So

17:30

now they know, like, okay, this is

17:32

where they're coming from from the sea, this is where

17:34

they're coming from face now they probably

17:36

knew let's say eighty percent of that already,

17:39

with a lot of valuable intelligence was picked up last

17:42

night.

17:42

You get a ton, yeah, from the Chinese

17:44

from the Russians. Everybody is looking

17:46

at this. The other thing that I would note is you

17:49

could see the President Biden basically knew the

17:51

exact time and hour of the attack. So

17:53

one of the things that we gave away is how deeply

17:56

the CIA, the NSSA and others have penetrated

17:58

the highest sessional of the Iranian

18:00

military. And they don't think they're not going to respond

18:03

to that, Like you don't think they're immediately going to change

18:05

their comms. This was something that happened after

18:07

the Russian invasion where we basically

18:10

gave away the whole game as to how deeply we penetrated

18:13

the Russian military hire and command, the command

18:15

and control, We knew everything from the

18:17

time of the attack to Ukraine and all

18:19

of that. My mea culpa was I didn't believe them, but

18:21

clearly they are good at some things, these

18:23

intel folks. And

18:26

what did we give away, like, yeah, we know everything

18:28

about what you say, what you do, the time

18:30

of your attack, the hour, et cetera. Now

18:32

maybe that's my intention, certainly possible, but

18:35

you know, if you're smart, what do you say. Okay, the enemy

18:37

has total you know, visibility into

18:39

our comms. So let's change everything. So

18:42

that was an attack not on us,

18:44

on somebody else.

18:45

Right, So right, you are giving that up. At the same time, some

18:47

of it was was intentional.

18:49

Yeah, that's right.

18:50

There was a direct line that and Turkey

18:52

was to go between MM and it was it was

18:54

through Turkey that the US actually communicated

18:56

back to Iran like, here are the parameters

18:59

within which should we expect it if

19:02

an attack is going to take place.

19:03

Well, that's what's complicated.

19:04

So actually it's interesting because people are seizing upon that report

19:06

saying that Biden greenlit the attack.

19:08

At the same time, this is the problem

19:10

with Biden. I mean, what he.

19:12

Continues to do is just put himself in a situation

19:15

where he just gets humiliated on the world stage.

19:17

But basically everybody from his allies to

19:20

the enemies, to the aggressors. Here

19:22

we have President Biden imminently

19:24

before the attack, the day before the attack.

19:26

Here was his message to Iran

19:30

in this moment, don't yeah,

19:32

how did that work out?

19:33

He said the same thing to Russia if people want

19:35

to remember, back in February of twenty twenty two, He's

19:38

like, my message to putin don't well

19:40

they did, so no one It's like, this

19:42

is where you know, you're putting yourself in a situation

19:45

where you'd be like, look, we will we

19:48

will immediately respond. You know all of

19:50

this, but you know this is this is where

19:52

he gets he Now he's flanked

19:54

from his left and his right, because now what we have here

19:56

is it's clear that people are not listening

19:59

to President Biden, just embarrassing for

20:01

a global superpower. But then you've

20:03

got a huge invitation right now from

20:05

the Israeli and the US right wing who

20:07

are attacking Biden saying that we need more

20:09

deterrence through force, and that we

20:11

need to employ even more force on behalf

20:14

of Israel and the Iranians and

20:16

employ like more military action,

20:19

get more deeply enmeshed. Then at

20:21

the same time, you know, you see also

20:24

that the Israelis don't necessarily

20:26

listen whenever they're told what to do

20:28

or what not to do. That kind of brings us back

20:30

to the genesis of how do this all happen?

20:33

That strike on the embassy. Apparently

20:36

this is from what we know so far, Biden

20:38

and the White House told the Israelis are like, listen,

20:41

don't hit the Iranians without telling

20:43

us about it. And they said, yeah, okay, cool,

20:45

and then they just didn't tell us anything about it. That

20:48

strike was totally within their

20:50

purview. And this is what bothers me about it too.

20:52

I'm like, okay, you guys want to do that, be

20:55

my guest. But then you bear the costs,

20:57

you bear the consequences whenever

20:59

people And this is what we've seen through

21:01

the emboldening of the Israelis is because

21:04

we've set no red line, nothing, we have no conditions

21:06

on our aid, they feel perfectly in their

21:08

power to do whatever the hell they

21:11

want. And that's how you get to a

21:13

significant departure point of miscalculation.

21:16

The anti gets upped one thing goes

21:18

wrong. I mean, just imagine one iron

21:21

dome missile goes wrong and that Temple

21:23

Mount gets it. Now what I mean, we're in

21:25

that whole new world living in that Yeah.

21:28

No, yeah, I think that

21:30

that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, I mean I

21:33

forgot what I was going to say. Anyway,

21:36

go ahead.

21:37

Really, what I think is important

21:40

just to underscore from the Iranians,

21:43

the communication here with the Israelis is

21:45

that Biden has injected a

21:47

tremendous amount of uncertainty

21:49

into the international system. Will defend

21:52

Ukraine. Putin's war criminal, he's

21:54

got to go. What does that signal send to the Ukrainians?

21:56

Fight to the last man. Now we're like, well,

21:59

you know, really mean it, and it's like,

22:01

well, and they're all confused.

22:03

I don't think we should said in the first place. I think right, and

22:05

it should have been very clear from the beginning, and the only

22:07

shift.

22:07

From Biden this was what I was going to say. Has it's

22:09

been to use the word iron clad over and over

22:11

and over again.

22:12

That's right.

22:12

And so if you're Israel, what you

22:15

hear from Biden is that his commitment

22:17

is iron clad. Iron Clad means it

22:19

does not matter what Israel does, the

22:22

US will have their back. So if we

22:24

say, hey, we would prefer a heads up

22:26

before you strike, let's

22:28

say in Iran, in embassy somewhere in Damascus,

22:31

like okay, but your commitment to US is ironclad,

22:33

right of course, guys, iron clad commitment

22:36

Like okay, Well, then we're just going to do what

22:38

we're going to do, and you're gonna support us. Now,

22:41

maybe Israel feels like it can't

22:43

launch an offensive attack on Iran

22:46

without the support of kind of US

22:48

aircraft and USC power

22:51

and so that had something to do with

22:54

their decision not to launch it yet.

22:57

But they certainly feel

22:59

like no matter what they do, the US is

23:01

going to put its resources behind

23:04

them in a way that

23:06

is self destructive to its own interests

23:09

in the region.

23:10

Yeah, I think this is all.

23:12

This is very important for people to

23:14

underscore just we are and

23:17

a moment of a lot of uncertainty.

23:19

US military equipment was

23:21

involved in shooting this down. US service members, including

23:24

US warships, were involved in shooting

23:26

some of these down we've had. Apparently

23:29

the US S. Eisenhower hasn't

23:31

had a port call in months because they're

23:33

just stuck in the Middle East waiting

23:35

is sitting there, waiting to shoot

23:37

down things and to be engaged in the war.

23:40

There's a high level of readiness and

23:42

of anxiety in the

23:44

military, and just because something didn't pop off

23:46

in forty eight hours doesn't mean that it won't.

23:48

It took the Iranians what it was, about a week, I think,

23:51

to respond to the ambassy attack. People

23:53

have in their heads this idea that things,

23:55

the escalation ladder and other things move

23:57

at a lightning pace, And that's sometimes the case,

24:00

but very often it's slow

24:02

and then fast all at the same time. So you take a

24:04

week to deliberate that you make it saying, and you make a decision.

24:07

So the Israelis right now are in that you

24:09

know system right, They could wait a month, but even

24:11

if they do, we could still see things

24:14

get to that point. It's been more than six months

24:16

now since October seventh, and this was the nightmare

24:18

scenario from the very first day, is

24:20

that we were going to get to a broader regional

24:23

war, and every single month

24:25

that the conflict has continued, we get closer

24:27

and closer at bombs on Lebanon, wo

24:29

these Now we're striking Yemen. Now

24:32

we're you know, now we're shooting down Iranian

24:34

missiles. Now we got drones flying over

24:36

the sky. What comes next month? That's my

24:39

big worry. What comes next year? Hell or

24:41

ten years from now. That's one of those where

24:43

you know, could we can easily look back

24:45

on this and say it was a significant moment.

24:48

But we have a great guest standing by doctor Treta

24:50

Parsi is going to break this down.

24:51

Let's get to it.

24:54

Bringing in now doctor tree to Parsi is executive

24:56

vice president over at the Quincy Institute

24:59

for Response simple state craft. Tredah,

25:01

thanks as always for joining us. Really appreciate

25:03

it.

25:04

Good easure.

25:05

I wanted to talk to you about something that that you

25:08

flagged, which is that the head

25:10

of the IRGC, Hossein Salami,

25:13

came out and we can put this element up from tree

25:16

to here, came out explicitly

25:19

saying that we have decided to create

25:21

a new equation with

25:24

Israel. The equation is that from now on, if

25:27

Israel attacks Iranian interests, basically,

25:30

Ron will attack Israel from

25:33

Iranian soil. Kind of moving beyond

25:36

the status

25:38

quo of deploying various

25:41

proxies around the region, were not necessarily

25:43

even deploying the various proxies,

25:45

but sort of taking the

25:47

leash off them a little bit, because

25:50

I think what people think that and

25:52

I'd be curious to get your take on this. People think that it's

25:54

it's a it's a relationship where Iran

25:58

instructs its proc around

26:00

the region. Okay, now I need

26:02

you to attack, Whereas I think

26:04

it's more realistic to say that

26:07

those proxies are actually much more militant

26:09

and radical than the Iranian regime

26:11

itself, and Iran is constantly

26:14

holding a leash on saying no,

26:16

do not, do not, please, do not, And

26:20

when they do want an attack to happen, they let

26:22

the leash out a little bit and say, Okay, you

26:24

know what, actually, go ahead, you've

26:27

been saying you want to hit that base, go ahead

26:29

and hit that base. Curious a first

26:32

for your take on that, but then also for your reflection

26:34

on what it means that Iran is now saying forget

26:37

all this, We're coming straight from Iran

26:39

from now on.

26:41

So your description of Yvonne's

26:43

relationship with some of these militias, I think is

26:45

true for some of them, perhaps less so for

26:48

others. I mean, Yvonne

26:50

has helped build up a network

26:53

of various militias throughout

26:55

the Middle East.

26:56

That all are sharing

26:58

an interest with Yvonne when

27:00

it comes to a larger vision for the region.

27:03

Some of them may not be ideologically

27:05

aligned with van in a religious

27:07

sense, but nevertheless they shared

27:09

a larger perspective, which

27:12

is that many of these Arab

27:14

regimes are allied with the West. They're

27:16

there to serve the

27:19

domination of the West, and the region

27:21

needs to take its future in its own hand, and

27:24

as a result, joined.

27:26

Together to fight this what they call the occupation.

27:28

This is why they call it the access of resistance.

27:32

Now, some of them actually absolutely are more

27:34

hawkish and have their own motivations

27:36

to go after the US troops. For instance, many of

27:38

the Iraqi militias are looking for

27:40

revenge for what the US has done in Iraq,

27:43

which is not necessarily the motivation driven

27:45

by the Vons. In regards to

27:47

what the IRGC commander said, though,

27:50

I think the interpretation there is

27:52

Iran is actually taking this to a much

27:55

higher level because it's no longer going

27:57

to hide behind any of its allied

27:59

proxiesli is, whatever you want to call them.

28:02

And what we see here is a clear

28:04

attempt of articulating a new

28:06

doctrine for deterrence, meaning

28:09

that this entire choreographed attack

28:11

that was clearly designed to

28:13

make sure that it inflicted next

28:15

to zero damage on Israel, certainly

28:17

no casualties, was not designed

28:21

to start a war, was not designed to

28:23

actually showcase what limited

28:26

capacity YVON has, but to actually

28:28

showcase that YVON actually has

28:30

extensive capacity. Because remember

28:32

the reason why all of these missiles and

28:35

drones could could be shot down is

28:37

because the yvoniance gave the US

28:39

a seventy two hour heads up even

28:42

told them exactly when these things are going to be

28:44

shot They wanted this to be

28:46

shot down because they wanted

28:48

to show that yvon is ready to attack from

28:50

its own soil. It wants to establish

28:52

this new deterrence, this new red line,

28:54

but it doesn't want to go towards a

28:56

full scale war. But in that

28:59

message also something else that is very

29:01

important that I think has largely been missed. Had

29:03

it not been for the seventy two hour heads

29:06

up, the United States would not have had

29:08

time to put itself in

29:10

place to be able to help the

29:13

Bricks, nor the French, and

29:16

without the help of these other countries.

29:18

Without the heads up, it is quite

29:20

likely that a.

29:21

Much larger garage of missiles from Yvon

29:23

actually would have penetrated Israel's

29:25

air defenses and would have caused a tremendous

29:28

damage. But that was not the intent

29:30

would distract. The intent was exactly

29:32

as the IRGC commander said,

29:35

as that establishing new redline.

29:37

If these Raelis going forward kill

29:40

Yvonian officials, attack Yvanian

29:42

embassies, it will be responded

29:44

to, and it will likely be responded to very quickly.

29:47

And the hope of Yvon as appears to be to

29:49

deter Israel from doing this in the.

29:51

Future, Doctor Parsi, One of the things we're

29:53

trying to understand here is the calibration

29:56

of the Israeli response. The Israelly

29:58

war cabinets seems to be all of the map. They're

30:00

vowing our response. The Iranians

30:02

say, if look, this is it from in terms

30:05

of what they put out there, like will we

30:07

will say that this matter is closed.

30:09

If we do see some sort of

30:12

retaliation by the Israelis,

30:14

then what sort of decision matrix does

30:16

that open up from the Iranians as it

30:18

relates to the United States in our own military.

30:22

Well, I think Biden actually has put himself

30:25

in a bind with the formulation that he

30:27

used. He come out and said that he would

30:30

support Israel defensively,

30:32

the support is iron cloud, but the United States

30:34

will not support or participate in

30:37

any offensive operations

30:39

by Israel. Well, this distinction

30:41

between offensive and defensive ends

30:44

up being brought the meaningless the second

30:46

the war begins, because what it

30:48

has done, he has given Ntagnau

30:51

a clear pathway on how to drag

30:53

the US into the war. Israel

30:55

responds to this Iranian attack with

30:57

missile strikes et cetera. Against Yron. Iran

31:00

will then obviously respond back.

31:03

The United States will not participate in the first

31:05

attack, but as soon as Yvon is counterattacking,

31:08

then the United States gets dragged in. At that point,

31:10

it was completely meaningless whether the United States

31:12

was involved in the previous attack or

31:14

not.

31:15

So previous presidents, even

31:17

very hawkish ones like Trump,

31:19

actually resisted pressure from Netaniaho

31:22

in particular to get dragged into war

31:25

with Iran because it does not serve US

31:27

interest. Now Biden has actually

31:30

given Nataniahu a roadmap

31:32

on how.

31:32

To drag the United States into that war.

31:34

If he instead had focused

31:37

on the maingle or prioritized the

31:39

mingle, which is to avoid a regional

31:41

escalation and avoid getting the US

31:43

into that war, it actually would

31:45

have been better for Israel as well, because he would

31:47

not need to provide any defensive

31:49

iron cloud support for Aitel because there

31:52

wouldn't have been an Ivanian counter attack in

31:54

the first place. That would have served Israel's

31:56

interest better, and most importantly, it would have served

31:59

us interest much but because we would not get dragged

32:01

into another war in the Middle East.

32:03

Trieda I've heard Iatola Kamani

32:05

described as risk averse

32:08

almost to a fault, And I'm curious

32:10

if you think that's an accurate description. How

32:13

his approach to the conflict

32:16

between Israel and I Ran plays into this and

32:18

who is really making the decisions in the Iranian

32:20

government.

32:21

So the decisions are ultimately made by

32:23

the Supreme National Security Council

32:25

in Iran, which of course

32:28

reports to the Supreme

32:30

Leader, and the final decision is with the Supreme

32:32

Leader, but it's really that he overrules everyone.

32:36

There has been grumblings and quite loud

32:38

ones within the IRGC and other

32:40

elements of the Iranian government who believe

32:42

that comedy has been two risk averse

32:45

that he should have done this much sooner,

32:47

and the fact that he didn't have enabled

32:50

the Israelis to cheap on moving

32:52

forward with increasingly blatant

32:55

attacks against Iranian commanders

32:58

and officials. And now we saw any Onion

33:00

consulate in Damascus, and

33:02

essentially the argument being that if he had reacted

33:05

sooner and asserted

33:07

yvons, the terrens and the Israelis

33:09

would have stopped sooner. Now

33:12

the reason why it happened this time around, I think

33:14

is because this attack against the consulate

33:16

with the final straw, and it also violated

33:18

a clear redline because it was an attack on

33:20

Iranian soil. The Iranian response

33:23

at the end of the day was also a clear

33:25

violation of an Israeli redline because

33:27

these Radis had said that they had

33:30

implicity message that they would not have

33:32

responded if the attack it did

33:34

not come from the Iranian soil, but now it

33:36

did. And not only was it using cruise

33:38

missiles, it was also using ballistic

33:41

missiles. So it is clearly

33:43

risky. But nevertheless, within

33:45

that operation, it was designed

33:48

to make sure that it didn't cause any damage, because

33:50

if the Yvonians wanted to cause damage, there

33:52

was no reason to give any heads

33:54

up to Israel or to the

33:57

United States.

33:58

And not less

34:00

you know, I said in the.

34:00

Two hour heads up, last thing I wanted to ask

34:02

you, sir, in terms of the geopolitics

34:05

of the Middle East, there's a lot being made here in Washington

34:07

of the Jordanian a

34:09

guess allowance of the US

34:11

and Israel to shoot down projectiles

34:14

and drones over their airspace, of

34:16

the Gulf Arab involvement as

34:19

well. Can you break down some of the dynamics

34:21

of that. Will there be lasting effects?

34:23

Can we expect that to be some sort of

34:25

coalition against Iran. How do we make sense

34:27

of it?

34:29

I don't think that's what it is pointing to.

34:32

You're right to ask the question, though, of course, because

34:34

the other countries Turkey, et cetera.

34:37

Did not allow the United States to use their

34:39

airspace for this, Jordan doesn't

34:42

have much of an option. Jordan is completely

34:44

dependent on the protection

34:47

of the United States, and it's clearly

34:49

not a particularly popular decision amongst

34:51

Judainians either, mindful of how

34:54

angry the population is with what's going on in

34:56

Gaus and what they've received to be Judanian

34:58

and broader Arab potents

35:01

towards Israel. But I think Jordanians

35:03

are trying to defend it by saying, at the

35:05

end of the day, they have to assert their independence

35:08

and not allow Jordan's airspace

35:11

or territory to become an arena for

35:14

a confrontation. The question is if

35:16

the Israelis now use

35:18

attacks, begin attacks against Iran

35:21

and fly over Jordanian airspace,

35:23

will Jordan's shoot down those missiles as well

35:25

or is it only Ivani missiles that will be shocked

35:28

there.

35:28

I noticed from some Chinese

35:30

news sources they were arguing

35:33

that the Iranian attack on

35:36

Israel was only made

35:38

kind of possible and necessary by

35:40

the United States blocking the

35:43

United Nations Security Council from

35:46

condemning Israel's attack on

35:48

Damascus. When I first see

35:50

that analysis coming on, like

35:53

really just just a condemnation

35:55

is all around needed and would have

35:57

stepped away from that. I've

36:00

seen it kind of so frequently and with

36:02

so much, you know, the velocity

36:05

in those spaces that it does

36:07

seem like the US willingness to

36:09

block condemnation did

36:12

actually give a Ron more

36:14

incentive to go ahead with a more

36:17

robust response. But I'm curious for your

36:19

take on the relationship between those two things.

36:23

It's not clear whether a condemnation

36:25

by the Security Council would have prevented

36:28

this, and we will never know, essentially

36:30

because it was blocked by the US, France, and

36:32

the UK. But I pointed to a

36:34

previous example that is

36:37

very similar in some.

36:38

Ways, because you had a situation

36:40

with a ninety.

36:42

Ninety eight in which the

36:45

Tallebahb took math that to show even Afghanistan,

36:48

they executed a very large number of people,

36:50

but they also attacked the Yvanian consonants

36:53

and they took eleven Yranian

36:55

diplomats and executed them as well.

36:57

The Yranians mobilized on their borders that were

37:00

to go to war. They didn't want to go to war,

37:02

however, because it was nothing.

37:03

To gain from actually going into war with

37:05

Afghanistan, a lesson that perhaps the US should

37:07

have also taken to art.

37:09

But nevertheless, they

37:11

felt the strong expectation that

37:13

they have to respond given this very blatant

37:16

attack on their territory through the consulates.

37:19

They went to the Security Council.

37:21

I worked as a security council at the time for the Swedish

37:24

Permanent Mission. Sweden was the president

37:26

of the Council in that month, and

37:28

they demanded a very strong condemnation

37:31

by the Council, and that was

37:33

provided. The Swedes orchestrated

37:35

it and make sure that was a very very harsh

37:37

reaction by the international community for what the

37:39

Taliban had done. And that very

37:41

strong reaction ended up being the exact

37:44

face saving excuse the Yvani Is needed

37:46

not to go to war with the Taliban, which

37:48

they avoided. Now the parallels

37:51

are very interesting. Once again, the Yvanis

37:53

are not looking for a war, but

37:55

their consulate was attacked, their personnel

37:58

was killed, but the difference is time

38:00

was that it wasn't a strong combination because

38:03

of the blocks by the US, the UK, and

38:05

the French. Now again we don't know for certain

38:07

if the parallel would have worked

38:09

out, but I think it's interesting in

38:11

terms of the

38:13

role that the US's

38:16

defense of Israel and political

38:19

protection plays here because

38:21

the US did what.

38:22

Essentially Biden has been doing for the last seven

38:24

months in the US is done for more than twenty years,

38:26

which is to constantly provide

38:28

political protection in

38:30

the Security Council for Israel, so it is

38:33

not condemned. Well, that approach

38:36

appears to also incentivize other countries

38:39

and to take harsher measures than they otherwise.

38:41

May have to.

38:42

And then that a couple days

38:45

later you see Ecuador be like, oh, okay, then maybe

38:47

we can just raid the Mexican embassy

38:49

here in Quito. But

38:52

up next, we're going to talk about Trump

38:55

in Allentown, hitting on a new nickname

38:58

for genocide Joe that he seems to actually

39:00

appreciate but treated Parsi, Executive

39:02

Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible

39:04

Statecraft, thank you so much for joining us, Thank

39:07

you, sir, Thank you Donald

39:11

Trump. Over the week and went to Allentown,

39:13

Pennsylvania, just northwest of

39:16

that beautiful Lehigh Valley, and

39:19

I wanted to play this absolutely

39:21

just mind blowing clip from

39:23

that rally. We're going to unpack what this means

39:26

for twenty twenty four. Here's here's

39:28

Trump and Schnecksville.

39:29

He is a big problem. Jo

39:33

Jo the side, Joe, Joe

39:40

right side.

39:51

They're not wrong, They're not wrong. I

39:54

swear saga.

39:55

I have watched that clip like twenty different times trying

39:57

to figure out how on earth we got there.

39:59

Now. On one hand, it's just it

40:01

was completely predictable and predicted

40:04

that Trump would start to capitalize on

40:07

the anger at Biden for

40:09

his facilitation of what a

40:12

majority of Democrats believe is a genocide,

40:15

despite the fact that a

40:17

majority of Trump's supporters kind of support what's

40:19

going on, and that Trump himself and that's at

40:22

that same rally, you know expresses

40:24

you know, continuing support for is There's

40:27

there's so many different layers and levels on

40:30

which Trump can attack this.

40:33

What my read, and I'm curious as

40:35

a Trump connoisseur yourself, is

40:37

that you know, Trump for people to all not this like

40:39

take drain the swamp for instance, Like

40:42

When that was first rolled

40:44

out to Trump, He's like, this is kind of cliche, and

40:46

the.

40:46

Lane stupid, this is dumb.

40:48

He rolled it out at a rally boom

40:50

roar, yeah, and he's like, oh you like

40:52

y'all like that?

40:53

That's right.

40:53

He's like, well, here's here's some more of that.

40:55

Build the Wall was actually the exact same thing. I

40:57

don't know if people know this build a Wall was.

41:00

He thought it was corny. He didn't even think it was smart.

41:02

He never really came up with it. I

41:04

think he made an offhand comment where

41:07

all of a sudden he just saw it ripped

41:09

through the crowd and be shouted back at him,

41:11

and he said, all right, well, you know, I'll seize

41:13

on that. Let's go for it, and what's

41:16

the next line? And Mexico will

41:18

pay for it. Who do you think he got that from? It was

41:20

from the crowd. So Trump, as you said,

41:23

he is.

41:23

A connoisseuring focus groups.

41:26

Use those.

41:27

It's actually smart. That's one of the things you learn.

41:29

It's like what actually catches on? What does

41:31

anybody's ever done speaking or live performance

41:33

or anything knows exactly the feedback

41:36

loop that you can get into with the audience

41:38

My big thing was I was like, how much

41:40

of this was just those two guys, because what's

41:43

clear in the clip is that there were two guys

41:45

who were behind him, and they i think

41:47

by chance, had access where

41:50

they could hit the microphone so we could actually

41:52

hear what they were saying, and they were behind

41:54

him. For people who don't know the people who are

41:56

placed though, behind Trump, you kind of have to be selected

41:58

for that.

41:59

They don't just give it to you. It's not like first come,

42:01

first serve.

42:02

In general, the campaign is very you know, very

42:04

weary or very it's very They take

42:06

a lot of care as to who gets placed behind him.

42:08

That's why it's usually diverse and women all

42:10

of it. Sometimes you know, the blacks or Trump guys who

42:13

are behind him. So I'm

42:15

curious, you know, if they asked to be

42:17

able to do that, if this was something that

42:19

was greenlit, possibly by the campaign.

42:21

But what's fascinating about it is

42:24

not just that we have two guys in

42:26

MAGA hats chanting genocide Joe,

42:28

which is interesting. I mean, all right, there's a libertarian

42:30

right coalition right that certainly believes

42:32

that it was Trump's embrace of They're

42:35

not wrong, and the reason why that's important

42:37

is if you loo, if you google it

42:39

and you look into it. We're talking about write ups

42:41

in the Washington Post. We're talking about right ups in the Times

42:43

of Israel. And even though no

42:46

Republican politician was criticizing

42:48

Trump for saying this and all that, you can

42:51

bet your ass that this was viewed very

42:53

interestingly, I think by the Israeli population,

42:56

and I mean from my count right now, the clip

42:58

has millions of views all across of

43:00

social media, and it was shared. I

43:02

think what Trump has always been a genius

43:04

at is he's always trying to spot cleavages

43:07

in the in coalitions of his enemies.

43:09

So with Hillary, he was always

43:11

doing the same thing. He was encouraging people

43:14

who were anti Hillary not to vote

43:16

for Hillary, right, and

43:18

he would very often, you know the same thing

43:20

with black voters.

43:21

What do you have to lose?

43:22

Why would you continue to support them? They're not going

43:24

to do that. We see some of that here, And I

43:26

mean, look, he reads the news and he watches television.

43:29

He knows that Joe Biden has

43:31

a problem. Let's say he can get even one to two percent

43:33

of people who believe that it's a genocide

43:36

or to either not vote for Biden or he

43:38

may be somebody who could support

43:40

something that they have.

43:41

Well, you know, it will be a political victory for him.

43:44

And we're going to talk about the polling later

43:47

in the show and the way that nostalgia

43:50

plays a role in how people think about Trump.

43:52

And then also people are so desperate

43:55

they're willing to kind of overlay onto

43:57

any politician, but in particular Trump,

44:00

what they want to see if they're so deeply

44:02

frustrated by Biden. So it

44:05

is not hard to find people who

44:07

will make the argument that Trump

44:09

would actually be better for Palestinians because

44:13

Biden is ideologically

44:16

a Zionist and willing to

44:18

take political heat back

44:21

home, you know, in pursuit

44:23

of that ideology that he is dug

44:25

in on his position that he really believes

44:27

in. People don't think that

44:29

Trump believes anything. That he's

44:32

the most kind of narcissistic and nihilistic

44:35

finger in the wind politician that you could ever

44:37

produce, and that the second anything

44:40

is causing him a problem, he's

44:42

going to throw it overboard. And so there is a

44:45

hope among some out

44:47

there that well, maybe

44:49

if the war becomes

44:52

difficult for Trump and is causing him

44:54

problems that he'll just throw Israel overboard.

44:56

Yes, that is a very important thing for

44:58

people to understand this. There was

45:00

a case to be made, that's what it would be. His track record

45:02

is not necessarily good right on the issue.

45:04

But what we could say, we've a lot of good choice.

45:07

So Trump doesn't believe anything.

45:08

Actually, I think he believes one thing, which is America's being

45:10

ripped off, which I support.

45:11

I thought he's right.

45:12

But outside of a few foundational

45:14

things he's been talking about for let's say thirty

45:17

forty years, America is getting ripped off.

45:19

Our leaders are.

45:19

Idiots and a genius

45:22

and manipulation of the media. He doesn't believe

45:24

anything. He doesn't care abortion, Israel,

45:26

etc. He thinks Israel is very politically beneficial

45:28

to him, basically behind the scenes and

45:30

even in front of the camera. He's we got in front of the Republican

45:33

Jewish Coalition. He's been like, there's a lot of good businessmen

45:35

here.

45:35

In the stream.

45:36

You know, he just openly he

45:38

just doesn't care. And they don't care either, because

45:41

they give him money and he does what they want.

45:42

And he may or may not used to have had my

45:45

comp next to his bad according to his Wow really

45:47

yeah, wow, like that he was one book

45:49

he would actually read, like according to a vantage

45:51

promp.

45:51

Listen, you know there's you can study history

45:53

in any way. There's some annotated versions out there that I've

45:56

taken a look at before.

45:57

So if that's the guy, if

45:59

you're the Israel lobby, and that's

46:01

the guy that you're putting

46:03

all your chips.

46:04

On, well you saw that

46:06

too in the Trump interview when with the

46:08

Israelis when he said you gotta wrap it up, you

46:10

gotta wrap it up, because they were like they were shocked.

46:12

What do you mean you got to wrap it up quickly?

46:14

He's like, well, we got to bring peace, and you know your pr

46:16

you know, you guys are losing getting killed the war and

46:19

all that, and I mean.

46:20

They were stuned. They couldn't believe it.

46:21

And that's because he's not ideological

46:23

in the same way. So if he senses

46:26

that it becomes politically unpopular to

46:28

support Israel, then he'll just turn on

46:30

a dime. No, he will always care about himself

46:32

more than anybody else. Now, the

46:35

other question, though, is what are the people around him

46:37

believe? Who do they support, what are

46:39

they trying to do. Another interesting thing

46:41

that I thought paired with this, let's put the next one

46:43

on the screen, was a

46:46

recent truth just the day.

46:47

Before from truth Social where Trump.

46:50

Said I would vote for RFK

46:52

Junior if I was a Democrat

46:54

because he is a better man than

46:57

Joe Biden. So what he said

46:59

actually in the video is RFK Junior

47:02

is, as you know, the most radical

47:04

left candidate in the race. He's more so

47:06

than the Green Party, He's more so than even

47:08

Crooked Joe Biden. But he's got

47:10

some nice things about him. I happen to

47:12

like him, Trump said in the video. And

47:14

he says, I guess that would mean that RFK

47:16

Junior is going to be taking away votes from

47:19

Crooked Joe Biden, and he should because he's basically.

47:21

Better than Biden. He's much better than Biden.

47:23

If I were a Democrat, I would vote for

47:25

RFK Junior every single time over Biden

47:28

because he's frankly more in line with the

47:30

Democrats, and he's a better man than Joe

47:32

Biden that I can tell you, saying it

47:34

was great for MAGA that he was in the race.

47:36

So clearly he sees RFK Junior

47:39

as a spoiler. But this is the thing that Chrystall and

47:41

I continue to look at. If you look at the

47:43

polling, it's pretty even who the man pulls

47:45

from, and if his favorability ratings

47:48

are so much higher with Republicans, there's a decent

47:50

chance he pulls more from Trump than he.

47:51

Does from Biden.

47:52

To you're going to have this spectacle

47:54

over the next several months of Democrats calling

47:57

RFK Junior right way right and Republicans

47:59

calling him radical.

48:01

Ironically, both are true.

48:03

Actually, he does have positions

48:05

that fit on both. And I think

48:07

a key moment, if it ever comes, would be if

48:10

Trump affirmatively just uses

48:13

genocide Joe rather than like crooked,

48:15

crooked Joe or sleepy

48:18

Joe. Very hard to see him

48:20

kind of use it without being prompted. And

48:22

I'd love to see a future rally because I

48:24

think you're right, like those two dudes, those

48:26

American heroes, they single

48:29

handedly or double handedly you got

48:31

that chant going, and it wouldn't

48:34

have wouldn't have been a news item if Trump

48:36

had not responded in the way he did, saying, you

48:38

know, they're they're not wrong. Yeah,

48:42

if it hits another rally and becomes

48:44

a thing, that's my question that becomes

48:47

a wild question. I still think

48:50

that Trump believes that the

48:52

pro Israel crowd still

48:55

trusts Republicans more than

48:57

Democrats.

48:58

They do have a question.

48:59

Even with the even with the difference

49:02

of an ideologically zionist

49:05

committed Joe Biden as the Democratic

49:08

nominee and the kind

49:10

of ambivalent Trump as the Republican nominee,

49:12

the apparatus around each is

49:15

more likely to continue

49:17

to support it Israel, probably from the Republican signe

49:19

Yes.

49:20

Look, I think that's probably the correct bet. But with Trump,

49:22

you genuinely have no idea. He could scramble everything

49:24

and then he can scramble right back. That's always

49:26

the fun thing about covering him.

49:30

We have some really interesting polling that's

49:33

been coming out. Let's go and put this up there on

49:35

the screen. This, I think, more

49:37

than anything, really explains

49:39

Trump's staying power and why I think

49:41

he has such a major political advantage.

49:44

So this is and let's keep this up here, please, How

49:46

respondence views of Trump have changed

49:48

from twenty twenty to now In terms

49:50

of his approval of handling the economy.

49:53

From twenty twenty to now, he's seen a ten

49:55

point bump from fifty percent

49:57

or so past sixty two thirds

49:59

of the are now approof of his handling

50:01

the economy when he was president. Think he left

50:04

the country better off plus nine. Approve

50:06

of his handling of maintaining law and order, plus

50:08

eight, Approve of his handling of unifying

50:10

America, plus four, approve of his handling

50:13

of COVID, plus three approve his handling

50:15

of the Supreme Court, plus one. Note that

50:17

one, because we're going to come back to that. But this

50:19

is where I think is really important. From twenty

50:22

sixteen to now, think electing him is a safe

50:24

choice plus eleven, but

50:26

there has been a minus four in think.

50:29

He respects women, which is kind of funny. But let's

50:31

go to the next one.

50:31

Four percent that thought he did. Yeah, now give

50:34

it up.

50:34

Let's go to the next one. Guys, because this is even more

50:36

important.

50:37

Do you generally remember the years that

50:39

this candidate was president as mostly good

50:41

or mostly bad For Joe Biden?

50:43

Twenty five percent say mostly good, not

50:46

really good or bad, twenty seven percent mostly

50:48

bad, forty six percent

50:51

don't know one percent Trump, forty

50:54

two percent mostly good,

50:56

twenty three percent not really good or bad.

50:59

Only thirty three percent say mostly

51:01

bad for America To me. That

51:04

is the single most important

51:06

one that we could take away. And the reason

51:09

why is because, and I've said this so

51:11

many times, the nostalgia

51:13

for pre COVID America is so strong,

51:15

and why shouldn't it be. Gas was cheap,

51:18

Inflation was not there, interest

51:20

rates were low. All the madness

51:22

had not yet happened. Things were mostly

51:25

fine. Twenty nineteen of January

51:28

is the highest level of Republican identification

51:30

that we ever had in this country in modern

51:32

history. I did a whole monologue about it at the time because

51:34

I remember being stunned.

51:35

But what can we take away from that? People want

51:38

the good times back.

51:39

Throughout all pandemics in history, there's always a

51:41

mass amnesia afterwards. People are like, Wow,

51:43

that was terrible. Let's go back and guess

51:45

who was President Trump. That's a huge

51:47

benefit that he has.

51:48

And what's incredible is that people living

51:51

at the time had a chance to

51:54

kind of express how they felt Trump

51:56

fit into that utopia

51:58

that we have now kind of retconned. And

52:01

that was the twenty eighteen midterms,

52:03

and it was an absolute bloodbath for Trump. So

52:06

while you did have the highest Republicans

52:09

edification January twenty nineteen, you also at

52:12

the polls, you know, had Republicans

52:14

tossed out of power and voters

52:17

turned things over to Democrats because his

52:20

presidency was just this ongoing train wreck

52:22

of a spectacle that really

52:25

galvanized Democrats in

52:28

a way that gave them the ability to kind

52:30

of swamp you know, Republican turnout

52:33

in those midterms. But now

52:35

as people look back, that

52:37

eleven point shift from

52:41

you know, a safe choice is profound

52:44

because that eleven points

52:46

right there, those people who thought that he was just

52:48

an unsafe person, like a lunatic in the

52:51

oval office, you cannot

52:53

trust him with power. Now

52:55

he's been in power. And as

52:58

people say it, while we survived, well, you know, lots

53:00

of people did not survive. Yeah, but those

53:03

people are not around to vote. And it's it's incredible

53:06

actually to think about how COVID

53:09

is and his handling of COVID is

53:11

not really hurting him as

53:14

as an issue in this campaign.

53:17

And I think that that's a reflection of

53:19

our desire to just forget the whole

53:21

thing.

53:21

Yeah, and why shouldn't we. I mean, it's not like Biden's

53:23

got his hands clean, you know on COVID. I

53:26

could go on forever and this is one of.

53:27

These because I locked

53:30

down and people like, you know.

53:31

What's vaccine mandates, all the

53:33

stuff. I mean, we can go through every I think both

53:35

sides.

53:36

Neither hand, nobody else, nobody wants to. Why

53:38

should you know, why should we relitigate all

53:40

of it? If especially if we're going to try and you

53:43

know, do checks and balances and all that

53:45

in the moment, it's very very difficult. Let's

53:47

we'd be remiss though, if we didn't highlight this. This

53:49

is probably the singlet biggest confounding variable.

53:51

Let's put it up there on the screen. From

53:53

the risk of losing suburban women on

53:56

abortion. So what we have here is

53:58

actually a rating of the most

54:00

important issue for we're a suburban

54:02

women in swing states.

54:03

So that's why this is a good poll.

54:05

Abortion is thirty nine

54:07

percent most important issue. Number

54:10

two is immigration sixteen, economy

54:12

seven, left wing ideology for inflation,

54:15

for anti writing ideology.

54:17

Three.

54:17

But then if you look here, share of

54:19

suburban women in swing states saying that the

54:21

presidential candidacies on abortion are too restrictive.

54:24

With Trump, it's fifty seven

54:26

percent, just about right, is

54:29

there? The twenty eight percent and then not restrictive

54:31

enough? Is like negligible, But then check

54:34

out Joe Biden. They say, seventeen

54:36

percent is too restrictive. Forty

54:39

nine percent, nearly half of the suburban

54:41

women in these swing districts say that Biden

54:44

is just about right. And in general,

54:46

if what we can see, if abortion is

54:48

going to be that much of the most

54:50

important issue in general,

54:53

if abortion is your top issue post row, you're

54:55

voting for a Democrat Ryan right, and that is

54:57

good. That chart right there. If by

55:00

And wins, it's going to.

55:00

Because of that right and that seventeen percent

55:03

are you know, they're to the left of Biden.

55:06

They recognize, they recognize

55:08

that Biden is out there saying

55:10

things like, you know, I hate abortion

55:13

of all. You know, he's doing this very kind

55:15

of catholic you know, eighties nineties Democrat

55:18

things. You've got seventeen percent of Democrats are

55:20

like, that's you know, that's not for me.

55:22

I want I want more than that. But they're still going to vote for him

55:24

because he's the he's the one that's on the ballot. I

55:27

think what's going on here is

55:30

that A. It's it's a fundamental

55:32

right that affects people's lives. H

55:35

and b people are seeing policy

55:38

change as a result of politics,

55:41

very.

55:41

Direct change, Yeah, because of the ballot

55:44

with.

55:44

Everything else, inflation,

55:47

like wars spiraling out of control, unemployment,

55:53

you draw people do draw

55:55

a connection between, oh, this is the party in

55:57

power. So I'm I either am punishing

55:59

or crediting the party in power because

56:01

of how things are going here. But the direct line

56:04

to how the

56:06

policies are kind of creating

56:09

the downstream effect is

56:11

not that clear. It's more like

56:13

it's more based on vibes. When it comes to abortion

56:16

policy, it's very clear, yes,

56:18

Like Republicans are writing laws that

56:20

are banning abortion, banning IVF,

56:23

going back to the eighteen sixty four

56:26

pedophile author law,

56:29

and Democrats are writing

56:31

laws that are expanding abortion rights.

56:33

Like you don't need economists

56:36

to come in and explain to you how

56:38

you know the ARP is linked

56:40

up with the federal results interest rate

56:43

policies, and so they're like, Okay,

56:45

well, I don't really believe that politics is worth

56:47

participating in. I'm very cynical

56:49

and jaded about this, but I do know that if I go

56:51

out and vote for this, this particular

56:54

thing will actually change.

56:55

That is a fantastic point. I've not been on the

56:57

show.

56:57

Since that Arizona thing came down, Bill

57:00

cannot believe that it

57:02

happened. It is the greatest gift to Democrats

57:05

that I could have possibly thought.

57:07

And I think if again, if.

57:08

Arizona goes blue again, we're going to know

57:11

exactly why, especially in the context

57:13

of a multiple blue representatives

57:16

being elected. Carrie Lake doing herself

57:18

no favors, being on camera straight

57:21

up supporting the law and now is

57:23

like, no, I actually don't support the law.

57:25

I'm like, yeah, good luck with that, Carrie.

57:27

Let's see whether that video is blanketed

57:29

on the entire state of Arizona.

57:31

I think all of this explains too. Let's put

57:33

another confounding variable. Biden is

57:36

shrinking Trump's edge in this latest time SIENA

57:38

poll forty six to forty five don't

57:41

know is about eight percent quote.

57:43

President Biden has nearly erased Trump's

57:45

early polling advantage, signs at a Democratic

57:47

base has began to coalesce around the president, despite

57:50

the lingering doubts about the direction of the country,

57:52

the economy, and his age.

57:54

So and the Times looked at like, yeah, sixteen

57:56

or so polls that were taken

57:59

were where a poll was taken by the same polster

58:02

before and after the State of the Union, and

58:04

on average by it a little

58:06

bit more than a point. The public

58:08

is moving towards Biden, which is not which

58:11

is not huge, but given that significant

58:13

of a data set, it does

58:16

it does mean something. And a lot of the polls,

58:18

like the Siana one you saw, you saw more

58:20

significant swings. One

58:23

explanation would be he's now

58:25

definitely the nominee. And

58:27

so you've got some percentage of Democrats who

58:29

are like, all right, you're really going

58:31

to make me vote for Joe Biden. Yeahs Bo

58:33

Burnham says in that song like yeah, all

58:35

right, are really going to make me do this? Well?

58:38

All right?

58:38

I mean if you're fortunately your top issue and that's

58:40

all that you care about, then yeah, you should vote for Biden.

58:42

You'd be an idiot, not too right.

58:43

I mean one of those where like, let's be real, like when

58:45

we're talking about that now, I don't vote that way.

58:47

I don't have like a.

58:48

Tope issue you know that vote on. You gotta kind

58:50

of think holistically. But I'm not going to blame people who do.

58:52

That's fine. You know, you get to it's your decision.

58:55

You get to care what you care the

58:57

most about, and that's like, why will inform

58:59

your decision.

59:00

Like people who supported herschel Walker, yeah,

59:03

okay, or Broy Moore or John Father.

59:06

It's fine, yeah, you know, yeah, you make your

59:08

enjoyments. I guess that's one of those where

59:10

I.

59:10

Mean the Faederman one is a perfect example because it's a straight

59:12

up vegetable on the day of the election, can't even speak

59:15

and wins the election by five points.

59:17

Because people have him, well would

59:19

rather have him. All he's got to

59:21

do is vote blue. That's all it takes.

59:23

Turned out to be that is rabid, yeahsh.

59:27

But I mean that is very informative

59:30

for how people, if an issue

59:32

is so overwhelming, will look well

59:34

past candidate flaws and much

59:36

more to go ahead and to vote for somebody.

59:39

So just keep that in mind and we

59:41

will continue to pay attention because that

59:44

I still think is the most. It's covered

59:46

a lot, but it's such an unknown

59:48

variable and unknown unknown as

59:50

Donald Rumsfeld used to say that, Actually

59:54

I guess this would be a no, yeah, you're right. At

59:56

the same time, there's some major developments here in Washington.

59:58

The Iranian attack on Israel is very

1:00:01

likely to spur possibly some movement

1:00:03

in terms of not only Israel Aid being

1:00:05

passed through the Congress.

1:00:06

But Ukraine Aid as well.

1:00:08

President for former President Trump also

1:00:11

making some news. I did a joint

1:00:13

press conference at mar A Lago with Speaker

1:00:15

of the House Mike Johnson and appears to

1:00:17

have now flipped and supported actually

1:00:19

more aid to Ukraine as long as

1:00:21

it's alone.

1:00:22

Here's what he had to say.

1:00:23

They're talking about it, and we're thinking about

1:00:25

making it in the form of a loan instead of just a

1:00:27

gift. We keep handing out gifts of billions

1:00:30

and billions of dollars, and we'll take a look at

1:00:32

it. But much more importantly to me is

1:00:35

the fact that Europe has to step up and they have to give

1:00:37

money. They have to equalize. If they

1:00:39

don't equalize, I'm very upset about it

1:00:41

because they're affected much more than we are. The

1:00:43

Ukraine situation would have never happened if I

1:00:45

was president, would have never ever happened.

1:00:48

And everybody says that, including Democrats,

1:00:50

that it happened to such an outrage people.

1:00:53

Millions of people are dead right now, both

1:00:55

sides. Millions of people are dead.

1:00:57

So as we had to say, look,

1:00:59

he's not wrong in terms of the European

1:01:01

rhetoric that he had there Ryan, but.

1:01:04

Casualties here is the problem.

1:01:06

People.

1:01:07

Well yeah, probably probably

1:01:09

not correct in terms of millions, but it

1:01:11

is hundreds of thousands on both sides, that's no question.

1:01:13

Uh.

1:01:14

The issue is that this is now

1:01:16

some trojan horse idea which appears to have

1:01:18

gotten to his head from none other

1:01:20

than Lindsey Graham, who figured

1:01:22

out from Trump. He's like, well, if we con him

1:01:24

into saying it's alone, then Trump

1:01:26

will be like, oh, well then we're not actually spending.

1:01:29

If you think you're going to dime that money back

1:01:31

from Ukraine, you are an idiot.

1:01:33

Okay, these people can't even pay their

1:01:35

own government bills. Who

1:01:37

do you think is running it right now? But

1:01:40

America is paying for their bills.

1:01:41

Well, so they most of the money is not going to leave

1:01:43

Northern Virginia anyway.

1:01:45

Yeah.

1:01:45

No, that's another good point.

1:01:46

And that's actually that's this is the irony, and let's

1:01:48

all let's explain this is. The

1:01:50

Hawks are like, well, the reason

1:01:52

why this money is good is because

1:01:55

we're just reinvesting it into our defense

1:01:57

supply chain. So if you presume

1:02:00

that it is alone, then you're basically asking

1:02:02

Ukraine to have money that they don't

1:02:05

have to then send over here to

1:02:07

buy weapons and then to send it back to them

1:02:09

and then miraculously in the future

1:02:11

when Ukraine, formally, when it was intact

1:02:14

one of the most corrupt and frankly like poor

1:02:16

nations in all of Europe, is somehow

1:02:19

just going to be able to pay back hundreds

1:02:21

of billions of dollars of weapons

1:02:23

loans, Like, let's live in reality,

1:02:25

it's never going to happen.

1:02:26

It's way outside of their GDP potential

1:02:28

exactly, Like, it's just mathematically impossible.

1:02:32

And if you believed

1:02:34

that one hundred percent

1:02:36

of the money that we're spending on weapons

1:02:39

for Ukraine is for the benefit of

1:02:41

Ukraine, then you could make an argument that

1:02:44

okay, Ukraine should pay that

1:02:46

back and little interest

1:02:48

on the top there for our trouble. But

1:02:51

the money that we're spending is for the benefit

1:02:54

of the of the United States. And when

1:02:56

I say the United States, I mean you know, Northern

1:02:58

Virginia, the military industrial complex, the

1:03:01

kind of the heads of the empire.

1:03:03

Yeah, so to speak, that's that's that's what's

1:03:06

going on here. And so to try to say that you're going

1:03:08

to make the Ukrainians pay for that when

1:03:11

you know they are just rapidly fleeing

1:03:14

to get away from the draft. Like

1:03:16

you know, if this was a fight where

1:03:19

you know, there were you know, hundreds

1:03:21

of thousands of Ukrainians who were

1:03:24

demanding AMMO and

1:03:27

weapons to go to the front lines

1:03:29

to defend you know, the integrity of

1:03:31

their of their nation, and that all

1:03:33

they need is the world to support their effort.

1:03:35

Then that's one thing. Now you could still

1:03:38

a lot.

1:03:38

By the way, we already passed that and guess what,

1:03:40

they're all dead or.

1:03:41

They've lost their links. Yes,

1:03:43

exactly, that's not the situation. The

1:03:45

situation is the government, which is indefinitely

1:03:48

postponing elections, is running

1:03:50

around trying to round

1:03:53

up anybody like under sixty five

1:03:55

seventy.

1:03:55

Years, kidnapped of old, including people with

1:03:57

down syndroms, video training.

1:03:59

Them for a couple of weeks, and then throwing them

1:04:01

into the into the front lines to fight against

1:04:05

refreshed and trained Russian

1:04:07

reserve troops. Yes, Russians.

1:04:11

We're so kind of propagandized here in the US

1:04:13

that that everybody seems

1:04:16

to believe that the Russians are the ones that are collapsing,

1:04:18

and the Russians are the ones that had had to

1:04:20

do this like enforced conscription.

1:04:23

The front lines don't have any conscripted

1:04:25

Russian soldiers. They do have conscripted Russian

1:04:27

soldiers, but those are those are in the back end doing

1:04:30

the doing the basic glen of

1:04:32

grunt work that needs to happen to make sure that an

1:04:34

army can continue to function. It's

1:04:36

the Ukrainians who have had to conscript endlessly,

1:04:39

forcing people to front lines. And I

1:04:41

just don't see how it's a moral

1:04:43

use of my tax dollars

1:04:46

to put a gun in somebody's hand who doesn't want

1:04:48

to fight, Like, if they

1:04:50

themselves don't want to fight, who are we to force

1:04:53

them to?

1:04:53

I totally agree. And here's let me read this to you

1:04:55

from Senator mc romney. Here's his argument for more

1:04:57

A to Ukraine.

1:04:58

Providing weapons Ukraine may not change the course

1:05:00

of the war, but not providing it to Ukraine

1:05:02

sherwood.

1:05:03

So, in other words, just keep using

1:05:05

them as cannon fodder.

1:05:06

Right, they could sit there and we can plug them full of

1:05:08

artillery and bullets, and we'll just get more.

1:05:10

Ukrainian guys that are in there,

1:05:12

and more.

1:05:13

Ukrainian sixty year olds, more mentally

1:05:15

retarded people, and all of them will

1:05:17

just kill them off as much as the

1:05:19

government, you know, is at its whim when

1:05:21

they've already lowered the draft age to twenty

1:05:23

five.

1:05:24

This is the other Iron Europe.

1:05:26

Trying to get the other European countries it's

1:05:28

sent back.

1:05:28

It sounds nuts that they've only lowered the

1:05:30

draft age of twenty five. You know why, because they already have

1:05:32

a population problem where they don't have that many young

1:05:34

men, and the young men don't want to serve. It's tremendously

1:05:37

unpopular. Their families don't want them to

1:05:39

do so why are we even providing

1:05:41

them with the weapons to be able to continue this

1:05:43

madness?

1:05:44

Yet?

1:05:44

Speaker Mike Johnson appears to

1:05:47

be going in the hawk direction and very

1:05:49

likely to possibly include here Ukraine

1:05:52

aid on top of some sort of Israel rider. He

1:05:54

gave an interview to Fox News Sunday, and here's

1:05:56

what he had to say.

1:05:57

How does this change your plans

1:05:59

this week in terms of voting on

1:06:01

an aid package for Israel.

1:06:05

Well, we've understood the urgency of this from the

1:06:08

very beginning, I mean a few days

1:06:10

after I became speaker. Way back in October,

1:06:12

we passed our Israel support package.

1:06:15

It's been sitting on Chuck Schumer's desk ever since

1:06:17

because we included a pay for as you remember, what

1:06:19

a concept we took from the IRS expansion

1:06:22

slush fund to pay for the Israel priority.

1:06:24

We tried it again just about a

1:06:26

month and a half ago, a clean Israel

1:06:29

that many Democrats one hundred and sixty six

1:06:31

as I remember, in the House voted against. Why because

1:06:33

President Joe Biden said that he would veto that. So

1:06:35

the House Republicans and the Republican Party understand

1:06:38

the necessity of standing with Israel. We are going

1:06:40

to try again this week and

1:06:42

the details of that package are being put together right now.

1:06:45

We're looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.

1:06:47

Well, the former president President

1:06:49

Trump has talked about the possibility

1:06:51

of turning aid for Ukraine

1:06:54

into a loan. Is that what you're considering?

1:06:58

Yes, you know, I had a great visit with them at Mary

1:07:00

Lago on Friday, and he and I are one hundred percent

1:07:03

united on these big agenda items. And when

1:07:05

you talk about ad to Ukraine. He's introduced

1:07:07

the lone lease concept, which is a really

1:07:09

important one I think has a lot of consensus,

1:07:12

as well as these other ideas, the Repo

1:07:14

Act which we've discussed, which is seizing

1:07:16

the assets of corrupt Russian

1:07:18

oligarchs to help pay for this resistance.

1:07:21

I think these are ideas that I think can get

1:07:23

consensus, and that's what we've been working through.

1:07:25

There you go from the horse's mouth and

1:07:27

now it's live.

1:07:28

And if you think the neocons aren't going to use

1:07:30

this to their best advantage, well just

1:07:32

watch and see what happens this week. Same thing.

1:07:35

Mitch McConnell. It's going to put this up there on the screen.

1:07:37

He says that the consequences of failure

1:07:39

are now clear and devastating and avoidable,

1:07:42

and that is why they immediately need

1:07:44

to have passage of Ukraine

1:07:47

and Israel aid through the

1:07:49

House of Representatives. So this

1:07:51

Iranian attack in some ways has been like

1:07:54

the biggest boon to Ukraine

1:07:56

aid that has happened in some

1:07:58

time. The House of Senatives has

1:08:00

already said all week this is our

1:08:02

number one priority is sending

1:08:05

aid to Israel. Now the question is

1:08:07

would Senator Schumer and them back down

1:08:09

if they sent aid to Israel, which

1:08:11

is not tied with Ukraine aid. But

1:08:13

I increasingly see it unlikely Ryan, that

1:08:16

anything gets through the House which doesn't

1:08:18

have some sort of Ukraine rider.

1:08:19

What do you think that's right?

1:08:20

Because you

1:08:22

know, Democrats have been unable to get

1:08:24

a majority for Israel only

1:08:26

aid because permilajaiopaul

1:08:29

AOC, a bunch of folks on the left have

1:08:31

said, no, you know, not not

1:08:33

amid this genocide, are we going to send you

1:08:36

money for Israel. That means

1:08:39

that you need to get Republicans

1:08:41

and Democrats to come together. And

1:08:44

you know, the Republicans need to be able to move forward without

1:08:46

the Freedom Caucus kind of America first wing,

1:08:48

and the Democrats are gonna have to go forward

1:08:51

without the squad and the Progressive and a

1:08:53

decent chunk of the Progressive Caucus. And

1:08:55

so, like you said, this running attack

1:08:59

was probably a gift to the McConnell's

1:09:01

of the world and to the people who are pushing for Ukrainian

1:09:04

aid because it ramps

1:09:06

up the pressure on getting aid to

1:09:09

Israel and coming at the same time that you've

1:09:11

got Mike Johnson and Donald Trump saying okay,

1:09:13

you know what, we don't want to give aid to Ukraine.

1:09:16

But as long as the Europeans are

1:09:18

paying their fair share and we turn it

1:09:20

into a lend lease, which will be a completely forgivable

1:09:22

loan, and you know, it's never never coming back except

1:09:25

in terms of kind of a more American.

1:09:27

Pace, except in an accounting thing where you know, just

1:09:29

technically having debt on our books for the nest two

1:09:31

hundred years from from Ukraine.

1:09:34

Yes, so that

1:09:36

that does seem to be the most likely path

1:09:39

that they'll put both of these through

1:09:42

together.

1:09:42

Yeah, and this is ironic too,

1:09:44

because all it would do is stop

1:09:47

the Europeans from actually trying

1:09:49

to get their act together and.

1:09:51

Also and also stop the eventual end

1:09:53

to this war, Like exactly there has to be at some point,

1:09:56

you would think an end to

1:09:58

this war.

1:09:59

The best they hold what they currently have, which

1:10:01

is way worse than the peace deal that was on the table in.

1:10:03

The first at risk, right, if we send

1:10:05

all the weapons by listening to it, Romney, we

1:10:07

won't. It may not make a.

1:10:08

Difference, Okay, So you know it's

1:10:10

one of those where yeah, sixty billion

1:10:13

dollars or whatever that would be sent to

1:10:15

Ukraine, Why exactly is that worth

1:10:17

money to so that for the integrity the

1:10:20

Eastern Dunboss region.

1:10:21

How does that affect my life? Oh wait, it doesn't

1:10:24

actually.

1:10:25

Senator jd Vance gave an interview

1:10:27

with CNN's Jake Tapper where he argued

1:10:29

strendlously against any aid to Ukraine.

1:10:32

Here's what he had to say.

1:10:33

Let me ask you about Ukraine because

1:10:36

you wrote an op ed in the New York Times saying

1:10:38

that you don't think it makes sense the Biden

1:10:40

pitch for at Ukraine.

1:10:44

You've been accused of appeasement, You've been

1:10:46

accused of surrender. Even the National Review had

1:10:48

a column about that. And again, I'm going to get to Iran in Israel,

1:10:50

which I know is a big pressing story, but I

1:10:52

do want you to address that because the National Review

1:10:56

is basically saying that your solution to

1:10:58

the problem of Russia invading a sovereign Ukraine

1:11:00

is to just surrender. Are they wrong?

1:11:03

No, Look, my solution to.

1:11:04

The problem is to rebuild our own country.

1:11:06

The reason that we're in this position, Jake, is because

1:11:09

we're stretched way too thin.

1:11:10

We're stretched way too.

1:11:11

Thin, and the number of weapons systems

1:11:14

that we need, the Ukraine needs, the Taiwan

1:11:16

needs, that Israel needs, and we can't

1:11:18

do all of these things at once. So when you're stretched

1:11:20

too thin, you've got to focus and

1:11:22

you've got to rebuild your own country. Let's

1:11:25

take just one of those weapons systems that we're talking

1:11:27

about, one hundred and fifty five millimeters artillery

1:11:29

shelves. The Russians currently have a five

1:11:31

to one advantage over the Ukrainians.

1:11:34

The Israelis will need this stuff, the Taiwanese

1:11:36

need this stuff, and of course America needs this stuff.

1:11:39

Can we possibly fight all of those

1:11:41

conflicts that wants to know?

1:11:43

The math just doesn't make sense.

1:11:44

So what we should be doing is with Ukraine, encouraging

1:11:47

them to take a defensive posture, not

1:11:49

these disastrous counter offensive the Biden

1:11:51

administration has been promoting.

1:11:53

Is within Ukraine. The counter offensive is

1:11:55

within Ukraine. They're not seeking land

1:11:57

from Russian In.

1:11:58

Fact, just today, I'm just asking judgment on the

1:12:00

morality of what they're doing. Of course it's their

1:12:02

territory, Jake, but you have to acknowledge

1:12:04

military reality on the ground.

1:12:06

Yeah, I mean, it's sensible and it's

1:12:08

obviously true. Even like we just talked about

1:12:11

in our Israel block, we just spend one point three

1:12:13

billion dollars in defense on a single attack

1:12:15

from Iran.

1:12:16

How do you think it's going to look like we're going to full on war.

1:12:18

That's exactly how when we were in Afghanistan,

1:12:21

the toll at some point was some two hundred

1:12:23

million dollars a day that we were spending

1:12:25

in the war in Iraq as well. That's how that

1:12:28

six trillion number got as high as

1:12:30

it was. People really have no idea

1:12:32

like once the ball is rolling, and

1:12:34

just the amount of money that gets printed

1:12:36

and spent on this stuff is astounding. The

1:12:39

Republicans, though, do have a genius plan, by

1:12:41

the way, to pay for A to Israel.

1:12:43

Let's go and put this up there on the screen.

1:12:45

Johnson apparently has a proposal

1:12:48

which will condition A to Israel on domestic

1:12:50

spending cuts. It's not just from the

1:12:52

IRS, it's from other programs

1:12:55

that we have here. So let's

1:12:57

just all just ruminate a little bit on that.

1:12:59

And we could argue about this endlessly.

1:13:01

But the quote unquote cuts to the

1:13:03

IRS actually add to the deficit,

1:13:05

because if you defund the IRS,

1:13:08

you get less tax money coming

1:13:10

in. And by the way, just one fun detail, the one

1:13:12

hundred and fifty five millimeter shells, those

1:13:14

are the ones that Pakistan has been making for the US

1:13:17

since we overthrew in ron Khan. That's basically that's

1:13:19

why we overthrew. Oh where there's

1:13:21

a result of overthrowing in ron Khan is that it

1:13:24

pushed Pakistan in our direction. And

1:13:26

what Pakistan does is makes lots of those

1:13:28

shells, and so we got those

1:13:31

factories humming for for

1:13:33

Ukraine's benefit.

1:13:34

As a result.

1:13:35

And just even with all of that,

1:13:37

it doesn't really matter because the

1:13:39

best estimate for a bifiscal

1:13:41

twenty twenty eight is eighty five thousand shells

1:13:44

a month. That's according to the US Army,

1:13:46

and the Russians are currently at like one hundred and seventy

1:13:48

five thousand.

1:13:49

So just so people understand just how

1:13:51

far.

1:13:51

Bea we're dropping those all over the bread basket

1:13:53

of the world. Yeah, how's that working?

1:13:55

Yeah that's right.

1:13:56

Okay, Well we'll see thank

1:13:58

you Trump. Len Ley's program genius

1:14:00

absolutely genius scam by the neocons

1:14:03

here, But as usual for him, he's

1:14:05

like, well that sounds good, we'll make it alone. Great,

1:14:07

great idea. Cornell

1:14:11

West, the Independent candidate, has

1:14:13

chosen Black Lives Matter activist Melina

1:14:16

Abdullah as his vice president.

1:14:18

The Independent candidate says he needs a VP

1:14:20

pick to gain access to the ballot. This

1:14:23

actually explains also why RFK Junior

1:14:25

announced his VP picks so early.

1:14:27

There's some contestation right now whether

1:14:29

he actually qualified for the Arizona ballot

1:14:32

or not, because he didn't have his VP listed

1:14:34

whenever he made his petition. So that's

1:14:36

why the two of them are announcing their

1:14:38

VP candidates much earlier than

1:14:40

everybody else. But what's your immediate

1:14:42

reaction to Cornell West

1:14:45

choosing a BLM activist here?

1:14:48

Cornell West said, he he wants to

1:14:50

run with somebody who brings

1:14:52

some joy and then he feels proud of me. Obviously, this

1:14:54

is not a he's not playcating

1:14:57

any kind of he's a triangulating. He's

1:15:00

he's leaning completely in right.

1:15:02

Uh, he's as as he said it. Uh,

1:15:05

you know, he's he's running. Uh, he's running

1:15:07

for Genius Malina. Uh is running

1:15:09

for Allah. So you're kind of a Christian

1:15:12

Christian social justice warrior and

1:15:14

a Muslim social justice warrior on

1:15:16

the on the ticket together. Malina was

1:15:18

a basically an original

1:15:20

founder of of b l M like this, so as

1:15:23

as you know, it began with kind of a hashtag

1:15:26

on Facebook. Uh,

1:15:28

that really took off. And then the

1:15:31

organizers captured that energy,

1:15:33

got together in a room and decided,

1:15:36

you know how they were going to you

1:15:38

know, take that energy and move it forward. And Molina

1:15:41

was among among those people. And

1:15:43

and she's also she's kind of been a kind

1:15:46

of an elder in that in that space,

1:15:49

as you know a lot of a lot of the original

1:15:52

BLM founders were you know, teens

1:15:54

twenties. She's a

1:15:57

more kind of accomplished professor. Uh,

1:16:00

you know, like any radical

1:16:02

leftist in this country who

1:16:05

hasn't scrubbed her Twitter feed, you're gonna find

1:16:07

all sorts of stuff.

1:16:09

Let's take a let's take a trip down memory lane,

1:16:11

shall we. Let's go and put some of these up there on

1:16:13

the screen from miss Abdullah we have.

1:16:15

Why do I feel like it's slightly racist

1:16:18

to be a Taylor Swift hit?

1:16:20

This one got some trash in real time.

1:16:22

That actually was literally only two months ago.

1:16:25

This isn't some old tweet that we're looking at

1:16:27

here. Let's continue to play some of the greatest hits. The American

1:16:30

flag symbolizes the genocide of Indigenous

1:16:32

people, the theft of their land, the enslavement

1:16:34

of dehumanization, exploitation of black people,

1:16:36

and settler colonialism. Critique around

1:16:39

Beyonce's artistic choice is

1:16:41

important and healthy, not hate hashtag

1:16:44

cowboy Carter. As Ben Jacobs, the political

1:16:46

reporter notes, is this our first anti

1:16:48

American flag candidate? Let's

1:16:50

go to the next one here as Well says

1:16:53

these are some older ones, but none

1:16:55

is older than July of twenty nineteen. On

1:16:58

Pete budaj Edge apparently saying the word

1:17:00

Niger, she says nobody white should ever

1:17:02

refer to the nation of Niger period

1:17:05

misspelled period?

1:17:06

Does anybody else.

1:17:07

Resent that COVID nineteen has made it acceptable

1:17:09

for old white men to hijack

1:17:11

Black culture and give each other a DAP

1:17:14

and fistball. Wait, Ryan, that's us,

1:17:16

we fist pump each other. I guess we're hijacking

1:17:19

Black culture with the DAP. No

1:17:21

self respecting black persons should be singing

1:17:23

the white national anthem hashtag demned

1:17:26

debate and not digging the white children

1:17:28

referred to as Mama La.

1:17:30

Didn't she just get married?

1:17:32

That's a dig at Kamala Harris

1:17:34

for having the temerity to

1:17:36

embrace her step children.

1:17:38

So all very popular positions,

1:17:40

each one actually less popular

1:17:42

than the next. Here's another one.

1:17:44

In July twenty nineteen, I was compelled

1:17:46

to step off the sidewalk three times

1:17:48

during my thirty minute walk so that white

1:17:50

folks and their dogs could pass. Got me

1:17:52

feeling like hashtag gentrification

1:17:55

is hashtag Jim Crow revisited.

1:17:57

I'm going to say that the next time that I'm forced off

1:18:00

bi pitbull. So these are these

1:18:03

are all let's just say, interesting

1:18:05

choice here by Cornell West.

1:18:07

I mean, what is he thinking.

1:18:08

Let's be honest, they're like obvious racial

1:18:10

dimensions to gentrification and then

1:18:12

they do walk.

1:18:13

Let's let's not even try. Let's not even try and

1:18:15

rescue this abdella here? All right, Yeah,

1:18:17

I don't know.

1:18:18

About the dog.

1:18:19

The dog, come on,

1:18:22

what.

1:18:22

Are you talking about? But I

1:18:24

think, look, I guess if you

1:18:26

want to defend it, you can. This is just pure

1:18:28

gobbledegook. Looking at this woman's background,

1:18:31

Pan African studies, University

1:18:33

of California, totally poisoned

1:18:36

with activist type rhetoric. And

1:18:38

that's my thing here with Cornell and like,

1:18:40

what are you trying to do? You know, it's interesting

1:18:42

too, because look I get that BLM

1:18:45

social justice and all that is foundational to

1:18:47

some of his political identity. Fine,

1:18:49

okay, but don't you have some political

1:18:52

reason as to why you are running

1:18:54

beyond trying to capture this

1:18:56

kind of activist base

1:18:58

and vote, which, let's be honest, these people long to vote for Biden

1:19:00

anyway, In terms

1:19:02

of the practical realities, I see no political

1:19:05

calculus other than becoming a laughingstock

1:19:07

by picking somebody like this.

1:19:08

Yeah, Cornell has always had kind of

1:19:11

a broader lens when it comes to his radical

1:19:14

love and his radical politics, one

1:19:16

that you know what

1:19:19

you know. He endorsed Obama, for instance,

1:19:21

I remember campaign for Obama

1:19:23

and has always tried to unite

1:19:26

people and make the argument that racism

1:19:30

is dividing us so

1:19:32

that the one percent can

1:19:35

walk away with all of the spoils,

1:19:38

which is probably an argument

1:19:40

that Molina would would agree with, but

1:19:42

she doesn't lead with it.

1:19:43

Yeah.

1:19:44

Well, whereas where Cornell West does

1:19:46

lead with that.

1:19:47

Yeah, And that's why I found it confounding,

1:19:49

is this is very much the

1:19:52

opposite, at least from what I've watched

1:19:54

and listened to him. He's generally I

1:19:56

mean, I wouldn't call him like a race first

1:19:58

person. He definitely indulges in a lot

1:20:00

of racial rhetoric, but has always

1:20:02

at least tried to adopt that this is something that

1:20:04

is downstream of classism. But

1:20:07

you know, from a pure political lens,

1:20:09

it's like, why would you give

1:20:11

this gift to to not

1:20:13

only for media, I mean, we wouldn't be covering it otherwise

1:20:15

otherwise, you know, otherwise it's like, who barely even cares

1:20:18

he's even going to be on the ballot, But for this,

1:20:20

I mean, just to me, seems like a profound political

1:20:22

misjudgment.

1:20:23

Maybe it's just what he believes. I think that's fine too, if

1:20:25

you want to do that.

1:20:26

Coroner West has almost seemed I

1:20:28

hope we can get him on the program.

1:20:30

By the way, we have tried. His campaign has been a pain

1:20:32

in the ass. So if anybody who's listening,

1:20:34

who is out there, doctor West, We've invited

1:20:36

you on the show more than a dozen times, and I have

1:20:38

yet to receive a proper response.

1:20:40

Yeah, it feels like he has regretted

1:20:42

the decision to run since he launched it and

1:20:44

has and has been like, my conspiracy

1:20:46

theory, if I were going to get it in his mind, is

1:20:48

that he has been consistently trying to undermine

1:20:51

his own campaign so as not to undermined

1:20:54

by it.

1:20:55

Interesting. Oh wow.

1:20:56

First he launched with the People's Party, clearly

1:21:00

doing anything that. Immediately as

1:21:02

soon as he realized what he'd gotten into, he's like, WHOA,

1:21:05

what is this mess? Then he goes over

1:21:07

to the Green Party. Apparently he hadn't done much

1:21:09

work with the Green Party because I could have told you that thing

1:21:11

is a complete and total mess. And so he was like,

1:21:13

whoa, the Green Party is

1:21:15

extremely difficult to deal with. They're

1:21:18

not going to just coordinate me. He didn't want to fight

1:21:20

for the nomination.

1:21:21

Why should they coronate because

1:21:24

because there are a self respecting parties.

1:21:26

Yes they're they're actually by the way, on

1:21:28

the ballot, you know.

1:21:30

But then I think he started to worry, Oh

1:21:32

wait, now I might be if I win this, I will be on

1:21:34

ballots and then I might throw the election

1:21:37

to Trump. So then he's like, I'm going to run

1:21:39

as an independent. And running as an independent,

1:21:42

I think he's only on like three ballots at this point.

1:21:45

Running as an independent, it's very difficult to get on

1:21:47

the ballots. He's raised less than a million dollars,

1:21:50

and he doesn't seem to have the

1:21:52

energy to kind of get on the ballot

1:21:54

in fifty states. And is

1:21:56

that deliberate? Like that

1:21:59

is that expression of his Wait

1:22:02

a minute, because he is very

1:22:04

clear that he believes that

1:22:06

Trump is a more dangerous that's form

1:22:08

of fascism than Biden's form of fascism.

1:22:10

Like that is? That is and he has ticked

1:22:13

off an enormous number of people on the left. You

1:22:15

with that position, but that is his position. And

1:22:18

if that is your position.

1:22:20

Then what's your raise on? What

1:22:22

are we doing here?

1:22:23

And I think what he's doing here is not running?

1:22:25

Oh well, I like the psychoanalysis.

1:22:27

Maybe that's why I won't come on the show. Doesn't want a big enough program.

1:22:29

All right, all right, let's see. All right, let's move

1:22:32

on to Bill Maher Ryan and I had to

1:22:34

break this one down. Bill just

1:22:36

injecting himself into the abortion debate

1:22:39

in the single most bill way possible.

1:22:41

Let's take a.

1:22:41

Listen, not if you believe it's murder. You

1:22:44

know, That's why I don't understand the fifteen week

1:22:46

thing or the Trump's plan

1:22:48

is let's leave it to the states. You

1:22:51

mean, so coming babies is okay in some states.

1:22:54

I couldn't respect the absolutest

1:22:56

position I really can I scold

1:22:59

the left when they say, oh, you

1:23:01

know what, they just hate women people

1:23:03

who aren't pro wife they do the

1:23:06

pro choice, they just they don't hate women. They

1:23:08

just made that up. They think it's

1:23:10

murder and it kind of

1:23:12

is. I'm just okay with that, I

1:23:16

am. I mean, there's eight billion

1:23:18

people in the world. I'm sorry, we won't

1:23:20

miss you. That's my position

1:23:22

on them. What, Yeah,

1:23:25

exactly is that not

1:23:27

your position if your pro choice is.

1:23:29

Maybe because you don't like children? No?

1:23:31

No, I mean but

1:23:33

if you are, you said your pro choice, that's

1:23:36

your position too.

1:23:37

So yeah, there's

1:23:39

a lot going on there. So

1:23:42

Bill, I mean, I guess we should note he is

1:23:45

sixty eight years old and unmarried.

1:23:47

So I don't think Peers is off

1:23:49

by saying, you know, do you just not like kids?

1:23:51

Like what exactly is going on

1:23:54

here?

1:23:54

The problem for Bill is that he's basically embracing

1:23:57

the og pro abortion argument

1:23:59

by Margaret's Anger and other eugenicists,

1:24:02

which is like, hey, we need abortion

1:24:04

so that black people in particular will stop

1:24:06

having a bunch of kids.

1:24:07

This is why a lot of white.

1:24:08

Supremacists, eugenicists, and others were

1:24:11

original supporters of abortion. You'll

1:24:13

actually hear this from a lot of pro life people

1:24:15

in general.

1:24:15

They took Martin Sanger's name off the Planned Parenthood

1:24:18

building.

1:24:18

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, as a result of that. But

1:24:21

Ryan, give us the pro choice

1:24:23

critique of what Bill has to say.

1:24:25

I mean he's he's pro murderer. Yeah,

1:24:28

you know, most reasonable people are anti

1:24:30

murder.

1:24:30

Yeah.

1:24:32

The argument that it's

1:24:35

okay to murder people because there are

1:24:37

too many people on the planet is

1:24:40

evil. Like, it's just deeply

1:24:42

evil.

1:24:43

This straight up depopulation.

1:24:44

Man, that's crazy. So at

1:24:46

what age? So okay, how about

1:24:48

sixty eight year old?

1:24:49

Oh yeah, like, like you.

1:24:51

Said, Bill mar sixty eight, right, he

1:24:53

thinks contributed

1:24:55

to the population, he be killed. Yeah,

1:24:58

Like taking that logic seriously, it

1:25:00

is impressive to be able to make the absolute

1:25:02

least the absolute worst argument

1:25:05

on either side in this spate.

1:25:07

That. Okay, he says, I

1:25:10

say that life begins at conception, but.

1:25:12

It is good to murder children

1:25:15

because there are too many because there are too many people. Yeah,

1:25:17

I mean this is where this is the issue. And look, I mean I'm

1:25:19

not even going to as people know, I

1:25:21

don't believe in God. Okay, So for me. This

1:25:24

is a it's a difficult issue.

1:25:25

As everybody always says, the

1:25:27

general societal consensus for

1:25:30

some reason is that we seem to accept it

1:25:32

in the first trimester and all

1:25:34

of that. Even with medical advances and

1:25:36

all of that, it actually becomes more complicated

1:25:38

at what.

1:25:39

Exactly fetal viability is, et

1:25:41

cetera. Go ahead.

1:25:42

I know he is right that there's a contradiction between

1:25:45

believing as you know the pro

1:25:47

life crowd does, and Emily, I'll talk about this that

1:25:50

you know, if you believe life begins at conception, but

1:25:52

you're okay with fifteen weeks, then.

1:25:54

Yeah, what is that exactly?

1:25:56

He is correct. No, that is if

1:25:58

it is murdering, how do you leave it? How do you go back

1:26:00

to the state. The pro choice croud just does not

1:26:02

believe that, yes, that having an abortion is murder And

1:26:04

also mar is just wrong

1:26:07

to completely dismiss the misogynistic

1:26:10

angle here. That doesn't mean

1:26:12

that every pro life supporter quote unquote

1:26:14

hates women like he said, but

1:26:16

it is a it is a fundamental

1:26:19

part of upholding the patriarchy. Well,

1:26:21

and I think even most pro life supporters

1:26:23

would it would acknowledge that

1:26:26

and say that, yeah, it is related to

1:26:28

our resentment of and opposition to

1:26:30

this sexual revolution and everything that is

1:26:33

that, everything that is unfolded since then

1:26:35

we would like to go back to pre

1:26:38

nineteen sixties version.

1:26:39

I think that's fair, and that's where I

1:26:41

agree that it's wrong because it's one

1:26:43

of those where it hates women. Okay, yeah, I mean

1:26:45

that's it's a little bit hyper

1:26:48

hyperbole. However, when we look

1:26:50

at polling and we see that the number one issue

1:26:52

for suburban women or even for a lot of

1:26:54

women is abortion, something is going on

1:26:56

there, and in general, the vast majority of them

1:26:58

are pro choice. In general, especially

1:27:01

here in America, what we individually

1:27:03

select for is our right to self

1:27:05

actualization. Now, this is where the

1:27:07

pro life community and the religious community gets upset

1:27:10

because at the end of the day, individualism

1:27:12

is the enemy of collectivism, and specifically

1:27:15

collectivism whenever it's related

1:27:17

to religion and organized religion. So what

1:27:19

they are trying to go against is exactly as you said.

1:27:22

The ideas in the genesis of the sexual

1:27:24

revolution, which was enabled by

1:27:26

birth control, is the idea that

1:27:28

the sex act itself can be disaggregated

1:27:31

from procreation. That is literally

1:27:33

the enemy of the Christian conception of

1:27:36

procreation and of why the existence

1:27:38

of sin and all that is here in the first

1:27:40

place, as it's been explained to me. So my

1:27:42

point though, is that this is an enemy.

1:27:45

These are two competing ideologies,

1:27:48

one very clearly is trending

1:27:50

in a different direction when it comes

1:27:52

to an increasingly secular America.

1:27:55

One of the most underreported

1:27:57

like stories of our lifetime is I

1:28:00

grew up and so did you, Ryan in a Christian

1:28:02

country. I grew up in nineteen nineties

1:28:04

Texas where some ninety percent

1:28:07

of the people around me were straight

1:28:09

up evangelical believers.

1:28:11

If I go back now today, even today

1:28:14

in a very Christian Christian place, you don't

1:28:16

feel it just quite as much. You don't

1:28:18

see that influence. And we see

1:28:20

declining church attendance, declining religiosity,

1:28:23

declining religious identification. The

1:28:26

secularization has been such

1:28:28

a mass change in American

1:28:30

religious identity. We haven't seen anything

1:28:33

like it since the Great Awakening in the

1:28:35

eighteen hundreds when we saw mass Christian

1:28:37

adoption or I guess church attendance,

1:28:40

and that revolution in our lifetime

1:28:42

is a huge part of this debate. It's

1:28:44

funny because I noted all these

1:28:46

people were attacking Trump for saying leave it

1:28:49

to the States, and I was like, hey, the entire time

1:28:51

I was growing up, the pro lifers always just said

1:28:53

leave it to the states.

1:28:54

But somebody was like, no, no, no, dude.

1:28:55

But you don't understand if they didn't, if they realized

1:28:58

leaving it to the states would mean pro choice

1:29:00

referendums would passing red states, they never

1:29:02

would have said that.

1:29:03

They didn't believe it in the first place. And I do think that

1:29:05

is undred percent.

1:29:06

The other fascinating part about the great

1:29:09

unawakening that we're

1:29:11

living through is that some of it,

1:29:13

some of its connected to the spread of evangelical

1:29:17

Christianity in the sense that those

1:29:21

types of folks are not actually.

1:29:22

Going to church much. Yeah that's right.

1:29:24

Yeah, they consider themselves evangelical, but they don't

1:29:26

even they don't really.

1:29:26

Be iheard, you know, evangelicals,

1:29:30

but are ye not going to church

1:29:32

because they believe that they have their own relationship

1:29:34

with Jesus, and you know they

1:29:36

don't. They don't need the institution to get in the way of it.

1:29:38

Or you've got the megachurches, which are a

1:29:41

very it's a very tenuous kind of connection

1:29:43

to a church that's not a it's not a neighborhood

1:29:45

that is organized around this particular

1:29:48

thing. It's just just a fun

1:29:50

thing that people do on Sunday.

1:29:52

Right, Yeah, it's it's it is very

1:29:54

interesting. I would just say though, part of

1:29:56

the problem, and this is one of the things I think

1:29:59

that some of the religion folks are correct

1:30:01

about, is that it does lead to the normalization

1:30:03

of some straight up ghoulish rhetoric like

1:30:06

what Bill Maher just said, which is depopulation.

1:30:08

When you remove yourself from morals and

1:30:10

you start to think purely in these terms,

1:30:13

then you can arrive at eugenicism

1:30:15

and just think like, hey, why doesn't this stuff

1:30:17

make sense?

1:30:18

He seems surprised by the reaction. He watched

1:30:20

the crowd. He thought he was going to get some guffaws

1:30:23

at his like pro murder stance and even

1:30:26

even yeah.

1:30:26

Even peers, why, I guess peers from Britain. Yeah, in

1:30:28

Britain, I mean they're not religio. They haven't been religious for

1:30:31

like fifty.

1:30:31

There was some collar tugging going on,

1:30:35

and the crowd that comes to a Bill Maher show

1:30:37

has to be ready to hear some pretty impolitics

1:30:39

stuff. And even they were.

1:30:41

Like yeah,

1:30:43

because look That's the whole

1:30:45

point in terms of the messy issue, and the

1:30:47

way that the consensus and all of that has been arrived

1:30:50

is, as you said, is that a lot of people just don't believe

1:30:52

that life does begin at conception, and it's much

1:30:54

more fetal viability, and so

1:30:56

thus they're like, I don't believe in murder. There

1:30:59

in a way, Bill was like accepting like the

1:31:01

Christian framing, saying it is kind of murder.

1:31:03

But I'm okay with that.

1:31:04

Because we have eight billion people on the planet,

1:31:07

I will expect actually to see more of these

1:31:09

types of discussions in America. What

1:31:11

I'm really interested in is the fact

1:31:13

that even though as Americans become

1:31:15

much more secular, is we do still

1:31:18

seem to have a moral code carried

1:31:20

over through many civilizations which are

1:31:22

non religious, where we still are like, yeah, murder

1:31:25

is bad, eugenicism is bad. It's

1:31:27

like, these are all lessons that, even

1:31:29

in a non Christian nation, that we're arriving

1:31:31

at our own kind of social, individualistic

1:31:34

consensus, which is interesting. Nonetheless,

1:31:39

there's certainly a lot else going on that is important

1:31:42

in this world. But something I couldn't just let go by

1:31:44

without at least a word is media assessment

1:31:46

of the death of OJ Simpson. The

1:31:48

OJ case is one I never really cared

1:31:50

about. I was only one year old at the time of the murders.

1:31:53

I have no memory of the verdict or any

1:31:55

of the media environment at the time. My interest

1:31:57

came many decades later after the

1:32:00

release of the FX series The People Versus

1:32:02

OJ Simpson. It inspired me to actually

1:32:04

do a deep dive on the case and read several

1:32:06

books about it. What I came away with is

1:32:08

a disgust that I can barely describe.

1:32:10

Reading an exquisite detail how

1:32:13

OJ's defense team and the tabloid

1:32:15

media transformed a narcissistic,

1:32:17

abusive murderer into a black panther

1:32:19

police justice icon one of the

1:32:22

most insane things that happened throughout

1:32:24

the nineteen nineties. I will not re litigate

1:32:26

every detail here, but suffice it to say

1:32:28

that the media and Johnny Cochran got what they

1:32:30

wanted. They split this country completely

1:32:33

apart by race. You can see it clearly

1:32:35

in the famous reaction shots to the verdict.

1:32:37

Black audience is cheering the OJ not guilty

1:32:40

verdict, many others repulsed by it.

1:32:42

Let's take a listen, Oh kid.

1:32:52

I think it's great. He deserves

1:32:54

to go free. They had no evidence on him.

1:32:58

So much evidence for as

1:33:01

short as they did and come back with a not guilty

1:33:03

verdict.

1:33:03

I think it.

1:33:04

Shows that the jury was pretty

1:33:06

irresponsible, and.

1:33:07

I'm just don't think justice

1:33:09

has served. I don't think the jury did their job. I

1:33:12

think they knew what they were going to do from the gate.

1:33:14

I think it was racist

1:33:17

based and it was racist from the black

1:33:19

point of view.

1:33:20

This is terrible that he's going to get away

1:33:22

with this, you know, because I do

1:33:25

believe that he did it, and

1:33:28

it's just not fair.

1:33:29

He's guilty. He's got to live in himself. Man, he

1:33:32

knows he did it.

1:33:33

DNA.

1:33:33

He's not racial. It doesn't see black

1:33:36

and white. It guess sees that he was there

1:33:38

and he did it. He's got to live

1:33:40

in himself, that's all.

1:33:41

I thought we'd at least left all that behind in the nineties

1:33:43

where it belonged. But I couldn't help but find that

1:33:46

rage build back inside me when I started to

1:33:48

see media reactions to the announcement

1:33:50

of OJ's death the same race

1:33:52

huckster collapse trap in twenty twenty four.

1:33:54

Let's take a listen from CNN.

1:33:56

It's not like OJ Simpson was the

1:33:58

leader of the civil rights movement of his error.

1:34:01

You know, he wasn't a social justice leader.

1:34:04

But he represented something for

1:34:06

the black community in that moment, in that

1:34:08

trial, particularly because there were two

1:34:10

white people who had been killed, and the

1:34:12

history around how black people

1:34:14

have been persecuted during slavery.

1:34:17

There were just.

1:34:17

So many layers, and I guess I would

1:34:19

just close with this is that there

1:34:22

was racial tension. Then there is racial

1:34:25

tension. Now it might not be the backdrop

1:34:27

of the Trump campaign, but until

1:34:29

this country is ready to actually

1:34:31

have an honest conversation about

1:34:34

the racial dynamics from our origin

1:34:36