Will Trump & Netanyahu Let Gaza Starve?

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This is Gavin Newsom.
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And this is what you've missed.
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Steve Bannon.
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We're in this job because of.
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Overpromising and underperforming. Governor Tim Walz.
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These are bad guys, though.
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These are bad guys.
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But they exist, and we can deny they exist.
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Not only do they exist, they persist. Anthony Scaramucci.
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When he goes off on you on Truth Social with
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the nonsense name-calling, And then you see him like a
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week later or a day later in California. He acts
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like it didn't happen, right? Of course.
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Scott Galloway.
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It's not that our government or our elected representatives in D.C.
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Are whores.
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It's that they're such cheap whores. Frank Lutz. You've taken
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more sh * * than anyone.
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Ezra Klein.
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I would like to see a liberalism that isn't just
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angry about a bunch of things they're going to fail
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to do, as I am, but is also optimistic about
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what is possible.
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Listen to This is Gavin Newsom on the iHeartRadio app,
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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I'm Jon Lovett.
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Tommy Vitor. On today's show, stick around later for a
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big announcement about a live in-person event we'll be holding
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this fall. That's the teaser. We're also going to talk
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about Trump's new alliance with Epstein's convicted co-conspirator as a
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way to keep her from talking. The new taxes we'll
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all be paying on stuff we buy from Europe. And
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the $ 1 billion we might end up paying for Trump's
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new luxury jet. Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with Haaretz
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columnist Amir T-Bone about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, why
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a deal to end the war has been so elusive,
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and Trump and Netanyahu's relationship. There were quite a few
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developments in Gaza over the weekend, so let's start there.
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If you've been following this story, you've probably seen that
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since the Israeli government broke its ceasefire with Hamas in
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March and blocked all food or aid from entering the territory,
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Gaza has become hell on earth. Israel has now destroyed
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most Palestinian homes, buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and farms.
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They've killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly children, wounded
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hundreds of thousands more, and have displaced nearly 2 million Palestinians,
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almost the entire population. In late May, Israel started distributing
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small amounts of food at four locations run by American contractors,
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but Israeli forces have shot more than 1,000 people who've
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tried to get that food. And now the U.N. says
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that every single resident of Gaza is at risk of starvation.
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The World Food Program says 100,000 people are in dire
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need of treatment for malnutrition, which has claimed the lives
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of 48 people in July alone, 20 of them children.
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Israel has blamed the U.N. and Hamas for the hunger crisis,
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though senior Israeli military officials told the New York Times
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there is no proof that Hamas has been systematically stealing U.N.
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food and supplies. On Monday, Two of Israel's leading human
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rights organizations said for the first time that Israel is
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committing genocide in Gaza. International pressure from some of Israel's
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closest allies, like the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and France,
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which chose to officially recognize Palestinian statehood last week, finally
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led Netanyahu to announce daily pauses in the fighting in
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three places so that Palestinians can get food, though even
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that small step doesn't seem to be doing too much.
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And none of this has stopped Bibi from denying the
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reality of the atrocities he's committing. Here he is on Sunday.
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Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign
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of starvation in Gaza. What a bold-faced lie. There is
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no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no
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starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration
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of the war to enter Gaza. Otherwise, there would be
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no Gazans. And what has interdicted the supply of humanitarian
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aid is one force, Hamas.
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There is no starvation in Gaza, says Bibi. As for
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Israel's closest ally and largest source of military aid, us,
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the United States government, here's a sampling of how Donald
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Trump answered questions about Gaza during his golf trip to
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Scotland over the weekend.
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Well, you know, we gave $ 60 million two weeks ago
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and nobody even acknowledged it for food. And nobody said, gee,
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thank you very much. And it would be nice to
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have at least a thank you. We do have to
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take care of the humanitarian needs on what they used
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to call the Gaza Strip. You don't hear that line
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too much anymore. You don't hear the Gaza Strip. But
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we're going to be getting some good, strong food. We
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can save a lot of people. I mean, some of
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those kids are, that's real starvation stuff. I see it.
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And you can't fake that.
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Real starvation, but no thank you notes for many of
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the starving children. That was just.
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Who did he want to thank you from? Did some
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kid there have his number? Did he want Hamas to
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give him a call?
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Yeah, wanted him to fire off a thank you note.
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Maybe thank you for the bombs?
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Those are far more expensive than the food. It's like J.D.
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Vance asking. They all want people to thank them. That's
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very weird. Zelensky's got to thank them. The kids in
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Gaza have got to thank them. Let's start with you
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guys' general reactions to the developments in Gaza over the
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last week. And Tommy, maybe you can tell us what
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you think about the pause in military activity that Bibi announced? Yeah.
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I mean, I think just generally, I mean, you see
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these photos of these emaciated, literally starving to death or
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starved to death children, and it's just impossible. It's the
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worst thing I've ever seen. It's impossible as a parent
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not to imagine that being your child and being incapable
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of protecting them. You know, that's where my brain always goes.
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And what is so enraging is is that this was
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not just predictable, it was predicted. Taking aid distribution away
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from the UN, giving it to this brand new organization,
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the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that just emerged out of nowhere recently,
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was destined to fail catastrophically, and every expert said as much.
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One example why, you mentioned how the GHF has four
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aid distribution points, the UN had 400. And so what
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that does, this new system forces Gazans to make these long,
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dangerous walks through an active war zone to get food.
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There are all these instances of the IDF or contractors
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shooting them or drones going off near these distribution points.
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Hundreds of people have been killed, like 600, 700, 800.
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Gazans have been killed near eight distribution points. There was
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a former GHF contractor who served in the US Special Forces,
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did an interview with the BBC. He said, quote, he
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has never witnessed the level of brutality and use of
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indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population an unarmed
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starving population. This was a guard for the GHF. And
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he said he fought ISIS and the Taliban.
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ISIS and the Taliban.
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And it's, by the way, no longer anonymous, so they
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can claim, oh, these are fake or anonymous. This person
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on the record, on camera, describing this, someone who was there, U.S.
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Special Forces veteran, also describes it as amateurish, right? Like
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this is a thing that was just stood up.
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It's just like the processes are terrible. The individual treatment
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of people are terrible. So your questions about the humanitarian
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pauses that are happening, the pauses in military activity, I mean,
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they're good, but it's like the definition of too little,
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too late. Because there's no on-off switch for a famine.
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Jeremy Cunn-Neindeck, the president of Refugees International, has been sounding
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the alarm about this, how difficult it is to control
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a famine once it reaches the tipping point. And the
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tipping point is like you sort of see clusters of deaths.
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That's how you know this is happening. And it will
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require a massive surge of aid, food, malnutrition treatment, clean water, sanitation,
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health care. Not just these bullshit PR airdrops or a
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few pauses. And so I'm glad there is this acute
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focus on the famine, but we need to also focus
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just as much on permanently ending the war. Because as
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you mentioned, the death toll before this famine has been catastrophic.
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Gaza Health Ministry says 55,000. Other studies say closer to 80,000.
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70% of structures destroyed. And so the only way the
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living Israeli hostages are going to survive and get out
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alive is to permanently end the war. And it's going
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to take a massive diplomatic push to get there because
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Netanyahu is extending the war for political purposes.
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Yeah, look, Netanyahu blames Hamas for aid not reaching people,
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and yet under international pressure, he can get more aid
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into Gaza. This happened repeatedly. The Times published this long
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and deeply reported story about Netanyahu's conduct before and during
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the war, and there's a scene that describes Netanyahu facing
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pressure from the right internally to not allow aid into
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Gaza and from the Biden administration at the time to
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allow aid into Gaza. And he always relented to the
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pressure from the biden administration in that instance he responds
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to pressure how can it be that it is hamas's
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fault or the un's fault uh and not israel's fault
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that aid is not getting to people who need it
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when under pressure that policy changes it's happened multiple times.
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Yeah the um The propaganda and the lies in the
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face of like what the entire rest of the world
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is seeing and has been documented, it's just really like
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drove me insane over the weekend. The, you know, like
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the footage of all the UN trucks and it's like
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they're just sitting around. I think AIPAC tweeted this and
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Israel's been talking about this. And then as soon as
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he announces the pause, you see pictures of the UN
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trucks just coming on into Gaza. Yeah. So it's like,
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is anyone gonna, you just lied to everyone and now
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you're just gonna pretend that you're not gonna even correct
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yourself or anything. They just don't care.
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The other part of this too is, if you only
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allow in a fraction of the aid that is required,
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it is not surprising that the people who will get
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that aid are the people with guns. It is not
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surprising that you have chaotic and dangerous scenes among people
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who are starving and desperate. And experts in this, former
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envoys to the region who've worked for Democrats and Republicans,
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People who have delivered aid to the region will say
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the answer is more aid. If you have enough aid,
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it can't be commoditized. If you have enough aid, if
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Palestinians are no longer terrified that today's truck will be
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gone tomorrow, right? If people can trust that there will
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be enough food, then all of a sudden these distribution
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points by the UN become less chaotic. And by the way,
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this new organization stood up by the Trump administration's allies, right?
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Like they are backing the IDF and doing these extremely controlled,
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distribution points where they're shooting at people, and they claim
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they're shooting in the air, but lots of reports of hundreds,
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if not a thousand people dying because of it, to
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maintain control at these four points. When the UN is
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distributing aid at these hundreds of places, there are times
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where people are overrunning. What do they do? They back
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off and let people take the food, right? They don't
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shoot people under desperate circumstances.
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And imagine, imagine you have a crowd of people where
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it's like, you literally can't move. And the idea of
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sort of shooting in the air as a warning shot
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to try to back people off, but you can't back off.
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Like there's massive crowds of people and people are desperate.
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And so like, but the other, the thing I know
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that people are probably going to be tweeting at us
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as they listen to this is Hamas could end the
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war right now.
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Just about to leave the hostages.
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And it's what I want to say to you is
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you can repeat that talking point or you can actually
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get them home because. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They're
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not good actors. We should not trust them. We should
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not expect them to act in this, you know, act
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in a way that we would want them to, right?
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Like the hostages are their only leverage. The only hope
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of releasing the hostages is through a deal. And that
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deal has to include ending the war permanently. And that
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is what Netanyahu refuses to agree to. And that is,
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you can talk about it, like Amir and I go
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through this, there's all the sequencing and, you know, the
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phasing of hostage release and Palestinians and Israeli prisons getting released.
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The big sticking points are Hamas wants a deal that
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permanently ends the war and Netanyahu won't do that because
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it will collapse his government and he will be out
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of power and he is facing corruption charges and he.
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Could go to jail. That's it. The idea that if
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only everyone who is criticizing Israel would call on Hamas
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to release the hostages, suddenly Hamas would release the hostages
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and all would be well. It is fucking absurd that
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we're still doing this in July of 2025 as this
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war has dragged on, talking about what Hamas can or
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cannot do. You know what? We're not funding Hamas's military.
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Hamas isn't accepting diplomatic pressure, international pressure. The whole point,
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Bibi's stated goal when they started the blockade was to
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put pressure, the blockade of food into Gaza was to
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put pressure on Hamas. Since that time, they've recovered one hostage,
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an Israeli-American hostage, and that was like a side deal
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with the United States. So it was by Netanyahu's own,
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like his own stated goals, it's been a fucking failure.
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to get to pressure Hamas to release the hostages. And
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what it's done instead is just starved a bunch of
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people and led to like a staggering loss of life.
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Hamas started this war. Hamas has shown incredible disregard for
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the lives of the people it claims to represent. It
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is a monstrous organization. We should demand better. of Israel
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and that it, yes, Hamas does not, Hamas could save
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Palestinian lives right now. So can Israel. We hold Israel
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to a higher standard because it is an ally of
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ours who we fund, who we ostensibly believe has a
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moral and ethical compass that at some point in its
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history claimed to believe in. So the idea that like, oh, well,
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you know, it's Hamas's fault.
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Okay, sure.
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I agree. Hamas is responsible ultimately. for the ongoing suffering
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of the Palestinian people because they hold the hostages, because
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they committed an act of terrorism, a monstrous war crime.
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Fine. Okay.
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So what? So Palestinians have to die? That's the answer?
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Israel can, you mean, Israel can do better? So can we.
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So can the United States. We have the capacity to
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go and do something about this. So does Europe. I mean,
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it's just.
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Donald Trump could end this war with one call to end, yeah.
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Donald Trump has so much political capital in Israel after
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the Iran strikes. Netanyahu needs him. Netanyahu wants his political backing.
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He also wants the U.S. military and intelligence support. But
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instead of doing that, instead of getting the Nobel Peace
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Prize that he wants, Trump has made things exponentially worse
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by announcing a few months back a plan to ethnically
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cleanse the entire Gaza Strip and turn it into a
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resort town. And what that did in practice was make
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it so much harder to get a deal done to
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end the war because the far right in Israel was like,
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that's on the table? Ethnic cleansing is on the table.
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Controlling Gaza fully, permanently is on the table.
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We want that. Yeah, that heritage minister over the weekend
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last week, he said, all Gaza will be Jewish. The
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government is pushing for Gaza being wiped out. Thank God
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we are wiping out this evil. And I realize, you know,
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Netanyahu then later said, oh, he doesn't speak for the government.
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But it's like, well, he's one of your fucking ministers.
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He's also the same guy that said they should consider
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using nuclear weapons in the Gaza Strip and then was, what,
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suspended briefly and then reinstated? And now he's being kind of,
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it took him hours for Netanyahu to ultimately come around
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to denouncing it. And then anyway.
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But Israel Katz, the defense minister, announced a plan to
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like focus everybody into one city in Gaza and then
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push them all out.
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It's ethnic cleansing.
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Yeah.
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And they're like, they're like, they're advertising their ethnic cleansing. Yes.
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But to your point about Trump, like, what do you
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make of his, his shifting and typically incoherent comments this,
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just the last few days, he did the thank you thing.
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And then it seems like he had a bunch of
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meetings with European leaders. And then we got, we're recording
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this Monday. Then we got his comments today, which was like,
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oh yeah, the starvation is bad. And those kids look
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really hungry and we got to do something. I don't
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know what to make of it. Like he's just all
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over the place.
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He's seeing it on television and he knows they're bad.
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And he is a creature of television.
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And he watched- Cable news viewer, Trump again. He knows,
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he remembers- Nation's biggest television fan.
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The Feed the Children ads from the 80s and 90s
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that were all over television are seared in his memory.
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He knows people don't like it. He knows it's wrong,
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and he doesn't want to be responsible for it.
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He also said, we're going to set up food centers
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where people can walk in and no boundaries. We're not
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going to have fences. They see the food. It's all there,
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but nobody's at it because they have fences set up
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that nobody can get in. It's crazy what's going on
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over there. It's so crazy. He's just like a dispassionate observer.
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It's somebody who was kind of paying attention to a
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briefing about the facts. It's like that is the transmuted
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version of the facts we were just describing that he
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can barely hold on to. So he's getting some information
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about this and about Israel's culpability for the lack of it.
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Well, we remember it was either during the campaign or
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during the transition. But basically, Trump's problem was like, I
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just don't want to see this on TV. You know,
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I want I want Bibi to just finish up the
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war because I don't I don't like the images because
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he doesn't like the mess.
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It just I think.
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Real like military experts in Israel, like the former defense minister,
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Yoav Galant, said like a year ago that like the
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military value of the fighting has been exhausted. You know,
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I heard today, I was listening to like a Haaretz
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podcast or something. I think the IDF has destroyed 25%
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of Hamas's tunnels. If the goal is 100%, like how
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long are we going to be there? The organization is decimated.
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There were something like 30,000 Hamas fighters when the war started,
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and there's been at least 55,000 casualties since.
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Yeah. His top generals told him a year ago that
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there was no longer a military advantage to continuing the war.
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There were the reports of.
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Them taking a hospital, then withdrawing, then literally going in
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a circle.
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Just taking the same territory.
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Taking the same territory back, this time destroying the hospital.
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There's just lots of, look, Benjamin Netanyahu, his coalition depends
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on these right-wing ministers, and they told him if he
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agrees to a truce or a ceasefire, he won't have
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a government, and he put his own personal political interests
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against the interests of the hostages. and Israel's long-term interest.
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And here we are a year later, Israel's a pariah nation.
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The suffering of the Palestinians has continued. Thousands, hundreds, if
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not thousands have died since that truce was on the
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table a year ago. He lifted the short-term ceasefire. And
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by the way, it is impossible to measure deaths caused
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by malnutrition and starvation. You will have specific numbers of
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people whose deaths are ascribed to that. But hospitals not
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having supplies, people being weakened to infection, to miscarriage, to
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all kinds of horrors, the toll is ongoing. It is
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very difficult to measure just how many people are being
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00:20:00.690 --> 00:20:03.569
hurt if not killed by the fact that food and
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medicine and aid is so scarce, at least largely because
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Israel has prevented enough aid from reaching people in a
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sustained way.
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I got to say, too, I mean, you know, it's
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my fault for being on Twitter all weekend, but, you know,
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the New York Post ran this story about, there's a
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picture that was in the New York Times about a
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mother holding her emaciated, starving child, you know, and his
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stomach was distended. It's a horrific picture. And the New
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00:20:32.579 --> 00:20:35.980
York Post ran this story, you know, actually, the boy
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is suffering from genetic disorders. And so it wasn't just
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starvation and the boy's going to get medical treatment. And
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00:20:43.019 --> 00:20:46.500
then Israel, you know, the Israeli Twitter account tweeted out
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the same thing. And I saw, it's not just randos
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00:20:49.279 --> 00:20:53.049
in Twitter, like actual pundits, other people being like, well,
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the New York Times ran this picture. And I'm like, what, where,
405
00:20:57.490 --> 00:21:00.710
what kind of lack of humanity do you have when
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you're like, oh, this kid, in addition to being hungry,
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also had a genetic disorder. So therefore all the other
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fucking pictures we've seen, of like little babies dying, like
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we shouldn't take seriously. I just, I don't, it's horrifying
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that this is where we are right now. This is
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where some people are.
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I'll also say it's a form of weaponized anti-Semitism unspoken
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because it's that, oh, all of these people that are
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saying this, all these reports, right? These are people that
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hate Israel, hate the Jews, are anti-Zionist. And so they're
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reporting this on what the Hamas officials in Gaza are
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saying uncritically, or they're going with anonymous sources. They will
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drum up anything to attack Israel, right? And there is anti-Semitism.
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00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:50.240
There are people that are biased against Israel. There are
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people that mischaracterize what is happening in the conflict. But
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it requires viewing all of these organizations as lying. It
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requires the images we can see with our own eyes
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to deny them. It just requires such a broad conspiracy
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to believe that this is all being cooked up to
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damage Israel. And they can try it, but I just,
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first of all, Donald Trump doesn't agree. Marjorie Taylor Greene
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doesn't agree. A lot of right-wingers are starting to understand
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that this is wrong. So, you know, they can try,
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but I just don't think it's, it's working.
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It's all, it's just dehumanization. You know, I mean, there's
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just so much, the rhetoric, it's so dehumanizing. They treat
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Palestinians and Gazans like they're not human beings. Like everyone's
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part of Hamas. Like everyone's a target. Doesn't matter if.
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00:22:44.849 --> 00:22:45.789
You're a child.
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We don't feed our enemies.
436
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Yeah.
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It's, it's just, it's horrific.
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And look, I'll say it for the thousandth time. I
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think what Hamas did on October 7th was an evil
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act of terror. I think it's indefensible. I think that
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No one can ever justify harming civilians. But like the
442
00:23:01.190 --> 00:23:03.710
rhetoric you always hear, like when you talk about stats
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coming out of the Gaza health ministry, they're like, oh,
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you have to say that that's a Hamas run organization.
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It's like, sure. Okay.
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It is.
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00:23:09.289 --> 00:23:11.359
But you know, the, the numbers they've released have generally
448
00:23:11.390 --> 00:23:14.440
been viewed as trustworthy. And in fact, independent outlets think
449
00:23:14.480 --> 00:23:16.740
the casualty count is much higher in part because so
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many people are buried under rubble. And this war has
451
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been raging for 662 days now.
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I also just like, yeah, Hamas is monstrous. And, you
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00:23:27.480 --> 00:23:30.880
have Palestinians who have no advocate because you have, uh,
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00:23:31.279 --> 00:23:34.460
Benjamin Netanyahu, who's putting his own political interest ahead of
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the interest of the hostages and of Israel, uh, at
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the great expense of Palestinian lives. And you have Palestinian
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lives in the hands of a terrorist organization that launched
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this attack on October 7th, knowing it would lead to
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00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:52.539
untold suffering of, of Palestinians in Gaza. And so, yeah,
460
00:23:52.819 --> 00:23:56.900
it's like Hamas is awful. These people, uh, uh, have
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00:23:56.960 --> 00:23:58.519
no one who is speaking for them.
462
00:24:08.059 --> 00:24:10.779
Pod Save America is brought to you by Cook Unity.
463
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As is Jon Favreau. Before they were ever a sponsor,
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I was a Cook Unity guy. Tell me about CookUnity.
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502
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I saw a group of 21 Senate Democrats are calling
503
00:26:17.349 --> 00:26:20.589
on the Trump administration to stop funding the GHF, the
504
00:26:20.609 --> 00:26:24.910
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, that's Israeli-backed and run by American contractors.
505
00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:28.589
and put the UN back in charge of aid distribution.
506
00:26:28.609 --> 00:26:31.309
I also saw Senator Angus King of Maine today put
507
00:26:31.349 --> 00:26:34.049
out a statement. He said, I am through supporting the
508
00:26:34.190 --> 00:26:37.009
actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate and
509
00:26:37.109 --> 00:26:40.579
vote for an end to any United States support whatsoever
510
00:26:41.099 --> 00:26:44.019
until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of
511
00:26:44.140 --> 00:26:48.059
Israeli policy. I mean, good for Angus King. I don't
512
00:26:48.099 --> 00:26:50.099
want my taxes funding this. I don't want the people
513
00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:52.329
who represent us voting for that funding. I don't want
514
00:26:52.349 --> 00:26:55.839
the people who represent us taking money from AIPAC. AIPAC,
515
00:26:55.859 --> 00:26:59.230
who over the last couple of days accused Bernie Sanders
516
00:26:59.269 --> 00:27:03.789
of blood libel just because Bernie Sanders was criticizing the
517
00:27:03.809 --> 00:27:06.890
war and the government. And I don't think Democratic candidates
518
00:27:06.910 --> 00:27:11.309
should take money from AIPAC or vote to fund military
519
00:27:11.349 --> 00:27:14.589
support for Israel anymore. Like, I really don't. Like, it's just...
520
00:27:16.019 --> 00:27:19.559
This government, absolutely not. And that especially includes, I think,
521
00:27:19.579 --> 00:27:21.640
the next Democratic nominee for president. Yeah, I mean, like.
522
00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:24.880
These are tall orders in the Trump administration. But the
523
00:27:24.900 --> 00:27:26.720
things I want to see Democrats at least calling for
524
00:27:26.759 --> 00:27:29.329
is cutting off military assistance to Israel. It's a rich country,
525
00:27:29.369 --> 00:27:30.789
by the way. They don't need our $ 3 billion a year.
526
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:33.190
And hands up, right? Barack Obama signed a 10-year MOU
527
00:27:33.250 --> 00:27:35.230
for $ 3. 3 billion a year. So we're part of the
528
00:27:35.250 --> 00:27:38.109
problem here. Let's correct it. I would like to see
529
00:27:38.650 --> 00:27:42.150
talk about sanctioning Israeli government officials who use genocidal rhetoric
530
00:27:42.289 --> 00:27:45.690
or talk about ethnic cleansing openly. We should support a
531
00:27:45.710 --> 00:27:48.829
ceasefire resolution at the U.N., We should demand that international
532
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:51.140
press be allowed into the Gaza Strip to report on
533
00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:52.119
what's happening without.
534
00:27:51.930 --> 00:27:52.710
An IDF minder.
535
00:27:52.750 --> 00:27:55.230
It's insane that the press still can't go into Gaza
536
00:27:55.250 --> 00:27:57.690
and cover what's happening. And I also think there has
537
00:27:57.730 --> 00:28:00.190
to be a total mindset change in the Democratic Party.
538
00:28:00.769 --> 00:28:02.509
When the war ends, we are not going back to
539
00:28:02.549 --> 00:28:06.660
the pre-October 7th status quo. It's not where the party is.
540
00:28:06.690 --> 00:28:08.049
It's not where the world is. We're not going to
541
00:28:08.230 --> 00:28:10.930
shovel billions a year in military aid. We're not going
542
00:28:10.950 --> 00:28:13.990
to veto every effort to recognize the Palestinian state at
543
00:28:14.009 --> 00:28:17.430
the UN. We should not take money from AIPAC. And like,
544
00:28:17.509 --> 00:28:19.769
I will hold out hope for better political leadership in
545
00:28:19.789 --> 00:28:22.190
the US and in Israel. But we have to also
546
00:28:22.230 --> 00:28:26.470
recognize that the Biden era, hug Bibi Netanyahu strategy has
547
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:28.940
to be thrown in the trash can for fucking ever.
548
00:28:29.079 --> 00:28:31.819
Netanyahu is a bad actor. He's continuing a war for
549
00:28:31.839 --> 00:28:34.380
political purposes. He bombs Lebanon when he wants to. He
550
00:28:34.420 --> 00:28:36.579
bombs Iran when he wants to. He bombs Syria when
551
00:28:36.619 --> 00:28:39.019
he wants to. The idea of, they literally bombed the
552
00:28:39.099 --> 00:28:42.349
Syrian army headquarters two weeks ago in Damascus. Like this
553
00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:43.869
is not a partner we can count on. This is
554
00:28:43.910 --> 00:28:47.369
not someone who is like, leading to calm and stability
555
00:28:47.450 --> 00:28:49.849
in the region, which should be a core interest. And like,
556
00:28:49.890 --> 00:28:52.430
the only good thing is like that, you know, APAC
557
00:28:52.470 --> 00:28:54.950
calling Bernie Sanders blood liable or accusing a blood liable
558
00:28:55.470 --> 00:28:56.630
a few years ago, I feel like would have been
559
00:28:56.670 --> 00:28:59.529
a big deal. But that rhetoric has been so overused
560
00:28:59.549 --> 00:29:02.190
that I think the effect has worn off and people
561
00:29:02.210 --> 00:29:03.390
are not scared anymore.
562
00:29:03.410 --> 00:29:05.569
And I think that's good. They're not scared, but it's just,
563
00:29:05.930 --> 00:29:08.859
it's incredible to me how many democratic politicians still haven't.
564
00:29:09.259 --> 00:29:11.680
I mean, 21 Senate Democrats wrote that letter. That's great.
565
00:29:11.740 --> 00:29:15.309
That's not the whole caucus. Angus King, how many other
566
00:29:15.410 --> 00:29:18.009
Senate Democrats have called for cutting off funding? At this point,
567
00:29:18.430 --> 00:29:21.150
cutting off military funding for a government that is starving
568
00:29:21.150 --> 00:29:25.190
2 million people and advertising how they're ethnically cleansing the
569
00:29:25.230 --> 00:29:27.509
Palestinians seems like the least we can do.
570
00:29:27.869 --> 00:29:31.349
Yeah. Especially if we're going to head into a primary,
571
00:29:32.210 --> 00:29:34.829
table stakes is going to be no more military aid
572
00:29:35.029 --> 00:29:38.259
for Israel. That's like, you know, I don't understand how
573
00:29:38.279 --> 00:29:42.980
the argument in favor of it. And beyond that, I
574
00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:47.019
do think, you know, France just recognized Palestinian statehood. You know,
575
00:29:47.319 --> 00:29:49.180
I went and looked at the AIPAC memo on why
576
00:29:49.329 --> 00:29:50.809
that was so bad. And the point it makes is
577
00:29:51.390 --> 00:29:55.450
for 40 years, Democratic and Republican administrations have made clear
578
00:29:55.490 --> 00:30:00.190
that recognizing the state of Palestine must only come from negotiations.
579
00:30:00.210 --> 00:30:04.930
Where's that gotten us over 40 years, right? Our being
580
00:30:04.990 --> 00:30:07.779
the staunch ally and the lone vote in the Security
581
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:13.839
Council to prevent Palestine from being recognized. So I do
582
00:30:13.859 --> 00:30:16.259
think we need to like, what does it mean for
583
00:30:16.279 --> 00:30:19.900
the United States to support Israel's right to exist and
584
00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:23.069
defend itself after this war? And it will have to
585
00:30:23.109 --> 00:30:26.250
look very different. And that will start, I think, by
586
00:30:26.309 --> 00:30:30.660
recognizing the profound shift in the power dynamic after Israel
587
00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:33.960
has leveled the Gaza Strip. And by the way, as
588
00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:40.359
Netanyahu has promoted and sort of stood by as the
589
00:30:40.380 --> 00:30:44.240
West Bank has become even more settled over the last, what,
590
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:46.220
how many, I don't know what percent, the expansion of
591
00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:47.309
settlements has been dramatic.
592
00:30:47.420 --> 00:30:48.349
Yeah, and the violence.
593
00:30:48.670 --> 00:30:49.910
And the violence in the West Bank.
594
00:30:49.950 --> 00:30:51.410
Yeah, against the Palestinians.
595
00:30:51.650 --> 00:30:53.170
So there will just, will have to be a shift.
596
00:30:53.210 --> 00:30:56.509
And I do think that will mean being, uh, putting
597
00:30:56.670 --> 00:30:58.750
far more pressure on Israel. And that's what I think
598
00:30:58.809 --> 00:31:00.769
Democrats want, by the way, that's what the country wants.
599
00:31:00.970 --> 00:31:03.859
And when you, when you pull Israelis, they say they
600
00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:07.140
want a fucking ceasefire. Like is, is Israelis want the
601
00:31:07.180 --> 00:31:11.720
hostages returned through, uh, uh, uh, a negotiated settlement. And
602
00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:13.640
by the way, that's the way in which the vast
603
00:31:13.700 --> 00:31:16.779
majority of hostages who were returned were able to be returned.
604
00:31:17.319 --> 00:31:17.559
Yeah.
605
00:31:17.579 --> 00:31:20.299
We'll say like, it's funny talking to a mirror for
606
00:31:20.440 --> 00:31:23.809
the interview today. Israelis talk so much more bluntly about
607
00:31:23.829 --> 00:31:26.390
their criticisms of their own government than Americans do. Americans
608
00:31:26.430 --> 00:31:29.180
are so scared because of, you know, sort of groups
609
00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:31.619
like AIPAC accusing you of blood libel or people like
610
00:31:32.140 --> 00:31:35.259
Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL who accused me of antisemitism
611
00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:38.059
because I said Netanyahu started a war that needed Trump
612
00:31:38.079 --> 00:31:40.440
to finish, which is objectively true. I'm talking about Iran,
613
00:31:40.460 --> 00:31:42.440
by the way. But, you know, I do think the
614
00:31:42.759 --> 00:31:45.609
Democratic Party is way behind where its base is right
615
00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:46.650
now and needs to catch up.
616
00:31:47.569 --> 00:31:47.690
One.
617
00:31:48.049 --> 00:31:51.589
Two, I hope that in this acute moment of interest
618
00:31:53.049 --> 00:31:55.410
in the horrors of this famine and the need to
619
00:31:55.450 --> 00:31:57.930
end this war, that we can find a moment to
620
00:31:58.009 --> 00:32:00.930
build a broader coalition that goes well beyond the Democratic Party.
621
00:32:01.250 --> 00:32:04.549
Because the left got very mad at me on Twitter
622
00:32:04.589 --> 00:32:07.170
over the weekend for saying this, but I feel strongly
623
00:32:07.589 --> 00:32:10.470
that the coalition that has a chance of pressuring Donald
624
00:32:10.490 --> 00:32:13.119
Trump in this moment to end the war in Gaza
625
00:32:13.140 --> 00:32:14.700
or to force Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza
626
00:32:14.940 --> 00:32:16.119
has to be as broad as possible.
627
00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:17.019
It's the furthest left.
628
00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:20.740
To the furthest right, like the isolationist Rand Paul, Thomas
629
00:32:20.809 --> 00:32:23.589
Mastey types, and then everyone in between. And that includes
630
00:32:23.630 --> 00:32:25.390
people who supported the war and now they don't. That
631
00:32:25.430 --> 00:32:28.130
means people who are uncomfortable calling it a genocide because
632
00:32:28.170 --> 00:32:30.009
of the legacy of that word in the Holocaust and
633
00:32:30.049 --> 00:32:32.589
how it makes them feel. And I'm mostly talking, my
634
00:32:32.730 --> 00:32:35.170
tweet said people, I was talking about average people, but
635
00:32:35.210 --> 00:32:38.200
we should also recognize that politicians we don't agree with
636
00:32:38.259 --> 00:32:41.359
on shit, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, could be very influential
637
00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:43.420
and important allies in this fight because she has Trump's ear.
638
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.380
And so like what that means in practice is let's
639
00:32:46.420 --> 00:32:48.799
welcome people into the tent for the purposes of making
640
00:32:48.900 --> 00:32:51.859
this argument, this push to end this war. Like we
641
00:32:51.880 --> 00:32:53.279
got to pull the same direction for a bit. That
642
00:32:53.299 --> 00:32:56.240
doesn't mean there's no accountability forever. We're buddies forever. We
643
00:32:56.289 --> 00:32:59.890
won't vote out people that supported, you know, shoveling money
644
00:33:00.670 --> 00:33:04.970
to the IDF through the duration of the fighting, even
645
00:33:04.990 --> 00:33:08.049
when it got really bad. But like, just can we just,
646
00:33:08.529 --> 00:33:10.509
I would love to see some sort of organizing effort
647
00:33:10.630 --> 00:33:14.680
around pressuring Trump in Netanyahu now. Yeah, you know, it's
648
00:33:14.700 --> 00:33:19.220
a classic story of politics is you start from the
649
00:33:19.259 --> 00:33:20.859
goal that you want to achieve, and then you work
650
00:33:20.920 --> 00:33:22.609
backwards to figure out how to get to the goal, right?
651
00:33:22.619 --> 00:33:24.670
It sounds simple, but it's like people lose that in
652
00:33:24.710 --> 00:33:28.009
the social media mess, right? Which is the goal is
653
00:33:28.130 --> 00:33:31.390
to end the war, end the starvation in Gaza. And
654
00:33:31.509 --> 00:33:34.269
as you said, Tommy, Trump has a lot of power
655
00:33:34.309 --> 00:33:35.869
to do this. And so then the question is, how
656
00:33:35.890 --> 00:33:36.869
do you pressure Trump to do it?
657
00:33:37.390 --> 00:33:39.200
That's it. And then you build the coalition to do that.
658
00:33:39.339 --> 00:33:44.009
And just, you know, right now, Benjamin Netanyahu... has Trump.
659
00:33:44.910 --> 00:33:49.269
But Trump won't be there forever. And what Democrats are
660
00:33:49.309 --> 00:33:51.609
saying now about what they will do when they regain
661
00:33:51.630 --> 00:33:54.779
power matters. It's funny. In the same way, we need
662
00:33:54.819 --> 00:33:58.279
to be signaling to corporations that are capitulating to Trump
663
00:33:58.299 --> 00:33:59.400
that there will be an after. We need to be
664
00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:02.400
signaling to allies and other countries around the world that
665
00:34:02.420 --> 00:34:04.200
there will be an after. And I think the more
666
00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:07.430
that Democrats now are saying that there will be increased
667
00:34:07.470 --> 00:34:11.150
pressure on Israel, up to and including recognizing a Palestinian
668
00:34:11.210 --> 00:34:16.760
state right? That cudgel being real, like they were, Benjamin
669
00:34:16.780 --> 00:34:20.599
Netanyahu responds to pressure in the same way people pretend
670
00:34:20.659 --> 00:34:22.969
Trump doesn't, people pretend Bibi doesn't, but he does.
671
00:34:23.659 --> 00:34:24.610
It's happening internationally too.
672
00:34:24.630 --> 00:34:26.150
I mean, you mentioned the French example, but there's also
673
00:34:26.170 --> 00:34:28.309
a huge, there's a letter from like 220 or 240
674
00:34:28.309 --> 00:34:32.650
MPs to Keir Starmer calling on him to cut off
675
00:34:32.690 --> 00:34:35.670
military support to Israel because David Lamy, the foreign secretary
676
00:34:35.690 --> 00:34:38.019
of the UK, who's a good guy, a friend, he's
677
00:34:38.039 --> 00:34:39.340
been on Posse of the World a bunch of times,
678
00:34:40.210 --> 00:34:42.199
Had some really harsh words for the Israeli government, but
679
00:34:42.239 --> 00:34:45.179
they need to be backed by actions. That's what we're all,
680
00:34:45.239 --> 00:34:46.340
everybody's calling for action.
681
00:34:47.099 --> 00:34:49.840
Speaking of Keir Starmer, he was standing with Trump in
682
00:34:49.940 --> 00:34:53.219
Scotland during the press conference when Trump made the Gaza comments.
683
00:34:53.840 --> 00:34:55.789
And then he also had to be there for Trump
684
00:34:55.809 --> 00:34:58.449
getting a few questions about his late friend and fellow enigma,
685
00:34:58.630 --> 00:35:01.309
Jeffrey Epstein. Here's how Trump answered.
686
00:35:02.110 --> 00:35:05.909
I don't do drawings. I'm not a drawing person. I
687
00:35:05.929 --> 00:35:09.110
don't do drawings. Sometimes people say, would you draw a building?
688
00:35:09.170 --> 00:35:11.369
And I'll draw four lines and a little roof. I
689
00:35:11.389 --> 00:35:14.449
don't do drawings of women. That I can tell you. Now,
690
00:35:14.489 --> 00:35:16.489
with that being said, they say there were many letters
691
00:35:16.530 --> 00:35:21.039
done by many people and many big people, you know, big,
692
00:35:21.119 --> 00:35:24.900
successful people, because he did something that was inappropriate. He
693
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:28.179
hired help. And I said, don't ever do that again.
694
00:35:28.219 --> 00:35:31.730
He stole people that work for me. I said, don't
695
00:35:31.769 --> 00:35:34.170
ever do that again. He did it again. And by
696
00:35:34.190 --> 00:35:36.710
the way, I never went to the island. And Bill
697
00:35:36.730 --> 00:35:42.039
Clinton went there supposedly 28 times. I never had the
698
00:35:42.079 --> 00:35:45.400
privilege of going to his island. And I did turn
699
00:35:45.460 --> 00:35:47.179
it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach
700
00:35:47.219 --> 00:35:50.619
were invited to his island. In one of my very
701
00:35:50.860 --> 00:35:52.329
good moments, I turned it down.
702
00:35:52.349 --> 00:35:54.670
I didn't want to go to his island. So, you know,
703
00:35:54.710 --> 00:35:57.010
we went through the whole landscape there. First, he was
704
00:35:57.030 --> 00:36:00.800
talking about the birthday message. He doesn't draw. He doesn't
705
00:36:00.820 --> 00:36:05.659
draw women. Then we got to the island where he
706
00:36:05.699 --> 00:36:07.619
keeps saying that Bill Clinton went 28 times, which is
707
00:36:07.639 --> 00:36:10.539
not supported by any facts that we know of. He
708
00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:12.579
didn't have the privilege to go there. He was also
709
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:15.949
talking about why he had the falling out with Jeffrey
710
00:36:16.030 --> 00:36:20.000
Epstein years ago. And the White House has been saying
711
00:36:20.039 --> 00:36:23.420
that Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago because he
712
00:36:23.460 --> 00:36:26.679
was a, quote, creep. But Trump there seems to say
713
00:36:26.739 --> 00:36:31.030
that actually he kicked him out because he poached some
714
00:36:31.269 --> 00:36:34.809
employees from him at Mar-a-Lago. I don't know, guys. What
715
00:36:34.829 --> 00:36:35.150
do you think?
716
00:36:35.309 --> 00:36:38.230
Yeah. So first of all, there are always there's been
717
00:36:38.269 --> 00:36:41.780
these sort of unsubstantiated and honest reports that actually Trump
718
00:36:41.860 --> 00:36:45.659
kicked Epstein. Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago because he was a
719
00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:48.150
creep and he was hitting on people. And Trump doesn't
720
00:36:48.170 --> 00:36:49.670
seem to know that that story is meant to be
721
00:36:49.730 --> 00:36:51.329
true because he tells this other one. It's like, how
722
00:36:51.389 --> 00:36:54.849
dare you accuse me of being friends with this sex
723
00:36:54.889 --> 00:36:57.730
trafficker and pedophile? I had a falling out with that
724
00:36:57.769 --> 00:37:00.989
sex trafficker and pedophile over an unrelated HR matter.
725
00:37:01.269 --> 00:37:02.170
He stole my butler.
726
00:37:02.369 --> 00:37:04.050
It's absurd.
727
00:37:05.340 --> 00:37:07.500
Absurd. Yeah. Like, okay.
728
00:37:07.860 --> 00:37:10.599
Just the initial denial about the drawing in the Wall
729
00:37:10.619 --> 00:37:12.619
Street Journal was I never wrote a picture in my life.
730
00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:13.139
Remember?
731
00:37:13.739 --> 00:37:16.199
And then we learned that Trump donated a doodle to
732
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:18.199
charity every single year and he wrote about it in
733
00:37:18.219 --> 00:37:20.400
his book. So now he's saying he doesn't draw women.
734
00:37:20.420 --> 00:37:23.059
So there's another crisis comms masterclass there.
735
00:37:23.380 --> 00:37:25.780
Pretty soon it's going to be, I've never drawn pubes
736
00:37:26.679 --> 00:37:28.329
that are also my signature.
737
00:37:28.409 --> 00:37:30.150
And as you pointed out, the White House has been saying,
738
00:37:30.190 --> 00:37:32.170
oh yeah, he kicked up because he's a creep. Now
739
00:37:32.230 --> 00:37:34.250
it's like, then there was a report that it was
740
00:37:34.269 --> 00:37:37.210
a fallout over a real estate deal that they were
741
00:37:37.250 --> 00:37:39.469
competing over. Now he's just saying, you know, he poached
742
00:37:39.510 --> 00:37:41.610
my staff. So it's like, does he just forget the
743
00:37:41.650 --> 00:37:42.349
previous spin?
744
00:37:42.989 --> 00:37:43.510
You know what I mean?
745
00:37:43.730 --> 00:37:45.650
It's how you don't have a handle on this.
746
00:37:45.889 --> 00:37:49.670
Yeah. I feel like the white house probably did not really, uh,
747
00:37:50.409 --> 00:37:51.909
line up their story with him.
748
00:37:52.090 --> 00:37:52.489
Yeah.
749
00:37:52.780 --> 00:37:55.670
On, on why he kicked him out. And they probably said, Oh,
750
00:37:55.679 --> 00:37:57.219
you kicked him out. Right. Yeah. And then they were like, Oh,
751
00:37:57.260 --> 00:37:58.900
let's just say it's cause he was a creep. You know,
752
00:37:58.980 --> 00:38:00.239
like I don't, I don't really think there's a lot
753
00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:02.099
of rigor going into the briefings here.
754
00:38:02.619 --> 00:38:02.960
Yeah.
755
00:38:03.159 --> 00:38:06.809
The, uh, The other part of this is the letter.
756
00:38:07.210 --> 00:38:12.460
And now he's saying, I don't draw ladies. JD Vance
757
00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:16.079
went on social media and said that it was fake news.
758
00:38:16.780 --> 00:38:19.519
And Chris Hayes got into it with him because JD
759
00:38:19.539 --> 00:38:22.440
Vance replies to a lot of people, present company included.
760
00:38:23.059 --> 00:38:27.860
And Chris's question was, are you saying the letters or
761
00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:31.480
the book is fake? His letter's fake. Like what exactly
762
00:38:31.539 --> 00:38:34.610
is your contention here? And all J.D. Vance can say is, well,
763
00:38:34.630 --> 00:38:37.530
they won't even show us the letter, which is exciting
764
00:38:37.550 --> 00:38:39.340
because it does mean at some point we're going to
765
00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:40.039
see that letter.
766
00:38:40.059 --> 00:38:41.940
We're going to see they're saving it. Because Jeffrey Epstein's
767
00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:46.699
estate has the book. DOJ reviewed it. Just waiting for that.
768
00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:50.440
And we know Trump is worried about this because he's
769
00:38:50.460 --> 00:38:52.320
starting to refer to it as a hoax.
770
00:38:52.840 --> 00:38:58.039
A witch hunt. Democrats, Comey, Obama, Brennan, you name them.
771
00:38:58.179 --> 00:39:00.800
They all got together to put the fake pages in
772
00:39:00.840 --> 00:39:01.110
the book.
773
00:39:01.659 --> 00:39:04.579
So now it seems like he knows that whatever we're
774
00:39:04.599 --> 00:39:06.980
going to see, if we ever see it, would not.
775
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:08.800
Be good for him. It was Brennan with the Sharpie.
776
00:39:08.980 --> 00:39:10.239
With the Sharpie. Brennan.
777
00:39:10.420 --> 00:39:10.639
Yeah.
778
00:39:10.780 --> 00:39:14.519
Comey was the one who drew the pube signature. The shell. Comey's,
779
00:39:14.539 --> 00:39:16.239
that's very much, very metrical.
780
00:39:16.260 --> 00:39:18.889
And then it was the lovers who squeezed lemon juice
781
00:39:18.929 --> 00:39:19.849
on it and put it in the toaster.
782
00:39:19.869 --> 00:39:21.829
And made it look old. But like, it's been what,
783
00:39:21.889 --> 00:39:23.610
three weeks now? This has not gone away.
784
00:39:23.630 --> 00:39:25.929
I think Joe Rogan, there was the quote going around
785
00:39:25.969 --> 00:39:28.130
today where he said, the Epstein files are a hardcore
786
00:39:28.170 --> 00:39:29.329
line in the sand.
787
00:39:29.030 --> 00:39:30.340
That the administration is.
788
00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:35.860
Trying to gaslight you. There's like, we talked about how Congress,
789
00:39:36.199 --> 00:39:39.400
the House of Representatives went into recess early to avoid
790
00:39:39.440 --> 00:39:42.699
a vote on this Thomas Massey, Ro Khanna legislation that
791
00:39:42.719 --> 00:39:44.619
would require the full release of the Epstein files. So
792
00:39:44.659 --> 00:39:46.199
that's going to kick back up when they're back in
793
00:39:46.239 --> 00:39:48.820
five or six weeks. Ron Wyden is talking about how
794
00:39:48.860 --> 00:39:53.199
he's been reviewing... all of these Epstein-specific bank records that
795
00:39:53.219 --> 00:39:57.280
are really shady. Trump's superpower is his relentlessness and ability
796
00:39:57.320 --> 00:39:59.130
to repeat a line over and over and over again
797
00:39:59.170 --> 00:40:01.829
until he just bullies you into submission. But it just
798
00:40:01.849 --> 00:40:03.909
doesn't seem like there's a process to make this go away.
799
00:40:04.230 --> 00:40:08.269
No. Trump said again in that press conference, too, that he's, quote,
800
00:40:08.349 --> 00:40:11.869
allowed to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. He said this on Friday
801
00:40:11.949 --> 00:40:14.059
for the first time. This is all after we learned
802
00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:18.579
that Trump's Justice Department gave Maxwell limited immunity. to speak
803
00:40:18.659 --> 00:40:21.820
freely about the crime she committed with Epstein during her two-day,
804
00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:27.360
nine-hour conversation last week with Todd Blanch. Just Ghislaine Maxwell
805
00:40:27.420 --> 00:40:32.260
and Todd Blanch, the president's former defense lawyer turned deputy
806
00:40:32.360 --> 00:40:35.090
attorney general. That's usually what happens. I don't know if
807
00:40:35.110 --> 00:40:38.070
you guys know in the Justice Department that you send
808
00:40:38.130 --> 00:40:41.050
the number two in the Justice Department, the guy who's
809
00:40:41.110 --> 00:40:45.849
usually running the Justice Department, to go alone to hang
810
00:40:45.969 --> 00:40:50.599
out with a convicted, uh... accomplice to a sex predator
811
00:40:50.780 --> 00:40:54.460
sex trafficker and uh... i don't know was any were
812
00:40:54.539 --> 00:40:57.340
any of the career officials who prosecuted the case there
813
00:40:57.639 --> 00:40:58.719
no doesn't sound like it.
814
00:40:58.940 --> 00:41:01.889
Well also it as is normal uh... then the defense
815
00:41:01.929 --> 00:41:06.329
attorney for that uh... that convicted sex trafficker says a
816
00:41:06.349 --> 00:41:08.630
great job he thought the d o j did in
817
00:41:08.670 --> 00:41:12.449
the conversation uh... prod those prosecutors by the way said
818
00:41:12.969 --> 00:41:17.050
about maxwell that she previously lied repeatedly about her crimes,
819
00:41:17.269 --> 00:41:20.570
exhibited an utter failure to accept responsibility, and demonstrated repeated
820
00:41:20.610 --> 00:41:27.309
disrespect for the law and the court. Blanche says that
821
00:41:27.349 --> 00:41:30.610
he's showing great courage, and for the first time, we're
822
00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:34.800
gonna get answers from Ghislaine Maxwell. She is in prison
823
00:41:34.860 --> 00:41:39.260
for 20 years. A lot of these questions, presumably, were
824
00:41:39.500 --> 00:41:42.719
asked of her. during the period of time in which
825
00:41:42.739 --> 00:41:47.510
she was being investigated, charged, put on trial, and ultimately
826
00:41:47.750 --> 00:41:49.050
convicted and sentenced.
827
00:41:49.989 --> 00:41:53.769
We still don't know what Maxwell said during this two-day session,
828
00:41:54.230 --> 00:41:57.190
though her attorney told reporters afterwards she was asked, quote,
829
00:41:57.250 --> 00:41:59.989
maybe about 100 different people, and that she answered every
830
00:42:00.030 --> 00:42:02.739
single question. That reminds me of, just like Joe Biden
831
00:42:02.760 --> 00:42:08.360
in the debate. She answered every question. Maxwell's also asking
832
00:42:08.420 --> 00:42:11.510
the Supreme Court, She filed this today to overturn her
833
00:42:11.550 --> 00:42:13.610
conviction on the grounds that she should have been protected
834
00:42:13.650 --> 00:42:16.610
from prosecution by the deal Epstein cut with former U.S.
835
00:42:16.650 --> 00:42:21.090
attorney Alex Acosta, also turned Trump labor secretary briefly back
836
00:42:21.130 --> 00:42:24.570
in 2007. What do you think? Would this whole idea
837
00:42:24.610 --> 00:42:29.239
that Trump, like Trump's going to pardon Maxwell potentially because
838
00:42:29.500 --> 00:42:32.460
she'll absolve him of any wrongdoing or just name other
839
00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:34.949
people and not him. Do you think that helps or
840
00:42:34.989 --> 00:42:37.090
hurts his political problems with his base?
841
00:42:37.570 --> 00:42:40.809
So clearly they're trying to seed this idea that she
842
00:42:40.869 --> 00:42:42.769
could be a victim and she's like a good guy
843
00:42:42.789 --> 00:42:45.849
and all this, right? Newsmax's Greg Kelly said on the
844
00:42:45.949 --> 00:42:48.230
air she just might be a victim. This seems like
845
00:42:48.289 --> 00:42:50.300
a trial balloon. I just want to be clear for
846
00:42:50.340 --> 00:42:54.780
folks who don't totally know Ghislaine Maxwell's role in Epstein's crimes.
847
00:42:55.039 --> 00:42:57.039
So according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern
848
00:42:57.079 --> 00:43:00.880
District of New York, Ghislaine Maxwell recruited and groomed girls
849
00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:03.809
as young as 14 for Epstein. She was present for
850
00:43:03.849 --> 00:43:07.429
sexual encounters between minor victims in Epstein. And in some instances,
851
00:43:07.510 --> 00:43:11.880
Maxwell participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims. She
852
00:43:11.900 --> 00:43:15.260
and Epstein would ID vulnerable girls. They would find girls
853
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:18.719
who were poor or from single mother households and prey
854
00:43:18.800 --> 00:43:21.559
on them because they were easy to give favors to
855
00:43:21.619 --> 00:43:24.139
and then pull into their evil shit. This happened from
856
00:43:24.139 --> 00:43:27.750
94 to 2004. So this was someone who is evil
857
00:43:27.849 --> 00:43:29.590
and very much a part of this. And Republicans have
858
00:43:29.610 --> 00:43:31.889
spent what, the last decade, I think, calling all their
859
00:43:31.909 --> 00:43:35.190
political enemies groomers. And now they are talking about pardoning
860
00:43:35.269 --> 00:43:36.090
a literal groomer.
861
00:43:36.789 --> 00:43:39.130
You see, Mike Johnson said on Meet the Press Sunday
862
00:43:39.610 --> 00:43:42.090
that he thinks she actually deserves a life sentence and
863
00:43:42.130 --> 00:43:44.289
he hopes that Donald Trump doesn't pardon her. So that's
864
00:43:44.309 --> 00:43:47.510
kind of interesting. But that's a quote that seems destined
865
00:43:47.550 --> 00:43:48.789
to come back and haunt Mike Johnson.
866
00:43:49.010 --> 00:43:49.409
Well, right.
867
00:43:49.429 --> 00:43:53.130
Well, with Mike Johnson, it's like he'll say something and
868
00:43:53.150 --> 00:43:55.030
then he'll just sort of be sort of smacked back
869
00:43:55.070 --> 00:43:57.010
into submission, right? He also says we should have full
870
00:43:57.050 --> 00:44:01.369
transparency on the Epstein matter and then Has Congress leave
871
00:44:01.989 --> 00:44:07.690
the city to avoid having that vote? Like, stepping back,
872
00:44:08.750 --> 00:44:14.780
Ghislaine Maxwell was charged under the Trump administration. When Blanche
873
00:44:14.840 --> 00:44:17.360
says that we're finally going to get answers, he is
874
00:44:17.400 --> 00:44:20.119
saying that those answers were not gotten under the first
875
00:44:20.260 --> 00:44:23.360
Trump administration when William Barr was attorney general. He's saying
876
00:44:24.159 --> 00:44:26.400
Bill Barr? was in on it is.
877
00:44:26.679 --> 00:44:28.420
Well, there's all the connection with Bill Barr's dad and
878
00:44:28.460 --> 00:44:30.840
Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Barr's dad apparently hired him to work
879
00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:33.059
at this school in New York, right? So that's all
880
00:44:33.099 --> 00:44:34.000
part of this conspiracy theory.
881
00:44:34.199 --> 00:44:34.780
And so I agree.
882
00:44:35.019 --> 00:44:35.159
Yeah.
883
00:44:35.260 --> 00:44:35.880
I think he's in on it.
884
00:44:35.880 --> 00:44:37.639
That's interesting, though.
885
00:44:37.659 --> 00:44:41.489
But like, what makes it impossible, I think, for all
886
00:44:41.510 --> 00:44:44.570
of this to go away is that this whole story
887
00:44:44.710 --> 00:44:48.849
is so right-wing shaped, right? That's what makes it so
888
00:44:48.889 --> 00:44:51.869
hard for Trump to get... He's never been on the business...
889
00:44:51.650 --> 00:44:54.320
He's never been on the losing end of one of
890
00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:57.539
these right-wing shaped conspiracy, or when he has, it is
891
00:44:57.559 --> 00:45:00.380
sort of like blown up in his face, right?
892
00:45:00.420 --> 00:45:02.300
Like- It seems on Friday, he was like, I don't
893
00:45:02.360 --> 00:45:05.000
focus on conspiracies. I'm focused on getting deals done for
894
00:45:05.019 --> 00:45:06.420
the American people.
895
00:45:06.739 --> 00:45:07.039
Yeah.
896
00:45:07.059 --> 00:45:09.119
If there's anything we know about Donald Trump is he
897
00:45:09.199 --> 00:45:11.079
is not focused on conspiracies.
898
00:45:11.159 --> 00:45:16.260
But like fundamentally, right, Epstein kills himself and a lot
899
00:45:16.280 --> 00:45:17.610
of evidence and a lot of what would have come
900
00:45:17.639 --> 00:45:19.670
out in trial doesn't happen, right? Because the trial doesn't
901
00:45:19.690 --> 00:45:25.179
take place. And they turn this into a- a global
902
00:45:25.300 --> 00:45:30.659
pedophilia ring of Democrats, Hollywood elites, deep state operatives, and
903
00:45:30.679 --> 00:45:34.570
the Jews. And it's now sort of coming back to
904
00:45:34.610 --> 00:45:37.309
haunt him because it turns out nobody is more implicated
905
00:45:37.670 --> 00:45:40.369
in that conspiracy than Donald Trump himself. And I don't
906
00:45:40.409 --> 00:45:43.070
think you get out of it by pardoning a convicted
907
00:45:43.170 --> 00:45:47.670
sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein's chief accomplice.
908
00:45:48.050 --> 00:45:49.750
You guys see in the Washington Post over the weekend,
909
00:45:49.789 --> 00:45:52.400
we got a classic of the genre, a Trump fumes
910
00:45:52.440 --> 00:45:55.730
story trump fumes over epstein and it's got like a
911
00:45:55.769 --> 00:45:57.969
he's he's really angry kind of thing um but there
912
00:45:57.989 --> 00:45:59.469
was a few tidbits in there that i think are
913
00:45:59.510 --> 00:46:03.110
worth mentioning it's just kind of slipped in for weeks
914
00:46:03.210 --> 00:46:05.500
after the memo was released trump and bondi spoke on
915
00:46:05.519 --> 00:46:08.860
the phone nearly every day as they often do that's
916
00:46:08.920 --> 00:46:11.039
so weird is that is that normal just no yeah
917
00:46:11.300 --> 00:46:14.519
president united states just calling up the attorney general remember
918
00:46:14.539 --> 00:46:17.090
when remember when there was a big scandal over Bill
919
00:46:17.190 --> 00:46:19.250
Clinton saying hi to Loretta Lynch on the plane.
920
00:46:20.730 --> 00:46:23.989
Can I make a neo-lib shill defense of norms?
921
00:46:24.230 --> 00:46:24.429
Yeah.
922
00:46:25.289 --> 00:46:29.269
One reason this story doesn't go away is because everyone
923
00:46:29.309 --> 00:46:32.090
understands that Pam Bondi is Donald Trump's attorney before she's
924
00:46:32.110 --> 00:46:34.489
the country's attorney. She doesn't have the ability to make
925
00:46:34.530 --> 00:46:37.590
this story go away for him. In another era, right,
926
00:46:37.760 --> 00:46:39.079
it could go to the attorney general and say, we're
927
00:46:39.099 --> 00:46:40.739
going to investigate this. We're going to look into this.
928
00:46:40.800 --> 00:46:43.260
It'll be completely independent and be accused of being political
929
00:46:43.300 --> 00:46:45.400
in all kinds of ways. But it actually would allow
930
00:46:45.440 --> 00:46:48.429
the story to progress, right? It would go to a prosecutor,
931
00:46:48.670 --> 00:46:50.630
it would go into an investigation, and it would move
932
00:46:50.789 --> 00:46:53.960
off of like the Donald Trump plate into the legal plate.
933
00:46:54.139 --> 00:46:56.460
But it can't, because there's only one big fucking trough
934
00:46:57.500 --> 00:47:01.360
of Trump control. And it means Pam Bondi can't save
935
00:47:01.679 --> 00:47:03.280
Donald Trump from this story, because no one thinks she
936
00:47:03.320 --> 00:47:06.199
has credibility or integrity or any kind of separate political
937
00:47:06.219 --> 00:47:06.719
interest from him.
938
00:47:07.099 --> 00:47:11.219
And in that trough is about a thousand FBI personnel.
939
00:47:11.719 --> 00:47:15.360
Over two weeks, The thousand personnel had to scour, this
940
00:47:15.380 --> 00:47:17.440
is all the Washington Post story, had to scour more
941
00:47:17.480 --> 00:47:21.530
than 100,000 pages of Epstein-related documents. Workers toiled around the
942
00:47:21.570 --> 00:47:25.190
clock and staffed mandatory weekend shifts for weeks to accommodate
943
00:47:25.289 --> 00:47:28.150
punishing deadlines from higher-ups and were told to flag any
944
00:47:28.190 --> 00:47:31.030
mentions of Trump and other prominent figures. This is a
945
00:47:31.070 --> 00:47:33.349
senior bureau official said in a whistleblower report to the
946
00:47:33.389 --> 00:47:36.190
Senate Judiciary Committee that was obtained by the Post. After
947
00:47:36.230 --> 00:47:38.590
concluding that fewer than a tenth of those documents could
948
00:47:38.610 --> 00:47:41.489
be considered for release, staffers were asked to go through
949
00:47:41.530 --> 00:47:43.599
them At least four times more.
950
00:47:44.360 --> 00:47:44.579
Again.
951
00:47:44.960 --> 00:47:47.219
What is happening at the FBI? It's crazy.
952
00:47:47.269 --> 00:47:50.309
And it's like, we'll never understand the opportunity cost. Again,
953
00:47:50.349 --> 00:47:54.250
a thousand FBI agents working 24-7 to review documents that
954
00:47:54.269 --> 00:47:55.340
they then just sit on.
955
00:47:55.650 --> 00:47:57.230
Like elves on December 22nd.
956
00:47:58.090 --> 00:48:01.119
Just flag, again, with the control F. Could we not
957
00:48:01.139 --> 00:48:01.469
control F?
958
00:48:01.500 --> 00:48:03.920
I don't understand why we're not. This is, I look.
959
00:48:04.099 --> 00:48:04.699
AI this shit.
960
00:48:04.719 --> 00:48:06.619
Yeah, I'm about to say, look, there are many problems
961
00:48:06.659 --> 00:48:09.159
with chat GPT, but throw this bad boy up into
962
00:48:09.179 --> 00:48:11.010
the fucking cloud. And get some names.
963
00:48:11.070 --> 00:48:16.150
Well, apparently there's a Microsoft SharePoint online collaborative file that
964
00:48:16.190 --> 00:48:20.429
Blanche's office put together of mentions of Mr. Trump from
965
00:48:20.469 --> 00:48:23.599
the piece. So there is an Epstein list. You might
966
00:48:23.619 --> 00:48:26.860
call it a list. It's a Microsoft SharePoint. There is
967
00:48:26.920 --> 00:48:29.380
a list with Trump's name on it of how many
968
00:48:29.420 --> 00:48:32.380
times that someone has. And Dick Durbin is demanding that.
969
00:48:32.719 --> 00:48:35.820
Dick Durbin is also demanding the tapes of the Maxwell
970
00:48:35.840 --> 00:48:38.550
interviews that Todd Blanche did. It doesn't seem like he's
971
00:48:38.570 --> 00:48:39.789
going to get them, but I don't know.
972
00:48:40.030 --> 00:48:41.630
I think it's smart to make that part of the conversation.
973
00:48:41.690 --> 00:48:42.050
For sure.
974
00:48:42.130 --> 00:48:43.550
I wouldn't have thought that there might be tapes or
975
00:48:43.570 --> 00:48:45.449
might be a transcript or a record of it. I mean,
976
00:48:45.829 --> 00:48:48.969
I was thinking about the Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton conversation
977
00:48:48.989 --> 00:48:53.699
on the tarmac, however, in 2015, 2016, because Republicans never
978
00:48:53.719 --> 00:48:54.500
stopped talking about it.
979
00:48:54.519 --> 00:48:56.300
We need to get these meetings sort of viewed in
980
00:48:56.340 --> 00:48:56.780
that way.
981
00:48:57.099 --> 00:49:00.400
And I wondered if Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey could
982
00:49:00.440 --> 00:49:04.480
include these documents that Durbin's going after as part of
983
00:49:04.539 --> 00:49:07.199
their release, all the Epstein files legislation.
984
00:49:07.239 --> 00:49:09.659
It feels like it would fall under that bucket. Yeah.
985
00:49:10.130 --> 00:49:12.139
And then you see all these kind of ways around
986
00:49:12.199 --> 00:49:15.519
releasing the episode. It'll be all credible information. And I
987
00:49:15.539 --> 00:49:19.849
do like to Tommy's point too, like these were serious
988
00:49:19.909 --> 00:49:23.840
and disgusting crimes. And like part of what can't be
989
00:49:23.880 --> 00:49:28.639
released is a lot of graphic evidence, victims, right? Like
990
00:49:28.679 --> 00:49:31.619
a lot of people were hurt. And like, to me,
991
00:49:31.639 --> 00:49:35.710
that just goes to like, they turned like sort of
992
00:49:36.730 --> 00:49:41.039
despicable crimes into that were allowed to go on for
993
00:49:41.119 --> 00:49:44.530
years into this political cudgel. And they never cared about
994
00:49:44.550 --> 00:49:46.550
the victims. It was never even that real to them.
995
00:49:46.610 --> 00:49:50.429
It became a kind of like, I don't know, abstraction
996
00:49:50.530 --> 00:49:50.829
about it.
997
00:49:50.949 --> 00:49:52.389
They thought Bill Clinton was going to go down. They
998
00:49:52.409 --> 00:49:54.699
thought they were going to get some way to like
999
00:49:54.800 --> 00:49:57.300
prosecute Bill Clinton. They didn't care about the victims. And
1000
00:49:57.500 --> 00:50:00.900
this whole conversation about releasing Ghislaine Maxwell or giving her
1001
00:50:00.920 --> 00:50:05.179
a pardon, I mean, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre said, of Maxwell.
1002
00:50:05.199 --> 00:50:07.860
She is a monster. She's worse than Epstein. She was vicious.
1003
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:08.579
She was evil.
1004
00:50:08.719 --> 00:50:09.420
I know that woman.
1005
00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:10.699
I mean, this is one of Epstein's victims.
1006
00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:15.190
It reminds me too, like, you know, they spend all
1007
00:50:15.210 --> 00:50:17.929
this time saying they're going to, you know, they're going
1008
00:50:17.989 --> 00:50:21.989
after criminal aliens and then they, in order to get
1009
00:50:22.070 --> 00:50:26.070
the innocent people out of El Salvador, they release a murderer,
1010
00:50:26.329 --> 00:50:28.530
a triple murderer onto the streets of the U.S. They
1011
00:50:28.550 --> 00:50:30.659
spend all these years claiming there's a cabal of people
1012
00:50:30.719 --> 00:50:34.000
protecting pedophiles and their accomplices and then they're sending people
1013
00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:37.809
the deputy attorney general down to kind of start the
1014
00:50:37.849 --> 00:50:40.010
process of a sweetheart deal with one of the, like,
1015
00:50:40.489 --> 00:50:41.989
like basically a serial predator.
1016
00:50:43.590 --> 00:50:44.150
Really don't like them.
1017
00:50:55.559 --> 00:50:57.400
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Well, you know, Trump and the White House are celebrating
1054
00:52:32.699 --> 00:52:35.929
a big development in the president's global trade war. A
1055
00:52:35.989 --> 00:52:38.710
new permanent 15% tax on most of the stuff we
1056
00:52:38.750 --> 00:52:42.260
buy from Europe. The quote-unquote deal Trump announced with the
1057
00:52:42.300 --> 00:52:45.480
European Union is lower than the 30% tax he initially threatened.
1058
00:52:46.360 --> 00:52:49.000
And in exchange, the EU said it would spend $ 750
1059
00:52:48.739 --> 00:52:52.219
billion on American energy and invest another $ 600 billion in
1060
00:52:52.239 --> 00:52:55.059
the U.S., whatever the hell that means. As a reminder, U.S.
1061
00:52:55.099 --> 00:52:57.679
tariffs are at their highest since the 1930s and about
1062
00:52:57.780 --> 00:53:00.239
six times higher than when Trump took office, which is
1063
00:53:00.260 --> 00:53:03.289
probably why the BBC went with the headline, Winner Donald Trump,
1064
00:53:03.530 --> 00:53:06.510
Loser U.S. Consumers. Here's what Trump said about the deal
1065
00:53:06.789 --> 00:53:07.389
on Monday.
1066
00:53:07.769 --> 00:53:12.190
We're going to be setting a tariff for essentially the
1067
00:53:12.230 --> 00:53:14.539
rest of the world. And that's what they're going to
1068
00:53:14.579 --> 00:53:16.639
pay if they want to do business in the United States.
1069
00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:19.539
Because you can't sit down and make 200 deals. I
1070
00:53:19.579 --> 00:53:21.800
would say it'll be somewhere in the 15 to 20
1071
00:53:21.800 --> 00:53:22.519
percent range.
1072
00:53:22.539 --> 00:53:26.119
So maybe 15 or 20?
1073
00:53:26.119 --> 00:53:28.659
No, I said, you know, I sort of know, but
1074
00:53:29.239 --> 00:53:30.210
I just want to be nice.
1075
00:53:30.690 --> 00:53:31.210
Deals.
1076
00:53:31.630 --> 00:53:33.510
First, we're going to have deals, all the 90 deals
1077
00:53:33.610 --> 00:53:35.489
in 90 days. Now there's no deals. It takes too
1078
00:53:35.510 --> 00:53:37.849
much time. So I'm just setting a tax. What's the
1079
00:53:37.889 --> 00:53:39.969
tax based on? What's the tariff rate based on? We
1080
00:53:40.010 --> 00:53:45.969
don't know. Big victory because now. Other countries aren't paying tariffs,
1081
00:53:46.030 --> 00:53:49.130
but we're paying tariffs here in the U.S.? What's going on?
1082
00:53:49.610 --> 00:53:51.090
What is the point of all this? These are not
1083
00:53:51.130 --> 00:53:53.949
really deals. They're framework agreements. The details are just.
1084
00:53:53.789 --> 00:53:54.489
Not ironed out.
1085
00:53:54.570 --> 00:53:57.909
And you know this because the Japanese are signaling, if
1086
00:53:58.110 --> 00:54:01.159
not outright saying, that Trump's team is just making shit up.
1087
00:54:01.179 --> 00:54:03.639
Scott Besson went on Fox, I think Laura Ingraham, and
1088
00:54:03.659 --> 00:54:05.300
he was like, oh, yeah, they're going to buy all
1089
00:54:05.320 --> 00:54:05.599
this stuff.
1090
00:54:05.619 --> 00:54:06.139
We're going to have an.
1091
00:54:06.159 --> 00:54:08.900
Implementation process where we review it every three months. And
1092
00:54:08.920 --> 00:54:11.789
the Japanese trade negotiator responded, In my eight trips to
1093
00:54:11.809 --> 00:54:13.550
the United States, during which I held talks with the
1094
00:54:13.590 --> 00:54:16.369
president and the ministers, I have no recollection of discussing
1095
00:54:16.449 --> 00:54:18.989
how we ensure the implementation of the latest agreement between
1096
00:54:19.030 --> 00:54:21.889
Japan and the United States. In other words, bullshit. And
1097
00:54:21.909 --> 00:54:23.710
the White House is saying that, oh, this is a
1098
00:54:23.690 --> 00:54:26.650
$ 550 billion investment in the U.S., and the U.S. is
1099
00:54:26.670 --> 00:54:28.949
going to keep like 90% of the profits. The trade
1100
00:54:28.989 --> 00:54:32.570
minister from Japan said, no, 1% to 2% of the
1101
00:54:32.570 --> 00:54:35.550
$ 550 billion is actual investment. The rest is loans and
1102
00:54:35.610 --> 00:54:39.349
loan guarantees. So it's like, it just, it's bullshit. Like,
1103
00:54:39.690 --> 00:54:40.949
The EU part of it is a little weird. I
1104
00:54:40.949 --> 00:54:42.929
was surprised they didn't put up a little more of
1105
00:54:42.969 --> 00:54:44.750
a fight given that they have some real heft in
1106
00:54:44.769 --> 00:54:47.730
terms of economic leverage, but it's probably harder to get
1107
00:54:48.690 --> 00:54:51.280
a big block like that to negotiate as a group.
1108
00:54:51.360 --> 00:54:53.780
And maybe they were just nervous or maybe it's all
1109
00:54:53.820 --> 00:54:56.280
bullshit too. And we're going to see more details of
1110
00:54:56.320 --> 00:54:59.059
the EU deal and realize that. I do think like
1111
00:54:59.340 --> 00:55:02.579
big picture, all these countries benefit from knowing that Trump
1112
00:55:02.619 --> 00:55:05.949
cares about the day one headline, not the implementation. Remember
1113
00:55:05.989 --> 00:55:09.019
six months ago, when Trump had that press event with
1114
00:55:09.059 --> 00:55:12.380
Sam Altman and the head of SoftBank and Larry Ellison,
1115
00:55:12.420 --> 00:55:15.389
and they announced a 500, a half a trillion dollar
1116
00:55:15.449 --> 00:55:16.690
thing called Stargate.
1117
00:55:16.710 --> 00:55:17.210
Remember this?
1118
00:55:17.530 --> 00:55:19.309
So the company said, we're going to invest half a
1119
00:55:19.329 --> 00:55:21.730
trillion dollar on like data centers and infrastructure for AI
1120
00:55:21.769 --> 00:55:25.150
in the US, including a hundred billion right now. Well,
1121
00:55:25.170 --> 00:55:27.349
the Wall Street Journal the other day reported that they
1122
00:55:27.389 --> 00:55:30.219
haven't completed a single data center deal yet. It's like
1123
00:55:30.539 --> 00:55:33.059
scaling back the ambitions completely. In the first Trump term,
1124
00:55:33.670 --> 00:55:35.889
Trump made this deal with China where the Chinese promised
1125
00:55:35.909 --> 00:55:38.780
to buy $ 200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services
1126
00:55:38.889 --> 00:55:42.300
above the level they purchased in 2017. And then China
1127
00:55:42.360 --> 00:55:45.820
ultimately bought none of that additional $ 200 billion. So I just,
1128
00:55:45.920 --> 00:55:47.619
I don't trust that any of this is going to happen.
1129
00:55:47.860 --> 00:55:49.699
Or that any of it is not investments that were
1130
00:55:49.719 --> 00:55:51.780
already on the table. I mean, that was like Mexico
1131
00:55:51.820 --> 00:55:54.139
and Canada. That was their move, right? Like, let's just
1132
00:55:54.219 --> 00:55:56.579
label shit we were already doing. It's like, oh yeah, Trump,
1133
00:55:56.619 --> 00:56:00.269
you got us. And so like, you know... We have
1134
00:56:00.349 --> 00:56:02.889
the EU and the United States, Japan, the United States,
1135
00:56:02.949 --> 00:56:07.130
our economies are incredibly intertwined. There's billions upon billions of
1136
00:56:07.170 --> 00:56:10.750
dollars moving between our countries. You can ascribe, oh yeah,
1137
00:56:10.769 --> 00:56:12.670
we're going to buy a bunch of American energy. Oh yeah,
1138
00:56:12.690 --> 00:56:14.110
we're going to invest in a bunch of factories. They
1139
00:56:14.170 --> 00:56:16.110
are every day. That's why this is so fucking stupid.
1140
00:56:16.889 --> 00:56:20.420
Markets seem happy these days with the trade war. I
1141
00:56:21.019 --> 00:56:24.320
think that's, you know, maybe because the period of uncertainty
1142
00:56:24.340 --> 00:56:27.719
is coming to a close here. And, you know, I
1143
00:56:27.760 --> 00:56:32.250
guess Trump didn't go with the full liberation day tariffs. But,
1144
00:56:32.670 --> 00:56:35.130
you know, Morgan Stanley says they don't think we'll have
1145
00:56:35.170 --> 00:56:37.519
a recession, but we still believe the most likely outcome
1146
00:56:37.579 --> 00:56:41.019
is slow growth and firm inflation. So it's like, great,
1147
00:56:41.420 --> 00:56:44.000
we're going to have inflation now and slow growth. And,
1148
00:56:44.179 --> 00:56:46.719
you know, again, we've said this before, but a lot
1149
00:56:46.739 --> 00:56:50.119
of these companies have so far either been eating the
1150
00:56:50.159 --> 00:56:53.730
tariffs themselves or still have goods imported from before they
1151
00:56:53.750 --> 00:56:57.530
went into effect. So the price increases really haven't said
1152
00:56:57.550 --> 00:56:59.650
they're about to set in, but they really haven't even
1153
00:56:59.869 --> 00:57:03.010
set in yet. And I still remember that quote from
1154
00:57:03.449 --> 00:57:05.860
our friend Jason Furman, who we used to work with
1155
00:57:06.090 --> 00:57:08.360
on Derek Thompson's podcast. He was like, look, if you
1156
00:57:08.400 --> 00:57:10.219
asked everyone in the country to come together and set
1157
00:57:10.300 --> 00:57:13.820
fire to $ 1, 000, it would seem like a phenomenally stupid idea.
1158
00:57:14.019 --> 00:57:16.050
And we'd all remember forever who came up with it,
1159
00:57:16.400 --> 00:57:18.579
but it wouldn't crash the economy. It would just be
1160
00:57:18.599 --> 00:57:20.619
a bunch of people lighting $ 1, 000 on fire. He's like,
1161
00:57:20.800 --> 00:57:22.719
that's about what's going to happen. Like there's like a
1162
00:57:22.760 --> 00:57:24.699
half a point of growth that we're going to lose
1163
00:57:24.780 --> 00:57:27.570
that we would have had otherwise without the tariffs.
1164
00:57:27.829 --> 00:57:30.409
Right, yes. The United States economy is strong enough and
1165
00:57:30.449 --> 00:57:33.690
robust enough to survive a stupid policy from Donald Trump.
1166
00:57:33.769 --> 00:57:37.570
And by the way, even as a lot of people
1167
00:57:37.590 --> 00:57:40.610
will end up paying more for things that they need.
1168
00:57:41.849 --> 00:57:44.150
At first, it'll be washing machines. We've seen that before.
1169
00:57:44.210 --> 00:57:45.809
The price of washing machines just goes up. They pass
1170
00:57:45.829 --> 00:57:47.710
the price on to consumers. And then you'll see a
1171
00:57:47.730 --> 00:57:49.989
bunch of wealthy people be like, hey, they said this
1172
00:57:50.030 --> 00:57:51.719
trade war was going to bankrupt the economy. I'm not
1173
00:57:51.760 --> 00:57:53.730
feeling it at all. Well, of course you're not. Of
1174
00:57:53.769 --> 00:57:56.610
course you're not. You're not impacted by the daily cost
1175
00:57:56.639 --> 00:57:59.539
of necessities. That doesn't hit you in the same way
1176
00:57:59.559 --> 00:58:02.579
it hits a person who will actually be impacted by this.
1177
00:58:03.079 --> 00:58:05.079
Speaking of lighting money on fire, you know what it's
1178
00:58:05.099 --> 00:58:07.900
time for, guys? A corrupt date. Nice.
1179
00:58:08.739 --> 00:58:13.530
Corrupt date.
1180
00:58:14.289 --> 00:58:18.820
God, that sucks. Just sucks. Terrible. You guys remember the
1181
00:58:18.840 --> 00:58:20.980
Qatari jet episode where everyone freaked out for a few
1182
00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:23.159
days over Trump accepting a free gift from a royal
1183
00:58:23.179 --> 00:58:27.250
family that funds Hamas? Turns out that Qatar may have
1184
00:58:27.289 --> 00:58:29.880
built the plane, but guess who's going to pay for it?
1185
00:58:30.630 --> 00:58:33.349
We are. The New York Times reports that the cost
1186
00:58:33.369 --> 00:58:35.949
to taxpayers of renovating the plane for Trump's use might
1187
00:58:35.989 --> 00:58:39.960
be around $ 1 billion. And the reason we know this
1188
00:58:40.179 --> 00:58:42.320
is because the Times discovered that the Pentagon made a
1189
00:58:42.440 --> 00:58:46.989
secret transfer for that amount from the program intended... upgrade
1190
00:58:47.030 --> 00:58:50.730
our nuclear missiles to an anonymous project that's believed to
1191
00:58:50.769 --> 00:58:54.800
be refurbishing the Qatari jet. But wait, there's more. The
1192
00:58:54.840 --> 00:58:57.239
Washington Post is reporting that in the original draft of
1193
00:58:57.280 --> 00:59:01.420
the agreement that transfers ownership of the plane, Qatar included
1194
00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:04.710
language that stipulated the plane would belong specifically to the
1195
00:59:04.809 --> 00:59:08.530
Air Force. But the U.S. pushed back and removed that
1196
00:59:08.570 --> 00:59:10.820
language so that Trump could take the plane with him
1197
00:59:11.119 --> 00:59:14.489
when he leaves. As a keepsake, of course, from us,
1198
00:59:15.070 --> 00:59:17.610
as a $ 1 billion thank you to Mr. Trump for
1199
00:59:17.650 --> 00:59:22.949
making America great again with his Middle Eastern sugar daddy plane. Tommy,
1200
00:59:23.110 --> 00:59:25.110
why isn't this a bigger story? This is incredible. This
1201
00:59:25.170 --> 00:59:25.670
is incredible.
1202
00:59:25.690 --> 00:59:28.630
We're paying for our president's plane that he gets to keep.
1203
00:59:28.670 --> 00:59:30.230
He gets a little doggy bag with a plane in
1204
00:59:30.289 --> 00:59:32.409
it from the Qataris when he leaves the white house
1205
00:59:32.449 --> 00:59:33.869
and it costs a billion dollars and it comes out
1206
00:59:33.889 --> 00:59:36.510
of the nuclear missile fund. I mean, if we take
1207
00:59:36.550 --> 00:59:38.980
back the house, this list is getting longer, but this
1208
00:59:39.000 --> 00:59:42.199
has got to be like top three items on the oversight,
1209
00:59:42.820 --> 00:59:48.019
relentless focus list, right? Because remember, The Republicans figured out
1210
00:59:48.099 --> 00:59:51.000
that Hillary Clinton had a private server and a private
1211
00:59:51.059 --> 00:59:53.639
email because they did 700 Benghazi hearings.
1212
00:59:54.019 --> 00:59:55.320
That's got to be the focus here.
1213
00:59:55.360 --> 01:00:00.199
Just like relentlessly demand documents, investigate this stuff, all kinds
1214
01:00:00.239 --> 01:00:04.480
of oversight over corruption, the crypto, the Qatari plane, all
1215
01:00:04.519 --> 01:00:06.880
the real estate dealings, all of it as we kind
1216
01:00:06.900 --> 01:00:09.840
of sell a message about what MAGA has become.
1217
01:00:10.940 --> 01:00:13.059
Yeah, it's not even just we were talking about this
1218
01:00:13.079 --> 01:00:17.900
when we on earlier that that it's even being framed like, oh,
1219
01:00:17.940 --> 01:00:22.380
the U.S. is getting a weird gift from the Qataris. No,
1220
01:00:23.320 --> 01:00:26.250
there's a plane that Donald Trump is receiving as a
1221
01:00:26.269 --> 01:00:29.329
gift that the U.S. government is fixing up for him
1222
01:00:29.750 --> 01:00:32.389
for free. He is stealing a billion dollars from the U.S.
1223
01:00:32.429 --> 01:00:36.920
government to fix up a present he's getting from the Qataris.
1224
01:00:36.980 --> 01:00:40.480
It's making a brief stopover in D.C., but its final
1225
01:00:40.500 --> 01:00:44.059
destination is Trump's, quote, presidential library, but it will be
1226
01:00:44.099 --> 01:00:45.940
his to fly around the world. It will maybe never
1227
01:00:46.630 --> 01:00:48.860
done in time for him to use as president. And
1228
01:00:48.880 --> 01:00:49.340
by the way, just.
1229
01:00:49.659 --> 01:00:51.099
I mean, hopefully it's done in time for him to
1230
01:00:51.139 --> 01:00:52.719
leave the White House. Otherwise, he's going to miss out
1231
01:00:52.760 --> 01:00:53.260
on that gift.
1232
01:00:53.519 --> 01:00:54.820
Well, you know, all of you.
1233
01:00:54.880 --> 01:00:55.039
Right.
1234
01:00:55.260 --> 01:00:58.780
Well, right on that... I think they won't just get...
1235
01:00:58.340 --> 01:01:00.039
What happens if he leaves before it's done?
1236
01:01:00.079 --> 01:01:00.980
That's what I'm saying.
1237
01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:02.920
Well, if it's not done, who cares? He doesn't need
1238
01:01:02.940 --> 01:01:04.820
all the, like, special comms equipment stuff.
1239
01:01:04.880 --> 01:01:06.969
Oh, then he just takes it. He's just like, yeah, don't... Well,
1240
01:01:06.989 --> 01:01:08.070
he can't take it half finished.
1241
01:01:08.690 --> 01:01:11.070
So, none of this makes sense, right? Like, obviously, this
1242
01:01:11.090 --> 01:01:12.469
is all stupid. They're going to have to finish up
1243
01:01:12.489 --> 01:01:14.429
the other Air Force Ones that they're already building anyway. So,
1244
01:01:14.429 --> 01:01:16.690
this is just an add-on cost but by the way.
1245
01:01:16.630 --> 01:01:18.440
Like did anyone keep the receipt for the other two.
1246
01:01:20.079 --> 01:01:22.510
But like everyone's like oh my god it's a billion
1247
01:01:22.530 --> 01:01:25.079
dollars there it They don't know how much it's going
1248
01:01:25.099 --> 01:01:27.739
to cost to fix up this. No one in human
1249
01:01:27.780 --> 01:01:32.829
history has ever taken a 747-8 from a Middle Eastern government,
1250
01:01:32.949 --> 01:01:35.349
stripped it down to the studs, and then rebuilt it
1251
01:01:35.369 --> 01:01:37.070
at Air Force One. It's all like, how much did
1252
01:01:37.110 --> 01:01:38.690
this cost the last time we did that? It's never
1253
01:01:38.710 --> 01:01:40.349
been done before. They have no idea what.
1254
01:01:40.269 --> 01:01:42.590
It's going to cost. And we need the gold plating, too.
1255
01:01:42.650 --> 01:01:44.329
Everything needs to be gold. How much is that going
1256
01:01:44.349 --> 01:01:44.489
to cost?
1257
01:01:44.510 --> 01:01:46.469
You guys know the Pentagon. They usually come in on time,
1258
01:01:46.510 --> 01:01:46.969
under budget.
1259
01:01:47.710 --> 01:01:50.610
Famously so. Famously so. Well, now that they've been doged,
1260
01:01:50.679 --> 01:01:52.710
you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that's great.
1261
01:01:52.969 --> 01:01:55.110
President Charlie Kirk is going to be getting this at
1262
01:01:55.130 --> 01:01:55.750
the end of his term.
1263
01:01:56.369 --> 01:01:57.289
Jesus Christ.
1264
01:01:57.730 --> 01:01:58.320
If he's lucky.
1265
01:01:59.159 --> 01:02:01.119
All right. When we come back from the break, you'll
1266
01:02:01.159 --> 01:02:03.980
hear Tommy's conversation with Amir T-Bone. But before we get
1267
01:02:04.000 --> 01:02:07.920
to that, here's the news that I teased earlier. Big announcement.
1268
01:02:08.119 --> 01:02:08.519
What do we got?
1269
01:02:08.739 --> 01:02:13.969
Dan's in the Epstein files. So got to get ahead
1270
01:02:14.010 --> 01:02:14.269
of that.
1271
01:02:14.289 --> 01:02:18.309
No, that's not it. We're here to announce something. It's
1272
01:02:18.329 --> 01:02:20.829
called Crooked Con. In November, it will have been a
1273
01:02:20.929 --> 01:02:25.329
year since Donald Trump won again. And everyone has had
1274
01:02:25.369 --> 01:02:27.730
some time to sit and think about what we've all
1275
01:02:27.750 --> 01:02:30.380
done and what we haven't done. And we wanted to
1276
01:02:30.429 --> 01:02:33.739
get everyone together who doesn't want Donald Trump or someone
1277
01:02:33.760 --> 01:02:37.280
like Donald Trump to be president again to talk about
1278
01:02:37.400 --> 01:02:37.980
the path forward.
1279
01:02:38.139 --> 01:02:39.380
Republicans have their CPAC.
1280
01:02:39.739 --> 01:02:40.179
Oh, yeah.
1281
01:02:40.199 --> 01:02:41.019
This is DPAC.
1282
01:02:41.500 --> 01:02:41.920
Oh, yeah.
1283
01:02:42.119 --> 01:02:43.539
Why don't we call it DPAC?
1284
01:02:43.780 --> 01:02:47.840
It's a terrible name. It's a terrible, terrible name. Truthfully, Republicans...
1285
01:02:47.969 --> 01:02:50.190
have been really smart about this. And they gather everyone together.
1286
01:02:50.269 --> 01:02:52.789
And sure, at the beginning, it seemed like a bunch
1287
01:02:52.829 --> 01:02:54.889
of fringe crazies. But guess who's now running the government?
1288
01:02:55.219 --> 01:02:57.820
Those fringe crazies who started CPAC. So we need to
1289
01:02:57.900 --> 01:03:01.239
get together, talk about what's going on, get smarter, get better,
1290
01:03:02.019 --> 01:03:03.539
maybe try to figure out how we screwed up so
1291
01:03:03.559 --> 01:03:05.159
bad in the past, move forward.
1292
01:03:05.559 --> 01:03:10.130
If you have seen the intra-party debate in the Democratic
1293
01:03:10.170 --> 01:03:13.190
Party play out on the internet and in the media,
1294
01:03:13.650 --> 01:03:16.769
you've probably noticed that it's maybe not the most constructive
1295
01:03:16.829 --> 01:03:19.489
thing to do. Not always. So a real constructive thing
1296
01:03:19.530 --> 01:03:21.610
we thought would be to get people together in person
1297
01:03:21.949 --> 01:03:28.360
and have a bunch of conversations with organizers, strategists, politicians,
1298
01:03:28.550 --> 01:03:29.159
the cool ones.
1299
01:03:29.400 --> 01:03:31.300
If you work in politics at any level, from Capitol
1300
01:03:31.340 --> 01:03:33.679
Hill to in your community, this is the place to
1301
01:03:33.719 --> 01:03:36.079
go to learn what's happening in this country, to learn
1302
01:03:36.119 --> 01:03:37.940
from some of the smartest people out there, and meet
1303
01:03:37.980 --> 01:03:39.239
the people who are on the front lines trying to
1304
01:03:39.260 --> 01:03:39.699
beat MAGA.
1305
01:03:39.900 --> 01:03:41.159
Plus, we're going to figure out a way to stop
1306
01:03:41.199 --> 01:03:43.469
those text messages. We're going to- Yes.
1307
01:03:43.570 --> 01:03:46.010
Truly, like, if there's one thing that can come out
1308
01:03:46.050 --> 01:03:48.610
of this event, it is stopping the text messages, Dan.
1309
01:03:49.050 --> 01:03:51.969
I don't think we should put that on ourselves. The
1310
01:03:51.989 --> 01:03:54.699
measure of success can be attend this event, never get
1311
01:03:54.739 --> 01:03:56.619
an annoying text from a Democratic politician again.
1312
01:03:56.639 --> 01:03:59.219
It's a high bar. And it's going to be in D.C.
1313
01:03:59.239 --> 01:04:02.800
We're going to gather at the Ellipse. It's going to
1314
01:04:02.840 --> 01:04:03.139
be wild.
1315
01:04:03.159 --> 01:04:03.920
It's going to be wild.
1316
01:04:03.940 --> 01:04:07.050
It will be wild. It will be wild. No, it's
1317
01:04:07.070 --> 01:04:10.789
going to be at the... Wharf. Wharf. It's going to
1318
01:04:10.809 --> 01:04:12.889
be at the Wharf. We call it the Wharf? We
1319
01:04:12.929 --> 01:04:14.750
call it the Wharf, right? It's the Wharf. It's called
1320
01:04:14.769 --> 01:04:16.429
the Wharf. It's going to be a place that's so
1321
01:04:16.489 --> 01:04:18.889
new that when we lived there, we didn't even.
1322
01:04:18.909 --> 01:04:19.659
It was just a dock.
1323
01:04:19.780 --> 01:04:20.539
It was just a dock.
1324
01:04:21.099 --> 01:04:21.980
Now it's a whole wharf.
1325
01:04:22.260 --> 01:04:23.699
And in case you guys think it's going to be
1326
01:04:23.760 --> 01:04:27.500
just us neolib Obama shills, we're going to have people
1327
01:04:27.539 --> 01:04:31.090
from across the political spectrum. If that political spectrum is
1328
01:04:31.139 --> 01:04:33.360
from The left to the center right.
1329
01:04:33.559 --> 01:04:37.199
It'll run from the left to Tim Miller. Basically, that's the...
1330
01:04:37.260 --> 01:04:39.199
And Sarah, that's really the bounce.
1331
01:04:39.219 --> 01:04:41.079
We're going to get everyone together and we're going to
1332
01:04:41.099 --> 01:04:42.500
have some fun. We're also going to do a Positive
1333
01:04:42.519 --> 01:04:46.250
America show the first night just to kick things off.
1334
01:04:46.389 --> 01:04:47.889
And then the next day, we're going to all get
1335
01:04:47.929 --> 01:04:49.550
together and get down to business, you know?
1336
01:04:49.849 --> 01:04:52.349
Yeah, get down to business and fun.
1337
01:04:52.650 --> 01:04:55.449
There'll be alcohol. Dan's going to do shots. Dan's going
1338
01:04:55.469 --> 01:04:55.929
to do shots.
1339
01:04:56.289 --> 01:04:57.960
If we can solve the text message problem, I'll definitely
1340
01:04:57.980 --> 01:04:58.300
do shots.
1341
01:04:58.599 --> 01:05:01.880
Yeah, what happens at the wharf stays at the wharf.
1342
01:05:01.900 --> 01:05:02.900
Is it even called the wharf?
1343
01:05:03.119 --> 01:05:05.639
We don't even know if it's called the wharf. What
1344
01:05:05.679 --> 01:05:06.980
if it's not called the wharf?
1345
01:05:08.039 --> 01:05:10.559
Anyway, get your tickets, crookedcon.com.
1346
01:05:10.639 --> 01:05:16.199
Is it crookedcon.com? Hey, great job getting crookedcon.com. Crookedcon.com.
1347
01:05:16.460 --> 01:05:17.880
Stay tuned for more information, but we're going to be
1348
01:05:17.900 --> 01:05:18.940
announcing our lineup soon.
1349
01:05:19.199 --> 01:05:24.039
November 6th and 7th, Washington, D.C. Be there. Grab tickets.
1350
01:05:24.300 --> 01:05:28.159
Go online, crooked.com.com. I'm sorry.
1351
01:05:28.389 --> 01:05:31.519
Cricketcon.com. Cricketcon.com.
1352
01:05:31.559 --> 01:05:43.500
Cricketcon.com. Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas.
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1381
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I'm excited to welcome to the show my friend Amir Tibon.
1382
01:07:06.750 --> 01:07:09.389
He is a reporter for Haaretz. He's the author of
1383
01:07:09.409 --> 01:07:12.389
the book Gates of Gaza, a story of betrayal, survival,
1384
01:07:12.449 --> 01:07:14.090
and hope in Israel's borderlands.
1385
01:07:14.469 --> 01:07:15.139
Amir, great to see you.
1386
01:07:15.730 --> 01:07:16.929
Hey, thanks for having me.
1387
01:07:18.119 --> 01:07:21.260
As usual, terrible circumstances, but great to see you. I
1388
01:07:21.300 --> 01:07:24.980
wanted to talk with you about this horrific humanitarian situation
1389
01:07:25.019 --> 01:07:28.440
in Gaza, why a deal to end the war has
1390
01:07:28.480 --> 01:07:32.219
been so elusive, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's legal and
1391
01:07:32.260 --> 01:07:35.590
political challenges and his relationship with Trump, among other things.
1392
01:07:35.639 --> 01:07:38.090
But first, I did want to help listeners understand kind
1393
01:07:38.110 --> 01:07:40.309
of who you are and your perspective on these issues.
1394
01:07:40.730 --> 01:07:43.150
You have been a harsh critic of Netanyahu. You've been
1395
01:07:43.170 --> 01:07:47.090
a critic of the war. But you also spent eight hours,
1396
01:07:47.389 --> 01:07:49.469
I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, hiding from Hamas.
1397
01:07:49.489 --> 01:07:50.010
A little more, yeah.
1398
01:07:51.199 --> 01:07:54.320
Yeah, in a safe room on a kibbutz on October 7th.
1399
01:07:54.320 --> 01:07:56.079
So this is very, very personal for you. I mean,
1400
01:07:56.099 --> 01:07:57.900
can you just tell the listeners a little bit about
1401
01:07:57.920 --> 01:07:58.440
your experience?
1402
01:07:59.079 --> 01:08:02.940
Well, first of all, it's important for me to say
1403
01:08:03.639 --> 01:08:08.420
that October 7th for me is very personal. October 7th
1404
01:08:08.480 --> 01:08:13.219
is the day that started this nightmare, started this terrible war,
1405
01:08:13.840 --> 01:08:17.119
this disaster, catastrophe that we've been dealing with for 662
1406
01:08:17.119 --> 01:08:24.399
days now. And because my family and I, we live
1407
01:08:24.659 --> 01:08:27.859
in a community, small kibbutz, right on the border with Gaza,
1408
01:08:28.380 --> 01:08:31.600
on the Israeli side of the border, within the internationally
1409
01:08:31.680 --> 01:08:35.819
recognized borders of Israel, our community was attacked by Hamas
1410
01:08:35.840 --> 01:08:41.189
on October 7. 16, one six, 16 of my neighbors,
1411
01:08:41.409 --> 01:08:43.829
personal friends of mine, people I would see every day,
1412
01:08:44.489 --> 01:08:48.590
were murdered and killed on that day. Another seven were
1413
01:08:48.630 --> 01:08:52.600
kidnapped into Gaza. And one close friend of mine, Omri Miran,
1414
01:08:52.619 --> 01:08:56.399
a father of two young girls, is still held hostage
1415
01:08:56.460 --> 01:09:01.439
by Hamas terrorists in Gaza today as we speak. separated
1416
01:09:01.479 --> 01:09:03.550
from his wife and two young daughters, like I said,
1417
01:09:03.590 --> 01:09:08.210
for 662 days. So this is the background. And I
1418
01:09:08.270 --> 01:09:12.689
come to this issue. From what I describe as a
1419
01:09:12.789 --> 01:09:17.239
liberal Zionist perspective, I'm a proud Israeli, proud Zionist, and
1420
01:09:17.739 --> 01:09:19.619
I can tell you that in the early weeks and
1421
01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:22.680
months of this terrible war, I thought it was terrible
1422
01:09:22.800 --> 01:09:29.420
but necessary. Today, I think it's much more terrible and
1423
01:09:29.479 --> 01:09:32.220
also that we have to end it and that we
1424
01:09:32.300 --> 01:09:35.739
really should have ended it many, many months ago and
1425
01:09:35.779 --> 01:09:38.300
that the fact that it is still continuing, it has
1426
01:09:38.350 --> 01:09:44.270
brought so much suffering and despair. And, you know, I
1427
01:09:44.310 --> 01:09:49.170
look at it with great frustration because the war's continuation,
1428
01:09:49.350 --> 01:09:52.210
this is what's keeping the hostages over there in the
1429
01:09:52.270 --> 01:09:55.850
tunnels of Gaza, including my friend Omri. This is what
1430
01:09:55.890 --> 01:09:59.010
is causing all the suffering in Gaza and in Israel.
1431
01:10:00.640 --> 01:10:03.239
It's time to end it. And this is the reason
1432
01:10:03.479 --> 01:10:05.420
I'm talking to you, my friend. Honestly, I mean, I
1433
01:10:05.460 --> 01:10:07.640
love seeing you, Tommy, but this is the message I
1434
01:10:07.680 --> 01:10:10.189
want to send through to people. We really need to
1435
01:10:10.229 --> 01:10:10.930
put an end to this.
1436
01:10:11.670 --> 01:10:14.210
I think it's a very important message. So, you know,
1437
01:10:14.609 --> 01:10:18.210
the images that have been coming out of Gaza are horrifying,
1438
01:10:18.250 --> 01:10:21.479
especially quite recently. I mean, there's these images of starving children.
1439
01:10:22.020 --> 01:10:24.520
There are these massive crowds of desperate people just trying
1440
01:10:24.539 --> 01:10:27.899
to get food. There's all these reports of mass casualty
1441
01:10:27.960 --> 01:10:32.619
incidents after the IDF or security contractors fired on the
1442
01:10:32.659 --> 01:10:34.609
crowds of people who were just trying to get food.
1443
01:10:35.130 --> 01:10:37.829
Can you help us just explain or understand how the
1444
01:10:37.970 --> 01:10:42.590
aid distribution process got so bad, especially what the Gaza
1445
01:10:42.609 --> 01:10:45.829
Humanitarian Foundation is and what it is supposed to be doing?
1446
01:10:47.020 --> 01:10:49.020
This is going to be a bit of a long answer,
1447
01:10:49.060 --> 01:10:52.510
but trust me, it's important. for understanding and putting all
1448
01:10:52.529 --> 01:10:59.600
the pieces together. So in mid-January 2025, half a year ago,
1449
01:11:00.619 --> 01:11:03.920
right around the time that the transition from President Biden
1450
01:11:03.960 --> 01:11:07.359
to President Trump was taking place, a ceasefire agreement was
1451
01:11:07.470 --> 01:11:12.869
reached in Gaza after 15 terrible months of war. And
1452
01:11:12.909 --> 01:11:16.710
that ceasefire agreement had several components. One of them was
1453
01:11:16.750 --> 01:11:20.649
the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.
1454
01:11:21.310 --> 01:11:25.789
Another was a partial evacuation of Israeli forces from some
1455
01:11:25.829 --> 01:11:29.289
areas of Gaza. And another one was pushing up the
1456
01:11:29.329 --> 01:11:32.189
amount of aid that goes into Gaza. And at the time,
1457
01:11:32.229 --> 01:11:35.090
the mechanism was that the aid would come through different
1458
01:11:35.289 --> 01:11:40.729
UN agencies and humanitarian organizations. And that ceasefire was supposed
1459
01:11:40.750 --> 01:11:45.310
to have two phases. Phase one, 60 days, a release
1460
01:11:45.600 --> 01:11:50.189
of 33 Israeli hostages, like I said, partial withdrawal, Palestinian prisoners,
1461
01:11:50.289 --> 01:11:52.970
and then there was supposed to be phase two, which
1462
01:11:53.250 --> 01:11:56.130
was supposed to include the release of all the remaining
1463
01:11:56.189 --> 01:12:00.510
Israeli hostages in return for a complete withdrawal from Gaza
1464
01:12:00.590 --> 01:12:04.350
of the Israeli military and a formal end of war agreement.
1465
01:12:05.869 --> 01:12:10.390
And in March 2025, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that he
1466
01:12:10.430 --> 01:12:12.659
doesn't want this deal anymore, even though he signed it.
1467
01:12:13.630 --> 01:12:16.970
And he decided to renew the war in Gaza, break
1468
01:12:16.989 --> 01:12:20.060
the terms of the deal, He tried to offer a
1469
01:12:20.199 --> 01:12:24.649
new kind of agreement, which is a weird thing to do, right?
1470
01:12:24.689 --> 01:12:27.609
You sign an agreement, putting up, you know, and I'm
1471
01:12:27.630 --> 01:12:30.069
not here to advocate in any way for Hamas. These
1472
01:12:30.109 --> 01:12:34.350
are monstrous terrorists. I told you about my own background
1473
01:12:34.369 --> 01:12:37.899
with them. But we signed a deal. And to try
1474
01:12:37.939 --> 01:12:41.239
and impose new terms in the middle of that deal
1475
01:12:41.279 --> 01:12:45.680
being implemented is not something you would usually do. Hamas
1476
01:12:45.720 --> 01:12:48.380
didn't accept the new terms that were supposed to be
1477
01:12:48.899 --> 01:12:52.939
basically a prolonging of the temporary ceasefire instead of ending
1478
01:12:52.979 --> 01:12:57.460
the war. And then what Netanyahu did, apart from renewing
1479
01:12:57.520 --> 01:12:59.560
the war, he said, we are going to put a
1480
01:12:59.590 --> 01:13:03.649
blockade on Gaza. We're going to stop all aid from
1481
01:13:03.729 --> 01:13:06.430
coming into the Gaza Strip. This was in March. He
1482
01:13:06.470 --> 01:13:09.649
said it on the record in Hebrew at the weekly
1483
01:13:09.689 --> 01:13:11.850
cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He said, we're going to stop
1484
01:13:12.149 --> 01:13:15.539
all the aid from coming in. Now, at the time,
1485
01:13:16.000 --> 01:13:19.819
this happened right after the two-month ceasefire. So there wasn't
1486
01:13:19.920 --> 01:13:22.699
any shortage of food or aid in Gaza because during
1487
01:13:22.739 --> 01:13:24.960
those two months that there was no war, you had
1488
01:13:25.039 --> 01:13:27.119
hundreds of trucks coming in every day.
1489
01:13:27.000 --> 01:13:27.939
From Israel, from Egypt.
1490
01:13:28.779 --> 01:13:31.949
But once this blockade started, you had a clock that
1491
01:13:31.989 --> 01:13:36.970
was beginning to tick-tock, the humanitarian clock. For how long
1492
01:13:37.029 --> 01:13:40.149
will the supplies that came into Gaza during the ceasefire
1493
01:13:40.310 --> 01:13:45.199
actually last for a territory with two million people? And
1494
01:13:45.239 --> 01:13:48.539
a territory that most of the agriculture and the food
1495
01:13:48.600 --> 01:13:51.930
production and the fishing and everything else that used to
1496
01:13:52.010 --> 01:13:54.689
exist there in order to feed people, a lot of
1497
01:13:54.750 --> 01:13:57.590
it doesn't exist anymore because of the devastation of the war.
1498
01:13:58.829 --> 01:14:02.689
And around May, the clock was ticking very fast and
1499
01:14:02.850 --> 01:14:05.380
there was a real concern that you would have severe
1500
01:14:05.489 --> 01:14:09.460
food shortages and hunger. And that's when this new player
1501
01:14:09.560 --> 01:14:14.649
arrived on the scene, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. an organization
1502
01:14:14.689 --> 01:14:17.350
that was set up, from the best of my understanding,
1503
01:14:17.430 --> 01:14:20.689
in Switzerland. And now there is an investigation going on
1504
01:14:20.729 --> 01:14:24.329
over there about the origins of this. And it involves
1505
01:14:24.609 --> 01:14:26.850
a lot of people from the United States. It is
1506
01:14:26.930 --> 01:14:30.670
led by someone who is a prominent evangelical leader with
1507
01:14:31.149 --> 01:14:34.350
strong ties to some political figures in Israel. And this
1508
01:14:34.409 --> 01:14:37.039
organization says, we are going to take over the aid
1509
01:14:37.060 --> 01:14:39.760
distribution in Gaza. We're going to take it from the
1510
01:14:39.899 --> 01:14:42.020
UN and we're going to run this. And they set
1511
01:14:42.079 --> 01:14:46.500
up four aid distribution centers in different parts of Gaza.
1512
01:14:46.520 --> 01:14:50.279
Now think about it. A territory of 2 million people
1513
01:14:51.510 --> 01:14:54.329
getting all their food from four locations.
1514
01:14:54.369 --> 01:14:55.989
How is that even supposed to work?
1515
01:14:56.970 --> 01:14:58.770
Yeah, I heard the UN had like 400 some odd
1516
01:14:58.810 --> 01:14:59.630
aid distribution locations.
1517
01:14:59.829 --> 01:15:02.600
Yes, and I'm not saying the UN system was great
1518
01:15:02.659 --> 01:15:06.939
or perfect. And there is... something that we all here
1519
01:15:06.979 --> 01:15:09.729
in Israel have been saying and watching and hearing, that
1520
01:15:10.090 --> 01:15:12.869
Hamas would steal the supplies that came in through the
1521
01:15:12.989 --> 01:15:15.689
UN and then sell it on the black market in Gaza.
1522
01:15:16.449 --> 01:15:19.770
And this was a huge problem. But the idea that
1523
01:15:19.810 --> 01:15:22.529
you would replace the UN system with all its flaws
1524
01:15:22.590 --> 01:15:25.939
and all its problems, with these four distribution sites, to me,
1525
01:15:26.020 --> 01:15:29.079
from the beginning, it sounded impossible.
1526
01:15:29.560 --> 01:15:29.659
Yeah.
1527
01:15:30.199 --> 01:15:35.390
And these distribution sites became the sites of horrendous scenes,
1528
01:15:35.670 --> 01:15:40.390
of crowds packing and pushing and shoving to get to
1529
01:15:40.569 --> 01:15:45.390
whatever food was being distributed. And those firing incidents and
1530
01:15:45.729 --> 01:15:50.739
shelling and these contrasting claims that Israel says Hamas was
1531
01:15:50.779 --> 01:15:53.899
killing these people to keep them away from the GHF
1532
01:15:53.979 --> 01:15:59.289
distribution centers and other eyewitnesses. including Israeli soldiers saying, well,
1533
01:15:59.329 --> 01:16:02.329
we were given orders to open fire in the vicinity
1534
01:16:02.390 --> 01:16:06.460
of the distribution centers. It just became a total disaster.
1535
01:16:07.000 --> 01:16:09.600
And people didn't want to go there because they were
1536
01:16:09.619 --> 01:16:12.319
afraid for their lives after hundreds of people got killed.
1537
01:16:13.319 --> 01:16:17.840
And the humanitarian situation, instead of improving via the presence
1538
01:16:17.979 --> 01:16:21.430
of this humanitarian foundation, it only got worse and worse
1539
01:16:21.529 --> 01:16:25.590
and worse until in the last few weeks, even officials
1540
01:16:25.689 --> 01:16:29.310
in the Israeli military and government began to warn that
1541
01:16:29.409 --> 01:16:34.489
we are facing the prospect of hunger, of starvation in Gaza.
1542
01:16:35.399 --> 01:16:38.520
And this became an international issue, and a lot of
1543
01:16:38.579 --> 01:16:41.460
pressure was being placed on Israel from the U.S., from
1544
01:16:41.539 --> 01:16:45.859
European allies. Now remember, the whole point of this policy
1545
01:16:46.390 --> 01:16:49.340
of blocking all the aid from coming in and then
1546
01:16:49.420 --> 01:16:53.220
bringing in this American foundation to run the aid distribution
1547
01:16:53.319 --> 01:16:57.060
supposedly in a way that wouldn't reach Hamas' hands, right?
1548
01:16:57.079 --> 01:17:00.579
This was the selling point of GHF as presented by
1549
01:17:00.659 --> 01:17:04.649
Israeli and American officials. The whole point behind this was
1550
01:17:04.699 --> 01:17:09.630
to pressure Hamas to compromise in the hostage negotiations, accept
1551
01:17:09.689 --> 01:17:14.270
Netanyahu's terms for a partial agreement because what Hamas wants,
1552
01:17:14.350 --> 01:17:18.989
they keep insisting to go back to the January ceasefire terms,
1553
01:17:19.050 --> 01:17:22.550
which is all the hostages for end of war. And
1554
01:17:22.590 --> 01:17:25.789
what Netanyahu says, no, I'm willing to do a partial agreement,
1555
01:17:25.890 --> 01:17:29.680
temporary ceasefire, some hostages come back, and then I renew
1556
01:17:29.720 --> 01:17:33.619
the war. So the whole point of this effort to
1557
01:17:33.699 --> 01:17:36.840
block the aid and then to impose the aid distribution
1558
01:17:36.899 --> 01:17:42.010
through these four apocalyptic distribution centers was to get Hamas
1559
01:17:42.029 --> 01:17:44.770
to compromise. Well, guess what, Tommy? We are now at
1560
01:17:44.810 --> 01:17:47.670
the end of July. Okay, it's four, it's going to
1561
01:17:47.710 --> 01:17:52.220
be five months soon. Hamas hasn't compromised. We haven't had
1562
01:17:52.920 --> 01:17:56.920
any hostage deal, any breakthrough. Only one living hostage came
1563
01:17:56.960 --> 01:18:01.819
back during this entire period, Idan Alexander, the American-Israeli dual citizen.
1564
01:18:02.300 --> 01:18:05.000
He was released as part of a separate side deal
1565
01:18:05.020 --> 01:18:08.600
between the Trump administration and Hamas. So this entire thing,
1566
01:18:08.659 --> 01:18:13.619
not only is it creating terrible consequences on the ground
1567
01:18:13.699 --> 01:18:17.850
and people are dying, It didn't serve any strategic or
1568
01:18:17.930 --> 01:18:20.609
national security goals for Israel.
1569
01:18:20.630 --> 01:18:21.329
The opposite.
1570
01:18:22.130 --> 01:18:25.029
What Hamas started doing is that they saw where this
1571
01:18:25.069 --> 01:18:30.439
was going and they used it in order to turn
1572
01:18:30.479 --> 01:18:33.760
the world against Israel. And now Israel is being accused
1573
01:18:33.819 --> 01:18:38.899
of starvation and keeping food away from hungry children. And
1574
01:18:38.960 --> 01:18:42.180
this caused Hamas to harden its positions in the negotiations.
1575
01:18:42.239 --> 01:18:43.229
They feel emboldened.
1576
01:18:43.859 --> 01:18:46.930
And over the weekend, after... so many people warned and
1577
01:18:46.970 --> 01:18:50.560
so many people raised red flags, the Israeli government began
1578
01:18:50.600 --> 01:18:53.319
to change course again in kind of a panic mode,
1579
01:18:53.439 --> 01:18:56.079
usual behavior for Netanyahu. And now they're trying to bring
1580
01:18:56.119 --> 01:18:58.489
more and more aid into Gaza, which is good. I mean,
1581
01:18:58.770 --> 01:19:01.069
this is the right thing to do. But you ask yourself,
1582
01:19:02.050 --> 01:19:05.710
what was it for this entire thing? What purpose did
1583
01:19:05.750 --> 01:19:06.109
it serve?
1584
01:19:07.319 --> 01:19:08.479
And look, I agree with you. There are these sort
1585
01:19:08.500 --> 01:19:10.460
of temporary ceasefires, not ceasefires in place.
1586
01:19:10.579 --> 01:19:12.300
There's pauses in place in the fighting.
1587
01:19:12.380 --> 01:19:15.449
Now they begin to do it like 10 hours a day.
1588
01:19:15.789 --> 01:19:18.930
And again, you know, think about it from an Israeli perspective, Tommy.
1589
01:19:19.390 --> 01:19:21.770
For 10 hours a day, we're stopping the fire in
1590
01:19:21.810 --> 01:19:23.819
large parts of Gaza, and it's not part of a
1591
01:19:23.859 --> 01:19:27.140
hostage release deal. This is like from the Israeli perspective,
1592
01:19:27.180 --> 01:19:31.159
the ultimate failure, right? The whole argument was we'll renew
1593
01:19:31.180 --> 01:19:33.500
the war so we get back the hostages. And of course,
1594
01:19:33.539 --> 01:19:35.100
it was a lie. The way to get back the
1595
01:19:35.140 --> 01:19:39.510
hostages was to continue the ceasefire from January. But look
1596
01:19:39.529 --> 01:19:40.329
what's happening now.
1597
01:19:40.750 --> 01:19:43.109
And just to point out, like, look, I'm there. So
1598
01:19:43.130 --> 01:19:46.470
there's also the Israelis are allowing some airdropping of supplies,
1599
01:19:46.569 --> 01:19:49.449
which is just completely insufficient, not going to work during.
1600
01:19:49.189 --> 01:19:50.229
The Biden administration.
1601
01:19:50.250 --> 01:19:50.840
It's a show.
1602
01:19:50.850 --> 01:19:53.850
This doesn't solve anything. You need trucks. You need tons
1603
01:19:53.909 --> 01:19:54.270
of trucks.
1604
01:19:54.270 --> 01:19:56.649
10 airplanes is like one truck, just to give people
1605
01:19:56.689 --> 01:19:58.470
a perspective in terms of the amount of aid.
1606
01:19:59.310 --> 01:20:00.350
Right. It's totally insufficient.
1607
01:20:00.369 --> 01:20:04.470
And also, the time to prevent starvation is weeks ago.
1608
01:20:04.890 --> 01:20:07.520
People are now at a state of such severe malnutrition
1609
01:20:07.779 --> 01:20:09.960
that it can be irreversible. And what it is going
1610
01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:13.960
to require is an exponential surge of aid. Because the
1611
01:20:14.020 --> 01:20:16.659
deaths we are starting to see are the weakest, the
1612
01:20:16.699 --> 01:20:19.060
most frail people, right? People who are sick or young
1613
01:20:19.479 --> 01:20:22.189
or elderly. And there is very likely to be a
1614
01:20:22.289 --> 01:20:26.350
wave of deaths next if there isn't a massive surge
1615
01:20:26.390 --> 01:20:26.689
of aid.
1616
01:20:26.909 --> 01:20:30.729
This is true, but I don't want this to discourage
1617
01:20:30.829 --> 01:20:34.529
anybody with influence from pushing aid, because if you push
1618
01:20:34.590 --> 01:20:36.489
enough aid, you can still save a lot of people.
1619
01:20:37.109 --> 01:20:41.060
And by the way, also from the Israeli perspective, flooding
1620
01:20:41.239 --> 01:20:47.439
Gaza with food and supplies is better than the rationing
1621
01:20:47.500 --> 01:20:50.949
that was created under GHF, because What Hamas is doing
1622
01:20:51.109 --> 01:20:53.470
when they steal some of the food and some of
1623
01:20:53.510 --> 01:20:55.479
the aid, they're selling it for a lot of money
1624
01:20:55.520 --> 01:20:58.579
on the black market in Gaza. And food is being
1625
01:20:58.640 --> 01:21:02.439
sold for ridiculous prices in Gaza. And then they use
1626
01:21:02.479 --> 01:21:07.600
that money to pay their fighters, their terrorists. If you
1627
01:21:07.720 --> 01:21:12.300
flooded Gaza with such amounts of food that the prices
1628
01:21:12.340 --> 01:21:15.380
would grow down, if you bring down the price of wheat,
1629
01:21:15.399 --> 01:21:20.090
the price of bread, price of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, cigarettes, whatever,
1630
01:21:20.149 --> 01:21:23.890
you bring it down by flooding the area. So Hamas,
1631
01:21:24.130 --> 01:21:26.270
whatever they get their hands on, they wouldn't be able
1632
01:21:26.310 --> 01:21:27.029
to sell it for.
1633
01:21:26.989 --> 01:21:27.670
So much money.
1634
01:21:28.529 --> 01:21:31.270
So again, this is, you know, just, it's a stupid
1635
01:21:31.289 --> 01:21:35.649
policy and it created horrendous consequences on the ground and
1636
01:21:35.970 --> 01:21:38.470
we have to reverse it. We have to reverse it
1637
01:21:38.550 --> 01:21:40.229
and the time to do it, like you said, was
1638
01:21:40.270 --> 01:21:42.649
weeks ago, but now at least it's being done.
1639
01:21:43.380 --> 01:21:46.350
Yeah, I think both of us fully support flooding aid in. But,
1640
01:21:46.390 --> 01:21:47.949
you know, longer term, I mean, look, you mentioned there
1641
01:21:47.970 --> 01:21:50.890
have been these two ceasefires. One ended in March after
1642
01:21:50.989 --> 01:21:53.529
Israel resumed military operations. You and I could get into
1643
01:21:53.590 --> 01:21:56.470
all the details of like, you know, sequencing of, you know,
1644
01:21:56.529 --> 01:22:00.850
hostage releases versus prisoner releases and aid distribution and, you know,
1645
01:22:00.869 --> 01:22:03.409
where both sides want the IDF to pull back to
1646
01:22:03.510 --> 01:22:06.729
in the process. But I really feel like, yeah, but
1647
01:22:06.750 --> 01:22:08.390
I really just feel like it boils down to one
1648
01:22:08.449 --> 01:22:11.710
massive difference that can feel unbridgeable, which is Hamas wants
1649
01:22:11.750 --> 01:22:13.369
to negotiate a permanent.
1650
01:22:13.029 --> 01:22:15.050
End to the conflict in Bibi Netanyahu territory.
1651
01:22:15.380 --> 01:22:18.119
Does not because he worries it would collapse his government,
1652
01:22:18.159 --> 01:22:20.359
but also because I think a lot of Israelis, I
1653
01:22:20.380 --> 01:22:24.819
think understandably, would view that as a quote-unquote win for Hamas.
1654
01:22:25.359 --> 01:22:28.619
Is that accurate? And if so, what is the pathway
1655
01:22:28.640 --> 01:22:29.520
to bridging that gap?
1656
01:22:30.880 --> 01:22:34.430
I think in this war, you're not going to have,
1657
01:22:34.689 --> 01:22:37.890
at least in the Gaza theater, you're not going to
1658
01:22:37.930 --> 01:22:41.529
have a real winner because Israel lost so much on
1659
01:22:41.569 --> 01:22:45.100
October 7th. and the people of Gaza lost so much
1660
01:22:45.420 --> 01:22:50.359
since October 7, and both sides continue to lose so
1661
01:22:50.399 --> 01:22:57.460
much every day that this is just a disaster for everybody.
1662
01:22:57.520 --> 01:23:00.239
You can argue that Israel won the war with Hezbollah
1663
01:23:00.260 --> 01:23:02.399
in the north. You can argue that Israel won the
1664
01:23:02.439 --> 01:23:07.319
war with Iran. And I think those are correct interpretations
1665
01:23:07.380 --> 01:23:10.250
of what happened in both theaters. I think there is
1666
01:23:10.310 --> 01:23:13.979
a tendency to exaggerate the magnitude of the victory. And
1667
01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:16.939
I am always on the side of caution and not
1668
01:23:16.979 --> 01:23:22.020
being arrogant and not underestimating the enemy and underestimating the
1669
01:23:22.060 --> 01:23:25.550
desire for revenge that comes after humiliation. But I do
1670
01:23:25.600 --> 01:23:28.369
think overall, you can say Israel won the Lebanon and
1671
01:23:28.649 --> 01:23:32.890
Iran fronts. I think the Gaza front, the promise of
1672
01:23:33.010 --> 01:23:38.680
victory over there is fantasy. And we are losing every day.
1673
01:23:39.350 --> 01:23:46.050
because we're losing soldiers there, an entire generation of young Israelis.
1674
01:23:46.090 --> 01:23:48.869
These are people who were kids, like 18, on the
1675
01:23:48.930 --> 01:23:53.710
verge of enlistment when October 7 happened. They're losing their
1676
01:23:53.789 --> 01:23:58.560
friends and so much over there, and we have the
1677
01:23:58.600 --> 01:24:02.119
hostages still not coming back. Our reputation as a country
1678
01:24:02.619 --> 01:24:05.960
is just destroyed as a result of the events of
1679
01:24:06.000 --> 01:24:10.300
the last few months. it's tearing our society apart. And
1680
01:24:11.239 --> 01:24:14.210
the moral consequences and the questions that rise from it,
1681
01:24:14.359 --> 01:24:16.260
this is something that we will have to contend with
1682
01:24:16.439 --> 01:24:19.460
perhaps for years. At the same time, to say that
1683
01:24:19.560 --> 01:24:23.739
Hamas won anything, I mean, look what they brought upon Gaza.
1684
01:24:25.050 --> 01:24:29.189
Look what entire cities have been erased because of what
1685
01:24:29.229 --> 01:24:31.989
they did on October 7th. So I don't think this
1686
01:24:32.010 --> 01:24:35.029
is a question of victory or loss. I think there's
1687
01:24:35.069 --> 01:24:36.909
a lot of politics involved here, but at the end
1688
01:24:36.949 --> 01:24:39.470
of the day, You need to make a deal. You
1689
01:24:39.489 --> 01:24:43.130
get all the hostages out, end the war, start rebuilding
1690
01:24:43.189 --> 01:24:46.670
the IDF because our military took a serious hit on
1691
01:24:46.710 --> 01:24:49.409
October 7. We lost a lot of soldiers since October
1692
01:24:49.409 --> 01:24:53.579
7 to death and injury and PTSD. We have some
1693
01:24:54.420 --> 01:24:57.640
burning internal problems inside Israel that have to be fixed.
1694
01:24:57.779 --> 01:25:00.060
One of them is the question of who serves in
1695
01:25:00.079 --> 01:25:03.060
the army, who is exempt from military service. This has
1696
01:25:03.079 --> 01:25:06.199
been a big political question here in Israel because certain
1697
01:25:06.260 --> 01:25:09.220
segments of Israeli society that have a lot of influence
1698
01:25:09.279 --> 01:25:12.100
in the Netanyahu government, are exempted from service, and it's
1699
01:25:12.260 --> 01:25:16.739
extremely unfair towards those who do serve. So we need
1700
01:25:16.779 --> 01:25:20.189
to focus on these issues instead of chasing the last
1701
01:25:20.310 --> 01:25:24.210
Hamas fighter and the last AK-47 and the last rocket
1702
01:25:24.229 --> 01:25:28.710
launcher in Gaza amid the rubble and the destruction there,
1703
01:25:29.149 --> 01:25:31.949
and as we are destroying our own society and our
1704
01:25:32.220 --> 01:25:35.560
global reputation. And this is what's at hand here, and
1705
01:25:35.579 --> 01:25:38.609
I think most Israelis understand it. I think A lot
1706
01:25:38.630 --> 01:25:42.770
of Israelis who supported the war in the early months
1707
01:25:42.829 --> 01:25:46.489
of it, and I include myself in that group, today
1708
01:25:46.560 --> 01:25:49.680
they are convinced that we need to make a comprehensive
1709
01:25:49.760 --> 01:25:50.689
deal to finish it.
1710
01:25:53.039 --> 01:25:56.220
The challenge remains, right, that Netanyahu maybe does not want
1711
01:25:56.260 --> 01:25:59.949
that deal, largely because he has this coalition... of far
1712
01:25:59.989 --> 01:26:02.239
right ministers and they could collapse his government, right?
1713
01:26:02.340 --> 01:26:04.659
I think it's important, Tommy, to explain in just a
1714
01:26:04.739 --> 01:26:07.460
minute or even 45 seconds that Israeli politics are very
1715
01:26:07.500 --> 01:26:10.300
different than American politics, right? In the US, the president
1716
01:26:10.380 --> 01:26:14.680
is directly elected. Esar, the senators, the members of Congress,
1717
01:26:14.720 --> 01:26:16.659
you know, you choose a person for a job and
1718
01:26:16.680 --> 01:26:20.609
they have a term. In Israel, we have parliamentary politics,
1719
01:26:20.810 --> 01:26:23.909
which means you vote for a party. And then from
1720
01:26:23.970 --> 01:26:26.989
those parties that make it into the parliament, you need
1721
01:26:27.029 --> 01:26:30.220
to build a ruling coalition. Because you never have a
1722
01:26:30.260 --> 01:26:33.399
scenario where one party actually has an outright majority. You
1723
01:26:33.420 --> 01:26:40.800
need different parties to cooperate. Netanyahu's governing coalition relies on far-right, messianic,
1724
01:26:41.020 --> 01:26:45.699
fanatic elements that oppose ending the war, oppose the hostage deal.
1725
01:26:45.760 --> 01:26:50.100
They almost resigned because of the previous hostage deal, even
1726
01:26:50.140 --> 01:26:53.239
though it was a temporary partial ceasefire. And they are
1727
01:26:53.300 --> 01:26:55.819
threatening to pull the plug and bring down his government
1728
01:26:56.310 --> 01:26:59.619
if he actually makes a comprehensive deal. And this is
1729
01:26:59.659 --> 01:27:03.399
a frustrating situation because most Israelis, in return for all
1730
01:27:03.460 --> 01:27:10.039
the hostages, will support ending the war. But this minority government,
1731
01:27:10.140 --> 01:27:12.760
they're literally a minority government now because they don't even
1732
01:27:12.800 --> 01:27:15.239
have a majority anymore in the parliament. They lost it
1733
01:27:15.279 --> 01:27:17.689
because of other political issues that got in the way.
1734
01:27:18.649 --> 01:27:22.590
They are dictating the continuation of this war. And the
1735
01:27:22.689 --> 01:27:26.800
daily grind and death of soldiers and suffering of the
1736
01:27:26.840 --> 01:27:30.380
hostages and the catastrophe in Gaza. And by the way,
1737
01:27:30.420 --> 01:27:34.060
it's also impacting the border communities like my kibbutz. A
1738
01:27:34.100 --> 01:27:36.899
lot of families are not coming back, not going back
1739
01:27:36.939 --> 01:27:40.689
to live in the kibbutz until the war ends. People
1740
01:27:40.729 --> 01:27:42.949
don't want to bring their children back into a war zone.
1741
01:27:43.489 --> 01:27:46.609
So this is creating so much frustration and it is
1742
01:27:46.710 --> 01:27:51.750
driven mostly by... political interests of one man who wants
1743
01:27:51.770 --> 01:27:52.590
to remain in power.
1744
01:27:53.479 --> 01:27:53.649
Yeah.
1745
01:27:54.109 --> 01:27:56.760
And so, look, there's a question, I think, in the U.S.
1746
01:27:57.020 --> 01:28:00.399
of how to bring about political pressure on Netanyahu to
1747
01:28:00.460 --> 01:28:02.779
force him to change. Because when Biden was in charge,
1748
01:28:03.199 --> 01:28:04.819
there was this mantra from the White House you hear
1749
01:28:04.840 --> 01:28:07.039
all the time that you need to hug Bibi to
1750
01:28:07.060 --> 01:28:08.439
get him to do what you want. And that meant
1751
01:28:08.779 --> 01:28:13.289
never disagreeing with Netanyahu publicly, giving Netanyahu political cover at
1752
01:28:13.310 --> 01:28:17.250
the U.N., funneling weapons to the Israeli government. And look,
1753
01:28:17.569 --> 01:28:21.670
full disclosure, that kind of hug BB shit drove me crazy.
1754
01:28:21.689 --> 01:28:23.270
I thought it was a terrible approach then. I think
1755
01:28:23.310 --> 01:28:25.800
it's a terrible approach now. Now Trump is in charge
1756
01:28:25.840 --> 01:28:28.500
of the relationship. I would argue that Gaza had a
1757
01:28:28.579 --> 01:28:32.420
huge impact on the 2024 election. Now Trump, interestingly, has
1758
01:28:32.439 --> 01:28:35.789
been more willing to break with Netanyahu on certain issues
1759
01:28:36.010 --> 01:28:37.510
like the Houthi rebels.
1760
01:28:37.529 --> 01:28:39.550
We don't have to get into all the details. Syria, yeah.
1761
01:28:40.100 --> 01:28:44.140
Of been willing to give Netanyahu the Heisman on certain issues.
1762
01:28:44.479 --> 01:28:46.739
Gaza has not really been one of them, with the
1763
01:28:46.760 --> 01:28:50.199
exception of that first ceasefire. But let's say that Trump
1764
01:28:50.260 --> 01:28:52.479
or the next president or the US Congress, they really
1765
01:28:52.539 --> 01:28:56.119
wanted to pressure Netanyahu. What steps could the US government
1766
01:28:56.180 --> 01:28:57.600
take that would actually matter?
1767
01:28:58.609 --> 01:29:02.390
I want to say something specifically about Trump. President Trump
1768
01:29:02.470 --> 01:29:06.810
is very popular in Israel because of the attacks in
1769
01:29:06.890 --> 01:29:10.770
Iran that he conducted, which were viewed by most Israelis
1770
01:29:11.409 --> 01:29:15.229
as something that significantly improves the national security of Israel.
1771
01:29:15.850 --> 01:29:18.409
Because of some things he did in his first term
1772
01:29:18.489 --> 01:29:23.180
as president, when he moved the embassy to Jerusalem and
1773
01:29:23.380 --> 01:29:26.539
recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel and things
1774
01:29:26.579 --> 01:29:30.020
like that, Abraham Accords. And also because of that first
1775
01:29:30.119 --> 01:29:33.630
ceasefire deal in January, because President Biden tried for many,
1776
01:29:33.670 --> 01:29:37.590
many months to reach that ceasefire and bring back those hostages.
1777
01:29:38.090 --> 01:29:40.170
And I want to give credit to President Biden for
1778
01:29:40.210 --> 01:29:43.380
the first ceasefire and hostage release deal, which happened in
1779
01:29:43.479 --> 01:29:49.159
November 2023. That deal brought us back 100 living hostages
1780
01:29:49.199 --> 01:29:53.619
from Gaza. Because remember, on October 7, Hamas kidnapped 250 people,
1781
01:29:54.500 --> 01:29:58.630
including women and children and agricultural workers from Thailand who
1782
01:29:58.670 --> 01:30:01.810
are not even Israeli. And so Biden's deal brought us
1783
01:30:01.850 --> 01:30:05.489
back 100. But then the January deal, I gave a
1784
01:30:05.609 --> 01:30:08.350
lot of credit to President Trump for reaching it. Because
1785
01:30:08.489 --> 01:30:11.920
after that first agreement, Biden failed to get another deal
1786
01:30:12.560 --> 01:30:15.659
for 14 months until Trump came in and boom, it happened.
1787
01:30:15.739 --> 01:30:19.300
And that also gave him a lot of popularity. President
1788
01:30:19.319 --> 01:30:23.380
Trump could easily use that popularity among the Israeli public
1789
01:30:24.250 --> 01:30:26.649
to go out and say, it's time to end the
1790
01:30:26.670 --> 01:30:30.510
war in Gaza. It's time to make a comprehensive ceasefire deal.
1791
01:30:30.649 --> 01:30:36.979
Enough with this, excuse my French, but bullshit of temporary deals,
1792
01:30:37.560 --> 01:30:43.119
partial deals, five hostages today, five hostages two weeks from now,
1793
01:30:43.239 --> 01:30:47.529
two hostages 50 days from now. We'll discuss the end
1794
01:30:47.569 --> 01:30:49.789
of the war during the negotiations later.
1795
01:30:50.409 --> 01:30:50.630
No.
1796
01:30:50.949 --> 01:30:52.949
Why does it have to be so complicated? Because that's
1797
01:30:52.970 --> 01:30:56.439
what Netanyahu and Ron Dermer want. If Trump came out
1798
01:30:56.479 --> 01:30:59.779
and said it's time for a comprehensive agreement, end the
1799
01:30:59.819 --> 01:31:03.939
war in Gaza, release all the hostages in one, you know,
1800
01:31:03.979 --> 01:31:07.479
put them all on one bus, okay? 20 of them,
1801
01:31:07.579 --> 01:31:10.779
including my friend Omri Miran, are alive. Put them all
1802
01:31:10.840 --> 01:31:14.060
on one bus. 30 are assumed to be dead. Put
1803
01:31:14.220 --> 01:31:16.399
all their caskets on another bus and bring them to
1804
01:31:16.460 --> 01:31:21.329
Israel and finish this nightmare. And have a plan for
1805
01:31:21.369 --> 01:31:23.689
the day after in Gaza. Hamas will have to give
1806
01:31:23.810 --> 01:31:26.149
up the governing powers. There will have to be a
1807
01:31:26.229 --> 01:31:30.979
different Palestinian government there. You have an Egyptian, Saudi, Emirati
1808
01:31:31.020 --> 01:31:36.300
plan just on this issue that with some tweaks and
1809
01:31:36.380 --> 01:31:39.819
corrections can be accepted by Israel and can be a
1810
01:31:39.840 --> 01:31:44.300
good solution and can create better security. Trump can get
1811
01:31:44.359 --> 01:31:47.229
it done just by the fact that he's so popular
1812
01:31:47.250 --> 01:31:50.130
in Israel that it would be difficult for Netanyahu to
1813
01:31:50.289 --> 01:31:54.649
face up and confront him over this. But he refuses
1814
01:31:54.720 --> 01:31:57.920
to do it. And instead what he's doing, he's adopting
1815
01:31:57.939 --> 01:32:03.140
Netanyahu and Dermer's temporary partial ceasefire plan. You know, this
1816
01:32:03.199 --> 01:32:07.340
idea of a 60-day ceasefire. Several hostages will be released
1817
01:32:07.380 --> 01:32:10.119
in the beginning. Another few hostages will be released after
1818
01:32:10.119 --> 01:32:13.189
50 days. The rest of the hostages will wait for
1819
01:32:13.229 --> 01:32:16.630
the 60-day mark and you will have negotiations in between.
1820
01:32:17.880 --> 01:32:21.199
And Netanyahu is even insisting in the negotiations that the
1821
01:32:21.420 --> 01:32:26.439
aid into Gaza will keep running through GHF, this organization.
1822
01:32:27.100 --> 01:32:30.560
And you know, I ask a simple question, Tommy. Are
1823
01:32:30.600 --> 01:32:33.600
we getting everything mixed up? I thought, based on what
1824
01:32:33.810 --> 01:32:38.029
Netanyahu said, that the purpose of GHF was to pressure
1825
01:32:38.090 --> 01:32:42.229
Hamas to compromise in the hostage negotiations because they will
1826
01:32:42.270 --> 01:32:43.470
not have access to the.
1827
01:32:43.529 --> 01:32:44.149
Aid or whatever.
1828
01:32:45.210 --> 01:32:50.130
Why are we instead pushing off the hostage deal in
1829
01:32:50.229 --> 01:32:54.310
order to keep in place GHF. That's just twisted logic.
1830
01:32:55.270 --> 01:32:58.970
Trump could cut that entire kind of Gordian knot in
1831
01:32:59.010 --> 01:33:02.680
a second. He just needs to decide that he wants
1832
01:33:02.720 --> 01:33:05.539
to do it. And he will get a lot of
1833
01:33:05.619 --> 01:33:08.619
credit for it internationally. And I believe also in the
1834
01:33:08.659 --> 01:33:11.439
United States, I think most Americans, as far as they
1835
01:33:11.500 --> 01:33:13.779
follow this war, they just want it to end because
1836
01:33:13.800 --> 01:33:15.340
they think it's tragic and heartbreaking.
1837
01:33:15.359 --> 01:33:15.619
Absolutely.
1838
01:33:16.020 --> 01:33:17.720
And he will also get a lot of credit for
1839
01:33:17.760 --> 01:33:21.920
it in Israel. But he needs to decide that he
1840
01:33:21.979 --> 01:33:24.039
wants to do it. As long as he keeps allowing
1841
01:33:24.060 --> 01:33:27.779
Netanyahu and Dermer to set the terms of the negotiations,
1842
01:33:27.979 --> 01:33:29.319
everything is going to remain stuck.
1843
01:33:30.220 --> 01:33:32.180
Well, and also I would say, you tell me if
1844
01:33:32.220 --> 01:33:34.960
I'm wrong, he didn't really help matters by promoting this
1845
01:33:35.039 --> 01:33:38.180
plan for the full ethnic cleansing of Gaza and turning
1846
01:33:38.199 --> 01:33:40.079
it into a resort town, which is just ludicrous on
1847
01:33:40.119 --> 01:33:43.619
its face and a war crime and crime against humanity.
1848
01:33:44.039 --> 01:33:46.579
but it's also normalized that position in the government.
1849
01:33:47.420 --> 01:33:51.380
That plan is not going to be helpful because now
1850
01:33:51.720 --> 01:33:54.189
you have the far right in Israel say, well, why
1851
01:33:54.229 --> 01:33:56.189
should we make a hostage deal if we can get
1852
01:33:56.350 --> 01:33:59.510
this plan from Trump? And the military in Israel says,
1853
01:33:59.989 --> 01:34:02.510
this plan is a fantasy that is never going to
1854
01:34:02.529 --> 01:34:06.369
be executed. And then the ministers in government tell the generals, no,
1855
01:34:06.449 --> 01:34:09.989
you just lack imagination. And it's become a sticking point
1856
01:34:10.850 --> 01:34:15.340
that is getting everything again stuck in place. And Trump, again,
1857
01:34:15.359 --> 01:34:18.960
you know, he has the leverage to put an end
1858
01:34:19.100 --> 01:34:19.920
to this nightmare.
1859
01:34:20.380 --> 01:34:21.039
He really does.
1860
01:34:21.420 --> 01:34:23.399
But he needs to decide that he wants to do it.
1861
01:34:24.840 --> 01:34:25.000
Yeah.
1862
01:34:25.060 --> 01:34:27.020
And one other challenge here, which is that, you know,
1863
01:34:27.340 --> 01:34:30.140
Prime Minister Netanyahu is on trial for all kinds of corruption,
1864
01:34:30.159 --> 01:34:34.939
accepting gifts, giving favors to, you know, powerful people for
1865
01:34:35.020 --> 01:34:35.810
media coverage.
1866
01:34:35.899 --> 01:34:40.010
Bribery, fraud, breach of trust. That's basically the allegations.
1867
01:34:40.699 --> 01:34:43.340
And the gist is, for folks listening, he needs to
1868
01:34:43.380 --> 01:34:46.560
stay in power, he thinks, to keep himself out of prison.
1869
01:34:46.899 --> 01:34:49.760
And so that keeps his lock on the government even more,
1870
01:34:50.079 --> 01:34:50.920
you know, white-knuckled.
1871
01:34:51.020 --> 01:34:54.689
It's helpful as a defendant to have the schedule of
1872
01:34:54.699 --> 01:34:57.149
a prime minister, and he's been using it to avoid
1873
01:34:57.189 --> 01:35:00.390
the trial almost on a weekly basis. I have to
1874
01:35:00.430 --> 01:35:03.989
go to Washington. I have an urgent phone call. I
1875
01:35:04.029 --> 01:35:07.729
have urgent business related to the war. And he skips
1876
01:35:08.369 --> 01:35:11.779
testimony after testimony. And that's a big part of it.
1877
01:35:12.359 --> 01:35:14.689
So, you know, as you mentioned, Amir, like the world is,
1878
01:35:15.789 --> 01:35:20.829
global opinion has shifted enormously, you know, against Israel, just
1879
01:35:21.090 --> 01:35:24.069
given the scenes we're seeing and the stories and just
1880
01:35:24.109 --> 01:35:28.220
the horrific death toll in Gaza. And one recent example is,
1881
01:35:28.260 --> 01:35:31.420
you know, French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced his plan
1882
01:35:31.439 --> 01:35:34.899
to recognize Palestine as a state. France is the first
1883
01:35:35.020 --> 01:35:37.199
G7 country to recognize Palestine.
1884
01:35:37.560 --> 01:35:38.399
Now, in practice.
1885
01:35:38.850 --> 01:35:40.989
This doesn't magically create a Palestinian state, but it could
1886
01:35:41.029 --> 01:35:44.029
lead to more countries following France's lead. It puts diplomatic
1887
01:35:44.069 --> 01:35:47.869
pressure on Israel. What is the reaction to this move
1888
01:35:47.970 --> 01:35:49.689
by the French bin in Israel?
1889
01:35:50.689 --> 01:35:53.439
Of course, the government is against it and also most
1890
01:35:53.479 --> 01:35:57.060
of the opposition, because once another country takes a diplomatic
1891
01:35:57.140 --> 01:36:01.340
initiative against your country, and that's how it's perceived by
1892
01:36:01.380 --> 01:36:06.270
most Israelis, everybody comes out against it. But also, at
1893
01:36:06.310 --> 01:36:09.140
the same time, This is more of a symbolic move.
1894
01:36:09.199 --> 01:36:12.020
I think the real problem for Israel is the shift
1895
01:36:12.060 --> 01:36:16.579
in public opinion that legitimizes a move like this. There's
1896
01:36:16.619 --> 01:36:20.250
a reason why France decided to do it now and
1897
01:36:20.489 --> 01:36:24.390
why Britain is considering to do it. And there's been
1898
01:36:24.409 --> 01:36:28.010
talk about Canada, Australia, other countries. There is a shift
1899
01:36:28.489 --> 01:36:33.000
against us in global public opinion. Everybody knows it. Everybody
1900
01:36:33.079 --> 01:36:36.270
feels it here in Israel. And this is the big problem.
1901
01:36:37.069 --> 01:36:40.029
The step that Macron took is a reflection of the problem,
1902
01:36:40.630 --> 01:36:42.810
more than, or you can say a phenomenon of the
1903
01:36:42.829 --> 01:36:47.409
problem for Israel, more than significantly in itself changing so
1904
01:36:47.449 --> 01:36:50.729
much in reality. And this is another reason, I wouldn't
1905
01:36:50.970 --> 01:36:52.829
make it the first or even the second or the
1906
01:36:52.909 --> 01:36:55.819
third reason, but it's another reason to strive to end
1907
01:36:55.859 --> 01:36:59.640
the war because we are losing very bad, we're bleeding
1908
01:37:00.319 --> 01:37:03.420
in terms of the country's reputation every day that this continues.
1909
01:37:04.020 --> 01:37:06.500
That plays into the hands of Hamas and all of
1910
01:37:06.600 --> 01:37:13.149
our other enemies. We have enemies. Israel is not Switzerland.
1911
01:37:13.210 --> 01:37:17.130
It's surrounded by people who don't like our country. Right
1912
01:37:17.170 --> 01:37:21.220
now we're playing into their hands because we are every
1913
01:37:21.260 --> 01:37:23.760
day losing more and more support. This is one example
1914
01:37:23.819 --> 01:37:24.020
of it.
1915
01:37:26.000 --> 01:37:29.119
I fear that this war is just a driver of
1916
01:37:29.159 --> 01:37:32.100
global antisemitism, which is obviously a centuries-old problem.
1917
01:37:32.270 --> 01:37:34.850
It's not just the Holocaust. It dates back farther.
1918
01:37:35.010 --> 01:37:38.569
Antisemitism never needs reasons, but I do think that on
1919
01:37:38.590 --> 01:37:42.989
a generational level, this war is going to cause problems
1920
01:37:43.069 --> 01:37:47.590
for Israel and for Israelis. And tragically, also for Israelis
1921
01:37:48.050 --> 01:37:50.590
who are not supportive of this government, who are not
1922
01:37:50.630 --> 01:37:55.750
supportive of its actions, but for someone who's stupid and hateful,
1923
01:37:57.380 --> 01:38:00.340
you know, will become immediately affiliated, just like, right, not
1924
01:38:00.399 --> 01:38:04.989
every American necessarily supports everything that the Trump administration is doing.
1925
01:38:05.729 --> 01:38:07.810
But this is something, this is going to be a
1926
01:38:07.850 --> 01:38:11.829
problem for a long time. This, again, another reason to
1927
01:38:11.949 --> 01:38:12.659
put an end to it.
1928
01:38:13.529 --> 01:38:16.039
Yeah, and unfortunately, I think potentially a problem for America
1929
01:38:16.079 --> 01:38:20.000
and Americans, because we are rightly seen as Israel's, you know,
1930
01:38:20.020 --> 01:38:21.039
full-throated partner in this war.
1931
01:38:21.079 --> 01:38:21.479
Makes sense, yes.
1932
01:38:22.619 --> 01:38:26.090
So finally, Amir, anyone listening to us, it is easy
1933
01:38:26.130 --> 01:38:29.560
to feel hopeless about you know, not just what's happening
1934
01:38:29.579 --> 01:38:32.060
in Gaza. You know, it's, I think as a parent,
1935
01:38:32.079 --> 01:38:34.079
it's hard not to see those images and just imagine
1936
01:38:34.520 --> 01:38:35.739
what it would be like to be a mom or
1937
01:38:35.779 --> 01:38:37.550
dad and not be able to protect your kids.
1938
01:38:37.569 --> 01:38:37.710
Right.
1939
01:38:37.729 --> 01:38:40.250
It like, it breaks you, uh, in a way. And
1940
01:38:40.390 --> 01:38:43.810
it's also, it's hard not to feel hopeless about, uh,
1941
01:38:44.090 --> 01:38:48.869
the hope for a that Israelis and Palestinians could live
1942
01:38:49.029 --> 01:38:52.189
side by side in peace. Your government is run by
1943
01:38:52.520 --> 01:38:55.039
terrible people. My government is run by terrible people. Is
1944
01:38:55.079 --> 01:38:57.380
there anything you are seeing as someone on the ground
1945
01:38:57.460 --> 01:39:02.039
in Israel who is coming at this from far left
1946
01:39:02.100 --> 01:39:02.560
in Israel?
1947
01:39:02.579 --> 01:39:03.779
Humanistic perspective.
1948
01:39:04.739 --> 01:39:08.659
Yeah, well, one of the horrible, irony is the wrong word,
1949
01:39:08.680 --> 01:39:10.659
I don't know, one of the horrific things that happened
1950
01:39:10.699 --> 01:39:12.699
on October 7th was a lot of people.
1951
01:39:12.640 --> 01:39:15.359
Who lived on- So many peace activists were murdered. Yes. Yes.
1952
01:39:15.659 --> 01:39:17.819
People most committed to peace were many of the ones
1953
01:39:17.859 --> 01:39:18.810
targeted on Kibbutz.
1954
01:39:18.850 --> 01:39:18.970
Right.
1955
01:39:19.130 --> 01:39:21.470
So again, another reason to feel hopeless. Is there anything
1956
01:39:21.489 --> 01:39:24.310
you are seeing that gives you some sort of hope?
1957
01:39:24.409 --> 01:39:27.109
I think, well, you know, right now it's, I agree
1958
01:39:27.130 --> 01:39:30.000
with you, man. It's really hard to find hope. And,
1959
01:39:30.439 --> 01:39:35.720
and the situation is really, you know, just kind of despairing,
1960
01:39:36.380 --> 01:39:39.600
but I, I'm very close to some of the families
1961
01:39:39.640 --> 01:39:43.409
of the hostages and, and including the family of my
1962
01:39:43.449 --> 01:39:45.770
friend Omri, but also other families that I know from
1963
01:39:45.829 --> 01:39:50.930
different circumstances, their struggle, including, for example, the struggle of
1964
01:39:51.050 --> 01:39:55.109
John and Rachel Goldberg-Paulin, who lost their son, Hirsch. He
1965
01:39:55.149 --> 01:39:57.449
was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, and he was
1966
01:39:57.529 --> 01:40:01.140
murdered last summer when Israeli troops got close to the
1967
01:40:01.189 --> 01:40:04.920
tunnel where Hamas was holding him, together with five other hostages,
1968
01:40:04.960 --> 01:40:07.739
and they were executed so that the soldiers wouldn't get them.
1969
01:40:09.210 --> 01:40:11.710
The struggle of those families that they've been leading for
1970
01:40:11.750 --> 01:40:15.710
now 662 days to end the war, save their loved
1971
01:40:15.869 --> 01:40:18.260
ones and stop all the killing.
1972
01:40:19.220 --> 01:40:20.680
To me, it's a source of inspiration.
1973
01:40:20.739 --> 01:40:22.560
I don't know how they find the strength to get
1974
01:40:22.600 --> 01:40:26.300
out of bed and continue fighting, whether it's families that
1975
01:40:26.359 --> 01:40:29.060
still have a loved one held by Hamas or people
1976
01:40:29.100 --> 01:40:32.130
like John and Rachel who lost their son, but they
1977
01:40:32.170 --> 01:40:34.810
continue to fight for others. But when I see them
1978
01:40:34.850 --> 01:40:38.689
doing it every day, I tell myself, OK, I can't quit.
1979
01:40:39.329 --> 01:40:42.140
I have to keep speaking up and writing and saying
1980
01:40:42.180 --> 01:40:44.279
and talking to anybody who would give me a platform,
1981
01:40:44.319 --> 01:40:49.420
including yourself, to advocate for this. Because if they have
1982
01:40:49.500 --> 01:40:51.899
the strength to do it, who am I to sit
1983
01:40:51.939 --> 01:40:52.640
on the sidelines?
1984
01:40:53.359 --> 01:40:54.159
Yeah, well said.
1985
01:40:54.220 --> 01:40:56.569
Well, Amir, thank you for doing the show. Everyone should
1986
01:40:56.649 --> 01:40:59.449
read Haaretz. I'm told I always say it wrong, but I'm.
1987
01:40:59.390 --> 01:41:00.630
Doing my best every year. You got it right this time.
1988
01:41:00.949 --> 01:41:02.710
And also by the Gates of Gaza, a.
1989
01:41:02.670 --> 01:41:05.670
Story of betrayal, survival, and hope in Israel's borderlands. Just
1990
01:41:05.710 --> 01:41:09.579
a truly unbelievable story about, Everyone just buy it and
1991
01:41:09.619 --> 01:41:10.060
read the book.
1992
01:41:10.239 --> 01:41:12.180
And thank you for doing the show. Thank you, Tommy.
1993
01:41:12.199 --> 01:41:19.460
And let's hope for good news. That's our show for today.
1994
01:41:19.939 --> 01:41:22.090
Thanks to Amir T. Bone for coming on. Dan and
1995
01:41:22.100 --> 01:41:23.789
I will be back with a new show on Friday.
1996
01:41:24.090 --> 01:41:29.949
Talk to everybody then. If you want to listen to
1997
01:41:29.970 --> 01:41:32.670
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1998
01:41:32.710 --> 01:41:35.829
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1999
01:41:35.850 --> 01:41:39.439
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2000
01:41:39.479 --> 01:41:43.090
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2001
01:41:43.119 --> 01:41:45.270
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2002
01:41:45.569 --> 01:41:48.430
and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America
2003
01:41:48.550 --> 01:41:51.489
is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo,
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01:41:51.670 --> 01:41:55.350
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2005
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2007
01:42:01.970 --> 01:42:04.930
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2008
01:42:04.949 --> 01:42:07.649
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2009
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Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
2010
01:42:11.130 --> 01:42:14.310
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