Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 2/4/26: Elon Freaks Over Paris Twitter Raid, Schumer Praises Israel, Blowback Pod Report From Cuba

Transcript

2/4/26: Elon Freaks Over Paris Twitter Raid, Schumer Praises Israel, Blowback Pod Report From Cuba · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
• 0:01
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• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Let's move on to Elon Muskrin. Because the EX offices
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: were rated in Paris yesterday. I'm going to go ahead
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and read from this AP report about what happened. Headline
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: is EX offices rated in France as prosecutors investigate child
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: abuse images and deep fake. So you might remember us
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: covering the ex child abuse deep fake issue not very
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: long ago. AP says French prosecutors raided the offices of
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: social media pop from X on Tuesday as part of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a preliminary investigation into allegations that include spreading child sexual
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: abuse images and deep fakes. They've also summoned billionaire owner
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk for questioning X and Musk's artificial intelligence company Xai,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: which was just by the way obtained by SpaceX.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: So more financial engineering to dilute the shareholders in favor
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: of Elon Musk's wealth.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Congratulations, guys Ap continues to say. Xai also faced intensifying
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: scrutiny from Britain's data privacy regulator, which opened formal investigations
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: into how they handled personal data when they developed and deployed.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Musk's artificial intelligence chat bought Groc, which was built by
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Xai and is available through X, sparked global outrage last
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: month after it pumped out a torrent of sexualized, non
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: consensual deep fake images in response to requests from X users.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And so now X is in the crosshairs of European regulators.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: So it's not just in Paris, this is also in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Spain and Greece and places where they're considering not even
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: in targeting X specifically, but broadly teen social media bands.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: This is obviously targeting X specifically in Paris, but teen
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: social media bands are on the table in a lot
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of different countries right now. And you can understand why
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: if the average social media website had non consensual deep
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: fake porn being pumped out onto the Internet pretty easily
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: accessible to children at that point.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is in some ways part and parcel
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: of the kind of EU attack on American big tech. Yes,
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: and it's much more restrictive and in some ways censorious
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: in a negative way approach to it, but also at
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: times big.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: Some big tech companies.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Very much deserved to be checked by governments because and
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: in particular, I'm of a couple of minds with Musk.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: I like that he allows more speech, yes, and I
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: like the more libertarian kind of approach to it. At
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: the same time, for his own commercial purposes, he does
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: stuff that everybody just knows is wrong, like he was
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: falling behind and would you know, Grock take up and
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: all of the AI world knows. And this is probably
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: where it's headed. And it sucks that the Internet runs
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: on porn. Yeah, Like that's actually that's the actual basis
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: of the Internet.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: And if you the more.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Of a America runs on duncan the Internet runs on porn.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: The more the pornspigot you turn on for AI, the more,
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: the more you're going to get people to use it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: And so he turned on that spigot, and this flood
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: of then disgusting child images and that in addition what
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: governments are trying to ban, which is doing you know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: deep fake nudes and porn of real people.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: It just starts flooding in that.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: You like, as a public you've got to be able
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: to check that at some point. Yeah, well, but Elon
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: Musk is Yeah, just let's feels like he's uncheckable.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Well, let's put Elon's response up on the screen. This
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: is D two and he said, in an in response
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: to an X statement on what happened in the Paris office,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: this is a political attack. I'll read a little bit
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: more from X's statement about the Paris raid, which calls
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: it quote an abusive act of law enforcement theater, designed
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to achieve illegitimate political objectives rather than advance legitimate law
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: enforcement goals rooted in the fair and impartial administration of justice.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And what I like about what you just said, Ryan,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: is that can be true, actually that this is political
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: theater and it's a political attack. That's both those things
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: can be true at the same time as the sort
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of legitimate concerns about X are true and the deep fake, nonconsensual,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: deep fake porn questions, whether it's in regard to children
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: being able to see them or the people who become
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the subjects of them, These two things can be true
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: at the same time, it's politicized, and it's a legitimate problem,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and it should.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: Be politicized in the sense that these are political questions,
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: like what we want to tolerate in our yeah, society
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: or there when it comes to child nudity yep, and
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: stuff like and deep fake porn of real people like
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: these are political.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Questions again from a man who purports to be saving
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Western civilization and is seemingly aligned against like globalist atheists whatever,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and the right finds a lot of common cause with
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk. Now, this is a man who is defending
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I mean you gladly defense pornography on the platform. Uh,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it's not even that's not even a question at this point, Like,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of course he does. So it's just a good reminder
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of the golf, the real golf, between Elon Musk and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the civilization saving forces on the right that align with him.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: And so he's also getting hit in Spain so Prime
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: Minister page with Sanchez there is what will play him
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: in a second and the content. The context here is
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: the center left coalition in Spain is facing a wipeout
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: from the right and it's I think important to understand
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: this in that context that they they clearly feel like
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: this is something that could maybe stave off that wipe out. Potentially,
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: we'll play Sanchez and then Elon Musk's which is very predictable,
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: predictable in general, but not in particular response.
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: So let's let's roll Sanchez.
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: Just last week, the owner of X, a migrant himself,
• 7:06
  Speaker 6: used his personal account to amplify this information about the
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: Sobat indecision by my government, the regularization of five hundred
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: thousand migrants that leave work and contribute to the success
• 7:19
  Speaker 6: of our country, the same platform that has allowed its
• 7:24
  Speaker 6: ai growth to generate illegal sexual content.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: And some of this, to be clear, in my own opinion,
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: goes way too far. For instance, in France, it's illegal
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: to deny the Holocaust, and at one point Grok was
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: doing some like dabbling in Holocaust the nihalism. You kind
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: of have llms that screw up making that kind of
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: speech criminal to me, pushing it a little too far,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: but Sanchez says, First, we will change the law in
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: Spain the whole platform executives legally accountable for many infringements.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Those laws have been wildly abused. We've seen that, yes.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: And Second, we will turn algorithmic manipulation and amplification of
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: illegal content into a new criminal offense. Third, we will
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: implement a hate and polarization footprint system to track, quantify,
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: and expose how digital platforms fuel division and amplify hate.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: If they turn that into a crime, that's awfully dicey. Fourth,
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Spain will ban access to social media for miners under
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: the age of sixteen. Platforms will be required to implement
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: effective age verification systems, not just checkboxes, but real barriers
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: that work. Fifth, my government will work with our public
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: prosecutor to investigate and pursue the infringement committed by rock
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: TikTok and.
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: Instagram.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: Because one way I would think about it is like,
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: let's say, so upscrolled is doing tremendously, you know, a
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: social platform that is floating in popularity, and they're saying
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: we want to be a free speech platform.
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: What I would say is, I've heard that before.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: What if Spain decides that some of the speech that
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: you're allowing on this platform they consider hateful. Are you
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: going to put the upscrolled founders like in prison over that?
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: So I think this is not as clear cut as
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: kind of a left right thing as people think it is.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: Elon Musk swoops in with the least edifying possible response
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: can put up Musk. Here he says dirty Sanchez is
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain, and
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: then he has a little poop emoji in case anybody
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: doesn't get the reference there.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: I saw that. I was like, where do I know
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: that phrase from?
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, in college, I was telling
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: Mac and Emily, who don't remember a time before the internet?
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: Emily does, Mac so sure.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Year old, but Mac is young and spry.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: In college, there was a sheet of paper that was
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: passed around like this is what viral stuff was back
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: before the internet was a thing.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: It's a piece of paper that had been touched by
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: hundreds of hundreds.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: Of people, had been passed around in dorm rooms and parties,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: and on it it was actually multiple pages, I think
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: on it was it was it was like an urban dictionary.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: It was a dirty Sanchez and dirty Sanchez would then
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: be defined. A lot of you are eating breakfast or
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: drinking coffee. So I'm not going to define it. If
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: you google it, it says it surfaced in the like two
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: thousand and three and some like UK reality show No, No,
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: I can I can tell you it was circulating on
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: paper in college campuses in the nineteen nineties, which.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: Is apparently where Elon Musk is stuck.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: So a grown man with a with a deep cut
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: there to come back at at the Prime Minister of Spain.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Here we are coping so poorly with this era of technology,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: coping as evidenced by the engineer, by the architect of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: our digital doom. You can see it in his response
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: his geopolitical negotiations. You can see it.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: Thirteen year old right there.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Right, let's move on to Treck Schumer. This video. People
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: absolutely have to see this video of Chuck Schumer talking
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: about Israel. Yes, let's do it all right, Chuck Schumer, Ryan,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: where was this this was at this was happening? I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: think this was last week, right.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: I can't ask me. I was in Mexico.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: That's right, you were at Mexico and you were very
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: focused on raising for I forget what it was a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: fundraiser last week and I want to think I think
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: this popped over the weekend. But here's the clip of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer that you've all been waiting for. It won't
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: surprise you, but unusually brazen given the circumstances, let's roll.
• 11:56
  Speaker 7: It for a to Israel.
• 11:59
  Speaker 8: All the that Israel needs. I will continue applied for it.
• 12:05
  Speaker 8: And we delivered more security assistance than israelan Ali under
• 12:09
  Speaker 8: my leadership than ever ever before. We will keep doing that, everybody,
• 12:15
  Speaker 8: But it is a more puppy to give Israel what
• 12:18
  Speaker 8: it needs and to protect itself from the many in
• 12:22
  Speaker 8: that difficult region. For one whipe Israel off the face
• 12:26
  Speaker 8: of the map. We have to do everything to do that.
• 12:31
  Speaker 8: We have to do everything to ensure that the delicacy
• 12:34
  Speaker 8: spire securing last year pays away lasting peace.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, So, according to the foreward, the breakfast quote, previously
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: held at the offices of the UJA Federation of New York,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: was held this year for the first time in the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: events hall at Park East Synagogue, which was the site
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: of a propouse sitting protest last year that featured, according
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to the forward, anti Semitic slogans and posters. That's how
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: this is described. Ryan I said it was unusually brazen,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: not really unusually brazen for given the circumstances from Chuck Schumer.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: But tone duff is probably a better phrase.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: I don't well, I think I think it's another indication
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: that Schumer is not running for reelection.
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: I think that he is. I think he's just being
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: honest here.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I have many jobs as leader, and one and one
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: is to fight for aid to Israel, all the aid
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: that Israel needs. I will continue to fight for it.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: That's his authentic, genuine view, like he believes that that
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: is that is one of the things that he is
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: proudest of in his role as as Democratic leader and
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: in his role as a member of the House and
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: as a Senator, and certainly at this fundraiser he's going
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: to celebrate that. But I do think it's another indication
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: that that, you know, he's looking back on his life
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: and his achievements rather than thinking.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: He's running forward looking way, Yeah, makes sense.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: If I don't know if AOC is the only one
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: that could beat him if he if he does run
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: for reelection, I suspect it's possible other people could even
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: beat him, but I think that AOC would beat him
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: fairly easily at this point. Yeah, because he knows that
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: he has thoroughly and completely lost the normy suburban democrats.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Right, and this is what has won them.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like that that that that would be the political
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: environment was nothing that you could have expected five years ago.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It's watching the views over mom, Donnie. Yeah, right, So Ryan,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: take us meanwhile in Gaza. Take us through some developments
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: in Gaza and also some new breaking breaking points. Some
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: dropsite reporting on.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Human Rights Watch, Unice t Rawi, incredible Palestinian reporter obtained
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: another just just horrifying video. Not it's not graphic or gruesome,
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: it's just genocidally horrifying.
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: So this is taking place in Rafa, he writes.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: Israeli troops blew up the Morag water station today, which,
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: according to God's water utility, it's applied water to roughly
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: one third of Rafa's residents prior to the war. And
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: what units consistently finds is the most the most foul
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: captions that come along with these videos that the Israeli
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: soldiers post themselves and have continued to do for two
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: plus years now. At the very beginning, I think a
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: lot of sensible people thought, wow, this is really awful
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: that the IDF keeps posting evidence of their own genocide
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: and brutality, and it's humiliating to Israel's defenders, and the
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: IDF is going to put a stop.
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: To it like that.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: I think there were you might have even thought that
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: at the beginning, like wow, this is some recklessness on
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: the part of these soldiers. But the commanders are going
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: to get on top of this, and you're going to
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: stop seeing these Like if these images are going to
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: get out, it's gonna Hamas is going to have to
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: like find them on the phones of soldiers or something.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: They're not going to continue to make themselves look like
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: a spectacle of evil deliberately.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: And yet here we are.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: More than two years later, they're still posting these types
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: of videos. And so the they put the caption they
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: put along with the video is we specialize in paint
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: jobs and small renovations details on DM.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I genuinely appreciate the honesty of that. I guess right
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: like it's it's so much more honest than continuing to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: say the most moral force that's.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: Ever existed, say we don't hear that much anymore, do
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: we the most moral That's interesting. They did, they did
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: really sacrifice that for for May what was a year
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: we heard that.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's interesting. It's a good point.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: We don't we don't ever hear the the.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Most moral army anymore.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: There The situation with access to clean water in in
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: Gaza in general is is brutal, and so we we
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: had traps had reported that they they blew up gads
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: of cities. Right as they were leaving, they burned down
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: and blew up gods of cities to its treatment plant.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: And now they're now they blew up this one.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: They also blew up the UNIS had reported for drop
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: site that they blew up another one, and also in
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: Rafa where Rachel Corey.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: Had been killed.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: Actually, back in two thousand and two or three, we
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: also had significant significant news out of Human Rights Watch.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Actually put we can put up three. We'll get to
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: that in a second. So Reuters broke broke the news
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: that the State's Department and other officials had gotten access
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: to northern Gaza early on in the war and had
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: put together the most damning and extraordinary evidence you could
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: possibly imagine, laying out the utter dystopian carnage, and it
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: was blocked by Michael McGirk and other and other States
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: Department officials from getting to complete and saying it lacked balance,
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: like how do you like one of the details they
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: put in there, like you know, the dogs are overweight
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: from eating so many corpses, Like how do you balance?
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: Like what do you want?
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: What's the balance? What's the balance of that detail? Like
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: the situation was not balanced. So johnthan Widdall, former official
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: pushed out of the UN by Israel by its destruction
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: of unra As, has become a journalist. I mean he's
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: been done a couple of incredible pieces for drop Site.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: One of them exposes a lot of the photos that
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: were taken on that journey. So now you don't have
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: to take on that tour of northern Gaza, So now
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: you don't have to take the State Department bureaucrats word
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: for the devastation that they witnessed.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: You can see the actual photos.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: And it was important for the State Department, the Biden
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: State Department, to block that report because if the report
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: went through, then there would be legal implications. You'd have
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: to stop weapons shipments, you'd have to notify Congress or
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: all these different things would kick in, so they had
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: to just stop it right there. And then separately, top
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: Human Rights Watch official Omar Shakir resigned this week in
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: protest of Human Rights Watch squashing some reporting on what.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: What Israel was doing.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: In Gaza and whether or not allowing people to return
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: not to return, or broke international law.
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: You can read the details at drop side and elsewhere,
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: but it goes.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: To this, this this Israeli argument that all of these
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: organizations are fundamentally biased against Israel. Human Rights Watch up
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: right up there you read what actually goes on inside
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: human places like Human Rights Watch. They're absolutely bending over
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: backwards to do everything they can to minimize what the
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: criticism that they have to dole out. And so the
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: criticism that we do get publicly that is the least
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: of it. And so this this was Omar Shki is
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: somebody who was pretty heavily criticized over the years for
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: kind of whitewashing Israeli crimes, and this is his way
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: of I think saying, yeah, I was fighting as hard
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: as I could, Like you were criticizing me from the outside,
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: but I was fighting as hard as I could for
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: the truth on the inside, and I just feel like
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: I cannot.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: I can't do it anymore.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: I can't just because there's always that question like can
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: I do more good on the inside of the outside?
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, totally, And.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: He came to the conclusion that he could no longer
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: justify even going along with what they're putting out.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: People can go read this piece on drop site. It's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: a really fascinating glimpse. Great story.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: Ring well, thank you so Up next, we've got the
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Blowback bull Boys, Noah and Brendan, who just returned from Cuba.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: The humanitarian situation in Cuba is spiraling downwards as Trump
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: is trying to choke off energy from getting to the
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: island to talk about this. We're going to be joined
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: by Noah Cool One, who was a co host of
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: the Blowback Podcast, as well as joining us from New York.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Brendan James, the other co host of the Blowback podcast.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: Welcome back to the program. We're having you guys on
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: because you just returned from Cuba and so we wanted
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: to get an update on the conditions there while you
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: were there.
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: I believe it was on Thursday, President.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: Trump put out a new executive order, downgrading Cuba further
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: into the depths of evilness. Can you describe to us
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: what Trump's new executive order is and how what it
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: would do and how it was.
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: Received while you were there in Cuba?
• 22:43
  Speaker 7: Sure?
• 22:43
  Speaker 9: So, the situation in Cuba, for those who don't know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 9: is that Cuba exists under the gun of an American
• 22:51
  Speaker 9: blockade and has for decades. This limits the businesses that
• 22:55
  Speaker 9: can do business in Cuba, and it also limits the
• 22:57
  Speaker 9: Cuban government's ability to access US basics for its citizenry.
• 23:02
  Speaker 9: We're talking about in this case, the most important being
• 23:05
  Speaker 9: access to energy. And so this executive order that was
• 23:08
  Speaker 9: announced last Thursday was meant to prohibit anybody from doing
• 23:13
  Speaker 9: business with Cuba involving the transact involving oil transactions. The
• 23:18
  Speaker 9: Cuban electrical grid runs on oil. Cuba is able to
• 23:21
  Speaker 9: generate some of its oil, but it needs in order
• 23:24
  Speaker 9: to keep the grid functional and to meet the needs
• 23:26
  Speaker 9: of its you know, nine million or so population, it
• 23:29
  Speaker 9: needs to import oil. And what Trump did was he
• 23:33
  Speaker 9: targeted specifically. I mean, he didn't do it by name,
• 23:36
  Speaker 9: but this executive order was aimed at Mexico, which in
• 23:39
  Speaker 9: recent years has become the primary foreign supplier of Cuba's.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: Oil overcame Venezuela, even.
• 23:45
  Speaker 9: Exactly well prior to the Maduro kidnapping earlier or last month.
• 23:51
  Speaker 9: And so the executive order said, we are going to
• 23:54
  Speaker 9: you know, we're going to do nuclear tariffs on anybody
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: who nuclear figurative language here, literal nuclear tariffs on anybody
• 24:02
  Speaker 9: who tries to sell oil to Cuba. And the purpose
• 24:06
  Speaker 9: of this, which is very explicit, is to choke the
• 24:10
  Speaker 9: Cuban population. It is to plunge them into darkness, to
• 24:13
  Speaker 9: make it so that they do not have electricity, that
• 24:15
  Speaker 9: they do not have the basic means of carrying out
• 24:18
  Speaker 9: everyday life. And the goal of that is that it
• 24:21
  Speaker 9: will succeed the Americans hope where the last sixty years
• 24:25
  Speaker 9: of American policy has not succeeded, and that is to
• 24:27
  Speaker 9: bring down the Cuban government.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Wow. So Bay of Pigs did not go as planned,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: not successful. Unfortunately, it didn't work. But I want to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: get Brendan your reaction to this clip of Trump talking
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: about what he thinks might happen next or what he
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: thinks he can achieve in terms of the US Cuba relationship.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Let's roll f one here.
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: I want the people that came here that were horribly
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: created by Cuba.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: To be taken care of, to be able to go
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: back and do what they have to do.
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: You know, they have their family there.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: They haven't been able to.
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: See him in years, many years. So I think we're
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: going to make a deal with Cuba.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So he thinks he's going to squeeze Cuba into a
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: deal that nobody else had been able to achieve before
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: reading between the lines of what he's saying there post Venezuela.
• 25:14
  Speaker 10: What do you make of it, Brendan, Well, this is
• 25:17
  Speaker 10: one of those policies that you can see right now
• 25:19
  Speaker 10: that sort of sums up the contradictions in Trump two.
• 25:24
  Speaker 10: Because at the top of every statement or order or
• 25:30
  Speaker 10: fact sheet, all of which came out with this latest
• 25:34
  Speaker 10: move against Mexico providing fuel to Cuba, for example, you
• 25:38
  Speaker 10: have the declaration that this is all MAGA, this is
• 25:42
  Speaker 10: for the national security interests of the United States, and
• 25:45
  Speaker 10: nothing else is more important.
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: That's the motivating factor.
• 25:48
  Speaker 10: Yet after that point you notice that it's a very
• 25:53
  Speaker 10: neo con i would say, Rubio inflected text or policy
• 26:00
  Speaker 10: that stresses all of these concerns. For quote unquote, the
• 26:03
  Speaker 10: Cuban people, trying to stand up for the Cuban people,
• 26:07
  Speaker 10: trying to protect the Cuban people, rescue the Cuban people,
• 26:10
  Speaker 10: of course, And I'm not quite sure how one could
• 26:13
  Speaker 10: possibly explain how rescuing the Cuban people has anything to
• 26:19
  Speaker 10: do with the stated MAGA ideology of putting America first
• 26:25
  Speaker 10: and American citizens first. And so when Trump talks about
• 26:28
  Speaker 10: people being able to go back and do what they
• 26:31
  Speaker 10: want to do in Cuba, of course, there's.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: Really no.
• 26:35
  Speaker 10: Idea there about why that's a goal of the United States,
• 26:39
  Speaker 10: what form of government the Trump administration wants to see there,
• 26:44
  Speaker 10: how that form of government should come about. Certainly, if
• 26:48
  Speaker 10: the Cuban government is simply squeezed to collapse, there'll be
• 26:53
  Speaker 10: a catastrophe as a result of this policy. One of
• 26:57
  Speaker 10: the results, of course, would be a massive influx of
• 27:01
  Speaker 10: Cuban immigrants into America, something that you can't really imagine
• 27:04
  Speaker 10: being a selling point under the MAGA platform. I'm not
• 27:07
  Speaker 10: sure if they really care about that contradiction or not,
• 27:10
  Speaker 10: but it's very confusing as soon as you get past
• 27:14
  Speaker 10: the sort of typical status quo cliches about and I
• 27:18
  Speaker 10: would say neocon cliches that even Trump is saying about
• 27:22
  Speaker 10: bringing freedom to an island under communist rule, et cetera.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Noah.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: In that clip, Trump said that they're engaging with the
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: Cubans at the highest levels. You've spent a lot of
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: time you and Bran V spent a lot of time
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: with Cuban officials. In the last week plus. Cuban officials
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: publicly have said there.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: Are no talks going on.
• 27:44
  Speaker 7: Correct.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: What is your understanding about this explicit assertion from Trump
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: that he's in talks with high level Cubans, or that
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: the US is in talks with high level Cubans.
• 27:55
  Speaker 7: It's a mystery. I think his high level Cuban.
• 28:00
  Speaker 9: But yeah, so they may be talking to some Cubans,
• 28:04
  Speaker 9: but are they talking to representatives of the Cuban government.
• 28:07
  Speaker 7: The Cuban government says no.
• 28:08
  Speaker 9: The Cuban government has said A senior Cuban minister gave
• 28:11
  Speaker 9: an interview to the Associated Press either yesterday or the
• 28:14
  Speaker 9: day before, in which he emphasized, listen, we want to
• 28:17
  Speaker 9: talk with the Americans. We are desperate to talk with
• 28:19
  Speaker 9: the Americans. We want to make a deal, we want
• 28:21
  Speaker 9: to have discussions. We want to figure out a way forward.
• 28:24
  Speaker 9: It's just that the Americans don't seem to be having
• 28:26
  Speaker 9: those conversations regardless of what Trump is saying now. Is
• 28:29
  Speaker 9: it possible that Trump is being led down a certain
• 28:32
  Speaker 9: path by advisors who have a desired outcome of inflicting
• 28:35
  Speaker 9: pain on Cuba, end of trying to topple the government
• 28:37
  Speaker 9: no matter what the cost.
• 28:40
  Speaker 7: It's possible.
• 28:41
  Speaker 9: Is it possible that Trump knows that he's lying.
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: That's also possible.
• 28:44
  Speaker 9: I think what just seems extremely clear in this moment
• 28:47
  Speaker 9: is that there aren't talks going on. I don't think
• 28:50
  Speaker 9: that the Cubans would have any incentive to publicly say
• 28:52
  Speaker 9: we're not talking with them, or to say we want
• 28:56
  Speaker 9: to talk with them, but they're actually talking with them.
• 28:58
  Speaker 7: It just doesn't make sense to me.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: I wanted to put up when we can add this
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: in posts speaking of Cubans. Maria el Viros Salazar is
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: a Cuban American congressman from South Florida. Read what she
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: said on Twitter recently and then get your response to
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: it based on the conditions that you've seen. So she writes,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: because this is really an extraordinary statement that she put out,
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: and you'll see whise I read it. She says, the
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: hour of Cuba's freedom has arrived.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: Today.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: We have a president and a Secretary of State determined
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: to cleanse our hemisphere of tyrants, drug traffickers, and dictators.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: But the exile community also bears a historic responsibility to
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: stop giving oxygen to the dictatorship, because every dollar, every trip,
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: and every gesture of false normalcy prolongs the life of
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: a criminal regime and condemns the Cuban people to another
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: sixty years of misery, repression, and slavery. This is the
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: moment to stop everything. No more tourism, no more remittances,
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: no more mechanisms that continue to finance and sustain the dictatorship.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: And yes, she says, I understand it's devastating to think
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: about a mother's hunger, a child who needs immediate help.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: No one is indifferent to that pain. But that is
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: precisely the brutal dilemma we face as exiles. To alleviate
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: short term suffering or to free Cuba forever. We can
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: no longer continue being hostages of a regime that, even
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: from exile, forces us to finance our own oppression. In
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: the regime's final hour, the exile community must choose freedom,
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: so Brendan, she's explicitly calling for a mother's hunger and
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: a child who needs immediate help to be refused that
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: help to put pressure on the government to fall. What
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: did you see on the ground has been the effect
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: of this.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: Strategy.
• 30:48
  Speaker 10: Well, if the goal is to, as they used to say,
• 30:51
  Speaker 10: destroy or burn down the village to save it, as
• 30:54
  Speaker 10: she seems to be describing there, I would say she's
• 30:57
  Speaker 10: getting that hunger. She's squeezing the life out of the
• 31:01
  Speaker 10: island every day. When I was there in twenty twenty two,
• 31:07
  Speaker 10: it was certainly not good times for Cuba. By then,
• 31:10
  Speaker 10: Trump in his first term, had passed over two hundred
• 31:13
  Speaker 10: new sanctions on top of the existing blockade, which has
• 31:17
  Speaker 10: been in effect for the better part of a century.
• 31:20
  Speaker 10: But I honestly, I had been around Havana, I'd been
• 31:24
  Speaker 10: around other parts of the country. I'm not going to
• 31:26
  Speaker 10: say I was over every square inch of Cuba. But
• 31:29
  Speaker 10: I didn't see homeless people. I didn't see beggars. I
• 31:32
  Speaker 10: didn't really experience any blackouts electrical blackouts which are now
• 31:37
  Speaker 10: quite common. Maybe some happened while I was either out
• 31:42
  Speaker 10: and about or sleep or something. These days and within
• 31:47
  Speaker 10: the past week, I would say no, and I probably
• 31:50
  Speaker 10: had power less often than when we didn't have power.
• 31:55
  Speaker 10: Some of the blackouts are scheduled, some are unscheduled. They're
• 31:59
  Speaker 10: trying to wrap out this fuel and this electricity best
• 32:02
  Speaker 10: they can. We did see people begging. I would think
• 32:06
  Speaker 10: some of them were homeless or near it. And just
• 32:10
  Speaker 10: the conversations you had, you know, compared everything to what
• 32:15
  Speaker 10: is known as the Special Period, which was the period
• 32:17
  Speaker 10: in the nineteen nineties after the Soviet Union, which had
• 32:19
  Speaker 10: always supported Cuba quite heavily with all kinds of aid.
• 32:23
  Speaker 10: Of course, the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba was left
• 32:26
  Speaker 10: to fend for itself. It survived the Special Period at
• 32:28
  Speaker 10: great cost. But most people would tell you now in Cuba,
• 32:31
  Speaker 10: this is worse. They'll have to come up with an
• 32:35
  Speaker 10: equally sort of arresting phrase to describe the incredibly difficult and.
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: Sort of apocalyptic.
• 32:45
  Speaker 10: Conditions that seem to be creeping in every day the
• 32:48
  Speaker 10: way they did for the nineteen nineties, because this is worse, and.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: They don't have a one guido in Cuba, and they don't.
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: See no unfortunate for them.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: They don't well, this is what I was going to ask,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: is if they're what since you got the Cuban right?
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Because I'm joking about the Bay of Pigs before. But
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: this has always been the idea that there's a sleeper
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: cell of pro American, pro lowercase deeds democratic Cubans waiting
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: to overcome the regime that will rise up if you
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: squeeze Cuba enough, if you make enough mothers hungry, it'll
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: just all fall like a house of cards at some point.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: So I don't know which of you wants to take that.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: But when you were on the ground, did you get
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: a sense of what the state of the Cuban right is?
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Is it emboldened, is it ready to go? Is it big?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Is it small? What did you make of that?
• 33:35
  Speaker 9: We got a limited perspective when we were in Cuba
• 33:37
  Speaker 9: into these So I don't want to make I don't
• 33:39
  Speaker 9: want to get ahead of our skis here, but I
• 33:41
  Speaker 9: would say that, you know, we see every day on
• 33:44
  Speaker 9: social media the American diplomat, like the most senior diploma
• 33:49
  Speaker 9: American diplomat who is still in Cuba, a guy named
• 33:52
  Speaker 9: Mike Hammer who has made it his mission to go
• 33:54
  Speaker 9: around on advertise on social media that he is, you know,
• 33:57
  Speaker 9: engaging with the free Cubans, and he is, you know,
• 34:00
  Speaker 9: and he is uh, you know, dialoguing with them and
• 34:02
  Speaker 9: showing that people are are ready and tired for this,
• 34:05
  Speaker 9: you know, tired of this government and ready for it
• 34:06
  Speaker 9: to come down and so forth. And I do not
• 34:09
  Speaker 9: find the video evidence that he is putting out to
• 34:11
  Speaker 9: be all that persuasive, and if anything, it is generating
• 34:14
  Speaker 9: something of a backlash. I think the American strategy here
• 34:19
  Speaker 9: is not which is not to win hearts and minds,
• 34:21
  Speaker 9: but rather the opposite, which is to inflict an enormous
• 34:24
  Speaker 9: amount of suffering in the hope that something happens. It's
• 34:28
  Speaker 9: the kind of strategy that gets pursued when there isn't
• 34:30
  Speaker 9: a strong right, when there isn't a group, when there
• 34:32
  Speaker 9: isn't a horse that you can back. It's the kind
• 34:35
  Speaker 9: of it's before we had germ theory. I know that
• 34:38
  Speaker 9: there were attitudes and beliefs that you could just sort
• 34:41
  Speaker 9: of that that that diseases and viruses and so forth
• 34:43
  Speaker 9: spontaneously arose. And that seems to be the kind of
• 34:47
  Speaker 9: theory of democracy that these people are espousing, which is
• 34:50
  Speaker 9: that well, if we just inflict enough pain spontaneously, there
• 34:54
  Speaker 9: will be something that emerges, you know, a military faction
• 34:57
  Speaker 9: or some other thing it. You know, that's what their
• 34:59
  Speaker 9: hope is, but the evidence for it is not there.
• 35:01
  Speaker 9: All that is happening is that they are inflicting enormous
• 35:04
  Speaker 9: human suffering. I mean the you know, to give another
• 35:08
  Speaker 9: example that has sat with me for a few days,
• 35:11
  Speaker 9: we spend a bunch of time with different Cuban journalists,
• 35:13
  Speaker 9: some wonderful people who inflated with a group called Belly
• 35:15
  Speaker 9: of the Beast, whose work you can check out online
• 35:17
  Speaker 9: English language stuff.
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: It's terrific.
• 35:20
  Speaker 9: And one member of the Belly of the Beast was
• 35:22
  Speaker 9: talking about how, you know, the government gives his family,
• 35:24
  Speaker 9: which lives in a more rural area of fuel allotment
• 35:27
  Speaker 9: so that they can have gas to cook with, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 9: that allotment route last arrived, he believed, last August, and
• 35:34
  Speaker 9: so it means that they've been cooking with and using
• 35:35
  Speaker 9: wood for fuel, and you know, they're preparing, you know,
• 35:38
  Speaker 9: millions of people on that island are preparing for a
• 35:40
  Speaker 9: similar reality all over in which they're going to have
• 35:43
  Speaker 9: to essentially go back. They're going to have to they're
• 35:45
  Speaker 9: going to have to live as if lives have been
• 35:46
  Speaker 9: dedeveloped by a century or more to simply get through
• 35:49
  Speaker 9: the day.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: That's the question is if they have a Delcia Rodriguez.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: Well, right, the problem probably is that the Cuban president
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: isn't fame enough, famous enough to give Trump like Rubio,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: scolars of them replace him.
• 36:02
  Speaker 9: I'll give you one other example to the question about
• 36:05
  Speaker 9: also how people.
• 36:06
  Speaker 7: May be feeling. Brendon and I.
• 36:08
  Speaker 9: When we were there, we witnessed and saw the march
• 36:11
  Speaker 9: of the Torches, which is celebrating the you know, the
• 36:14
  Speaker 9: centenary of the great Cuban patriot, Jose Marti. And it
• 36:19
  Speaker 9: was it's in honor of a march that Fidel Castro
• 36:22
  Speaker 9: and his comrades made at the University of Havana, a
• 36:26
  Speaker 9: night torchlit march down to the seawall, the mal Kon.
• 36:29
  Speaker 9: And when we were there, we saw, you know, at
• 36:32
  Speaker 9: the head of this procession the President of Cuba, Miguel
• 36:35
  Speaker 9: Diaz Canal. Now I'm not saying that the guy didn't
• 36:38
  Speaker 9: have protection. I'm not saying they didn't have bodyguards somewhere,
• 36:40
  Speaker 9: or that there wasn't the equivalent of Cuban secret service
• 36:42
  Speaker 9: officers and planes closed stationed around. But I'm telling you
• 36:46
  Speaker 9: that this guy was surrounded without the kind of any
• 36:48
  Speaker 9: of the sort of protection that even the most you know,
• 36:51
  Speaker 9: junior member of Congress seems to have these days, you know,
• 36:55
  Speaker 9: walking in a crowd of thousands, completely unbothered, completely confident,
• 36:59
  Speaker 9: completely protect it. And I think that, you know, again,
• 37:02
  Speaker 9: I would be I'm not interested in making any like,
• 37:06
  Speaker 9: you know, crazy categorical declarative statements about the attitudes of
• 37:11
  Speaker 9: every individual Cuban and so forth. But I do believe that,
• 37:15
  Speaker 9: you know, what I saw there is some indication that, yeah.
• 37:17
  Speaker 7: This is not an island that is ready to eat
• 37:19
  Speaker 7: its own leadership.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the island nature of cubas presenting a real dilemma
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: for it here. So I grew up on the eastern
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: shore of Maryland, and we would go camping on this
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: island called Daftil Island, very sick Cuba of the tube
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: of the Middlelandic like tenth of a mile wide and
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: a quarter of a mile long. We do like three
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: three nights out there, and when we would get there,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: there'd be fallen you know, wood everywhere, and after three
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: days of campfires, you could just visibly see that the
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: island couldn't have couldn't support us much longer, Like you're
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: running low, it's pretty soon you'd have to start actually
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: like chopping trees down.
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: And it was a real kind.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: Of visual and experiential like reckoning with the limits of
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: resources that we don't get in the United States in general,
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: because we go to the grocery store, we bring groceries home.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: Next time we go to the grocery store, it's filled
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: with groceries again, mm hmm. If you cut off oil
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: to nine million people, like what is what is that
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: going to do in the in the short even the
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: short term, Like I imagine the you know, blackouts that
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: you're seeing now have to pretty soon become total blackouts,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: and then what does that do for what is supposed
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: to be a modern society.
• 38:40
  Speaker 10: I think anyone can ask themselves that question about as
• 38:44
  Speaker 10: as you're talking about Ryan, just apply it to your
• 38:46
  Speaker 10: own life. Think about every time you need to get
• 38:50
  Speaker 10: in the car, every time you need to switch on
• 38:52
  Speaker 10: the light, every time you need to use the internet.
• 38:56
  Speaker 10: It's the question almost answers itself in that it is
• 38:59
  Speaker 10: a a.
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: True crisis of.
• 39:05
  Speaker 10: The kind that I think the Cubans have survived with
• 39:09
  Speaker 10: great creativity and quite a bit of grace since that
• 39:13
  Speaker 10: special period to different degrees that no one, by the way,
• 39:18
  Speaker 10: in America would ever accept. I mean the fact we're
• 39:20
  Speaker 10: asking this question, Gee, what would happen if the entire
• 39:23
  Speaker 10: island of Cuba and its millions of inhabitants just had
• 39:26
  Speaker 10: to do without oil for example, I mean something as
• 39:28
  Speaker 10: central as that. No American, no one of any nationality,
• 39:32
  Speaker 10: would ever accept this question, being though you ask it
• 39:35
  Speaker 10: with good intentions, a hypothetical that another government would be
• 39:40
  Speaker 10: inflicting on its society. And for all of this, I mean,
• 39:46
  Speaker 10: we were talking a little while ago why this could
• 39:48
  Speaker 10: possibly be happening. Maybe a boiler played answer that conservatives
• 39:53
  Speaker 10: or the exiles or President Trump would give. As you know,
• 39:55
  Speaker 10: we need a more cooperative Cuba. It's all fine and
• 39:58
  Speaker 10: good to talk about sovereignty, but you know that this
• 40:01
  Speaker 10: is an island that's just never never been oriented toward
• 40:04
  Speaker 10: the United States in any way. Well, I mean, if
• 40:07
  Speaker 10: they want to partner, we've had Cuba as a partner recently.
• 40:10
  Speaker 10: It's good for Cuba to have fuel and electricity when,
• 40:13
  Speaker 10: for example, it works with the US Coast Guard to
• 40:16
  Speaker 10: prevent drug trafficking, which is which is a cooperation that
• 40:19
  Speaker 10: has happened in the very recent past, and Cuba was
• 40:22
  Speaker 10: considered and its forces were considered one of the best
• 40:26
  Speaker 10: examples of a non corrupt task force in that regard.
• 40:32
  Speaker 10: If the Trump administration and the President is so worried
• 40:35
  Speaker 10: about as we keep hearing about narco traffickers, this and that,
• 40:39
  Speaker 10: all that kind of activity in our hemisphere, it's very
• 40:43
  Speaker 10: puzzling as to why we want to shut down Cuba's
• 40:46
  Speaker 10: electricity and deprive it of fuel and not work with it,
• 40:49
  Speaker 10: let alone block, hate it, and try to destroy its government. So,
• 40:55
  Speaker 10: I mean, obviously would be disastrous if this situation is
• 40:59
  Speaker 10: not reversed.
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: A lot of people that are hoping that.
• 41:01
  Speaker 10: Mexico has a you know, the shine Bomb is good
• 41:05
  Speaker 10: with with Trump, good good at negotiating with Trump, and
• 41:09
  Speaker 10: I think oftentimes getting the better of him. And they're
• 41:11
  Speaker 10: really hoping that at the very least the status quo
• 41:15
  Speaker 10: can be maintained rather than another lurch into this sort
• 41:18
  Speaker 10: of backwardness imposed backwardness by the United States.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I think patro got advice from Shinebomb yesterday and began
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: a very friendly meeting with Trump yesterday. No, can I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: get you to walk us through this slideshow. This is
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: going to be f two some pictures here and feel
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: free to telecontroller when you want to move from one
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: picture to the other, but yeah, walk us through those.
• 41:38
  Speaker 9: So we brend and I were greatly honored. We were
• 41:41
  Speaker 9: invited to give a talk at the Casadilla samri Cus,
• 41:43
  Speaker 9: which is a major influence in Latin American literature, and thought,
• 41:47
  Speaker 9: that's actually that photo is.
• 41:49
  Speaker 7: We went to a memorial and that's brendan outside of.
• 41:51
  Speaker 9: It called Memorial de la d Nuncia, which is a
• 41:54
  Speaker 9: museum dedicated to showcasing. That's the towards late mark, but
• 41:57
  Speaker 9: the memoryal de Lnuzia showcases the American aggression, all the
• 42:03
  Speaker 9: acts of terrorism committed against Cuba supported by the American government,
• 42:07
  Speaker 9: and that that floor I thought was particularly moving.
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: For anybody in the US.
• 42:11
  Speaker 9: Who's been to a Holocaust museum, a common motif is
• 42:14
  Speaker 9: to play shoes and close out on the floor to
• 42:17
  Speaker 9: you know, illustrate and give a sense of the scope
• 42:19
  Speaker 9: of suffering there and to then see also like just
• 42:23
  Speaker 9: the sheer number of munitions that Americans have thrown at
• 42:26
  Speaker 9: Cuba over many, many years, and it hasn't been successful
• 42:29
  Speaker 9: with something.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Else, presimpably a government museum.
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: Oh yes, yeah it was.
• 42:33
  Speaker 9: It was very much a government museum, but the it
• 42:36
  Speaker 9: was also I mean in these other photos are again
• 42:39
  Speaker 9: more images from the march that I was discussing earlier.
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: Are good photographers?
• 42:45
  Speaker 7: Uh well, Brandon is that one? Isn't that a good one?
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: How was the singer?
• 42:50
  Speaker 10: That shot?
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Took hours to set up?
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: And those are some of the photos that we took.
• 42:55
  Speaker 9: I mean, there's a it's it's and we answered Q
• 42:58
  Speaker 9: and A from different folks in the crowd there. Learned
• 43:01
  Speaker 9: that there were even listeners to blowback podcasts in Cuba,
• 43:04
  Speaker 9: which was really quite fun.
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 43:07
  Speaker 9: I mean we met with a lot of different kinds
• 43:09
  Speaker 9: of people there. We went on a few different tours,
• 43:12
  Speaker 9: but you know, we met with different journalists, had conversations,
• 43:16
  Speaker 9: you know, struck up random conversations with people on the street.
• 43:19
  Speaker 9: We did not have somebody, you know, trailing our movements
• 43:22
  Speaker 9: all twenty four So you know, this.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Is the image.
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well that's fair, but.
• 43:27
  Speaker 9: I really think that they probably had better things to
• 43:31
  Speaker 9: do than to follow us around. But they really again,
• 43:36
  Speaker 9: this is the there's an image that has conveyed in
• 43:39
  Speaker 9: American culture of Cuba, not just as an authoritarian state,
• 43:42
  Speaker 9: not just as a one party state, not just as
• 43:44
  Speaker 9: a communist state, but as a totalitarian state that seeks
• 43:47
  Speaker 9: to control and program down to the most minute level.
• 43:51
  Speaker 9: The lives of all the people who lived there, and
• 43:53
  Speaker 9: what we saw in the encounters that we had there
• 43:55
  Speaker 9: just suggest that's just not true.
• 43:57
  Speaker 7: Not that that kind of thing is really possible in
• 43:59
  Speaker 7: almost any to be fair, but it certainly was not
• 44:02
  Speaker 7: the case in Cuba.
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: Well, where can people find blowback?
• 44:08
  Speaker 9: Blowback wherever you get your podcasts. We have a new
• 44:11
  Speaker 9: season currently airing. It's actually partly the story of Cuba,
• 44:14
  Speaker 9: but it is also the story of Angolan independence in
• 44:16
  Speaker 9: the fight against apartheid, primarily in the seventies and eighties,
• 44:20
  Speaker 9: and it is releasing weekly new episodes every Monday. We
• 44:22
  Speaker 9: got two more episodes left in this season, and you
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: can get it, like I said, wherever you get your podcasts.
• 44:28
  Speaker 9: And we also have for those who become paying subscribers
• 44:31
  Speaker 9: at Blowback dot Show, we have a season coming up,
• 44:33
  Speaker 9: or a mini series rather coming out the spring, about
• 44:36
  Speaker 9: the history of the US Israel relationship, in addition to
• 44:39
  Speaker 9: another full season somewhere else in Latin America later this year.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: And Emily, you made Phil listen to the Angola one.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: What did he think, Well, we'll have to have Phil
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: on sometime. He had some notes. I'm hooked though, I'm
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: hooked one of the many things ran Grim has gonna
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: be hooked on. Not drugs. Don't do drugs, just say no.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks guys, thank you, thank you.
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: That does it for us today. Thank you everybody, Thank you, Emily,
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: see you again soon.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Ryan, so your your gratitude is confounding. This
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: is just contay grateful today. Likewise, we're grateful for all
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of you. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: see you back here soon with more