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The Assassination of Charlie Kirk · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to get into the news
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: that inflation and jobless claims are higher, the latest with
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the looming government shutdown, and Tommy's interview with Senator Chris
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Van Hollen, who stopped by the studio on Wednesday. But
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: we're going to spend the first part of the show
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and media personality who was very close to Donald Trump
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and the White House. A killer who, as of this recording,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: has yet to be found. fired a single shot from
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a rooftop that hit Kirk in the neck while he
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  Speaker 1: was answering questions from students during an event at Utah
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  Speaker 1: Valley University. It was what he did for a living.
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  Speaker 1: He'd go places and hold events where he talked to
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  Speaker 1: people who cared about politics and tried to organize them.
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  Speaker 1: Among the many reasons I've been so shaken up by
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: this assassination is admittedly the most self-interested, which is, that's
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: what we do too. That's what other media figures and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: politicians and organizers and activists do all over the country
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  Speaker 1: every day to see if we can argue and persuade
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  Speaker 1: and maybe change some minds. Charlie Kirk did that for
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: more than a decade, and he probably encountered hundreds, if
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: not thousands, of libs like us who didn't just disagree
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  Speaker 1: with his pretty extreme views, but found them odious and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: even hateful. And do you know what they did? They
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: debated him and yelled at him and probably called him
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  Speaker 1: some awful and maybe well-deserved names, but they didn't hurt him.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't commit political violence. This person did. And now
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  Speaker 1: a father of two young children is dead. And now
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  Speaker 1: some people might decide that participating in politics and organizing
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  Speaker 1: is not worth the risk. And some other people might
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  Speaker 1: decide that committing political violence is worth the risk. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty fucking scary place to be.
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  Speaker 1: So that's where I am today. Dan, where are you at?
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  Speaker 2: You know, when I first heard the news, it was
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  Speaker 2: a very 2025 experience where I was scrolling my phone.
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  Speaker 2: I saw a report. I believed it might be misinformation
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: because it's the internet in 2025. And then I saw
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the video. And because it's the internet 2025, I wondered
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: if it was a deep fake. And then when I
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: heard the actual news, I had the same reaction you did, right?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And there is self-interest there as well, because even though
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  Speaker 2: I disagreed with every word that probably that Charlie Kirk
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: ever said, we've disagreed with him vehemently. We just talked
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: about him on this podcast two weeks ago for the
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: things he said about Taylor Swift that we found odious.
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  Speaker 2: The idea of anyone left, right, or center being gunned
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  Speaker 2: down for doing politics, for saying their opinions in public
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  Speaker 2: is a horrifying thing. And I was horrified because I
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  Speaker 2: also knew he had two young children and a wife,
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  Speaker 2: that you can have empathy for his family without having
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  Speaker 2: to celebrate him in any way, shape, or form and
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  Speaker 2: to agree with him in any way, to have empathy
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  Speaker 2: that there are two kids who now do not have
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  Speaker 2: a father, a wife who does not have a husband.
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  Speaker 2: And I also was horrified because I knew what was
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  Speaker 2: going to happen. I knew what the reactions would be.
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  Speaker 2: I worried about what the right would do to use
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  Speaker 2: this as a pretext for something much worse. I knew
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  Speaker 2: that there was our president, who we will talk about later,
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  Speaker 2: was incapable of speaking to the moment in a way
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  Speaker 2: that you would always hope in something like this. And
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  Speaker 2: it's just, it is a very dark day because it's
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  Speaker 2: not an isolated incident, as we've also talked about. It
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  Speaker 2: comes at, this is something that we've, it says something
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  Speaker 2: about where this country is right now, and where it's going,
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  Speaker 2: both the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the things that happened
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  Speaker 2: before it, and how so many people, particularly on the right,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: but not exclusively on the right, reacted to it.
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  Speaker 1: So in terms of where this investigation stands right now,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: we have been getting some mixed messages from the podcasters
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: running the FBI, Dan. Kash Patel, who apparently loves to
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: live tweet a manhunt, first posted that the shooter was
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in custody. Then two hours later, he posted again to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: say that the person had been released after questioning. that
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  Speaker 1: is unusual for the FBI director to update people on that.
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  Speaker 1: Then the FBI posted photos of a person of interest,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a male figure wearing a black long-sleeved t-shirt with an
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  Speaker 1: American flag on it, a baseball cap and dark glasses.
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  Speaker 1: The police recovered what they think is the murder weapon,
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  Speaker 1: a high-powered bolt-action rifle wrapped in a towel and discarded
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  Speaker 1: in the woods. At first, there were also unverified reports
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  Speaker 1: that the ammo recovered with the rifle was engraved with statements, quote,
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  Speaker 1: expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology. And then, A senior law
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  Speaker 1: enforcement official walked that back, telling The Times that the
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  Speaker 1: report had not been verified by the government and, quote,
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  Speaker 1: did not match other summaries of the evidence and might
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  Speaker 1: turn out to have been misread or misinterpreted. This is
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  Speaker 1: why everyone should be very careful with information that comes
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  Speaker 1: out early on verified reports. And I guess now we
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  Speaker 1: have to not take anything the FBI director says seriously.
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  Speaker 1: as truth because he might retweet, he may tweet something
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  Speaker 1: else completely contradictory a couple hours later. So I guess
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  Speaker 1: we have to wait for that as well. But the
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  Speaker 1: case will probably be solved soon because Kash Patel and
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  Speaker 1: Dan Bongino have flown to Utah to personally oversee the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: people who have decades more law enforcement experience than either
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  Speaker 1: of them. It doesn't quite feel like the buttoned up
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  Speaker 1: operation we've come to expect from federal law enforcement, does it?
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  Speaker 2: No, it is extremely bizarre and frankly, probably counterproductive for
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  Speaker 2: the director and a deputy director of the FBI to
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  Speaker 2: go to the seat of the crime for something like this.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I guess in fairness, podcasters have solved a lot of
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  Speaker 2: mysteries over the years, and maybe they're on the case.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. But there is this competition within the
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  Speaker 2: right to take this as seriously as possible. Not just
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  Speaker 2: the crime, but just the entire incident, right? You have
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  Speaker 2: You have the flags at half-mast for a private citizen.
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  Speaker 2: You have J.D. Vance canceling his appearance at a 9-11
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  Speaker 2: memorial ceremony to fly Air Force Two to Utah to
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  Speaker 2: pick up Charlie Kirk's casket and take it to his
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  Speaker 2: home of Arizona. You have the director and the deputy
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  Speaker 2: director of the FBI stopping what they are doing. There
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  Speaker 2: are lots of investigations happening all over this country that
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  Speaker 2: they are not involved in to focus on this. And
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  Speaker 2: I can't imagine– that having these two guys there is
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  Speaker 2: going to do anything to increase the likelihood or the
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  Speaker 2: speed by which the local officials on the scene apprehend
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  Speaker 2: this individual.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure just from a law enforcement perspective as well,
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  Speaker 1: as you think about hopefully apprehending this person and then
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  Speaker 1: trying them, just like telling people, we got this person
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  Speaker 1: in questioning and then now we're releasing them and then
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  Speaker 1: there's this other person, like it can't help the case. Or,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it might not matter, but it's usually risks
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  Speaker 1: that law enforcement don't take. So, as you mentioned, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's now obvious, if it wasn't obvious already, that we
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  Speaker 1: are in a deepening cycle of political violence. And the
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  Speaker 1: violence is targeting and it's committed by people on all
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  Speaker 1: points of the ideological spectrum. Some people who don't even
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  Speaker 1: have cohesive, coherent ideological views. In 2011, Gabby Giffords was
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  Speaker 1: shot at a town hall. That's when you and I
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  Speaker 1: were still in the White House. In 2017, Steve Scalise
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  Speaker 1: was shot at a congressional baseball game. That was the
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  Speaker 1: same year progressive activist Heather Heyer was killed by a
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  Speaker 1: neo-Nazi in Charlottesville. There was the plot to kidnap Gretchen
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  Speaker 1: Whitmer in 2020, the rioters who tried to kill members
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  Speaker 1: of Congress and the vice president and seriously wounded police
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  Speaker 1: officers on January 6th. The man who tried to kidnap
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  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi and nearly killed her husband in 2022. The
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  Speaker 1: attempts on Trump's life in Pennsylvania and in Florida. the
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  Speaker 1: assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's
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  Speaker 1: house getting set on fire, the murder of two Israeli
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  Speaker 1: embassy staffers outside a party in Washington, the assassination of
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  Speaker 1: Melissa Hortman, the Speaker of the Minnesota House and her husband,
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  Speaker 1: and the shooting just the other week at CDC headquarters
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  Speaker 1: where a gunman sprayed 180 rounds and took the life
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  Speaker 1: of a police officer over the COVID vaccine. Any thoughts
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  Speaker 1: on why we're seeing this surge? what we do about it,
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  Speaker 1: where the country goes from here?
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  Speaker 2: Well, we've seen this before, right? I had a long
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  Speaker 2: conversation with Heather Cox Richardson on this podcast this past
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  Speaker 2: Sunday about other periods in our history that felt like this.
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  Speaker 2: She mentioned, too, the period right before the Civil War
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  Speaker 2: and the period of Reconstruction, but obviously there's also the
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  Speaker 2: 1960s and 70s where we had the assassination of John Kennedy,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King. Malcolm X, Megarevers. We
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  Speaker 2: had the Weatherman bombings. We had two assassination attempts on
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  Speaker 2: Gerald Ford. And so we've been through this before. We
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  Speaker 2: had in the 90s, there was the uptick in militia
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  Speaker 2: violence that ended with the Oklahoma City bombing. So we
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  Speaker 2: have been here before. I think that what makes this
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  Speaker 2: feel worse now, or at least potentially more dangerous now,
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  Speaker 2: is we have a couple other factors in place. What
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: We have never been more politically polarized. The idea of
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  Speaker 2: the parties coming together to jointly condemn political violence, to
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  Speaker 2: work together in an even-handed way to combat it seems
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  Speaker 2: much less likely than at almost any other time, with
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  Speaker 2: the possible exception of immediately prior to the Civil War.
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  Speaker 2: We are living in a social media-driven ecosystem which doesn't
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  Speaker 2: just amplify but incentivizes some of the most outrageous, most outlandish,
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  Speaker 2: and most dangerous comments that people can make. we have,
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  Speaker 2: guns have never been easier to get in this country.
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  Speaker 2: So we don't yet know how the weapon in this
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  Speaker 2: incident was acquired, but we know that just guns are
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: readily available to people who may want to seek violence.
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  Speaker 2: So all those things push us in a pretty dangerous direction.
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  Speaker 2: And this is the important point, as we've seen in
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  Speaker 2: all the examples I gave, is that political violence begets
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  Speaker 2: political violence.
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  Speaker 1: Right. And we don't have, as we'll talk about We
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  Speaker 1: don't have leadership right now who is willing to calm
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  Speaker 1: things down or try to calm things down, but instead
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  Speaker 1: is actually trying to ratchet things up. And that's a
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  Speaker 1: huge fucking problem and not something that we've dealt with,
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  Speaker 1: at least at the presidential level. So from the moment
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  Speaker 1: that the news broke that Kirk had been shot, it
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  Speaker 1: was obvious that this was a political act and it
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  Speaker 1: would generate intensely political pressure. that has certainly borne out
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  Speaker 1: over the last 24 hours. Let's start with the reaction
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  Speaker 1: from the left. I don't know about you, I have
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  Speaker 1: yet to see a statement from an elected Democrat or
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  Speaker 1: media figure or prominent progressive that has not offered anything
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  Speaker 1: but condolences, condemned political violence, urged restraint from Biden, Harris, Obama,
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  Speaker 1: the Clintons on down. I have seen a number of
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  Speaker 1: mostly anonymous statements Social media accounts with barely any followers
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: say some absolutely horrific things. And I've seen a few
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: random people get fired for posting awful things only because
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: right-wing influencers are finding those people and those anonymous media
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: accounts and amplifying them, which only stirs the pot, of course.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: It is obviously impossible to prevent random, mostly anonymous social
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: media accounts from posting crazy shit. I said this last
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: night on YouTube. We talked about this, but do we
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: know how many are bots? We do not. Do we
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: know how much AI is involved in some of this?
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: We do not. Do we know how many are just
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: not even American? They're just posting from somewhere around the world.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: We do not. And that is not to say that
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that's what they all are, right? There are plenty of
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: people who are actually people posting these things, but we
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: just don't know. And social media makes it seem like
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: we are swimming in it when in fact that is
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the case in the real world. In fact,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it is not. And in a country
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: of 330 million people, right, like there are going to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: be people who say horrible things and react to this
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: in a horrible way. On the other hand, it is
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: pretty disturbing, right? So like anything, what are Democrats supposed
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: to do about this? Because, you know, we get tagged
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: And there is this massive asymmetry here, which is every
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: single Democrat is being held accountable for something that some
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: random person said. Like you said, whether that person is
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: a real person, which in some cases they certainly are
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: because these people who have been fired from various jobs
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: at universities and elsewhere, those are actual people. And there
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: are very prominent MAGA media personalities, Republican officials, people with
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: the ear of the President of the United States saying
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: truly horrendous things, calling Democrats a domestic terror organization, things
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: like that. And so for every Democrat to be held
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: accountable for every anonymous account, Seems quite unfair when Republicans
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: are not being held accountable for what people they know
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: and are advised by and consort with say. So that
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: seems very unfair. There is, I think, a.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Just....
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's the world we live in now. Maybe it's
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: something that was always there but is amplified simply by
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: social media because the things that people would say privately
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: are now being broadcast across the internet publicly.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Is just.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Amongst some people, and it's a small number of people,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: we've seen this in other incidents, right? We saw this
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: around the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, is just an
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: inability to find empathy, right? Or to think that having
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: empathy is somehow showing weakness or consent to or agreement
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: with the worst views of the victim, right? Yeah. And
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I think that that, you know, and that is another
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: thing that spreads, right? That becomes a debate online, that
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: like political violence, that response to violence is, begets more
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: responses like that because it creates this debate and, you know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: that you sort of get this one-upsmanship about how outrageous
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: can you be? You know, what's the most aggressive stand
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: you can take? And it puts us in a very
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: bad place. But I do want to just emphasize this
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: one thing that I do not believe that Democrats, the
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: American people, elected Democrats, everyday Democrats, people who listen to
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: the show, agree with those comments. There are some who
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: may believe that, but that does not represent. And I
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: also don't believe that some of the worst comments that
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: we're seeing from Republicans represents the view of most Trump voters.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I think most people see this and are horrified whether
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: it is the murder of the Democratic Speaker of the
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Minnesota House or a conservative activist. And they think that
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: both of those things are bad. And they both have
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: to stop and that we have to do something in
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: this country to get a hold of that. That's how
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I think most people feel. Yeah.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, the accounts that I've seen, you know, cause
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: people are picking them out that have glorified this or
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: celebrate that celebrated this or said so-and-so's next or all that.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Like I do not know any of those people. I've
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: never heard from any, like they're just, that is a
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: tiny percentage of people. There is another category. of people
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: on the left. And, you know, and I have heard
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: from these people, I've seen this posting, which is like,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't condone violence. I don't want to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: celebrate violence, but I don't feel bad. I don't feel
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: sympathy for Charlie Kirk. And he was a horrible person
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and he had said horrible things. And I would just
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: say for, and I get that, I would just say like,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you do not have to feel, you don't have to
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: feel sympathy for Charlie Kirk if you don't want. I'm not,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I'm certainly not like calling for that. If you, you
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: can feel however you feel. And you don't have to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: grieve him. You don't have to forgive him. You actually
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: just don't have to say anything about him at all.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I think if you are going to say something publicly,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: then because we live in this world that you just described,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: it is useful to think, what do you want your
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: words to achieve? And who do you want to persuade?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And what action do you want people to take? And
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I think that for us on our side, we are
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: facing a very difficult situation right now because we are
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: a party or a movement or whatever you want to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: call us that very much believes in democracy. And we
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: are facing an opposition that has certainly acted for the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: last several years like they do not. And part of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: this is how do we define our values and our
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: principles in so that they are not just in opposition
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to them, and that these are values and principles that
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: we hold onto no matter what they do, because if
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: we don't, they are not values and principles. I believe
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: that we are all created equal, that we all have
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I think that we all deserve equal protection under the law.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I think we all deserve a basic standard of living.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I think we all deserve the protections in the constitution.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: no matter what you look like, who you are, where
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you come from, what language you speak, your gender identity,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: your sexual orientation, or how you vote. If we believe that,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: do we stop having those principles because the other side
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: is so terrible and because they want to violate those
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: principles and because they want to take away our rights?
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Do we say, okay, because you don't care about my
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: free speech or you don't care or you don't see
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: me as a full person, then I'm going to change
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: my principles so that I don't see you as a
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: full person either. Because you don't want me as part
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: of the American experiment. Now, I don't want you as
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: part of the American experiment either. Because that means that
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: those principles weren't real. They have to be universal to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: be principles. If this is what we believe as a movement,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: as a party, that we believe in democracy, we believe
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: in pluralism, we believe that we got to respect and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: treat everyone else with dignity, then we have to hold
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: on to those principles even when people are not respecting us.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And that's fucking hard. It's really fucking hard. And it's
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: not fair. And it's not fair. And it's and it's
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: just it's where we are. But if we go down
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that road, then I not only we're not going to win,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: but I don't know what we're going to be as
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: a country.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: This where we are right now is something I've been
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: worried about for a long time. which is we were progressives, Democrats,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: pro-democracy people, had enough faith in the system that we
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: could lose an election and come back. And that was
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: as horrified as everyone was in their response to Trump
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: when he won in 2016. What did people do? What
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: was the response? They engaged in peaceful protests at the
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Women's March. They started political organizations. They ran for office.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: They organized. They made phone calls. This new president who
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: we don't think should have won but did win starts
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: to try to take away everyone's health care. Everyone starts
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: calling Capitol Hill. They go to Capitol Hill. They protest.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: They win elections to get power back. They take the
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: House back. They take the Senate back. They take the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: White House back. And the way things have played out
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: from the 2024 election to now have reduced people's belief
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: in faith that the way to solve problems is traditional politics.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: that you can do it through the system. And I
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: understand that sentiment. I am deeply worried about the sanctity
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: of our election system. I'm deeply worried about our ability
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: to win elections when Donald Trump very well could deploy
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: ICE agents to stand outside of precincts that they don't
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: want Democrats to turn out to. And you could send
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: the troops into cities to make it hard to get
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: to the polls. I worry about that too. But if
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: we give up the idea that the way to stop
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is for us to organize, to vote, to
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: be citizens, then the whole system collapses. Like that is it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I know. I think some people think it's like, we're
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: trying to say we got to be as good as
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: them or, you know, when they go low, we go
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: high and we're better than that. It's not about that.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: It's about, it's about us, right? It's about the system
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that we want to live in. It's about the country
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: we want to live in. We want to live in
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: a country that is free from violence, where we can
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: say what we want to say, where we can do
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: what we want to do. Like that's, That's what this
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: is actually about. And you're right. People have lost faith
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: in that. And I totally understand that. I go back
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to that tweet from Sean Illing that I mentioned on
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: YouTube last night, which is it's either conversation or violence.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And I saw someone say, yeah, I don't know why
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: we're still trying to persuade these people. These people, we
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: can't persuade any of these people. We just have to
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: mass deprogram them.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I saw that mass deprogramming.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, what do you think the mass
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: deprogramming is? That's also persuasion. First of all, you don't
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: know what mass deprogramming actually is, and I don't think
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: it's ever worked, but that's also persuasion. What do you
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: think a protest is? A protest is a form of persuasion.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: You are trying to send a message by having your
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: bodies in the street. A strike, a mass strike is
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a form of persuasion. Sitting outside a congressional office is
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a form of persuasion. It is all forms of persuasion
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: until you get to violence. And there's a lot of
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: people who I know do not want violence and do
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: not think it's the answer, but also think that persuasion
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and politics is too difficult and too hard and too
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: unfair when the other side has done what they've done.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And I get that, but there is no other option.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Someone sent this in our Discord this morning and I
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: watched it. It's one of my favorite or most memorable
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: speeches from Robert F. Kennedy. Um, this is not, this
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: is the speech he gave after Martin Luther King was called.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: It's not the speech in Indianapolis where he tells the
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: famous one where he tells the crowd that for the,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: were they for.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: The crowd for the first time?
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: The next day, the mindless menace of violence speech, which is,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I would encourage everyone to read it, watch it. Well,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I guess you have to listen to read it or
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: listen to it. Cause it's, I think there's only audio.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I listened to it on YouTube. Um, but just the
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: way he talks about the dangers of this cycle, right?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: When violence becomes the norm, the way in which we
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: solve problems in this country, either political or personal in
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: any other way, there's the deeply dangerous downward spiral that is,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: and that the only solution here is the ballot, not
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the bullet. It's just a very powerful remark. And it is,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: you listen to that and And he just does make
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: you wonder, like, who could make, in this moment, could
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: make that argument in a way that people would believe.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Because I do think that's what people want. Maybe I
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: am the naive one. Maybe I'm still huffing Obama hope fumes.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: But I do believe that the vast majority of the
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: American people do not want where we are. They hate
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: that we are this divided. And there are certainly political partisans,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: and we are among them, who live in that divide.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And we... have very strong feelings about it, but the
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: vast majority of the country wants something better than this.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: And the question is, is there someone, hopefully from our side,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: who can speak to that desire, who can make people
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: actually believe that there is something better than what we're
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: in right now, because what we're in right now fucking sucks.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Here's one of the many statements about Kirk's death. The
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: statement calls it, a wound to the soul of our nation.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Whether we agree or disagree with the words a man speaks...
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: We must never lose sight of his humanity, nor forget
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the sacred dignity that lives within each and every person.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: We must not allow righteous anger to harden into hatred,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: nor trade the dream of America for the nightmare of division.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: That was a statement from Martin Luther King Jr. 's
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: children that they put out. Charlie Kirk called their father
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: an awful person and said that the passage of the
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act was a mistake. They surely knew that.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: That is the statement they put out. That is grace.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: That is a hard thing to do. And, you know,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: it's a lesson.
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• 27:38
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the right. You can imagine
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the reaction has also been fairly intense. One bright spot
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: was Utah Governor Spencer Cox's a Republican who actually has
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: an initiative called Disagree Better. Quaint, I like it. Here's
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: a sampling of what he said on Wednesday evening when
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the situation was still incredibly raw. Our nation is broken.
• 28:03
  Speaker 6: We've had political assassinations recently in Minnesota. We had an
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: attempted assassination on the governor of Pennsylvania. And we had
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate. We desperately need
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: leaders in our country, but more than the leaders, we
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: just need every single person in this country to think
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: about where we are and where we want to be.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: To ask ourselves, is this it?
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Is this what 250 years has wrought on us?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately for all of us, many of the most influential
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: figures on the right have struck a much darker tone
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: in their posts. Elon Musk posted, the left is the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: party of murder. Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik, this
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: is war. Andrew Tate, civil war. Laura Loomer, it's time
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, and prosecute
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: every single leftist organization. The left is a national security threat.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Mike Chernovich. Congressional hearings now, every billionaire funding far left-wing extremism. Soros,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, massive RICO investigations now. And Stephen Miller,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: who called the Democratic Party a, quote, domestic extremist organization,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: even before Kirk's shooting multiple times, added, quote, the fate
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: of millions depends upon the defeat of this wicked ideology.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: What ideology? The one that, quote, hates everything that is good,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: is at war with familialism, and nature that looks upon
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: criminal with tender warmth.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And things weren't much better off social media. Let's look.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: The Democrats just killed Charlie Kirk today. They're desperate. They're losing.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: They want to intimidate you and me and everybody else.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk's a casualty of war.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: We're in this country.
• 30:04
  Speaker 7: When is the Democrats going to stand up and apologize
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: for the hatred and the lies that they have fed
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: their base that's led to these actions?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: They are at war with us.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Whether we want to accept it or not, they are
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: at war with us.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Luckily, all of this was moderated by the video message
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: released on Wednesday night by our commander in chief, national leader,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: and it must stop right now. My administration will find
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: each and every one of those who contributed to this
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: fund it and support it, as well as those who
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: who brings order to our country. Radical left political violence
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: When you clicked on that video, did you have even
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the smallest bit of naive hope that maybe he would
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: try to be even somewhat presidential?
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I did not, John.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: And it was actually worse than I thought.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Me too.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: It just says so much about what low regard everyone
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: in the country, Democrats, Republicans, Trump supporters, the media, has
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: for Trump's humanity that no one, not a single person
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: expected him to do what any other president would do
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: at this time, or frankly, any other human would do,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: which is to try to unite the country. He could
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: not admit to, as Spencer Cox very eloquently did, the
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: fact that political violence is happening on both sides, that
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: a Democratic legislator was murdered in her home just a
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: few months ago. that someone tried to kidnap the Democratic
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: governor of Michigan, tried to burn down the home of
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania. It's happening on both sides.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And he can't say that because it doesn't fit his
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: political narrative. And so he couldn't– like there are times
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: when Trump has just simply failed because he lacks any
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: sort of gene for empathy. But this was actually worse.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: He poured gas on the fire by using the term
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: radical left. And it just– Donald Trump– enabled, and then
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: pardoned the perpetrators of the largest mass incident of political
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: violence in recent American history. And because he has no
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: capacity for introspection, he just glosses right over that. And
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: it's very bad. It's very dangerous. And I left that
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: feeling so dark and so frankly, so concerned about what
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: comes next.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, he gave that speech with absolutely no knowledge.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: They didn't have a suspect. They don't have a motive.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: It seems like it was, for all we know right now,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: it was just one person, not a radical left, not organizations,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: not one person who shot Charlie Kirk. Just like it
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: was one person who killed Melissa Hortman and her husband.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: And one person who went and beat the shit out
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: of Paul Pelosi. And one person who tried to assassinate
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. in Butler and another one in Florida. And
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: this idea that there is an assassination attempt or an
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: assassination and he doesn't even know who the person is.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: There's no suspect in custody. They don't have any leads
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that the president would know about last night because clearly
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: that we're recording this Thursday afternoon. We still don't know.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: And he would just give that speech at a time
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: like that and then start to threaten left-wing organizations that funded.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about? What is he accusing them of?
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Like I thought, don't we all have the protections of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: free speech? Didn't he run to protect free speech? Wasn't
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that a big part of the movement? Because free speech
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: is protected unless you directly incite someone to do something urgently,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: right away. That is the standard for what is not
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: protected under free speech. Other than that, free speech is protected.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: So is free speech protected for all of us? Or
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: is free speech just protected for MAGA folks when they
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: want to say stuff? But if anyone else says stuff,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: then we're going to find you and fire you and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: arrest you. And the State Department says they're not letting
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: immigrants in who might have said something bad about Charlie
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Kirk's assassination on Twitter. This goes back to my, what
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: are the standards here? Is free speech for everyone or
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: is free speech just for the regime in power?
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Well, it's been very clear since the moment Trump took
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: office that this whole idea of freedom of speech that
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: they ran on, this ending of cancel culture, is bullshit.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: They just wanted to be the ones in power who
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: could do the canceling, who could dictate the speech, who
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: could police the speech. That is why they are– that's
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: what's happening with the law firms. That's what's happening in universities.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It is why the president directed his Department of Justice
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: to investigate people who spoke out and said that the
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: election– was won legitimately in 2020. I mean, this is,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: it's like, it's absurd that, but this is what is happening.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: And it's just, it's like, everyone has such low expectations
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: for Trump, right? That he gets away with so much. Like,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: this is a deeply dangerous, deeply irresponsible thing that he
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: did last night. Like, you're right, he had no information, none.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: And you and I have been in meetings about when
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: a president can speak and what we know and the
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: dangers of going out before you know anything, and he
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: did not wait, did not care, and just only did
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: this in a way that advanced his chosen political narrative.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: The country be damned. Moral political violence be damned, only
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: to help himself and his political allies is what this
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: was about. And it's just so deeply cynical and deeply
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: dangerous that he... I just don't even know what to
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: say about it. It's so bad.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And it was very planned, right? It wasn't one of
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: his off-the-cuff comments either. And look, like I, you know,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: you read some of the coverage today and Charlie Kirk
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: was like, you know, family to the Trumps and a
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: lot of people in the White House and that movement.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And he was a very big deal in that movement.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: A lot of people were very, J.D. Vance, they were very,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: very close to him. And you can imagine, like I
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: can imagine if we were in the White House and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: someone like really close to us who we'd been in
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: politics with for a long time was assassinated like that,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: that I I could see myself saying something where I
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: like flew off the handle and said something in public
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: that I wish I could take back. So like, this
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: is not that right. Like I, I would, I would
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: give them the grace to say a few crazy things
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: because they're angry. This is like a much more, we're
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: going to defund these organizations. We're going to go after them.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: We're going to prosecute where at war right now. It's
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: a whole left with the whole time. This is like,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: you don't want to sound like a fucking crazy person,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: but like what, this is not what you, this, a
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: horrific assassination happens to someone that you're ostensibly close to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: and care about. And like the reaction is not, even
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: if the reaction is pure, we must avenge his killer.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: We must bring justice to this killer and bring this
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: person to justice. You understand that. But like, we're going
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: to now go to war with the entire democratic party
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: in the left, like millions and millions of Americans who
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: just happen to believe differently than you do. And this
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: idea that what they've been doing too is if you
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: call them If you say that he's consolidating power like
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: an authoritarian would or that it's a fascist regime or
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: a totalitarian regime or any of this kind of stuff,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: then you can't do that because then you are inciting
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: violence as well. Well, no, we have to because then
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: that means that you can be an authoritarian regime and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: no one can oppose you because if they oppose you
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and call it out, then you can just say, no,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you're inciting violence and you're dangerous. Like that doesn't work.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: We all happen to believe that, yes, he is engaging
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: in authoritarian consolidation right now. He's acting like an authoritarian.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: And the way to oppose that is not violence. It
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: should not be violence. Not only is it morally repugnant,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: it's ineffective. So it's like, yes, we're going to be
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: able to say that this administration, what he's doing is lawless.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: It is against the spirit of the Constitution, if not
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the letter of the Constitution. It looks like other authoritarian
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: regimes in the past, and that the way to oppose
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: it is through electoral politics and peaceful, nonviolent protest.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Maybe you'll remember in 2024, after its first attempted assassination
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, there was this whole effort
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: from the right, the Republican Party, the right-wing media to
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: try to police everyone's language. If you correctly said that
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Trump wanted to be a dictator, you were inciting violence.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: If you correctly said that Trump... wanted to use the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: government to go after his political opponents, you were inciting violence.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: And it's an attempt to cow Democrats into silence, to
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: not make the case, to cow citizens into silence. What
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: is different now is that they have the entire full
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: force of the federal government to police language. They have
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate the
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: people they want to investigate. They have the IRS to
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: go after these organizations. They have the bully pulpit of
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: the White House to shape the narrative as they see fit.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: That's why this is so dangerous. It's a bunch of
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: red-hand civility bullshit before, and it's up to Democrats to
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: decide whether they're going to fall for that or not.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: But now it's real. And we have seen this basically
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: ever since January 6th. You are looking in the prosecutions
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: of Trump. Republicans are people on the right, many of
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: whom now work in the White House, who are looking
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: for a pretext to use the power of the government
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: to shut down political opposition in this country, to lock
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: in power. And that is the language that people are
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: using right now. And that is something that Trump could
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: have disabused if he was a different person in those remarks,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: and he did not. He actually enabled it.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: And I don't have the answers to what to do
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: about this if this starts. But I would say that
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: if you are someone who opposes Donald Trump and opposes
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: his movement, then and they go after someone, even if
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you don't agree with that person, even if it's some
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: organization you haven't heard of, like we all got to
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: speak up and stand together on this because they are
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: they have already been doing this. They are counting on,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: you know, picking on and targeting people who are unsympathetic characters.
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: John Bolton. We've talked about this or some organization that
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: people or or they'll go after pro-Palestinian protesters.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: So they're looking to target people where there are wedges
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: within the anti-Trump movement, and we can't let that happen.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: They go after someone, we all stand up for that person.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: That's the only piece of advice I have right now.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you have anything else.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: No, I agree with that. And I think this is
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: particularly true when it comes to the trans community.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: We've already seen in these first reports, this attempt to
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: turn this into yet another justification for government-wide discrimination and
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: hatred towards trans people. And whether we have all these
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: conversations about what role trans policies played in the election
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: and all of that, the point is, is the president
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: of the United States and his allies are trying to
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: dehumanize American citizens. And we stand up for them, no
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: matter what the poll says. And you do that because
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: it's the trans community now, it's someone else next, right?
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: And so it's absolutely essential.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Today's episode is sponsored by strawberry.me. Let's be honest. Are
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: you happy with your job? Like really happy? The unfortunate
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• 42:28
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• 42:32
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• 42:36
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• 42:38
  Speaker 5: I've already put years into this place. And maybe the
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: most common one is, isn't everyone miserable at work, John?
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: And why aren't you? How can I make you miserable
• 42:46
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• 42:47
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• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, best we can do for a lighter topic today
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: is the deteriorating state of the economy and the impending
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: government shutdown. I'll start with the former. On Thursday, we
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: learned that consumer prices climbed higher than expected in August,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: raising inflation to 2.9%. The Labor Department also reported a
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: surprise increase in weekly unemployment claims, the highest it's been
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: since October 2021. Both pieces of data make the Fed's
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: job harder, though reports suggest that they're still likely to
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: announce an interest rate cut when they meet next week,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: though it's unclear how large it will be. Trump, of course,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: has made his position known through post threats in a
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: scheme to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook and secure a
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Trump friendly majority on the Fed. On Tuesday, a federal
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: judge said Trump didn't have sufficient cause to fire Cook.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: The administration appealed that ruling on Thursday, asking the appellate
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: court to remove Cook from the board by Monday. So
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: we'll see. That's also the same day Senate Republicans are
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: hoping to confirm Stephen Moran, one of Trump's top economic advisors,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to the Fed board. Moran said he plans to keep
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: his White House job while serving as temporary Fed governor
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: because we love and respect the Fed's independence in the
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: White House, don't we? So my sense of this, we
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen with the rate cut,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: but my sense is that the political impact of a
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: rate cut even if it's a big one like Trump wants,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: is probably short-lived or even non-existent. What do you think?
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: I think that's probably right. The increase in interest rates
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: was an under-discussed topic in the 2024 election. Because we
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: talked a lot about inflation and food prices and gas
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: prices and housing prices. That's all incredibly important. But higher
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: interest rates lock people into their homes. It makes it
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: hard for people to, if they bought their home, if
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: they have a mortgage with a lower interest rate, they're
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: not going to sell their home and get a new
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: one if the newest interest rate is going to be higher.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: So it affects housing prices, affects housing stock availability, affects
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: credit card payments, getting a new car, all of the above.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Having said that, a small rate cut that is just
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: sort of an isolated incident is going to be dwarfed
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: by the rapidly increasing price of groceries in terms of
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: political impact. And the bigger risk here is that Trump
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: is going to get his rate cut against the better
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: judgment of the Fed, which could lead to more inflation.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: So he would be much better off, because I know
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: long-term thinking is his skill, to wait until inflation has
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: come down more and then get a series of much
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: larger rate cuts at subsequent meetings to really boost the economy. Instead,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: he's going to get this short-term thinking he wants now,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: which could make it harder to get more rate cuts
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: down the line.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: And by the way, this tends to be what happens
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: or what has happened in countries where the ruler decides
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: to take over the Fed.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: This is why the Fed's supposed to be independent.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: This is why the Fed is independent, because when that happens,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: usually they are looking for short-term political gain, which a
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: rate cut could get you, but then long-term you're fucked.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: And I saw our old colleague, Jason Furman, react to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: some of the numbers today and say, we are heading
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: into stagflation territory, which is that you're going to get
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: high unemployment and high inflation.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Two great tastes that taste great together.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Yes. Not good. One move that's also great for a
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: deteriorating economy, shutting down the government. We talked about this
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: a bit on Tuesday's show, but I want to get
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on the latest. Republicans seem to be coalescing
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: around a short-term extension. So October 1 is the deadline,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: and they are thinking about trying to move a short-term
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: extension that gives them time to figure out a budget
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: sometime in November or December. Thune, Senate Majority Leader John Thune,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: has basically closed the door on including an extension of
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act subsidies in such a plan. Schumer
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: told reporters this week, quote, what the Republicans have proposed
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: is not good enough to get our votes, though not
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: all Democrats are on board. John Fetterman, no surprise there,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: said shutdowns are wrong no matter who triggers them. And
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Tim Kaine said he's open to a short-term extension that
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: lets them figure out the ACA subsidies by the end
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: of the year. What do you think about the current
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: state of things? And what's your take on Ezra Klein's piece,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: which is reportedly all the buzz? among Senate Democrats, the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Democrats should just refuse to fund what Ezra is calling
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Trump's authoritarian consolidation.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: So I want to say this unequivocally, morally, politically, strategically,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I think Democrats cannot vote to fund Trump's authoritarian takeover
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: of our government. I simply think you can't do it.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: If you believe, as all these Democrats claim to believe,
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: that Trump is gathering power, he is violating... the people's freedoms.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: He's abridging the constitution. He's doing all the things. If
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: you believe that, you cannot simply vote to keep his
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: government going in the same way. You simply cannot do it. Politically,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: there are two reasons why you cannot do it. One
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: is you're telling everyone that Trump is this huge threat
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: to our democracy, that what he is doing is wrong,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: that our government is being corrupted, that our democracy is
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: in danger. Your response is then just to do what
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: you would normally do and just let the government keep
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: going without a fight. The dissonance between those two positions
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: is why people would fuel the distrust and anger at
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. More importantly, we have been trying for
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: nine months, the Democratic Party has been trying for nine
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: months to grab the country by the lapels and say,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: here is what is happening. This is bad. There are
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: masked ICE agents disciplining people off the streets. There are
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: politically motivated investigations happening in the Department of Justice, that
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Trump is violating court orders. We need people to understand
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: why this is dangerous. And this is the one moment
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: where he might possibly be able to grab the country's
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: attention to make this case. And if you let that
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: moment pass, there will not be another one between now
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: and the midterms, and maybe not until between now and 2028.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: And so I think you absolutely have to do it.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: I think there is, this is high risk. I listened
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: to your guys' conversation on Tuesday where all of your
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: feelings were on the table, right? And I get it.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: You and I had this conversation off mic last week.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I wrestled a lot with, I have a piece sitting
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: in my inbox, it was in my drafts folder, very
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: much like Ezra's. And I can't finish it because the
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: hard part is, What's the end game, right? What are
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: you demanding? And I have all the same concerns you
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: guys had about– I think that in Ezra's piece, he's
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: perhaps a little naive about how the press would actually
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: cover this. I think they would blame Democrats. I have
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: real concerns about Democratic– who our messengers are. Can the
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Senate Democrats and Senate Democratic leadership really go out there
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: and make a compelling case of the country? And this
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: could blow up in our face. But here's what I
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: think is– We are in a dangerous situation. And when
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: you're in a situation like this, you have to be
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: willing to take on high-risk strategies. So the choice is
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: either just keep losing or to actually have a chance
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: to win a fight. And if you don't have the fight,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: you don't have a chance. And so I get it.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: It could be very bad for us. And we should not...
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: No one should dismiss the dangers of a shutdown, both
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: to the economy and to the people who depend on
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: government services. There's very real things here. But just... Like
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: that is real, but we, like you have, if you
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: think that things are going the way we think they are,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: then you have to be willing to have a fight,
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: even if you might lose that fight.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I do think you're right. I've been thinking about this too,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: about the way the press will cover this. Because I
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: think what, if I was Trump, what Trump will do is,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: especially if they get the, there's any kind of rate
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: cut next week, then he'll be like, you know, everything
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: was on the, everything was going great, finally got the
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: rate cut. And now the economy is doing bad because
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the Democrats have shut down the government. And that's his message.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: And the Democrats are ruining everything and they're radical left
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: and they've come, they're committing all this violence and now
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: they're shutting down the government and you can see the
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: political press, you know, just going along with that one.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Here's the good news, John.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: No one reads it.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's one thing we learned towards my election.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: It's not the problem we thought it was.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe I do think you're right. It's the, it's about,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's about people in the party. going out
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: and communicating a forceful message and locking arms and making
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: sure they're all, you know, not saying the same thing.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: So they sound like robots with talking points, but like
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: basically on the same page, um, and being forceful about
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: it and creative and how they break through. And I do,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I do worry about that. I do worry about that. And, and,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: and what are, what are you asking for? I do
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: think that is a kind of, that's kind of a
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: baseline you have to.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: This is where I've had the most struggle because there
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: are lots of things you could ask for all of
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: them individually and seems small to your complaints, where you're like,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: we're doing this because democracy is in peril, because there's
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: an authority to take over. And the response to that is,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: we need additional premium support for the Affordable Care Act,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: which is a very important thing. That is a very,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: like that is in.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: A- 18 month extension.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a normal, I think you very accurately in
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: the Tuesday pod described how this place, how this could
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: play itself out. And in a normal world where you're
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: having a typical budget fight, then that's a great thing
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: to ask for, right? I mean, the Republican, this was
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: dumb and they paid a huge steep political price, but
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Republicans shut down the government because they wanted to defund
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: the Affordable Care Act. They weren't going to vote to
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: fund it. And so this is sort of the inverse,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: like a small board inverse of that. I think I
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: can't come up with a single thing that is worthy
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: of it. So I think you can come up with
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: 10 things. Have a long list of things that you want.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: And it should be everything from Restoring USAID to the
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: ACA to reopening the Department of Education. Use your demand
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: list as a way to communicate what's happening. A new
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: set of due process for ICE or whatever. You're not
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: going to get all of it. You may only get
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: one of those things, but it makes it easier to
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: at least– I think that is one way to solve
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: the problem of every individual thing feel small in this moment,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: which is where I sort of been really struggling for
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: weeks on this.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I think that's probably right.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: When we come back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: conversation with Senator Van Hollen about the assassination, his visit
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to Gaza, his fight for Kilmar Obrego Garcia, and lots more.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Before we get to that, there is a new episode
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: of Polar Coaster out, Dan. What'd you guys talk about?
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Well, we recorded this on Tuesday of this past week,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: and Caroline and I talked about the new polls that
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: came out over the weekend that show that Trump's political
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: position is actually quite poor. When you really look at
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: these polls, it makes you wonder why so many people
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: are preemptively surrendering to Trump. He is in a very
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: historically poor position. His approval rating is down. His ratings
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: on the economy are putrid. Two-thirds of the country think
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: he is raising their grocery prices, and they are rejecting
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: his views on setting the National Guard places and vaccine policy.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: And so we really dug into that. We also talked
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: about the new polling in the New York City mayoral
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: race and what and why it helps explain why Donald
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Trump is doing so much to help Andrew Cuomo in
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: that race.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: If you want to hear the full conversation or ask
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Dan a question yourself, subscribe to Crooked Subscription now on Substack, YouTube,
• 54:42
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  Speaker 5: Welcome to the show, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen. Senator,
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: thank you for joining us today.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Tommy, it's good to be with you.
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: So I know you just recently got back from a
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank. I'm very excited
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: to talk with you about what you saw there. But
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: I did have to ask you first about a couple
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: of breaking news stories. We're talking at 2.40 p.m. Pacific
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: time on Wednesday. We just learned that TPUSA founder and
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered at his own event
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: in Utah. This is obviously horrific, unjustifiable. It's an evil act.
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: As of this recording, the shooter is still on the loose.
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: We don't know who it was. We don't know their motive.
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: But a lot of people are worried, myself very much included.
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: that this is just the latest example of what feels
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: like kind of constant escalating political violence. And so my
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: question is like, how do you think we can calm
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: things down and how do we keep this evil from spreading?
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Well, it is another horrible moment for the country and
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: this really is evil. And we have to get back
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: to the place where we as a country can have
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: robust disagreements on political issues without violence. I mean, violence
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: is just unacceptable. It's never the answer. And all of us,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: no matter where we are on the political spectrum, need
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: to make clear that vigorous debate is one thing. Violence
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: is unacceptable, period. And all of us have a role
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: to play in making it clear that it's unacceptable.
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: And also, I think I would add dehumanization to that list.
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: Because I think it's really easy to demonize your opponents,
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: to call them names. And look, I'm talking to myself
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: here too. But God, then you see a picture of
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: Charlie Kirk with his two little kids. And it's hard
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: not to imagine yourself in his shoes and the impact
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: on that family and kind of what this will mean
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: for them going forward.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: Well, look, that's exactly right. At the end of the day,
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: all of us are people's And all of us need
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: to make sure that we remember our common humanity. And
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: in the midst of political battle, I agree. It's too
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: easy to demonize people. And when you demonize them in
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: different ways, then it becomes too quick a road, I think,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: to the dehumanization that you've talked about and from dehumanization.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: to the kind of awful killing we just saw. Yeah.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm just thinking about his family right now. And
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: of course, we'll keep covering the story as we learn more.
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: I also wanted to ask you about, there's this incident
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: overnight on Tuesday night where More than a dozen Russian
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: drones entered Polish airspace. I believe NATO had to scramble
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: a number of air assets to shoot them down. There
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: was this reaction from Trump on Truth Social that was
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: kind of odd, like a passive voice observation. He wrote,
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: what's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go,
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: exclamation point. Do you think this was a deliberate provocation
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: by the Russians? And if so, what do you think
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: happens next when it comes to sort of the NATO response?
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I know they're claiming that it wasn't deliberate, but
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: they lie through their teeth all the time. And so
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: I think this is a consequence of the fact that
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: they don't see the U.S. response as credible any longer
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: with respect to protecting and supporting the people of Ukraine, right?
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: We've made it clear from the beginning, we're not going
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: to be the United States. We're not going to put
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: our own boots on the ground. I agree we should not.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: But we have had this commitment to provide them with
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: military support and economic support as a country that's under attack,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: whose freedom is under attack, whose democracy is under attack.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: And from the very beginning of this administration, from the
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: Trump administration, he has thrown the Ukrainian people under the bus.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: He's codiciled it up to Putin. And let's just be real.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, Putin has played him like a fiddle. Putin
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: got the summit meeting in Alaska. And instead of calming
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: things down and making progress or opening up a meeting
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: between Putin and Zelensky, we've seen increased aggression, increased Russian
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: attacks inside of Ukraine. And now we see this. So
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: this is an unfortunate result of the fact that Putin
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: has no respect for the president of the United States,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: despite the fact that he says otherwise.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Also on Tuesday, the Israeli government conducted airstrikes. I've
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: seen reports of 10 different airstrikes on a gathering of
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: Hamas leaders in Qatar that were meeting. They were there
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: to discuss Trump's latest ceasefire proposal, hoping to begin a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: process to end the war in Gaza. There's some debate
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: over what the Trump administration knew or maybe when they
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: were notified. I was wondering what your reaction was to
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: seeing this.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Well, my reaction is that if you're taking out the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: folks that are gathered to review the latest proposal to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: release the hostages and enter into a ceasefire, clearly you're
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: not interested in achieving a ceasefire or the release of
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: the hostages. And the Netanyahu government has not really been
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: interested in ending the war. And I met recently with
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: hostage families actually who said the same thing, that Netanyahu
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: has prioritized his own political survival over the survival of
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: their loved ones. This was, as we've seen, one case
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: where I don't know what the backstory is, but at
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: least the Trump administration said publicly that it's a very
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: bad idea in Netanyahu to attack Hamas on the soil
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: of Qatar because they are the mediators in this negotiation,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: as well as, you know, being a country that hosts
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: lots of American military. folks.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, up to 10,000.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, up to 10,000. So look, this was an action
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: that again demonstrates that Netanyahu has no interest in ending
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: the war in Gaza and is only putting his own
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: political survival first and not the people of Israel or
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: the people of Gaza or anybody else. It's only Netanyahu.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: Last question before we get to your trip. So The administration,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: as you know, has moved a lot of military assets
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: to the Caribbean. I've seen reports that there are now
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: eight destroyers there, 10 F-35s were moved to the region,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: thousands of Marines, thousands of sailors. There's reports that a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: submarine was moved to the Caribbean. The Trump administration claims
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: this is about drug interdiction, but that's a lot of
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: firepower to take out a speedboat, right? And so I'm
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: just wondering, Do you worry that this presages something larger,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: like a direct conflict with Venezuela?
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: Well, with Secretary Marco Rubio, it's very possible. This is
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: part of a long-term plan to get us into a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: much bigger conflict with Venezuela, including armed conflict. Whether that's
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: the goal or not, the fact that they simply shot
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: this boat out of the water, thousands of miles from
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: the United States, 11 people killed. This is an extrajudicial killing.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is an illegal action. The Trump administration
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: has not yet put forward their legal justification. But beyond that,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: if you're really interested in interdicting drugs, what you do
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: is you stop the boat, you board the boat, and
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: you try to follow Upstreet, right? You try to find
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: the big fish, not the little fish on the boat.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: El Chapo is not usually on the drug run.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And I think people should know that this administration's
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: also proposed very deep cuts to the funding for the DEA,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: the Drug Enforcement Agency, as well as other counter-narcotic efforts,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: efforts to go after some of the true ringleaders. So
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: they're cutting that budget. They're reducing those resources while engaging
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: in this extrajudicial killing.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty horrifying.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: Okay, so you visited the West Bank in Jerusalem. I
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: know you tried to get into Gaza, but were denied
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: access by the Israeli government. I think you and Senator
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: Merkley even tried to just fly over Gaza in an
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: airplane doing airdrops of assistance and were denied access. Again,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: I'd love to hear why that access was denied. But
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: just big picture, I mean, what did you learn on
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: this trip about what's happening in Gaza that you didn't
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: know before?
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Well, you're absolutely right. Senator Merkley and I went. We
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: went to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt. Overall goal
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: to really take a close look, as close as we
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: could get, to this horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: really what the trip came away with was a lot
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: of factual information supporting, unfortunately, what we now realize is
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: going on in Gaza, which is that The Netanyahu government,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: as one of its war aims, wants to displace 2
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: million people in Gaza, some of them within Gaza right now.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: But their ultimate goal, and they've been very open about this,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: is really to remove all Palestinians from Gaza, which is
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: ethnic cleansing. And what we did was went to various
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: sites and witnessed firsthand the restrictions on allowing delivery of
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: life-saving drugs. food and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza. We
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: went to the Rafah on the Egyptian side of the border.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: And as you know, on the Gaza side of the border,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: there used to be a city of Rafah. In fact,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: when I was there back in January 2024, that was
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: a vibrant city of about 215,000 people. When we went
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: up to a high point on the Egyptian side of
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: the border and looked in, rubble, just rubble, right? Remember
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: that During the Biden administration, their red line was RAFA.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: Don't go into RAFA. Don't go too fast. It's gone.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: That city is gone.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: And so- You're saying the entire city has been flattened
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: based on.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: What you saw.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you look with your naked eye, it
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: really is rubble. And you've probably seen some of the
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: satellite photos before and after. And it's flattened. And it's
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: just one example of what's happening- inside of Gaza in
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: terms of just the destruction, the level of destruction of
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: civilian infrastructure, houses, schools, and of course, you know, now
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: over 60,000 people dead, half of the women and children.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: And so on top of that, though, you have this
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: effort to really prevent life-saving humanitarian assistance from getting to
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: starving people.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I want to ask you about that because
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: Senator Merkley, who was with you on this trip, posted
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: a video where he said the two of you received
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: a briefing about aid reaching Gaza that he said just
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: didn't reflect reality at all. I think Senator Merkley called
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: it pure propaganda. Who gave you that briefing? And what
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: was the line they were trying to sell? And what's
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: the reality as far as you can tell?
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Sure, that was really a joint briefing at a place
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: called Karim Shalom, which is down in, you know, it's
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: in sort of southern Israel, close to the Egyptian border.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: Gaza-Israeli border. It's one of the two main crossing points
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: now from Israel into Egypt. It's where you've seen trucks
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: having a very difficult time, in so many cases, getting
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: stuff through, things being rejected by Kogat, including maternity kits
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: because they have these teeny little scissors in them. So
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: the briefing was from Kogat. These are sort of the
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: Israeli authorities that are in charge of controlling the delivery
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: of food and other humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The other
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: was GHF, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This is the
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: organization that has led to people having to storm just
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: a very few sites for food and really become a
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: death trap. And so the stories that they provided, for example,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: GHF essentially denied that they had become a place for
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: killing fields. Even though we later in our trip, Tommy,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: met with some doctors who'd been on the ground close
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: by who reported that every time GHF opened these four
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: sites or one of the four sites, they would prepare
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: the bounty bags. Because as people... desperate, hungry people, starving
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: people flood to try to get some food for themselves
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: or their family. They were in many cases shot and killed.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: The estimate's over a thousand people. And, you know, GHF essentially,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: you know, said they weren't in any way responsible for
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: any of this happening. But when you set up four
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: sites after a about a 75-day total blockade of food,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: four sites for 2 million people to get food, it's
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: perfectly predictable that starving people will rush those sites. What's
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: not predictable is that so many would be shot and killed,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: including by the IDF.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there are some really awful stories coming about,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 5: about sniper teams just sort of indiscriminately shooting people, taking
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: up bodies. There's this BBC report about like a biker
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: gang that's been doing security. I mean, it's just The
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: reporting is awful. I mean, I think part of what
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: we're getting at here is people who care deeply about
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: what's happening in Gaza, who want to end the war,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of them feel despondent because, look,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: when October 7th happened, I watched it and I thought,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: this is evil. This is like an indefensible act of terror.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: But I also thought to myself, this is going to
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: unleash hell on the civilian population in Gaza, many of
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 5: whom probably hate Hamas with every fiber of their being, right?
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: But even knowing that, even knowing how brutal that response
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: is going to be, I'm still stunned by where we're
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 5: at almost nearly two years later, right? It just seems
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: like the situation on the ground is getting worse every day.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: It's not just the bombardment anymore. It's this constant on
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: and off switch of starvation. And I feel like I just,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: I no longer know.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: It's like, you can't scream loud enough. No one is listening.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: You cannot make this war end.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: I'm just wondering what your advice is to people who
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: feel that way and who just feel like the world
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: is just watching as this horror is inflicted on people
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: in Gaza and also the United States is completely complicit
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: in it?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: Well, we are. So first of all, people need to
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: keep screaming about this, right? We cannot be silent in
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: the face of what's happening right now in Gaza. Senator
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Merkley and I have both said many times that Israel
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: was perfectly within its rights to go after Hamas after
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: the horrific October 7th massacres that took place in Israel.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: In fact, they had a duty to do so. But
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: what has happened has gone way beyond the Netanyahu government
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: targeting Hamas to imposing collective punishment on the Palestinian people.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: And that is where you see this awful level of destruction.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: And what really hurts from the perspective of the U.S.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: citizen is number one, the sheer inhumanity of all of it,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: but that we are complicit in this. And so what
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: can we do? I mean, many of us have been
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: trying to cut off U.S. taxpayer-funded military assistance to Netanyahu government,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: that it's for use in Gaza. I mean, we held
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: a vote in the United States Senate in the middle
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: of the total blockade the total blockade on food into
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: Gaza and said we should not be providing 2,000-pound bombs.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: In the middle of this blockade, people are starving. And,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: you know, unfortunately, we had no Republicans. We also didn't have,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: on that vote, very many Democrats. Now, I think people
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: are hopefully finally waking up, but this has been a
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: problem that, you know, we had during the Biden administration.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, they were feckless. when it came to stopping
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: what's happening. And now you have a complete blank check
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: with Netanyahu. So I know I'm restating the frustration and
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: the problem. I think we all of us collectively as
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: Americans need to recognize that we are complicit in this
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: and we need to call upon our government to stop.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, as a party, look, I mean,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 5: you've been working on this a long time. I've been
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 5: following these issues for a to Israel would be unthinkable
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: five years ago, right? It's a sea change, relatively speaking.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: But at the same time, I still feel strongly that
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: elected officials in the party are way, way, way behind,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: not the base, but like the majority of Democratic Party voters.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: And I'm wondering why you think there's still that disparity.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: But also, I mean, I feel like the United States
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 5: is way behind most other countries, right? I mean, we
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: are still funneling weapons to the Netanyahu government. Meanwhile, the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: prime minister of Spain just outlined nine steps to stop
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: what he calls a genocide in Gaza that includes the
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 5: permanent ban on arms sales to Israel and a ban
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 5: on the use of Spanish ports or airspace to transport
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 5: fuel or weapons to Israel. I feel like that position
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: is quickly becoming the norm internationally.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: Well, the United States clearly has the leverage to change
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: the behavior of the Netanyahu government in Gaza. And we
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: just have refuse to exercise our leverage and influence, whether
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: it comes to weapons that are being used in Gaza,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: to the UN Security Council, where like we're always the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: loner out there, you know, people saying stop the, you know, starvation, stop,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: we vote otherwise. I think that, I think it is
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: a really a bad reflection on the Democratic Party in
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: Congress that we don't have more of our colleagues stepping forward.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: You asked what the cause is. I think there are
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: many causes. One of them is that many members, and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: this is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: really listen to what AIPAC does. And AIPAC, in my view,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: has become a very destructive force in American politics. I
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: don't think they're good for Israel. I don't think they're
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: good for the United States. But they have a lot
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: of influence here on Capitol Hill and in political campaigns.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: And so I think it's really important for the Democratic
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: Party to begin to call out AIPAC and make it
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: clear that AIPAC's continued attacks on anybody who speaks out
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: against what the Netanyahu government is doing is unacceptable.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: Do you think Democrats should stop taking money from AIPAC?
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: I do. I think that AIPAC has got not only
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: its regular contributions, but they've actually gotten into the business
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: of being a super PAC lately. And so I do
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: think it's important that Democratic parties around the country begin
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: to deal with super PACs broadly. I mean, AIPAC's one
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: of them, but deal with other super PACs as well
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: in terms of candidates making it clear they won't accept
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: super PAC money. Obviously, they don't have total control over that,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: but I think we need a much bigger deterrent within
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: our party to having this super PAC money coming in.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: In the case of APAC, you're talking about a lot
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: of Republican contributions coming into Democratic primaries, for example. APAC
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: has run ads against me because of my position on
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: the situation in Gaza. So I think it's really important
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: that Democrats wake up on this issue.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or at least be clear-eyed.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 5: I think AIPAC, as you said, they attack any Democrat
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: that disagrees with Netanyahu. They repeatedly interfere in Democratic primary campaigns,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 5: usually by running ads through sort of affiliated PACs that
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 5: have nothing to do with Israel. It's like random other
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: issues that they think will be damaging. AIPAC has endorsed
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: election deniers and insurrectionists. And it's just so obvious to
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: me that their preferred candidate is Donald Trump and the
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 5: Republican Party. And I just think we should all just
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 5: be honest about that.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: Well, that's absolutely right. I mean, they are essentially a
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: rubber stamp for Netanyahu, who now has been in power
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: in Israel for a very long time, a couple timeouts,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: but for the most part, the leader of Israel. And
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: AIPAC has essentially been the amen chorus for Netanyahu and
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: his policies, both in Gaza now, but also on the
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: West Bank, where we've seen an increase in settler violence,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: an effort to push more and more Palestinians off of
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: their land and an open declaration of war against a
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: future two-state solution possibility, which, as you know, by the day,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: is becoming more and more remote as a possibility.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because I
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 5: know you're just in the West Bank. I mean, as
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 5: we've discussed, the West Bank has been carved up already
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: by Israeli settlements. The Israeli government just approved another settlement
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: block that's called E1. I won't get into all the details,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 5: but just the gist is it would, if constructed, would
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: divide the West Bank into four parts, essentially, that are
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: disconnected and make it impossible for the West Bank to
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 5: constitute a contiguous Palestinian state in any real sense. Given
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: those facts on the ground, given sort of sentiment Israel
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 5: right now, given the hopelessness that Palestinians feel about the
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: political process and their political leadership, isn't the two-state solution
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: kind of dead or at least like a thing you
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 5: can say you're for to avoid talking about kind of
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 5: the harder reality?
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: I think that's very fair. And I think it's increasingly
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: the case. I've been somebody who's not only held out
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: hope for a two-state solution because it's the one approach
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: that assures both self-determination and security and dignity to Israelis
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: and Palestinians alike, but it has more and more become
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: sort of a convenient way to deflect the conversation over
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: bigger issues. Like if we don't have a two-state solution,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: what does that mean? Are you going to give Palestinians rights?
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: Are they going to get to vote? Are they treated
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: equally under the law in one state? These are questions
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: that too many people want to avoid. Now, people like Smotrich, who's,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: you know, is part of the Netanyahu government, are very clear.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: We will not They will not have rights, period. And
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: their idea is to essentially put them into the Palestinians,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: the little enclaves, Bantu stands, and have two different legal regimes.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, that is the definition of apartheid. And people
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: don't want to go down the road to that conversation.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: And I understand it. A two-state solution would avoid that.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: But those are kind of the difficult conversations that are
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: being put off. And I think especially given what you
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: just said about this E1 block, which would totally sever
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: the ability of Palestinians to move from north to south
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: within the West Bank. And what's happening right now with
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: more settler outposts going up and more illegal outposts, even
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: illegal under Israeli law, being legalized, it's becoming more and
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: more untenable. I think between now and the end of
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: the year, we will have a final verdict on whether
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: there's any chance left.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: One other question about your trip.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, I know you met with families of American
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: citizens who have been killed by settlers in the West Bank.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: I know you raised the issue of Mohammed Zahir Ibrahim
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: was a 16 year old, 16 year old American citizen
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 5: who has been rotting in an Israeli detention center since
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 5: I believe February for the crime of allegedly throwing rocks
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 5: on an empty street. I know you raised that with
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: I think the Israeli government and I think maybe Ambassador
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 5: Huckabee or his team. Just wondering if there's any progress,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: as far as you know, on getting Muhammad out, if
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 5: there's anything you think listeners could do to push the issue.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: And just generally speaking, how is there not outrage that
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 5: an American kid is rotting in an Israeli prison? Why
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: aren't there 535 statements from Congress a day?
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: Well, it is an outrage. And we did raise it
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: with Israeli government officials. And we raised it with the
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: American embassy folks there. And we are continuing to push because,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: as you say, this is a kid who was accused,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: I believe, of throwing stones. They deny it. But even
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: if you're talking about throwing stones, this guy is locked up,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: cannot pre-trial detention. And unfortunately, this is the sad reality
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: for Palestinians every day. And I often make the point, Tommy,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: that if you can't get justice for an American citizen,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: Then imagine the situation and the impunity with which Palestinians
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: are treated. And this is an issue I've raised repeatedly. Look,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: I've been front and center when you've got Israeli-Americans who
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 3: are being mistreated or killed, and in the case of
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: October 7th, by Hamas, or taken hostage. But here we
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: have a government, an Israeli government that's supposed to be
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: our great ally. And yet we've had American citizens detained,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: but also five American citizens killed, murdered by either settlers
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: or killed by the IDF and no accountability. It's like, okay,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: we're looking into it and it never materializes. And, you know,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: this includes like a, I think it was a 14,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: 15 year old kid who ended up with like 40
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: bullets through his body because he was in an olive Grove,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: which by the way was in the Palestinian area. In
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: any event, it is outrageous that the United States government
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: has not done more to get justice for its own citizens.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: We say that our number one priority is to protect
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: Americans overseas, and yet when it comes to the government
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: of Israel, we're not getting any accountability.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and by the way, this is not a Just
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 5: a critique of Donald Trump. I mean, Shireen Abu Akhla
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: was one of the most famous journalists in the Arab world,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: Al Jazeera journalist for 25 years, I believe. An American
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 5: citizen was shot by an Israeli sniper while covering events
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 5: in the West Bank. And as far as I could tell,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 5: the Biden administration did nothing to get answers or get justice.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: The Biden administration was totally hapless on this. Secretary Blinken
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: said at the time he would have an independent investigation.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: We never got an independent investigation. There was an American
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: report done by General Fenzel that got classified. I've been
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: trying to get it unclassified because at the very least,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: people need to know the truth about the very loose,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: what people call rules of engagement. I mean, that means
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: what your rules are for when you shoot people without
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: thinking first or without checking first. And there's no doubt
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: that Because we haven't pursued accountability in the case of
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: Shireen Abu Akleh and demanded that the government of Israel
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: change its rules of engagement, I should back up. We
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: did demand it, but we never actually followed through. And
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: the result is more people are getting killed, including more
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: American citizens.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just impunity.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 5: Well, Senator, look, I just want to say thank you
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: for your moral leadership on this issue, for your political courage.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: On this issue.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 5: I know that, um, you know, not a lot of
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 5: political careers are, are built on the back of, you know,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 5: calling out a pack by name and criticizing the Israeli government.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 5: And also, you know, for your trip to El Salvador
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 5: back in April and helping to secure the release of
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 5: Kilmar or Rego Garcia, I feel like there's, this is
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 5: a moment when, uh, Democrats in this country are, um,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 5: pretty demoralized and we're all looking around to see who
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 5: is showing leadership and doing things. that feel inspiring and important.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 5: And you've been a big part of a lot of
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 5: that work. And I just want to say thank you
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 5: for that and, and keep it up. And, you know, we're,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 5: we're grateful.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: Thank you for your strong voice, your world voice on
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 3: all these issues, because I do think people are really
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: sick and tired of what they perceive as too much
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: finger in the wind and not enough clarity of purpose.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: And so I think all of us as Americans and
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: certainly members of the Democratic Party need to really focus
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 3: on our core values and not create these double standards
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: that we sometimes apply.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: Well said. Well, thank you, Senator. Appreciate it.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Chris Van Hollen
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: for coming on. Tommy Lovett and I will be back
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: with a new show on Tuesday. Have a good weekend, everyone.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:26:46
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