Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 7/29/26: Americans Demand Bibi Arrest, West Bank Violence, Elon AI Extinction, Data Center Revolt & MORE!

Transcript

7/29/26: Americans Demand Bibi Arrest, West Bank Violence, Elon AI Extinction, Data Center Revolt & MORE! · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
• 0:01
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• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're joined now by Jasper Nathaniel and the Infinite Jazz substack,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: recently back from the West Bank. Jasper, thank you for
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: joining us.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me back.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Of course, we want to start with some audio here
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump criticizing Benjamin Yahoo, who is in Washington,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: DC for I believe his eighth visit over the course
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of the most recent Trump presidency. And here's Donald Trump
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: criticizing actually net and Yahoo before their MEETI yesterday over
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: their disagreements in the Iran war tool the clip.
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: You say that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: There are reports now.
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: That y'all, who's going to talk to you about ongoing
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: excavation at Pickaxe Mountain, construction, vehicles entering and exting, exiting tunnels,
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: paving new access roads. Satellite imagery and intel indicates that
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: Iran is actively constructing and fortifying Pickaxe Mountain.
• 1:27
  Speaker 6: How will we respond, Well, I don't need BB to
• 1:30
  Speaker 6: tell me that. BB's telling me that because he wants
• 1:32
  Speaker 6: me to stay involved. I mean, I don't necessarily. We
• 1:35
  Speaker 6: have the finest because of space for us. We have
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: the greatest cameras in the world. Focused. We know exactly
• 1:41
  Speaker 6: what's going on. But now I heard BB announced that,
• 1:45
  Speaker 6: I said, why didn't you just tell them to me?
• 1:46
  Speaker 6: Why do you have to announce it to the world.
• 1:48
  Speaker 6: I know exactly what's going on at Pickaxs. It's not
• 1:50
  Speaker 6: a big problem. We took out their nuclear sites, and
• 1:54
  Speaker 6: we'll have to take out pick Acts if we don't
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: make a deal. We don't make a deal, we'll take
• 1:58
  Speaker 6: it out very easily.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: That's obviously. Trump on Fox and Friends after their meeting
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: later in the dayt Yahoo, we can put the next
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: element up on the screen, said, I have just finished
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: an excellent meeting with President Trump. When I say excellent,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: it's not just lip service, a conversation with full partnership,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: with mutual support, with an understanding of the common goal
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of ensuring that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, as
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: well as other goals. One of the best conversations I've
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: ever had with the President of the United States. Our
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: friend Donald Trump. His entire senior team was there, as
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: was our senior team, and here too was an important
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: or was an opportunity to exchange ideas and also to
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: coordinate things that are important for the security in the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: future of the United States. That is according to a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: translation from Hebrew. Meanwhile, Barack Revide reported unsurprisingly that a
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: diminished nt Yahoo arrived for his moment with Trump, for
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: his meeting with Trump. So Jasper, just with all of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: this happening yesterday, can you help us from your perspective
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: understand perhaps in Israeli media, why this meeting between in
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yahoo and in Israeli politics by this meaning between yah
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: who yah? Who was pushing it. He's trying to show
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that he's still really close with Trump while Trump is
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: criticizing him. What does all of this mean? Sort of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: domestically from your perspective, at least for men Yaho.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Well, the main thing to keep in mind is that
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: there's an election coming up in Israel in a couple
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: of months, and nen Yahoo's facing probably the biggest challenge
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: that he's that he's faced in years, and he's desperately
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: trying to get an endorsement from Trump right now. Actually,
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: you know, obviously Nenya and Trump have been in lockstep
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: for a long time, and now there's some daylight between them,
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: and Trump keeps sort of dodging the question about whether
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: or not he's going to endorse then Yaho. So I
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: think there's just a very clear, you know, political element
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: of this outside of you know, the the various wars
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: that are going on that Israel is trying to keep
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: the US involved with. But you know, that's obviously the
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: second part. I think that it has perhaps finally dawned
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: on Trump, or at least on the people around Trump
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: that you know, his interest, his political interest in getting
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: out of the war with Iran is diametrically opposed to
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: nn Yahoo's interest to having a forever war because you know,
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: he is a wartime prime minister and he really has
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: sort of he rides the wave of war to winning
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: every election, and so you know they have competing interests
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: right now, which is causing some obvious tension.
• 4:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Well, and we should note that then Trump went on
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Fox and Friends this morning and was like, oh, I
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: had a great meeting with Bobe et cetera, et cetera.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: So and well let's put us he three up on
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the screens. The latest Barock reviewed report about how a
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: diminished bb arrives for his moment with Trump and laying
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: out some of these alleged tensions between them. I don't
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: know what to make of these reports at this point, Jasper,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: because we had this endlessly with buy No. Biden's very
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: mad at Bebe and they're, you know, the their relationship
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: is strained, and he yelled at him, and we've had
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the same cycle of reports over and over again. Rum
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Barock revied at Axios about Trump as well, do you
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: see there? Do you think there is actual daylight between
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: them at this point? Because on the one hand, like
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: we can all look at the situation with Iran and go,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: the best thing that could happen is for the US
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: to cut their losses and just get out of this thing.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Whatever is required, find give them the straight of horn moves.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Apparently that's never coming back, like it.
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: Is what it is.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: But Trump seems to be making different calculations on an
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: almost near daily basis. So what do you make of
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: these friction with net Nyahu reports at this point?
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: This is actually one that I'm taking a little more
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: seriously than I have in the past. I mean, you know,
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: with the Biden administration, these these barock revied reports of
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: you know, Biden, you know, fuming about Nnyaho behind closed
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: doors like that was basically the White House is pr
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: strategy to be able to endlessly support Israel's genocide against
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: the people of Gaza while you know, maintaining a facade
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: of some humanity. Now you know, there is actually daylight,
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: like I said, because you know, Nan Yahoo and Trump
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: are are both you know, I mean, obviously they're both politicians,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: but they're they're both completely self interested, specifically self interested
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: in like staying in power, because Nan Yahoo, like Trump,
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: has all sorts of corruption suits against him, and the
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: minute he's out of power, he's he's much more vulnerable
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: to being prosecuted. And I think that the Iran war
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: where it stands right now, they do actually have competing interests.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's sort of straightforward. Trump wants out
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: because he sees it as a political loser. Nan Ya
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: who wants in because you know, he needs to, like
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: I said, he needs to be at war. But also
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: it's been his lifelong project to take out the government
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: in Iran. So I think that there is daylight between
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: them basically, and and I think we'll see how it
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: plays out. I mean, listen, it doesn't mean anything. As
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: you know, there's going to be a meaningful break. I
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: would not say that Trump is actually going to, you know,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: pull out necessarily. I don't know, but that seems to
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: be what's happening right now.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: New Pole actually here from the economist in you Goo.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: We can put this element up on the screen. Americans
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: in every age group are more likely to support arresting
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Not in Yahoo than oppose it
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: if he enters the US. Well he did enter the US.
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  Speaker 1: The poll was conducted from July twenty fifth to twenty seventh.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Forty nine percent of the public supported arrest well twenty
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: seven percent opposed it. And if you break it down
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: by age, it is in eighteen to twenty nine year
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: olds a fifty eight to seventeen percent gap thirty to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: forty four, forty nine to twenty percent, and then it
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: starts to narrow a bit, but it's still double digits
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: forty five to sixty four that age demographic. Forty eight
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: percent support arrest, thirty one percent oppose it, and then
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: if you're sixty five years and older, it's a little
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: bit more split forty three percent to forty percent. MAGA
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and conservatives totally oppose it fifty eight to twenty two percent,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and sixty one percent to twenty one percent that's MAGA
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: voters the latter, and fifty eight percent that is conservatives
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: the former. So basically everybody except for conservatives and mega
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: voters at this point support arresting Benjamin Netanyahu, and I
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: guess people who are sixty five and older, but even
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that is pretty split. So I guess what's difficult then
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to understand from behind the scenes with Trump and nets Yaho.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: It's it's not just Netan Yaho, it's the donors who
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: are close with nets Yahoo too. I mean, think about
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Miriam Adelson, although they have an interesting relationship, but people
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: like that who want Trump to support net yahou at
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: every step, Lakud at every step. They're completely out of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: touch with the public on this. But Trump is it
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: seems Jasper been willing. You know, when we zoom out
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: a year from any kind of tit for tat in
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the moment, he generally directionally goes with them. So it
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: might seem like in this moment that there's there's real daylight,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and clearly there is, But I guess what is the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: likelihood that from a big picture perspective, when we're looking
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: back on this in a couple of years, we see
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: him making major steps against Natanyahu, even while you have
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the public being so opposed in that Yahoo that they
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: believe he should be arrested by huge numbers.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: Look, it's like everything with Trump, I mean, there's just
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: a web of you know, competing interests. I think most
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: of them financial, and it's impossible to know, you know,
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: which one is going to win out. Like you know,
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: this thing with the Saudi nuclear deal was a sort
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: of like perfect example where you know, he negotiates this
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: nuclear deal or the US negotiates a nuclear deal with
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: with Saudi Arabia. There's clearly, you know, financial incentive for
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: Trump to be doing you know, good business with them,
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: and then out of nowhere, he just says, oh, by
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: the way, it's contingent a normalization with Israel, which had
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: not been part of the deal at all, but took
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: everybody by surprise, and then apparently quietly he sort of
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: walked it back. And like, I don't think he thought
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: all that through. I think he's you know, going one
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: step at a time of like, what's going to help
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: me politically, what's going to help my pocketbook? And so
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: I just I just don't know.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: With Trump.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: I think that we in ten years from now, are
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: going to learn so much about all the different ways
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: him and his family and his cronies are financially benefiting
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: from this. Like you just can't overstate the degree to
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: which the Trump family is just tied up with you know,
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: financial interests in the Middle East. That I think that
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: is ultimately what wins out. That is also what has
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: you know, won out. In the moments when Trump finally
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: comes out and says something against West Bank annexation or
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: settler violence, those very rare moments, it's always because an
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: Arab leader told him he has to do it, you know,
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: and it puts Abraham a chords at risk or it puts,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: you know, one of his deals at risk. So like
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: that's always what it's about for him.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: I think is Trump still popular in Israel? Because I
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: know there was a moment after the MoU was signed
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: where there was all this like he's dabbed just in
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: the back, et cetera, et cetera.
• 10:52
  Speaker 7: But is he still popular there?
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: I haven't seen the very very latest polling. I mean,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: I think he's still last I checked, he is still popular.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, perhaps he is. His popularity has
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: fallen a little bit with the MoU. But you know,
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: as far as I know, the people of Israel generally
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: think that Trump has been, you know, their best friend
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: that they've ever had, even if they have a skirmish
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: every now and then so so, and that again is
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: why Nanya who's fighting so hard to get his endorsement
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: in the election.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: All right, let's turn to what's going on in the
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: West Bank, and I'll have you explain this latest escalation.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: There have been mass programs led by the IDF and
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: illegal settlers. This of course has been ongoing. And you
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: have been in the West Bank, you spent a month
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: there and are just recently back to be able to
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: document these ongoing programs against Palestinians in the West Bank,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: but maybe explain to people this latest escalation that involved
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: one of the settlers being killed and now these really
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: some factions at least Israeli government admitting this wasn't even
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: at the hands of a Palestinian years to have been
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: because of friendly fire.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: So taking an even bigger step back from that, just
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: to set the context on what's been happening the last
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: couple of months, probably since I was last on the show,
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: is that the settlers in the West Bank, who are
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: you know, sort of led by Smo Church and Ben
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: Gaver and the government, and they have their own you know,
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: political leaders too, they feel the clock potentially ticking, as
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: in if the government changes hands. It's not to say
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: the settlement movement is suddenly going to be disbanded, It's
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: certainly not, but there will you know, likely be less
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: direct financial institutional support for the settlers under you know,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: an Eisenkott government than there is under a Nen Yahoo government.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: And so they basically are are seeing this time right now,
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: these months before the election, as just a time for
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: a mad dash to grab as much land as they
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: possibly can. And so the settlers have effectively completed their
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: takeover of area Sea of the West Bank, which is
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: over sixty percent that's the part that is ostensibly controlled
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: by Israel, even though the land still belongs to Palestinians
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and lots of Palestinians lived there. So the settlers have
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: wiped you know, dozens and dozens of Palestine communities off
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: the land area of Sea, and now they've basically set
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: their sights on areas A and B, which a couple
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: of years ago would have been just completely unheard of
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: for settlers to go and build an outpost in this
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: land that is supposed to be controlled by the Palestinian authority.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: So that's the background heading into last Friday, when a
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: group of settlers who are coming from a settlement, This
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: settlement by the way, had just suffered terrible wildfires actually
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: that had burned numerous structures to the ground. They blamed
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: Palestinian terrorists, even though Israeli authorities say it was a
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: discarded cigarette, and you know, it is wildfire season over there,
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: so they already are you know, they have their justification
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: for violence against Palestinians, as they always do, but they're
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: always looking for another one. And so a group of
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: these settlers go out for what they call a hike.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: This is a really classic euphemism among the settler movement,
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: where a group of settlers armed with machine guns go
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: into a Palestinian village, in this case the village of Tell,
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: which is an area's A and B where the settlers,
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: even according to Israeli law, are not allowed to be.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: They go into the village and they are you know
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: what settler leader Elisha Yeared called, initiating friction. They are trying,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: they are looking for provocations. And you know what happens
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: is a group of Palestinians come out from the village
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: of Tell. Tell has been attacked numerous times in the
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: last couple of months, so you know, perhaps they're not
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: all that open to a group of Israeli hikers with
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: machine guns coming into their village. There's some sort of
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: a confrontation. One of the Palestinians there is able to
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: wrestle a gun away from a settler, and the video
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: shows that the settler is the holding a pistol. He
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: reaches for a handgun and in that moment the Palestinian
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: shoots him dead. Then some time passes it may there's
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: there's a video where a settler suggested that it was
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: over an hour, but we see other video of the
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Palestinian who shot the settler walking around with the gun down,
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: completely unarmed, and then you hear a settler shouting at
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: a soldier to kill him, and he does so. The
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: soldier then or it could have been a settler dressed
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: as a soldier sort of unclear, summarily executes the man
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: who who shot the settler and three of his cousins
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: while all of them are laying down on the ground
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: completely defenseless. At some point in this and in Israeli
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: soldier was also killed. Again. They immediately blamed the Palestinians,
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: but Israeli authorities are saying it looks like it was
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: probably friendly fire. So this happens. Six people are now dead,
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: two Israelis and four Palestinians. Immediately, without any hesitation, everybody
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: in Israel, the UH leadership from Yahu to you know,
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: the far right minister Ben Givier, to Eisenkott, who is
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: you know, who is you know running as part of
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: the opposition, He's supposed to be sort of the liberal
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: alternative to Nan Yahu to Yayrgan, who is you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: potentially a new defense minister under Eisencott. They all come
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: out and called a severe terror attack by Palestinians against Israelis,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: and they all call for a massive military response. And
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: that's exactly what happens. You know, for the next couple
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: of days, there's these huge military raids across across the
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: West Bank. Settlers are you know, calling for revenge and
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: and committing these terrible pugdrams. And you know what happens
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: is within a couple of days, there are several new
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: outposts set up all along the area where this occurred.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: Nen Yahoo comes out and announces as part of the response,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: they are going to expedite the legalization of these outposts.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: And when he says that, he basically gives the whole
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: game away, which is that the settlers go out, they
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: try to provoke a response from Palestinians that then justifies violence.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: That violence is then used to clear the land, which
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: is then used to put down a new settler foothold,
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: which the Israelly government then turns into a legal settlement.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: And so that's the whole game right now. That's been
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: what's been happening for years basically, and this is basically
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: just a very sort of clear, discrete example of it.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Can we put defour up on the screen. This is
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a tear sheet from Infinite Jazz. So this is Jasper's substack.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: And obviously none of those caught you off guard, Jasper,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: because you wrote, I've had countless settler encounters over the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: past several years, but never have I seen them come
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: out swinging the way they are now, showing up in
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: a village and wasting no time before physically assaulting people.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Of course, it's because they know that they're far more
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: likely to be rewarded than punished, As you just described,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: they are, after all, doing the state's bidding. And I
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: was hoping you could walk us through a bit of
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: what you saw on the ground, which was in the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: lead up to some of what we've just talked about.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Like again, you've been to the West Bank many times,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and you right here that this actually was an escalation
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: from what you'd seen in the past.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, the two main sort of
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: takeaways from my last trip to the West Bank were
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: from this trip that you know just finished. Where number one,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: like I said, the settlers have taken over much more land.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: But number two, they're they're just much more aggressive and
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: much more violent. They're you know, coming into communities and
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: they're not wasting any time before they just start physically
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: assaulting people, including myself, including the local Palestinians, including activists.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: And you know what I was just thinking the entire
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: time that I was there, when I was, you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: seeing all these attacks and when I was being attacked myself,
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: was they desperately want one of us to respond. They
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: want one of us to hit them back, or to
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: throw somebody on the ground, or to reach for one
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: of their guns, because then they have the excuse to
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: come and level the entire village. And sure enough, you know,
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: that's exactly what happened a couple months ago. Earlier this year,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: there was a similar incident in a village called bait
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: I Marine, which is not so far from Tell actually,
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: where a young settler was out on what they call
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: a land patrol, which is again where they drive into
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: a Palestinian village theoretically to patrol, but what they're actually
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: doing is initiating friction. That settler collided with a Palestinian vehicle,
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: crashed and died. It was immediately abled to terror attack
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: and it was used to justify pagrams, which then led
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: to the creation of numerous outposts which will eventually become settlements.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: So it's a very very clear step by step process
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: whereby you know, the most violent settlers, many of whom
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: are armed by the State of Israel, who are directly
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: supported strategically, financially, you know, defensively by the State of Israel,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: they go out, they you know, cause problems, they commit
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: acts of violence. Sometimes leaders of the Israeli government, when
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: the press gets too hot, will you know, condemn the violence.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Then Yahoo will call them, you know, juvenile delinquents. Occasionally
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: they will make an arrest. But you know, as soon
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: as the press stops paying attention to that particular attack,
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: the land that those violent settlers had seized through violence
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: is then recognized by the Israeli government as you know,
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: part of a new settlement. So it's just it's so clear,
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: and the way the map has actually changed in the
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: West Bank just in the last six seven months even
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: it's really striking. It shows just how much you know,
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: this whole idea that the Israeli government is against the
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: settler violence in any way is just completely backwards. I mean,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: it is the settler of violence, is literally the tip
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: of the spear. It is the vanguard of the central
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: Israeli state project of annexing the West Bank.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Jasper, can you talk a little bit about how the
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: reality of what is being done in the West Bank
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: really undercuts some of the liberal Zionists here in the
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: US talking points about Israel number one in pushing for
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: a two state solution and number two in saying, oh, well,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: the problem is just the extreme Netanyahu government. Once we
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: get these liberal reformers in, then Israel is going to
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: go back to whatever my fantasy of what Israel was
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: once was.
• 21:19
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: Well, look, I mean there's this Skuy Eisenkott who is
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: sort of the the I think a lot of people
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: are considering him like the potential great liberal savior in Israel,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: who's going to wrestle, you know, control away from the
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: right wing extremists like Nenyahu and Ben Givern Smotrivich. I mean,
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: putting aside his own sort of genocidal history, his own
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: military doctrines of using like disproportionate force.
• 21:47
  Speaker 7: Against the author of the Dahia doctrine, the author of
• 21:50
  Speaker 7: the literally.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Entire destroy civilian infrastructure in Lebanon or in Gaza to
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: you know, pressure the military. So you know, even just
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: putting all that though, you know, there is the the
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: popular liberal Zionis position, both in Israel and in the
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: United States and elsewhere, is against the settlement movement because
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: it is ostensibly you know, they want peace with the Palestinians,
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: they want you know, peaceful coexistence, and so you have
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: to come out against these you know, feral looking, violent
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: settlers who are who are attacking defenseless Palestinians. That is
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: why even men Yahoo occasionally, like when he was on
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: CNN a couple of weeks ago with Dana Bash, you know,
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: uses this line about a handful of juvenile delinquents, which
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: is obviously BS. I mean, we're talking about a massive
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: organization run by grown ups supported by the government. But
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: again look at if you take Eisenkott a couple months ago,
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: this may no headlines in the US. Of course, he
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: went out of his way to take a political trip
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: to an outpost in the West Bank that is known
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: as one of the more violent outposts. It is known
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: to everybody in the region as a place where settlers
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: are leaving from to attack Palestinians. I believe they have
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: even attacked Israeli activists from there. Actually, Eisencott goes to
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: this outpost and he has a meeting with the leaders
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: there and he basically signals his support to them, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: that is it's very clear what he's doing. He's saying, listen,
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: even if the government changes and you no longer to
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: have your Smotrich and you know, I'm going to have
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: your Bengavie or your nen Yahu, who are you know
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: giving you, you know, all this sort of vocal support.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Don't worry like I still got your back. I still
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: support you. And you know that's also consistent with the
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: fact that Eisenkott does not support a two state solution,
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: which which is, you know, I think speaks to the
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: just delusion that so many liberal Zionists in the United
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: States are living with, which is that there is some
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: other liberal version of Zionism of Israel that is actually
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: against settler of violence, that is actually you know, for
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: two states like that reality just simply does not exist
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: in Israel, in you know, the political reality that is
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: Israel today.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Well, Jasper, thank you so much for your reporting and
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: your bravery because you put yourself at great personal risk.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I know there's been a lot of personal costs that
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: everybody should go and subscribe to your substack, because you know,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: I have understandably been focused on the genocide and Gaza,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: but what is happening in the West Bank is horrifying
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: and extremely consequential. So thank you so much for keeping
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: your eye on that and helping to inform our audience.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, Chris Allin Emily.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: So, we have some very interesting ideas being pushed by
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the nation's oligarchs as they see a rising populist revolt
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: against them and increasing ideas of wealth taxes and things
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: that they find completely unacceptable.
• 24:48
  Speaker 7: Let's put this up on the screen. This is the
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: Shopify ceo.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: The headline here from Fortune is why did one hundred
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: and fifty four billion dollar ceo just endorse stripping most
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Americans of voting rights and taking us back to nineteenth century.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: I'll read you a little bit of some of mister
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Tobias Lucky's ideas here.
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: He's CEO of Shopify.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: His company commands a market cap of nearly one hundred
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: and fifty four billion dollars. He told his social media
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: followers this week that a tax tiered voting system, one
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: that with strip voting rights from anyone who pays no
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: income tax, which is many millions of Americans, would be
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: a quote good system. The exchange began with a provocation
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: from mister lucky. Pension recipients should have their financial futures
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: locked in and guaranteed, but in return would be reclassified
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: as dependents and lose the right to vote, the same
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: way miners can't vote. So if you're someone who relies
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: on social Security, your right to vote would be taken away. Next,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: a reply from someone named Eric Thor, who claimed to
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: be a retired banking executive as well as armchair economist
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: and policy wonk love that type. Proposed to sliding scale
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: zero votes for anyone who pays no income tax, one
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: vote for those earning one to one hundred thousand dollars,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: two votes for one hundred to two hundred, scaling up
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: in that pattern to a hard cap of five votes
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: for anyone earning five hundred thousand dollars or more. The
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: pitch was framed as fairness reward quote representation for those
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: who quote put the bill through taxation. That was the
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: good system that Lucky endorsed so emily. As if it
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: is not enough that these billionaires can flood the campaign
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: system with cash, you know, such that Elon Musk can
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: drop two hundred and fifty million dollars into the Trump campaign,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: or Miriam Addelson or whoever you know, George Soros, or
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: whoever your favorite boogeyman is that these billionaires can drop
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: all of this money in through their own direct contributions
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: to dark money superpacks, through corporate contributions to dark money superpacks,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: and have an outsize and almost exclusive influence on our
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: political system.
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: That is not enough.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: We also need to directly strip votes from the pores
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: so that the rich can guarantee their position in society
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: permanently and not have to deal with the pesky working
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: class rabble or poor rabble having ideas about how the
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: country should be run.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It's astoundingly antidemocratic, and not in like a lower case
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: our republican way. But that's what the tech oligarchs really are.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: At their cores. They believe that they should have a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: concentration of power because they do genuinely know better. This
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: is not just in voting, this is also how they
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: think the economy should be designed. They think that they
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: can control a system that will be fair and just
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: and will create peace and utopia for everyone if you
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: would just give them the chance to completely dominate, which,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: by the way, they basically already are. And they're suggesting
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: things like taking away the vote from people who don't
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: play the income tech. Like, while you're doing wild fantasies,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: while you're enjoying your wild fantasies, why not you go
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in a different direction and be like, we should just
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: get rid of the income text. Why don't you come
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: up with something that at least makes a modicum of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: more sense. No, they won't do that because they actually
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: just want control. It's not about justice and fairness ultimately,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day. I mean, they may
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: have convinced themselves in some cases that they can be
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the facilitators of greater justice, but what they really want
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is controlled because they just think they're better. They don't
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: think other people should have they should have to say
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: in the system, because that's what comes up the works
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: of the system is people who don't know as much
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: as they do, who haven't worked as hard and innovated
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and created and built. This is the language that they
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: use around these ideas. Those people, they're the ones who
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: are requires you the problems. Just let us, the builders,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the superiors, handle it, and everyone else go about your lives.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: We'll give you a universal basic income. You'll be fine,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Universal high income.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, maybe maybe universal are feeling generous, Yeah, I
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: mean thinking that the problem in society is that the
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: rich don't have enough control. Like imagine holding that worldview
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: that is so incredibly insane. You know, there's a political
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: science experiment going back years now that found that the
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: views and concerns of ordinary people have zero impact on
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: their legislators, whereas the views of the wealthy have a
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: lot of impact on legislators. They're able to dump money
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: into campaigns, corporations are able to hire lobbyists. I mean,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: we can see the impact in so many of these primaries.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Look at what happened to Thomas Massey because of all
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: of the multimillions of dollars that were dropped into a
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: primary against him, and you know, in order to lie
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: about him and convince Boomers in his district, he was
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: having a throuple with AOC and ilhan Omer. I mean,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I'm not even kidding. That's literally what happened in this race,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and you look at that landscape and say, yeah, the
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: problem is rich people need even more control this tiny,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: tiny bit of a say that normal people have through
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: their vote.
• 29:59
  Speaker 7: We need to take that a way too.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And the reason that I highlighted is because Leslie is
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: one dude with a weird idea. But to your point, Emily,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: these anti democratic ideas are completely commonplace and endemic within
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Silicon Valley at this point because they do they see
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: themselves as better then they think they should be the
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: ones who are making all of the decisions. They have
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: a completely and it's kind of always been there underneath
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: the surface in Silicon Valley. It was previously masked with
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: sort of like liberal identitarian values. Now the mask is
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: completely off. But when they thought about, you know, here,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: we're going to use this technology, We're going to absent
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: ourselves from the democratic process. We're going to use this
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: technology to foment a sort of revolutionary our own revolution
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: in our favor that we get to have control over.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: That has been the ethos in Silicon Valley among the
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: elites for a very long time. Now it has just
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: become more overt because the things that you can say
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: in you know, in the public space has been so
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: broadened to include just you know, putting out there that
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: you don't think we should have democracy anymore, we should
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: have network states, that we should have oligarchs who run
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: these things basically as kings. This is all very commonplace
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: ideas now with Silicon Valley, and obviously it's extremely dangerous.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Also think that there is probably a bit of a
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: panic right now because of a few developments. Number One,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: we have covered a lot and will continue to cover
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: about to cover a little bit more. The massive public backlash,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: which is truly bipartisan or cross partisan against data centers
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: and the abuses of the tech oligarchs. This is a
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: very unifying position. So I think they have to see
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: some of this pushback and start to get a little
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: bit nervous that the rabble are starting to rise up,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: the rabble are starting to be discontented. You also have
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: them freaking out over this very modest wealth tax that
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: has been proposed in California and throwing a fit over that,
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: and I think again it's a sign of oh my god,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: like they might have some other ideas about how things go.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: They might actually do some to try to trim our
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: sales and then they also see the rise of democratic
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: socialists who take very seriously the need to fight against
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: the tech oligarchy and you write the ship and make
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: sure that ordinary people have a stake in our society.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: I think they see all of these things as truly
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: like existential threats to their control, of their absolute control
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: over our country and over our politics.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're especially disillusioned right now that they see
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: people on the right freaking out about data centers as well,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Like it's pretty much across the board. Even Republicans are
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: upset about data centers, and that is a surprise to
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: some of them, and that's why they've been trying to
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: go and overdrive in some of these communities and start
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: paying tons of money to convince the communities to let
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: them do whatever they want to do with the data centers.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: And maybe some of that money is very much needed
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: in the school systems of the local infrastructure, but it's
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: becoming I mean pretty sure, Macina. We're talking before we
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: started the show about how some of these apartment buildings
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: you have to have a smartphone in order to get
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: into your apartment. And that's a silly example, but it's
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: an example of how anti democratic are economy is right now,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: you basically have to have a smartphone then to live
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: in this apartment building. And if you want to have
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: a smartphone and live in this apartment building or many
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: apartment buildings in major cities, you have two choices. You
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: can do Apple or you could do Android. For the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: most part, that puts an enormous amount of power in
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the hands of two companies. And so it's an anti
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: democratic economy already. Obviously it's an anti democratic economy already.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And the point you were making about how it used
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: to be kind of masked, this mentality used to be
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: masked in Silicon Valley by progressive identitarianism or liberal identitarianism
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: is interesting because that's also what I was talking about
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: when we were just or I was riffing on, like
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: why not come up with an idea that's abolished the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: income text. And I use that example specifically because the
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: mentality of Silicon Valley and like Web one point zero
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: and for some of Web two point zero, was this
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: like libertarian utopianism, that tech was taking us to a
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: better and freer place for the human condition. All of
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: these tech guys, some of them will still mask it
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: with that language. But all of these tech guys became
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: eager oligarchs, and they realized that their technology was creating
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: such concentrated power that I think, as we acknowledge, inevitably,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: inevitably that concentrated power is going to end up in
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the hands of a couple of people, and rather than
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: coming up with solutions that diffuse the power democratically, they're saying, well,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: there's nothing we can do about it, so let the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: smart people take the wheel. You will be fine.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Well, to me, there's not much difference between libertarianism and
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: a sort of corporate authoritarianism because the same libertarians always
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: have a I shouldn't say always, I'm sure there are
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: some exceptions. There are a lot of frequently frequently have
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: a blind spot when it comes to corporate power.
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: They're very tuned to potential abuses of government, and I
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: think serve a useful purpose there in terms of, you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: checking potential government abuses, but then have a complete blind
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: spot when it comes to the mass amount of power
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: that let's say, an Elon Musk can accumulate, you know,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: throwing two hundred and fifty million dollars into an election
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: and then being handed over the keys to the entire
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: federal government and making literal life or death decisions from
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: millions of people around the globe that just like doesn't
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: exist for them. So and if anything, they think that's
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: good because these are the winners. They're the ones who
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: deserve their place in society. So to me, it's no
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: surprise that you go from a sort of generic libertarianism
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: to an overt corporate authoritarianism, which is the ideology that
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: many of these people embrace. So you know, for me,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: those things are entirely consistent. And speaking of Elon Musk,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: you know, there's no one who better represents the casual
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: psychopathy of this class of people than our nation's first
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: trillion earrow though SpaceX has taken a big old hit
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: since they're IPO, and I think Elon is no longer
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: for the moment a trillion are But don't worry, folks,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: he's doing just He still has more wealth than the
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: human mind could ever begin to comprehend, let alone deploy.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: In any case, Elon had this very interesting, contentious interview
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: with the with someone from the Economists. A lot of
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: the focus was on and understandably so was on like
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: his Islamophobia, and this whole debate about grooming gangs and
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: all of this.
• 36:20
  Speaker 7: Sort of stuff.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: But I also paid very close attention to his discussion
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: of AI, and he's someone who has long thought there
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: is a pretty solid chance that AI is an existential
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: risk to literally destroy all of humanity. She asked him
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: about this, and just take a listen to how casual
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: he is about the prospect of Yeah, what I'm doing,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: it might destroy all of humanity, But eh, what are
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: you going to do?
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's still a ten to twenty percent
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: chance that killer robots.
• 36:50
  Speaker 7: Mean the end of humanity? That's a high p doo,
• 36:54
  Speaker 7: As they say.
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: Well, in long run, we're all there, of course. So
• 37:01
  Speaker 8: I mean, so I think according to the standard model physics,
• 37:07
  Speaker 8: the end of the universe is a long, boring, sort
• 37:13
  Speaker 8: of thin gray soup of uh, gradual cooling. I mean,
• 37:21
  Speaker 8: that's sort of the heat death of the universe is called.
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: So if the heat death of the universe is in
• 37:26
  Speaker 8: fact the outcome for our reality, then it really is
• 37:29
  Speaker 8: all about the journey, because the destination is terrible.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all going to die anyway, Emily, So whatever
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: if I'm the one that causes it, well, that'll be
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: more exciting than the long, slow death of the universe.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I suppose he's giving tal When Ross Douthitt was like,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: was there a chance that you're the Antichrist? Answer, it
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: takes like that long pause and then it's like, no,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: but you're right. It's what did you say? The casual psychopicy?
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah, really like abouid crazy.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, in the other part of his AI discussion,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: he's basically like, well, look, originally I was concerned about this,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: That's why I was doing open AI, and I wanted
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: to control it. Then I realized that all the things
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: I was doing were just leading to more accelerations. So
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: I just sort of threw my hands up and joined
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: the party. And I want you to think about that, Like,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: this man is genuinely one of the unfortunately one of
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: the most powerful people on the entire planet.
• 38:24
  Speaker 7: Right when he.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Decided that we should destroy the entire USAID budget and
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: subject you know, kids dying of malaria to actual death
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: in Africa, he was able to figure out how to
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: do that. You're not going to use any of that
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: influence in power, And I see no evidence that he's
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: used any of his influence in power at the Trump
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: administration to try to have some sort of you know,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: global cooperation agreement with regard to AI development, to put
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: some sort of testing our guardrail system in place, to
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: try to at the very least slow down and manage
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the rollout of this incredibly powerful technology. I see zero
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: evidence that any of his immense lofealth and power with
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration specifically has been spent in that direction. Instead,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: is just like, well, the first thing I tried didn't
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: work out, so I guess I'm just going to join
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: the race and perhaps myself be the person who destroys
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: all of humanity. This is These are the people who
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: right now are in control. Like, you don't need to
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: take away our votes, they already are running the show,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: but you want to make sure, you want to guarantee
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: that the Elon Musk of the world can have infinite
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: power forever and all of their completely insane and bananas ideas,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: and they're you know, frankly like death cult that they're
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: participating in to try to destroy this planet and make
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: sure that they and you know a few people that
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: they see as worthy can can flee and escape to
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Mars or whatever their crazy plan of the day is.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's again one of those people who started
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: with this this like web one point zero idealism and
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: to your point, like open ai going from nonprofit like
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: he fought that. But here we are twenty twenty six.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: The Starlink influence over the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: is a great example of concentrated power, like Elon Musk
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: in his hands. In his hands, he had the power
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to have dramatic influence over both those words because the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: US government had to turn to him or Ukrainian government,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Israeli government had to turn to him on starlink, and
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: that's a big deal for a drone based war essentially,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: like looking at Ukraine where that war ended up going.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: He's massively, massively powerful and right now, I mean we're
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: not talking about the future, we're talking about literally right now, Crystal.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: The amount of power that's in his hands is astounding
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: and nobody is doing anything about it. So it's not
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: surprising that you have Democrats and Republicans across polling upset
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: about data centers. It's not just that they're mad about
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: data centers on the merits, it's a proxy issue too,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: for the concentration of power and the control of the
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: economy and the control of the culture and the world.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: It's a great segue to some new polling, some new
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: evidence of just how disgusted Americans are with their lack
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: of democratic control, specifically around data centers. So a wild
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: new infographic shows exactly how Francesca Hang has taken the
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: lead in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary. We had her
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: on the show yesterday. She is a DSA aligned candidate who,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: according to the pollings, is kind of running away with
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: this thing. At this point, put this image up of
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: the screen. So this is a They use the state
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: of Wisconsin here to fill in as a sort of
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: word cloud what voters say they are voting based on.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: And this is specifically Democratic voters in the Democratic primary
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: and Emily. The two things that jump out are healthcare
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: and data centers. Just below that is affordability, then economy,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: then Trump, then I would say rights, and after that
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: every electability is a little bit smaller after to that,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: but you know, and education. But the big one that
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: really stands out here is data centers. And in a previous,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: earlier debate there was a debate last night, but this
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: is from an earlier debate in this race, the candidates
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: for the Democratic nomination were all asked if they would
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: support a one year moratorium on data center construction, and
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Francesca Hang was the only person who raised her hand
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: and said that she would.
• 42:27
  Speaker 7: Let's take a look at that. Do you support a.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: One year or longer moratorium on data center construction in Wisconsin?
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 42:38
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: We talked to Francesca some about this yesterday. This has
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: really been a centerpiece of her campaign, Emily, and I
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: bet a number of those candidates would like to go
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: back and have that have a redo on how they
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: answered that question.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's Kathy Hokeel just did the one year
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: moratorium and none of these other Wisconsin Democrats. Wisconsin has
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: been actually a pretty hot spot of this debate. The
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: man twawk minute guy was leading the charge against like
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: building data centers in the southeastern part of the state.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Like this is actually it has rallied people in Wisconsin.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: So to be that either bought and paid for or
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: ignorant of where people stand on this issue is truly ridiculous.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Like that, there's just no excuse for that at this
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: point politically now, I doubt that they have like really
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: great arguments on the merit against the one year moratoriums.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: You know, people can make those arguments, but I doubt
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: that's what they're doing. It seems to me like they're
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: just completely out of touch with their own voters because
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: they're all cynical politicians, or politicians are by nature cynical.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: No offense to the politicians out there who watch breaking points.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there are many of you, but you're making
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: cynical political calculations in a gubernatorial election. So that to
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: look at her being the only one saying she would
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: support a one year moratorium in in a world where
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Kathy Hokeel just did that because she's seen this up
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: close in her own state, amazing to see that.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: I have to give some credit to Kathy Hokele, not
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: only on this but on other issues. She has read
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: the polls, she sees where the wind is blowing, and
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: she has proven herself to be a very adept politician
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: in terms of moving to where the public is, recognizing
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: the power of Zorn's movement, the energy there, repositioning herself
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: to be less adversarial. And she did that early, you know,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: and I don't know if you remember, she appeared at
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: a rally for him in advance of his, you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: his election battle against Cuomo in the general election. So
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: she has proven to be relatively nimble and her finger
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: much more on the pulse than a lot of other
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Democratic politicians who are out there. Let's put F two
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: up on the screen. You can see what the fallout
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: is here for the rest of Francesca Hong's competitors.
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: This is pretty wild.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: This is a state Navigate poll for the Wisconsin governor
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Democratic primary, and Francesca Hong now is at forty four percent,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: nearing a majority. David Crowley at fifteen, Mendela Barnes at fourteen,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: and the other competitors you know, down below five percent.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Now the undecided is just at thirteen percent. So in
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: prior polls, Emily, there were and this is what Francesca
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: actually told us yesterday, and prior polls, the undecided number
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: was really quite large. And I'm sure her competitors, both
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: David Crowley and Mendela Barnes, were hoping that those undecideds
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: were going to hear about Francesca Hong and how radical
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: she was, and they were going to flip to them
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: and that would help them make up the gap. Well,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: people are now deciding their votes, and they're overwhelmingly according
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: to this poll anyway, going for Francesca Hong, and I
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: think it does come back to something and you and
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I briefly discussed yesterday, which is, if you are a
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: DSA aligned candidate, if you have you know that worldview
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: more or less, you have a worldview, you're not afraid
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: to take a stand and say, yeah, I support a
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: one year moratorium on data centers. That's easy for you
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: all day long if you're one of these centrist candidates
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: who's trying to sort of pick your spots and playcate
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: donors and use the standard talking points and avoid really
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: taking a stand on anything that is just not cutting it.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: In a Democratic primary this year, voters know where they
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: stand and they want to know that their political representation
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: stands alongside of them. So the fact that she's been
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: able to be very clear on a host of issues
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: that are truly, truly centrally important to Democratic voters, I
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: think has set her apart and she's running away with it.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Keep in mind, she's a state rep. Okay, probably the
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: vast majority of people in the state have never heard
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: of her until very recently. Many of them still haven't
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: heard of her up to this point. Mintel Barnes is
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: the lieutenant governor, so he's someone who has statewide name
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: recognition and it doesn't matter. It reminds very much of
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Graham Platner coming out of nowhere to just wipe the
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: floor with Janet Mills, who was the sitting governor of
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: the state, because people saw what he had to say
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: and his very clear vision and said that's the view
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: that I share that view, and I want my political
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: representation to hold that view as well.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we can put the numbers back
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: up on the screen, but look at this math. This
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: shows that there's no South Carolina Cliburn option here in Wisconsin,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: meaning the plot to you totally undermine Bernie Sanders. So
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Hong is at forty four percent and don't Know is
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: at thirteen percent. So what you would need is everyone
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: except for Crowley or Barnes, one of them to drop out,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: and then you would need to win most of those
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: undecided voters over. If this poll is accurate, and it
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: does track with some other polling that shows her with
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: a pretty significant lead. So it's looking like the elections
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: in about two weeks, it's looking like she's running away
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: with this and there is no option to consolidate. Actually,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Michigan is a good example. There's no McMorrow dropout option
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: on the table here to try and boost Crowley or
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Barns again, at least if this pole is tracking with
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: their internals, which when you have a race that looks
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: like this, you have so many different candidates, it's a
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: state based primary, it's pulling can be difficult, but this
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: looks like it's hers to lose at this point. Clearly
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: hers to lose at this point. And your point about
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: moral clarity and the politics of moral clarity right now,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: when you have people who are just fed up with
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the system. Donald Trump proved this in twenty sixteen. You
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: had all these other candidates saying that we're going to
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: tinker around the edges of the system, and you didn't
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: really know where they stood on Irock and Afghanistan. Jeb
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Bush was running. So what would a Jeb Bush foreign
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: policy look like versus a George Bush foreign policy? Trump
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: comes out and he's like, Nope, we're done. No new wars,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: no new dumb wars, like he said, different variations of it.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: He says we're building a wall. That was totally different
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: than what Rubio was offering. It was totally different even
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: than what Ted Cruz was offering, and it was He's
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: gone back on no new wars. That's a huge problem
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: for him and whoever inherits his movement. And part of
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: why it feels like such a betrayal to people is
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: that there was this for him sense of like moral clarity.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: As funny as that sounds to people, it's compared to
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: the others, it's compared to the establishment. It comes across
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: as like a clear sense of direction because it is
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: an indictment of the establishment, and that is very attractive
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: to voters right now. It's what populists are doing well
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: across the board, on the left and on the right.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: And if you're not picking up on that, like if
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: you're not even Kathy Hokeling right now, you're pretty far behind.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: And one thing that is really different here from the
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Trump dynamic is Trump is very singular. To use the
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: word that you used earlier, He is very singular, and
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: he doesn't actually have a coherent worldview. He says a
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: forceful view. Depending on the day, it can be in
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: any number of directions. Whereas what we're seeing now is
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: truly a sort of coherent movement ideology that is succeeding
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: in a lot of variety of places across the country.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: So you can no longer just say a, well, Zorn's
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: a kind of a one off because he's so talented
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: and he's so charismatic, and it's New York City. And
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: then you go, okay, well, we have these other candidates
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: in New York City are asso saying themselves with soron
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: and they're all winning. Okay, And by the way, it's
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: not just New York City. Let's take a look at
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Colorado and Mi lak Kiros being able to unseed a
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: relatively progressive except on Israel incumbent there in Diana. To
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: get okay, let's take a look at Maine and even
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: with Graham Plattner being pushed aside because of an a
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: credible sexual assault allegation, the guy who replaced him and
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: one overwhelmingly Troy Jackson, he was back by DSA in
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: his gubernatorial candidacy and is a long time Bernie Sanders
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: aligned candidate.
• 50:31
  Speaker 7: Then you take a look at the Midwest.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Not only do you have Francesca hang in Wisconsin, appearing
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: to run away with it. You have another heated battle
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: between Peggy Flanagan and Angie Craig, Angie Craig being the
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: establishment pick in Minnesota. It's looking very much like Peggy
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Flanagan is going to be able to win that battle.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: And then put F six up on the screen. Abdul
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: al sayah, this is really a marquee race. This is
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: coming down to the wire next week. This is F
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: six guys. New Pole has him up by ten points
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: here on Hailey Steve Vans and gaining ground by the way.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: And when you push the what they call leaners, so
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: people who aren't sure and you say, okay, but if
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: you had to pick right now, who would you pick?
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: These up by double digits, He's up by eleven points
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: in that scenario, forty eight percent to thirty seven percent.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: He has a much higher favorability than Haley Stevens does
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: in this poll. And this is in spite of the
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: fact that Apak has really wanted to make an example
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: of Abdul. You know, the mailboxes have been flooded with
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: these mailers, making it seem like Hayley Stevens was endorsed
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: by Barack Obama, even though she wasn't smearing Abdullah Siad
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: as some sort of a secret sexist. The airwaves are
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: absolutely blanketed. And yet in spite of that, he still
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: has the edge here. I mean, that is absolutely extraordinary
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: that in the face of that wave of money that
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: would have undoubtedly been successful in the past, was successful
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: in the past against Jabal Bowman, was successful against Corey Bush.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: This time around, Democratic based primary voters in the state
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: of Michigan, a key swing state with a varied you know, rural, urban,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: all sorts of demographics, racist, religions of the whole gamut
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: in Michigan, they are not buying it.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: And if you look at that pole, it also had
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: undecided at fourteen percent. And so that's with a week, yeah,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: less than a week now to go before election day,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: and the outsai ED momentum is going or the momentum
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I should say, is going with ELSA ED. So that's
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: really really bad news for Haley. Stevens Tore potentially looking
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: at in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, the upper Midwest primary
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: victories by the DSA aligned candidates like across the board.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: So as soon as those primaries are wrapped, up in
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks, the table is going to
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: be set, in all likelihood for some real battles with
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: DSA aligned candidates for the populist left going forward. I mean,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: that's if you're here in Washington at the DNC, you're
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: looking at those numbers and thank you to yourself. I
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: was going to say something that I should not say,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: but that is why you're thinking of something. You're like,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is I was just reminded there's
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: this great Twitter account that's ten years ago today, a
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: post pictures from ten years ago today. Oh yeah, and
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: it reminded me of my favorite picture from the twenty
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: sixteen DNC, which is Susan Sarandon shaking her head watching
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: what's happening on the floor, just completely seething, Which if
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: you were a Democrat in twenty sixteen, many people were
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: completely seething watching this coronation of Hillary Clinton. Twenty twenty
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: six Maybe people just had to be patient, Crystal, because
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: this is a route. It's shaped up to be a
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: total route. In twenty twenty.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: Six the establishment is thoroughly discredited. Their strongest weapon against
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: the left was on electability. Oh and also this like
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: weird identity racial resentment politics that they're still trying to use.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: And I think it's just been the electability piece has
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: just been so thoroughly discredited. I think the identity racial
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: resentment piece has been fairly discredited as well. It doesn't
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: seem to be landing in the same way it did
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: when Hillary Clinton was using this against Bernie Sanders back
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: in twenty six. How are you going to say, oh,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: we can tell you who's electable. Donald Trump's in the
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: White House. You told us, you know what you were doing.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: This man is back here again. You were not able
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: to vanquish him. We've been doing it your way. We
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: don't believe you anymore.
• 54:12
  Speaker 7: And there's a new.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: Media ecosystem that is able to break through. And it's
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: not just you know, like lefty, lefty shows, but you know,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Midas Touch is very progressive and a lot of people
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: who used to be MSNBC watchers are now like Midas
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: Touch watchers, and they're very favorable towards candidates like Bernie Sanders, candidates.
• 54:30
  Speaker 7: Like abdulah sayads. So it is.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: It is a very new dynamic in the Democratic Party.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Question now is how much that translates into the general election,
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: and I did want to put this F three up
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: on the screen. This is the white whale for Democrats
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: winning trying to win Texas. You've got Taller Rico here
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: in a new poll by five points. What's interesting is
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: that both he and Ken Paxton lost a little bit
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: of ground from the last time. But this is Texas
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Public Opinion Research did a survey in the field, so
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: in any case, taller Ico up five in this. Not
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: sure what the margin of error here is, but this
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: would be probably just outside of the margin of error.
• 55:09
  Speaker 7: Could put F.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Four up on the screen. I'm not sure that I
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: fully buy this because this just seems like too much
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: of a shift. But according to this polster, there has
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: been a mass shift of Latino voters away from Paxton,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: who in May, just months ago, was leading among Latino
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: voters in Texas by four points.
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: Too.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Tall Rico is now winning by forty six points. Like
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm a little bit skeptical that there have
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: been that many minds change, but surely that represents some
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: sort of a shift towards tall Rico. And then, you know,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: we were talking yesterday. I don't remember if this was
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: on camera or out off camera about whether or not
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: whether or not Dems had a shot in Texas, and
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: you were saying you thought Beato had a little bit
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: more juice. It is interesting if you compare the poles.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: We can put F four B up on the screen
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: in terms of the polling, which we all know to
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: take with a lot of grains assaults at this point,
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: At this point in twenty eighteen, according to the average
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: of four poles, Ted Cruz was up on Beto by
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: six points. You know, it was the kind of poles
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: that people were looking at and go, okay, well, maybe
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: you got a shop that Ted Cruz still has an edge.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Now in an average of five polls, you've got tall
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Rico actually with a narrow margin over Ken Paxton. So,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: like I said, grains of salt for pulling all around.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: But that did kind of catch my attention here just
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: because it was different from what I recalled. You know,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: in my mind, the polls were a little bit different
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: for Beto at this point in the race. But you know,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: he was not in any sort of consistent way showing
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: he was in a tie or even in a lead,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: and he ended up coming extraordinarily close to Ted Cruz.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: So I don't know, em what do you think.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Well, believe it or not. I think that Ken Paxon
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six is a worse candidate than Ten
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Cruz in twenty eighteen.
• 56:49
  Speaker 7: The extraordinary accomplishment for him, by the way, on that.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Truly, truly, yes, So I actually just think Ken Paxson
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: is such a flawed and difficult candidate for Republicans to
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: sell in this race that it wouldn't surprise me if
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Tylerico gets a boost because of that, in a way
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: that like Beto versus Cruise, like Ted CRUs is Ted Cruz.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: But at least in twenty eighteen, it wasn't really until
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: after the twenty eighteen election that he started becoming much
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: more aligned with the McConnell wing of the Republican Party,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: much closer to Senate leadership. It was after that election
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: that Ted Cruz started making that transition. Beforehand, he was
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: still kind of hit a little bit of his Tea
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Party juice left in him, So there was something that
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: he could make a slightly more coherent kind of populist
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: right case in a way that he couldn't now. And
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton tries to make a populist right case, but
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: he's Ken Paxton like he just think Ted Cruz has
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: won elections in Texas, so people can decide how they
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: feel about Ted Cruz, Like I'm sure most of our
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: viewers don't like Ted Cruz. But for a while he
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: was really popular with conservative voters. He was seen as
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: somebody who was deeply anti establishment, like this is why
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: he was the second to Trump in twenty sixteen. Is
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: he was seen as somebody who was both this like
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: kind of conservative movement figure and very deeply opposed to
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the GOP establishment, which was the combination that people were
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: looking for, or some people were looking for back in
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. So it is I think Paxson is just
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: going to run behind Cruz probably. I'm looking at the
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: RCP average in this race. Paxon is only a zero
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: point six plus point six forty five point two in
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: the RCP average is where he is. Tallerico's at forty
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: four point six. The latest New York Times SIENA poll
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: from the end of June had them in a dead heat,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: just an absolute tie, at forty seven percent of the electorate.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see how Tallarico runs compared
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: with the rest of the country because obviously Dems had
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: a huge advantage in the generic congressional ballot in twenty eighteen,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: bigger than Dems have at this point in the cycle
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: right now. But is Tallarico going to outrun Dems around
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: the country in Texas. I don't think he's going to. Honestly,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's going to win the race. It
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: could happen, of course, I don't think he's going to.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I think it's still Texas. But I do think Ohio,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, those potentially main although I don't think it's
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: going to be nearly as close as it probably would
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: have been. Those are going to be Nebraska, dan Osburn
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: and Nebraska. I think those are going to be more
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: nail biders than Republicans realize right now. And obviously they
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: have a race on their hands in Texas, they're going
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: to have to spend a ton of money on it.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Last thing I wanted to say, Crystal, just as we're
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: talking about twenty eighteen, is if we could put that
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin map up on the screen again. This is f one.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Look at how small you pointed this out. Look at
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: how small Trump is compared to healthcare data centers affordability
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: that in twenty eighteen, polling still found something similar. But
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Democrats on the campaign trail, they were talking about healthcare
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: and they were talking about Trump and Russia. The twenty
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: eighteen election was run by Democrats on healthcare mostly, but
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of it was this cultural signaling against Trump,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: and that is I think the big difference between probably
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Beto at his point when he ran and a lot
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: of twenty eighteen candidates and right now what you're seeing
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: from Democrats is that you don't hear the constant Trump
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: anti Trump virtue signaling. There's more focus on, i think,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: the policy.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: And that makes it much harder for establishment Democrats who
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: want to confuse voters about who they are and the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: way that they'll fight, etc. Because it's very easy. I mean,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: this is Haley Stevens. She's got her yard signs that
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: safe take it to them, right, And they want to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: be able to run campaigns that are just like generic,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to fight Trump, what does that mean?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: And voters aren't having it.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: They have very specific policy concerns and they want to
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: hear those clearly expressed and reflected in their political leaders.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: I do think that is an extraordinary change. And the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: last comment I'll make about the Tennis vote, the Tennis vote,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: the Texas vote is that you're right about Ted Cruz
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: being a stronger candidate because he also has been i
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: think still able to kind of straddle the divide in
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party between which is really evident in Texas,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: between the like Trump Mega types and the in Texas
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: like the Bush wing of the party. And John Cornyn,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: who Paxton was able to be, was much more emblematic
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: of that Bush wing of the Republican Party that really
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: kind of hates the Ken Paxton's of the world. I mean,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: this is the wing of the party that literally impeached
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: him in the House in Texas.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: That they hate him more than John Cornon hates Paxton
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: more than he hates Mark Warner.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 7: Right, Yes, absolutely the case.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: And Paxton is a genuinely odious criminal figure, like corrupt,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: personally odious, like there is so much there with him.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: And so you also have a possibility of there's.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: A good number of voters for Cornin who said I'm
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: not voting for Ken Paxton. That is another issue for
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Republicans here and Democrats obviously very unified behind Talla Rico.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of excitement for him from the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: people I know in Texas on the ground, among the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Democratic base. I think Latinos are the swing demographic in
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: the state to watch. You know, are they gonna stay
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: more with Republicans or are they you know, disgusted with
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: the economic decline, with the war, with some of the
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: you know, absolute cruelty with regard to the deportation efforts.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Does that swing them more towards a A James Talerico.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: It's gonna be an interesting one.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where I think some of the culture work
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: stuff is going to the Hispanic voting block. I think
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: that's going to be a big deal. Uh, Tylerico's faith
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: is gonna He's gonna play it up and Republicans are
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: going to attack it in different ways. So definitely they
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: have a race on their hands, no question about it.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: They're gonna have to spend a ton of money. The
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: polling is like obvious on that point. So man, what
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: a cycle. We're excited to keep covering it here.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Crystal absolutely all right, Well that does it for us
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: here today. Tomorrow I will be in again with Sager,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: so look forward to that. And Emily and I are
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: going to jump onto an Ama Live now. If you
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: want to participate in those, become a premium subscriber at
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Breakingpoints dot com.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 7: We'll see you guys soon.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: You wanted to be putt